Investigating the Usability and Quality of Experience of Mobile Video-Conferencing Apps Among Bandwidth-Constrained Users in South Africa

During the COVID-19 pandemic and mandated global lockdowns, people and busi- nesses started the extensive use of video-conferencing applications for staying connected. This surge in demand and the usability of video-conferencing services has been severely overlooked in developing countries like South Africa, where one-third of adults rely on mo- bile devices to access the internet, and the per-gigabyte data cost is among the highest in Africa. Considering these numbers, we conduct a two-pronged study where 1) we measure data consumption of different Android apps through data measurement experiments and 2) we conduct interviews and usability assessments with bandwidth-constrained users to bet- ter understand the usability and Quality of Experience (QoE) of mobile video-conferencing apps. Usability is the degree to which specified users can use a product to achieve specified goals. In contrast, QoE measures the subjective perception of the quality of an application and the level of delight or annoyance with a service. The key benefit of this study will be to inform organisations that seek to be inclusive about these tools’ relative usability by letting them know about the factors influencing users’ QoE

Stigmatising Attitudes among People Offered Home-Based HIV Testing and Counselling in Blantyre, Malawi: Construction and Analysis of a Stigma Scale

BACKGROUND: HIV/AIDS related stigma is a major barrier to uptake of HIV testing and counselling (HTC). We assessed the extent of stigmatising attitudes expressed by participants offered community-based HTC, and their anticipated stigma from others to assess relationship with HIV test uptake. From these data, we constructed a brief stigma scale for use around the time of HIV testing. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Adult members of 60 households in urban Blantyre, Malawi, were selected using population-weighted random cluster sampling and offered HTC with the option to self-test before confirmatory HTC. Prior to HTC a 15-item HIV stigma questionnaire was administered. We used association testing and principal components analysis (PCA) to construct a scale measure of stigma. Of 226 adults invited to participate, 216 (95.6%) completed questionnaires and 198/216 (91.7%) opted to undergo HTC (all self-tested). Stigmatising attitudes were uncommon, but anticipated stigma was common, especially fearing verbal abuse (22%) or being abandoned by their partner (11%). Three questions showed little association or consistency with the remaining 12 stigma questions and were not included in the final scale. For the 12-question final scale, Cronbach's alpha was 0.75. Level of stigma was not associated with previously having tested for HIV (p = 0.318) or agreeing to HTC (p = 0.379), but was associated with expressed worry about being or becoming HIV infected (p = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: Anticipated stigma prior to HTC was common among both men and women. However, the high uptake of HTC suggests that this did not translate into reluctance to accept community-based testing. We constructed a brief scale to measure stigma at the time of HIV testing that could rapidly identify individuals requiring additional support following diagnosis and monitor the impact of increasing availability of community-based HTC on prevalence of stigma

On the potential of Google AMP to promote local content in developing regions

The Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project has gained lot of interest from content providers as a means to improve user experience. It introduces a number of innovations to streamline the downloading, parsing and rendering of pages. Google recently announced the hosting of more than 2B+ web pages, covering more than 900K domains. Due to the constrained nature of Internet connectivity in developing regions, AMP offers particularly exciting potential for improving web user experience in these countries. This paper provides a first look at Google\u2019s AMP performance in Africa. We start by outlining the current web infrastructure provisioning in Africa, using local news websites as a case study. Discovering a sparse and low performance environment, we then evaluate the benefits that AMP can introduce in terms of accessibility to local content in developing regions. This study reveals that in Africa, AMP is able to reduce page load time and page size by a factor of 3 and 8 respectively. However, AMP is not a neutral technology as the search engine favours content that is using Google AMP. This raises an important question of search neutrality

Drinking water quality from rural handpump-boreholes in Africa

Groundwater provides a vital source of drinking water for rural communities in many parts of Africa, particularly in the dry season when there are few safe alternative sources. This paper summarises results from a study (n = 428) assessing dry season water quality, both microbiological and inorganic chemistry, in handpump equipped boreholes (HPBs) across the Ethiopia Highlands (n = 142), Malawi (n = 162) and Uganda (n = 124) using a stratified, randomised sampling design. This study seeks to examine general water quality by randomly sampling rural groundwater supplies across larger areas with different geology and climate. The majority, 72%, of HPBs surveyed provide good quality dry season drinking water as defined by WHO drinking water quality criteria. Within this overall picture, the most notable constraints were from thermotolerant coliforms (TTCs), which exceeded the WHO drinking water guideline of zero colony forming units (cfu/100 ml) in 21% of sites (range 0–626 cfu/100 ml). TTC contamination was found to have a significant and positive correlation with annual average rainfall (ρ = 0.2, p = 0.00003). Across all three countries, WHO health based chemical drinking water quality values were exceeded at 9% of sites and were found for manganese (4%), fluoride (2.6%) and nitrate (2.5%); arsenic concentrations were below the guideline value of 10 μg l−1 (range 400 μg l−1) found in drinking water sources in Uganda challenges the decision by WHO not to formalise a health-based guideline for Mn. While the overall level of microbiological contamination from HPBs is low, results from this study strongly suggest that at a national and regional level, microbiological contamination rather than chemical contamination will provide a greater barrier to achieving targets set for improved drinking water quality under the UN-SDG 6. Efforts should be made to ensure that boreholes are properly sited and constructed effectively to reduce pathogen contamination

A Model for Language Annotations on the Web

Several annotation models have been proposed to enable a multilingual Semantic Web. Such models hone in on the word and its morphology and assume the language tag and URI comes from external resources. These resources, such as ISO 639 and Glottolog, have limited coverage of the world's languages and have a very limited thesaurus-like structure at best, which hampers language annotation, hence constraining research in Digital Humanities and other fields. To resolve this `outsourced' task of the current models, we developed a model for representing information about languages, the \textbf{Mo}del for \textbf{L}anguage \textbf{A}nnotation (\langmod{}), such that basic language information can be recorded consistently and therewith queried and analyzed as well. This includes the various types of languages, families, and the relations among them. \langmod{} is formalized in OWL so that it can integrate with Linguistic Linked Data resources. Sufficient coverage of \langmod{} is demonstrated with the use case of French

UPGro Hidden Crisis Research Consortium. Survey 1 Country Report, Malawi

Statistics on the functionality of water points from the Hidden Crisis project in Malawi are presented. The survey, undertaken in 2016, was focussed on boreholes equipped with handpumps (HPBs) within sedimentary and basement rock in Malawi across 5 districts. A stratified two-stage sampling strategy was adopted, and a tiered definition of functionality developed which enabled more nuanced definitions to be reported. The results from the survey indicate: • 74% of HPBs were working on the day of the survey (similar to national statistics) • 67% of HPBs passed the design yield of 10 litres per minute • 58% passed the design yield and also experienced < 1 month downtime within a year. • 41% of HPB’s passed the design yield and reliability and also passed WHO standards of water quality indicators (TTCs and inorganic chemistry). These figures provide a more detailed examination/understanding of the national functionality figures (MoWDI 2012 ). Both approaches show, that at any one point in time approximately 74% of HPBs in Malawi are working. The results from the more detailed Hidden Crisis survey across a sub-sample of HPBs across Malawi, indicate that 42% of the working HPB’s do not provide sufficient yield or reliability. This highlights the utility of carrying out more detailed assessments of functionality to help unpack national statistics. A linked survey of the performance of the water management arrangements at water points showed that for 86% of the survey sites water management arrangements were judged to be functional or highly functional

An analysis of hand pump boreholes functionality in Malawi

A survey on the functionality of boreholes equipped with hand pumps was undertaken in five districts in Malawi in 2016. The survey aimed at developing a robust evidence-base of the performance of hand pump boreholes by applying a tiered assessment of functionality: (1) working at the time of survey (2) producing the design yield of the borehole; (3) working for >11 months per year and (4) delivering water quality requirements from the World Health Organisation (WHO). This information would guide sustainable future investments in water and sanitation projects. A stratified two-stage random sampling strategy was adopted. The results from the survey indicate that 74% of hand pump boreholes (HPBs) were working at the time of survey; 66% of HPBs passed the design yield of 10 L per minute; 55% met the design yield and also experienced less than one month downtime within a year. Only 43% of HPBs met all the functionality requirements including WHOguidelines for drinking water quality. The survey also assessed the village-level Water Management Arrangements at each water point. Results indicate that the majority of the Water Management Arrangements (86%) are functional or highly functional. The initial exploration of the data shows no simple relationship between the physical functionality and Water Management Arrangements

The Uptake and Accuracy of Oral Kits for HIV Self-Testing in High HIV Prevalence Setting: A Cross-Sectional Feasibility Study in Blantyre, Malawi

Augustine Choko and colleagues assess the uptake and acceptability of home-based supervised oral HIV self-testing in Malawi, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach in a high-prevalence, low-income environment