Exploring key elements for e-trasformation in commercial banks in Kenya

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (in the field of ICT Policy and Regulation). 9th August 2016.Digital transformation on a national level is a framework that has been applied to a number of different contexts. Studies in both developed and developing countries have exhibited digital transformation in a manner that reflects its applicability across contexts and scenarios. However, this research explored what happens when the same is applied to organizational contexts in a developing country. The research did not divert too far from the national application of a digital transformation framework, but merely sought to incorporate the organizational perspective, and the different considerations that arise in commercial banks in Kenya; an area which was previously under-explored. A conceptual framework was developed to study only particular elements of digital transformation from qualitative analysis and different sources of data. The findings of this study illustrated that there is a huge uptake of technologies in these commercial banks, but also notes a significant number of limitations that currently exist. The report concludes with proposals as to how these limitations can be addressed through various recommendations, and also considers other avenues for improvement, and future research that can later be applied other contexts.GR201

Nutritional Recovery Outcome among Moderately Malnourished Under-five Children in Communities Implementing Positive Deviance - Hearth or Community Health Workers’ Nutrition Promotion Approaches in Karusi and Kirundo Provinces, Burundi

The Positive Deviance - Hearth (PD-H) approach is important in controlling malnutrition; however, there is limited data on its effect in improving nutrition status. Objective: To assess the effect of PD-H and community health worker nutrition promotion (CHWNP) in improving nutrition status and recovery among the moderately malnourished under-five (MMU5) children in Burundi. Methodology: PD-H and CHWNP approaches were used in Karusi and Kirundo provinces, respectively. MMU5 children were enrolled at baseline for the intervention (PD-H, (358) and usual care (CHWNP, (310). Haemoglobin level and anthropometric indicators (MUAC, wasting, underweight and stunting) were taken at baseline for 12, 60 and 120 days. Changes in nutritional recovery were compared within groups exposed to each approach using ANOVA for continuous outcomes and chi-square for categorical outcomes. Further analysis compared changes between the two groups exposed to the two approaches using random effects logistic models for binary outcomes and mixed effect models for continuous outcomes. Results: The MMU5 children discharged cured after 60 days and at 120 days follow-up. When compared with the baseline, this was statistically significant in both CHWNP and PDH groups on anthropometric indicators (wasting, underweight, stunting, MUAC and weight) but not anaemia. After controlling for socio-demographic factors, MMU5 enrolled in CHWNP were more likely to be discharged cured than those in PD-H with respect to moderate wasting (AOR=2.74, 95% CI= 1.19-6.29), underweight (AOR=1.56, 95% CI= 1.01-2.43) as well as MUAC (AOR=1.21, 95% CI= 0.49-3.00). Conclusion: Both CHWNP and PD-H significantly improved nutrition status and recovery. However, the proportion of those who recovered was significantly larger in CHWNP compared to PD-H.Keywords · Recovery rate · Community-based nutrition program · Nutrition status · Positive deviance · Under-fiv

Patterns of Care and Outcomes Among Women With Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer Treated With Curative Intent at a Tertiary Center in South Africa.

OBJECTIVE: Cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths for women in South Africa. The standard of care treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) is external beam radiation followed by brachytherapy with concurrent platinum-based chemotherapy. There exists a paucity of data regarding the treatment regimens received by women with LACC in South Africa. The aim of this study is to assess the patterns of care and survival for patients with LACC treated with curative intent at a tertiary care center in South Africa. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective review of cervical cancer patients with histologically confirmed LACC (stage IB2-IVA) who underwent radiation with curative intent at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa between July 2013 and July 2018. Overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were evaluated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox proportional hazards modeling analyzed patient and treatment factor associations with survival. Logistic regression modeling was performed to assess factors associated with the receipt of chemotherapy and baseline hemoglobin. RESULTS: Among 278 patients, 28.4% (n = 79) of women had co-infection with HIV, and 64.8% (n = 180) received chemoradiation. Regardless of HIV status, patients who received chemoradiation had improved 2-year OS (87.4% vs. 52.8%, p < 0.001) and DFS (80.2% vs. 58.3%, p < 0.001) compared to those receiving radiation alone. Factors associated with improved OS were receipt of chemotherapy (HR 0.32, p = 0.005) and higher baseline hemoglobin (HR 0.86, p = 0.018). Upon multivariate logistic regression, adjusting for age, stage, and HIV status, patients with stage III/IV disease were less likely to receive chemotherapy (HR 48.17, p < 0.001) and were less likely to have hemoglobin ≥ 10 g/dL (HR 0.20, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Addition of chemotherapy to standard radiation improved OS in women with LACC, regardless of HIV status. Our findings add to a body of literature highlighting the importance of providing concurrent chemoradiotherapy to all patients with LACC, including persons living with HIV and those with stage III/IV disease

Fraud Detection in Motor Insurance Claims Using Supervised Learning Techniques: A Review

Fraudulent claims have been a big drawback in motor insurance despite the insurance industry having vast amounts of motor claims data. Analyzing this data can lead to a more efficient way of detecting reported fraudulent claims. The challenge is how to extract insightful information and knowledge from this data and use it to model a fraud detection system. Due to constant evolution and dynamic nature of fraudsters, some approaches utilized by insurance firms, such as impromptu audits, whistle-blowing, staff rotation have become infeasible. Machine learning techniques can aid in fraud detection by training a prediction model using historical data. The performance of the models is affected by class imbalance and the determination of the most relevant features that might lead to fraud detection from data. In this paper we examine various fraud detection techniques and compare their performance efficiency. We then give a summary of techniques’ strengths and weaknesses in identifying claims as either fraudulent or non-fraudulent, and finally propose a fraud detection framework of an ensemble model that is trained on dataset balanced using SMOTE and with relevant features only. This proposed approach would improve performance and reduce false positives

Machine Learning Load Balancing Techniques in Cloud Computing: A Review

Load balancing (LB) is the process of distributing the workload fairly across the servers within the cloud environment or within distributed computing resources. Workload includes processor load, network traffic and storage burden. LB’s main goal is to spread the computational burden across the cloud servers to ensure optimal utilization of the server resources. Cloud computing (CC) is a rapidly growing field of computing that provides computing resources as a product over the internet. This paper focuses on the issues within Cloud Load Balancing (LB) that have attracted research interest. The paper also mainly focused on uncovering machine learning models used in LB techniques. The most common algorithms in the reviewed papers included Linear Regression, Random Forest classifier (RF) Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Long-Short Term Memory- Recurrent Neural Network (LSTM -RNN). The criteria for LB technique was identified through performance metrics like throughput, response time, migration time, fault tolerance and power saving. The paper adjourns by identifying research gaps found in the reviewed literature.</jats:p

Various forms of alcohol use and their predictors among pregnant women in post conflict northern Uganda: a cross sectional study

Abstract Background Alcohol use during pregnancy has been associated with several births and developmental disorders. This study set out to determine the various forms of alcohol consumption among pregnant women and their predictors in post conflict Northern Uganda. Methods In the months of May to June 2019, we conducted a cross sectional study among 420 pregnant women seeking antenatal care services at both Government and private health facilities in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts in Northern Uganda. We asked them about consumption of various alcoholic beverages. A three stage stratified cluster sampling approach was used and study participants randomly selected from health facilities of interest. We used descriptive statistics to estimate the prevalence of various forms of alcohol use. The chi- square test and logistic regression were used to assess associations of alcohol use among respondents and their socio - demographic and other characteristics. Results Overall 99 women (23.6%) reported current alcohol use (any amount). Up to 11% (N = 11) of all drinkers were identified by the AUDIT to be women with problem drinking behavior, 8% (N = 8) of women reported hazardous drinking and only four (4%) were women with active alcohol dependent behavior. Predictors of maternal alcohol use included pre-pregnancy alcohol consumption, knowledge, attitude, education level, parity and residence. Conclusions This study indicates that alcohol use (any mount) during pregnancy is high while alcohol dependence, problematic and hazardous drinking is low. Knowledge and attitude were important predictors of alcohol use. While alleviating alcohol use, development partners and relevant government departments should consider communication and other interventions that increase knowledge and risk perception on maternal drinking. Other risk factors that predict maternal drinking such as prior alcohol use, residence and parity should be mitigated or eliminated. </jats:sec

Alcohol use during pregnancy in post-conflict northern Uganda: pregnant women’s experiences and provider perceptions

Abstract Background Alcohol use during pregnancy has been associated with several birth defects and developmental disabilities generally known as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Contextual in-depth understanding on why women drink while pregnant is scarce. For this reason, we explored pregnant women’s experiences, knowledge, attitudes as well as provider perceptions regarding prenatal alcohol consumption to inform interventions meant to address alcohol-exposed pregnancies in post-conflict settings. Methods In the months of May and June 2019, 30 in-depth interviews were conducted with pregnant mothers who reported maternal alcohol use during pregnancy. In addition 30 Key informant interviews were carried out with health workers providing Antenatal Care services (ANC) in health facilities in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts in Northern Uganda. Data was recorded, transcribed and subjected to thematic content analysis. Results Women reported diverse views regarding maternal alcohol use during pregnancy. Whereas some felt it was favourable, others had misgivings about it. There was marked variability in knowledge on dangers of drinking during pregnancy. In this study, women reported that they found themselves in alluring situations that predisposed them to drinking alcohol. These included brewing alcohol as a source of livelihood, pregnancy-induced craving for alcohol, and participation in cultural festivities that are characterised by eating and drinking alcohol. Nonetheless, women who consume alcohol during pregnancy were not held in high esteem in the Acholi communities. Various prevention interventions reportedly existed in communities to address alcohol use during pregnancy including ANC health education, public debates, radio talk shows, community health worker group and individual counselling, and local council by laws. Conclusions and recommendations Pregnant mothers in post-conflict northern Uganda regard alcohol as a remedy to some of the social, economic and health challenges they face. Hence they continue drinking even during pregnancy because of the existing socio-cultural norms that promote it. The findings of this study demonstrate a need for sensitising communities in which pregnant women live so they can provide a supportive environment for mothers to abstain from alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Health care providers should ensure pregnant women consistently receive accurate and honest messages on the dangers of drinking during pregnancy so they can make informed decisions. </jats:sec

Redefining normal breast cell populations using long noncoding RNAs

Single-cell RNAseq has allowed unprecedented insight into gene expression across different cell populations in normal tissue and disease states. However, almost all studies rely on annotated gene sets to capture gene expression levels and sequencing reads that do not align to known genes are discarded. Here, we discover thousands of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) expressed in human mammary epithelial cells and analyze their expression in individual cells of the normal breast. We show that lncRNA expression alone can discriminate between luminal and basal cell types and define subpopulations of both compartments. Clustering cells based on lncRNA expression identified additional basal subpopulations, compared to clustering based on annotated gene expression, suggesting that lncRNAs can provide an additional layer of information to better distinguish breast cell subpopulations. In contrast, these breast-specific lncRNAs poorly distinguish brain cell populations, highlighting the need to annotate tissue-specific lncRNAs prior to expression analyses. We also identified a panel of 100 breast lncRNAs that could discern breast cancer subtypes better than protein-coding markers. Overall, our results suggest that lncRNAs are an unexplored resource for new biomarker and therapeutic target discovery in the normal breast and breast cancer subtypes.</p

“Boys should have the courage to ask a girl out”:gender norms in early adolescent romantic relationships

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explore how gender norms emerge in romantic relationships among early adolescents (EAs) living in five poor urban areas.Methods:  Data were collected as part of the Global Early Adolescent Study. The current research analyzed data from interviews with 30 EAs (aged 11–13 years) living in five poor urban sites: Baltimore, Cuenca, Edinburgh, Ghent, and Nairobi. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed in English using Atlas.ti, focusing on how EAs experience and perceive gender norms in romantic relationships.Results: Across the five sites, only a few respondents described having been in love, the majority of whom were boys. Findings indicate that stereotypical gender norms about romantic relationships prevail across these cultural settings, depicting boys as romantically/sexually active and dominant, and girls as innocent with less (romantic) agency. In spite of the similarities, Nairobi was unique in that respondents referred to how sexual behavior and violence can occur within EA relationships. In all countries, heterosexuality was perceived to be the norm. Nevertheless, there were examples of EAs accepting homosexuality and expressing supportive attitudes toward equality between the sexes. Conclusions: While EAs across five different cultural settings seem to endorse stereotypical gender norms in romantic relationships, a few stories also illustrate more gender-equal attitudes. As stereotypical gender norms have a demonstrated negative effect on adolescent sexual and reproductive health and well-being, additional research is needed to understand which factors—at the interpersonal and structural level—contribute to the construction of these norms among EAs