17 research outputs found
Intelligent Sensor Networks
In the last decade, wireless or wired sensor networks have attracted much attention. However, most designs target general sensor network issues including protocol stack (routing, MAC, etc.) and security issues. This book focuses on the close integration of sensing, networking, and smart signal processing via machine learning. Based on their world-class research, the authors present the fundamentals of intelligent sensor networks. They cover sensing and sampling, distributed signal processing, and intelligent signal learning. In addition, they present cutting-edge research results from leading experts
Energy Data Analytics for Smart Meter Data
The principal advantage of smart electricity meters is their ability to transfer digitized electricity consumption data to remote processing systems. The data collected by these devices make the realization of many novel use cases possible, providing benefits to electricity providers and customers alike. This book includes 14 research articles that explore and exploit the information content of smart meter data, and provides insights into the realization of new digital solutions and services that support the transition towards a sustainable energy system. This volume has been edited by Andreas Reinhardt, head of the Energy Informatics research group at Technische Universität Clausthal, Germany, and Lucas Pereira, research fellow at Técnico Lisboa, Portugal
Kenya’s changing counterterrorism policy: From the unsecuritization to the securitization of terrorism
This study investigates why Kenya, unlike other states around the world, did not enact anti-terrorism legislation that would have enabled it to have counterterrorism measures in the aftermath of 9/11 and only did so in 2012. Previous studies argue that concerns about the negative effects of anti-terrorism laws on Kenya’s nascent democratic system and its civil liberties were the main reasons why Kenya’s government could not enact proposed anti-terrorism legislation in 2003 and 2006. However, these studies do not explain why those who had previously opposed anti-terrorism legislation supported the enactment of an anti-terrorism law in 2012 even though their views about the importance of civil liberties and democracy had not changed.
Similarly, previous studies which suggest that Kenya enacted anti-terrorism legislation in 2012 because of the detrimental effects of terrorism on the country’s security and economic interests do not explain why these factors did not elicit the same response in 2003 and 2006. Departing from previous studies, this research hypothesises that Kenya’s enactment of counterterrorism measures was dependent on consensus building among the country’s executive and legislative arms of government. To test this hypothesis, this thesis proposed six contextual factors that were used to explain how and why perceptions about the terrorism threat in Kenya developed and changed.
Two methods, discourse analysis and process tracing, were used to establish the relationships between the variables in this study. In this regard, discourse analysis provided rich descriptions of the construction and evolution of the terrorist threat in Kenya. The rich descriptions were initially derived from written texts including the Kenya National Assembly Hansard, policy documents, court documents and public testimonies. The data was then triangulated with descriptions obtained from spoken texts including semi-structured interviews, archival press conferences and media recordings. The recurring linguistic patterns obtained from these descriptions formed the narratives that explained how Kenya’s government framed terrorism and the impact that this had on the enactment of anti-terrorism legislation. Process tracing supplemented discourse analysis by pinpointing the conditions under which the securitization of terrorism occurred.
In addition to unravelling Kenya’s puzzling counterterrorism behaviour, this thesis contributes to knowledge in two ways. First, it identifies and expounds on new variables that explain Kenya’s puzzling counterterrorism behaviour. Second, this thesis extends literature in securitization studies by explaining how contextual factors can be used to understand both unsecuritization and securitization processes
Statehood, sovereignty and identities: exploring policing in Kenya’s informal settlements of Mathare and Kaptembwo
Academic work focusing on Kenya acknowledges that the state does not have a
monopoly in the everyday policing of informal settlements. Nevertheless, there is
limited scholarly focus on relationships between the different policing actors, the
outcome of their interactions, collaborations, contestations, and the implications for
the future of policing in Kenya. Few academics have examined how social categories
intersect and overlap to shape and construct everyday policing practices and
experiences in Kenya. This study seeks to fill these gaps.
Based on twelve months of inductive field research, I explore how the intersection of
multiple social categories shapes ways in which policing actors in Mathare and
Kaptembwo make claims, project power and enact different logics of order which coexist,
overlap and intersect. While other scholars have highlighted the significance of
ethnicity in policing in Kenya, I demonstrate its limitations and instead highlight the
importance of economic status, gender and age in negotiating everyday policing
practices.
Empirically I also analyse how some of the policing nodes are engaged in negotiating
statehood. I unpack in what ways legitimacy and sovereignty are negotiated,
contested, constructed, and reconstructed in Mathare and Kaptembwo. Following this
argument, I acknowledge the power of the political arrangements that we call the
Kenyan state and, at the same time, account for their elusiveness
Transnational conceptions: displacement, maternity, and onward migration among Somalis in Nairobi, Kenya
This thesis provides an anthropological account of the relationship between experiences of
migration and reproduction among Somalis living in Nairobi, Kenya, specifically the complex
relationship between motherhood and migration, and the intricacies of balancing the significance
and consequences of both. Due to their legally ambiguous and often volatile status, many
Somalis did not perceive Kenya as a `durable solution' for settlement, instead locating
themselves within an ongoing process of migration, and as part of a fluid yet highly connected
transnational diaspora. This thesis draws on twenty months of ethnographic fieldwork in
Eastleigh, the `Little Mogadishu' area of Nairobi, with Somali women and their families, as well as medical practitioners, NGOs, UN agencies, and governmental bodies, during which I followed how reproductive decisions were made and medical facilities were navigated within a context of displacement.In this thesis I unpack what it means to exist as a `refugee', `a migrant', and `a Somali' within
Kenya, as well as the significance of living within a global diaspora community. I analyse
(re)creations of `home' through the temporal appropriation of space, as well as the reproduction
of the nation within a context of displacement. I argue that in order to understand how women
experience migration, it is essential to understand how they identify themselves within their own
transnational family and clan networks as women, wives, and mothers. By illuminating how
women protect and act upon their own social positions, this thesis will analyse interwoven
concepts of beauty, morality, and motherhood, with a particular focus on how these were
entwined with perceptions of both Islam and the Somali nation. Finally, a detailed ethnographic
exploration of how women and their families navigated fertility, pregnancy, and childbirth,
while simultaneously accounting for possibilities of onward migration, will shed light on the
body as a site at which matters of kinship, migration and the future were negotiated. Drawing
these issues together, and situating them within medical and political anthropology, this thesis
argues that maternity and motherhood are points at which concepts of kinship, religion,
citizenship, and gender are intricately interwoven and crucially tethered to strategies for onward
migration
The protection and security of vulnerable populations in complex emergencies using the Dadaab refugee camps in the north eastern province of Kenya as a case study
The past two decades has seen a dramatic upheaval in the international world order: the end of the Cold War, the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent 'War on Terror', increased Jihadist activities, the accelerated pace of globalization, climate change and the 2008 global financial crisis have contributed to fear, uncertainty, poverty, conflict, massive displacements of populations of asylum seekers and refugees globally and a proliferation of Protracted Refugee Situations (PRS), defined as situations in which refugees have been in exile 'for 5 years or more after their initial displacement, without immediate prospects for implementation of durable solutions. In the past two decades there has been a huge proliferation of these with more than 7.2 million refugees now trapped in these PRS, with a further 16 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) trapped in camps within their own countries. The Dadaab refugee complex in Kenya, which of as March 2012, holds over 463,000 refugees, is the most significant and extreme example in recent times of a PRS. It was established in 1991 following the collapse of the Somali Government of Dictator Siad Barre, and the disintegration of Somalia into the chaos that still exists today. PRS such as Dadaab raise particular issues about humanitarianism in terms of aid, protection, security, human rights and the actions (or inaction) of the various stakeholders on an international, national and local level. This thesis investigates these issues by the use of a case study methodology on Dadaab as a PRS, framed in the context of humanitarianism and in particular the issues that arise in terms of how the international community, the UN system and individual states provide assistance and protection to vulnerable populations. Although the refugee camps have been in existence (as of 2012) for over 20 years, there has never been such a detailed study of Dadaab (or any other PRS) undertaken to date and would be of interest to academics in the areas of international relations, refugee/migration studies and global Governance as well as practitioners in both humanitarian response and developmen
Track-one diplomacy and post-conflict reconstruction : Kenya's mediation of Somali conflict and strategic intervention avenues
This study focuses on the Kenyan mediation of the Somali conflict and strategic intervention engagement between 2002 and 2012. The core aim of the study was to establish and evaluate the role and effects of track-one diplomacy on conflict management and post-conflict reconstruction as pertains to the Somali conflict and on the basis of the Kenyan experience. A qualitative approach was followed in this study. It employed a descriptive, explanatory and analytical case-study method. The data were collected through interviews and documentary analysis. The twenty-two participants in the study were drawn from the Kenyan Foreign Ministry, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Regional Centre on Small Arms and Light Weapons (RECSA), the International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC), the East African Standby Force Co-ordination Mechanism (EASFCOM), the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), the African Peace Forum Organization (APFO), and selected respondents representing the Somali people. The documents comprised policy treatises, protocols, treaties, and communiqués highlighting the actions of the Kenyan government and other track-one actors in the Somali peace endeavour. Other scholarly research on official diplomacy, soft-power and conflict management by small States – in particular African case studies – were also utilised. The study revealed that Kenya’s diplomatic and stabilisation efforts had their own dynamics and challenges. This is especially so with regard to the preferred policy option of exercising diplomacy that utilises soft-power resources. This diplomacy had to contend with the challenges of dealing with sensitive aspects of the process. These sensitive aspects involved a recognition of and complicated engagement with the Somali conflict-constituencies, and a complex mapping of various actors and their respective interests. Contrary to the expected outcomes, interests and issues 17 proliferated, and the original peace-making agenda was consistently slowed down and complicated. The study also revealed that Kenya ought to have exercised a non-directive role in dealing with the different Somali conflict players. This role provides that such an “interested mediator” ought to exercise some considerable influence over the mediation environment. It also emerged from the study that as pertains to the current peace-making developments in Somalia that began in 2005 onwards to 2012, it is important that different intermediary co-operative roles be recognized and utilised. Towards this end, the study recommends that Kenya’s diplomacy should adopt a strategy of co-operation with those regional regimes that it helped to establish. A case in reference is the diplomatic opportunity of utilising regional arms control and disarmament diplomacy. This is Kenya’s intermediary co-operative role with RECSA, which is mandated to support arms control and disarmament implementation efforts in the East African region. The study also recommends that strategic foreign policy and regional actions by Kenya should be taken up given its new lease of engagement, noting that it was officially integrated into AMISOM in 2012. The study posited that in the ongoing engagement environment there would be a ‘revisiting’ of the experiences and complexities of the first phase of engagement (2002-2004). It is, therefore, recommended that Kenya should seize this opportunity and continue with its ‘facilitative and enabling role’ in its peace diplomacy, while utilising the lessons learnt in past engagements