DOCSLIB.ORG

The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa; The

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa; The The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa This book argues that the fourth industrial revolution, the process of accelerated automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices via digital technology, will serve to further marginalise Africa within the international community. In this book, the author argues that the looting of Africa that started with human capital and then natural resources, now continues unabated via data and digital resources looting. Developing on the notion of “Coloniality of Data”, the fourth industrial revolution is postulated as the final phase which will con- clude Africa’s peregrination towards (re)colonisation. Global cartels, networks of coloniality, and tech multinational corporations have turned big data into capital, which is largely unregulated or poorly regulated in Africa as the con- tinent lacks the strong institutions necessary to regulate the mining of data. Written from a decolonial perspective, this book employs three analytical pillars of coloniality of power, knowledge, and being. Highlighting the crippling continuation of asymmetrical global power relations, this book will be an important read for researchers of African studies, politics, and international political economy. Everisto Benyera is Associate Professor of African Politics at the University of South Africa. Routledge Contemporary Africa Series The Literature and Arts of the Niger Delta Edited by Tanure Ojaide and Enajite Eseoghene Ojaruega Identification and Citizenship in Africa Biometrics, the Documentary State and Bureaucratic Writings of the Self Edited by Séverine Awenengo Dalberto and Richard Banégas Africa and the Global System of Capital Accumulation Edited by Emmanuel O. Oritsejafor and Allan Cooper The East African Community Intraregional Integration and Relations with the EU Edited by Jean- Marc Trouille, Helen Trouille and Penine Uwimbabazi Regionalism, Security and Development in Africa Edited by Ernest Aniche, Ikenna Alumona and Inocent Moyo The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa The Coloniality of Data Everisto Benyera Mobility in Contemporary Zimbabwean Literature in English Crossing Borders, Transcending Boundaries Magdalena Pfalzgraf Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in Africa Constraints and Opportunities Edited by Ebenezer Durojaye, Gladys Mirugi- Mukundi and Charles Ngwena For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge- Contemporary- Africa/ book- series/ RCAFR The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Recolonisation of Africa The Coloniality of Data Everisto Benyera First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business. © 2021 Everisto Benyera The right of Everisto Benyera to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Benyera, Everisto, author. Title: The fourth industrial revolution and the recolonisation of Africa: the coloniality of data / Everisto Benyera. Other titles: Routledge contemporary Africa series. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021 . | Series: Routledge contemporary Africa | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020055922 (print) | LCCN 2020055923 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367744151 (hardback) | ISBN 9781003157731 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: International business enterprises–Africa. | Data mining–Africa. | Africa–Foreign economic relations–Europe. | Africa–Foreign economic relations–United States. | Europe–Foreign economic relations– Africa. | United States– Foreign economic relations– Africa. Classification: LCC HF1611.Z4 E85126 2021 (print) | LCC HF1611.Z4 (ebook) | DDC 337.604–dc23 LC record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/2020055922 LC ebook record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/2020055923 ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 74415- 1 (hbk) ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 74420- 5 (pbk) ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 15773- 1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003157731 Typeset in Bembo by Newgen Publishing UK To all slaves; past, present, and future To those slaves who do not know that they are slaves Contents Foreword viii Preface xi Acronyms xii Acknowledgements xiv 1 Data coloniality: A decolonial perspective of Africa and the 4IR 1 2 Historicising Africa’s subjugation 17 3 Contextualising the colonial project in Africa 33 4 Data mining, harvesting, and datafication 67 5 Networks, big data, and data coloniality: Whither Africa’s sovereignty? 91 6 The 4IR as the mother of all destructions and accumulations 116 7 Mapping Africa’s destiny in the fourth industrial revolution 129 8 Africa’s eunuch condition and the omnipresent footprints of the four industrial revolutions 149 References 161 Index 187 Foreword As the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) consolidates and takes effect, humanity and other forms of life are undergoing irresistible, irreversible and universal social, economic, and legal transformation based on the massive appro- priation of social life through data extraction. In the 4IR, capitalism took a new turn, away from focusing on materials and goods towards services. The 4IR is essentially a services revolution brought about by the merging of nanotech- nology, biotechnology, information communication technology (ICT), among others in the process blurring the traditional boundaries between the physical, the digital, and the biological worlds. This resulted in new ways of thinking and doing, aided by vast amounts of information and data harvested from people’s daily lives, hence the Internet of Things among many technology- enabled services. In the 4IR, the evolution of episteme has taken another turn and its relation to being which once again excludes the black people, broadly defined. With the history of exclusion, slavery, colonialism, and perpetual denial into personhood, black people are still struggling to be part of the thinking beings and always grapple with how to enter the realm of knowledge production. Stated differ- ently, black people, the majority of them African, lack the right to rights. The 4IR will undoubtedly complicate the quest for black people to enter and be accepted into the realm of humanity. In the 4IR, the thinking and cognitive space has new entrants, trans- humans, robo- humans, and other forms of enhanced humanity who occupy an onto- logical position higher than that of black people. The 4IR is therefore another sad moment in the life of black people as they slide lower and lower on the ontological ladder, whose apex is occupied by white Caucasian males and the bottom is occupied by black women. Knowledge production is shifting from the human being towards online entities that are now playing the role of cognitive thinking, imagination, and creativity. Intelligence is now artificial, and AI is now responsible for the cre- ation of a new reality to which we all belong to. Who are those responsible for creating this new reality? Who are the new Philosopher Kings? The new Philosopher Kings are the emerging tech oli- garchy that is replacing the political oligarchy. They own and control big data, Foreword ix artificial intelligence, online communities, and the online economy. They har- vest data, process it, commodify it, and hence make data capital. Like all forms of capital, data extraction is not only unethical but brutal and unforgiving. Data is capital, the new gold, and oil. Like oil and gold before it, data is power and like all forms of power, it is deployable in political spaces in order to predetermine, influence, and pre- empt political decisions. Indeed democracy and many other political processes and outcomes are under threat of being subverted courtesy of the 4IR and many of its gismos. This, in turn, will result in the entrenchment of coloniality especially in Africa where there are weak accountability institutions and unethical and unjust leadership. Preface Africa must cautiously celebrate the Fourth Industrial Revolution as this will not end or lessen its challenges which are a product of centuries of being on the darker side of Euro- North American modernity. Africa experienced the cumulative effects of what has been wrongly termed the transatlantic slave trade (the Atlantic Ocean never enslaved anyone. It is the European and North American slave trade, not transatlantic stave trade), colonialism, apartheid, glo- balisation, and now coloniality. This book was conceptualised against the back- ground of the mutative nature of colonialism which today presents itself as coloniality which thrives on accumulation, misrepresentation, and misrecogni- tion. The (formerly) colonised people were dispossessed of their land, capitals, and humanity. These were accumulated from those who consequently became non- human or the Athropos by the Humanitas. Euro- North American modernity, the slave trade, and colonial economy and coloniality constantly
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Mis-Education of the African Child: the Evolution of British Colonial Education Policy in Southern Nigeria, 1900–1925
    Athens Journal of History - Volume 7, Issue 2, April 2021 – Pages 141-162 The Mis-education of the African Child: The Evolution of British Colonial Education Policy in Southern Nigeria, 1900–1925 By Bekeh Utietiang Ukelina Education did not occupy a primal place in the European colonial project in Africa. The ideology of "civilizing mission", which provided the moral and legal basis for colonial expansion, did little to provide African children with the kind of education that their counterparts in Europe received. Throughout Africa, south of the Sahara, colonial governments made little or no investments in the education of African children. In an attempt to run empire on a shoestring budget, the colonial state in Nigeria provided paltry sums of grants to the missionary groups that operated in the colony and protectorate. This paper explores the evolution of the colonial education system in the Southern provinces of Nigeria, beginning from the year of Britain’s official colonization of Nigeria to 1925 when Britain released an official policy on education in tropical Africa. This paper argues that the colonial state used the school system as a means to exert power over the people. Power was exercised through an education system that limited the political, technological, and economic advancement of the colonial people. The state adopted a curricular that emphasized character formation and vocational training and neglected teaching the students, critical thinking and advanced sciences. The purpose of education was to make loyal and submissive subjects of the state who would serve as a cog in the wheels of the exploitative colonial machine.
    [Show full text]
  • Hunters Paths
    CONSERVATION Happy Birthday Selous! Africa’s Oldest Protected Area Celebrates The Selous Game Reserve, in southern Tanzania, is not only Africa’s largest protected area, but also its oldest. It celebrated its 120th birthday on May 7th. Although a portion of the reserve is used for photo-tourism, the majority of it is primarily for sustainable hunting tourism, making it Africa’s largest hunting area. Text and Photos: Dr. Rolf D. Baldus | Maps by Mike Shand hen Germany, a latecomer made clear by von Wissmann, then Imperial to European colonial expan- Governor, in a decree: “I felt obliged to issue W sion, declared Tanganyika this ordinance in order to conserve wildlife a Protectorate in 1885, the slaughter of and to prevent many species from becoming elephants had already surpassed its peak, extinct, which would happen soon if present and they were becoming rare. Two hun- conditions prevail ... We are obliged to think dred tons of ivory were exported every also of future generations, and should secure year from Zanzibar, the equivalent of 12,000 them the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure elephants. Commercial hunters could buy of hunting African game in the future.” licenses to shoot elephants for their ivory. It was commercial culling and not tradi- In Germany, fears of the imminent extinc- tional hunting by the local African population, tion of the formerly rich wildlife in Ger- which was considered unsustainable by the man East Africa became widespread after government. In their opinion, even a game- hunter-conservationists, among them Carl rich country like German East Africa could Georg Schillings, alerted the public in best- not conserve its wildlife in the long term if selling books.
    [Show full text]
  • Hwang, Yin (2014) Victory Pictures in a Time of Defeat: Depicting War in the Print and Visual Culture of Late Qing China 1884 ‐ 1901
    Hwang, Yin (2014) Victory pictures in a time of defeat: depicting war in the print and visual culture of late Qing China 1884 ‐ 1901. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/18449 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. VICTORY PICTURES IN A TIME OF DEFEAT Depicting War in the Print and Visual Culture of Late Qing China 1884-1901 Yin Hwang Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the History of Art 2014 Department of the History of Art and Archaeology School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 2 Declaration for PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the School of Oriental and African Studies concerning plagiarism. I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person.
    [Show full text]
  • 6 Cybercrime
    Internet and Technology Law: A U.S. Perspective Cybercrime 6 Cybercrime Objectives Ater completing this chapter, the student should be able to: • Describe the three types of computer crime; • Describe and deine the types of Internet crime that target individuals and businesses; and • Explain the key federal laws that target Internet crime against property. 6.1 Overview his chapter will review privacy and security breaches on the Internet that are of a criminal nature, or called cybercrime. Broadly speaking, cybercrime is deined as any illegal action that uses or targets computer networks to violate the law. he U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)317 categorizes computer crime in three ways: 1. As a target: a computer is the subject of the crime (such causing computer damage). For example, a computer attacks the computer(s) of others in a malicious way (such as spreading a virus). 2. As a weapon or a tool: a computer is used to help commit the crime. his means that the computer is used to commit “traditional crime” normally occurring in the physical world (such as fraud or illegal gambling). 3. As an accessory or incidental to the crime: a computer is used peripherally (such as for recordkeeping purposes). he DOJ suggests this would be using a computer as a “fancy iling cabinet” to store illegal or stolen information.318 6.2 Types of Crimes Many types of crimes are committed in today’s networked environment. hey can involve either people, businesses, or property. Perhaps you have been a victim of Internet crime, or chances are you know someone who has been a victim.
    [Show full text]
  • Shanghai, China's Capital of Modernity
    SHANGHAI, CHINA’S CAPITAL OF MODERNITY: THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE AND URBAN EXPERIENCE OF WORLD EXPO 2010 by GARY PUI FUNG WONG A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOHPY School of Government and Society Department of Political Science and International Studies The University of Birmingham February 2014 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis examines Shanghai’s urbanisation by applying Henri Lefebvre’s theories of the production of space and everyday life. A review of Lefebvre’s theories indicates that each mode of production produces its own space. Capitalism is perpetuated by producing new space and commodifying everyday life. Applying Lefebvre’s regressive-progressive method as a methodological framework, this thesis periodises Shanghai’s history to the ‘semi-feudal, semi-colonial era’, ‘socialist reform era’ and ‘post-socialist reform era’. The Shanghai World Exposition 2010 was chosen as a case study to exemplify how urbanisation shaped urban experience. Empirical data was collected through semi-structured interviews. This thesis argues that Shanghai developed a ‘state-led/-participation mode of production’.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding African Armies
    REPORT Nº 27 — April 2016 Understanding African armies RAPPORTEURS David Chuter Florence Gaub WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM Taynja Abdel Baghy, Aline Leboeuf, José Luengo-Cabrera, Jérôme Spinoza Reports European Union Institute for Security Studies EU Institute for Security Studies 100, avenue de Suffren 75015 Paris http://www.iss.europa.eu Director: Antonio Missiroli © EU Institute for Security Studies, 2016. Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged, save where otherwise stated. Print ISBN 978-92-9198-482-4 ISSN 1830-9747 doi:10.2815/97283 QN-AF-16-003-EN-C PDF ISBN 978-92-9198-483-1 ISSN 2363-264X doi:10.2815/088701 QN-AF-16-003-EN-N Published by the EU Institute for Security Studies and printed in France by Jouve. Graphic design by Metropolis, Lisbon. Maps: Léonie Schlosser; António Dias (Metropolis). Cover photograph: Kenyan army soldier Nicholas Munyanya. Credit: Ben Curtis/AP/SIPA CONTENTS Foreword 5 Antonio Missiroli I. Introduction: history and origins 9 II. The business of war: capacities and conflicts 15 III. The business of politics: coups and people 25 IV. Current and future challenges 37 V. Food for thought 41 Annexes 45 Tables 46 List of references 65 Abbreviations 69 Notes on the contributors 71 ISSReportNo.27 List of maps Figure 1: Peace missions in Africa 8 Figure 2: Independence of African States 11 Figure 3: Overview of countries and their armed forces 14 Figure 4: A history of external influences in Africa 17 Figure 5: Armed conflicts involving African armies 20 Figure 6: Global peace index 22 Figure
    [Show full text]
  • A Journal of African Studies
    UCLA Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies Title Independence on a Silver-Platter: The Emerging Liberal Mythology Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1dd7p21q Journal Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 15(1-2) ISSN 0041-5715 Author Zeleza, Tiyambe Publication Date 1986 DOI 10.5070/F7151-2017000 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California INDEPENDENCE ON A SILVER PLATTER: THE EMERGING LIBERAL MYTHOLOGY Tiyambe Zeleza Historiographical traditions have a way of going into hibernation, shedding their aged and hideous kales, and begin life anew, ready to spit the same old poison. That is what see11s to have happened to imperialist historiography, dealt crashing blows in the 1960s and 1970s by nationalist and Karxist historians. The Africa of the eighties with its enduring and painful images of devasting drought, lurid tales of corruption, incessant civil wars, coups and counter-coups leading to continuous streams of refugees, and a 11 encapsulated in those bloated or lanky skeletons bowing to in the Sahel and Ethiopia does provide a fertile ground the resurgence of crude, rabidly racist perceptions of rica. like vu1 tures, supply-side bankers, with International Monetary Fund (tHF) or World Bank attache cases, imonious Western politicians, award-seeking journalists, f-aooointed 'aid' missionaries, and even publicity-starved stars,' are descending on the 'Dark Continent' to save it "inevitable collapse.• A hundred years ago, the imoerialist powers of Europe met in Beriin in 1884 to formalise the colonisation of Afdca. one heard of Europe's "nobl e mission" to •civilise• those lf-devfl, half-child• peoples of Africa and liberate them savagery and debauchery, slavery and "inter-tribal• , indolence and •paganism." Businessmen, politicians, ionaries and jingoistic pressmen sounded the clarion call.
    [Show full text]
  • The Anglophone Cameroon Crisis: by Jon Lunn and Louisa Brooke-Holland April 2019 Update
    BRIEFING PAPER Number 8331, 17 April 2019 The Anglophone Cameroon crisis: By Jon Lunn and Louisa April 2019 update Brooke-Holland Contents: 1. Overview 2. History and its legacies 3. 2015-17: main developments 4. 2018: main developments 5. Events during 2019 and future prospects 6. Response of Western governments and the UN www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary 2 The Anglophone Cameroon crisis: April 2019 update Contents Summary 3 1. History and its legacies 5 2. 2015-17: main developments 8 3. 2018: main developments 10 4. Events during 2019 and future prospects 12 5. Response of Western governments and the UN 13 Cover page image copyright: Image 5584098178_709d889580_o – Welcome signs to Santa, gateway to the anglophone Northwest Region, Cameroon, March 2011 by Joel Abroad – Flickr.com page. Licensed by Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)/ image cropped. 3 Commons Library Briefing, 17 April 2019 Summary Relations between the two Anglophone regions of Cameroon and the country’s dominant Francophone elite have long been fraught. Over the past three years, tensions have escalated seriously and since October 2017 violent conflict has erupted between armed separatist groups and the security forces, with both sides being accused of committing human rights abuses. The tensions originate in a complex and contested decolonisation process in the late-1950s and early-1960s, in which Britain, as one of the colonial powers, was heavily involved. Federal arrangements were scrapped in 1972 by a Francophone- dominated central government. Many English-speaking Cameroonians have long complained that they are politically, economically and linguistically marginalised.
    [Show full text]
  • Taxes, Institutions, and Governance: Evidence from Colonial Nigeria
    Taxes, Institutions and Local Governance: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Colonial Nigeria Daniel Berger September 7, 2009 Abstract Can local colonial institutions continue to affect people's lives nearly 50 years after decolo- nization? Can meaningful differences in local institutions persist within a single set of national incentives? The literature on colonial legacies has largely focused on cross country comparisons between former French and British colonies, large-n cross sectional analysis using instrumental variables, or on case studies. I focus on the within-country governance effects of local insti- tutions to avoid the problems of endogeneity, missing variables, and unobserved heterogeneity common in the institutions literature. I show that different colonial tax institutions within Nigeria implemented by the British for reasons exogenous to local conditions led to different present day quality of governance. People living in areas where the colonial tax system required more bureaucratic capacity are much happier with their government, and receive more compe- tent government services, than people living in nearby areas where colonialism did not build bureaucratic capacity. Author's Note: I would like to thank David Laitin, Adam Przeworski, Shanker Satyanath and David Stasavage for their invaluable advice, as well as all the participants in the NYU predissertation seminar. All errors, of course, remain my own. Do local institutions matter? Can diverse local institutions persist within a single country or will they be driven to convergence? Do decisions about local government structure made by colonial governments a century ago matter today? This paper addresses these issues by looking at local institutions and local public goods provision in Nigeria.
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliography
    Bibliography [1] M Aamir Ali, B Arief, M Emms, A van Moorsel, “Does the Online Card Payment Landscape Unwittingly Facilitate Fraud?” IEEE Security & Pri- vacy Magazine (2017) [2] M Abadi, RM Needham, “Prudent Engineering Practice for Cryptographic Protocols”, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering v 22 no 1 (Jan 96) pp 6–15; also as DEC SRC Research Report no 125 (June 1 1994) [3] A Abbasi, HC Chen, “Visualizing Authorship for Identification”, in ISI 2006, LNCS 3975 pp 60–71 [4] H Abelson, RJ Anderson, SM Bellovin, J Benaloh, M Blaze, W Diffie, J Gilmore, PG Neumann, RL Rivest, JI Schiller, B Schneier, “The Risks of Key Recovery, Key Escrow, and Trusted Third-Party Encryption”, in World Wide Web Journal v 2 no 3 (Summer 1997) pp 241–257 [5] H Abelson, RJ Anderson, SM Bellovin, J Benaloh, M Blaze, W Diffie, J Gilmore, M Green, PG Neumann, RL Rivest, JI Schiller, B Schneier, M Specter, D Weizmann, “Keys Under Doormats: Mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications”, MIT CSAIL Tech Report 2015-026 (July 6, 2015); abridged version in Communications of the ACM v 58 no 10 (Oct 2015) [6] M Abrahms, “What Terrorists Really Want”,International Security v 32 no 4 (2008) pp 78–105 [7] M Abrahms, J Weiss, “Malicious Control System Cyber Security Attack Case Study – Maroochy Water Services, Australia”, ACSAC 2008 [8] A Abulafia, S Brown, S Abramovich-Bar, “A Fraudulent Case Involving Novel Ink Eradication Methods”, in Journal of Forensic Sciences v41(1996) pp 300-302 [9] DG Abraham, GM Dolan, GP Double, JV Stevens,
    [Show full text]
  • SEMBENE in SENEGAL Radical Art in Neo-Colonial Society
    SEMBENE IN SENEGAL Radical Art in Neo-colonial Society by Fírinne Ní Chréacháin A thesis submitted to the Centre of West African Studies of the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 1997 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. AUTHOR’SSTATEMENTCONCERNINGELECTRONICVERSION Theoriginalofthisthesiswasproducedin1997onaveryoldAmstradwordͲprocessor whichwouldhaveproducedaverypoorͲqualityscannedversion. InsubmittingthiselectronicversionforinclusionintheUBIRArepositoryin2019,I,the author,havemadethefollowingchanges: FRONTPAGES:Ichangedtheorderofthepages,puttingthepersonalpages(dedicationand acknowledgements)first. TABLEOFCONTENTS:Iremovedtheclumsylookingsubsubtitlestoproduceacleanerlook. BODYOFTEXT:Nochangesapartfrominsertionofsomeextrasubtitlesandsubsubtitlesto enhanceaccessibility. BIBLIOGRAPHY:Iaddedthreeentries,ADOTEVI,ENAGNONandKANE,inadvertentlyomitted inoriginal. Signed DrFírinneNíChréacháin 7May2019 FOR YETUNDE AND ALL GOD’S BITS OF WOOD BANTY
    [Show full text]
  • Magazine 2/2017
    B56133 The Science Magazine of the Max Planck Society 2.2017 Big Data IT SECURITY IMAGING COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR AESTHETICS Cyber Attacks on Live View of the Why Animals The Power Free Elections Focus of Disease Swarm for Swarms of Art Dossier – The Future of Energy Find out how we can achieve CO2 neutrality and the end of dependence on fossil fuels by 2100, thus opening a new age of electricity. siemens.com/pof-future-of-energy 13057_Print-Anzeige_V01.indd 2 12.10.16 14:47 ON LOCATION Photo: Astrid Eckert/Munich Operation Darkness When, on a clear night, you gaze at twinkling stars, glimmering planets or the cloudy band of the Milky Way, you are actually seeing only half the story – or, to be more precise, a tiny fraction of it. With the telescopes available to us, using all of the possible ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, we can observe only a mere one percent of the universe. The rest remains hidden, spread between dark energy and dark matter. The latter makes up over 20 percent of the cosmos. And it is this mysterious substance that is the focus of scien- tists involved in the CRESST Experiment. Behind this simple sounding name is a complex experiment, the “Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers.” The site of the unusual campaign is the deep underground laboratory under the Gran Sasso mountain range in Italy’s Abruzzo region. Fully shielded by 1,400 meters of rock, the researchers here – from the Max Planck Institute for Physics, among others – have installed a special device whose job is to detect particles of dark matter.
    [Show full text]