Parental Influence on HIV Vertical Transmission in Kenya

Mother-to-infant vertical transmission of HIV usually occurs during pregnancy, labor, delivery or breastfeeding. It is the third leading cause of transmission of HIV after sexual intercourse and blood transfusions. In 2008, 12 million women aged 15 years and above were anticipated to be living with HIV in countries within Sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, the association between parental HIV knowledge, attitudes and risk reduction practices, and HIV vertical transmission in Kenya were explored. The health belief model was used to help understand and interpret the findings. For this quantitative study, data were collected via surveys from 212 participants in 3 HIV clinics in Kenya. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Around 45% of respondents lacked knowledge on key aspects of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV particularly on expressing and heat treating milk from HIV positive mothers to make it safe for their babies. About 65% of Participants had awareness towards Mother to Child Transmission (MTCT) of HIV. Logistic regression showed no association between socioeconomic factors and parental knowledge on MTCT of HIV. Logistic modeling found that there was association between attitude and MTCT, revealing that attitude increased the likelihood to influence MTCT. Being married was associated with reduced risk of MTCT of HIV. The overall results indicated gaps in knowledge and information packaging. The potential positive social change implication of this study is that factors related to HIV vertical transmission identified in this study might be utilized to develop and implement HIV prevention strategies to reduce HIV vertical transmission and decrease associated morbidity and mortality among this vulnerable population

A STUDY ON THE CAUSES OF UNEMPLOYMENT AMONG UNIVERSITY GRADUATES IN KENYA: A CASE OF GARISSA COUNTY, KENYA

Unemployment is a major problem in Kenya. It has made many young university graduates demoralized. Unemployment rate has risen so high that in every 10 young people, close to 4 are jobless with requisite qualifications. Successive governments have done little to arrest the situation. This research was done to understand the causes of unemployment in Kenya and the solutions that can be put in place to mitigate the problem. The effects of unemployment and the relationship between creation of opportunities and the growth of economy. The research found out that unemployment in Kenya is very high. This shows lack of confidence they have the system in place. The main effects of unemployment are crime, corruption, nepotism and favourism, high dependency and drug abuse. Being a job creator rather than a job seeker is the major solution of unemployment in Kenya. The research also found out that aligning the education curriculum in line with the demand of the market is paramount and should be hastened. In conclusion, unemployment has caused a lot of problems in Kenya. The research recommended a raft of measures to reduce the issue of unemployment in the country. Encourage the youth to be job creators and not job seekers only. Universities should play an important role in this case. Universities should develop courses that are relevant and demand driven. Duplication of courses with fewer demands should be minimized as this will flood graduates with similar courses that are not needed at all. Technical education should be enhanced and proper mechanisms put in place to sponsor and encourage students to take up these courses. Strict regulations should be enacted to fight corruption, nepotism and favourism. Kenya needs a practical and proactive solution for this monster.  Article visualizations

Motivational Factors and Performance of Women Entrepreneurs in Somalia

This paper examines the impact of motivational factors on performance of women entrepreneurs, the objectives of this study is to examines the motivational factors of women entrepreneurs in Banadir region and to analyze the performance of women entrepreneurs. As sample of 125 women entrepreneurs involved small and medium enterprises, This study found that self recognition and economic necessities are the major factors that motivate Women entrepreneurs also this study revealed that the performance of Somali women owned business are somewhat low due to women perform their business in terms of independence and social recognition compared to men. The findings also showed that there is moderate correlation among motivational factors and performance of Women entrepreneurs in Banadir Region but the relationship is not high because of women are not motivated in terms financial performance. Keywords: Motivational factors, women entrepreneurs, business performance SME in Banadir region, Somalia

LEADERSHIP STYLES AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: A LITERATURE REVIEW

In particular, the relationship between democratic, autocratic, transformational, and transactional leadership styles and organizational performance was the focus of this study. The study was an organized review of the literature (Desk Review), concentrating on general discussions that were already accessible through database search engines like Google Scholar. The most pertinent journal papers, books, and dissertations were also looked for by the researcher. The theoretical foundation of democratic, autocratic, transformational, and transactional leadership styles as well as organizational performance was uncovered by the study's findings. According to a study that examined many authors' studies on leadership behaviors and the performance of organizations, some leadership styles are good for an organization's success while others are bad depending on the circumstance.  Article visualizations

Seeing the Light and Other Stories

Englis

Matrix Factorization Techniques for Context-Aware Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems: A Survey

open access articleCollaborative Filtering Recommender Systems predict user preferences for online information, products or services by learning from past user-item relationships. A predominant approach to Collaborative Filtering is Neighborhood-based, where a user-item preference rating is computed from ratings of similar items and/or users. This approach encounters data sparsity and scalability limitations as the volume of accessible information and the active users continue to grow leading to performance degradation, poor quality recommendations and inaccurate predictions. Despite these drawbacks, the problem of information overload has led to great interests in personalization techniques. The incorporation of context information and Matrix and Tensor Factorization techniques have proved to be a promising solution to some of these challenges. We conducted a focused review of literature in the areas of Context-aware Recommender Systems utilizing Matrix Factorization approaches. This survey paper presents a detailed literature review of Context-aware Recommender Systems and approaches to improving performance for large scale datasets and the impact of incorporating contextual information on the quality and accuracy of the recommendation. The results of this survey can be used as a basic reference for improving and optimizing existing Context-aware Collaborative Filtering based Recommender Systems. The main contribution of this paper is a survey of Matrix Factorization techniques for Context-aware Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems

The Effects of Social Media on Family Communication in the UAE

Social Media has seen significant growth in variety and number of participants throughout the years; to the extent that it became part of the household itself. The heavy and unhealthy reliance on Social Media and the Internet in its entirety amongst UAE families, however, has created a noticeable void in the lack of communication between its members. Noticeably during family gatherings; members of the family appear focused intently on their devices rather than communicating with their siblings/parents, for example. An argument(s) can be made towards, preconceived reliance of the younger generation on the internet in the 21st century, family and siblings lack appropriate communication motivation, a family’s busy lifestyle, or diverse personalities within the family; could explain the apparent usage of social media to evade conversations. Nevertheless, it is a serious issue plaguing the households of UAE specifically, as we will be demonstrating the reasons and causes that instigate this lack of communication amid families of the UAE, and addressing it with empirical and primary forms of research to find solutions; in the hopes that we raise awareness towards these types of issues within UA

Development of a three-phase interleaved converter based on SEPIC DC-DC converter operating in discontinuous conduction mode for ultra-fast electric vehicle charging stations

One of the main challenges that impact transportation systems electrification is their batteries' charging process. This work presents the development of a three-phase ultra-fast Electric Vehicle (EV) charger based on the SEPIC converter. Since SEPIC operating in Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) is usually recommended for low-power applications, this work proposes a scheme for its employment in high-power EV chargers. This is achieved through three single-phase modules of interleaved SEPIC converters. The presented scheme ensures reducing the stresses on the semiconductor devices since the power is divided over the interleaved modules. The design addresses DCM operation in terms of both capacitor voltage and inductor current (DCVM and DICM, respectively). This paper examines the analysis of the proposed converter and the small-signal modelling. Also, the converter efficiency is assessed. A Constant Current (CC) charging approach is deployed for charging the EV battery. The validation of the designs is explored through simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink platform. A 4 kW experimental prototype for the interleaved SEPIC DC-DC converter is built to verify the claimed contributions with 92% efficiency.Qatar Foundation; Qatar National Research FundScopu

The Ripple Effects When a Refugee Camp Becomes a University Town: University Teacher Education in Dadaab, Kenya

Dadaab, Kenya is the site of the first university teacher education program created by a consortium of institutions (UBC, York, Moi, Kenyatta) within the Borderless Higher Education for Refugees. Dadaab is also the host town to what has been described as the largest protracted refugee camp, at its peek nearly a half million residents. Here, four program graduates, who are secondary school teachers in Daddab tell their stories of the impact that their education diploma and degrees have had on them and their communities. Their stories are of leadership, resilience, and hope

Socioeconomic Consequences of Corruption and Financial Crimes

Corruption and financial crimes are major obstacles to the socioeconomic development of many countries in the world. This study employed descriptive research design to assess the socioeconomic consequences of these crimes. The data were collected through questionnaire from 200 respondents. The study results indicate that financial crimes and corruption both have significant socioeconomic consequences by destroying public confidences, weakening public service delivery such as education, health service, it also demolishes private sector particularly small business growth which ultimately affect employment level, GPD and, life expectancy, defeat culture, values, ethics of the society and finally eliminates trust, partnership and collaboration among business organization, public institutions, and society. Moreover, the socioeconomic consequences of these crimes include inequality and poverty in the country. The study recommends strengthening the capacity of public institutions, good governance, strengthening internal control systems, establishing effective monitoring frameworks, promoting accountability and transparency of the public sector, establishing legal frameworks and anti-corruption strategies, and supervision mechanisms in public institutions