American Leadership and Grand Strategy in an Age of Complexity. Egmont Security Policy Brief No. 106

Many voices challenge the values and norms of the international order. If the United States seeks to maintain a relative advantage over its rivals, the rules have to be rewritten and the global system reshaped. In this sense the diagnosis of the Trump administration is partially correct – but the instruments that President Trump uses are faulty

Belgium and Counterterrorism Policy in the Jihadi Era (1986-2007)

This Egmont Paper explores how Belgium reacted to the growth of this new form of terrorism from its early signs in the 1980s until today. Next, it analyses the measures taken by the Belgian law enforcement apparatus since 9/11. Finally, it assesses Belgian specificities in combating jihadi terrorism

Towards Ultra-Low-Latency mmWave Wi-Fi for Multi-User Interactive Virtual Reality

The need for cables with high-fidelity Virtual Reality (VR) headsets remains a stumbling block on the path towards interactive multi-user VR. Due to strict latency constraints, designing fully wireless headsets is challenging, with the few commercially available solutions being expensive. These solutions use proprietary millimeter wave (mmWave) communications technologies, as extremely high frequencies are needed to meet the throughput and latency requirements of VR applications. In this work, we investigate whether such a system could be built using specification-compliant IEEE 802.11ad hardware, which would significantly reduce the cost of wireless mmWave VR solutions. We present a theoretical framework to calculate attainable live VR video bitrates for different IEEE 802.11ad channel access methods, using 1 or more head-mounted displays connected to a single Access Point (AP). Using the ns-3 simulator, we validate our theoretical framework, and demonstrate that a properly configured IEEE 802.11ad AP can support at least 8 headsets receiving a 4K video stream for each eye, with transmission latency under 1 millisecond.Comment: Published at 2020 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM

Short-Term Trajectory Prediction for Full-Immersive Multiuser Virtual Reality with Redirected Walking

Full-immersive multiuser Virtual Reality (VR) envisions supporting unconstrained mobility of the users in the virtual worlds, while at the same time constraining their physical movements inside VR setups through redirected walking. For enabling delivery of high data rate video content in real-time, the supporting wireless networks will leverage highly directional communication links that will "track" the users for maintaining the Line-of-Sight (LoS) connectivity. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) and in particular Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks have historically presented themselves as a suitable candidate for near-term movement trajectory prediction for natural human mobility, and have also recently been shown as applicable in predicting VR users' mobility under the constraints of redirected walking. In this work, we extend these initial findings by showing that Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) networks, another candidate from the RNN family, generally outperform the traditionally utilized LSTMs. Second, we show that context from a virtual world can enhance the accuracy of the prediction if used as an additional input feature in comparison to the more traditional utilization of solely the historical physical movements of the VR users. Finally, we show that the prediction system trained on a static number of coexisting VR users be scaled to a multi-user system without significant accuracy degradation.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

CAN DENIAL OF PREGNANCY BE A DENIAL OF FERTILITY? A CASE DISCUSSION

Background: For many years, several cases of neonaticide resulting from a denial of pregnancy were reported in the press. Recently, a case of neonaticide made headlines in Belgium: a woman realised that she was pregnant during childbirth. A few minutes after the delivery, the baby was asphyxiated to death. In the obstetric history of the patient, we note six pregnancies, of which three births were given to anonymous adoption. Mrs D. was not able to explain why she was not using any method of contraception despite all of her pregnancies. Many questions need to be asked in order to further understand denial of pregnancy. Do these women understand the link between sexual intercourse and the potential of pregnancy? Which women are more at risk of denying their pregnancy? Is there a certain personality profile at risk? Methods: In the following article, we report the case of Mrs D. who presented to the consultation of the clinic of CHU Mont- Godinne (Belgium). We will also discuss the literature available on the online databases (PubMed, PsycArticles, PsycInfo and Cairn.info) using the following keywords: denial of pregnancy, neonaticide, contraception. Results: In the results of retrospective studies, we notice that indeed most women who have had a denial of pregnancy were not using any method of contraception. This observation suggests the hypothesis of a denial of fertility in these women. In addition, it appears that a specific personality profile is very difficult to establish, due to the lack of sufficient data and due to the discrepancy of the results concerning these women, especially in the matters of age and socio-economic status. However we can note that some psychological characteristics are similar. Conclusions: The denial of pregnancy is a complex mechanism, which still raises many questions in the clinical setting and in matters of etiopathogenesis. In these patients, we note that denial is a defense mechanism regularly used, even in other aspects of their lives. Moreover, the frequent non-use of contraceptive method might therefore be more in favor of a denial of fertility than of a denial of pregnancy

CAN DENIAL OF PREGNANCY BE A DENIAL OF FERTILITY? A CASE DISCUSSION

Background: For many years, several cases of neonaticide resulting from a denial of pregnancy were reported in the press. Recently, a case of neonaticide made headlines in Belgium: a woman realised that she was pregnant during childbirth. A few minutes after the delivery, the baby was asphyxiated to death. In the obstetric history of the patient, we note six pregnancies, of which three births were given to anonymous adoption. Mrs D. was not able to explain why she was not using any method of contraception despite all of her pregnancies. Many questions need to be asked in order to further understand denial of pregnancy. Do these women understand the link between sexual intercourse and the potential of pregnancy? Which women are more at risk of denying their pregnancy? Is there a certain personality profile at risk? Methods: In the following article, we report the case of Mrs D. who presented to the consultation of the clinic of CHU Mont- Godinne (Belgium). We will also discuss the literature available on the online databases (PubMed, PsycArticles, PsycInfo and Cairn.info) using the following keywords: denial of pregnancy, neonaticide, contraception. Results: In the results of retrospective studies, we notice that indeed most women who have had a denial of pregnancy were not using any method of contraception. This observation suggests the hypothesis of a denial of fertility in these women. In addition, it appears that a specific personality profile is very difficult to establish, due to the lack of sufficient data and due to the discrepancy of the results concerning these women, especially in the matters of age and socio-economic status. However we can note that some psychological characteristics are similar. Conclusions: The denial of pregnancy is a complex mechanism, which still raises many questions in the clinical setting and in matters of etiopathogenesis. In these patients, we note that denial is a defense mechanism regularly used, even in other aspects of their lives. Moreover, the frequent non-use of contraceptive method might therefore be more in favor of a denial of fertility than of a denial of pregnancy