An adaptive linear equalizer with optimum filter length and decision delay

The power of an adaptive equalizer is maximized when the structural parameters including the tap-length and decision delay can be optimally chosen. Although the method for adjusting either the tap-length or decision delay has been proposed, adjusting both simultaneously becomes much more involved as they interact with each other. In this paper, this problem is solved by putting a linear prewhitener before the equalizer, with which the equivalent channel becomes maximum-phase. This implies that the optimum decision delay can be simply ¯xed at the tap-length minus one, while the tap-length can then be chosen using a similar approach as that proposed in our previous work.

The impact on housing supply in England of planning delay and uncertainty

The time taken to consider development proposals within the English planning system continues to provoke great policy concern despite a decade of inquiry and policy change. The results of an extensive site-based survey and hedonic modelling exercise across 45 local authorities are reported here. The analysis reveals a slow, uncertain system. It identifies planning delay as a serious problem for housing supply and its ability to respond to increases in demand. Only a relatively limited set of factors seem relevant in explaining differences in times and the results suggest that 80% of councils’ performances are statistically indistinguishable from each other. These findings question the policy emphasis put on rankings of local authorities, though some influence from local politics is apparent. Development control is consistently a lengthy and uncertain process due to its complexity. Therefore, success in lowering planning delay is only likely through radical simplification.

Housing supply and planning delay in the South of England

There is growing international interest in the impact of regulatory controls on the supply of housing The UK has a particularly restrictive planning regime and a detailed and uncertain process of development control linked to it. This paper presents the findings of empirical research on the time taken to gain planning permission for selected recent major housing projects from a sample of local authorities in southern England. The scale of delay found was far greater than is indicated by average official data measuring the extent to which local authorities meet planning delay targets. If these results are representative of the country as a whole, they indicate that planning delay could be a major cause of the slow responsiveness of British housing supply.

Planning delay and the responsiveness of English housing supply

There is growing international interest in the impact of regulatory controls on the supply of housing. Most research focuses on the supply impacts of prescribed limits on land use but housing supply may also be affected by the process of planning monitoring and approval but this is hard to measure in detail. The UK has a particularly restrictive planning regime and a detailed and uncertain process of development control linked to it, but does offer the opportunity of detailed site-based investigation of planning delay. This paper presents the findings of empirical research on the time taken to gain planning permission for selected recent major housing projects in southern England. The scale of delay found was far greater than is indicated by average official data measuring the extent to which local authorities meet planning delay targets. Hedonic modelling indicated that there is considerable variation in the time it takes local authorities to process planning applications. Housing association developments are processed more quickly than those of large developers and small sites appear to be particularly time-intensive. These results suggest that delays in development control may be a significant contributory factor to the low responsiveness of UK housing supply to upturns in market activity.

The margin of appreciation, domestic irregularity and domestic court rulings in ECHR environmental jurisprudence: Global legal pluralism in action

Global legal pluralism is concerned, inter alia, with the growing multiplicity of normative legal orders and the ways in which these different orders intersect and are accommodated with one another. The different means used for accommodation will have a critical bearing on how individuals fare within them. This article examines the recent environmental jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights to explore some of the means of reaching an accommodation between national legal orders and the European Convention. Certain types of accommodation – such as the margin of appreciation given to states by the Court – are well known. In essence, such mechanisms of legal pluralism raise a presumptive barrier which generally works for the state and against the individual rights-bearer. However, the principal focus of the current article is on a less well-known, recent set of pluralistic devices employed by the Court, which typically operate presumptively in the other direction, in favour of the individual. First, the Court looks to instances of breaches of domestic environmental law (albeit not in isolation); and second, it places an emphasis on whether domestic courts have ruled against the relevant activity. Where domestic standards have been breached or national courts have ruled against the state, then, presumptive weight is typically shifted towards the individual.