齐奥尔科夫斯基与全球学

俄罗斯自然科学家齐奥尔科夫斯基是宇航学的奠基人,他通过宇航学影响了我们每个人的生活。他的宇宙哲学内涵丰富,既包含了宗教、哲学内容,同时又为人类指出一条通往＂完善、美好未来＂之路——飞向宇宙,是关于整个人类未来的庞大计划。通常认为,齐氏在技术文明理想和准则基础上制订的庞大的改造地球、征服宇宙计划,预言了当今时髦的稳定发展的思想。但是,齐氏提出的改造地球计划是极度反生态的,而且试图通过人类的宇宙扩张解决全球问题,目前看来存在很多问题。因此,摆在人类面前的任务是寻找符合后工业时代的理想和价值的、能够解决人类面临的全球危机的途径。     

Strengthening cross-border law enforcement cooperation in the EU: the Prüm network of data exchange

The Prüm network was established to provide mechanisms and the infrastructure to achieve a closer cooperation between the EU member states in combating terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration through the cross border exchange of DNA profiles, fingerprints and vehicle registration data. While Prüm offers clear benefits for cross-border policing, it continues to present challenges of a technical and scientific nature as well as legal, ethical and socioeconomic concerns. This article reviews these challenges as well as the existing safeguards. It argues that, in order to achieve Prüm benefits and maximise its potential, it is important to enhance the necessary dialogue and cooperation between member states so as to confront the above concerns and address challenges posed by Prüm through balanced measures.     

Unemployment and crime: the role of apprehension

An increase in the unemployment rate decreases the opportunity cost of crime and increases the crime rate according to standard microeconomics models. However, a large body of empirical research has shown that an increase in unemployment may increase or decrease crime. By incorporating the return to crime into standard economic models, this paper shows that an increase in unemployment, as in recessions, decreases the opportunity cost of crime and the return to crime as well. As a result, the effect of unemployment on crime is ambiguous and depends on the apprehension rate. An increase in the unemployment rate tends to decrease the crime rate at lower apprehension rates, but to increase it at higher apprehension rates. An increase in the generosity of unemployment insurance benefits does not necessarily reduce the crime rate, and the effect of more generous unemployment insurance on crime depends again on the apprehension rate.