A platform for discovering and sharing confidential ballistic crime data.

Criminal investigations generate large volumes of complex data that detectives have to analyse and understand. This data tends to be "siloed" within individual jurisdictions and re-using it in other investigations can be difficult. Investigations into trans-national crimes are hampered by the problem of discovering relevant data held by agencies in other countries and of sharing those data. Gun-crimes are one major type of incident that showcases this: guns are easily moved across borders and used in multiple crimes but finding that a weapon was used elsewhere in Europe is difficult. In this paper we report on the Odyssey Project, an EU-funded initiative to mine, manipulate and share data about weapons and crimes. The project demonstrates the automatic combining of data from disparate repositories for cross-correlation and automated analysis. The data arrive from different cultural/domains with multiple reference models using real-time data feeds and historical databases

The ATHENA Project: Using Formal Concept Analysis to Facilitate the Actions of Responders in a Crisis Situation

The ATHENA project brings together major user communities with world leading experts in crisis management and experts and technology developers of mobile and social media use and development. The goal of the ATHENA project is to deliver outputs that will enable and encourage users of new media to contribute to the security of citizens in crisis situations and for search and rescue actions. ATHENA is a system of software tools to enhance the ability of LEAs, police, first responders and citizens in their use of mobile and smart devices in crisis situations. An emerging semantic technology called Formal Concept Analysis will be used to capture meaning and key facts from the large amount of communication data created during a crisis

Tackling financial and economic crime through strategic intelligence: The EMPRISES Framework

For the successful monitoring and combatting of Serious Organised Economic Crime (SOEC) and fraud, further integration of Member States systems across Europe is needed. This paper describes a system for strategic intelligence management providing a more coherent and coordinated approach for detecting and deterring SOEC and fraud. The EMPRISES framework increases the effectiveness of communication between Member States by developing an agreed common language (taxonomy) of SOEC and fraud with automated multi-lingual support. By appropriating and applying existing business tools and analysis techniques to the illegitimate businesses of SOEC and fraud, this new system can support Member States to better target these crimes and the criminals involved

Investigating the unofficial factors in Google ranking

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of some “unofficial” factors in Search Engine Optimisation. A summary of official Google guidelines is given followed by a review of “unofficial” ranking factors as reported by a number of experts in the field of Search Engine Optimisation”. These opinions vary and do not always agree. Experiments on keyword density, web page titles and the use of outbound links were conducted to investigate the expert’s hypotheses by analysing Google result pages. The results demonstrate that webmasters should avoid having unnecessary outbound links, while attempting to repeat the important keywords of each page one time in their titles, to increase the pages ranking in the results page

Developing misinformation immunity:How to reason-check fallacious news in a human–computer interaction environment

To counter the fake news phenomenon, the scholarly community has attempted to debunk and prebunk disinformation. However, misinformation still constitutes a major challenge due to the variety of misleading techniques and their continuous updates which call for the exercise of critical thinking to build resilience. In this study we present two open access chatbots, the Fake News Immunity Chatbot and the Vaccinating News Chatbot, which combine Fallacy Theory and Human–Computer Interaction to inoculate citizens and communication gatekeepers against misinformation. These chatbots differ from existing tools both in function and form. First, they target misinformation and enhance the identification of fallacious arguments; and second, they are multiagent and leverage discourse theories of persuasion in their conversational design. After having described both their backend and their frontend design, we report on the evaluation of the user interface and impact on users’ critical thinking skills through a questionnaire, a crowdsourced survey, and a pilot qualitative experiment. The results shed light on the best practices to design user-friendly active inoculation tools and reveal that the two chatbots are perceived as increasing critical thinking skills in the current misinformation ecosystem

Assessing the Benefits of Digital Inclusion for Working Age Poorer People in the UK (Presentation)

Most approaches to understanding and overcoming digital exclusion have three elements in common: motivation, access and skills. Focusing on enhancing citizenship and counteracting social exclusion, early digital inclusion initiatives in the UK recognised that the lack of motivation to be online was a major factor. Since the financial crisis of 2008, there has been a significant shift in the focus of digital inclusion campaigning towards hard material benefits such as: financial benefits; improving the educational attainment of children; enhancing employment prospects of the unemployed; and improving the wage levels. The background information and research used to justify each of these claimed benefits will be examined and the extent to which these benefits are realised by poorer working age people will be questioned. In the context the UK government’s “digital by default” policy, digital exclusion has consequences for citizens’ engagement with the state and possible serious consequences for those highly dependent on the state. We therefore argue that academic researchers, practitioners and policy makers need to take seriously a number of urgent actions: 1. Updated and refreshed research on the material benefits of digital engagement for working age poor. 2. Rigorous systematic reviews of the global academic evidence for educational and employment benefits. 3. Rigorous research into the contribution of digital exclusion to broader social exclusion. 4. A review of national and local government approaches to digital inclusion