From Lujan to Laidlaw: A Preliminary Model of Environmental Standing

We consider the problem of code design for compression of correlated sources under adversarial attacks. A scenario with three correlated sources is considered in which at most one source is compromised by an adversary. The theoretical minimum achievable sum-rate for this scenario was derived by Kosut and Tong. We design layered LDPC convolutional codes for this problem, assuming that one of the sources is available at the common decoder as side information. We demonstrate that layered LDPC convolutional codes constitute a sequence of nested codes where each sub-code is capacity-achieving for the binary symmetric channels used to model the correlation between sources, and therefore, can ideally achieve the theoretical minimum sum-rate. Simulated performance results for moderate block length show a small gap to the theoretical limit, and as the block length increases the gap vanishes.QC 20130114</p

Object-Oriented Software Representation of Polymer Materials Information in Engineering Design

The software application POISE, Polymer Objects in a Smalltalk™ Environment, integrates knowledge representation, user interfaces, and data management; a system of tools for the materials domain expert involved in design. Engineering design solutions initially build from generalisations. POISE represents multiple levels of generalisations from classifications of polymer information. The class-instance paradigm classifies software objects. An object’s behaviour is an exclusive function of its class. Polymer’s behaviours are a function of multiple orthogonal factors, like chemistry and processing, therefore multiple orthogonal classes must represent polymers. Taxonomy only represents one of these factors. The Enhancer mechanism resolves this conflict between classification and representation. Polymer classification is not well established, with new materials evolving. The software compensates by evolving the classification schema. Guided with a specialised interface tool, the domain expert updates the schema by adding new polymer families and re-classifying existing classes. Through analysing the generalisations in the classification, the domain expert can develop an appropriate classification. This analysis relies on the engineering properties differentiating the principal material qualities. Standard properties do not distinguish specific structural differences in polymer materials, necessitating new properties. Material properties distinguish materials in the domain whereas the classes describe the properties of polymer objects. Domain experts add new properties to the polymer classes to distinguish polymer objects. Properties are independent objects that partially describe the class template; Partial Template Objects. Persistence of personal design information and management of shared data requires dichotomous database management. Shared data requires multi-user access, and consequently transaction management. Transaction management in object-oriented systems often holds resources for a long duration. Transaction declaration hinders transparent access to storage, and corrupts the representation. For single-user design information, transactions are implicit with access. Database proxies provide transparent per-object transaction management to persistent design information. The WorkBase is an object-storage utility that utilises Enhancers as proxies

Public Law and Economics

This comprehensive textbook applies economic analysis to public law. The economic analysis of law has revolutionized legal scholarship and teaching in the last half-century, but it has focused mostly on private law, business law, and criminal law. This book extends the analysis to fundamental topics in public law, such as the separation of government powers, regulation by agencies, constitutional rights, and elections. Every public law involves six fundamental processes of government: bargaining, voting, entrenching, delegating, adjudicating, and enforcing. The book devotes two chapters to each process, beginning with the economic theory and then applying the theory to a wide range of puzzles and problems in law. Each chapter concentrates on cases and legal doctrine, showing the relevance of economics to the work of lawyers and judges. Featuring lucid, accessible writing and engaging examples, the book addresses enduring topics in public law as well as modern controversies, including gerrymandering, voter identification laws, and qualified immunity for police

Public Law and Economics

This comprehensive textbook applies economic analysis to public law. The economic analysis of law has revolutionized legal scholarship and teaching in the last half-century, but it has focused mostly on private law, business law, and criminal law. This book extends the analysis to fundamental topics in public law, such as the separation of government powers, regulation by agencies, constitutional rights, and elections. Every public law involves six fundamental processes of government: bargaining, voting, entrenching, delegating, adjudicating, and enforcing. The book devotes two chapters to each process, beginning with the economic theory and then applying the theory to a wide range of puzzles and problems in law. Each chapter concentrates on cases and legal doctrine, showing the relevance of economics to the work of lawyers and judges. Featuring lucid, accessible writing and engaging examples, the book addresses enduring topics in public law as well as modern controversies, including gerrymandering, voter identification laws, and qualified immunity for police

Formal Aspects in Security and Trust

his book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Formal Aspects in Security and Trust, FAST 2005, held in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK in July 2005. The 17 revised papers presented together with the extended abstract of 1 invited paper were carefully reviewed and selected from 37 submissions. The papers focus on formal aspects in security and trust policy models, security protocol design and analysis, formal models of trust and reputation, logics for security and trust, distributed trust management systems, trust-based reasoning, digital assets protection, data protection, privacy and ID issues, information flow analysis, language-based security, security and trust aspects in ubiquitous computing, validation/analysis tools, web service security/trust/privacy, GRID security, security risk assessment, and case studies

Die Europäisierung nationaler Außenpolitik in Nicht-EU Europa am Beispiel Serbiens und Mazedoniens.

With the gradual consolidation of European foreign policy structures and the intensification of multi-level interactions in that area, Europeanisation has become a pregnant reality for non-EU Europe in general and Serbia and Macedonia in particular. What Europeanisation is, what it entails and how it proceeds remain yet subject to controversies. This thesis is a contribution to the academic debate. It explores how the national foreign policy of Serbia and Macedonia has been transformed over years, and uses its empirical findings to reflect on the concept, the phenomenon and mechanisms of Europeanisation in non-EU Europe. The thesis adopts an inductive research strategy, combining in its empirical part descriptive and argumentative analyses. It successively identifies a series of changes in Serbia and Macedonia’s foreign policy, which can be attributed to Europeanisation, and examines the underlying structural, dispositional and intentional forces, as well as the factors facilitating and constraining the process. It scrutinises several aspects of Serbia and Macedonia’s foreign policy: convergence in multilateral diplomacy, organisational reforms, resolution of border disputes, inflexions of critical foreign policy positions (Serbia’s Kosovo issue and Macedonia’s naming issue) and harmonisation of national systems of arms export controls. Its findings question the predominant role usually attributed to the EU and the significance of its conditionality policy in the area. They also underline the international and inter-organisational dimension of Europeanisation. These findings suggest that Europeanisation is best conceptualised through governance approaches (as opposed to EU integration approaches), and that it is best defined as “the transformation of political systems based on national governance into systems constituted by actors operating through the prism of European governance”. Europeanisation, as a phenomenon, is found to entail more intersubjectivity, more nodality and more homogeneity across political systems. As a process, it is found to ensue simultaneously from mechanistic, contextual and organismic learning, i.e. respectively, from structural necessities, shared understandings and individual dissatisfaction, depending on specific conditions. These findings shed light on the contribution of Europeanisation to the (trans)formation Europe’s political order.Infolge der allmählichen Festigung der außenpolitischen Strukturen in Europa und der Intensivierung der Mehrebeneninteraktionen auf diesem Gebiet ist die Europäisierung heute ein prägender Prozeß in Nicht-EU Europa im Allgemeinen und Serbien und Mazedonien im Besonderen. Was genau Europäisierung ist, was sie bewirkt und wie sie verläuft ist aber noch immer umstritten. Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht die Veränderungen der vergangenen Jahre in der nationalen Außenpolitik Serbiens und Mazedoniens. Die Arbeit bedient sich eines induktiven Forschungsansatzes und kombiniert im empirischen Teil deskriptive und argumentative Analyseverfahren. Auf Basis der empirischen Ergebnisse werden das Konzept, das Phänomen und die Mechanismen der Europäisierung in Nicht-EU Europa beleuchtet. Die Dissertation identifiziert eine Reihe von Veränderungen in der Außenpolitik Serbiens und Mazedoniens, die der Europäisierung zugeschrieben werden können, und untersucht die strukturellen, dispositionellen und motivationalen Kräfte, sowie die fördernden und hemmenden Faktoren, die diesen Prozeß untermauern. Mehrere Aspekte der Außenpolitik Serbiens und Mazedoniens werden eingehend untersucht: Konvergenz in multilateraler Diplomatie, organisatorische Reformen, Behandlung von Grenzstreitigkeiten, Positionswechsel in entscheidenden außenpolitischen Fragen (Serbiens Kosovo-Frage und Mazedoniens Streit um den Namen) und Harmonisierung der nationalen Systeme für die Kontrolle von Waffenexporten. Die Studienergebnisse stellen die vorherrschende Rolle, die der EU für gewöhnlich zugeschrieben wird sowie die Aussagekraft des Konditionalitätsansatzes in diesem Kontext in Frage. Sie unterstreichen vielmehr die internationale und interorganisationelle Dimension der Europäisierung. Die Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass der Begriff Europäisierung am besten im Kontext von Governance-Ansätzen erklärbar wird – im Gegensatz zu Ansätzen, die sich der EU-Integration als Erklärungsgrund bedienen. Definiert wird Europäisierung dann als „Transformation von politischen Systemen, die auf nationaler Governance basieren, hin zu Systemen, deren Akteure durch das Prisma der europäischen Governance wirken“. Als Phänomen führt die Europäisierung zu mehr Intersubjektivität, mehr Nodalität und mehr Homogenität. Als Prozeß ergibt sie sich simultan durch mechanistisches, kontextuelles und organismisches Lernen, d.h. - je nach den spezifischen Bedingungen - aus strukturellen Bedürfnissen, gemeinsamem Verständnis sowie individueller Unzufriedenheit. Die vorliegenden Ergebnisse verdeutlichen, dass die Europäisierung wesentlich zur Gestaltung und Transformation der politischen Ordnung in Europa beiträgt.La consolidation graduelle des structures européennes de politique étrangère et l’intensification des interactions multiniveau dans ce domaine ont fait de l’européanisation une réalité incontournable en Europe hors UE, et notamment en Serbie et Macédoine. Or ce qu’est l’européanisation, ce qu’elle implique et comment elle agit, font encore l’objet d’un vif débat académique, auquel cette thèse entend contribuer. Celle-ci étudie la transformation de la politique étrangère serbe et macédonienne au fil des ans et utilise ses résultats empiriques afin de mener une réflexion sur le concept, le phénomène et les mécanismes d’européanisation en Europe hors UE. La thèse adopte une stratégie de recherche inductive, et combine dans sa partie empirique des analyses descriptives et argumentatives. Elle identifie dans la politique étrangère serbe et macédonienne une série de changements pouvant être attribués à l’européanisation, et examine les forces structurelles, dispositionnelles et motivationnelles sous-jacentes, de même que les facteurs facilitant ou restreignant ces changements. L’étude porte sur plusieurs aspects de la politique étrangère serbe et macédonienne: convergence des diplomaties multilatérales, réformes organisationnelles, résolution des disputes frontalières, inflexions des positions les plus sensibles (question du Kosovo pour la Serbie et question du nom pour la Macédoine) et harmonisation des systèmes nationaux de contrôle des exportations d’armements. Les résultats de cette étude remettent en cause le rôle prédominant habituellement attribué à l’UE et l’importance de sa politique de conditionnalité dans ce domaine. Ils soulignent aussi la dimension internationale et inter-organisationnelle de l’européanisation. Ces résultats suggèrent de re-conceptualiser l’européanisation sur la base d’approches liées à la gouvernance (par opposition à celles liées à l’intégration européenne), et de redéfinir l’européanisation comme « transformation des systèmes politiques fondés sur une gouvernance nationale en systèmes constitués par des acteurs opérant à travers le prisme de la gouvernance européenne ». L’européanisation, en tant que phénomène, se manifeste alors par un surcroit d’intersubjectivité, de nodalité et d’homogénéité. En tant que processus, elle survient au travers d’un triple apprentissage, à la fois mécanistique, contextuel et organismique, c'est-à-dire d’un apprentissage induit respectivement par des nécessités structurelles, des compréhensions mutuelles et des sources d’insatisfaction individuelle, suivant des conditions spécifiques. Ces résultats éclairent la contribution de l’européanisation à la (trans)formation de l’ordre politique européen