Shortlisting the influential members of criminal organizations and identifying their important communication channels

Low-level criminals, who do the legwork in a criminal organization are the most likely to be arrested, whereas the high-level ones tend to avoid attention. But crippling the work of a criminal organizations is not possible unless investigators can identify the most influential, high-level members and monitor their communication channels. Investigators often approach this task by requesting the mobile phone service records of the arrested low-level criminals to identify contacts, and then they build a network model of the organization where each node denotes a criminal and the edges represent communications. Network analysis can be used to infer the most influential criminals and most important communication channels within the network but screening all the nodes and links in a network is laborious and time consuming. Here we propose a new forensic analysis system called IICCC (Identifying Influential Criminals and their Communication Channels) that can effectively and efficiently infer the high-level criminals and short-list the important communication channels in a criminal organization, based on the mobile phone communications of its members. IICCC can also be used to build a network from crime incident reports. We evaluated IICCC experimentally and compared it with five other systems, confirming its superior prediction performance

Censor-based cooperative Multi-Antenna Spectrum Sensing with Imperfect Reporting Channels

The present contribution proposes a spectrally efficient censor-based cooperative spectrum sensing (C-CSS) approach in a sustainable cognitive radio network that consists of multiple antenna nodes and experiences imperfect sensing and reporting channels. In this context, exact analytic expressions are first derived for the corre- sponding probability of detection, probability of false alarm and sec- ondary throughput, assuming that each secondary user (SU) sends its detection outcome to a fusion center only when it has detected a primary signal. Capitalizing on the findings of the analysis, the effects of critical measures, such as the detection threshold, the number of SUs and the number of employed antennas, on the overall system performance are also quantified. In addition, the optimal detection threshold for each antenna based on the Neyman-Pearson criterion is derived and useful insights are developed on how to maximize the system throughput with a reduced number of SUs. It is shown that the C-CSS approach provides two distinct benefits compared with the conventional sensing approach, i.e., without censoring: i) the sensing tail problem, which exists in imperfect sensing environments, can be mitigated; ii) less SUs are ultimately required to obtain higher secondary throughput, rendering the system more sustainable

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

Correlation between fracture surface morphology and toughness in Zr-based bulk metallic glasses

Fracture surfaces of Zr-based bulk metallic glasses of various compositions tested in the as-cast and annealed conditions were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy. The tougher samples have shown highly jagged patterns at the beginning stage of crack propagation, and the length and roughness of this jagged pattern correlate well with the measured fracture toughness values. These jagged patterns, the main source of energy dissipation in the sample, are attributed to the formation of shear bands inside the sample. This observation provides strong evidence of significant “plastic zone” screening at the crack tip

NOD2/RICK-dependent β-defensin 2 regulation is protective for nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae-induced middle ear infection.

Middle ear infection, otitis media (OM), is clinically important due to the high incidence in children and its impact on the development of language and motor coordination. Previously, we have demonstrated that the human middle ear epithelial cells up-regulate β-defensin 2, a model innate immune molecule, in response to nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi), the most common OM pathogen, via TLR2 signaling. NTHi does internalize into the epithelial cells, but its intracellular trafficking and host responses to the internalized NTHi are poorly understood. Here we aimed to determine a role of cytoplasmic pathogen recognition receptors in NTHi-induced β-defensin 2 regulation and NTHi clearance from the middle ear. Notably, we observed that the internalized NTHi is able to exist freely in the cytoplasm of the human epithelial cells after rupturing the surrounding membrane. The human middle ear epithelial cells inhibited NTHi-induced β-defensin 2 production by NOD2 silencing but augmented it by NOD2 over-expression. NTHi-induced β-defensin 2 up-regulation was attenuated by cytochalasin D, an inhibitor of actin polymerization and was enhanced by α-hemolysin, a pore-forming toxin. NOD2 silencing was found to block α-hemolysin-mediated enhancement of NTHi-induced β-defensin 2 up-regulation. NOD2 deficiency appeared to reduce inflammatory reactions in response to intratympanic inoculation of NTHi and inhibit NTHi clearance from the middle ear. Taken together, our findings suggest that a cytoplasmic release of internalized NTHi is involved in the pathogenesis of NTHi infections, and NOD2-mediated β-defensin 2 regulation contributes to the protection against NTHi-induced otitis media

Ytterbium doped nano-crystalline optical fiber for reduced photodarkening

We report suppression of photodarkening in Yb-doped nano-crystalline fibers in silica host. The photodarkening induced loss reduced by 20 times compared to Yb-doped aluminosilicate fibers. The laser efficiency of the nano-crystalline fiber was 79%

Management of appendiceal pseudomyxoma peritonei diagnosed during pregnancy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The incidence of cancer during pregnancy is approximately 1 in 1000. The most common types encountered during pregnancy are cervical, breast and ovarian. Epithelial tumors of the appendix on the other hand are rare and account for only approximately 1% of all colorectal neoplasms; the occurrence of this neoplasm during pregnancy is extremely rare.</p> <p>Case Presentation</p> <p>The medical history of a 30 year old woman diagnosed at 17 weeks gestation with an appendiceal mucinous tumor with large volume pseudomyxoma peritonei was presented. Her pregnancy was preserved and she had an early vaginal delivery of a healthy baby at 35 weeks. At 2 1/2 weeks postpartum the patient underwent extensive cytoreductive surgery and intraperitoneal chemotherapy. She remains disease-free 5 years after her initial diagnosis. A literature review of this clinical situation and a discussion of treatment plans were presented.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The management of an appendiceal tumor with pseudomyxoma peritonei diagnosed during pregnancy requires full knowledge of the natural history of this disease to achieve a balance of concern for maternal survival and fetal health.</p

Legal Mechanisms for Governing the Transition of Key Domain Name Functions to the Global Multi-Stakeholder Community

This Chapter proposes an alternative approach to the IANA transition that migrates the existing core contractual requirements imposed by the US government to the existing IANA functions customers. It also advances modest internal accountability revisions that could be undertaken within ICANN’s existing structure. Specifically, it advocates that the Independent Review Tribunal charged with reviewing certain ICANN board of directors-related decisions be selected by a multi-stakeholder committee rather than being subject to approval by ICANN and expanding the grounds for review to cover all of the rubrics recommended by ICANN’s “Improving Institutional Confidence” process in 2008-2009, including fairness, fidelity to the power, cogency of decision making and addressing the public interest. This new tribunal could be drawn from a standing panel of internationally recognized relevant technical experts, as well as internationally recognized jurists. Members of ICANN’s various stakeholder groups and the public should be able to make comments on the proposed bench before final appointment

Improving Departure Throughput by Dynamically Adjusting Inter-Arrival Spacing

LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in New York has many unique challenges that create excess taxi-out delays. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential benefit that could be gained by tactically adjusting the Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSS) schedule to precisely manage inter-arrival spacing to maximize the number of departures per arrival pair. Three strategies for dynamically adjusting arrival schedules are proposed in this paper: Delay Control, Delay and Advance, and No Slack Capacity. The benefits of these strategies were examined on actual traffic data at LGA. The results showed that by applying these strategies, a 10 to 60 increase in departures and a reduction in un-utilized departure capacity (gaps) could be achieved during the airports busiest six-hour period. Significant increases in departure throughput would improve air traffic operations by reducing departure delay time. Furthermore, the concept could be used to resolve temporal mismatches between departure capacity and demand which also cause excessive departure delays

ESG Investing: A Tale of Two Preferences

What motivates ESG integration? I find both non-pecuniary and risk-mitigating preferences explain its prominence. Using widely endorsed ESG ratings, I show each preference induces sizable ESG equity premium identified through option-implied expected returns. Due to unexpectedly persistent demand growth for ESG-conscious assets, realized returns mask true ESG pricing effects, especially those attributable to non-pecuniary preference. Consequently, this paper lends support to recent theoretical frameworks on ESG investing with non-pecuniary preference and reconciles mixed evidence in the empiricalliterature. In addition, I am able to identify the impact of investors’ hedging motives against negative non-pecuniary externalities via option-implied risk-neutral moments.Doctor of Philosoph