Policing, Terrorism and the Conundrum of 'Community': A Northern Ireland Perspective

The book chapter examines the conundrums and contradictions for PSNI in delivering their community policing agenda within a post-conflict environment which simultaneously demands the delivery of counter-terrorism policing in view of the current dissident terrorist threat.

Cooperative Mapping and Exploration using Counter-rotational Potential Fields

This paper presents a novel technique for mapping and exploration using cooperating autonomous underwater vehicles. Rather than using the typical lawnmower sweep pattern to search an entire area, the proposed navigational plan involves guiding the formation directly towards each object of interest in turn, before arriving at a final goal position. This is achieved by the use of traditional artificial potential fields alongside counter-rotational potential fields. These clockwise and counter-clockwise fields are employed simultaneously by vehicles to ensure that the entire object is scanned rather than simply avoided as is the case with traditional collision avoidance techniques. The proposed methodology allows a formation to have fluid-like motion whilst a separation distance between cooperating agents (free of angular constraints) is maintained with a greater degree of flexibility than traditional formation control approaches. Owing to its nature, this technique is suited for applications such as exploration, mapping and underwater inspection to name a few. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach.

The Future Study of Terrorism

This article reflects on the central problems to be faced over the next fifty years of the academic study of terrorism. It discusses a series of problems that are sometimes raised(regarding definition, the division between Critical Terrorism Studies and Orthodox Terrorism Studies, and the supposed stagnation in contemporary terrorism research), and argues that these present rather limited difficulties, in reality. It then identifies a greater problem, in the form of a five-fold fragmentation of the current field, before offering suggested 2 means of addressing in practice these latter, more profound difficulties.