6229 research outputs found
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Influence of Digital Distribution Strategies on Uptake of Bank Products and Services in Kenya
No full textDoctor of Philosophy in Business Administration (Strategic Management Option), 2022.banking, online payments, Automated Teller Machines, and agency banking, among others. Despite this, just 36% of clients use technology for agency banking, 31% for mobile banking, 30% for ATM banking, and 3% for internet banking. This led the researcher to investigate how banking distribution strategies influence the uptake of bank products and services. The study was conducted in 23 branches where primary data was collected using questionnaires and secondary data was collected from Family Bank and CBK's annual reports. The study addressed the four specific objectives which are: examining how Family Bank products and services products uptakes were influenced by internet banking, to explore the impact of mobile banking strategy on the adoption of products and services, examine the influence of agency banking on the adoption of bank products and services, and assess the influence of ATMs on the uptake of bank products and services. The study analyzed the literature written by other researchers on this subject, empirical studies, and the theoretical framework that served as the foundation for the conceptual framework. This study made use of the technology acceptance theory, economic distribution theory, agency theory, bank focused theory, bank-led theory, and non-bank-led theory. The study applied both descriptive and correlational research designs. The population of the study was 177,950 customers drawn from Mt Kenya r infrastructure. The study also concluded that internet banking though was statistically significant; it only constituted 3% of the users. The study recommended that further study be carried out to find out the influence of product knowledge on services and products uptake. It was noted that several customers possessed ATM cards but never used to transact with them. Further study should be carried out on the influence of customer training on products and services uptake. A policy should be formulated to ensure that once customers are registered in the strategies, they are trained on services available and use. The study finally recommends that the bank should data mine to establish the customers eligible but not registered and intensify onboarding. The study also recommends that the institution and partners ensure 100% network uptime. The study also recommends that the banks should adequately train customers on distribution strategies to increase uptake.Murang'a University of Technolog
Impact of Educational Robotic Activities on Secondary School Students’ Interest in Engineering Career Pathways
No full textDoctor of Philosophy in Technology Education (Electrical and Electronics Option), 2022Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics related careers are important in preparing any nation for development. There has been low interest by the secondary school students in the STEM fields and as such teaching and learning in these areas must be reconsidered. It is important develop activities and integrate them in these subjects in order to expose the students to Engineering and afterwards assess the impact of the exposure to the interest in these subjects. Some of the activities that could be developed and implemented include educational robotic activities. Most of the existing educational robots are expensive and are not affordable to most of the public secondary schools in the developing countries. In this study two low cost robots were designed for purposes of education which included robotic car and a robotic arm. This was followed by development of robotic activities based on the robots, integration of the activities to Physics and Mathematics and the assessment of the impact of the integrated activities to learning of the subjects and choice of a career pathways towards Engineering. This research was guided by constructivism and constructionism theories. A mixed methods research design was adopted in this study. The research was conducted in secondary schools in Kangema Sub-county, Murang’a County in Kenya. The target population included 2,478 Form 2 students where 270 students were selected through simple random sampling method. The selected students were introduced to the educational robots and robotic related activities. A questionnaire, a pre-test and post-test examinations and an interview schedule were used to collect data. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and measures of central tendency which comprised of the mean and standard deviation. Inferential statistics was also used in analyzing the quantitative data, specifically sign test, paired sample t-test, correlation, Chi-Square test and One-Way ANOVA. From this study, a low-cost robotic kit was designed and developed by adopting locally available materials and readily available programs that are simple to understand and modify. Precollege robotic activities that were divisible into simple tasks were developed based on the designed kit. The developed robotic activities were integrated into Physics and Mathematics topics based on interdisciplinary, adaptability, interest and problem solving themes. The findings on impact revealed significant difference between the pre-test and post-test with a p-value < 0.0001 and therefore the robotic activities had a significant impact on students’ decision to choose a subject combination towards an Engineering career pathways. The study recommends that the government should facilitate the integration of educational robots in the current Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics curriculum through partnerships with research organizations such as universities and other research bodies to develop low cost and simple to use educational robotic kits. The study also recommends that through policy makers in education, the curriculum should be reviewed so as to adopt educational robots as a teaching/learning tool and teachers/instructors retrained on robotic use in education. Future studies should be conducted on the applicability of educational robotics in other subjects such as Biology, Geography, Chemistry, Agriculture and in Arts related subjects. The current study should be replicated in lower grades owing to the fact that the Kenyan curriculum is in transition from the traditional 8-4-4 system to the Competency Based Curriculum.Murang'a University of Technolog
Perception of proposed preliminary food-based dietary guidelines for Lake Victoria region of Kenya: findings from a qualitative study among adult community members
No full textBackground: Diets in the Lake Victoria region of Kenya have been described as monotonous, consisting chiefly of starchy staple foods, accompanied by green vegetables and oil. To promote healthy eating in the region, 11 food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) were proposed. Objective: This study was designed to assess perception of the proposed FBDGs amongst consumers in Lake Victoria region. Design and setting: A qualitative, descriptive cross-sectional design was used to collect data from 36 focus-group discussions (FGD) among adult males (18) and females (18) in Kisumu and Homa Bay Counties. Subjects: A total of 207 adult males (26–74 years) and 211 females (18–71 years) participated in this study. Data collection and analysis: Proposed FBDGs were printed on posters and presented to FGD participants. Proceedings were audio-taped, transcribed, translated and analysed based on themes. Results: The proposed FBDGs were perceived as promoting the consumption of a balanced diet. As a concept, a balanced diet was misrepresented as composed of only three nutrients: carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins. There was no mention of fats/ oils and minerals as other significant nutrient constituents of a balanced diet. Other concepts, which included ‘three regular meals’, ‘snacks’, ‘food variety’, ‘healthy and physically active lifestyle’, were polysemous. Conclusion: The findings provide insight to guide the adaptation of the national FBDGs. The findings also provide a basis for nutrition advocacy programmes and a rationale for the revision of nutrition education materials, including the school curriculum, to align content with current evidence-based information
Impact of Energy Management in a Solar PV Microgrid
No full textMaster of Technology in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2022.Fossil fuel accounts for a bigger percentage of primary energy sources in the world. Studies show that the world energy demand is on the rise but the real sources of fossil fuel decline each day. Major oil producing countries are likely to deplete their oil fields within a decade if the current rate of fossil fuel production maintained. Generation of energy through fossil fuel burning causes Greenhouse Gas Emission into the atmosphere causing global warming. Generation of energy through renewable energy sources provides a better alternative to cope with the declining oil reserves and combat climate change. Solar photovoltaic is a suitable alternative clean and environmentally friendly renewable energy source, which uses solar photovoltaic technology. This thesis discussed the impact of energy management on a solar photovoltaic microgrid and tried to narrow the research gap left by various researchers who provided related literature about the work. Modeling, energy management and the impact of installing solar PV system to supplement utility grid electricity is studied. This work was conducted using a mathematical model of the PV based microgrid that was simulated using MATLAB/Simulink software. The laboratory implementation was done using hardware components and real-time energy management using microcontroller. The prediction of solar PV power generation on a medium-term basis was done using PVsyst photovoltaic software while a short-term basis was implemented using Application Programming Interface software. The energy management strategy is such that the solar PV module becomes the priority power source to supply three loads while charging the battery when irradiance is sufficient. At low irradiance, the battery supplies the loads and when the discharge is below a specified limit, the utility grid electricity supplies the loads. Simulation results show that the solar PV module serve the loads and charge the battery during daytime while the grid remained as a standby power source. However, the microcontroller disables the loads from the PV system source when the threshold of charging the battery is reached. The loads are then connected to the utility grid. In the simulation of the solar resource software, the solar pv generation for seven days on the month of March 2022 indicated a maximum and minimum generation of 720.82 Wh and 498.96 Wh respectively. The financial analysis of installing 90 W grid-tied PV solar system without subsidy is US 486 and has a service life of 25 years and payback period of 11 years. During the lifespan of the solar PV module, 1,333.78 kg of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere are saved.Murang'a University of Technolog
The Role of Integrating Audio-Visual Media to Teaching and Learning in Public Primary Teacher Training Colleges in Kenya
No full textThe paper dwells on the role of integrating audio-visual media to teaching and learning. The
rationale is based on the view that properly designed media add value to a teaching environment.
Integrating audio-visual media can bring exciting curricula based on real-problems into classroom;
provide scaffolds and tools to enhance learning in teacher training colleges in Kenya. This is
because Teaching is becoming one of the most challenging professions in the society where
knowledge is expanding rapidly. As new concepts of learning evolve, teachers are expected to
facilitate learning and make it meaningful to learners rather than just provide knowledge and skills.
These challenges require teachers to continuously retrain and acquire new knowledge and skills in
media. The researchers in this paper envision a future in which public primary teacher training
colleges have complete transformation from “old age” to the information age, a future in which
media is integrated throughout society in general
Network Intrusion Detection Systems: A Systematic Literature Review of Hybrid Deep Learning Approaches
No full textNetwork Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDSs) have become standard security solutions that endeavours to discover unauthorized access to an organizational computer network by scrutinizing incoming and outgoing network traffic for signs of malicious activity. In recent years, deep learning based NIDSs have emerged as an active area of research in cybersecurity and several surveys have been done on these systems. Although a plethora of surveys exists covering this burgeoning body of research, there lacks in the literature an empirical analysis of the different hybrid deep learning models. This paper presents a review of hybrid deep learning models for network intrusion detection and pinpoints their characteristics which researchers and practitioners are exploiting to develop modern NIDSs. The paper first elucidates the concept of network intrusion detection systems. Secondly, the taxonomy of hybrid deep learning techniques employed in designing NIDSs is presented. Lastly, a survey of the hybrid deep learning based NIDS is presented. The study adopted the systematic literature review methodology, a formal and systematic procedure by conducting bibliographic review, while defining explicit protocols for obtaining information. The survey results suggest that hybrid deep learning-based models yield desirable performance compared to other deep learning algorithms. The results also indicate that optimization, empirical risk minimization and model complexity control are the most important characteristics in the design of hybrid deep learning-based models. Lastly, key issues in the literature exposed in the research survey are discussed and then propose several potential future directions for researchers and practitioners in the design of deep learning methods for network intrusion detectio
Data Preparation for Machine Learning Modelling
No full textThe world today is on revolution 4.0 which is data-driven. The majority of organizations and systems are using data to solve problems through use of digitized systems. Data lets intelligent systems and their applications learn and adapt to mined insights without been programmed. Data mining and analysis requires smart tools, techniques and methods with capability of extracting useful patterns, trends and knowledge, which can be used as business intelligence by organizations as they map their strategic plans. Predictive intelligent systems can be very useful in various fields as solutions to many existential issues. Accurate output from such predictive intelligent systems can only be ascertained by having well prepared data that suits the predictive machine learning function. Machine learning models learns from data input using the ‘garbage-in-garbage-out’ concept. Cleaned, pre-processed and consistent data would produce accurate output as compared to inconsistent, noisy and erroneous data