Studying illicit drug trafficking on Darknet markets: Structure and organisation from a Canadian perspective.

Cryptomarkets are online marketplaces that are part of the Dark Web and mainly devoted to the sale of illicit drugs. They combine tools to ensure anonymity of participants with the delivery of products by mail to enable the development of illicit drug trafficking. Using data collected on eight cryptomarkets, this study provides an overview of the Canadian illicit drug market. It seeks to inform about the most prevalent illicit drugs vendors offer for sale and preferred destination countries. Moreover, the research gives an insight into the structure and organisation of distribution networks existing online. In particular, we provide information about how vendors are diversifying and replicating across marketplaces. We inform on the number of listings each vendor manages, the number of cryptomarkets they are active on and the products they offer. This research demonstrates the importance of online marketplaces in the context of illicit drug trafficking. It shows how the analysis of data available online may elicit knowledge on criminal activities. Such knowledge is mandatory to design efficient policy for monitoring or repressive purposes against anonymous marketplaces. Nevertheless, trafficking on Dark Net markets is difficult to analyse based only on digital data. A more holistic approach for investigating this crime problem should be developed. This should rely on a combined use and interpretation of digital and physical data within a single collaborative intelligence model.

Cloud-Based Smart Health Monitoring System for Automatic Cardiovascular and Fall Risk Assessment in Hypertensive Patients.

The aim of this paper is to describe the design and the preliminary validation of a platform developed to collect and automatically analyze biomedical signals for risk assessment of vascular events and falls in hypertensive patients. This m-health platform, based on cloud computing, was designed to be flexible, extensible, and transparent, and to provide proactive remote monitoring via data-mining functionalities. A retrospective study was conducted to train and test the platform. The developed system was able to predict a future vascular event within the next 12 months with an accuracy rate of 84 % and to identify fallers with an accuracy rate of 72 %. In an ongoing prospective trial, almost all the recruited patients accepted favorably the system with a limited rate of inadherences causing data losses (<20 %). The developed platform supported clinical decision by processing tele-monitored data and providing quick and accurate risk assessment of vascular events and falls.

Inclusion probability with dropout: an operational formula.

In forensic genetics, a mixture of two or more contributors to a DNA profile is often interpreted using the inclusion probabilities theory. In this paper, we present a general formula for estimating the probability of inclusion (PI, also known as the RMNE probability) from a subset of visible alleles when dropouts are possible. This one-locus formula can easily be extended to multiple loci using the cumulative probability of inclusion. We show that an exact formulation requires fixing the number of contributors, hence to slightly modify the classic interpretation of the PI. We discuss the implications of our results for the enduring debate over the use of PI vs likelihood ratio approaches within the context of low template amplifications.

A 'cyanoacrylate case' for developing fingerprints in cars.

A portable case has been developed by which cyanoacrylate (super glue) fuming can be used inside a vehicle suspected of being involved in serious crime. The car itself serves as a fumigation chamber and the cyanoacrylate vapours are fed into the car via a hose. Connected to the hose and suspended inside the car is a vapour diffuser. The cyanoacrylate originates from a portable case where there is a sealed heater and also a command panel with hygrometer and thermometer for a technician to control the process. There is also space inside the case for other necessary equipment.