Globalized party-based democracy and Africa: the influence of global party-based democracy networks

In this paper, I intend to explain what we mean by globalized party-based democracy in an African context.1 The paper treats globalized party-based democracy as an extension of African colonial and imperial legacy and probes questions on the influence of today’s global party-based democracy networks on African political parties. Specifically, I compare the accession of the major political parties in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi to global party-based democracy networks, and their influence on their ideologies and policy orientations in an era of neo-liberal globalisation. If some aspects of African party-based democracy have globalized, the next question is what aspects have not (been) globalized. Paradoxically, despite a myriad of global influences, party-based democracies in Africa have retained much of their nascent quasi-polyarchy traits characterised by ethnic, religious and regional divisions, political patronage and weak internal party democracy. This prospect negates the idea that African political parties, indeed African political institutions, are under threat of being “universalised” as consequence of the ascendancy of globalized party-based democracy

Strange Bedfellows: Conservative Governments and Family Policy in Canada and Germany, 2005 - 2015

This dissertation contributes to the academic literature on recent and ongoing family policy reforms in affluent countries by comparing the respective family policy agendas of right party led governments in Canada and Germany between 2005 and 2015. My comparative assessment of reforms enacted by the governments of Stephen Harper and Angela Merkel, respectively, indicates that an increased cross-national salience of the financial and logistical challenges faced by modern (dual-earner) families presents right-of-center parties with an incentive to utilize family policy proposals instrumentally to broaden their electoral appeal. This gives vital context to large-n statistical research that indicates a weakening of partisanship as an explanatory variable for recent family policy developments. The study also finds that differences in the specific policies implemented by each government can ultimately be traced back to the domestic discursive context. Germany presented the more favorable environment for comprehensive, women’s employment supporting reforms due to a widespread perception of the low domestic birth rate as a threat to intergenerational ‘sustainability’. The cause was also helped by the presence of credible policy spokeswoman Ursula von der Leyen, who championed a progressive package of reforms while, at the same time, embodying a traditional image of maternity that appealed to conservatives. By contrast, the Canadian political environment favored a continuation of direct cash payments to families, as exemplified by the Harper government’s signature Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB). Harper later launched two children’s activity tax credits crafted to appeal to families in critical suburban ‘swing ridings’. Although both opposition parties proposed a national daycare strategy as an alternative to Harper’s agenda, the idea has only limited popular appeal due to the questionable record of the country’s only standalone provincial daycare program, based in Québec, and a silencing of feminist perspectives in the national policy dialogue. Lastly, I find that an ancillary discourse linking family policy to the cultural integration of migrants was visible in Germany but not in Canada. This finding is substantiated in Chapter 5 via a statistical topic analysis of over 450 relevant newspaper articles. I also draw from 25 personal interviews in my discussion of Canada.Doctor of Philosoph

Memory-full context-aware predictive mobility management in dual connectivity 5G networks

Network densification with small cell deployment is being considered as one of the dominant themes in the fifth generation (5G) cellular system. Despite the capacity gains, such deployment scenarios raise several challenges from mobility management perspective. The small cell size, which implies a small cell residence time, will increase the handover (HO) rate dramatically. Consequently, the HO latency will become a critical consideration in the 5G era. The latter requires an intelligent, fast and light-weight HO procedure with minimal signalling overhead. In this direction, we propose a memory-full context-aware HO scheme with mobility prediction to achieve the aforementioned objectives. We consider a dual connectivity radio access network architecture with logical separation between control and data planes because it offers relaxed constraints in implementing the predictive approaches. The proposed scheme predicts future HO events along with the expected HO time by combining radio frequency performance to physical proximity along with the user context in terms of speed, direction and HO history. To minimise the processing and the storage requirements whilst improving the prediction performance, a user-specific prediction triggering threshold is proposed. The prediction outcome is utilised to perform advance HO signalling whilst suspending the periodic transmission of measurement reports. Analytical and simulation results show that the proposed scheme provides promising gains over the conventional approach

Preliminary Studies on the fluctuation of the biomass of sizefractionated zooplankton in sea grass bed of Pulau Tinggi, Malaysia

Zooplanktons biomass was extensively studied in the sea grass bed of Pulau Tinggi, Malaysia for six months. In 2015, sampling months were April, June, October, whereas in 2016, April, June, August were the sampling months. A cone shaped plankton net was used with 0.30 m mouth, 1.00 m length and 100 μm mesh size. The fractionation of zooplankton size was carried out in to >2000 μm (large), 501-2000 μm (medium) and <500 μm (small). Zooplankton was classified as copepods, larvaceans, chaetognaths, cnidarians, ctenophores, decapods and polychaetes. Copepods were categorized as Calanoida, Poecilostomatoida, Cyclopoida and Harpacticoida but identified as a total of 54 species, 26 genera and 19 families. We conclude that among the biomass of 3 size fractions; medium (36%) was dominant followed by large and small (32% each) throughout the study period

Bird Species Composition in Ayer Hitam Forest, Puchong, Selangor

This study focused on the avian species composition in Ayer Hitam Forest, Puchong, Selangor. The forest is an isolated secondary lowland forest and was logged between 1936 to 1954. Two methods were used to examine the composition of birds in the area namely by Mist-netting and Distance Sampling-Point Count. Results indicated that a total of 38 families which comprised of 160 species of birds have been recorded. The three biggest families that represent about 23.5 percent of the total species are Timaliidae, Cuculidae and Pycnonotidae. The most common individuals recorded belong to the family Pycnonotidae. The forest is dominated by insectivore/frugivore group which is represented by mainly colonising secondary species. Certain species of hornbills (e.g. Buceros rhinoceros) and babblers (e.g. Pomatorhinus montanus) that are normally found in primary forest are absent. These results suggested that the composition offamilies and trophic structures of birds in Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve are comparable with those at other forest reserve areas. However, the absence of many primary forest species suggested that the forest is still under recovering process. It is recommended that the major part of the forest is left undisturbed to prevent the few remaining wild life habitats from further destruction and to allow the wildlife species composition to return to the original condition

Analysis and Design of Multistory Building Using Different Structural Systems

Skeleton frame system and load bearing wall system are common structural system being used in high-rise and mid-rise building. These systems may have significant advantages and disadvantages against each other. The decision on using which system may require careful justification in order to build an economical, easy, and fast-toconstruct building beside the stability and the durability of the building. In this study, a layout of a multistory building is to be designed using both systems. Both layout systems are then will be analyzed for the same live load as a control factor. The overall cost for the building is mainly depending on the quantity of materials used in the construction. Comparing the quantity of materials used to build the building, the load bearingwall system uses about 60% more concreteand steel reinforcement bars than the frame system. The load bearing wall system also found to require only minimum wall thickness with minimum reinforcement bars in the design. By reversing the calculation to determine the reinforcement for the walls, it is found that the minimum wall thickness with minimum reinforcement can stand the load of 1473.5 kN/ m length of wall while the maximum loads on the wall is only 577.36 kN/m length of wall (about 50% of the capacity). It is concluded that the frame system is suitable for any height and any floor arrangement while the load bearing wall system is more suitable for building with height morethan 30 storey with similarfloor layout in everyfloor.

Persepsi orang awam dan profesional terhadap imej visual bandar Putrajaya

Putrajaya merupakan pusat pentadbiran kerajaan Persekutuan yang mana di awal pembangunannya telah dirancang sebagai bandar Islamik. Objektif kajian ini adalah menganalisis imej visual persekitaran alam bina yang memberikan identiti kepada Putrajaya menerusi persepsi orang awam dan profesional. Modenisasi dan kurang jelas tafsiran seni bina Islamik telah mewujudkan krisis identiti dalam gaya seni bina, kecelaruan identiti dan menjejaskan identiti reka bentuk bandar Islamik. Kajian ini menggunakan metodologi campuran kuantitatif dan kualitatif. Kajian soal selidik terhadap lebih kurang 500 orang awam dan temu bual bergambar terhadap lebih kurang 100 orang profesional dalam bidang alam bina telah dijalankan untuk untuk menganalisis imej visual identiti Putrajaya. Hasil kajian mendapati reka bentuk bandar Putrajaya mempunyai nilai estetik yang tinggi dan budaya Islam melalui ciri Islamik Timur Tengah bagi merealisasi penerapannya sebagai bandar Islamik. Bagaimanapun, gaya moden yang mendominasi, campuran dan kepelbagaian serta kurangnya identiti tempatan mewujudkan identiti yang kurang jelas dan budaya tersendiri yang lemah. Penemuan kajian ini boleh dimanfaatkan untuk memperkasakan imej visual bandar Putrajaya yang jelas sebagai bandar Islamik yang mempunyai identiti tempatan dan tersendiri untuk meningkatkan daya tarikan kepada pengguna bandar

Control-data separation architecture for cellular radio access networks: a survey and outlook

Conventional cellular systems are designed to ensure ubiquitous coverage with an always present wireless channel irrespective of the spatial and temporal demand of service. This approach raises several problems due to the tight coupling between network and data access points, as well as the paradigm shift towards data-oriented services, heterogeneous deployments and network densification. A logical separation between control and data planes is seen as a promising solution that could overcome these issues, by providing data services under the umbrella of a coverage layer. This article presents a holistic survey of existing literature on the control-data separation architecture (CDSA) for cellular radio access networks. As a starting point, we discuss the fundamentals, concepts, and general structure of the CDSA. Then, we point out limitations of the conventional architecture in futuristic deployment scenarios. In addition, we present and critically discuss the work that has been done to investigate potential benefits of the CDSA, as well as its technical challenges and enabling technologies. Finally, an overview of standardisation proposals related to this research vision is provided

Predictive and core-network efficient RRC signalling for active state handover in RANs with control/data separation

Frequent handovers (HOs) in dense small cell deployment scenarios could lead to a dramatic increase in signalling overhead. This suggests a paradigm shift towards a signalling conscious cellular architecture with intelligent mobility management. In this direction, a futuristic radio access network with a logical separation between control and data planes has been proposed in research community. It aims to overcome limitations of the conventional architecture by providing high data rate services under the umbrella of a coverage layer in a dual connection mode. This approach enables signalling efficient HO procedures, since the control plane remains unchanged when the users move within the footprint of the same umbrella. Considering this configuration, we propose a core-network efficient radio resource control (RRC) signalling scheme for active state HO and develop an analytical framework to evaluate its signalling load as a function of network density, user mobility and session characteristics. In addition, we propose an intelligent HO prediction scheme with advance resource preparation in order to minimise the HO signalling latency. Numerical and simulation results show promising gains in terms of reduction in HO latency and signalling load as compared with conventional approaches