New program mines mobile provider records for incriminating patterns

By Rachel Ehrenberg

Web edition: March 19, 2013
Print edition: April 20, 2013; Vol.183 #8 (p. 15)

Sometimes not picking up the phone can be as incriminating as spilling the beans on a wiretapped call. After a recent string of robberies in Italy, a new forensic tool that makes it easy to explore reams of cell phone data revealed an incriminating pattern: Leading up to and after each robbery, there were flurries of calls between members of a gang suspected in a series of gun thefts, car thefts and supermarket stickups. But in the end, it was silence that betrayed the gang: There were no calls during the minutes when the crimes were being committed.

The new data analysis tool called LogAnalysis makes it especially easy to visualize the relationships among conspiring suspects as revealed by their phone calls. Developed by scientists at the University of Messina in Italy, the program takes algorithms that researchers typically use to investigate relationships among organisms in an ecosystem or the flow of information in a friendship network, and brings that math together in a manner tweaked specifically for investigating crime. Described in a paper posted March 7 at arXiv.org, LogAnalysis is being tested with some criminal cases in Italy, although the researchers will divulge little about the real world cases.

To begin, investigators import all the call data into the program, which transforms the information into a diagram of people connected by phone calls. There are features that make it easy to see who called whom the most and to identify clans and go-betweens. Investigators can also trim people and calls out of the visualized network when deemed irrelevant to a case.

But it was a temporal analysis feature that helped alert investigators to the supermarket holdup crew’s nefarious doings, says police detective and study coauthor Salvatore Catanese. The gang was in rapid communication leading up to a particular heist, and those calls all mapped to one cell station in the store’s neighborhood. There was also a burst of calls after the robbery. But all was silent during the deed.

The temporal analysis feature is quite clever, says Pål Roe Sundsøy, a complex systems research and data scientist at the Norway-based communications company Telenor. But he notes that in today’s wired age, cell phone records might tell only part of the story. “Smart criminals will have more ways to communicate — Skype, Facebook. These data would not be captured.”

The Development of the Brain (an extract)

The Proliferation and Migration of Neural Cells I noted above that nerve cells proliferate abundantly and rapidly during neural development. Proliferation begins upon closure of the neural tube and takes place mainly along the inner surface of the neural tube—an area called the germinal zone. Initially, the neural tube consists of a single layer of cells, but it rapidly becomes many cells thick, growing from the inside out. Along the inner germinal zone, dividing cells undergo characteristic movements, as shown in Figure 17.2. The dividing cell is bipolar in shape and initially its processes reach both surfaces of the neural tube. DNA is synthesized while the nucleus of the cell is deep in the tube, away from the inner surface. The nucleus then migrates to the tube's inner surface, the distal process of the cell withdraws, and the cell rounds up and divides. After cell division the two daughter cells extend new processes distally, the nuclei migrate deeper into the tube, and the process repeats itself.

After the cells divide several times, most of them appear to lose the ability to replicate their DNA. At this point, they migrate away from the germinal zone and form a distinct cellular layer distally. The cells in this intermediate layer are mainly young neurons that never will divide again. Furthermore, most of them are now spec­ified. That is, where they will reside in the brain is now estab­lished—and sometimes even their synaptic connections have been determined. Some cells that migrate from the germinal zone in certain brain regions do retain the ability to divide, and they form important brain structures, including the basal ganglia and other deep nuclei of the forebrain. Certain cerebellar cells also proliferate after they migrate away from the germinal zone, and neural crest cells divide mainly after they have migrated to their final destina­tion. In a few special situations, germinal cells remain in the adult brain and continue to divide. An example is the retina of some fishes, which adds neurons during the animal's life. But this is quite exceptional; in most species, especially mammals, no new neurons are produced in the adult.

From the intermediate zone the young neurons undergo a further migration to take up their final positions. How this happens varies somewhat from brain region to brain region. In many parts of the brain, the cell bodies of specialized glial cells lie in the germinal zone but their distal processes extend to the brain surface. These cells, called radial glial cells, are present early in development and persist until after neuronal migration is com­pleted. It is believed that the neurons migrate along the glial cells, and substantial evidence in favor of this proposal has been pre­sented. In electron micrographs, the migrating neurons are inevi­tably found associated with these glial cells, and in tissue culture neurons migrate along radial glial cells. In addition, Richard Sid-man and Pasko Rakic of the Harvard Medical School have shown that in mice with a genetic defect affecting the cetebellum, the radial glial cells degenerate early, and consequently certain cere­bellar cells undergo disruptions in their migration

The migration of cells in the developing brain differs among brain structures. In the cortex the first neurons to complete cell division and to migrate form the deepest cortical cell layer (layer 6), whereas cells that proliferate and migrate later form the more superficial cortical cell layers (layers 2-5). In the retina the op­posite is observed. The first cells generated (the ganglion cells) migrate to the opposite side of the retina, while cells that are generated later form the retina's middle layers.

Figure 17.4 shows schematically the development of the cortex. Initially the neural tube giving rise to the cortex is a few cells thick and consists mainly of a germinal zone (A). As the cells proliferate, some stop dividing and migrate to the intermediate zone (B). From there they migrate radially to the more superficial layers (C). As noted, however, the first cells to migrate and differentiate form deepest cortical layer, and cells migrating later form the superficial layers. The younger cells therefore migrate pas older cells to assume their final positions (D). Given this sequence of events, it is evident that the prominent feature of cortical structure(and that of other brain regions) —namely, a radial or col­umnar organization superimposed on horizontally arranged cel­lular layers —can be explained by developmental mechanisms.

Gone with the Wind

by M.Mitchel, Ch. VI. (an extract)

Scarlett giggled as she saw three men dragged out of the line of her charms to investigate landmarks familiar to the girls from childhood, and cut her eye sharply to see if Ashley had taken note. But he was playing with the ends of Melanie’s sash and smiling up at her. Pain twisted Scarlett’s heart. She felt that she could claw Melanie’s ivory skin till the blood ran and take pleasure in doing it.

As her eyes wandered from Melanie, she caught the gaze of Rhett Butler, who was not mixing with the crowd but standing apart talking to John Wilkes. He had been watching her and when she looked at him he laughed outright. Scarlett had an uneasy feeling that this man who was not received was the only one present who knew what lay behind her wild gaiety and that it was affording him sardonic amusement. She could have clawed him with pleasure too.

“If I can just live through this barbecue till this afternoon,” she thought, “all the girls will go upstairs to take naps to be fresh for tonight and I’ll stay downstairs and get to talk to Ashley. Surely he must have noticed how popular I am.” She soothed her heart with another hope: “Of course, he has to be attentive to Melanie because, after all, she is his cousin and she isn’t popular at all, and if he didn’t look out for her she’d just be a wallflower.”

She took new courage at this thought and redoubled her efforts in the direction of Charles, whose brown eyes glowed down eagerly at her. It was a wonderful day for Charles, a dream day, and he had fallen in love with Scarlett with no effort at all. Before this new emotion, Honey receded into a dim haze. Honey was a shrillvoiced sparrow and Scarlett a gleaming hummingbird. She teased him and favored him and asked him questions and answered them herself, so that he appeared very clever without having to say a word. The other boys were puzzled and annoyed by her obvious interest in him, for they knew Charles was too shy to hitch two consecutive words together, and politeness was being severely strained to conceal their growing rage. Everyone was smoldering, and it would have been a positive triumph for Scarlett, except for Ashley.

When the last forkful of pork and chicken and mutton had been eaten, Scarlett hoped the time had come when India would rise and suggest that the ladies retire to the house. It was two o’clock and the sun was warm overhead, but India, wearied with the three day preparations for the barbecue, was only too glad to remain sitting beneath the arbor, shouting remarks to a deaf old gentleman from Fayetteville.

A lazy somnolence descended on the crowd. The negroes idled about, clearing the long tables on which the food had been laid. The laughter and talking became less animated and groups here and there fell silent. All were waiting for their hostess to signal the end of the morning’s festivities. Palmetto fans were wagging more slowly, and several gentlemen were nodding from the heat and overloaded stomachs. The barbecue was over and all were content to take their ease while sun was at its height.

In this interval between the morning party and the evening’s ball, they seemed a placid, peaceful lot. Only the young men retained the restless energy which had filled the whole throng a short while before. Moving from group to group, drawling in their soft voices, they were as handsome as blooded stallions and as dangerous. The languor of midday had taken hold of the gathering, but underneath lurked tempers that could rise to killing heights in a second and flare out as quickly. Men and women, they were beautiful and wild, all a little violent under their pleasant ways and only a little tamed.

Some time dragged by while the sun grew hotter, and Scarlett and others looked again toward India. Conversation was dying out when, in the lull, everyone in the grove heard Gerald’s voice raised in furious accents. Standing some little distance away from the barbecue tables, he was at the peak of an argument with John Wilkes.

http://www.prinfluences.com