Implications of transforming climate change risks into security risks

Purpose A number of severe weather events have influenced a shift in UK policy concerning how climate-induced hazards are managed. Whist this shift has encouraged improvements in emergency management and preparedness, the risk of climate change is increasingly becoming securitised within policy discourses, and enmeshed with broader agendas traditionally associated with human-induced threats. Climate change is seen as a security risk because it can impede development of a nation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the evolution of the securitisation of climate change, and interrogates how such framings influence a range of conceptual and policy focused approaches towards both security and climate change. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon the UK context, the paper uses a novel methodological approach combining critical discourse analysis and focus groups with security experts and policymakers. Findings The resulting policy landscape appears inexorably skewed towards short-term decision cycles that do little to mitigate longer-term threats to the nation?s assets. Whilst a prominent political action on a global level is required in order to mitigate the root causes (i.e. GHG emissions), national level efforts focus on adaptation (preparedness to the impacts of climate-induced hazards), and are forming part of the security agenda. Originality/value These issues are not restricted to the UK: understanding the role of security and its relationship to climate change becomes more pressing and urgent, as it informs the consequences of securitising climate change risks for development-disaster risk system

Constructing resilience through security and surveillance: The politics, practices and tensions of security-driven resilience

This article illuminates how, since 9/11, security policy has gradually become more central to a range of resilience discourses and practices. As this process draws a wider range of security infrastructures, organizations and approaches into the enactment of resilience, security practices are enabled through more palatable and legitimizing discourses of resilience. This article charts the emergence and proliferation of security-driven resilience logics, deployed at different spatial scales, which exist in tension with each other. We exemplify such tensions in practice through a detailed case study from Birmingham, UK: ‘Project Champion’ an attempt to install over 200 high-resolution surveillance cameras, often invisibly, around neighbourhoods with a predominantly Muslim population. Here, practices of security-driven resilience came into conflict with other policy priorities focused upon community-centred social cohesion, posing a series of questions about social control, surveillance and the ability of national agencies to construct community resilience in local areas amidst state attempts to label the same spaces as ‘dangerous’. It is argued that security-driven logics of resilience generate conflicts in how resilience is operationalized, and produce and reproduce new hierarchical arrangements which, in turn, may work to subvert some of the founding aspirations and principles of resilience logic itself

A control-oriented anfis model of evaporator in a 1-kwe organic rankine cycle prototype

This paper presents a control-oriented neuro-fuzzy model of brazed-plate evaporators for use in organic Rankine cycle (ORC) engines for waste heat recovery from exhaust-gas streams of diesel engines, amongst other applications. Careful modelling of the evaporator is both crucial to assess the dynamic performance of the ORC system and challenging due to the high nonlinearity of its governing equations. The proposed adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) model consists of two separate neuro-fuzzy sub-models for predicting the evaporator output temperature and evaporating pressure. Experimental data are collected from a 1-kWe ORC prototype to train, and verify the accuracy of the ANFIS model, which benefits from the feed-forward output calculation and backpropagation capability of the neural network, while keeping the interpretability of fuzzy systems. The effect of training the models using gradient-descent least-square estimate (GD-LSE) and particle swarm optimisation (PSO) techniques is investigated, and the performance of both techniques are compared in terms of RMSEs and correlation coefficients. The simulation results indicate strong learning ability and high generalisation performance for both. Training the ANFIS models using the PSO algorithm improved the obtained test data RMSE values by 29% for the evaporator outlet temperature and by 18% for the evaporator outlet pressure. The accuracy and speed of the model illustrate its potential for real-time control purposes

The ‘uberization of policing’? How police negotiate and operationalise predictive policing technology

Predictive policing generally refers to police work that utilises strategies, algorithmic technologies, and big data to generate near-future predictions about the people and places deemed likely to be involved in or experience crime. Claimed benefits of predictive policing centre on the technology’s ability to enable pre-emptive police work by automating police decisions. The goal is that officers will rely on computer software and smartphone applications to instruct them about where and who to police just as Uber drivers rely on similar technologies to instruct them about where to pick up passengers. Unfortunately, little is known about the experiences of the in-field users of predictive technologies. This article helps fill this gap by addressing the under researched area of how police officers engage with predictive technologies. As such, data is presented that outlines the findings of a qualitative study with UK police organisations involved in designing and trialing predictive policing software. Research findings show that many police officers have a detailed awareness of the limitations of predictive technologies, specifically those brought about by errors and biases in input data. This awareness has led many officers to develop a sceptical attitude towards predictive technologies and, in a few cases, these officers have expressed a reluctance to use predictive technologies. Based on these findings, this paper argues that claims about predictive software’s ability to neutralise the subjectivity of police work overlooks the ongoing struggles of the police officer to assert their agency and mediate the extent to which predictions will be trusted and utilised

'This is not America': Cultural mythscapes, media representation and the anatomy of the Surveillance School in Australia

Schools have exhibited a demonstrable predilection for surveillance technologies in recent years. While much attention has been paid to the globalized diffusion of surveillance and security practices, in contrast, the ways in which artefacts of surveillance surface and take root unevenly internationally has not received much scholarly attention. Drawing on the media representation of emergent school surveillance technologies in Australia, this article seeks to illuminate how distinctive cultural dynamics interact with acceptability, reverence and rejection of surveillance apparatus in the educational context. Far from revealing homogeneity in the manifestation of surveillance practices, the findings show that cultural context and specificity are central to understanding the materiality of surveillance apparatus and regimes

Control of Organic Rankine Cycle, a neuro-fuzzy approach

Undesirable emissions in internal combustion engines are of major concern due to their negative effect on the human health and global warming. Implementing an organic Rankine cycle (ORC) in mobile applications can help to mitigate their negative effect by transferring some of their wasted heat into useful electrical or mechanical energy. Considering the stringent regulations in automobile industry ensuring the safety of equipment before implementing them on the vehicles is vital. In this study, a novel control approach is proposed to ensure the safe operation of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) waste heat recovery (WHR) system and stabilize its work output when subjected to transient heat sources in a range of waste heat from heavy-duty diesel engines. The control strategy comprises a neuro-fuzzy controller based on the inverse dynamics of the ORC system to control the superheating at the evaporator outlet by adjusting the pump speed and a PI controller to maintain the expander work output by regulating the mass flow rate at the expander inlet. The performance of the control strategy is investigated with respect to set-point tracking and its robustness is tested in the presence of noises. The simulation results indicate an enhancement in the controller performance by combination of feedforward and feedback controllers based on neuro-fuzzy technologies. The proposed control scheme not only can obtain satisfactory transient response under various loading conditions, but also can achieve desirable disturbance rejection performance

The chilling effects of surveillance and human rights: Insights from qualitative research in Uganda and Zimbabwe

States are increasingly developing and deploying large scale surveillance and AI-enabled analytical capabilities. What is uncertain, however, is the impact this surveillance will have. Will it result in a chilling effect whereby individuals modify their behaviour due to the fear of the consequences that may follow? Understanding any such effect is essential: if surveillance activities interfere with the processes by which individuals develop their identity, or undermine democratic processes, the consequences may be almost imperceptible in the short term but profound over the long term. Currently, surveillance-related chilling effects are not well understood, meaning that insufficient weight is given to their potentially society-wide impacts. This article seeks to help redress this balance. Drawing on empirical research in Zimbabwe and Uganda it highlights how State surveillance has chilled behaviour, with significant implications for rights essential to individual development and democratic functioning, specifically the rights to freedom of expression and to freedom of assembly. Importantly, this qualitative research identifies a pattern of common themes or consequences associated with surveillance in general, allowing us to move beyond hypothetical or individual experiences, and providing a greater understanding of the nuances of surveillance-related effects that can help inform decision-making surrounding large scale digital surveillance