Development of a fuzzy-based predictive model for the risk of postpartum hypertension in nursing mothers

Fuzzy Logic has grown in prominence in recent years as its capacity to address a variety of problems in the field of medicine has been demonstrated to be exceptional. This study developed a model to predict risk of postpartum hypertension among nursing mothers. In this study, the variables associated with the risk of postpartum hypertension were identified, formulated a fuzzy-logic model and simulated the predictive model. The variables that were common symptoms associated with the risk of postpartum hypertension were elicited by review of related works on the body of knowledge of postpartum hypertension following which the variables were validated by mental health experts at a Nigerian hospital using the interview method.  The variables identified were classified into their respective linguistic labels based on the crisp values assigned to them within the interval of acceptable values while the risk of postpartum hypertension was classified as low, moderate and high risk.  Fuzzy-based related functions were used to formulate the fuzzy model for the input variables and the risk of postpartum hypertension.  It was also observed that the number of triangular membership function formulated for each variable is a function of the number of classified labels for each variable.  The results also showed that a total number of 288 rules were defined by the IF-THEN statements created from the variables identified by the experts. The predictive model developed and simulated can be utilized to aid expert obstetricians in the early detection and treatment of postpartum hypertension in the future

Supporting underprivileged children on their livelihood in communities of Kabale district: a case of Kabale child development program

This paper discusses the impact of supporting underprivileged children in Kabale District, specifically through the Kabale Child Development Project (KCDP) in Bugongi, southwestern Uganda. It focuses on two main objectives: understanding how KCDP supports these children and assessing the effects of this support on their livelihoods. To achieve these objectives, a targeted population of underprivileged children in Kabale District, particularly those benefiting from KCDP, was identified. Employing a purposive sampling technique, participants were selected to represent this population, ensuring direct experience with KCDP's support initiatives. The sample size was dynamically determined throughout the study to ensure saturation of themes and perspectives. Data collection involved qualitative surveys with key stakeholders, including KCDP representatives, governmental and non-governmental organizations, parents, caregivers, and community members. These surveys explored the various forms of support provided and their impact on livelihoods. Secondary data from recent reports, magazines, newspapers, and related records supplemented the surveys, providing additional insights into support initiatives for underprivileged children. Thematic analysis techniques, such as transcription, coding, and categorization, were used to analyze qualitative data. This approach helped identify recurring themes and patterns related to support provision and its effects on livelihoods. The analysis revealed potential policies and activities to enhance underprivileged children's livelihoods in Kabale District communities. For example, there is a need for training programs targeting parents and caregivers, particularly in small business ventures, to improve income stability. Additionally, addressing the gap in positive parenting education, especially among fathers, is crucial for redistributing caregiving roles within households

Influence of pre-marital sexual behaviour and dating on biology students’ academic performance in Ilorin West Local Government Area, Kwara State

Drawing on previous research indicating a rise in premarital sexual activities among Nigerian youth, coupled with the challenges posed by dating behaviors, the study aims to explore the implications of these phenomena on students' academic success. This study investigated the influence of premarital sexual behavior and dating on the academic performance of biology students in Ilorin West Local Government Area, Kwara State. The research employed a survey design, sampling 320 biology students from eight randomly selected public secondary schools in the region. A self-designed questionnaire was used for data collection, the data obtained was analysed using percentage and mean. The findings indicated a significant difference premarital sexual activities among students in Ilorin West, Kwara State, Nigeria, It also has influence on students’ academic performance negatively. Similarly, dating behaviors have effect on time management skills, leading to shifts in academic priorities and potential distractions. The study concludes with recommendations aimed at addressing these challenges, emphasizing the implementation of school policies and workshop or seminar to promote positive relationship skills and healthier dating experiences and reduce potential stressors

Social administration and societal transformation in Uganda today

Any attempt to divorce Social Administrators from mainstream societal arrangements aimed at causing societal transformation and development is a futile one. This is due to the fact that social administrators have historically been instrumental in working with governments around the world to ensure that societal needs at different levels are addressed to propel development. Societal transformation requires concerted efforts and this is exactly why governments have to embrace the role played Social Administrators in societal development. The researcher employed a purely critical qualitative approach in which desk research methodology was relied upon. As such secondary data was used and this data was obtained mainly from scholarly and published research articles surrounding Social administration, Social welfare, and other crucial published reports, with matters of the role of social administrators in societal transformation in Uganda today under scrutiny in which even the challenges incapacitating the social administrators from playing their roles well were also analyzed. Critical content analysis was employed in examining the roles of social administrators in Uganda and also the challenges that they face. Validity and reliability were guaranteed by paying much attention to critical conceptual clarity and interpretative rigor. In this paper I reviewed the genesis, the roles of Social Administrators, the challenges that hamper the activities the discipline of Social Administration drawing substantiations from the Ugandan experience. Connectedly, based on literature review, I further concluded that transforming the society is a holistic process which should be done involving all the relevant stakeholders at different levels especially in the community as this would be in position cause for ownership of all projects that could be set up to help the people improve their conditions of living. I also came up with some recommendations which included; the central government should strengthen the monitoring and evaluation department, integrating technology into mainstream societal development projects, continuously empowering local people and embracing the sustainable development strategies

Perspectives of curriculum regulatory authorities on adopting a decolonized curriculum in Uganda: a case of National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC)

The ongoing African renaissance and the decolonization imperatives are inviting Africans to reconsider the role of Africa ways of knowing as a way of decolonizing curriculum. Like other countries in Africa, Uganda needs an education that uses local experiences, realities, values and languages to create a lifelong impact on the masses. The ongoing colonial education was aimed at training low and middle level workers for government and missionary service and therefore the skills and competences promoted by such an education do not match with those required by contemporary demands. This explains why despite the increasing number of universities and tertiary institutions, and having many graduates (at least 400,000 per annum) Kamuhanda J(2022), the productivity of the nation in many sectors is still low.  It is not clear if Uganda’s education regulatory authorities like NCDC, NCHE, ESA support and therefore consider a move towards a home grown / endogenous / decolonized curriculum. Hence, the study aimed at finding the perspectives of NCDC’s technical staff on curriculum transformation with in a decolonized framework. The study used questionnaires and review of NCDC’s literature to find views of technical staff (curriculum specialists) at NCDC

Unlocking human potential for institutional excellence: an examination of talent management practices and employee productivity in Ogun State universities, Nigeria

This study examines the relationship between talent management practices and employee productivity in Ogun State universities, Nigeria. The study aimed to investigate the influence of talent management on employee productivity and identify strategies for unlocking human potential and driving institutional excellence. A survey research design was used, and data were collected with a self-structured questionnaire from 586 academic and non-academic employees of four selected universities in Ogun State and simple random sampling technique was employed, the research instrument was validated by the average variance (0.831). Cronbach’s alpha of the scale for the variable was greater than 0.70, which suggest that instrument was reliable and data gathered was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (simple linear regression analysis). The result showed there was a positive influence talent management on employee productivity in universities in Ogun State at the value of (β= .517, t = 14.791, p< 0.05), supporting previous research that effective talent management practices improve employee productivity. The study also showed a significant relationship between talent management and organizational performance, emphasizing the importance of talent management in achieving organizational objectives. The study recommends that universities in Ogun State should develop and implement effective talent management programs, invest in training and development programs, and conduct regular assessments to evaluate the effectiveness of their talent management practices

Influence of primary health care facilitating strategies on realization of health for all in Okene local government area, Kogi State, Nigeria

This study examined the influence of primary health care facilitating strategies on realization of health for all in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State. The study adopted a descriptive research design of survey type. The study population involves all health workers and members of health facilities in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 280 respondents for the study. Researcher’s structured and adequately validated questionnaire was used for data collection. The reliability was established with use of test re-test method in which correlation coefficient of 0.82 was obtained using Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The data collected were analyzed using chi-square (x2) statistics at 0.05 alpha level. The findings revealed that adoption of cohesive team approach, community mobilization strategy, health advocacy initiative and intersectoral collaboration in implementation of primary health care have much influence on realization of health for all in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State, Nigeria. The study concluded that discreet adoption and application of primary health care facilitating strategies will greatly influence attainment of health for all in Okene Local Government Area, Kogi State. It is recommended that government should constitute formidable health team to strengthen monitoring and evaluation of performances of health and health related programmes

Application of artificial intelligence in e-governance: a comparative study of supervised machine learning and ensemble learning algorithms on crime prediction

In the developing world, the daily activities of humans’ social, political and economic life make it vital and easy to encounter the phenomenon of crime. Crime is an unnecessary evil in society and for any economic, social and political activities to run smoothly, criminal offenses must be completely eliminated from society. Advancement in information and communications technology enables law enforcement agencies to collect a huge amount of crime data, and the data collected by these organizaions have been doubling every two years. It has been found out that only 17% of the collected crime data is used in their operations today and several studies have noted that Law Enforcement Agencies are data rich but information poor. Machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, has been used by government agencies in developed countries in different operations like face recognition, computer forensics, image and video analysis to identify criminals and crime predictions. It is therefore time for developing countries to leverage such technologies in order to reduce crimes. Therefore, this study proposes the application of supervised machine learning techniques in the prediction of crimes basing on the past crime data. During this study, we used open-source crime data from the UCI Machine learning repository to train and validate our algorithms. The performance of supervised machine learning and ensemble learning algorithms was done using crime data. The supervised machine learning algorithms used include K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), decision tree classifier (CART), Naïve Bayes (NB) and Support vector machine (SVM). The ensemble learning algorithms used include AdaBoost (AD), Gradient Boosting Classifier (GBM), Random Forest (RF) and Extra Trees (ET). We used an accuracy metric to measure the performance of the algorithms. Python 3 was used in all the experiments using windows 10 laptop with 8GB RAM and 2.0GHZ processor. The performance of the supervised machine learning algorithms using the original datasets includes 60.33%, 56.24%, 57.01% and 59.06% for KNN, CART, NB, and SVM respectively. The performance of ensemble learning algorithms using the original datasets includes 58.58%, 59.81%, 55.23% and 55.74% for AD, GBM, RF and ET respectively. Experimental results revealed that KNN generally performed better when compared to the rest of the algorithms. we then developed a crime prediction model based on KNN and its prediction accuracy was 66% on our test dataset. The use of Artificial Intelligence has the potential to ameliorate several existing structural inefficiencies in the discharge of governmental functions. Machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence, has been used by government agencies in developed countries in crime analysis and predictions. It is therefore time for developing countries to leverage such technologies in order to reduce crimes

Effects of accessibility and adequacy of technical vocational education and training equipment on acquisition of employable skills in Uganda. A case of Uganda Technical College - Elgon

The Government of Uganda has continued to establish and equip public Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Institutions in the country. However, despite the initiatives, learners have continued to join the industry claimed to have inadequate employable skills. This pauses a question whether the equipment utilized are adequate, accessed by learners to acquire employable skills. This paper therefore examined the access and adequacy of TVET equipment in Technical Colleges. A descriptive survey design utilizing quantitative and qualitative approach of research was conducted, a sample size of 100 learners and 5 instructors were selected. A simple random sampling technique to choose learners responded the questionnaires and purposive selection of instructors for focus group discussions. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to run descriptive analyses, ordinal regressions and frequency distribution. Findings on adequacy show that 77% of the learners are availed equipment not relevant to their programme and spend little time practicing on the equipment. In conclusion, TVET equipment were inadequate with limited time spent on practicum, and recommended that Government institutions should undergo into memorandum of understanding with the industry to enable learners adequately access practical experience on modern equipment and relevant to their training

Economic growth and foreign direct investment in Africa: the mediating role of state fragility and natural resources

Using data from 43 African countries from 2000-2018, the study employed the Dynamic System GMM approach to examine the moderating effect of state fragility and natural resources on the FDI–economic growth nexus. The study found that FDI does not affect Africa's economic growth directly or indirectly after interacting with FDI with state fragility and natural resources. The insignificant impact of FDI on economic growth in Africa may be because for FDI to promote economic growth, some necessary factors, such as institutional development and the state of the economy, must be developed to a certain level high enough for the effect to be experienced. Given that African countries are fragile with low levels of institutional development, the FDI-Growth nexus is insignificant. The study recommends that African countries establish stable economies and develop their institutions to benefit from FDI inflows