Mounting a vigorous critique on existing approaches to transnational policing, this book lays out an argument situating transnational policing within contemporary transformations of the capitalist state and imperialism, looking at the particular case of regional police cooperation against sex trafficking in Southeast Europe.
For many people around the world, instances of what is described as organized crime may be part of their everyday experience; in their neighbourhoods, their streets, and the places they work and live. Policymakers, law enforcement, and the media rarely fail to bring up the issue when discussing the nature and seriousness of contemporary criminal threats, and the appropriate responses towards them. Many more people are familiar with the notion of organized crime, as the film and TV industry regularly draw on fictional and real figures and situations. Organized crime feels like a tangible, inescapable issue in today's world. In this Very Short introduction, Georgios A. Antonopoulos and Georgios Papanicolaou uncover the reality of organized crime in our world today. Shining a light on the people involved in organized crime, Antonopoulos and Papanicolaou question whether the term 'organized' is used to evoke the image, the operations, and power of a legitimate organization, such as a corporation. Discussing whether there are particular crimes that the label 'organized crime' applies to, or if any crime can be organized, they also consider what happens when organized crime extends beyond borders. Using examples from across the globe, they analyse the different cultural traditions of organized crime, such as the Mafia, Yakuza, and Triads, and also the nature of organized crime, from arms trafficking and drug dealing to extortion. Finally they explore the methods and agencies in place to control and prevent organized crime. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Mounting a vigorous critique on existing approaches to transnational policing, this book lays out an argument situating transnational policing within contemporary transformations of the capitalist state and imperialism, looking at the particular case of regional police cooperation against sex trafficking in Southeast Europe.
For many people around the world, instances of what is described as organized crime may be part of their everyday experience; in their neighbourhoods, their streets, and the places they work and live. Policymakers, law enforcement, and the media rarely fail to bring up the issue when discussing the nature and seriousness of contemporary criminal threats, and the appropriate responses towards them. Many more people are familiar with the notion of organized crime, as the film and TV industry regularly draw on fictional and real figures and situations. Organized crime feels like a tangible, inescapable issue in today's world. In this Very Short introduction, Georgios A. Antonopoulos and Georgios Papanicolaou uncover the reality of organized crime in our world today. Shining a light on the people involved in organized crime, Antonopoulos and Papanicolaou question whether the term 'organized' is used to evoke the image, the operations, and power of a legitimate organization, such as a corporation. Discussing whether there are particular crimes that the label 'organized crime' applies to, or if any crime can be organized, they also consider what happens when organized crime extends beyond borders. Using examples from across the globe, they analyse the different cultural traditions of organized crime, such as the Mafia, Yakuza, and Triads, and also the nature of organized crime, from arms trafficking and drug dealing to extortion. Finally they explore the methods and agencies in place to control and prevent organized crime. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
This unique volume addresses the financial mechanisms that enable human trafficking - its actors, structures, and logistics. Viewing each stage of the market, human traffickers may need significant financial resources for recruitment, transportation, and exploitation. Drawing upon cross-disciplinary research expertise in criminology, sociology, law and economics, this book offers insights from law enforcement officers, policy makers, NGOs, and traffickers and their victims. Using three European countries - Bulgaria, Italy and the United Kingdom - it provides an account on the sources of capital for initiating and sustaining a human trafficking scheme, discussing the involvement of criminal structures, legitimate businesses, financial institutions, and information and communication technologies in the running of these enterprises. It also addresses the ways in which entrepreneurs and customers settle payments, the costs of conducting business in human trafficking, and how profits from the business are spent and invested. This important contribution to the transnational organized crime knowledge base will be of interest to researchers and academics, as well as law enforcement, regulatory agencies, and policy makers combating human trafficking.
This timely work reflects the growing importance of research into the nature of sleep and its medical aspects. One of the first of its kind, this work on the neuroimmunology of sleep provides an introduction to the interplay between these two key and interlinked areas. Written both from a basic and a clinical perspective, the volume is an invaluable information resource for biomedical professionals and students of the human biology. Highly practical guide written from both a basic and clinical perspective.
The trade in counterfeit goods is growing and is increasingly linked to transnational organised crime. But little is known about the financial mechanisms that lie behind this trade. This is the first account of the financial management of the counterfeiting business. Written by experts in a wide range of fields, it examines the financial and business structures in relation to the illicit trade in counterfeit products. Based on interviews with active criminal entrepreneurs in the UK and abroad and other data, the authors explore ‘organised crime’ and mutating criminal markets, digital technologies and their criminological and sociological implications, and cultural values and practices. This book will make a significant contribution to our understanding of these timely issues.
Nonlinear Mechanics for Composite Heterogeneous Structures applies both classical and multi-scale finite element analysis to the non-linear, failure response of composite structures. These traditional and modern computational approaches are holistically presented, providing insight into a range of non-linear structural analysis problems. The classical methods include geometric and material non-linearity, plasticity, damage and contact mechanics. The cutting-edge formulations include cohesive zone models, the Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM), multi-scale computational homogenization, localization of damage, neural networks and data-driven techniques. This presentation is simple but efficient, enabling the reader to understand, select and apply appropriate methods through programming code or commercial finite element software. The book is suitable for undergraduate studies as a final year textbook and for MSc and PhD studies in structural, mechanical, aerospace engineering and material science, among others. Professionals in these fields will also be strongly benefited. An accompanying website provides MATLAB codes for two-dimensional finite element problems with contact, multi-scale (FE2) and non-linear XFEM analysis, data-driven and machine learning simulations.
This book provides a timely criminological investigation into the rapidly growing sale of fake medicines online. Some estimates suggest that the fake medicine trade has now overtaken marijuana and prostitution as the world's largest market for criminal traffickers. This increase has been particularly apparent in the context of various evolutionary phases in information and communications technologies, and the Internet now acts as the main avenue through which this criminal market is expanding. Thus far – despite growing concern and media attention – this extensive, extremely profitable, and ultimately life-threatening online market is yet to be fully explored. Drawing on the authors' own criminological investigation of both the supply and demand sides in the United Kingdom, this study offers the first in-depth and empirically-grounded analysis of the online trade in illicit medicines. Founded on rigorous research, and bolstering a rich area for debate, this book will be of particular interest for scholars of criminology and technology studies.
Nonconvexity and nonsmoothness arise in a large class of engineering applica tions. In many cases of practical importance the possibilities offered by opti mization with its algorithms and heuristics can substantially improve the per formance and the range of applicability of classical computational mechanics algorithms. For a class of problems this approach is the only one that really works. The present book presents in a comprehensive way the application of opti mization algorithms and heuristics in smooth and nonsmooth mechanics. The necessity of this approach is presented to the reader through simple, represen tative examples. As things become more complex, the necessary material from convex and nonconvex optimization and from mechanics are introduced in a self-contained way. Unilateral contact and friction problems, adhesive contact and delamination problems, nonconvex elastoplasticity, fractal friction laws, frames with semi rigid connections, are among the applications which are treated in details here. Working algorithms are given for each application and are demonstrated by means of representative examples. The interested reader will find helpful references to up-to-date scientific and technical literature so that to be able to work on research or engineering topics which are not directly covered here.
This book investigates the phenomenon of racist victimization in a number of countries, uncovering and analyzing its historical roots, its relation to the legal system in a particular national context, its extent and the response to it. Through the international comparative approach adopted and the broad geographical range of studies presented, including national settings which have so far been largely ignored by the literature on racist victimization, the volume offers a truly international perspective on an important social, political and academic issue. As such, Racist Victimization: International Reflections and Perspectives will constitute essential reading not only for sociologists and socio-legal scholars, but for anyone working in the field of race and ethnicity, crime and justice, criminology, victimology or policing.
This book is a comprehensive introduction to visual computing, dealing with the modeling and synthesis of visual data by means of computers. What sets this book apart from other computer graphics texts is the integrated coverage of computer graphics and visualization topics, including important techniques such as subdivision and multi-resolution modeling, scene graphs, shadow generation, ambient occlusion, and scalar and vector data visualization. Students and practitioners will benefit from the comprehensive coverage of the principles that are the basic tools of their trade, from fundamental computer graphics and classic visualization techniques to advanced topics.
Nonsmooth energy functions govern phenomena which occur frequently in nature and in all areas of life. They constitute a fascinating subject in mathematics and permit the rational understanding of yet unsolved or partially solved questions in mechanics, engineering and economics. This is the first book to provide a complete and rigorous presentation of the quasidifferentiability approach to nonconvex, possibly nonsmooth, energy functions, of the derivation and study of the corresponding variational expressions in mechanics, engineering and economics, and of their numerical treatment. The new variational formulations derived are illustrated by many interesting numerical problems. The techniques presented will permit the reader to check any solution obtained by other heuristic techniques for nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. A civil, mechanical or aeronautical engineer can find in the book the only existing mathematically sound technique for the formulation and study of nonconvex, nonsmooth energy problems. Audience: The book will be of interest to pure and applied mathematicians, physicists, researchers in mechanics, civil, mechanical and aeronautical engineers, structural analysts and software developers. It is also suitable for graduate courses in nonlinear mechanics, nonsmooth analysis, applied optimization, control, calculus of variations and computational mechanics.
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