In the wake of the hostile environment: migration, reproduction and the Windrush scandal

This article examines the place of reproduction in the UK migration policy popularly known as ‘the hostile environment’, introduced in 2012 by the Conservative–Lib Dem Coalition government, and the ‘Windrush scandal’ that followed. In order to think through how the reproductive sphere comes in to play in this policy and its consequences, I draw on theoretical insights from the work of Christina Sharpe and Saidiya Hartman, both of whom invite us to reflect on the ways in which the afterlife of enslavement and empire continues to impinge on the status of Black subjects, and the ways in which our notions of the maternal, reproduction, kinship and belonging are entangled in this process. I begin by examining the place of the reproductive sphere in the hostile environment policy itself, before moving on to discuss the Windrush scandal and the ways in which it can be seen as an attack on the reproductive needs of its victims. I then consider these findings further through an engagement with the work of Sharpe and Hartman, arguing that the scandal reveals ways in which we continue to live ‘in the wake’ of racialised understandings of the reproductive that mean that some people are refused the possibilities of attachment and affiliation, so that, in Hartman's words, theirs is ‘the perilous condition of existing in a world in which you have no investment’. In the final section, I respond to Sharpe's call for white people to ‘rend the fabric of the kinship narrative’ that produces these exclusionary terms of belonging and permits the repetition of such brutalities as the hostile environment.

Field Experience from Robot Tests on Drill Floor and Pipe Deck

The objective of this paper is to present results from extensive testing of fully robotic drilling and pipe handling operations in the drilling industry, including several robots and tests on both land and offshore. Throughout the last eight years, all-electric, heavy-duty drilling and pipe handling robots of up to seven tons capacity have been tested and piloted on dedicated test facilities, land rigs and offshore rigs. The robotic equipment includes drill floor robot, pipe handler robot, robotic roughneck and pipe deck robot with the purpose of removing the people from the drill floor, derrick and the pipe deck. The testing and qualification have been conducted in phases and in a cooperation between equipment manufacturer, rig contractors and operating companies. The industry has great expectations with the introduction of robotics for red zone management and eliminating all manual operations and human exposure to heavy machinery. Expected value would be a substantial saving in rig days due to fast, precise and consistent operations and removal of people out of harm's way. In addition to improved safety, reduced OPEX, less downtime and faster installation, the robotics systems lower the noise and the carbon footprint due to higher energy efficiency and less GHG emissions. Also, the precise motion control of robots enables digitalization of the drilling process. The testing of robots in drilling applications has been done with the purpose of testing and qualifying the technology, as well as gaining experience with performance, reliability, maintainability, safety, and value to the users. This paper presents performance data from robot operations including both single robots and full system operations, such as tripping and stand-building. Reliability of electric robots in hostile environment is analyzed with regards to field experience from land rig drilling and offshore operations. Finally, the value to the users is substantiated. The paper provides unique results and experience from the longest and broadest tests of heavy-duty all-electric robots in the drilling environment. It therefore provides valuable input for decisions of future use of industrialized robots in the oil and gas upstream industry.

Considerations on Countering the Actions Aimed at Banning Access and Restricting Freedom of Action (A2AD)

Each state seeks to protect its territory from external threats using a wide range of forces and means, which combine the strike power with increased possibilities of detection given by the use of modern technologies. In this regard, we can see that some states have developed complex active and passive defense systems with the purpose of banning access and controlling certain key areas and aimed at both discouraging potential aggressors and protecting vital interests. For states with regional or global ambitions, the successful conduct of access operations in the area of operations, in a permissive, semi-permissive or hostile environment must be a priority. Access operations in a semi-permissive or hostile environment involve the use of tailored capabilities to deal with the opponent’s defense system and to overcome A2AD’s abilities.

RootLogChain: Registering Log-Events in a Blockchain for Audit Issues from the Creation of the Root

Logging system activities are required to provide credibility and confidence in the systems used by an organization. Logs in computer systems must be secured from the root user so that they are true and fair. This paper introduces RootLogChain, a blockchain-based audit mechanism that is built upon a security protocol to create both a root user in a blockchain network and the first log; from there, all root events are stored as logs within a standard blockchain mechanism. RootLogChain provides security constructs so as to be deployed in a distributed context over a hostile environment, such as the internet. We have developed a prototype based on a microservice architecture, validating it by executing different stress proofs in two scenarios: one with compliant agents and the other without. In such scenarios, several compliant and non-compliant agents try to become a root and register the events within the blockchain. Non-compliant agents simulate eavesdropper entities that do not follow the rules of the protocol. Our experiments show that the mechanism guarantees the creation of one and only one root user, integrity, and authenticity of the transactions; it also stores all events generated by the root within a blockchain. In addition, for audit issues, the traceability of the transaction logs can be consulted by the root.

Neural networks on-line optimized PID controller with wind gust rejection for a quad-rotor

In this paper a complete methodology of modeling and control of quad-rotor aircraft is exposed. In fact, a PD on-line optimized Neural Networks Approach (PD-NN) is developed and applied to control the attitude of a quad-rotor that is evolving in hostile environment with wind gust disturbances and should maintain its position despite of these troubles. Whereas PD classical controllers are dedicated for the positions, altitude and speed control. The main objective of this work is to develop a smart Self-Tuning PD controller for attitude angles control, based on neural networks capable of controlling the quad-rotor for an optimized performance thus following a desired trajectory. Many problems could arise if the quad-rotor is evolving in hostile environments presenting irregular troubles such as wind gusts modeled and applied to the overall system. The quad-rotor has to rapidly achieve tasks while guaranteeing stability and precision and must behave quickly with regards to decision making fronting turbulences. This technique offers some advantages over conventional control methods such as PD controllers. Simulation results are achieved with the use of Matlab/Simulink environment and are established on a comparative study between PD and PD-NN controllers founded on wind disturbances application. These obstacles are applied with numerous degrees of strength to test the quad-rotor comportment. Experimental results are reached with the use of the V-REP environment with which some trajectories are tracked and then applied on a BLADE Inductrix FPV+. These simulations and experimental results are acceptable and have confirmed the efficiency of the proposed PD-NN approach. In fact, this controller has fairly smaller errors than the PD controller and has an improved ability to reject troubles. Moreover, it has confirmed to be extremely vigorous and efficient fronting disturbances in the form of wind disturbances.