UK open source crime data: accuracy and possibilities for research

In the United Kingdom, since 2011 data regarding individual police recorded crimes have been made openly available to the public via the police.uk website. To protect the location privacy of victims these data are obfuscated using geomasking techniques to reduce their spatial accuracy. This paper examines the spatial accuracy of the police.uk data to determine at what level(s) of spatial resolution – if any – it is suitable for analysis in the context of theory testing and falsification, evaluation research, or crime analysis. Police.uk data are compared to police recorded data for one large metropolitan Police Force and spatial accuracy is quantified for four different levels of geography across five crime types. Hypotheses regarding systematic errors are tested using appropriate statistical approaches, including methods of maximum likelihood. Finally, a “best-fit” statistical model is presented to explain the error as well as to develop a model that can correct it. The implications of the findings for researchers using the police.uk data for spatial analysis are discussed

A configurative synthesis of evidence for fear in the criminal decision-making process

This paper reviews what previous research has found on the role of fear and other associated feelings in the criminal decision-making process, and the techniques that might plausibly amplify such emotions so as to reduce or disrupt intent. To this aim, we conduct a systematic review of the offender decision-making literature (23 studies), incorporating a qualitative synthesis of the role of fear in the criminal decision-making process. The results section is formed of six parts based on dominant themes identified in our eligible studies, namely evidence of fear in offender decision-making, the presumed sources of fear, variation in levels and/or the effect of fear across offenders, the specific role of fear across aspects of the crime process (before, during, after), the results of fear and offender fear management processes. We conclude with a discussion of the implication for crime prevention policies

Absence of Street Lighting May Prevent Vehicle Crime, but Spatial and Temporal Displacement Remains a Concern

OBJECTIVES: This paper estimates the effect of changes in street lighting at night on levels of crime at street-level. Analyses investigate spatial and temporal displacement of crime into adjacent streets. METHODS: Offense data (burglaries, robberies, theft of and theft from vehicles, and violent crime) were obtained from Thames Valley Police, UK. Street lighting data (switching lights off at midnight, dimming, and white light) were obtained from local authorities. Monthly counts of crime at street-level were analyzed using a conditional fixed-effects Poisson regression model, adjusting for seasonal and temporal variation. Two sets of models analyzed: (1) changes in night-time crimes adjusting for changes in day-time crimes and (2) changes in crimes at all times of the day. RESULTS: Switching lights off at midnight was strongly associated with a reduction in night-time theft from vehicles relative to daytime (rate ratio RR 0.56; 0.41–0.78). Adjusted for changes in daytime, night-time theft from vehicles increased (RR 1.55; 1.14–2.11) in adjacent roads where street lighting remained unchanged. CONCLUSION: Theft from vehicle offenses reduced in streets where street lighting was switched off at midnight but may have been displaced to better-lit adjacent streets. Relative to daytime, night-time theft from vehicle offenses reduced in streets with dimming while theft from vehicles at all times of the day increased, thus suggesting temporal displacement. These findings suggest that the absence of street lighting may prevent theft from vehicles, but there is a danger of offenses being temporally or spatially displaced

Multi-view Face Detection Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

In this paper we consider the problem of multi-view face detection. While there has been significant research on this problem, current state-of-the-art approaches for this task require annotation of facial landmarks, e.g. TSM [25], or annotation of face poses [28, 22]. They also require training dozens of models to fully capture faces in all orientations, e.g. 22 models in HeadHunter method [22]. In this paper we propose Deep Dense Face Detector (DDFD), a method that does not require pose/landmark annotation and is able to detect faces in a wide range of orientations using a single model based on deep convolutional neural networks. The proposed method has minimal complexity; unlike other recent deep learning object detection methods [9], it does not require additional components such as segmentation, bounding-box regression, or SVM classifiers. Furthermore, we analyzed scores of the proposed face detector for faces in different orientations and found that 1) the proposed method is able to detect faces from different angles and can handle occlusion to some extent, 2) there seems to be a correlation between dis- tribution of positive examples in the training set and scores of the proposed face detector. The latter suggests that the proposed methods performance can be further improved by using better sampling strategies and more sophisticated data augmentation techniques. Evaluations on popular face detection benchmark datasets show that our single-model face detector algorithm has similar or better performance compared to the previous methods, which are more complex and require annotations of either different poses or facial landmarks.Comment: in International Conference on Multimedia Retrieval 2015 (ICMR

Spreading of a Macroscopic Lattice Gas

We present a simple mechanical model for dynamic wetting phenomena. Metallic balls spread along a periodically corrugated surface simulating molecules of liquid advancing along a solid substrate. A vertical stack of balls mimics a liquid droplet. Stochastic motion of the balls, driven by mechanical vibration of the corrugated surface, induces diffusional motion. Simple theoretical estimates are introduced and agree with the results of the analog experiments, with numerical simulation, and with experimental data for microscopic spreading dynamics.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 9 Postscript figures, to be published in Phy. Rev. E (September,1966

Evc2 is a positive modulator of Hedgehog signalling that interacts with Evc at the cilia membrane and is also found in the nucleus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Evc is essential for Indian Hedgehog (Hh) signalling in the cartilage growth plate. The gene encoding Evc2 is in close proximity in divergent orientation to <it>Evc </it>and mutations in both human genes lead to the chondrodysplasia Ellis-van Creveld syndrome.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Bioinformatic analysis reveals that the <it>Evc </it>and <it>Evc2 </it>genes arose through a duplication event early in metazoan evolution and were subsequently lost in arthropods and nematodes. Here we demonstrate that Evc2 is essential for Hh pathway activation in response to the Smo agonist purmorphamine. A yeast two-hybrid screen using Evc as bait identified Evc2 as an Evc binding partner and we confirmed the interaction by immunoprecipitation. We developed anti-Evc2 antibodies and show that Evc2 and Evc co-localize at the basal body and also on primary cilia. In transfected cells, basal body and cilia localization is observed when Evc and Evc2 constructs are co-transfected but not when either construct is transfected individually. We show that Evc and Evc2 are cilia transmembrane proteins, the C-terminus for both being intracellular and Evc2, but not Evc, having an extracellular portion. Furthermore, Evc is absent at the basal body in Evc2 null cells. Using Western blots of cytoplasmic and nuclear protein, we also demonstrate that full length Evc2 but not Evc, is located in the nucleus.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We demonstrate for the first time that Evc2 is a positive regulator of the Hh signalling pathway and that it is located at the basal body of primary cilia. We show that the presence of Evc and Evc2 at the basal body and cilia membrane is co-dependent. In addition, Evc2, but not Evc, is present in the cell nucleus suggesting movement of Evc2 between the cilium and nucleus.</p

Extending the remit of evidence-based policing

Evidence-based policing (EBP) is an important strand of the UK’s College of Policing’s Police Education Qualifications Framework (PEQF), itself a component of a professionalisation agenda. This article argues that the two dominant approaches to EBP, experimental criminology and crime science, offer limited scope for the development of a comprehensive knowledge base for policing. Although both approaches share a common commitment to the values of science, each recognizes their limited coverage of policing topics. The fundamental difference between them is what each considers ‘best’ evidence. This article critically examines the generation of evidence by these two approaches and proposes an extension to the range of issues EBP should cover by utilizing a greater plurality of methods to exploit relevant research. Widening the scope of EBP would provide a broader foundational framework for inclusion in the PEQF and offers the potential for identifying gaps in the research, constructing blocks for knowledge building, and syllabus development in higher level police education

A Research Program on Very High Temperature Reactors

Track I: Power GenerationIncludes audio file (27 min.)Prismatic and pebble bed very high-temperature reactors (VHTRs) are very attractive both from a thermodynamic efficiency viewpoint and hydrogen-production capability. This project addresses numerous challenges associated with the fuel cycle, materials, and complex fluid dynamics and heat transfer. The objectives of the project are to: i. Conduct physical experiments for fission product transport phenomena in the overcoating and compact structural graphite and transport through TRISO coating layers; ii. Develop improved sorption measurement techniques to measure the accumulation of condensable radionuclides (“plateout”) in the VHTR primary coolant circuit and obtain representative data; iii. Develop advanced computations of charged, radioactive dust (aerosol) transport in the VHTR coolant circuit and confinement by exploring direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) techniques for deposition and resuspension and conduct experiments to verify computational predictions; iv. Develop a program to measure emissivity for various VHTR component materials, both bare and oxidized, and obtain extensive data; v. Develop an experimental program to characterize gas, fission product, and particle flows in the complex geometries of pebble bed modular reactors (PBMRs) and help improve computational approaches and computer programs through experimental understandings. This project is leading to research training of about a dozen Ph D students at the participating universities. Upon graduation, these students will be able to contribute even more effectively to the future challenges in the global deployment of nuclear power generation and hydrogen technologies. We will discuss the VHTR technology and research challenges. We also describe progress on the project by the three Consortium participants

Groundwater Availability Within the Salton Sea Basin Final Report

It is widely recognized that increasing demands for water in Southern California are being affected by actions to reduce and redirect the amount of water imported from the Colorado River. In the Imperial Valley region, for example, import reductions will not only affect agricultural users but also could produce significant collateral impacts on the level and quality of water in the Salton Sea, its regional ecology, or even the long term air quality in the greater basin. The notion of using groundwater in the Imperial Valley as an additional source for agricultural or domestic needs, energy production, or Salton Sea restoration efforts, so as to offset reductions in imported water, is not a new concept. Even though it has been discussed recently (e.g., LLNL, 2002), the idea goes back, in part, to several studies performed by the US Department of Interior and other agencies that have indicated that there may be substantial, usable amounts of groundwater in some portions of the Imperial Valley. It has been estimated, for example, that between 1.1 and 3 billion acre-feet (AF) of groundwater lie within the extended, deep basin underlying the valley and Salton Sea region, even though much of it may be unrecoverable or too poor in its quality (Imperial County, 1997). This is a significant volume with respect to the total annual precipitation volume received in California, whose average is close to 200 million (or 0.2 billion) AF per year (DWR, 1998), and especially with respect to the total annual precipitation received in the Salton Sea watershed itself, which we estimate (Appendix A) to be approximately 2.5 million acre feet (MAF) per year. Clearly, a thorough appraisal of the groundwater resources in the Imperial Valley and Salton Sea region--i.e., an assessment of their overall physical availability--will be needed to determine how they can be used and managed to suit new or redirected demands in the region. Development of an improved or updated groundwater assessment in the Salton Sea Basin is the subject of the project described in this report. Much of the project work was done in cooperation with the US Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region Office ('Reclamation'), which manages the Salton Sea Restoration project for the US Department of the Interior, and complements other recent assessment efforts (e.g., Imperial County, 1995). In this context, the notion of groundwater availability is defined by four separate, but interrelated concepts or components: (1) Volume and Capacity--This refers to the volume of groundwater available in storage in (or the related storage capacity of) the sediments and geologic media that comprise a groundwater basin. The volume of groundwater in a basin will vary in time as a function of recharge, well production, and land subsidence. (2) Producibility--This refers to the ease or difficulty of extracting groundwater in a basin from wells. Groundwater producibility will be affected by well depth and the formation permeability surrounding the open intervals in wells. (3) Quality--This refers to the extent that water produced from wells is potable or otherwise suitable for domestic or other uses. It may also refer to the chemical compositions of groundwater that are unrelated to potability or suitability issues. Groundwater quality will be affected by its residence time and flow pathway in the formation and will also be influenced by the quality of its original source before entering the groundwater regime. (4) Renewability and Recharge--This refers to the extent that groundwater is recharged to the basin as part of the natural hydrologic cycle or other artificial means. Groundwater renewability is normally a function of recharge derived from precipitation (and thus a function of regional climate), but may also be affected in local areas by irrigation, leaking canals, aquifer storage and recovery operations, and so forth. Along with the other factors, renewability will strongly affect how much water can be safely produced from a basin from one year to the next. In this report, we specifically consider two categories of information that comprise, are pertinent to, or facilitate such a groundwater assessment. The first category includes the vast assortment of descriptive geologic, hydrologic, chemical, and climatic data related to the regional groundwater aquifers in the Salton Sea area and the occurrence, movement, production, and quality of groundwater. We will refer to these as Hard Data. They may include, for example, spatially distributed geologic or lithologic information, operational wells, water level monitoring data, and well production reports, groundwater quality information, other land use information, historical precipitation and climatic records, and so forth. The second category includes more interpretive or analytic information based upon, or derived from these data and knowledge of related geologic, hydrologic, chemical, or climatic processes