On illegal activities in the California state beverage container deposit system

2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 314-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daisuke Numata
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL3) ◽  
pp. 1861-1868
Author(s):  
Bianca Princeton ◽  
Abilasha R ◽  
Preetha S

Oral hygiene is defined as the practice of keeping the mouth clean and healthy, by brushing and flossing to prevent the occurrence of any gum diseases like periodontitis or gingivitis. The main aim of oral health hygiene is to prevent the buildup of plaque, which is defined as a sticky film of bacteria and food formed on the teeth. The coastal guard is an official who is employed to watch the sea near a coast for ships that are in danger or involved with illegal activities. Coastal guards have high possibilities of being affected by mesothelioma or lung cancer due to asbestos exposure. So, a questionnaire consisting of 20 questions was created and circulated among a hundred participants who were coastal guards, through Google forms. The responses were recorded and tabulated in the form of bar graphs. Out of a hundred participants, 52.4% were not aware of the fact that coastal guards have high chances of developing lung cancer and Mesothelioma. 53.7% were aware of the other oral manifestations of lung cancer other than bleeding gums. Majority of the coastal guards feel that they are given enough information about dental hygiene protocols. Hence, to conclude, oral hygiene habits have to be elaborated using various tools in the right manner to ensure better health of teeth and gums.


Author(s):  
Сергей Иванович Вележев ◽  
Антон Михайлович Седогин

В представленной статье авторами рассматриваются вопросы уголовно-правовой охраны топливно-энергетического комплекса Российской Федерации от преступных проявлений, в том числе от коррупционной противоправной деятельности должностных лиц. Такие действия причиняют значительный ущерб нормальному функционированию предприятий топливно-энергетического комплекса. Авторами приводятся результаты исследования некоторых криминологических характеристик должностных лиц, совершивших преступления коррупционного характера. Дан анализ причин и условий, способствующих совершению вышеуказанных противоправных действий. Определена типовая модель преступника для данной категории преступлений и его характеристики: в первую очередь, это высокий уровень компетентности, специальное образование и т. д. Авторами отмечается высокий уровень латентной преступности в данной отрасли. Предложены некоторые пути профилактики данной категории правонарушений. Исследование проводилось на основе анализа конкретных уголовных дел, возбужденных следственными органами по результатам оперативно-розыскной деятельности правоохранительных органов. In the article the authors consider the issues of criminal and legal protection of the fuel and energy complex of the Russian Federation from criminal activity including corrupt illegal practices of officials. The authors cite the results of some criminological characteristics study of the fuel and energy complex staff committed corruption crimes. As a result of these illegal actions significant damage is caused to the normal functioning of the fuel and energy enterprises. Such officials` actions determine not only a wide range of other illegal activities, but also lead to public outcry and discredit the industry as a whole. The analysis of the reasons and conditions contributing to the above illegal actions commission is given. A typical model of a criminal for a given crime category and its characteristics are determined. First of all it is a high level competence, special education, etc. A high level of latent crime in this industry is shown. The study results are presented on the example of specific criminal cases initiated by the investigating authorities based on the results of the operation detection activities of law enforcement agencies. Some ways of preventing this category of offenses are proposed.


Author(s):  
Сергей Иванович Вележев ◽  
Антон Михайлович Седогин

В статье рассмотрены актуальные вопросы уголовно-правовой охраны нефтяной отрасли Российской Федерации от преступных посягательств корыстной направленности. Иллюстрирован существенный ущерб, причиняемый преступными группами охраняемым общественным отношениям на национальном и международном уровнях. Проведен статистический и сравнительно-правовой анализ наиболее эффективных норм законодательства России и Казахстана, применяемых в ходе борьбы с подобной противоправной деятельностью. Предложено направление дальнейшего совершенствования российского уголовного закона. Нефтяная промышленность является одной из ведущих отраслей Российской Федерации, структурными сегментами которой являются в том числе объекты добычи, хранения, переработки и транспортировки нефти, а также объекты транспортировки, хранения и сбыта нефтепродуктов. Данные обстоятельства требуют принятия мер по ее защите от противоправных действий по хищению нефти и нефтепродуктов. Наряду с охранными, режимными и организационными мерами, которые осуществляют хозяйствующие субъекты, немаловажное значение имеет защита отрасли от преступных посягательств уголовно-правовым способом. В статье указывается необходимость совершенствования законодательства по обеспечению безопасности деятельности нефтяной отрасли, учитывая ее значение для экономики страны. Отмечается, что положительные результаты в поиске возможных путей совершенствования законодательства дает применение сравнительно-правового анализа уголовных норм СНГ по борьбе с преступностью в этой сфере деятельности. The article examines current issues of the criminal law protection of the oil industry of the Russian Federation from criminal attacks for mercenary reasons. The considerable damage caused by criminal groups to protected public relations at the national and international levels is illustrated. A statistical and comparative legal analysis of the most effective norms of the legislation of Russia and the Republic of Kazakhstan applied in the fight against such illegal activities has been carried out. The direction of further improvement of the Russian criminal law is proposed. The oil industry is one of the leading industries of the Russian Federation, the structural segments of that are the objects of oil production, storage, refining and transportation, as well as the objects of transportation, storage and marketing of oil product. Under these circumstances it is required totake measures for protection it from unlawful actions connected with stealing of oil and oil products. Along with security, safeguards and organizational measures that are implemented by business entities, protection of the industry from criminal attacks by a criminal law method is of no small importance. The article indicates the need to improve legislation to ensure the safety of the oil industry, based on its importance for the country's economy. It is noted that positive results in the search for possible ways to improve the legislation are provided by the use of a comparative legal analysis of the criminal norms of the CIS in the fight against crime in this area of activity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srishty Jindal ◽  
Kamlesh Sharma

Background: With the tremendous increase in the use of social networking sites for sharing the emotions, views, preferences etc. a huge volume of data and text is available on the internet, there comes the need for understanding the text and analysing the data to determine the exact intent behind the same for a greater good. This process of understanding the text and data involves loads of analytical methods, several phases and multiple techniques. Efficient use of these techniques is important for an effective and relevant understanding of the text/data. This analysis can in turn be very helpful in ecommerce for targeting audience, social media monitoring for anticipating the foul elements from society and take proactive actions to avoid unethical and illegal activities, business analytics, market positioning etc. Method: The goal is to understand the basic steps involved in analysing the text data which can be helpful in determining sentiments behind them. This review provides detailed description of steps involved in sentiment analysis with the recent research done. Patents related to sentiment analysis and classification are reviewed to throw some light in the work done related to the field. Results: Sentiment analysis determines the polarity behind the text data/review. This analysis helps in increasing the business revenue, e-health, or determining the behaviour of a person. Conclusion: This study helps in understanding the basic steps involved in natural language understanding. At each step there are multiple techniques that can be applied on data. Different classifiers provide variable accuracy depending upon the data set and classification technique used.


1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Luyben ◽  
Susan Cummings

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catalin-Gabriel Stanescu ◽  
Camelia Bogdan

AbstractNon-judicial recovery of debts is now rampant in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The reason is two-fold. On the one hand, the significant number of defaults in the poorer areas of Europe makes the CEE region a very attractive market for debt-collection. On the other hand, the activity is almost entirely unregulated, especially regarding abusive debt collection practices. The CEE region still lacks mature, strong, and experienced supervisory agencies that could tackle borderline activities. This enables companies involved in debt collection to comply easily with the minimal legal provisions and to circumvent the actual purpose of the law, including through tax sheltering and money laundering. The main argument developed in the paper is that the debt collection system it is designed to maximize profits, minimize tax base and, potentially, can serve as money laundering mechanism. The system functions in a triadic relationship: the debt-seller (a credit institution), the debt-buyer (usually an investment company), and the debt-administrator (a debt-collection agency, either fully owned by, or under the control of the debt-buyer), where debt portfolios are purchased at huge discounts (varying between 90 and 95% of face value). By revealing the mechanism used by debt-collectors, the paper calls for legislative intervention to seal the gap and ensure adequate taxation of debt-collection activities. The nature of regulatory arbitrage involved relates both to tax law as well as to regulatory standards, such as licensing requirements. Debt buyers benefit from the EU passport rule, make high returns on their 'investments' and optimize their taxes on profits obtained. Debt administrators perform their activity at almost no liability and no tax payable to the state. This mechanism creates favorable premises for money laundering and financing of illegal activities, as the web of offshore companies behind the debt-buyer renders the verification of the origin of their investment money extremely difficult. Using Romania as a case study, the paper addresses not only the aforementioned practices and risks, but also the potential reasons behind the state's inability either to adopt adequate legislation, or to enforce it. In doing so, the paper employs empirical evidence regarding the activity of ten Romanian debt collection agencies and relevant case law thereof. The paper concludes with the authors' proposal for a potential solution, which can be extended beyond Romania.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 2400
Author(s):  
Quntao Duan ◽  
Lihui Luo ◽  
Wenzhi Zhao ◽  
Yanli Zhuang ◽  
Fang Liu

Human activities have dramatically changed ecosystems. As an irreplaceable ecological barrier in western China, the Qilian Mountains (QLM) provide various ecosystem services for humans. To evaluate the changes in the intensity of human activities in the QLM and their impact on the ecosystem, the human footprint (HF) method was used to conduct a spatial dataset of human activity intensity. In our study, the NDVI was used to characterize the growth of vegetation, and six categories of human pressures were employed to create the HF map in the QLM for 2000–2015 at a 1-km scale. The results showed that the mean NDVI during the growing season showed a significant increasing trend over the entire QLM in the period 2000–2015, while the NDVI showed a significant declining trend of more than 70% concentrated in Qinghai. Human pressure throughout the QLM occurred at a low level during 2000–2015, being greater in the eastern region than the western region, while the Qinghai area had greater human pressure than the Gansu area. Due to the improvement in traffic facilities, tourism, overgrazing, and other illegal activities, grasslands, shrublands, forests, wetlands, and bare land were the vegetation types most affected by human activities (in decreasing order). As the core area of the QLM, the Qilian Mountains National Nature Reserve (NR) has effectively reduced the impact of human activities. However, due to the existence of many ecological historical debts caused by unreasonable management in the past, the national park established in 2017 is facing great challenges to achieve its goals. These data and results will provide reference and guidance for future protection and restoration of the QLM ecosystem.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 2664
Author(s):  
J. Carlos Molina-Molina ◽  
Marouane Salhaoui ◽  
Antonio Guerrero-González ◽  
Mounir Arioua

The world’s oceans are one of the most valuable sources of biodiversity and resources on the planet, although there are areas where the marine ecosystem is threatened by human activities. Marine protected areas (MPAs) are distinctive spaces protected by law due to their unique characteristics, such as being the habitat of endangered marine species. Even with this protection, there are still illegal activities such as poaching or anchoring that threaten the survival of different marine species. In this context, we propose an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) model system for the surveillance of marine areas by detecting and recognizing vessels through artificial intelligence (AI)-based image recognition services, in search of those carrying out illegal activities. Cloud and edge AI computing technologies were used for computer vision. These technologies have proven to be accurate and reliable in detecting shapes and objects for which they have been trained. Azure edge and cloud vision services offer the best option in terms of accuracy for this task. Due to the lack of 4G and 5G coverage in offshore marine environments, it is necessary to use radio links with a coastal base station to ensure communications, which may result in a high response time due to the high latency involved. The analysis of on-board images may not be sufficiently accurate; therefore, we proposed a smart algorithm for autonomy optimization by selecting the proper AI technology according to the current scenario (SAAO) capable of selecting the best AI source for the current scenario in real time, according to the required recognition accuracy or low latency. The SAAO optimizes the execution, efficiency, risk reduction, and results of each stage of the surveillance mission, taking appropriate decisions by selecting either cloud or edge vision models without human intervention.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
Matej Kacaljak

Abstract This paper discusses the Al Capone case and identifies legal institutions which contributed to the conviction of Al Capone for tax evasion in the USA and discusses similarities in Slovak law. The Slovak legal environment is assessed with the aim of identifying potential room for improvement. Under an assumption of identical factual circumstances, it is tested whether Al Capone would be convicted of tax evasion in the Slovak Republic and if not, what would be the main reasons. The paper concludes that due to some, probably unintentional, specifics of Slovak tax and criminal law, Al Capone could not be convicted of tax evasion by the Slovak courts. In our opinion, these specifics do not, however, constitute material elements of the basic structure of Slovak tax and criminal law and could be relatively easily corrected.


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