Field trials and test results of portable DVB-T systems with transmit delay diversity

This paper describes work carried out by Brunel University and Broadreach Systems (UK) to quantify the advantages that can be achieved if Transmit Diversity is applied to systems employing the DVB standard. The techniques investigated can be applied to standard receiver equipment without modification. An extensive and carefully planned field trial was performed during the winter of 2007/2008 in Uxbridge (UK) to validate predictions from theoretical modeling and laboratory simulations. The transmissions were performed in the 730 MHz frequency band with a DVB-T transmitter and a mean power of 18.4dBW. Transmit delay diversity has been observed to deliver significant reception improvement in automotive and indoor- non line of sight situations

An improved game-theoretic approach to uncover overlapping communities

How can we uncover overlapping communities from complex networks to understand the inherent structures and functions? Chen et al. firstly proposed a community game (Game) to study this problem, and the overlapping communities have been discovered when the game is convergent. It is based on the assumption that each vertex of the underlying network is a rational game player to maximize its utility. In this paper, we investigate how similar vertices affect the formation of community game. The Adamic–Adar Index (AA Index) has been employed to define the new utility function. This novel method has been evaluated on both synthetic and real-world networks. Experimental study shows that it has significant improvement of accuracy (from 4.8% to 37.6%) compared with the Game on 10 real networks. It is more efficient on Facebook networks (FN) and Amazon co-purchasing networks than on other networks. This result implicates that “friend circles of friends” of Facebook are valuable to understand the overlapping community division

A fast community detection method in bipartite networks by distance dynamics

Many real bipartite networks are found to be divided into two-mode communities. In this paper, we formulate a new two-mode community detection algorithm BiAttractor. It is based on distance dynamics model Attractor proposed by Shao et al. with extension from unipartite to bipartite networks. Since Jaccard coefficient of distance dynamics model is incapable to measure distances of different types of vertices in bipartite networks, our main contribution is to extend distance dynamics model from unipartite to bipartite networks using a novel measure Local Jaccard Distance (LJD). Furthermore, distances between different types of vertices are not affected by common neighbors in the original method. This new idea makes clear assumptions and yields interpretable results in linear time complexity O(jEj) in sparse networks, where jEj is the number of edges. Experiments on synthetic networks demonstrate it is capable to overcome resolution limit compared with existing other methods. Further research on real networks shows that this model can accurately detect interpretable community structures in a short time

The European Approach to Privacy

This paper critically assesses the character of European (Union’s) privacy law and policy in the field of online media and electronic communications. Contrary to current understanding, this field of law is more fragmented and ill-developed than is often assumed, in particular by those discussing privacy law and policy in an international and transatlantic context. In fact, some of the most challenging regulatory issues in the field of online media and electronic communications still lack a well-developed common European approach and remain the subject of regulation at the level of the different member states of the European Union. Drawing on historic insights, the paper shows how EU policy making in the field of privacy and data protection is and remains strongly influenced by the EU institutional setting. In particular, the paper shows that the specific substantive outcome of European privacy law and policy is strongly influenced by and can only be understood properly through the lens of the ongoing project of European integration more generally. The paper will develop its main thesis by focusing on three important and current privacy issues and their treatment by EU lawmakers and the EU legal system. These are: (I.) the question of retention of communications meta-data (e.g. traffic and location data) in the field of electronic communications; (II.) the legal framework for liability of search engines for privacy and reputational harms in the online environment, including a 'right to be forgotten', and (III.) the question of the security of and the potential lawful access by foreign governments to data in the cloud. After discussing these substantive privacy policy issues and the legal frameworks that have developed (and are developing) to address them at the EU level, the paper will analyze these frameworks in view of the apparent interplay of the substance of privacy law and policy at the EU level on the one hand and the broader constitutional and institutional dynamics related to EU competency and integration. The paper starts with a discussion of the basic underlying motivations, rationales and competences for addressing privacy issues at the European level, which until recently were predominantly economic in nature. The implication of this is that some of the most pressing data privacy issues which are primarily non-economic in character, have been addressed at the fringes of what could be called the European approach to data privacy, in which the establishment of a functioning European internal market and the free flow of personal data under sufficient safeguards relating to data privacy are the dominant concerns. More recently, the adoption of the Lisbon treaty, the establishment of a binding right to data protection and privacy in the EU Charter and a new legal basis for the establishment of data protection rules at the EU level, EU privacy law and policy has become increasingly connected to the furtherance of the protection of privacy and data protection as fundamental rights more generally. Through the case studies in the paper, this dynamic of how policy rationales end up playing out at the EU level and inform the substance of privacy policies adopted, is illustrated in detail. In particular, the analysis shows how EU policy making tends to strive towards a common and comprehensive European approach, but typically fails to take account of some of the leading concerns, and is often simply not equipped or even allowed to include them in the process. For instance, there is significant disagreement about the weight that should be attributed to freedom of expression concerns in the online environment and the role of the EU with respect to media and the proper balancing of freedom and privacy in the media remains limited. With respect to national security concerns there are no European harmonization of national approaches at all. The result is that important policy concerns from the perspective of privacy in electronic communications end up being addressed indirectly, inefficiently and incompletely, through the European data privacy frameworks that may aspire to be comprehensive but would need significant reforms to achieve this aim. The article will discuss possible reforms but will warn against aspirations of further harmonization and unification of European Privacy Law. In the absence of fundamental institutional reform of the EU, further harmonization could end up being detrimental to other important policy goals currently addressed largely outside of the EU legal framework, including the issues of media freedom, criminal procedural justice and the protection of privacy and information security in relation to foreign intelligence agencies specifically discussed in this paper

Climate Change Meets the Law of the Horse

The climate change policy debate has only recently turned its full attention to adaptation - how to address the impacts of climate change we have already begun to experience and that will likely increase over time. Legal scholars have in turn begun to explore how the many different fields of law will and should respond. During this nascent period, one overarching question has gone unexamined: how will the legal system as a whole organize around climate change adaptation? Will a new distinct field of climate change adaptation law and policy emerge, or will legal institutions simply work away at the problem through unrelated, duly self-contained fields, as in the famous Law of the Horse? This Article is the first to examine that question comprehensively, to move beyond thinking about the law and climate change adaptation to consider the law of climate change adaptation. Part I of the Article lays out our methodological premises and approach. Using a model we call Stationarity Assessment, Part I explores how legal fields are structured and sustained based on assumptions about the variability of natural, social, and economic conditions, and how disruptions to that regime of variability can lead to the emergence of new fields of law and policy. Case studies of environmental law and environmental justice demonstrate the model’s predictive power for the formation of new distinct legal regimes. Part II applies the Stationarity Assessment model to the topic of climate change adaptation, using a case study of a hypothetical coastal region and the potential for climate change impacts to disrupt relevant legal doctrines and institutions. We find that most fields of law appear capable of adapting effectively to climate change. In other words, without some active intervention, we expect the law and policy of climate change adaptation to follow the path of the Law of the Horse - a collection of fields independently adapting to climate change - rather than organically coalescing into a new distinct field. Part III explores why, notwithstanding this conclusion, it may still be desirable to seek a different trajectory. Focusing on the likelihood of systemic adaptation decisions with perverse, harmful results, we identify the potential benefits offered by intervening to shape a new and distinct field of climate change adaptation law and policy. Part IV then identifies the contours of such a field, exploring the distinct purposes of reducing vulnerability, ensuring resiliency, and safeguarding equity. These features provide the normative policy components for a law of climate change adaptation that would be more than just a Law of the Horse. This new field would not replace or supplant any existing field, however, as environmental law did with regard to nuisance law, and it would not be dominated by substantive doctrine. Rather, like the field of environmental justice, this new legal regime would serve as a holistic overlay across other fields to ensure more efficient, effective, and just climate change adaptation solutions

What Consensus? Ideology, Politics and Elections Still Matter

This article, which was prepared for an ABA Antitrust Section Panel, discusses the role of ideology and politics in antitrust enforcement and the impact of elections in the last twenty year on enforcement and policy at the federal antitrust agencies. The article explains the differences in antitrust ideologies and their impact on policy preferences. The article then uses a database of civil non-merger complaints by the DOJ and FTC over the last three Presidential administrations to analyze changes in the number, type and other characteristics of antitrust enforcement. It also discusses change in vertical merger enforcement and other antirust policies such as amicus briefs, reports and guidelines. The article concludes that elections do matter and that the impact of elections on the DOJ and FTC has differed significantly