Scripting the crime commission process in the illicit online prescription drug trade

This paper considers the processes in the illicit online prescription drug trade, namely search-redirection attacks and the operation of unlicensed pharmacies using crime script analysis. Empirical data have been used to describe the salient elements of the online criminal infrastructures and associated monetization paths enabling criminal profitability. This analysis reveals the existence of structural chokepoints: components of online criminal operations being limited in number, and critical for the operations’ profitability. Consequently, interventions targeting such components can reduce the opportunities and incentives to engage in online crime through an increase in criminal operational costs, and in the risk of apprehension.This work was supported by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, Cyber Security Division (DHSS&T/CSD) Broad Agency Announcement 11.02; the Government of Australia; and SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific [contract number N66001-13-C-0131]. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect those of the aforementioned agencies.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyv00

Complex responses to movement-based disease control: when livestock trading helps

Livestock disease controls are often linked to movements between farms, for example, via quarantine and pre- or post-movement testing. Designing effective controls, therefore, benefits from accurate assessment of herd-to-herd transmission. Household models of human infections make use of R*, the number of groups infected by an initial infected group, which is a metapopulation level analogue of the basic reproduction number R0 that provides a better characterization of disease spread in a metapopulation. However, existing approaches to calculate R* do not account for individual movements between locations which means we lack suitable tools for livestock systems. We address this gap using next-generation matrix approaches to capture movements explicitly and introduce novel tools to calculate R* in any populations coupled by individual movements. We show that depletion of infectives in the source group, which hastens its recovery, is a phenomenon with important implications for design and efficacy of movement-based controls. Underpinning our results is the observation that R* peaks at intermediate livestock movement rates. Consequently, under movement-based controls, infection could be controlled at high movement rates but persist at intermediate rates. Thus, once control schemes are present in a livestock system, a reduction in movements can counterintuitively lead to increased disease prevalence. We illustrate our results using four important livestock diseases (bovine viral diarrhoea, bovine herpes virus, Johne's disease and Escherichia coli O157) that each persist across different movement rate ranges with the consequence that a change in livestock movements could help control one disease, but exacerbate another

Chaotic Hamiltonian ratchets with cold atoms.

Currently there is a great amount of scientific research directed at ratchet devices and mechanisms. Initially stimulated by a need to understand biological systems, the field has widened to encompass mesoscopic and atomic physics as well as quantum effects. The great majority of this effort has been directed at systems which include noise (Brownian ratchets). Comparatively little work has been undertaken on deterministic ratchets (i.e. with no noise but possibly including dissipation). Prior to our work there had only been two studies of Hamiltonian ratchets (no noise or dissipation) which concluded that only mixed-phase space mechanisms were feasible. However, the work in this thesis proposes a new fully chaotic, noise-free, Hamiltonian ratchet. This ratchet system is studied in both the quantum and classical regimes and is found to produce, reversible, non-zero currents for well chosen parameter values. The ratchet mechanism proposed in this thesis is has now been implemented experimentally with ultra-cold cesium atoms in a pulsed optical lattice. Optimum system parameters are suggested to produce the best experimental signature for the ratchet. The work presented here has inspired further experimental work for the specific Hamiltonian of the system

The N=2\mathcal{N}=2 superconformal gravitino multiplet

We propose a new gauge prepotential $\Upsilon_i$ describing the four-dimensional ${\mathcal N}=2$ superconformal gravitino multiplet. The former naturally arises via a superspace reduction of the ${\mathcal N}=3$ conformal supergravity multiplet. A locally superconformal chiral action for $\Upsilon_i$, which is gauge-invariant in arbitrary conformally-flat backgrounds, is derived. This construction readily yields a new superprojector, which maps an isospinor superfield $\Psi_i$ to a multiplet characterised by the properties of a conformal supercurrent associated with $\Upsilon_i$. Our main results are also specialised to ${\mathcal N}=2$ anti-de Sitter superspace.Comment: 9 pages; V2: typos correcte

The worldwide costs of marine protected areas

Declines in marine harvests, wildlife, and habitats have prompted calls at both the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development and the 2003 World Parks Congress for the establishment of a global system of marine protected areas (MPAs). MPAs that restrict fishing and other human activities conserve habitats and populations and, by exporting biomass, may sustain or increase yields of nearby fisheries. Here we provide an estimate of the costs of a global MPA network, based on a survey of the running costs of 83 MPAs worldwide. Annual running costs per unit area spanned six orders of magnitude, and were higher in MPAs that were smaller, closer to coasts, and in high-cost, developed countries. Models extrapolating these findings suggest that a global MPA network meeting the World Parks Congress target of conserving 20–30% of the world’s seas might cost between $5 billion and$19 billion annually to run and would probably create around one million jobs. Although substantial, gross network costs are less than current government expenditures on harmful subsidies to industrial fisheries. They also ignore potential private gains from improved fisheries and tourism and are dwarfed by likely social gains from increasing the sustainability of fisheries and securing vital ecosystem services