Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collection

http://192.168.18.118:4000/handle/20.500.12661/350

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 244

Health information systems training: University of Dar es Salaam implementation experience
(Academia.edu, 2007) Shidende, Nima H.
Every health worker collects data while delivering health services. This information will later inform the society about the population’s health status, for instance as diseases statistics. A shift towards decentralization in many low-income countries implies that more skills are demanded of primary health care workers, including data and information handling. There is a need to build capacity to deal with health information and one way of doing that is by introducing courses related to health information system. This paper reports the experience obtained and lesson learnt while implementing the nine month programme: Health Management Information System Course at the University of Dar es Salaam during the first two years. The course aims to understand the development of Health information system in order to strengthen health management in developing countries. The emphasis is placed on the teaching module that combined the theory, cross-country cooperation and research at the work place of participants. Through the students’ own research projects, it was learnt that there is a problem of data quality at district levels and this could be attributed to poor HMIS training to health workers dealing with data management at various levels of health sector. What we have learned from this course is that there is a need to develop different course modules for different participants. We conclude by recommending the establishment of similar courses in different places.
The cost of a 'free' primary education in Tanzania
(PKP Publishing Services Network, 2009) Vavrus, Frances; Moshi, Goodiel
One of the most widely heralded educational policy reforms of the past few years has been the elimination of primary school fees in countries where pupils and parents have been responsible for such costs. Consistent with the goals of Education for All (EFA), international organizations and national governments in many Sub-Saharan African countries have joined together to increase access to schooling by abolishing fees and other mandatory contributions. The logic for such a change in policy is clear: If the cost of schooling is too high, poor parents will not send their children to school; therefore, the elimination of compulsory charges will lower the cost of education and increase the number of children in school. Indeed, several studies suggest that the recent elimination of school fees in East Africa is the reason for the rapid increase in primary school enrollment (Glewwe & Zhao, 2005; International Monetary Fund and the International Development Association [IMF & IDA], 2001, 2004). EFA has also heralded a new era for girls’ education in Africa, with global attention directed toward redressing gender disparities in enrollment and attainment through the lowering of school-related costs and other mechanisms (Bloch, Beoku-Betts, & Tabachnick, 1998; Samoff, 1999). Yet what if fees are only a fraction of the cost to parents to send their children—boys and girls—to school? What if schools cannot maintain themselves without required ―contributions‖ from parents because governments do not keep their financial promises? What if policies to abolish fees and other expenses satisfy international stakeholders but do not significantly reduce the financial burden of schooling on families, thereby necessitating children‘s labor in poor households? These are some of the niggling questions about the relationship between school fees and primary education, and between policy and practice, explored in this article about the Primary Education Development Plan (PEDP) in the United Republic of Tanzania. We consider how educational policy in heavily indebted countries, such as Tanzania, is shaped by international and national configurations of power that are reflected in policy discourse and policy implementation at the local level. Our analytical approach draws on the work of Stephen Ball (1990), as well as critical discourse analysis (CDA), which assumes that the relations of power can be discerned by tracing the production, circulation, and implementation of a given policy (Fairclough, 1992; Rogers, 2004). This requires looking at parallels between economic policy shaped by international financial institutions and national education policies in Africa, and it involves exploring the degree of local awareness of domestic reforms intended to improve the lives of the populace. With this view of policy studies in mind, we first situate the study of PEDP within a broader international context and then examine its implementation in northern Tanzania.
Cost-aware virtual USB drive: providing cost-effective block I/O management commercial cloud storage for mobile devices
(IEEE, 2010) Nam, Young Jin; Park, Young Kyun; Lee, Jong Tae; Ishengoma, Fredrick
This paper addresses difficulties in mapping blocks onto cloud storage and proposes a novel cost-aware log-structured block I/O management over one of the commercial cloud storage, Amazon S3. The proposed scheme is imbedded in the virtual USB drive architecture that replaces the NAND flash of the USB memory with the capacity-free network storage. The key of the proposed scheme is to perform onto the cloud storage log-structured writes with the optimal number of data blocks that adaptively changes with I/O characteristics (the number of I/O operations and storage size) and cloud storage pricing policy. The proposed scheme also efficiently manages associate metadata by using well-organized data structures and layouts both in the memory and on the cloud storage. Performance analysis shows that the proposed scheme can reduce the total I/O costs significantly up to 54%, as compared with a simple one-to-one mapping scheme.
Teacher’s knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices in integrating ICTs in different curriculum areas in secondary schools: a case study of Pakistan
(EBSCO Industries, Inc, 2010) Mwalongo, Alcuin
This study set to explore teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices in integrating information and communications technology (ICT) in curriculum areas in a private secondary school in Karachi, Pakistan, through a case study of four teachers. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews, informal conversations and analysis of documents, and analysed using QSR NUD*IST. It was found that teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices significantly influenced how teachers integrated ICT in the curriculum areas. Due to limited time, the study could not trace longer how the teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices changed over time, thus, a longitudinal study is needed to trace how teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices change over time.
Teacher’s knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices in integrating ICTs in different curric-ulum areas in secondary schools: a case study of Pakistan
(2010)
This study set to explore teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices in integrating information and communications technology (ICT) in curriculum areas in a private secondary school in Karachi, Pakistan, through a case study of four teachers. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews, informal conversations and analysis of documents, and analysed using QSR NUD*IST. It was found that teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices significantly influenced how teachers integrated ICT in the curriculum areas. Due to limited time, the study could not trace longer how the teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices changed over time, thus, a longitudinal study is needed to trace how teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and pedagogical practices change over time.
Design of encoding calculator software for huffman and shannon-Fano algorithms
(World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 2011) Chanhemo, Wilson; Mgombelo, Henry. R.; Hamad, Omar F; Marwala, T.
This paper presents a design of source encoding calculator software which applies the two famous algorithms in the field of information theory-the Shannon-Fano and the Huffman schemes. This design helps to easily realize the algorithms without going into a cumbersome, tedious and prone to error manual mechanism of encoding the signals during the transmission. The work describes the design of the software, how it works, comparison with related works, its efficiency, its usefulness in the field of information technology studies and the future prospects of the software to engineers, students, technicians and alike. The designed “Encodia” software has been developed, tested and found to meet the intended requirements. It is expected that this application will help students and teaching staff in their daily doing of information theory related tasks. The process is ongoing to modify this tool so that it can also be more intensely useful in research activities on source coding.
Factors influencing citizens utilisation of government websites
(Journal of Informatics and Virtual education, 2011) Mwangakala, Hilda; Mvungi, Nerey H.
The use of website for wide-ranging applications has become a reality following rapid developments in communications and information technologies. Government and their agencies have adopted and used it to communicate with and to offer services to their citizens. The approach of using information technology (IT) is conceived as being easier and more convenient. Therefore, increasingly governments and their agencies use websites to provide information and services. The problem is whether the services and information reach the intended recipients. This paper looks at different schemes to assess the utilization of such offerings, the factors and parameters that influence its acceptability. A conceptual modal to measure acceptability and use of government websites is presented based on six identified parameters: trust, usefulness, easy of use, satisfaction and demographic characteristics.
How primary school teachers handle pupils' errors_ in EFL classrooms: a case study of primary schools in Dar es salaam
(Institute of Adult Education, 2011) Mwalongo, Alcuin Ivor
There has been a public discontent in Tanzania regarding pupils' fluency and competency in English as a foreign language (EFL). The blame has been directed to teachers due to their inability to deal with the said problem. Since handling pupils' errors is a fundamental process of teaching and learning that has the potential of improving pupils' linguistic fluency and competency, this study sought to explore how primary school teachers handled errors in EFL classrooms. The research study used a qualitative paradigm that employed a case study of sixteen teachers from eight schools of the three Municipalities of Dar es Salaam City, that is, Ila/a, temese and Kinondoni. Data were mainly collected through classroom observations and were analysed using QSR NVivo NUD*IST. The findings revealed that teachers used a variety of strategies to correct pupils' errors.However, some of the strategies employed were unprofessional and could undermine the teaching-learning process. Implications for teaching and learning EFL in the primary schools in Tanzania and the areas for future research have been discussed.
Teachers’ perceptions about ICT for teaching, professional development, administration and personal use
(Open Campus, The University of the West Indies, West Indies, 2011) Mwalongo, Alcuin
Tanzania has been investing in the integration of (ICT) in education for several decades. However, little is known about teachers’ perceptions about ICT integration in education. This study examined teachers’ perceptions about the use of ICT tools for teaching, administration, professional development and personal use. Seventy four teachers were involved in the study. Data were collected through an online survey using SurveyMonkey and postings generated from the researcher’s blog. Qualitative data were downloaded from the blog and from SurveyMonkey; read word for word; and analysed using Weft QDA where themes related to the research questions were coded while quantitative data from SurveyMonkey were analysed online in the form of percentages. Results indicate that while the frequency of use of ICT was influenced by access, the competence of ICT use was influenced by training; teachers used ICT in a wide range for teaching, administration, professional development and personal use. However, teachers did not use ICT to radically change their pedagogical practices, but rather to sustain their traditional practices. Future research could focus on classroom observations to ascertain the actual use of ICT as data for this study have solely depended on self-reports; and the role of school leadership for integration of ICT in the teaching-learning process needs to be examined.
Comparison of convergence and BER performance on LMS, RLS and NLMS in BPLC systems
(International Journal of Science and Research, 2012) Mjahid, Mohammed; Mtonyole, Nixon
Adaptive equalization techniques compensate for timechannels dispersion introduced by band limited or frequency selective communication channel and combat the resulting inter-symbol interference (ISI) effect. When signals are transmitted on broadband power-line (BPL) channel, they undergo severe distortions. Typically, adaptive equalizers used in digital communication systems like BPL systems require an initial training period, during which a known data sequence is transmitted. A replica of this sequence is made available at the receiver in proper synchronization with the transmitter, making it possible for adjustments to be made to the equalizer coefficients in accordance with the adaptive filtering algorithm. However, in this paper, three algorithms for adapting transversal filter coefficient were studied, to compare their adaptation rate and BER performance on BPL channel. It has been shown that normalized least mean square (NLMS) algorithm performs better with a rate of convergence of about 150 iterations with an approximate MSE value of 25dB and with an Eb/No of 13dB NLMS algorithm achieve a BER of 10-5 compared to least mean square (LMS) and recursive least square (RLS) having a BER of 5×10-5 and 10-2 respectively.
E-commerce opportunities for local music industry in Tanzania
(Journal of Informatics and Virtual education, 2012) Chali, F. H; Mongi, H. J.
Expansion of music industry in terms of number of participants and financial turn-over has attracted interest to manage the supply sides of the digital systems. Challenges include increasing piracy and declining industry contribution to welfare of composers, performers and the general public through tax. This study analyses the case of Dar es salaam based Music industry with focus on ways to exploit existing growth using e-Commerce technologies. Stakeholders in the music industry and key practitioners in e-commerce technologies were interviewed in various ways. Findings from the study are summarized and discussed. The study recommends that e-Commerce systems with tighter security features have dual advantages: de-infringement by reducing piracy and cost of distribution by reducing the middlemen.
The effect of demographic characteristics on citizens' usage of government websites
(Elsevier, 2012) Mwangakala, Ms Hilda
In recent years Electronic government has been increasingly recognized as a popular means for transforming public governance in the World. Despite this increasing interest, little research has been done on how developing countries are going to move in the same pace with developed countries in adopting e-government with majority of citizens isolated and marginalized in terms of connectivity. This paper deals with understanding of the impact of demographic characteristics in the citizen’s usage of Government websites. It is perceived that Government websites are the primary media for communication between Government and Citizens in the study. A research model was developed by the author that was empirically tested using a self-administered questionnaire by conducting survey. The survey involved 1127 citizens with at least secondary education, reasonable income and experienced in using websites. Regression analysis was conducted to test the model. The results revealed that Age and Education level directly affected citizen’s willingness and continuance intention to use Government websites. However, income level didn’t have an effect in the citizen’s willingness to use government websites.
Deploying computer-based learning under suboptimal conditions
(IEEE, 2012) Mselle, Leonard J.; Kondo, Tabu S.
In this study, secondary school students were taught mathematics using Computer-Based Learning (CBL) approach in four lessons, during their mathematics classes. CBL was deployed without Internet connectivity. Data were recorded to measure any cognitive progress observed amongst the students; the impact that the method had on them, the position of CBL in relation to face-to-face approach and the viability of deploying digital content off-line to students without basic computer knowledge. For revision classes, the students showed a modest improvement in their cognition of mathematics. However, studying mathematics through digital content before face-to-face session had discouraging results. Information from the questionnaire revealed that overall; CBL approach was preferred as a complement to the face-to-face method. While cognitive improvement was not statistically significant, the main challenge to digital approach seems to be the alignment of CBL with face-to-face method. The study confirms that basic computer knowledge is not necessary for successful deployment of CBL. It is further concluded that investing in off-line CBL under sub-optimal conditions (where Internet connectivity is not available) is the viable alternative to Web-learning and Mobile-learning (M-learning). It is insisted that even without connectivity, the effect of severe lack of mathematics teachers and books can be mitigated by CBL, if this is properly deployed.
M-health: a mobile data collection prototype for monitoring and evaluation of public health service in the developing world
(University of Dodmoma, 2012) Shao, Deo; Loconsole, Annabella; Hajinasab, Banafsheh
The rapidly growing use of mobile technologies has increased pressure on the demand for mobile-based data collection solutions to bridge the information gaps in the public health sector. In this paper, a prototype for mobile health data collection (MHDK) is proposed. MHDK is built based on open source data collection frameworks. The proposed prototype offers ways of collecting health data through mobile phones and visualizes the collected data in a web application. The evaluation of the prototype seems to show the feasibility of mobile technologies, particularly open source technologies, in improving the health data collection and reporting systems for the developing world. The use of cellular phones for public health service monitoring and evaluation is therefore one of the most promising developments in the quest to achieve improved public health services.
Addressing land degradation in Tanzania: Contemporary issues related to policies and strategies
(Elsevier, 2012) Mongi, Hector
Several attempts have been made since the early years of independence of Tanzania to address land degradation. Policies and strategies were formulated that emphasized on the importance of land conservation in achieving economic growth. However, the context in which the earlier strategies were designed and implemented led to further land degradation. Failure of these interventions was partly because policies which backed them remained sectoral and most of them adopted the top-down approach with very little involvement of communities. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro created a new chapter in the country by insisting on the importance of sustainable development. The new policies and strategies were formulated with intentions to correct the past mistakes. This paper has assessed the extent to which Tanzania’s post-UNCED policies and strategies address the recent challenges of climate change on land degradation as reported by the IPCC in 2007. It involved review of selected policies, strategies and related literature on land degradation and climate change. The National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP) and two other sectoral strategies were reviewed in addition to the environmental, agricultural and water policies. The study finds that significant short and long-term measures to combat the negative effects of land use practices on the land resource are addressed. However, constant review of the policies and strategies is required to ensure that emerging challenges are addressed as part of the overall efforts to combat impacts of global climate change
Peer feedback: its quality and students’ perceptions as a peer learning tool in asynchronous discussion forums
(Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science (IAES), 2012) Mwalongo, Alcuin Ivor
The study examined two aspects, namely the quality of peer feedback in asynchronous discussion forum when such peer feedback is used as a formative learning tool, i.e. not for assigning grades; and students’ perceptions about the process of peer feedback. Twenty four students enrolled in higher education were involved. They were assigned two tasks: in the first task, they contributed lessons learnt about the course on the learning management system, via the asynchronous discussion forum. Thereafter they read the comments posted by their colleagues and critiqued them. In the final task that was given at the end of the course, students wrote reflections about peer feedback process. Thus all data collected were in the form of posts. Using NVivo, the posts generated in the first task were used to examine the quality of peer feedback, while the posts generated from students’ reflection about peer feedback were used to examine students’ perceptions about peer feedback. Results indicate that peer feedback is a useful tool for formative learning as well as assessment purposes. Future research could involve a larger sample, a diverse population, and a range of other courses
Hadoop and big data readiness in Africa: a case of Tanzania
(International Journal for Scientific Research & Development (IJSRD), 2013) Malero, Augustine; Seif, Hassan
Big data has been referred to as a forefront pillar of any modern analytics application. Together with Hadoop which is open source software, they have emerged to be a solution to the processing of massive generated both structured and unstructured data. With different strategies and initiatives taken by governments and private institutions in the world towards deployment and support of big data analytics and hadoop, Africa cannot be left isolated. In this paper, we assessed the readiness of Africa with a case study of Tanzania in harnessing the power of big data analytics and hadoop as a tool for drawing insights that might help them make crucial decisions. We used a survey in collecting the data using questionnaires. Results reveal that majority of the companies are either not aware of the technologies or still in their infancy stages in using big data analytics and hadoop. We identified that most companies are in either awakening or advancing stages of the big data continuum. This is attributed by challenges such as lack of IT skills to manage big data projects, cost of technology infrastructure, making decision on which data are relevant, lack of skills to analyze the data, lack of business support and deciding on what technology is best compared to others. It has also been found out that most of the companies' IT officers are not aware with the concepts and techniques of big data analytics and hadoop.
Performance improvement of MAC protocols for broadband power-line access networks of developing countries: A case of Tanzania
(2013) Abdalla, Abdi T.; Anatory, Justinian
This paper investigates the possibility of improving throughputs of some Media Access Controls protocols such as ALOHA, slotted ALOHA and Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance with the aim of increasing the performance of Powerline access networks. In this investigation, the real Powerline network topology in Tanzania located in Dar es Salaam City, Kariakoo area was used as a case study. During this investigation, Wireshark Network Protocol Analyzer was used to analyze data traffic of similar existing network for projection purpose and then the data were simulated using MATLAB. This paper proposed and analyzed three improvement techniques based on collision domain, packet length and combination of the two. From the results, it was found that the throughput of Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance protocol improved noticeably while ALOHA and slotted ALOHA showed insignificant changes especially when the hybrid techniques were employed. Keywords—Access Network, ALOHA, Broadband Powerline Communication, Slotted ALOHA, CSMA/CA and MAC Protocols.
Regulation, competition and productivity growth in the African telecommunications industry
(AIRCC Publishing Corporation, 2013) Moshi, Goodiel Charles; Mwakatumbula, Hilda; Mitomo, Hitoshi
The telecommunications industry in Africa has exhibited tremendous development since the turn of the century. This study analyzes production efficiency changes in the African telecommunications industry in the period 2000 to 2009. Furthermore, an attempt is made to assess the determinants for such efficiency changes. The results show that the industry has improved its productivity levels. However, most of the productivity growth is resulted from technological advancement and less from technical efficiency. Additionally, market competition and increasing subscriptions have also positively affected the sector’s productivity. Hence, this study implies that African countries can further improve productivity in their telecommunications sector by improving on technical efficiencies, increase outputs especially the penetration of mobile telephony, and allow competition in the market with participation from international network operators.
Overview applications of data mining In health care: the case study of Arusha region
(IGI Global Publishing House, 2013) Diwani, Salim; Mishol, Suzan; Kayange, Daniel S.; Machuve, Dina; Sam, Anael
Data mining as one of many constituents of health care has been used intensively and extensively in many organizations around the globe as an efficient technique of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases to results into more useful health information. In healthcare, data mining is becoming increasingly popular and essential. Data mining applications can greatly benefits all parties involved in health care industry. The huge amounts of data generated by healthcare transactions are too complex and voluminous to be processed and analyzed by traditional methods. Data mining provides the methodology and technology to transform huge amount of data into useful information for decision making. This paper explores data mining applications in healthcare in Arusha region of Tanzania more particularly; it discusses data mining and its applications in major areas such as evaluation of treatment effectiveness, management of healthcare itself and lowering medical costs.

Browse

Browsing Journal Articles by Issue Date

Results Per Page

Sort Options