Local revenue reform with the Kampala Capital City Authority

Public finance remains a significant threat to economic development. Insufficient revenues limit infrastructure investments as well as the provision of basic services. Reforming the administration and collection of tax will be crucial for developing country governments. Since its establishment in 2011, the KCCA has implemented various reforms to tax policy; reforms are on track and may serve as a useful model to other African cities struggling to raise revenues

Rausim! Digital politics in Papua New Guinea

"This paper has sketched the potential impact of ICT on the practice of politics in Papua New Guinea. Categorising changes in ICT access as changes in information flows, it proposes that key effects arise in transparency, collective identity and action, and the participation of new political actors. However, outlining these potential effects serves largely to emphasise the dearth of research on ICT in Papua New Guinea. Examples from elsewhere are useful, but unlikely to be conclusive in as diverse a country as Papua New Guinea ..."- page 8AusAI

The Geopolitics of Tech: Baidu’s Vietnam

Internet Policy Observatory affiliate Sarah Logan investigates the international expansion of one of China’s biggest internet technology companies, Baidu, using Baidu’s recent attempted expansion into Vietnam as a test case and taking a mixed methods approach. The paper first outlines Baidu’s role in Chinese information control practices and then turns to the company’s 2012 expansion into Vietnam, examining Baidu’s puzzling failure in the Vietnamese market despite the historically strong relationship between Vietnam and China. This paper contributes a new area of research on the geopolitical associations of internet technology platforms to existing studies of the social, political implication of information technology. It adds to studies of the state in cyberspace by showing that, at least for Chinese companies in Vietnam, the state is embodied in perceptions of the platform, even outside the state’s physical borders: the company itself is ‘bordered.

Electoral Integrity, Citizens and ICT in Melanesia

This year is a landmark year for elections in Solomon Islands and Fiji. In August, Solomon Islands will go to the polls for the first time since the withdrawal of the military component of Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, and the elections will for the first time be based on voter registration undertaken using a biometric roll. Elections to be held in Fiji in September are likely to be far more contentious. These elections will be the first since the military coup of 2006, and will involve significant numbers of the younger generation voting for the first time and ongoing uncertainty and confusion around the promised electoral Act.AusAI

Invest in energy access for a resilient recovery from COVID-19 in fragile environments

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many inequities, both within countries and across the world. The least developed countries and those affected by fragility and conflict have been particularly hard hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19, experiencing unprecedented declines in commodity prices and remittances and a collapse in earnings at the household, firm, and national level. These shocks are exacerbating existing vulnerabilities in these fragile contexts and threaten to reverse decades of progress

Design, Analysis, and Simulation of Rocket Propulsion System

This document details the functionality of a software program used to streamline a rocket propulsion system design, analysis and simulation effort. The program aids in unifying the nozzle, chamber and injector portions of a rocket propulsion system design effort quickly and efficiently using a streamlined graphical user interface (GUI). The program also allows for the selection of common nozzle profiles including 80% rao, conical, a user selected percentage bell, and a minimum length nozzle (MLN) using method of characteristics (MOC). Chamber dimensions, propellant selections, and injector selection between doublet or triplet allow for further refinement of the desired rocket system design. The program takes the available selections and specifications made by the user and outputs key design parameters calculated from the input variables. A 2-D graphical representation of the nozzle and/or chamber is plotted and coordinates of the plotted line are displayed. Additional design calculations are determined and displayed within the program such as specific impulse, exhaust velocity, propellant weight flow, fundamental instability frequencies, etc. The rocket propulsion system design coordinates are saved to a *dat file which can be used in a CAD program to plot a 3-D model of the rocket propulsion system. The *dat file is compatible for creating splines in Unigraphics NX, Catia, and SolidWorks. Coordinates of the injectors are saved to a *dat file to be modeled in a CAD program as well. The program currently provides a symbolic link in the form of a button on the output page which will open Unigraphics NX CAD program. The post-processing simulation of the rocket propulsion system is done in a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) program such as ANSYS ICEM CFD mesh generation software and ANSYS FLUENT CFD. The program provides a button on the output page which will open the ANSYS ICEM CFD mesh program and the ANSYS FLUENT CFD program. The user inputs the parasolid or IGES/STEP file of the CAD 3-D modeling of the rocket propulsion system into the ANSYS ICEM CFD meshing software. The geometry tolerant mesher program produces a volume or surface mesh to be read into the ANSYS FLUENT CFD software. Using ANSYS FLUENT CFD software, the user can choose to model the flow, turbulence, heat transfer, air flow over the rocket, combustion in the chamber, or various other options of the rocket propulsion system. The rocket propulsion system is a graphical user interface (GUI) which is run through Matlab and is compatible for 2009-2011 Matlab versions

Room for Improvement in the New York State Pharmacy-Based Syringe Access Program

Pharmacies in New York State can opt-in to a pharmacy based syringe access program called the Expanded Syringe Access Program (ESAP). Washington Heights CORNER Project, a syringe exchange program in New York City, undertook a two-part survey of pharmacies located less than two miles from the program in Northern Manhattan. The study sought to determine whether pharmacies registered for the Expanded Syringe Access Program were a reliable source of syringes for populations who purchase syringes without a prescription, including people who inject drugs. The surveys found that 71.4% of pharmacies listed on the ESAP directory sold syringes to a Washington Heights CORNER Project participant acting as a secret shopper. A follow up survey assessed pharmacy attitudes toward the program and other harm reduction measures. In this survey, pharmacies demonstrated interest in harm reduction measures, with 92% of pharmacies reporting willingness to refer potential customers to a local syringe exchange program. The researchers make recommendations for improvement to pharmacy-based syringe access programs at the individual, community and policy level, including increasing face to face interactions between syringe exchange programs and pharmacies and requiring regular updates to the online directory of ESAP-registered pharmacies

Power planning in fragile and conflict-affected states

Traditional methods of energy planning are likely to provide results that may be inappropriate in fragile and conflict-affected countries. The risks of violence and damage, significant delays and cancellations in infrastructure projects, or projects coming in at very high cost, are rife in these states. Security issues can significantly hamper, or make infeasible, the delivery of power system plans. We look at how traditional power system planning and expansion models could be augmented to better consider the deep uncertainty associated with development in fragile contexts. We find that resilience aspects, combined with modular and incremental benefits of distributed generation technologies and systems, emerge as attractive options if the various risks of infrastructure development are included in modelling techniques. Investing in a diverse mix of supply types in the medium term and building a power system with redundancies or a higher share of local resources in the long term, is an effective approach to reduce vulnerability to conflict and socio-political fragility

Using Mobile Phones to Track Anti-Witchcraft Violence in Papua New Guinea

This In Brief outlines the role new mobile phone– based research techniques can play in addressing this information deficit. It details a pilot project using mobile phones to record and report data about accusations of witchcraft at funerals. The pilot is part of a growing body of work that uses mobile phones to collect and record data in environments that are otherwise difficult to reach, and for a wide range of purposes, including health, education, agriculture and development. The project also shares important features with conflict-mapping programs which use mobiles phones to track and map outbreaks of violence. However, this pilot is the first to apply these new research techniques to the problem of anti-witchcraft violence.AusAI