In this paper we present what we believe to be the first systematic study of the costs of cybercrime. It was prepared in response to a request from the UK Ministry of Defence following scepticism that previous studies had hyped the problem. For each of the main categories of cybercrime we set out what is and is not known of the direct costs, indirect costs and defence costs -both to the UK and to the world as a whole. We distinguish carefully between traditional crimes that are now 'cyber' because they are conducted online (such as tax and welfare fraud); transitional crimes whose modus operandi has changed substantially as a result of the move online (such as credit card fraud); new crimes that owe their existence to the Internet; and what we might call platform crimes such as the provision of botnets which facilitate other crimes rather than being used to extract money from victims directly. As far as direct costs are concerned, we find that traditional offences such as tax and welfare fraud cost the typical citizen in the low hundreds of pounds/Euros/dollars a year; transitional frauds cost a few pounds/Euros/dollars; while the new computer crimes cost in the tens of pence/cents. However, the indirect costs and defence costs are much higher for transitional and new crimes. For the former they may be roughly comparable to what the criminals earn, while for the latter they may be an order of magnitude more. As a striking example, the botnet behind a third of the spam sent in 2010 earned its owners around US$2.7m, while worldwide expenditures on spam prevention probably exceeded a billion dollars. We are extremely inefficient at fighting cybercrime; or to put it another way, cybercrooks are like terrorists or metal thieves in that their activities impose disproportionate costs on society. Some of the reasons for this are well-known: cybercrimes are global and have strong externalities, while traditional crimes such as burglary and car theft are local, and the associated equilibria have emerged after many years of optimisation. As for the more direct question of what should be done, our figures suggest that we should spend less in anticipation of cybercrime (on antivirus, firewalls, etc.) and more in response -that is, on the prosaic business of hunting down cyber-criminals and throwing them in jail.

Many researchers working in conservation aspire to produce "actionable science" to inform conservation practice. In order to understand what it takes to produce actionable science, we interviewed 71 researchers who have worked on producing actionable science in conservation. We asked about the attributes of actionable science and the various factors that, in their experience, aid or hinder its production. We focused specifically on factors that correspond to individual behaviors and those that relate to organizational level policies and practices. Six best practices associated with the production of actionable science emerged from our interviews: four at the individual level and two at the organizational level. Best practices for individual behaviors include: (a) engaging in collaboration; (b) practicing empathy; (c) building trusting relationships; and (d) employing diverse communication methods. Best practices for organizations include: (a) incentivizing actionable science and (b) providing resources for actionable science to early-career researchers. Our analyses provide useful guidelines for conservation researchers and practitioners who are interested in producing actionable science.

Gold and silver nanoparticles functionalized at their surfaces with electron acceptor (TCNQ) and donor (TMPD) molecules were spray-deposited as thin films on highly ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) substrates. Pure films and bilayer structures were investigated by means of scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). The pure films show symmetric current−voltage dependences, whereas the bilayer structures are characterized by a diode-like behavior with rectification ratios of up to 66 at ±75 mV for structures containing silver nanoparticles and 6.5 at ±1 V for analogous structures based on gold nanoparticles. Such properties have been previously described for molecular rectifiers containing electron acceptor and donor groups. Our results suggest that electronic structures of this type might be assembled alternatively through appropriate nanoscale architectures using sequential deposition of functionalized nanoparticles.

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