Smart & sustainable cities

The University of Strathclyde is creating a new Institute for Future Cities that aims to improve the quality of human life across the world through innovative research that enables cities to be understood in new ways, and innovative approaches to be developed for the way we live, work, learn and invest in cities. The new Institute will create a focus and strategy to coordinate academic research on urban themes, and partnerships with cities, businesses, research institutions and governments across the world. This paper outlines the wider context and issues for urban policy and research, and describes some of the key objectives and activities of the Institute for Future Cities - including the €3.7 million EU FP7 STEP UP project on sustainable city planning and implementation, a new ESRC research programme on crime prediction, and the City Observatory within the £24 million TSB Future City Demonstrator in Glasgow

Generalized decomposition and cross entropy methods for many-objective optimization

Decomposition-based algorithms for multi-objective optimization problems have increased in popularity in the past decade. Although their convergence to the Pareto optimal front (PF) is in several instances superior to that of Pareto-based algorithms, the problem of selecting a way to distribute or guide these solutions in a high-dimensional space has not been explored. In this work, we introduce a novel concept which we call generalized decomposition. Generalized decomposition provides a framework with which the decision maker (DM) can guide the underlying evolutionary algorithm toward specific regions of interest or the entire Pareto front with the desired distribution of Pareto optimal solutions. Additionally, it is shown that generalized decomposition simplifies many-objective problems by unifying the three performance objectives of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms – convergence to the PF, evenly distributed Pareto optimal solutions and coverage of the entire front – to only one, that of convergence. A framework, established on generalized decomposition, and an estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) based on low-order statistics, namely the cross-entropy method (CE), is created to illustrate the benefits of the proposed concept for many objective problems. This choice of EDA also enables the test of the hypothesis that low-order statistics based EDAs can have comparable performance to more elaborate EDAs

The reasonable expectation of privacy and the criminal suspect

In In re JR38, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed an appeal from a 14 year-old boy who argued that the dissemination of his image, taken whilst he was participating in sectarian rioting, to local newspapers, violated his rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). However, the Court was divided on whether or not the measures taken by the police engaged the applicant's Article 8(1) rights at all. This case raises fundamental questions as to the scope of private life in the context of criminal investigations, and the place of the European Court of Human Rights’ ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ test in determining whether Article 8(1) of the ECHR is engaged. This case comment subjects the majority's interpretation of Article 8(1) to critical scrutiny, concluding that this interpretation may unduly restrict the scope of Article 8 protection for those subject to criminal investigations

Article 8 and the Retention of Non-Conviction DNA and Fingerprint Data in England and Wales

This article considers the current approach to the retention of DNA and fingerprint data taken from non-convicted persons in England and Wales. Concerns are raised about the precautionary rather than proportionate approach of domestic legislators in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 provisions, and the continued unjustifiable interference this causes to the rights of such persons under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)

Non-conviction Disclosure as Part of an Enhanced Criminal Record Certificate:Assessing the Legal Framework from a Fundamental Human Rights Perspective

This article critically appraises the law governing non-conviction information disclosure as part of an enhanced criminal record certificate (ECRC) from a fundamental human rights perspective

‘Paedophile Hunters’, Criminal Procedure and Fundamental Human Rights

‘Paedophile hunters’ have attracted global media attention. The limited literature on paedophile hunters, which documents their emergence in contemporary liberal democracies, pays scant attention to how their use of intrusive investigative methods may threaten the procedural rights of suspects and undermine the integrity of the criminal justice system. This article fills this normative ‘gap’ in the literature. It draws upon media coverage, criminal procedure jurisprudence, and criminological scholarship to analyse the regulation of paedophile hunting in English and Welsh law. The article suggests that domestic law does not afford adequate protection to due process and the fundamental human rights of those falling under the paedophile hunter's purview. Unless paedophile hunting is constrained by a narrower and more robustly enforced regulatory regime, it should not be permitted, let alone encouraged, in contemporary liberal democracies

Privacy, Crime Control and Police Use of Automated Facial Recognition Technology

This paper discusses the police use of automated facial recognition technology (FRT) as a tool of crime control and public space surveillance. It considers the legality of the police use of FRT in England and Wales, with particular reference to the fundamental rights of those who have been subject to criminal process. Drawing on relevant privacy and criminal law scholarship, this paper argues that inadequate protection has been afforded to the privacy rights, and other human rights of those subject to police FRT surveillance in public spaces in England and Wales. We therefore suggest that, if FRT is to be deployed in future, a narrower and more prescribed legal framework is necessary

Safeguarding privacy from criminal process

This thesis focuses on the privacy interests of those subject to a criminal process. The thesis investigates the extent to which the privacy interests of those subject to such a process are recognised and afforded adequate protection in England and Wales. Over the last thirty years policing has become increasingly proactive and preventive. Advances in technology have given rise to new policing strategies, which emphasise the need to manage ‘risky’ groups and individuals through the collection and retention of disparate pieces of personal information. Whilst there is a significant body of criminological literature documenting this trend, and raising the possibility that these developments could pose a threat to the privacy interests of those subject to such preventive policing measures, criminological theorising alone cannot provide a defensible normative model for assessing the impact of such developments. Moreover, criminal procedure scholarship tends to focus on human rights insofar as they regulate adjudicatory policing measures geared towards the prosecution of suspected offenders. This procedural scholarship does not focus centrally on the wider functions of the police in maintaining order and protecting the public by gathering intelligence on ‘risky’ individuals and groups. This thesis aims to fill this gap in the literature through an assessment of how such policing activities set back privacy related rights. An interdisciplinary method is used, which draws on philosophical literature, European and domestic human rights and criminal procedure jurisprudence, and relevant policing and criminal justice scholarship. The first broad task for the thesis is to develop a normatively defensible model which can identify where privacy interests are set back as part of a criminal process, and articulate why it is important for those tasked with regulating such a process to recognise and appropriately protect these interests. This normative model is then used to assess English law’s response in different contexts to the police use of privacy interfering measures against those subject to the criminal process. It is noted that the European Court of Human Right’s Article 8 jurisprudence has (generally speaking) had a positive impact on English law in this area, but concerns are raised that domestic lawmakers consistently fail to strike a fair balance between the privacy interests of those subject to a criminal process and the legitimate crime prevention goals of the police

Multi-objective evolutionary–fuzzy augmented flight control for an F16 aircraft

In this article, the multi-objective design of a fuzzy logic augmented flight controller for a high performance fighter jet (the Lockheed-Martin F16) is described. A fuzzy logic controller is designed and its membership functions tuned by genetic algorithms in order to design a roll, pitch, and yaw flight controller with enhanced manoeuverability which still retains safety critical operation when combined with a standard inner-loop stabilizing controller. The controller is assessed in terms of pilot effort and thus reduction of pilot fatigue. The controller is incorporated into a six degree of freedom motion base real-time flight simulator, and flight tested by a qualified pilot instructor