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Tsetse Fly Infection Dynamics and its Implications with Control of Trypanosomiasis in Kajo-Keji County, South Sudan
Get PDFA two-year study was conducted in Kajo-keji County South Sudan to evaluate tsetse fly infection dynamics which implicate the control of trypanosomiasis in the study area.Infection dynamics ofthe flieswas assessed and monitored using biconical traps.Captured flies were identified, segregated into sexes and age examined using wing fray and ovarian techniques for males and females, respectively. RIME-LAMP test was used to detectTrypanosome species in the midguts of wild tsetse flies.The non-parametric Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to assess the difference in the number of the infected flies between the dry and the wet season counts.The mean infected G.f. fuscipes were: male 6 ±1.4, female 3 ± 1.0 and male 10 ± 2.0, female 3 ± 0.7 in the dry and wet seasons of the year 2011; male,6 ± 1.4,female 6 ±1.4 and male,10 ± 2, female3 ± 0.8 in the dry and wet seasons of 2012.Infection showed significant differences (Z=-2.03, P = 0.04) with both seasons in 2011 and no significant differences (Z=-1.41, P = 0.16) in 2012. Number of infected male and female flies was positively correlated with the fly age in the dry (Male, R2=0.94; female, R2=0.86) and wet (Male, R2=0.97; female, R2=1) seasons in 2011 and (Male, R2=0.90; female, R2=0.94) in the dry and wet (Male, R2= 0.97 female, R2=1) seasons in 2012.These results showed thatG. f.fuscipeswere infected with T.brucei gambiense and they were proved to be potential vectors for HAT in the study area. Hence, the implications of Tsetse fly infection dynamics in the control of trypanosomiasis need development of further control strategies for sustainable development of livestock and human resources in Kajo-keji County.
Information Visualization Tool for Academic Institutions: Imam University as a Case Study
Get PDFEducational data has become prime focus of researchers in the past recent years. The emergence of academic disciplines like Learning Analytic (LA) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) has declared that universities and educational institutes have entered the era of Big-data. Academic administrators (like deans/directors) are keen to have greater level of visibility of their educational processes so as to be able to manage their performance records. This article proposes an interactive information visualization tool that displays students and university records, and analyse them against a set of performance indicators. This article is part of intended future research of developing a performance management system that integrates LA techniques and balanced scorecards concept to monitor the performance of educational institutes against the attainment of business strategies
Hybrid Approach for Resource Provisioning in Cloud Computing
Get PDFCloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Elasticity of resources is considered as a key characteristic of cloud computing using this key characteristic; internet services are allocated the only-needed resources. This allocation of resources however should not be at the expense of the services’ performance. Allocation of resources without degrading performance is called resource provisioning. Resource provisioning does not only support the elasticity of resources, but also enhances cost efficiency and sustainability.
The goal of this work is to investigate resource provisioning to increase the percentage of resources utilization without degrading the performance so that the power consumption of the cloud data centers is reduced. To achieve this goal, a hybrid-approach for resource provisioning is developed. In this approach, a list of virtual machines is requested, passed to a selection algorithm, sorting the machines according to their load, compute the threshold of the machines’ load, and combining the high load with low load from two different virtual machines on one super virtual machine. The approach was implemented in a simulator called CloudSim. It was used to run two sets of experiments. The first is to measure the power consumption of the data center as whole and hosts as well. And the second is concerned with the processing times and memory usage.
The results have shown that this approach outperforms traditional counterparts in resource provisioning. The results showed that the hybrid approach achieved reduction of (5.85 MW/s) in power consumption compared with the traditional counterparts for the whole data center, as well as reduction of (2.48 MW/s) in power consumption for the hosts
Review of Traveling Salesman Problem for the genetic algorithms
Get PDFGenetic Algorithms (GAs) are an evolutionary technique that uses the operators like mutation, crossover and the selection of the most fitted element as solution for problems optimization. The Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) finds a path with minimal length, closed within a weighted graph in all its nodes and it visits each of them once. This problem is found in many real world applications and where a good solution might help. There are applied many methods for finding a solution for the TSP, but during this study GAs are used as an approximate method of TSP
The Influence of Human Capital on the Enterprise Independent Innovation Ability
Get PDFThe ability of independent innovation is the fundamental driving force to improve the enterprise actual competitiveness and promote the comprehensive development of enterprises. Human capital is the source of innovation and knowledge has become the most fundamental construction of enterprise independent innovation ability. This article analyzed the human capital mechanism of enterprise independent innovation ability from the perspective of knowledge transformation. We tested the hypothesis through empirical research and then drew a conclusion that human capital has the positive effect on enterprise independent innovation
Building Brand Equity Through Customer Service: A Study on Restaurant Industry in Malaysia
Get PDFThis paper examines the effect of customer service on brand equity of restaurant industry in Malaysian market. Past literature reveals that there are limited researches on this topic, particularly in Asian context. Therefore, the data in this study were collected from a sample of 293 customers of international fast food restaurants in East Coast region of Malaysia using convenience sampling technique. Data collection was done during different times of the day through personal administration of a designed questionnaire to the respondents. The collected data was analysed using structural equation modelling on AMOS 18. The findings indicated that customer service has a significant positive effect on overall brand equity. This study also provides empirical evidence that customer service has a significant positive effect on all of the dimensions of brand equity, namely brand loyalty, brand image, brand preference, and brand leadership. These results build upon the importance of customer service in strengthening brand equity of restaurant industry and should enable the management to make better decisions to build strong competitive advantage
Assessment on Factors Affecting the Performance of Public Funded Energy Construction Projects in Rwanda
Get PDFThe main purpose of this study was to assess the factors that affect the performance of public funded energy construction projects in Rwanda using a survey of the seven (7) micro hydropower project (7 MHP). The objectives of the study included; to examine the effect of project size on performance of the 7 MHPs, to assess the effect of project procurement methods on the performance of the7 MHPs, to establish the contribution of project budgetary allocation on the performance of the 7 MHPs, to assess the effect of project management skills/competences of managers on the performance of the 7 MHPs Using a descriptive case study design and purposive sampling technique, 53 respondents were selected. A Likert scale questionnaire was used for data collection and the data analyzed by way of SPSS version 20 into tables. Results indicated that Project size and project procurement methods were positively correlated with project performance of the 7MHPs. A normal regression analysis performed to assess the predictive power of project management skills of managers, Project budget, Project complexity, Procurement methods found that these variables account for 48.4% (R squared 0.484) variance in the performance of the 7 MHPs. Thus, these variables were found to be statistically significant in predicting performance. The study recommends further analysis on the effect of project budget allocation and project on performance since results show that these variables are negatively correlated with performance of the 7 MHPs
The Influence of Corporate Governance Perception Index, Managerial Ownership, Government Ownership, and Sales Growth on Cost of Debt (Study in Non-Financial Companies Listed on IDX Year 2011-2014)
Get PDFThis study aims to determine the influence of corporate governance perception index, managerial ownership, government ownership, and sales growth to cost of debt. The samples of this study are the non-financial companies listed on IDX (Indonesian Stock Exchange) year 2011-2014. The Samples are collected using purposive sampling method and resulted 36 units of analysis as the final samples. The analytical method used is multiple linear regression analysis. The results of this study indicated that corporate governance perception index, managerial ownership, government ownership, and sales growth simultaneously influence the cost of debt. Partially, the research shows that corporate governance perception index, government ownership, and sales growth do not influence the cost debt. Meanwhile, the managerial ownership has positive significant influence on cost of debt
Psychological Traits as Key Factors in Determining an Entrepreneurial Intention among Students in Malaysia
Get PDFThis study examines key success factors in determining the entrepreneurial intention among students in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. The key success factors for this study include locus of control, tolerance for ambiguity, need for achievement and innovativeness. The respondents for this study were students in higher learning institutions in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Malaysia. The total number of questionnaires distributed was 400 and 336 questionnaires were usable. Based on the results and findings of this study, it was found that locus of control, need for achievement and innovativeness have contributed significantly towards entrepreneurial intention among students. While, tolerance for ambiguity was not among the predictors towards entrepreneurial intention in this study. This study through its research and findings has contributed significantly to both theoretical and practical implications. This study can help to provide the information related to entrepreneurial intention among students and can benefit the government in an effort to encourage more graduate students to get involved in entrepreneurial ventures
Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: A Governance Perspective
Get PDFEntrepreneurial ecosystems have grown in prominence given the vital need to transform economies around the creation of innovative products and services,thereby leading to wealth creation and international competitiveness. Such ecosystems involve a network of interactions of individuals and organizations from business, government and university. Despite the heightened popularity of entrepreneurial ecosystems, more attention is needed on the effective governance of its key stakeholders to ensure that anticipated outcomes are achieved. The current literature focuses mainly on business stakeholders rather than the wider variety of players from government and university who also play a critical role. It also inadequately addresses the governance process in managing these stakeholders to ensure appropriate performance. To address these issues, this study applies network governance theories to the entrepreneurship literature. In so doing, it offers pertinent governance implications to key stakeholders involved in entrepreneurial ecosystems including firms, universities and government agencies