Fundamental Limits of Wideband Localization - Part II: Cooperative Networks

The availability of positional information is of great importance in many commercial, governmental, and military applications. Localization is commonly accomplished through the use of radio communication between mobile devices (agents) and fixed infrastructure (anchors). However, precise determination of agent positions is a challenging task, especially in harsh environments due to radio blockage or limited anchor deployment. In these situations, cooperation among agents can significantly improve localization accuracy and reduce localization outage probabilities. A general framework of analyzing the fundamental limits of wideband localization has been developed in Part I of the paper. Here, we build on this framework and establish the fundamental limits of wideband cooperative location-aware networks. Our analysis is based on the waveforms received at the nodes, in conjunction with Fisher information inequality. We provide a geometrical interpretation of equivalent Fisher information for cooperative networks. This approach allows us to succinctly derive fundamental performance limits and their scaling behaviors, and to treat anchors and agents in a unified way from the perspective of localization accuracy. Our results yield important insights into how and when cooperation is beneficial.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation

Despite recent advances in transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation, significant problems remain. The bombings in Madrid in March 2004 have demonstrated how terrorists and criminals can continue to exploit the limits of hesitant or partial exchange to dangerous effect. Intelligence and security cooperation remain problematic because of the fundamental tension between an increasingly networked world, which is ideal terrain for the new religious terrorism, and highly compartmentalized national intelligence gathering. If cooperation is to improve, we require a better mutual understanding about the relationship between privacy and security to help us decide what sort of intelligence should be shared. This is a higher priority than building elaborate new structures. While most practical problems of intelligence exchange are ultimately resolvable, the challenge of agreeing what the intelligence means in broad terms is even more problematic. The last section of this article argues that shared NATO intelligence estimates would be difficult to achieve and of doubtful value

Rethinking international cooperation in criminal matters in the EU: moving beyond actors, bringing logic back, footed in reality

International cooperation in criminal matters in the European Union has grown exponentially over the past few decades. Importantly, there is a wide variety of authorities involved therein, rendering the traditional distinction between police and judicial cooperation outdated. Furthermore, its rapid growth exposed this policy field to inconsistencies and incoherence. Additionally despite the wave of new legislation, important lacunae can be identified, setting important challenges for the future. The combination of these issues clarifies the title of this book: there is a pressing need to rethink international cooperation in criminal matters. In answer to a call from the European Commission, the authors have designed a comprehensive methodological framework to review the entirety of international cooperation in criminal matters, combining desktop reviews, expert consultations, member state questionnaires and focus group meetings in each of the member states to obtain a comprehensive overview of the currently experienced obstacles and future policy options that are both needed and feasible. Over 150 individuals contributed to the study, with different background, including academics, lawyers, policy makers, police, customs, intelligence services, prosecution, judiciary, correctional authorities, Ministries of Justice and Home Affairs. This book provides an overview of the research findings and the recommendations formulated. They include but are not limited to (1) a helicopter view on cooperation with criminal justice finality, (2) a clear demarcation of the role of the judicial authorities, (3) a comprehensive review of refusal grounds, including proportionality and capacity concerns, (4) an assessment of gaps in the current body of instruments regulating international cooperation in criminal matters and possible remedies thereto, (5) a well-considered further development of Eurojust and (6) ensuring EU wide effect of mere domestic actions

Institutional transition and the problem of credible commitment

During the last phase of state socialism, the economic reforms attempted by these counties didn’t stop the collapse of communism. Neither did the free market economic reforms in the democratic West starting around 1975 bring progress and prosperity expected. The frustrations of both these attempts of transformation make it clear that the goal of social transition would not be achieved without liberal limits on the state - what was created to ward off private predation, which itself became a greater problem of predation. Indeed, we can only ensure the effective function of the society by establishing the self-sustaining constitution and enforcing credible commitment that bind the public institutions

The problem of multiple criminal prosecutions: building an effective EU response

No abstract available

On Actualizing Public Reason

In this Essay, I examine some apparent difficulties with what I call the "actualization criterion" connected to Rawls's notion of public reason, that is, the criterion for determining when Rawlsian public reason is concretely actualized by citizens in their deliberating and deciding about constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. While these apparent difficulties have led some commentators to reject Rawlsian public reason altogether, I offer an interpretation that might allow Rawlsian public reason to escape the difficulties. My reading involves the claim that Rawlsian public reason is to be understood essentially as an imperative or an ideal, and as not necessarily grounded in any stock of existing beliefs or opinions. I make this claim on the basis of the seemingly counterintuitive observation that it is possible for citizen-interlocutors to know that public reason has been violated without necessarily knowing who the violator is (and thus without being able to foreclose the possibility that the violator may even be oneself). This observation is based in turn on my analysis of the necessary reciprocity and self-referentiality built in to the very concept of public reason as such