Coupled vibration and dissociation relaxation behind strong shock waves in carbon dioxide

Coupled vibration and dissociation relaxation behind strong shock wave in carbon dioxid

Area and individual differences in personal crime victimization incidence: The role of individual, lifestyle/routine activities and contextual predictors

This article examines how personal crime differences between areas and between individuals are predicted by area and population heterogeneity and their synergies. It draws on lifestyle/routine activities and social disorganization theories to model the number of personal victimization incidents over individuals including routine activities and area characteristics, respectively, as well as their (cross-cluster) interactions. The methodology employs multilevel or hierarchical negative binomial regression with extra binomial variation using data from the British Crime Survey and the UK Census. Personal crime rates differ substantially across areas, reflecting to a large degree the clustering of individuals with measured vulnerability factors in the same areas. Most factors suggested by theory and previous research are conducive to frequent personal victimization except the following new results. Pensioners living alone in densely populated areas face disproportionally high numbers of personal crimes. Frequent club and pub visits are associated with more personal crimes only for males and adults living with young children, respectively. Ethnic minority individuals experience fewer personal crimes than whites. The findings suggest integrating social disorganization and lifestyle theories and prioritizing resources to the most vulnerable, rather than all, residents of poor and densely populated areas to prevent personal crimes

Testing the Impact of Group Offending on Behavioural Similarity in Serial Robbery

Behavioural case linkage assumes that offenders behave in a similar way across their crimes. However, group offending could impact on behavioural similarity. This study uses robbery data from two police forces to test this by comparing the behavioural similarity of pairs of lone offences (LL), pairs of group offences (GG) and pairs of offences where one crime was committed alone and the other in a group (GL). Behavioural similarity was measured using Jaccard’s coefficients. Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to examine differences between the three categories within the linked samples. No statistically significant differences were found for linked GG compared to linked LL pairs. However, differences emerged between GL and the other categories for some behaviours (especially control) suggesting caution should be applied when linking group and lone offences committed by the same perpetrator. Differences between linked and unlinked pairs were assessed using receiver operating characteristic. The results suggest it is possible to distinguish between linked and unlinked pairs based on behaviour especially within the GG and LL categories. There were, however, fewer significant findings for the GL sample, suggesting there may be issues linking crimes where the offender commits one crime as part of a group and the other alone

Petro-Modernity and Urban Visual Culture since the Mid-Twentieth Century

Petro-modernity is a local phenomenon essential to the history of Kuwait, while also a global experience and one of the prime sources of climate change. The book investigates petroleum’s role in the visual culture of Kuwait to understand the intersecting ideologies of modernization, political representation, and oil. The notion of iridescence, the ambiguous yet mesmerizing effect of a rainbowlike color play, serves as analytical-aesthetic concept to discuss petroleum’s ambiguous contribution to modernity: both promise of prosperity and destructive force of socio-cultural and ecological environments. Covering a broad spectrum of historical material from aerial and color photography, visual arts, postage stamps, and master plans to architecture and also contemporary art from the Gulf, it dismantles petro- modernity’s visual legacy

Die Verhandlungen zum Brexit: Finanzielle und wirtschaftliche Auswirkungen

Der Austritt des Vereinigten Königreichs aus der Europäischen Union beschäftigte am 24. April 2017 den Europaausschuss des Bundestags. In einer öffentlichen Anhörung nahmen einige Experten zum einen zu den finanziellen Auswirkungen und den wechselseitigen Verpflichtungen, zum anderen zu Statusfragen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekten des Brexit Stellung. Nach Ansicht von Peter Becker, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin, wäre der beste Verhandlungsauftakt zunächst eine Verständigung beider Verhandlungspartner auf eine pragmatische Vorgehensweise. Das beste Verhandlungsergebnis aus Sicht der EU wäre, den aktuellen Mehrjährigen Finanzrahmen unverändert auslaufen zu lassen. Jörg Haas, Jacques Delors Institut, weist darauf hin, dass der Brexit zwar eine Lücke in den Haushalt der Europäischen Union reißt, aber auch neue Chancen eröffnet. Der Wegfall des Britenrabatts vereinfache das Finanzierungssystem und ermögliche es, komplizierte Verfahren zu ersetzen. Carsten Hefeker, Universität Siegen, sieht Möglichkeiten, über neue und zukunftsträchtige Wege einer engen Kooperation mit Drittstaaten wie dem UK, der Schweiz und anderen Ländern in der engeren Nachbarschaft nachzudenken. Das EWR-Modell habe sich überholt, weil viele der aktuellen Mitgliedsländer und auch der Drittstaaten kein Interesse mehr an Personenfreizügigkeit haben. Steffen Hindelang, Freie Universität Berlin, hält als Ergebnis fest, dass kein Anspruch Großbritanniens auf einen Anteil an den Vermögensgütern der EU bei Austritt bestehe, dagegen müsse das Land seine in der Vergangenheit eingegangenen Zahlungsverpflichtungen gegenüber der Union auch nach Austritt erfüllen. Eberhard Eichenhofer, Universität Jena, unterstreicht, dass mit dem Ende der Mitgliedschaft eines Staates sämtliche sich aus dem Europäischen koordinierenden Sozialrecht ergebenden Bindungen entfallen. EU-Bürger werden gegenüber dem vorherrschenden Rechtszustand zahlreiche Nachteile zu gewärtigen haben. Und auch Christian Tietje, Universität H

Inactivation of the peroxisomal ABCD2 transporter in the mouse leads to late-onset ataxia involving mitochondria, Golgi and endoplasmic reticulum damage

ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters facilitate unidirectional translocation of chemically diverse substances, ranging from peptides to lipids, across cell or organelle membranes. In peroxisomes, a subfamily of four ABC transporters (ABCD1 to ABCD4) has been related to fatty acid transport, because patients with mutations in ABCD1 (ALD gene) suffer from X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD), a disease characterized by an accumulation of very-long-chain fatty acids (VLCFAs). Inactivation in the mouse of the abcd1 gene leads to a late-onset neurodegenerative condition, comparable to the late-onset form of X-ALD [Pujol, A., Hindelang, C., Callizot, N., Bartsch, U., Schachner, M. and Mandel, J.L. (2002) Late onset neurological phenotype of the X-ALD gene inactivation in mice: a mouse model for adrenomyeloneuropathy. Hum. Mol. Genet., 11, 499-505.]. In the present work, we have generated and characterized a mouse deficient for abcd2, the closest paralog to abcd1. The main pathological feature in abcd2−/− mice is a late-onset cerebellar and sensory ataxia, with loss of cerebellar Purkinje cells and dorsal root ganglia cell degeneration, correlating with accumulation of VLCFAs in the latter cellular population. Axonal degeneration was present in dorsal and ventral columns in spinal cord. We have identified mitochondrial, Golgi and endoplasmic reticulum damage as the underlying pathological mechanism, thus providing evidence of a disturbed organelle cross-talk, which may be at the origin of the pathological cascad