Why inflation is rising in Kenya and how to fix it

Ahead of the general election, inflation in Kenya has rapidly increased. Driven by a confluence of factors, the Ukraine war and the pandemic have, in particular, inflated prices. But the most popular solutions for politicians, writes Professor XN Iraki, may not be the most effective

Targeting Inflammation and Immunosenescence to Improve Vaccine Responses in the Elderly

One of the most appreciated consequences of immunosenescence is an impaired response to vaccines with advanced age. While most studies report impaired antibody responses in older adults as a correlate of vaccine efficacy, it is now widely appreciated that this may fail to identify important changes occurring in the immune system with age that may affect vaccine efficacy. The impact of immunosenescence on vaccination goes beyond the defects on antibody responses as T cell-mediated responses are reshaped during aging and certainly affect vaccination. Likewise, age-related changes in the innate immune system may have important consequences on antigen presentation and priming of adaptive immune responses. Importantly, a low-level chronic inflammatory status known as inflammaging has been shown to inhibit immune responses to vaccination and pharmacological strategies aiming at blocking baseline inflammation can be potentially used to boost vaccine responses. Yet current strategies aiming at improving immunogenicity in the elderly have mainly focused on the use of adjuvants to promote local inflammation. More research is needed to understand the role of inflammation in vaccine responses and to reconcile these seemingly paradoxical observations. Alternative approaches to improve vaccine responses in the elderly include the use of higher vaccine doses or alternative routes of vaccination showing only limited benefits. This review will explore novel targets and potential new strategies for enhancing vaccine responses in older adults, including the use of anti-inflammatory drugs and immunomodulators

Adoption of Cloud Computing by Firms in Kenya: The Role of Institutional Pressures

While there is substantial literature on the adoption of IT innovations based on utility computing, there is a dearth of studies on cloud computing adoption by business organizations. Given that cloud computing adoption has been steadily increasing in Kenya, this study aim to investigate the determinants of cloud computing adoption from an institutional perspective. The relationship between institutional pressures and cloud computing adoption was evaluated and tested using structural equation modelling (PLS SEM). A firm level cross sectional survey was conducted on a sample of 93 firms in the financial, manufacturing, and ICT sectors. The results indicate that coercive and normative pressures have a significant positive relationship with cloud computing adoption. The hypothesis that mimetic pressures have a relationship with cloud computing adoption was not supported. A major implication of this study is that professional and standards bodies do influence technology adoption through normative pressures

Female street vendors’ (dis)engagement with politics in Rwanda – Orientalising women’s political participation

This is the final version. Available from the University of Sussex via the DOI in this record. Women’s political participation was initiated as an instrument for gender equality yet now is under research scrutiny. Due to gender quotas and other institutionalization of women’s political inclusion, Rwanda has the highest number of women in its parliament – 67%. But is women’s political participation a real tool for gender equality, or is it one that through the artificial guise of women’s political representation sets up an exclusive political space? Apart from women who work in political institutions, who else are participating in politics and how and where are they engaging with politics? Feminists should claim back this discussion, reject neoliberal approach to ‘empower’ women and propose a more distributive and collective agenda. As part of my PhD project regarding women’s (dis)engagement with politics in Rwanda, female vendors drew my attention during my fieldwork in Rwanda. In Rwanda, female vendors are among the groups who are the ‘furthest’ to participate and influence the political decision-making process, yet are heavily influenced by various political policies on a daily base. For example, the by-law forbidding street vendors was initiated in 2015 and further enforced in 2017 was designed to punish street vendors because they build “unfair competition for customers with legitimate businesses paying rent and taxes” . Consequently, many female vendors face a great deal of violence by local forces. Using feminist ethnography as the methodology, I choose visual methods to tell the stories of female vendors. That is, the photography project is designed to elicit stories of ‘what happened when’, and to encourage participants to ‘remember’ past events, and past dynamics on the street, as well as to express their own opinions and ideas. My task is to reconstruct the process of female street vendor’s engagement with politics and in doing so deconstruct the fake formal image of female political participation in Rwanda

KENYA, CHINA, AND PRELUDE TO ONE BELT ONE ROAD (OBOR) INITIATIVE

The British economic influence lingered on after Kenya gained her independence in1963. It was espoused by their car models, banking system and an education where mostKenyans saw UK as the destination of choice for their university education particularlyamong the elites. Two of Kenya’s presidents schooled in Britain. Soon the Japanesefollowed with first Toyota car sold in Kenya in 1965.That all changed with opening upof China in 1978, the end of cold war and accession of China to World TradeOrganization (WTO) in 2002. Today, China is now a leading investor in Africa. CanKenya learn something from China? This paper compares Kenya and China using anumber of economic indicators from Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth,population growth, innovation, Research and Development (R&D), Foreign DirectInvestment (FDI), life expectancy, urbanization, Human Development Index (HDI) andcontribution of manufacturing to GDP. The analysis shows Kenya can learn a lot fromChina in her quest to grow economically. This paper serves as a good starting point inKenya’s engagement with China in One belt one road initiative (OBOR). By analyzingthe economic similarities and differences, between the two nations, OBOR’s success ratecould be raised and help catalyse Africa’s growth and make her part of the globaleconomic system through the win –win cooperation espoused by Chinese presidentduring the Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa (BRICS) summit in South Africa in2018. The paper finds that while every countries growth trajectory is different, it ispossible to learn from each other. Future research should focus on how OBOR shallspur growth in Africa and gauge its success against Western economic engagement withAfrica since the countries got their independence

Global three-dimensional simulations of outer protoplanetary discs with ambipolar diffusion

The structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks (PPDs) are largely governed by disk angular momentum transport, mediated by magnetic fields. In the most observable outer disk, PPD gas dynamics is primarily controlled by ambipolar diffusion as the dominant non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effect. In this work, we study the gas dynamics in outer PPDs by conducting a set of global 3D non-ideal MHD simulations with ambipolar diffusion and net poloidal magnetic flux, using the Athena++ MHD code, with resolution comparable to local simulations. Our simulations demonstrate the co-existence of magnetized disk wind and turbulence driven by the magneto-rotational instability (MRI). While MHD wind dominates disk angular momentum transport, the MRI turbulence also contributes significantly. We observe that magnetic flux spontaneously concentrate into axisymmetric flux sheets, leading to radial variations in turbulence levels, stresses, and accretion rates. Annular substructures arise as a natural consequence of magnetic flux concentration. The flux concentration phenomena show diverse properties with different levels of disk magnetization and ambipolar diffusion. The disk generally loses magnetic flux over time, though flux sheets could prevent the leak of magnetic flux in some cases. Our results demonstrate the ubiquity of disk annular substructures in weakly MRI turbulent outer PPDs, and imply a stochastic nature of disk evolution

The role of cardiac troponin T quantity and function in cardiac development and dilated cardiomyopathy

Background: Hypertrophic (HCM) and dilated (DCM) cardiomyopathies results from sarcomeric protein mutations, including cardiac troponin T (cTnT, TNNT2). We determined whether TNNT2 mutations cause cardiomyopathies by altering cTnT function or quantity; whether the severity of DCM is related to the ratio of mutant to wildtype cTnT; whether Ca2+ desensitization occurs in DCM; and whether absence of cTnT impairs early embryonic cardiogenesis. Methods and Findings: We ablated Tnnt2 to produce heterozygous Tnnt2+/ mice, and crossbreeding produced homozygous null Tnnt2-/-embryos. We also generated transgenic mice overexpressing wildtype (TGWT) or DCM mutant (TGK210Δ) Tnnt2. Crossbreeding produced mice lacking one allele of Tnnt2, but carrying wildtype (Tnnt2+/-/TGWT) or mutant (Tnnt2+/-/TGK210Δ) transgenes. Tnnt2+/-mice relative to wildtype had significantly reduced transcript (0.82 ± 0.06 [SD] vs. 1.00 ± 0.12 arbitrary units; p = 0.025), but not protein (1.01 ± 0.20 vs. 1.00 ± 0.13 arbitrary units; p = 0.44). Tnnt2+/-mice had normal hearts (histology, mass, left ventricular end diastolic diameter [LVEDD], fractional shortening [FS]). Moreover, whereas Tnnt2+/-/ TGK210Δ mice had severe DCM, TGK210Δ mice had only mild DCM (FS 18 ± 4 vs. 29 ± 7%; p < 0.01). The difference in severity of DCM may be attributable to a greater ratio of mutant to wildtype Tnnt2 transcript in Tnnt2+/-/TGK210Δ relative to TGK210Δ mice (2.42±0.08, p = 0.03). Tnnt2+/-/TGK210Δ muscle showed Ca2+ desensitization (pCa50 = 5.34 ± 0.08 vs. 5.58 ± 0.03 at sarcomere length 1.9 μm. p<0.01), but no difference in maximum force generation. Day 9.5 Tnnt2-/-embryos had normally looped hearts, but thin ventricular walls, large pericardial effusions, noncontractile hearts, and severely disorganized sarcomeres. Conclusions: Absence of one Tnnt2 allele leads to a mild deficit in transcript but not protein, leading to a normal cardiac phenotype. DCM results from abnormal function of a mutant protein, which is associated with myocyte Ca2+ desensitization. The severity of DCM depends on the ratio of mutant to wildtype Tnnt2 transcript. cTnT is essential for sarcomere formation, but normal embryonic heart looping occurs without contractile activity. © 2008 Ahmad et al

Sleeping late is a risk factor for myopia development amongst school-aged children in China

Myopia, a leading cause of distance vision impairment, is projected to affect half of the world’s population in 30 years. We analysed the relationship between certain demographic, environmental, and behavioural factors and myopia from a 2-year school-based, prospective trial conducted in Shanghai, China. This trial enrolled 6295 school-aged children at baseline and followed them up for 24 months. The relationship between abovementioned factors and myopia was examined and the role of sleep in childhood myopia development was highlighted. Our results suggest that ‘sleeping late’ is a risk factor for myopia prevalence at baseline (odds ratio [OR] = 1.55, p = 0.04), 2-year myopia incidence (odds ratio [OR] = 1.44, p = 0.02) and progression over 24 months (p = 0.005), after adjusting for residency area, age, gender, sleep duration, and time spent outdoors. The identification and consistency of results with late sleepers being a susceptible group to both myopia onset and progression suggests a complex relationship between circadian rhythm, indoor environment, habitual indoor activities and myopia development and progression. These results can offer new insights to future myopia aetiology studies as well as aid in decision-making of myopia prevention strategies

Energy loss in perturbative QCD

We review the properties of energetic parton propagation in hot or cold QCD matter, as obtained in recent works. Advances in understanding the energy loss - collisional and radiative - are summarized, with emphasis on the latter: it features very interesting properties which may help to detect the quark-gluon plasma produced in heavy ion collisions. We describe two different theoretical approaches, which lead to the same radiated gluon energy spectrum. The case of a longitudinally expanding QCD plasma is investigated. The energy lost by a jet with given opening angle is calculated in view of making predictions for the suppression (quenching) of hard jet production. Phenomenological implications for the difference between hot and cold matter are discussed. Numerical estimates of the loss suggest that it may be significantly enhanced in hot compared to cold matter.Comment: 49 pages latex file with 11 embedded PS figures. Uses ar.sty (included), one equation revised. submitted to Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Scienc