Reinventing African Chieftaincy in the Age of AIDS, Governance, Gender, and Development

This collection of essays examines the relatively new, and frequently overlooked, political phenomenon in post-colonial Africa of chieftaincy "re-inventing" itself. The traditional authority of chiefs has been one of Africa's missing voices who are now bringing new resources to the challenges that AIDS, gender, governance, and development pose to the peoples of Africa. d This publication presents new research in Ghana, Botswana, and South Africa, providing the broadest geographic African coverage on the topic of African chieftaincy. The nineteen authors, many of them emerging scholars from Africa, are all members of the Traditional Authority Applied Research Network (TAARN). Their essays give critical insight into the transformation processes of chieftaincy from the end of the colonial/apartheid periods to the present. They also examine the realities of male and female traditional leaders in reinventing their legitimacy and their political offices in the age of great social and political unrest, health issues and governance and development challenges

Improved Modeling of Finite-Rate Turbulent Combustion Processes in Research Combustors

The objective of this thesis is to further develop and test a stochastic model of turbulent combustion in recirculating flows. There is a requirement to increase the accuracy of multi-dimensional combustion predictions. As turbulence affects reaction rates, this interaction must be more accurately evaluated. In this work a more physically correct way of handling the interaction of turbulence on combustion is further developed and tested. As turbulence involves randomness, stochastic modeling is used. Averaged values such as temperature and species concentration are found by integrating the probability density function (pdf) over the range of the scalar. The model in this work does not assume the pdf type, but solves for the evolution of the pdf using the Monte Carlo solution technique. The model is further developed by including a more robust reaction solver, by using accurate thermodynamics and by more accurate transport elements. The stochastic method is used with Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked Equations. The SIMPLE method is used to solve for velocity, pressure, turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation. The pdf solver solves for temperature and species concentration. Thus, the method is partially familiar to combustor engineers. The method is compared to benchmark experimental data and baseline calculations. The baseline method was tested on isothermal flows, evaporating sprays and combusting sprays. Pdf and baseline predictions were performed for three diffusion flames and one premixed flame. The pdf method predicted lower combustion rates than the baseline method in agreement with the data, except for the premixed flame. The baseline and stochastic predictions bounded the experimental data for the premixed flame. The use of a continuous mixing model or relax to mean mixing model had little effect on the prediction of average temperature. Two grids were used in a hydrogen diffusion flame simulation. Grid density did not effect the predictions except for peak temperature and tangential velocity. The hybrid pdf method did take longer and required more memory, but has a theoretical basis to extend to many reaction steps which cannot be said of current turbulent combustion models

Artificial general intelligence: Proceedings of the Second Conference on Artificial General Intelligence, AGI 2009, Arlington, Virginia, USA, March 6-9, 2009

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) research focuses on the original and ultimate goal of AI – to create broad human-like and transhuman intelligence, by exploring all available paths, including theoretical and experimental computer science, cognitive science, neuroscience, and innovative interdisciplinary methodologies. Due to the difficulty of this task, for the last few decades the majority of AI researchers have focused on what has been called narrow AI – the production of AI systems displaying intelligence regarding specific, highly constrained tasks. In recent years, however, more and more researchers have recognized the necessity – and feasibility – of returning to the original goals of the field. Increasingly, there is a call for a transition back to confronting the more difficult issues of human level intelligence and more broadly artificial general intelligence

Feminising the peace process : a comparative analysis of women and conflict in the Niger-delta (Nigeria) and KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa)

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.This study starts with the premise that the paucity of women in political leadership positions in society accounts for their absence from the formal peace table. Indeed, as many studies have shown, women are globally marginalized at all levels of public decision-making, and Africa is not left out of this trend. For a continent that is particularly plagued by armed conflict, Africa is generally known for masculinisng the public space including political governance. In this way, women in the continent are formally excluded from peace processes despite not only the roles they play during and after conflict but also their disproportionate vulnerability to the after-effects. Therefore, this study hypothesises that involving women in politics and governance on an equal basis with men would enhance the peace process in conflict-affected societies in Africa. To test this hypothesis, the study investigates the extent to which women’s participation in political processes or governance can enhance peacebuilding in conflict-affected communities using KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and the Niger Delta in Nigeria as case studies. Specifically, it poses the following questions: What is the impact of conflict on women in these study areas, and how does it define the women’s reality with regard to the conflict cycle? How have women responded to conflict and its resolution in these study areas? Will increased political representation of women both in government and decision-making points of the peace machinery enhance the peace process? What societal notions and ideologies under-gird the role perception and construction of women as ‘victims only’ in conflict situations, and which help to fuel their exclusion from peace processes? And what veritable lessons can be learnt from women’s involvement in conflict resolution in these case studies? In grappling with these questions, the study utilises a combination of research methods and approaches in collecting and analysing data from the both secondary and primary sources. For example, it adopts a qualitative method which it combines with feminist research (perspective and practice) and comparative case study approaches. Using the questionnaire and interview instruments, the study relies on data from surveys of 295 women and 4 men drawn from both case studies. In KwaZulu-Natal, an additional 40 students (25 females and 15 males) of the University of KwaZulu-Natal were also surveyed in two focus group discussions. While all data were analysed by content analysis with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), the questionnaire survey data were further subjected to statistical analysis (Chi Square and Logistic Regression Analysis) to test for the significance of the variables that could explain the perception that more women in politics would enhance peace building. Mainly, the study found out that just as women are victims of armed conflict, they are also agents of peace. Second, women often articulate conflict and peace in different ways to men based on the ethic of care which defines their femininity. Third, women are active peace agents (as reconcilers and community builders) at the informal levels in their communities and they can be used for reconciliatory roles in the peace process – that is to break down gender dualism which perpetuates conflict. Fourth, in partnership with men, women make peace building more effective than if there are few or no women. Therefore, there is a need to mainstream women into politics on an equal basis with men, and men need to be carried vi along in this project. Fifth, given the failure of male dominated politics to prevent and manage violent conflict, women need to be encouraged to come into politics as women so that they can bring their own values to bear. Finally, based on statistical analysis, some of the positive predictors of the characteristics of women which suggest that more women in politics would enhance peace-building include marital status, education and place of interview (context). The study also explores some theoretical considerations for feminising peace-building. These include the human security paradigm, the human factor paradigm and John Lederach’s moral imagination model of peace building. The relationship between these paradigms/models and peace building is located in their emphasis on the importance of the human agency in peace building discourse and action. For instance, while the human security paradigm emphasises the significance of factoring people into the security, peace and development calculus, both the human factor and moral imagination paradigms underscore the fact that the quality of the people that can make the difference between violent conflict and peace matters. For example, while positive human factor qualities such as integrity, accountability, selflessness and truthfulness can create a fertile environment for good governance and development, from a moral imagination perspective, relatedness, collaboration, love, empathy and tolerance are necessary and sufficient factors for creating a fertile environment for peace building. From a critical survey of literature on women, politics and peace building in pre-colonial African societies, this study found that women in Africa generally embody positive human factor traits and moral imagination capacities which reinforced the high moral authority society accorded them. Oftentimes, women drew on this moral authority, which was based on the ethics of care that defined their femininity, to exert themselves politically, economically and socially. For instance, they leveraged on this moral authority to assume peacemaking and peace building roles by mediating in intra-community and inter-community conflicts, educating children to value peaceful co-existence and, frequently, carried out peace sacrifices and purification/cleansing rites to reintegrate their warriors into civil society. Based on this, and the practical illustrations/stories of women’s peace agency in parts of post-colonial Africa, this study contends that the values they represent can be appropriated and developed into an African feminist ethic of peace which can be utilised as both a conflict-prevention and post-conflict reconstruction model in other conflict-prone areas of the continent. However, the potential of women’s peace agency is clogged by their exclusion (by both men and women themselves) from the peace processes of their communities and nation-states, and this is perpetuated by the political marginalisation of women. Therefore, based on the finding that women (in partnership with men) make peace building more effective than if there are few or no women, the study makes a number of recommendations which are in line with the mandate of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. These include: African states should enact constitutionally guaranteed electoral laws and policies to enable women to appropriate their own political spaces. Second, the peace process should be engendered in ways that will enable women to continue to play traditional reconciliatory roles especially at the grass root level. Third, because men remain critical to the gender equality project, they should be carried along through re- enlightenment that will make them see women empowerment as an African renaissance rather than as a western imposition. In the same vein, re-socialising men to assume co-parenting responsibilities will help deconstruct the basis of patriarchy in society and in the process enthrone a new kind of civilisation. This is imperative considering that gender equality in private and public life is both a necessary and sufficient factor for peace building

The 1995 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Information Technologies

This publication comprises the papers presented at the 1995 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Information Technologies held at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, on May 9-11, 1995. The purpose of this annual conference is to provide a forum in which current research and development directed at space applications of artificial intelligence can be presented and discussed

1991 January

MSU Clip Sheet newsletters published in January of 1991

The Hilltop 2-28-1992

This document created through a generous donation of Mr. Paul Cottonhttps://dh.howard.edu/hilltop_902000/1046/thumbnail.jp