Understanding al-Shabaab : clan, Islam and insurgency in Kenya

Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen has proven itself to be a highly adaptable organisation. Their most recent evolution has seen them transform from an overt, military and governmental force in southern Somalia to a covert, insurgent and anarchic force in Kenya. This article indicates how al-Shabaab has reinvented itself in Kenya. Both ‘clan’ and ‘Islam’ are often thought of as immutable factors in al-Shabaab's make-up, but here we show that the organisation is pragmatic in its handling of clan relations and of Islamic theology. The movement is now able to exploit the social and economic exclusion of Kenyan Muslim communities in order to draw them into insurgency, recruiting Kenyans to its banner. Recent al-Shabaab attacks in Kenya, launched since June 2014, indicate how potent and dangerous their insurgency has become in the borderlands and coastal districts where Kenya's Islamic population predominates

Graphic Design, Symposium Program Contest, Jacob Anderson

https://digitalcommons.jsu.edu/ce_jsustudentsymp_2021/1030/thumbnail.jp

Stop Methane Emissions

We all know of the worldly issue called global warming. A huge cause of global warming is the emission and buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is the leading contributor to global emissions at 74.4% and methane is second at 17.3% (Our World in Data 2019). On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which includes a charge that starts in 2024 at $900 per metric ton of methane emitted and will raise to$1500 by 2028 (CRS). This should introduce an incentive for facilities to update their plant, machinery, and equipment to emit less (or no) methane, or pay the fine. I think this is a good idea for the most part. More CO2 is produced, however methane (CH4) is more dangerous because it is 28 times more potent. This means it is 28 times more efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere. In 2019, 49.76 billion tons of greenhouse gasses were emitted (Our World in Data). This is up from 32.52 tons in 1990

The Intersection of Healthcare and Technology: Reflections and Impact from my Netsmart Internship”

Internships provide valuable opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in their field of study. As a Solution Delivery Analyst intern at Netsmart, a healthcare technology company, I had the opportunity to work in the human services and post-acute care sector. During my internship, I shadowed the development and implementation of innovative technology solutions aimed at improving patient outcomes and increasing efficiency in healthcare delivery. I will provide a comprehensive overview of my internship experience as a Solution Delivery Analyst at Netsmart. I will discuss a project and tasks that I worked on during my internship, including learning about software development, testing, and implementation

The Intersection of Healthcare and Technology: Reflections and Impact from my Netsmart Internship”

Internships provide valuable opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience in their field of study. As a Solution Delivery Analyst intern at Netsmart, a healthcare technology company, I had the opportunity to work in the human services and post-acute care sector. During my internship, I shadowed the development and implementation of innovative technology solutions aimed at improving patient outcomes and increasing efficiency in healthcare delivery. I will provide a comprehensive overview of my internship experience as a Solution Delivery Analyst at Netsmart. I will discuss a project and tasks that I worked on during my internship, including learning about software development, testing, and implementation

peak.gas: An R package for data wrangling and plotting trace gas concentrations from instantaneous output produced by benchtop instruments

1. Some analytical scientific instruments, such as infrared gas analyzers (IRGA), elemental analyzers (EA), gas chromatographs (GC), and flow injection analyzers, provide instantaneous output of timeseries data but may require further processing by the user to estimate injected standard or sample concentrations. Such processing can be time-consuming and prone to error. Here, we developed an open-source package (peak.gas) that integrates time-series data from an IRGA, used in benchtop mode (injecting discreet samples into a carrier gas flow network), into peak areas from which concentrations can be calculated. 2. The peak.gas package was written in the open-source language R. The package is designed for users with varying degrees of familiarity with the R programming language. At its simplest, the package will produce output simply by setting a working directory and executing the function. The package can also easily plot instrument output for diagnostic purposes. There are warnings if values exceed set limits embedded in our functions that will alert the user to issues such as variations in standard performance when compared with check standards, files not properly formatted for processing, or standard curves not provided. 3. When the peak.gas package is used with the associated protocol (Appendix 1) describing benchtop use of the LI-8100A IRGA, the functions in the package will batch process a folder of text files containing sample names, date and time of recording, and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration. The functions identify and extract analytical peaks and calculate standard curves to convert peak areas into accurate CO2 concentrations calculated by using area under the curve (AUC). The user can view any output using the plotting functions included within the package. 4. While the peak.gas package is designed to work seamlessly with the described protocol and instrumentation, it can be adapted by the user to different analytical instruments that produce similar output to the IRGA used here (sample, datetime, concentration recorded) regardless of compounds measured

Horn-like space-coiling metamaterials toward simultaneous phase and amplitude modulation

Acoustic metasurfaces represent a family of planar wavefront-shaping devices garnering increasing attention due to their capacity for novel acoustic wave manipulation. By precisely tailoring the geometry of these engineered surfaces, the effective refractive index may be modulated and, consequently, acoustic phase delays tuned. Despite the successful demonstration of phase engineering using metasurfaces, amplitude modulation remains overlooked. Herein, we present a class of metasurfaces featuring a horn-like space-coiling structure, enabling acoustic control with simultaneous phase and amplitude modulation. The functionality of this class of metasurfaces, featuring a gradient in channel spacing, has been investigated theoretically and numerically and an equivalent model simplifying the structural behavior is presented. A metasurface featuring this geometry has been designed and its functionality in modifying acoustic radiation patterns experimentally validated. This class of acoustic metasurface provides an efficient design methodology enabling complete acoustic wave manipulation, which may find utility in applications including biomedical imaging, acoustic communication, and non-destructive testing.We thank Boston University Materials Innovation Grant and Dean's Catalyst Award. We also thank the Boston University Photonics Center for technical support. (Boston University Materials Innovation Grant; Dean's Catalyst Award