Not a lot of information, more a heads-up

'Predictive policing' takes byte out of crime 
Crime fighters have long used brains and brawn, but now a new kind of technology known as "predictive policing" promises to make them more efficient.

Possibly not a lot of help, but JIC (although not JIT)

Terrorism and the Olympics by-the-numbers: Analysis from UMD-based START 
History offers a warning, but no clear pattern on the true risk of terrorism at the Olympic Games, concludes a new report by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) based at the University of Maryland.

Crowd movement

Experiments inform study of crowd motion 
What must the staid-faced University luminaries in those portraits around Sayles Hall have thought while they watched this scene play out for four days last week? Over and over, two to 20 young men and women in bike helmets adorned with what appeared to be five large antennae walked back and forth across a cardboard-covered floor. En route to goals marked by numbers just beneath the portraits, they dodged each other and arrangements of cardboard pillars. Each time they generated patterns of foot traffic.

Euro 'is doomed' warn experts as eurozone 'sleepwalks towards disaster'

By HUGO DUNCAN, JAMES CHAPMAN and BECKY BARROW

PUBLISHED: 09:40, 25 July 2012 | UPDATED: 10:28, 25 July 2012

The euro has broken down and faces collapse with 'incalculable economic losses and human suffering', according to an extraordinary warning from a group of leading economists.

The 17 experts said Europe was 'sleepwalking towards disaster', adding that the situation in 'debtor countries has deteriorated dramatically'.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2178622/Euro-doomed-warn-experts-eurozone-sleepwalks-disaster.html#ixzz21kKhNmds

Lies, lies and damned lies.

Much of the UK’s trade with non-EU countries goes via massive containers which pass through Rotterdam or Antwerp in transit.  Under EU figures, this is counted as trade with the EU even though it is clearly non-EU trade.  This distortion is serious (some estimates suggest that it causes a discrepancy of up to 8%) and often known as the ‘Rotterdam Effect’.

So much for an Etonian education!

David Cameron has this week said dismissively that if we weren’t in the EU we would be a sort of ‘greater Switzerland’ – even one of his own backbenchers pointed out that Switzerland has banks that aren’t bust, a balanced economy that’s growing, a strong manufacturing base and healthy public finances.  Nigel Farage in the Daily Express said “This interview is the final proof that if you believe in an independent self-governing Britain you cannot vote for Cameron’s Conservatives.”

Youth Violence - a new approach

Expert panel calls for new research approach to prevent youth violence
Most research into youth violence has sought to understand the risk factors that increase the likelihood of violence.

Now, a federal panel has called for a new research approach to identify the protective factors that would reduce the likelihood that violence will happen. Grounded in the tools and insights of public health, the approach calls for studies that can guide the development of prevention strategies to reduce or eliminate risk factors, and add or enhance protective factors.

The findings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Expert Panel on Protective Factors for Youth Violence are published in a supplement to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

London Riots Could happen again

Another trigger event is all it will take for a repeat of the riots that plagued London and other cities across the country last summer, according to an expert from Royal Holloway, University of London.  Fabian Kessl, an academic visitor from the Department of Social Work, believes the riots are symbolic of a change that is occurring within society and unless the problems are addressed, it is only a matter of time before further riots occur.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-london-riots-expert.html#jCp

Autonomous robot maps ship hulls for mines

Autonomous robot maps ship hulls for mines
For years, the U.S. Navy has employed human divers, equipped with sonar cameras, to search for underwater mines attached to ship hulls.  The Navy has also trained dolphins and sea lions to search for bombs on and around vessels. While animals can cover a large area in a short amount of time, they are costly to train and care for, and don’t always perform as expected.

Google's on the lookout for human traffickers, drug cartels

Drug cartels, money launderers and human traffickers run their sophisticated operations online — and Google Ideas, Google's think tank, is working with the Council on Foreign Relations and other organizations to look for ways to use technology to disrupt international crime.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-07-google-human-traffickers-drug-cartels.html#jCp

Wake=up Call?

FBI forensic review could free thousands of prisoners

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22055-fbi-forensic-review-could-free-thousands-of-prisoners.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Thousands of people jailed on the basis of forensic evidence could walk free as the US criminal justice system looks to bring forensics in line with modern science.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Department of Justice announced this week that they will review more than 10,000 criminal cases dating back to 1985. These are instances in which guilty verdicts were based on forensic hair and fibre analyses, along with other methods that no longer stand up to scientific scrutiny...............

Democracy at work?

Big German cars favoured in new EU car emission rules
The European Commission presents proposals to limit automobile carbon emissions Wednesday that environmentalists complain will offer favoured treatment to manufacturers of big German cars.

Stress at work - worse for Police

Police officer stress creates significant health risks compared to general population, study finds
(Medical Xpress) -- The daily psychological stresses that police officers experience in their work put them at significantly higher risk than the general population for a host of long-term physical and mental health effects. That's the overall finding of a major scientific study of the Buffalo Police Department called Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress (BCOPS) conducted over five years by a University at Buffalo researcher.

Well, there's a surprise!

Multiracial youths show similar vulnerability to peer pressure as whites
Researchers who studied a large sample of middle- and high-school students in Washington state found that mixed-race adolescents are more similar to their white counterparts than previously believed.

Fair Weather Friends

Study: Weather might impact tone of Olympics coverage
(Phys.org) -- Whether it rains or shines might actually have an impact on how journalists cover the Olympics, according to researchers at Penn State.

Riot alert?

'Could the August riots have been predicted?' 
A University of Manchester team researching urban violence has developed a new method which can help city authorities to assess the conditions where conflict could potentially tip into violence.

Words of wisdom - from Boris

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9337911/Dithering-Europe-is-heading-for-the-democratic-dark-ages.html

. If things go on as they are, we will see more misery, more resentment, and an ever greater chance that the whole damn kebab van will go up in flames. Greece will one day be free again – in the sense that I still think it marginally more likely than not that whoever takes charge in Athens will eventually find a way to restore competitiveness through devaluation and leaving the euro – for this simple reason: that market confidence in Greek membership is like a burst paper bag of rice – hard to restore.

Without a resolution, without clarity, I am afraid the suffering will go on. The best way forward would be an orderly bisection into an old eurozone and a New Eurozone for the periphery. With every month of dither, we delay the prospect of a global recovery; while the approved solution – fiscal and political union – will consign the continent to a democratic dark ages.

Give them a chance!

Foster kids do much better under approach developed by CU School of Medicine 
Foster kids who receive mentoring and training in skills such as anger management, healthy communication, and problem solving are less likely to move foster homes or to be placed in a residential treatment center, and more likely to reunify with their biological families, according to a study by University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers.

EU - Time to call a halt, and get out

 A recent study was conducted amongst 7,500 businesses by British Chambers of Commerce.  Key conclusions are first, that more than half of respondents (51%) now believe that a Free Trade Area would be a better deal than EU membership and the Single Market, while only 31% favour "economic union". 

Some countries actually find that it is easier to trade outside the EU, rather than cope with Brussels red tape.  It seems that many companies are choosing to focus their export efforts on the rapidly growing markets of the BRICS and the Commonwealth, which can only be a good thing

One by one, the arguments for closer EU integration are being dismantled by the reality of membership. 

Old, tired and misunderstood? Challenging stereotypes about the 'ageing population'

H&P co-founder Pat Thane's report, Demographic futures, for the British Academy, challenges the belief that an ageing population is imposing unprecedented economic burdens on society.  By considering the demographic evidence of the 20th century, and unpicking how it 
has been misunderstood, Pat Thane highlights the complexity and diversity of older peoples' experiences - in terms of inequality, health, and their contributions to society.  The findings have important and unexpected implications for policy makers.
 Read the report Demographic futures

MPs - read and digest......

The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey - same thesis, possibly more enjoyable reading.


The Government says Britain has a serious social mobility problem, but a new Civitas report shows this is wrong.  The Government’s social mobility strategy is based on a flawed understanding of the evidence.  Social Mobility Delusions, by sociologist Peter Saunders, reviews the evidence on social mobility in Britain and finds: Social mobility is the norm in Britain, not the exception, and it occurs in both directions across the entire range of the occupational class structure.

Quick and Effective Justice?

While police forces and the prison system grapple with the swingeing cuts inflicted by the Coalition Government, a new Civitas report reveals that policing strategies that target individual offenders could help protect the public.  Offender-Desistance Policing and the Sword of Damocles by two Cambridge University criminologists, Lawrence W. Sherman and Peter W. Neyroud, argues that letting the police deal with low-risk offenders quickly with a structured supervision plan linked to a deferred prosecution could reduce offending and allow police and the other agencies to focus more on preventing serious crime.

The wolf has been tasked with looking after the sheep

Nigel Farage slams new European Court judge appointment

The appointment of Paul Mahoney as Britain's new judge at the European Court of Human Rights is another kick in the teeth for the British people, says UKIP's party leader Nigel Farage.

"The man has barely set foot in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, has never sat as judge in the courts of England and Wales and has no experience whatsoever of dealing with the lives of real British people," Mr Farage said.

"His life has been that of a quintessential European functionary and his appointment is another kick in the teeth for the British people. So much for the Tories' tough talk to reform the ECHR. But what do we expect when committed europhile Ken Clarke draws up the shortlist for the post? All three people on his list were enthusiastic backers of the ECHR. Mr Mahoney says it's 'inevitable' that the Strasbourg court makes new law. Instead of finding someone to stand up for British values we now have an apologist for the current human rights regime where the real winners are terrorists and criminals.

"The wolf has been tasked with looking after the sheep. The British people can expect more absurd decisions out of the European Court of Human Rights while Mr Mahoney can expect £150K tax-free and 12 weeks' paid holiday. Nice work if you can get it."