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Modelling of hourly solar radiation collected on a tilted surface at Banket in Mashonaland West, Zimbabwe for optimum design of off-grid solar systems.
Full text linkOff-grid solar systems have become the most viable means of bringing electricity to sparsely populated rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa. This mostly because of the sharply falling prices of solar equipment and the maturity of the technology. The solar systems are also modular thus can be deployed at variety capacities for different applications. Zimbabwe has abundance solar resources ubiquitously spread country over. The design of the systems has however, been based on average country radiation which usually under-estimate or overestimate the insolation at a given site. This therefore affects the sizing of the systems and thus the cost. Also for off-grid systems it is not economical to carryout data collection of at least a year, which is another way to get accurate data. This study resorted to satellite data available on a freely accessible EU site as Typical Meteorological Year Data of 2009 downloaded using the Banket coordinates. The TMY data was used as the input to the model where, radiation data was input into the mathematical model of the tilted plane by Collares-Perreira and Rabl of 1996. Feeding the horizontal, beam and diffuse radiation data plus the ambient temperature into mathematical models resulted in the calculation of the solar radiation that can be received on a plane tilted at an angle equal to the latitude of the place. The data plotted for the whole year is a closer representative of the distribution of radiation received at the site for the whole year and thus reliable input to the design of off-grid solar systems as literature can confirm
Design and performance assessment of an automatic grain moisture measuring system for use in Zimbabwe
Full text linkGrain moisture content is a key index of grain processing, marketing, and storage security. Hence, its precise determination is of paramount importance. This paper presents the design and performance assessment of an automatic grain moisture measuring system for use in Zimbabwe, based on a microprocessor, photo sensor and moisture sensor. This research has been inspired by the need to eliminate the conventional oven drying based grain moisture content determination technique in use at most Grain Marketing Board (GMB) depots in Zimbabwe. The conventional oven drying technique has the following shortfalls: time-consuming, not suitable for online testing, results in unwarranted wastage of grains due to its destructive nature and the small testing sample is not an accurate representation of the whole grain sample. The performance index that was assessed for the designed system is the system processing time. The average processing time for the system is 3 milli seconds per grain bag. Based on the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) the system’s grain moisture content determination accuracy is 98.92%. Compared to the conventional oven drying method, the designed system significantly reduces process time and is equally accurate. Hence, the designed system is a suitable replacement for the conventional method in Zimbabwean grain marketing depots
Editorial comment
Full text linkThis issue is born out of many threats to the life of our journal- Annals of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ASBSJ). In any life-threatening environment, it’s the survivors who remain to carry on with the vision and dream of stakeholders and sponsors. Our stakeholders’ dream has always been to nurse a high impact journal, that will serve as a reliable platform for disseminating transformative research outputs, influencing policy, interrogating existing theoretical trajectories and providing existential pointers to practitioners in whatever sphere of human endeavour. Indeed, call the current issue, `a survivors’ issue’
The challenges of adopting afforestation as an alternative and sustainable land use for economic development
Full text linkAfforestation is an important aspect of silviculture whereas, globally its broad adoption as an alternative land use option for economic development is still a dream away. Many countries across the globe have `bad land’ and `underutilised land’ which could be considered for afforestation as one land use option with great economic potential. Despite the growing significance of afforestation in the development discourse world-wide, its uptake by farmers as an economic activity of tremendous ecosystem value and services remains a peripheral consideration. Hence based on a critical qualitative content analysis of literature reviewed for a Doctor of Philosophy thesis, this paper explores the challenges behind the dispirited adoption of afforestation globally, as an alternative land use option for economic development. Results of the content analysis point to the economic value of afforestation not being fully exploited due to the farmers’ ignorance of the benefits of afforestation, anachronistic cultural attitudes, institutional and capacity challenges, lack of education and training, aversion to long term investment, ignorance of existence of funding partners in afforestation, lack of adequate extension services, insecure land tenure arrangements for forest land and wildlife menace. Out of these challenges, a close analysis point to primarily three challenges being of critical importance to deal with in order for humanity to trigger a world-wide adoption of afforestation as an alternative land use for economic development. These are security of tenure on forest land, access to extension services and access to capital
Annals of Social and Behavioural Sciences Issue 4 (1), 2022
No full textThis is the full issue of the ASBS journal volume 4, issue 1 published in 2022
Re-thinking ecotourism and community development: the case of Ngomakurira Hills Project, Zimbabwe
Full text linkMany ecotourism projects have been funded and undertaken in developing countries, but their success and actual benefits to the local communities are hardly evaluated. This study evaluates ecotourism as a community development strategy using the case study of Ngomakurira Hills Project in Goromonzi District, Zimbabwe. The evaluation was conducted using in-depth interviews carried out between January and March 2016 and the data were analysed using the thematic approach. The main findings of the study were that ecotourism contributed to the expansion and capacitation of small business enterprises which opened employment opportunities for local people. Despite the success registered by the ecotourism project, its benefits were not evenly distributed among the community members thereby orchestrating community polarization. For the project to contribute substantially to community development, the study recommends the development of a sustainable ecotourism model which could ensure the sustainability of the project as well as sustainable community support for the project by enhancing trans-generational preservation of natural and cultural resources, and equitable distribution of ecotourism benefits.  
A review of performance management systems in higher education institutions across the globe
Full text linkA concern has been raised that African countries have been copying and using tools that are developed in the West and these have not added value to concerned institutions in developing countries. As a result of this copy and paste tendency, Performance Management Systems (PMS) used in developing countries are obsolete to the extent that there is no accountability of staff with regards to their performance. This paper is based on a review of literature on Performance Management Systems in higher education institutions (HEIs). It is an extract from a project whose major objective was to develop a bespoke Performance Management System that can be used for quality assurance and its enhancement in Higher Education Institutions. The articles were identified through a systematic literature review by searching for key terms on the EBSCOhost data base using key words and backward snowballing. The findings are that performance management in higher education can be improved by taking the strengths of the current systems and adopt them to current conditions. Furthermore, the systems can be further improved with the aid of information and communication technology tools
Packaging natural springs into community hubs for wellness and spa tourism: a case of Makonde district in Zimbabwe
Full text linkNatural springs in Makonde district are generally remotely located, with poor infrastructure and undervalued as assets to Wellness and Spa tourism development in Zimbabwe. The strategies for packaging these natural springs into community hubs for Wellness and Spa tourism has remained a gap to be exploited for development. Therefore, this study explored strategies that could be adopted to package the natural springs to optimise their appeal for Wellness and Spa tourism. The research was carried out in the Makonde district of Mashonaland West province in Zimbabwe. The study adopted an exploratory case study design. It involved four (4) sites including one hundred and fifty (150) respondents purposively and conveniently selected from the members of the host communities, traditional demand leaders, academics and officers from the tourism industry. Data was collected using in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, accidental observations and it was thematically analysed. Findings unveiled strategies that could be adopted to increase the demand for Wellness and Spa tourism included infrastructure development, research and innovation, product and site marketing, community socialisation and involvement. The study concluded that the proposed strategies have the potential to transform natural springs in Makonde district into community hubs for Wellness and Spa tourism. Therefore, there is need to develop a model for packaging the product so as to increase the demand for Wellness and Spa activities for tourism
Establishing the most cost effective reliability for off-grid solar systems in Zimbabwe: Trade-off, between energy supply reliability and levelised cost of energy
Full text linkThe traditional method for designing off-grid stand-alone solar energy systems is based on a monthly-average daily energy balance approach whose only objective is to provide 100% energy supply reliability. However, such an approach tends to grossly oversize the systems thus rendering solar off-grid systems too costly for the target communities. This study has focused on designing a cost effective off-grid solar power system to ensure balancing of the trade-off between cost and reliability of power supply. Based on a time-step energy balance approach, an Excel spreadsheet-based model was developed to optimise the solar stand-alone system. Two dimensionless variables representing the size of the two main components of a solar photovoltaic off-grid system- the solar photovoltaic (PV) array and battery- were used to define the system size. For a given level of supply reliability, there is an infinite number of combinations of PV array and battery size- as the PV array size is increased, the required battery size reduces in a certain trend. However, for the given level of reliability, only one PV array-battery combination (the Optimum Design) results in the minimum Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE), whose coordinates depend on the relative costs of the two components. The LCOE for the Optimum Design corresponding to each level of supply reliability was plotted against supply reliability. From such a plot it was observed that the LCOE increases disproportionately above a certain level of reliability. This point, which lies near the “elbow” LCOE-reliability plot, defines the most cost-effective reliability for the stand-alone solar system, and therefore the optimum combination of PV generator and battery to deploy. The results showed that sustainable cost effective off-grid systems can be operated at 98% reliability level and still satisfy the customer requirements and at the same time ensuring affordable tariffs. Increasing the PV system components beyond the optimum (98% reliability) point, in a quest to achieve 100% reliability, results in a disproportionate 22% increase in LCOE
The design of an automated CO emission control system for automobiles using activated carbon.
Full text linkAir pollution has been found to be so hazardous to human health and life, ecosystem and infrastructure. One of the main contributors to air pollution is transportation. The aim of this research was to design an automated emission control system for automobiles. Four design frameworks were made and the one with three emission control technologies (Exhaust Gas Recirculation (EGR), Exhaust Gas Collection Tank (EGCT) and catalytic converters) had the highest score of 300.70. However, in this research, a system focused on controlling cold start emissions using activated carbon as an adsorbent for carbon monoxide (CO) was implemented. It was found that activated carbon can reduce CO pollutants by an average CO reduction percentage of 6.28% when 96.88g of activated carbon was applied at an average temperature of 34.75℃. However, applying activated carbon was found to reduce temperature by an average temperature reduction of 11.66℃. This was achieved through an algorithm that was designed to control exhaust gas flow and implemented using AT mega 2560 microcontroller, MQ7 sensors, LM35 temperature sensors, stepper motors and butterfly valves. MQ7 sensors were used for CO detection. However, ceria-based sensors could be used to increase the scope of temperatures and redirect exhaust gases to activated carbon whenever high emission is detected