The Role of the State in Development: A Case Study of Food Security and Vulnerability among Beneficiaries of India's Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS)

This thesis discusses the role for states and centralised government policies in development intervention. The topic is explored through a case study of India’s Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), a large-scale government intervention to enhance food security among India’s poorest households. The central questions of the study were, firstly, which function TPDS serves in the lives of beneficiary households in terms of food security and vulnerability, and secondly, what the study of TPDS can tell about the potential of government programmes in contributing to community development. Qualitative fieldwork was conducted in two districts in the Indian state Odisha through observations, interviews and conversations with beneficiaries, project implementers and government officials. The findings suggest that TPDS – despite being flawed with corruption and targeting errors – is bringing a certain level of food security and resilience to beneficiary households. It is found that the boundaries between the state and society become blurred in the delivery of TPDS and that embedded relations between implementers and beneficiaries contribute to basic needs being met at the household level. Following from this, the thesis argues in favour of a central role for the state in development, while also emphasising the need for society cooperation and involvement

Let’s play at the library: Creating innovative play experiences for babies and toddlers

Young children build an understanding of their world through play. Play starts in infancy and continues to evolve as children develop. Research shows strong links between play and early literacy, as well as other key developmental skills. This paper reviews what very young children learn through play, as well as optimal adult interactions that best support early literacy development. It looks at certain barriers to play and addresses what impedes parents and caregivers from being present and responsive during their children’s play. At Brooklyn Public Library the authors have developed a play-based curriculum for babies and toddlers, which the paper describes, including suggested play activities and practical tips for setting up “play stations” in traditional storytime programs or in full-scale play events. Finally, the authors share examples of how librarians throughout the United States are implementing innovative play programming for babies and toddlers

Quality of media traffic over Lossy internet protocol networks: Measurement and improvement.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an active area of research in the world of communication. The high revenue made by the telecommunication companies is a motivation to develop solutions that transmit voice over other media rather than the traditional, circuit switching network. However, while IP networks can carry data traffic very well due to their besteffort nature, they are not designed to carry real-time applications such as voice. As such several degradations can happen to the speech signal before it reaches its destination. Therefore, it is important for legal, commercial, and technical reasons to measure the quality of VoIP applications accurately and non-intrusively. Several methods were proposed to measure the speech quality: some of these methods are subjective, others are intrusive-based while others are non-intrusive. One of the non-intrusive methods for measuring the speech quality is the E-model standardised by the International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardisation Sector (ITU-T). Although the E-model is a non-intrusive method for measuring the speech quality, but it depends on the time-consuming, expensive and hard to conduct subjective tests to calibrate its parameters, consequently it is applicable to a limited number of conditions and speech coders. Also, it is less accurate than the intrusive methods such as Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ) because it does not consider the contents of the received signal. In this thesis an approach to extend the E-model based on PESQ is proposed. Using this method the E-model can be extended to new network conditions and applied to new speech coders without the need for the subjective tests. The modified E-model calibrated using PESQ is compared with the E-model calibrated using i ii subjective tests to prove its effectiveness. During the above extension the relation between quality estimation using the E-model and PESQ is investigated and a correction formula is proposed to correct the deviation in speech quality estimation. Another extension to the E-model to improve its accuracy in comparison with the PESQ looks into the content of the degraded signal and classifies packet loss into either Voiced or Unvoiced based on the received surrounding packets. The accuracy of the proposed method is evaluated by comparing the estimation of the new method that takes packet class into consideration with the measurement provided by PESQ as a more accurate, intrusive method for measuring the speech quality. The above two extensions for quality estimation of the E-model are combined to offer a method for estimating the quality of VoIP applications accurately, nonintrusively without the need for the time-consuming, expensive, and hard to conduct subjective tests. Finally, the applicability of the E-model or the modified E-model in measuring the quality of services in Service Oriented Computing (SOC) is illustrated

Power to the People: Libraries as Third Spaces for Civic Dialogue and Collaborative Empowerment

The United States is experiencing deep divisions and lack of political will to address inequities impacting people’s lives. Pathways to convergence are needed to build bridges amongst community members for solidarity and community action to address these. Civic dialogue in Third Spaces is a method for cultivating understanding across differences to make change possible. Public libraries possess democratic missions committed to equitable access to resources, open exchange of ideas, and self-empowerment. Public librarians facilitate civic dialogue and engagement; little scholarly attention is given to their efforts. This project brought together public librarians interested in civic dialogue to explore understandings of public librarianship in the context of Democratic Professionalism through concepts of social capital and Third Space. Through collaborative activities assessing library assets, their connection to cultivating Third Spaces and social capital, and a World Café dialogue simulation, all participants reported gaining new insights about civic dialogue. All participants expressed a belief in public libraries’ capacity for Third Space, an increased interest in tracking the benefits of civic dialogue they facilitate, and a likelihood to address barriers to engagement. Workshops for librarians and community partners addressing barriers to civic dialogue in public libraries and preserving Third Space will support participatory democracy

The Oracle, 1972

https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/bhs_yearbooks/1065/thumbnail.jp

LTE Optimization and Resource Management in Wireless Heterogeneous Networks

Mobile communication technology is evolving with a great pace. The development of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile system by 3GPP is one of the milestones in this direction. This work highlights a few areas in the LTE radio access network where the proposed innovative mechanisms can substantially improve overall LTE system performance. In order to further extend the capacity of LTE networks, an integration with the non-3GPP networks (e.g., WLAN, WiMAX etc.) is also proposed in this work. Moreover, it is discussed how bandwidth resources should be managed in such heterogeneous networks. The work has purposed a comprehensive system architecture as an overlay of the 3GPP defined SAE architecture, effective resource management mechanisms as well as a Linear Programming based analytical solution for the optimal network resource allocation problem. In addition, alternative computationally efficient heuristic based algorithms have also been designed to achieve near-optimal performance

Improved Performance of Secured VoIP Via Enhanced Blowfish Encryption Algorithm

Both the development and the integration of efficient network, open source technology, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications have been increasingly important and gained quick popularity due to new rapidly emerging IP-based network technology. Nonetheless, security and privacy concerns have emerged as issues that need to be addressed. The privacy process ensures that encryption and decryption methods protect the data from being alternate and intercept, a privacy VoIP call will contribute to private and confidential conversation purposes such as telebanking, telepsychiatry, health, safety issues and many more. Hence, this study had quantified VoIP performance and voice quality under security implementation with the technique of IPSec and the enhancement of the Blowfish encryption algorithm. In fact, the primary objective of this study is to improve the performance of Blowfish encryption algorithm. The proposed algorithm was tested with varying network topologies and a variety of audio codecs, which contributed to the impact upon VoIP network. A network testbed with seven experiments and network configurations had been set up in two labs to determine its effects on network performance. Besides, an experimental work using OPNET simulations under 54 experiments of network scenarios were compared with the network testbed for validation and verification purposes. Next, an enhanced Blowfish algorithm for VoIP services had been designed and executed throughout this research. From the stance of VoIP session and services performance, the redesign of the Blowfish algorithm displayed several significant effects that improved both the performance of VoIP network and the quality of voice. This finding indicates some available opportunities that could enhance encrypted algorithm, data privacy, and integrity; where the balance between Quality of Services (QoS) and security techniques can be applied to boost network throughput, performance, and voice quality of existing VoIP services. With that, this study had executed and contributed to a threefold aspect, which refers to the redesign of the Blowfish algorithm that could minimize computational resources. In addition, the VoIP network performance was analysed and compared in terms of end-to-end delay, jitter, packet loss, and finally, sought improvement for voice quality in VoIP services, as well as the effect of the designed enhanced Blowfish algorithm upon voice quality, which had been quantified by using a variety of voice codecs

Studies related to the process of program development

The submitted work consists of a collection of publications arising from research carried out at Rhodes University (1970-1980) and at Heriot-Watt University (1980-1992). The theme of this research is the process of program development, i.e. the process of creating a computer program to solve some particular problem. The papers presented cover a number of different topics which relate to this process, viz. (a) Programming methodology programming. (b) Properties of programming languages. aspects of structured. (c) Formal specification of programming languages. (d) Compiler techniques. (e) Declarative programming languages. (f) Program development aids. (g) Automatic program generation. (h) Databases. (i) Algorithms and applications

The (in)visibility of older people in the international development discourse

Older people are the world’s fastest growing population group. By 2050 eighty per cent of older persons will live in what are now developing countries. There is established and growing evidence of the difficulties families in developing countries are experiencing in providing adequate support for their older members. This thesis explores how international development is responding to the interests of older people. The research examines how older people are represented in international development discourse and illustrates the impact of this on practice. This is informed by a comparative analysis with the progress of women in development.A critical discourse analysis of a corpus of texts from intergovernmental agencies illustrates the degree of visibility of older people in the development discourse. A case study of the work of inter-government organisations in West Bengal, India, shows how this can impact on grassroots activity. An original conceptual framework is introduced which aligns the dominant development paradigms with the dominant perspectives on older people emerging from this research.To the best of my knowledge this is the first research study to consider the (in)visibility of older people in international development discourse and to look at its implications on policy and practice. It highlights that a concentration of development resources at one end of the age spectrum to increase life expectancy is being met with an absence of planned support to meet the consequences when people successfully reach old age. The research further shows that when visible, older people are generally viewed as a homogeneous group in need of support and care, and not as citizens able to contribute and participate in development.The research illustrates a connection between global discourse and local practice in relation to older people and indicates a need for further studies to assess the extent of the links and to examine how local practice could inform the international development discourse