Kenya at war : Al-Shabaab and its enemies in Eastern Africa

Kenya's invasion of southern Somalia, which began in October 2011, has turned into an occupation of attrition – while “blowback” from the invasion has consolidated in a series of deadly Al-Shabaab attacks within Kenya. This article reviews the background to the invasion, Operation Linda Nchi, and the prosecution of the war by Kenya's Defence Forces up to the capture of the city of Kismayo and the contest to control its lucrative port. The second section discusses Al-Shabaab's response, showing how the movement has reinvented itself to take the struggle into Kenya. We conclude that while the military defeat of Al-Shabaab in southern Somalia seems inevitable, such a victory may become irrelevant to Kenya's ability to make a political settlement with its Somali and wider Muslim communities at home

Interpreting infrastructure: Defining user value for digital financial intermediaries.

The 3DaRoC project is exploring digital connectivity and peer-to-peer relationships in financial services. In the light of the near collapse of the UK and world financial sector, understanding and innovating new and more sustainable approaches to financial services is now a critical topic. At the same time, the increasing penetration and take-up of robust high-speed networks, dependable peerto- peer architectures and mobile multimedia technologies offer novel platforms for offering financial services over the Internet. These new forms of digital connectivity give rise to opportunities in doing financial transactions in different ways and with radically different business models that offer the possibility of transforming the marketplace. One area in the digital economy that has had such an effect is in the ways that users access and use digital banking and payment services. The impact of the new economic models presented by these digital financial services is yet to be fully determined, but they have huge potential as disruptive innovations, with a potentially transformative effect on the way that services are offered to users. Little is understood about how technical infrastructures impact on the ways that people make sense of the financial services that they use, or on how these might be designed more effectively. 3DaRoC is exploring this space working with our partners and end users to prototype and evaluate new online, mobile, ubiquitous and tangible technologies, exploring how these services might be extended.Executive Summary: Drawing from Studies of Use - the value, use and interpretation of infrastructure in digital intermediaries to their users. The UK economy has a huge dependence on financial services, and this is increasingly based on digital platforms. Innovating new economic models around consumer financial services through the use of digital technologies is seen as increasingly important in developed economies. There are a number of drivers for this, ranging from national economic factors to the prosaic nature of enabling cheap, speedy and timely interactions for users. The potential for these new digital solutions is that they will allay an over-reliance on the traditional banking sector, which has proved itself to be unstable and risky, and we have seen a number of national policy moves to encourage growth in this sector. Partly as a result of the 2008 banking crisis, there has been an explosion in peer-to-peer financial services for non-professional consumers. These organisations act as intermediaries between users looking to trade goods or credit. However, building self-sustaining or profitable financial services within this novel space is itself fraught with commercial, regulatory, technical and social problems. This document reports on the value, use and interpretation of infrastructure in digital intermediaries to their users, describing analysis of contextual field studies carried out in two retail digital financial intermediary organisations: Zopa Limited and the Bristol Pound. It forms the second milestone document in the 3DaRoC project, developing patterns of use that have arisen on the back of the technical infrastructures in the two organisations that form cases for examination. Its purpose is to examine how the two different technical infrastructures that underpin the transactions that they support–composed of the back-office hardware and software, data structures, the networking and communications technologies used, supported consumer devices, and the user interfaces and interaction design–have provided opportunities for users to realise their financial and other needs. While we orient towards the issues of service use (and its problems), we also examine the activities and expectations of their various users. Our research has involved teams from Lancaster University examining Zopa and Brunel University focusing on the Bristol Pound over approximately a one-year period from October 2013 to October 2014. Extensive interviews, document analysis, observation of user interactions, and other methods have been employed to develop the process analyses of the firms presented here. This report comprises of three key sections: descriptions of the user demographics for Zopa and the Bristol Pound, a discussion about the user experience and its role in community, and an examination of the role of usage data in the development of these a products. We conclude with final analytical section drawing preliminary conclusions from the research presented.The 3DaRoC project is funded by the RCUK Digital Economy ‘Research in the Wild’ theme (grant no. EP/K012304/1)

Putting the ‘digital’ in Digital Intermediaries: the role of technical infrastructure in building business models

Digital Technology Innovation and Financial Business Practices The UK economy has a huge dependence on financial services, and this is increasingly based on digital platforms. Innovating new economic models around consumer financial services through the use of digital technologies is seen as increasingly important in developed economies. There are a number of drivers for this, ranging from national economic factors to the prosaic nature of enabling cheap, speedy and timely interactions for users. The potential for these new digital solutions is that they will allay an over-reliance on the traditional banking sector, which has proved itself to be unstable and risky, and we have seen a number of national policy moves to encourage growth in this sector. Partly as a result of the 2008 banking crisis, there has been an explosion in peer-to-peer financial services for non-professional consumers. These organisations act as intermediaries between users looking to trade goods or credit. However, building self-sustaining or profitable financial services within this novel space is itself fraught with commercial, regulatory, technical and social problems. This report addresses the mutual shaping of business models and innovations in digital technical infrastructure – both client-facing and administrative back-end – in two retail financial products currently in use in the United Kingdom: peer-to-peer consumer lending and a local digital/paper hybrid currency system. The two products and their issuing firms, Zopa Limited (Zopa) and The Bristol Pound Community Interest Company (the Bristol Pound), respectively, are established leaders in their respective product areas: Zopa was established in 2005 and the Bristol Pound in 2010. Each of these firms seeks to disrupt an established financial market through the application of digital technologies and processes: consumer lending for Zopa and retail payment for the Bristol Pound. Our research has involved teams from Lancaster University examining Zopa and Brunel University focusing on the Bristol Pound over approximately a one-year period from October 2013 to October 2014. Extensive interviews, document analysis, observation of user interactions, and other methods have been employed to develop the process analyses of the firms presented here. This report is comprised of three primary sections: descriptions of the business and technological processes of each of Zopa and the Bristol Pound, and a final analytical section drawing preliminary conclusions from the research presented.3DaRoC is funded by the UK’s Digital Economy ‘Research in the Wild’ initiative. It has a substantial research budget of over £320K, with £35K of additional industrial support

First look analyses of five cycles of ERTS-1 imagery over County of Los Angeles: Assessment of data utility for urban development and regional planning

Significant results have been obtained from the analyses of ERTS-1 imagery from five cycles over Test Site SR 124 by classical photointerpretation and by an interactive hybrid multispectral information extraction system (GEMS). The synopticity, periodicity and multispectrality of ERTS coverage, available for the first time to LA County planners, have opened up both a new dimensionality in data and offer new capability in preparation of planning inputs. Photointerpretation of ERTS images has produced over 25 overlays at 1:1,000,000 scale depicting regional relations and urban structure in terms of several hundred linear and areal features. To mention only one such result, a possible new fault lineament has been discovered on the northern slope of the Santa Monica mountains in the scene 1144-18015, composited of MSS bands 4, 5, 6,. GEMS analysis of the ERTS products has provided new or improved information in the following planning data categories: urban vegetation; land cover segregation; man-made and natural impact monitoring; urban design; and suitability. ERTS data analysis has allowed planners to establish trends that directly impact planning policies. This new source of information will not only assist current methods to be more efficient, but permits entirely new planning methodologies to be employed

Security Analysis, Agency Costs, and UK Firm Characteristics

This paper assesses the monitoring power of security analysts from the manager-shareholder conflict perspective. Using a sample of UK firms tracked by security analysts, our evidence supports the view that security analysis acts as a monitoring mechanism in reducing agency costs. We also find that security analysts are more effective in reducing agency costs for smaller and more focused firms rather than larger and more diversified firms suggesting that for larger and more complex firms security analysis is less effective. The UK findings suggest that the monitoring role of security analysts is not restricted to the U.S. capital market environment.

Student misconceptions of osmosis and diffusion

Student misconceptions about two fundamental science concepts, osmosis and diffusion, were elicited using an interview-about-events approach. A concept map and list of 25 propositional statements were used to define the knowledge regarded as important for a sound understanding of the concepts of osmosis and diffusion. The interview probed students’ understandings of the propositions. Eighteen students from a local metropolitan high school were interviewed. These students were selected from four different science classes. Nine students studied Year 12 Biology and nine studied Year 12 Human Biology. Diffusion and osmosis are integral concepts required for thorough understanding of both subjects. The interview-about-events procedure elicited student understanding of the sub-microscopic processes operating within the concrete phenomena provided at various stages during the interview. Interview data were recorded on tape and later transcribed. Additional information was provided in the form of brief notes compiled at the time of the interview by the researcher and diagrams constructed by students to represent the molecular processes they thought were occurring in the phenomena being discussed. Coding categories for student responses were constructed using data from a pilot study. These categories were used to determine the frequency of different types of response elicited during the study. The investigation revealed that student misconceptions were most often based on poor understanding of the random and continuous nature of particle behaviour. A common student misconception described particles as failing to move independently of the body of matter in which they are contained. Many students believed that particles moved in a specific direction only if made to do so by some external force or if required to do so to establish an equilibrium concentration of solute particles. This thesis also describes implications for teaching and research, and limitations of the study

Design of a Torque Current Generator for Strapdown Gyroscopes

The design, analysis, and experimental evaluation of an optimum performance torque current generator for use with strapdown gyroscopes, is presented. Among the criteria used to evaluate the design were the following: (1) steady-state accuracy; (2) margins of stability against self-oscillation; (3) temperature variations; (4) aging; (5) static errors drift errors, and transient errors, (6) classical frequency and time domain characteristics; and (7) the equivalent noise at the input of the comparater operational amplifier. The DC feedback loop of the torque current generator was approximated as a second-order system. Stability calculations for gain margins are discussed. Circuit diagrams are shown and block diagrams showing the implementation of the torque current generator are discussed

Turbine blade tip durability analysis

An air-cooled turbine blade from an aircraft gas turbine engine chosen for its history of cracking was subjected to advanced analytical and life-prediction techniques. The utility of advanced structural analysis techniques and advanced life-prediction techniques in the life assessment of hot section components are verified. Three dimensional heat transfer and stress analyses were applied to the turbine blade mission cycle and the results were input into advanced life-prediction theories. Shortcut analytical techniques were developed. The proposed life-prediction theories are evaluated