Data-driven part-of-speech tagging of Kiswahili

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A corpus-based survey of four electronic Swahili-English Bilingual dictionaries

In this article we survey four different electronic bilingual dictionaries for the language pair Swahili-English. Aided by a data-driven morphological analyzer and part-of-speech tagger, we quantify the coverage of the dictionaries on large monolingual corpora of Swahili. In a second series of experiments, we investigate how applicable the dictionaries are as a tool in the development of a machine translation system, by evaluating bilingual coverage on the parallel SAWA corpus. At the same time we attempt to consolidate the dictionaries into a unified lexicographic database and compare the coverage to that of its composite parts

A MODEL FOR INTRODUCING AND IMPLEMENTING E-LEARNING FOR DELIVERY OF EDUCATIONAL CONTENT WITHIN THE AFRICAN CONTEXT

Africa, where we have enormous and varied challenges in accessing higher education, there is need for relevant and customized content that is specific to our needs and challenges. Most of the models that exist to address these challenges have their limitations in terms of flexibility, time and space constraints and hence the need to address the mitigating factors. A blend of different types of information and communication technologies can be used in innovative ways in order to resolve some of these limitations. However, the same technologies brings about other challenges such as the costs that are associated and change of attitude and training on the part of the e-content developers. These challenges must be addressed for successful introduction of the same in an educational setup. In this paper, electronic learning is proposed as one of the main ways of overcoming some of the key challenges in accessing education. We argue that electronic learning models should be sensitive to the level of availability of infrastructure, technical support, and clear policy on implementation, evaluation and curriculum re-orientation. We propose an e-learning implementation model that can be used by educational institutions in introducing e-learning technologies to their staff and students. The model is a modification of Rogers'model of diffusion of innovation in organizations and has been developed from experiences and experiments conducted over a period of three years at the University of Nairobi. The steps involved in the proposed model are described and for each step factors that meliorate the situation are identified and put into perspective. System flowcharts have been developed and used to visualize the processes and the interrelatedness of the steps. We have contextualized the model to suit various parametric values that are dependent on cost, level of infrastructural support and staff motivation and commitment. Key Words: E-learning development process model, e-learning modes, e-content, infrastructure African Journal of Science and Technology Vol.5(1) 2004: 34-4

Spatial access inequities and childhood immunisation uptake in Kenya

Background Poor access to immunisation services remains a major barrier to achieving equity and expanding vaccination coverage in many sub-Saharan African countries. In Kenya, the extent to which spatial access affects immunisation coverage is not well understood. The aim of this study was to quantify spatial accessibility to immunising health facilities and determine its influence on immunisation uptake in Kenya while controlling for potential confounders. Methods Spatial databases of immunising facilities, road network, land use and elevation were used within a cost friction algorithim to estimate the travel time to immunising health facilities. Two travel scenarios were evaluated; (1) Walking only and (2) Optimistic scenario combining walking and motorized transport. Mean travel time to health facilities and proportions of the total population living within 1-h to the nearest immunising health facility were computed. Data from a nationally representative cross-sectional survey (KDHS 2014), was used to estimate the effect of mean travel time at survey cluster units for both fully immunised status and third dose of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DPT3) vaccine using multi-level logistic regression models. Results Nationally, the mean travel time to immunising health facilities was 63 and 40 min using the walking and the optimistic travel scenarios respectively. Seventy five percent of the total population were within one-hour of walking to an immunising health facility while 93% were within one-hour considering the optimistic scenario. There were substantial variations across the country with 62%(29/47) and 34%(16/47) of the counties with  1-h were significantly associated with low immunisation coverage in the univariate analysis for both fully immunised status and DPT3 vaccine. Children living more than 2-h were significantly less likely to be fully immunised [AOR:0.56(0.33–0.94) and receive DPT3 [AOR:0.51(0.21–0.92) after controlling for household wealth, mother’s highest education level, parity and urban/rural residence. Conclusion Travel time to immunising health facilities is a barrier to uptake of childhood vaccines in regions with suboptimal accessibility (> 2-h). Strategies that address access barriers in the hardest to reach communities are needed to enhance equitable access to immunisation services in Kenya