Submicrosecond Spectroscopy of Lightning-Like Discharges: Exploring New Time Regimes

Abstract Submicrosecond (0.476 μs per frame with an exposure time of 160 ns) high-resolution (0.38 nm) time-resolved spectra of laboratory-produced lightning-like electrical discharges have been recorded for the first time within the visible spectral range (645–665 nm). The spectra were recorded with the GrAnada LIghtning Ultrafast Spectrograph (GALIUS), a high-speed imaging spectrograph recently developed for lightning research in the IAA-CSIC. Unprecedented spectral time dynamics are explored for meter long laboratory electrical discharges produced with a 2.0 MV Marx generator. The maximum electron density and gas temperature measured in a timescale of ≤0.50 μs (160 ns) were, respectively, ≃1018 cm−3 and ≃32,000 K. Overpressure in the lightning-like plasma channel, black-body dynamics, and self-absorption in spectral lines were investigated

Cyber Insurance: recent advances, good practices & challenges

The aim of this ENISA report is to raise awareness for the most impact to market advances, by shortly identifying the most significant cyber insurance developments for the past four years – during 2012 to 2016 – and to capture the good practices and challenges during the early stages of the cyber insurance lifecycle, i.e. before an actual policy is signed, laying the ground for future work in the area

Illegal Fishing and Fisheries Crime as a Transnational Organized Crime in Indonesia

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is increasingly drawing international attention and coastal states strengthen their efforts to address it as a matter of priority due to its severe implications for food, economic, environmental and social security. As the largest archipelagic country in the world, this is especially problematic for Indonesia. In this already complex geographical and security environment, the authors test the hypothesis that IUU fishing and fisheries crime(s) classify as transnational organized criminal activities. The article argues that IUU fishing is much more than simply a fisheries management issue, since it goes hand in hand with fisheries crime. As a result, although the two concepts are quite distinct, they are so closely interlinked and interrelated throughout the entire value chain of marine fisheries, that they can only be managed effectively collectively by understanding them both within the framework of transnational organized crime. To make this argument, the research utilizes qualitative and quantitative data collected from approximately two thousand trafficked fishers, rescued in 2015 from slavery conditions while stranded in two remote Indonesian locations: Benjina on Aru island and on Ambon island. The article’s findings also unveil new trends relating to the inner workings of the illegal fishing industry, in four different, yet interlinked categories: recruitment patterns and target groups; document forgery; forced labor and abuse; and fisheries violations. The paper concludes by confirming the hypothesis and highlights that IUU fishing provides the ideal (illegal) environment for fisheries crimes and other forms of transnational organized crimes to flourish

Exploring the cultural dimensions of environmental victimization

It has become increasingly clear in recent years that our understanding of ‘victimisation’ is informed by a whole range of societal and political factors which extend well beyond whatever particular form of words appears in any given directive, code or legislative instrument concerning crime, crime victims or criminal justice systems. In this paper, I will seek for the first time to apply recent developments in our understanding of so-called 'cultural victimology' to the issue of environmental harm and its impact on human and non-human animals. McCGarry and Waklate (2015) characterise cultural victimology as broadly comprising of two key aspects. These are the wider sharing and reflection of individual and collective victimisation experiences on the one hand and, on the other, the mapping of those experiences through the criminal justice process. In this discussion I will examine how environmental victimisation is viewed by and presented to society at large and will argue that such representations often fail, as a form of testimony, to adequately convey the traumas involved. Nor is this achieved through the application of present models of criminal, civil or administrative justice regimes in many jurisdictions. This lack of cultural acknowledgement of the harms vested on environmental victims, it is argued, afford us a clearer understand of the continued reticence amongst lawmakers, politicians and legal practitioners to adequately address the impacts of such victimisation through effective justice or regulatory mechanisms. This is unfortunate given that the often collective nature of environmental victimisation makes this particularly suited to a more cultural analysis and understanding. It is argued that various forms of environmental mediation processes might hold the key to this cultural reticence to accept environmental harm as a 'real' and pressing problem as compared to other criminal and civil justice concerns

PROTOCOL: Organised crime groups: A systematic review of individual\u2010level risk factors related to recruitment

This article presents the protocol for a systematic review of individual\u2010level risk factors related to recruitment into organised crime group

Differentiating criminal networks in the illegal wildlife trade: organized, corporate and disorganized crime

Historically, the poaching of wildlife was portrayed as a small-scale local activity in which only small numbers of wildlife would be smuggled illegally by collectors or opportunists. Nowadays, this image has changed: criminal networks are believed to be highly involved in wildlife trafficking, which has become a significant area of illicit activity. Even though wildlife trafficking has become accepted as a major area of crime and an important topic and criminologists have examined a variety of illegal wildlife markets, research that specifically focusses on the involvement of different criminal networks and their specific nature is lacking. The concept of a ‘criminal network’ or ‘serious organized crime’ is amorphous – getting used interchangeably and describes all crime that is structured rather than solely reflecting crime that fits within normative definitions of ‘organized’ crime. In reality, criminal networks are diverse. As such, we propose categories of criminal networks that are evidenced in the literature and within our own fieldwork: (1) organized crime groups (2) corporate crime groups and (3) disorganized criminal networks. Whereas there are instances when these groups act alone, this article will (also) discuss the overlap and interaction that occurs between our proposed categories and discuss the complicated nature of the involved criminal networks as well as predictions as to the future of these networks