A multiple-control fuzzy vault

We introduce multiple-control fuzzy vaults allowing generalised threshold, compartmented and multilevel access structure. The presented schemes enable many useful applications employing multiple users and/or multiple locking sets. Introducing the original single control fuzzy vault of Juels and Sudan we identify several similarities and differences between their vault and secret sharing schemes which influence how best to obtain working generalisations. We design multiple-control fuzzy vaults suggesting applications using biometric credentials as locking and unlocking values. Furthermore we assess the security of our obtained generalisations for insider/ outsider attacks and examine the access-complexity for legitimate vault owners.

The geostationary orbit : a critical legal geography of space’s most valuable real estate

This chapter attends to the legal and political geographies of one of Earth's most important, valuable, and pressured spaces: the geostationary orbit. Since the first, NASA, satellite entered it in 1964, this small, defined band of Outer Space, 35,786km from the Earth's surface, and only 30km wide, has become a highly charged legal and geopolitical environment, yet it remains a space which is curiously unheard of outside of specialist circles. For the thousands of satellites which now underpin the Earth's communication, media, and data industries and flows, the geostationary orbit is the prime position in Space. The geostationary orbit only has the physical capacity to hold approximately 1500 satellites; in 1997 there were approximately 1000. It is no overstatement to assert that media, communication, and data industries would not be what they are today if it was not for the geostationary orbit. This chapter provides a critical legal geography of the geostationary orbit, charting the topography of the debates and struggles to define and manage this highly-important space. Drawing on key legal documents such as the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty, the chapter addresses fundamental questions about the legal geography of the orbit, questions which are of growing importance as the orbit’s available satellite spaces diminish and the orbit comes under increasing pressure. Who owns the geostationary orbit? Who, and whose rules, govern what may or may not (literally) take place within it? Who decides which satellites can occupy the orbit? Is the geostationary orbit the sovereign property of the equatorial states it supertends, as these states argued in the 1970s? Or is it a part of the res communis, or common property of humanity, which currently legally characterises Outer Space? As challenges to the existing legal spatiality of the orbit from launch states, companies, and potential launch states, it is particularly critical that the current spatiality of the orbit is understood and considered. One of the busiest areas of Outer Space’s spatiality is international territorial law. Mentions of Space law tend to evoke incredulity and ‘little green men’ jokes, but as Space becomes busier and busier, international Space law is growing in complexity and importance. The chapter draws on two key fields of research: cultural geography, and critical legal geography. The chapter is framed by the cultural geographical concept of ‘spatiality’, a term which signals the multiple and dynamic nature of geographical space. As spatial theorists such as Henri Lefebvre assert, a space is never simply physical; rather, any space is always a jostling composite of material, imagined, and practiced geographies (Lefebvre 1991). The ways in which a culture perceives, represents, and legislates that space are as constitutive of its identity--its spatiality--as the physical topography of the ground itself. The second field in which this chapter is situated—critical legal geography—derives from cultural geography’s focus on the cultural construction of spatiality. In his Law, Space and the Geographies of Power (1994), Nicholas Blomley asserts that analyses of territorial law largely neglect the spatial dimension of their investigations; rather than seeing the law as a force that produces specific kinds of spaces, they tend to position space as a neutral, universally-legible entity which is neatly governed by the equally neutral 'external variable' of territorial law (28). 'In the hegemonic conception of the law,' Pue similarly argues, 'the entire world is transmuted into one vast isotropic surface' (1990: 568) on which law simply acts. But as the emerging field of critical legal geography demonstrates, law is not a neutral organiser of space, but is instead a powerful cultural technology of spatial production. Or as Delaney states, legal debates are “episodes in the social production of space” (2001, p. 494). International territorial law, in other words, makes space, and does not simply govern it. Drawing on these tenets of the field of critical legal geography, as well as on Lefebvrian concept of multipartite spatiality, this chapter does two things. First, it extends the field of critical legal geography into Space, a domain with which the field has yet to substantially engage. Second, it demonstrates that the legal spatiality of the geostationary orbit is both complex and contested, and argues that it is crucial that we understand this dynamic legal space on which the Earth’s communications systems rely.

From "Secondary Punishment" to "Supermax" : the human costs of high-security regimes in Australia

“Supermax” prisons, conceived by the United States in the early 1980s, are typically reserved for convicted political criminals such as terrorists and spies and for other inmates who are considered to pose a serious ongoing threat to the wider community, to the security of correctional institutions, or to the safety of other inmates. Prisoners are usually restricted to their cells for up to twenty-three hours a day and typically have minimal contact with other inmates and correctional staff. Not only does the Federal Bureau of Prisons operate one of these facilities, but almost every state has either a supermax wing or stand-alone supermax prison. The Globalization of Supermax Prisons examines why nine advanced industrialized countries have adopted the supermax prototype, paying particular attention to the economic, social, and political processes that have affected each state. Featuring essays that look at the U.S.-run prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantanemo, this collection seeks to determine if the American model is the basis for the establishment of these facilities and considers such issues as the support or opposition to the building of a supermax and why opposition efforts failed; the allegation of human rights abuses within these prisons; and the extent to which the decision to build a supermax was influenced by developments in the United States. Additionally, contributors address such domestic matters as the role of crime rates, media sensationalism, and terrorism in each country’s decision to build a supermax prison.

Lifecycle optimization and tradeoff analysis among competing objectives for a road corridor

While the philosophical motivation behind Civil Infrastructure Management Systems is to achieve optimal level of service at a minimum cost, the allocation of scarce resources among competing alternatives is still a matter of debate. It appears to be widely accepted that results from tradeoff analysis can be measured by the degree of accomplishment of the objectives. Road management systems not only deal with different asset types but also with conflicting objectives. This paper presents a case study of lifecycle optimization with tradeoff analysis for a road corridor in New Brunswick. Objectives of the study included condition of bridge and roads and road safety. A road safety index was created based on potential for improvement. Road condition was based on roughness, rutting and cracking. Initial results show lack of sustainability in bridge performance. Therefore, bridges where broken by components: deck, superstructure and substructure. Visual inspections, in addition to construction age of each bridge, were combined to generate a surrogate apparent age. Two life cycle analysis were conducted; one aimed to minimize overall cost while achieving sustainable results and another one purely for optimization. -used to identify required levels of budget. Such analyses were used to identify the minimum required budget and to demonstrate that with the same amount of money it was possible to achieve better levels of performance. Dominance and performance driven criteria were combined to identify and select an optimal result. It was found that achievement of optimally sustained results is conditioned by the availability of treatments for all asset classes at across their life spans. For the case study a disaggregated bridge condition index was introduced to the original algorithm to attempt to achieve sustainability in all bridges components, however lack of early stage treatments for substructures produce declining trends for such a component.

Pavement management: Capturing surface treatment effectiveness

Acquiring detailed knowledge of surface treatments effectiveness is required to improve performance-based decisions for allocating resources to preserve and maintain pavements on any road network. Measurement of treatment effectiveness is a complex task that requires historical records of treatments with observations of before and after performance trends. Lack of data is often an obstacle that impedes development and incorporation of surface maintenance treatments into pavement management. This paper analyzes the effect of surface treatments on asphalt paved arterial roads for several control sections of New Brunswick. The method uses a Transition Probability Matrix to capture main effects by mapping mean trends of surface improvement and pavement structure decay. It was found that surface treatments have an immediate effect reducing the rate of loss of structural capacity. Pavements with international roughness index (IRI) smaller than 1.4 m/km did not seem to benefit from surface treatments. Those with IRI higher than 1.66 m/km gained from 6 to 8 years of additional life. Reset value for surface treatments fall between 1.18 and 1.29 m/km. This paper aims to serve to practitioners seeking to capture and incorporate effectiveness of surface treatments (i.e., crack-sealing) into Pavement Management.

New dimeric supramolecular structure of mixed (phthalocyaninato)(porphyrinato)-europium(III) sandwiches : preparation and spectroscopic characteristics

The mixed double-decker Eu\[Pc(15C5)4](TPP) (1) was obtained by base-catalysed tetramerisation of 4,5-dicyanobenzo-15-crown-5 using the half-sandwich complex Eu(TPP)(acac) (acac = acetylacetonate), generated in situ, as the template. For comparative studies, the mixed triple-decker complexes Eu2\[Pc(15C5)4](TPP)2 (2) and Eu2\[Pc(15C5)4]2(TPP) (3) were also synthesised by the raise-by-one-story method. These mixed ring sandwich complexes were characterised by various spectroscopic methods. Up to four one-electron oxidations and two one-electron reductions were revealed by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). As shown by electronic absorption and infrared spectroscopy, supramolecular dimers (SM1 and SM3) were formed from the corresponding double-decker 1 and triple-decker 3 in the presence of potassium ions in MeOH/CHCl3.

Disorderly categories in picture postcards from colonial Papua and New Guinea

At the turn of the century in Melbourne, a notice typed on the verso of a postcard stated that the South Yarra Baptist Young Men's class was meeting on the following Sunday at 2.45 p.m. The card, published in the United Kingdom, was numbered 51828 in the Valentine series of Papuan postcards.1 The image, a photograph of Hanuabada village taken in the early 1880s, and the text, written early in 1900, are contradictory and constitute separate realms of evidence that invite a renegotiation of meaning, analysis, and interpretation of the relationships between images, tourism, colonial rule, and ethnographic knowing. The visual evidence suggests the postcard may have played an ethnographic, educative role in the public understanding of Papua, which had just become an Australian Territory and was not yet well known. It is also suggestive of educative roles related to mission endeavours, subimperialist ambitions and the new tourist traffic through the ports of Port Moresby, Samarai, and Rabaul.

A new low temperature synthesis route of fraipontite (Zn,Al)3(Si,Al)2O5(OH)4

A low temperature synthesis method based on the decomposition of urea at 90°C in water has been developed to synthesise fraipontite. This material is characterised by a basal reflection 001 at 7.44 Å. The trioctahedral nature of the fraipontite is shown by the presence of a 06l band around 1.54 Å, while a minor band around 1.51 Å indicates some cation ordering between Zn and Al resulting in Al-rich areas with a more dioctahedral nature. TEM and IR indicate that no separate kaolinite phase is present. An increase in the Al content however, did result in the formation of some SiO2 in the form of quartz. Minor impurities of carbonate salts were observed during the synthesis caused by to the formation of CO32- during the decomposition of urea.