SIIMCO: A forensic investigation tool for identifying the influential members of a criminal organization

Members of a criminal organization, who hold central positions in the organization, are usually targeted by criminal investigators for removal or surveillance. This is because they play key and influential roles by acting as commanders, who issue instructions or serve as gatekeepers. Removing these central members (i.e., influential members) is most likely to disrupt the organization and put it out of business. Most often, criminal investigators are even more interested in knowing the portion of these influential members, who are the immediate leaders of lower level criminals. These lower level criminals are the ones who usually carry out the criminal works; therefore, they are easier to identify. The ultimate goal of investigators is to identify the immediate leaders of these lower level criminals in order to disrupt future crimes. We propose, in this paper, a forensic analysis system called SIIMCO that can identify the influential members of a criminal organization. Given a list of lower level criminals in a criminal organization, SIIMCO can also identify the immediate leaders of these criminals. SIIMCO first constructs a network representing a criminal organization from either mobile communication data that belongs to the organization or crime incident reports. It adopts the concept space approach to automatically construct a network from crime incident reports. In such a network, a vertex represents an individual criminal, and a link represents the relationship between two criminals. SIIMCO employs formulas that quantify the degree of influence/importance of each vertex in the network relative to all other vertices. We present these formulas through a series of refinements. All the formulas incorporate novelweighting schemes for the edges of networks. We evaluated the quality of SIIMCO by comparing it experimentally with two other systems. Results showed marked improvement

Are Euclidean Distance and Network Distance Related ?

Although spatial distance is a very important concept for a wide variety of disciplines including social, natural, and information sciences, the methods used to measure spatial distance are not directly expressed and fully explained. In this study, we calculate and compare Euclidean distances and network distances for 10 randomly selected European cities. On the contrary to the findings reported in past research, we find that there is not a global straight forward relation between the Euclidian distance and network distance.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: Euclidean distance; network distance; network analysi

A szívfrekvencia-variabilitás jelentősen csökken nem diabeteses hypertoniás betegek körében

Bevezetés: A szívfrekvencia-variabilitás csökken hypertoniában vagy diabetes mellitusban szenvedők körében. A hypertonia és a diabetes mellitus egymással gyakori komorbiditást mutatnak. Nincs elegendő adat arról, hogy a kontrollhoz képest diabetes mellitusban nem szenvedő hypertoniás betegek körében hogyan változik a szívfrekvencia-variabilitás. Célkitűzés: A szerzők hypertoniában szenvedő diabeteses és nem diabeteses betegekben, valamint kontrollegyénekben a szívfrekvencia-variabilitás vizsgálatát tűzték ki célul. Módszer: 130 hypertoniában, 48 hypertoniában és 2-es típusú diabetes mellitusban szenvedő beteget, valamint 87 kontrollszemélyt vontak be a vizsgálatba. A minimális, átlagos és maximális szívfrekvenciát, valamint az egymást követő RR-intervallumok időtartamának és 5 perces szegmensekben mért átlagának szórását határozták meg. Eredmények: Az átlagos minimális szívfrekvencia szignifikánsan nem különbözött a csoportok között. A kontrollhoz képest a többi paraméter szignifikánsan csökkent mind a hypertoniában, mind a hypertoniában és diabetesben szenvedő betegek csoportjában. A hypertoniás csoporthoz képest a hypertoniában és diabetesben szenvedő csoportban a paraméterek nem különböztek szignifikánsan. Következtetések: Diabetes mellitusban nem szenvedő hypertoniás betegek körében a szívfrekvencia-variabilitás jelentősen beszűkül. Úgy tűnik, hogy hypertoniás betegek körében a 2-es típusú diabetes mellitus szignifikánsan már nem csökkenti tovább a szívfrekvencia-variabilitást. Orv. Hetil., 2014, 155(22), 865–870. | Introductions: Heart rate variability is reduced among patients with hypertension or those with diabetes mellitus. Hypertension and diabetes show frequent co-morbidity, but it is still not entirely clear whether heart arte variability is reduced in non-diabetic patients with hypertension. Aim: The aim of the authors was to evaluate the heart rate variability in hypertensive patients with and without diabetes and in control subjects. Method: 130 patients with hypertension, 48 patients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes mellitus, and 87 control subjects were involved in the study. Minimum, mean and maximum heart rate, and parameters of heart rate variability were measured. Results: The mean of minimum heart rate did not differ significantly between the three groups. However, all other parameters were significantly reduced in patients with hypertension with and without diabetes as compared to the control group. No significant differences were observed between hypertensive patients with and without diabetes mellitus. Conclusions: Heart rate variability is significantly reduced in non-diabetic patients with hypertension. It seems that type 2 diabetes results in no further significant reduction of heart rate variability in patients with hypertension. Orv. Hetil., 2014, 155(22), 865–870

MR exponential image in ischemic stroke: A preliminary evaluation

AbstractBackground and purposeMagnetic resonance (MR) diffusion images, including both the diffusion-weighted image (DWI) and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), allow detection of cerebral ischemic lesions within minutes of onset, and the contrast within the image is based on microscopic motion of the water. A third type of diffusion image can be created, “the exponential image”. Our goals were to evaluate the ability of exponential image in reflecting the changes in both DWI and ADC and whether it can replace these two sets of images in cerebral infarction patients.Patients and methodsA total of 51 patients were enrolled in the study, 47 were included in the analysis, and four were excluded from the study. Conventional and DW MRI were performed in 47 patients. For each patient DWI, ADC maps, and exponential images were reviewed and the change in signal intensity of the lesion compared with the contralateral normal side was measured (rSI) as well as the changes in (rADC).ResultsThere was a significant change in the rSIDW and rSIExp in late subacute and chronic stages (p<.001), however, rADC showed a significant decrease (p<.001) in hyperacute and acute stages, followed by a significant increase (p<.001) in the late subacute and chronic stages. rSIExp was highly correlated with the change in the rADC values in different stages of infarction (r=.72, p<.001). However, the changes in the rSIDW correlated less closely with the change in the rADC values (r=.35, (p<.05)).ConclusionExponential image offers a simple, more accurate replacement for both sets (DWI and ADC), by combining the advantages of both sets