Stabilizing the Contours of Democracy in Kenya: An Analysis of Audiences’ Perceptions of Radio Contents in 2007 and 2013 Political Cycles.

The paper argues that the understanding of the social construction of the practice of democracy is expanded when relevant social groups such as mass media and voters are analyzed to see how ‘interpretative flexibility’ and ‘closure’ occurs. The paper focuses on the coverage of the presidential candidates by vernacular radio in the 2007 and 2013 general elections in Kenya. The two political cycles present what the author calls the ‘dilatory and cogent waves of media operations in Kenya. The two political cycles are used in the analyses of mass media operations for two major reasons; First, they provide what Nigel and Mulkay (1984) called ‘Rhetorical Repertoire’ through which audience give their interpretation of a process as well as their application in terms of their actions. And second, they are used as an analytical tools of comparison. The media terrain is explored by analyzing both Inooro and Kass FM audiences’ perceptions about how the two stations covered the key presidential candidates in the two general elections. It concludes that, a cogent mass media wave can be used to break the audiences’ intercultural barriers which stand in the way of a community’s strength and mutual benefits. Keywords: Democracy, vernacular radio, audience, perception, mass media coverag

The effects of Kenyanization on personal saving: preliminary report on data collection and some tentative conclusions

The replacement of foreigners by Kenyans in the Kenya economy (Kenyanization) is expected to affect personal savings. This paper is a preliminary report on the collection of data and on changes in personal saving

Reconceptualizing Chilly Climate: Minority Faculty in North American Academe

Reconceptualizing Chilly Climate: Minority Faculty in North American Academ

Labor markets and labor allocative efficiency among farm households in western Kenya

This paper evaluates how efficiently farm households allocate labor between farm and offfarm activities. It estimates farm and off-farm labor supply functions to determine the factors that influence labor allocation. Both the shadow wage and the off-farm wage rate are included as regressors in the supply functions. The study reveals that, on average, farm households are inefficient, but when linked to labor markets their productivity and internal efficiency increase. The decision to sell labor is influenced by location, and off-farm employment is difficult to find, particularly for the better educated. Interventions should aim to increase opportunities for off-farm employment for persons with skills or with higher than the basic level of education, and to reduce the cost of participating in labor markets, for example by improving rural infrastructure. Addressing failures in rural financial markets would save poor households from having to sell their labor for less than they get from their farm

A Model for Estimating Network Infrastructure Costs: A Case for All-Fibre Networks

The 21st century is an era that has been characterised by phenomenal growth in data rates at the local area network (intranet), extranet and the Internet, a trend pushed by deployment of “bandwidth hungry” applications such VoIP, security surveillance systems, video conferencing and streaming of online multimedia content. Due to demand placed on network resources by these applications physical layer cabling solutions have had to evolve to support faster, improved LAN technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet. Although new network architectures (such as Centralised Fibre networks) address current and long term demands of the modern networking environment, concerns have been raised about its cost viability. The key problem identified in this study was an inadequacy of suitable tools that aid decision making when estimating the cost of a network infrastructure project. Factors of importance in this regard were collected in a survey and used in development of a cost model. A network was designed based on two architectures – centralised fibre (all-fibre network) and hierarchical star (UTP for horizontal cabling and optical fibre for backbone cabling). Thereafter, cost of implementing these two architectures was calculated using the model. Based on the results computed from the cost model, the all-fibre network (centralised fibre architecture) was found to be more cost effective than the hierarchical star network. Keywords: centralised fibre architecture, hierarchical star architecture, structured cabling, multimode optical fibre, singlemode optical fibre, backbon

Framing of Police Enforcement of the Covid-19 Laws in Kenya: A Comparative Analysis of the Daily Nation and Standard Newspapers

This study analysed how the Standard and The Daily Nation Newspapers framed the Kenyan police enforcement of Legal Notice No. 36 of 2020. Three major objectives were interrogated; the frames used by the two newspapers in reporting police enforcement of the curfew, the figures of speech used in the framing the police enforcement work and the sources of the stories used. Content analysis was the main data collection method. The key findings of the study were: The Daily Nation and the Standard newspapers framed the police enforcement of the curfew through negative valance via use of: brutality frames, conflict frames, death and murder frames. It also emerged that, the voicing of the police enforcement of the curfew order was largely supressed and left mainly to the mass media institutions and the journalists. Inferentially, the two newspapers played their watchdog role effectively. It also emerged that, critical voices necessary in ensuring accountability and transparent of the police enforcement of Covid 19 curfew in Kenya like: The Judiciary, Parliament, International Community and other key human right agencies were silent. It is recommended that, police should be trained on matters human rights and freedom and that both the journalists and the public should be empowered in order to hold police to account for their sometimes illegal actions during executions of their mandates. Keywords: Media framing, Police brutality, Governance, public order, DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/105-01 Publication date:October 31st 202

An Assessment of Capital Structure Decisions by Small and Medium Enterprises in Kenya

Many theories and empirical research that explain the determinants of capital structure, originated in the developed economies. These studies focus on large firms that issue complex financial securities for both debt and equity. Very little research has been carried out to establish the determinants of capital structure in emerging and the less developed countries. This research was done to establish whether the determinants of capital structure identified in the developed world are the same determinants of capital structures of Small and Medium Enterprises in developing countries. The study establishes that age, profitability, size, growth opportunities and tangible assets of the business greatly determine the leverage of the business. The study’s significance lies in the provision of newevidence on the determinants of capital structure of small and medium enterprises in developing countries with a special focus on Kenyan firms. Keywords: Capital structure, Small and Medium Enterprises, Kenya

A prototype parabolic trough solar concentrators for steam production

In this work, the potential for a solar-thermal concentrator to produce steam has been studied. Three parabolic trough solar concentrators (PTSCs) of dimensions: -aperture width of 1.2 m, Collector length of 5.8 m and aperture area of 6.95 m2 were investigated. The absorber pipe was a copper tube which carried water as the heat transfer fluid, were designed, fabricated, characterized and their efficiencies compared when closed and when open. The PTSCs´ were made of appropriate materials and were manually tracked. They were designed with principal focus at 0.4 m so that the receiver heat loss is minimized by covering the collectors with glass which was 0.0025 m in thickness. The concentration ratio of the solar concentrators was 128. The concentrator testing was carried out for each of the concentrators. The maximum temperature of steam obtained was 248.3oC while average temperature of steam was produced was 150oC. When closed their efficiencies were: Aluminium sheet reflector PTSC; 55.52 %, Car solar reflector PTSC; 54.65 % and Aluminium foil reflector PTSC; 51.29 %. The open solar concentrator efficiencies were 32.38 %, 34.45 % and 27.74 % respectively. The efficiency of car solar reflector when open was higher than for aluminium sheet since it was less prone to thermal degradation when exposed to weather elements. The results obtained show that production of power using the sun flux is a viable undertaking. The concentrators can be used to provide power to remote areas which are far away from the power transmission gridlines. This will make power readily available to the marginalized rural people. Improvement of the tracking system and optical efficiency can improve the efficiencies of the fabricated concentrator systemsKeywords: Parabolic trough concentrator, solar-thermal, transmittance absorptance product, thermal and optical efficienc