Exploring head teachers’ support for online learning during the school closure as a result of covid-19: a case of two primary schools in Mombasa County, Kenya

The emergence and spread of COVID-19 in the world prompted most governments to close all educational institutions to halt the spread of the virus. Schools in Kenya were closed for nearly 7 months, resulting in a learning loss. The Kenyan government promoted online learning through mass media such as television and radio, while the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) uploaded learning resources to their i-cloud educational portal. However, students and teachers faced several challenges that made it difficult for such headteachers to provide effective support for online learning. The researcher selected two primary schools, two headteachers, two deputy headteachers, two senior teachers, and twelve teachers to conduct the study. Purposive sampling was used to select all the respondents, and semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were also held with the selected teachers. The study gathered and recorded the lived experiences of 18 participants. Thematic analysis was used in the research to represent the support provided by headteachers to conduct online learning. Parental engagement was evident in the online classes and teachers tried to ensure equity, but this was not adequately addressed. The study noted that although teachers had received training in facilitating online learning, this was not done well. The study highlighted key challenges that hampered the smooth implementation of online learning, divided into three categories: challenges shared by both students and teachers, challenges faced by students, and challenges faced by teachers. Internet fluctuations and interruptions, background noise, and a lack of data bundles were among the difficulties that both students and teachers experienced. Shared devices, lack of parental or guardian supervision, some parents\u27 lack of cooperation, and poverty were obstacles that students had to overcome. The scheduling of the online classes, downloading and installing the applications that supported online learning, and dealing with interruptions from their children at home while teaching online were all challenges experienced by teachers. The study recommended solutions to the identified challenges and suggested the areas that needs further research

Sea Level Change and Sea Surface Temperature Reconstruction in the Southern Equatorial Pacific Ocean Relative to the Society Islands, French Polynesia

The study is aimed to reconstruct sea level change and sea surface temperature (SST) of the Society Islands using emerged fossil reef platforms collected on the emerged reef platforms on the Society Islands in French Polynesi

Die Rekonstruktion von erdgeschichtlichen Veränderungen der Meerwassertemperatur und des Meeresspiegels im südlichen äquatorialen Pazifik, betreffend die Gesellschaftsinseln in Französisch Polynesien

The study is aimed to reconstruct sea level change and sea surface temperature (SST) of the Society Islands using emerged fossil reef platforms collected on the emerged reef platforms on the Society Islands in French PolynesiaThe study is aimed to reconstruct sea level change and sea surface temperature (SST) of the Society Islands using emerged fossil reef platforms collected on the emerged reef platforms on the Society Islands in French Polynesi

Effects of Food Sources and Culture Conditions on Feeding Behaviour and Growth Rates of Nile Tilapia Fry (Oreochromis niloticus)

The importance of fish aquaculture in general as an alternative source of animal protein, is raised during this century after the significant reduction of natural marine resources. Such reduction has increased the interest of many countries as well as international agencies in worldwide food security, especially for developing countries. The success of any aquaculture is chiefly judged by its economic development, which always depends on the management of producing acceptable marketing size and weight of fish in short time. In the last few decades, many aquacultures failed in balancing between the financial input and the resultant income. That is due to many reasons; one of them is the high mortality in fish fry which resulted from either the difficulty of obtaining a suitable diet (live food) or from the quality of the living conditions of the cultured fry. In the Middle East countries especially, and in Asia as general, certain fish species are becoming the most cultured ones because of their high consumption and because of their acceptable commercial price by local populations. However, in the last few years, such prices have increased, due to many reasons. These include, the increase of artificial diets items and the high mortalities of fish fry due to the lack of the food necessary to the fry immediately after its hatching. A viable example is Tilapia nilotica species (Oreochromis niloticus). In the present study two types of experiments were designed to investigate the effect of different food sources on the growth rates of Nile tilapia fry (Oreochromis niloticus), and to evaluate the effect of some culture conditions on the feeding behaviour of the fry. In the first experiment, the effects of three types of food (ChIorella vulgaris, Artemia fransciscana, and Artificial feed) and various combinations of the three types (ChIorella + Artemia; Chlorella + Artificial feed; Artemia + Artificial feed; and Chlorella + Artemia + Artificial feed) on the growth, feed utilization and survival of Nile tilapia fry has been investigated, with average initial weight of 12 mg fry-1. Tilapia fry were cultured in a closed system and fed with seven feed combinations. Triplicate groups of fry with 24 fry per 6 L tank were used for each treatment. The diet was offered 3 times a day, for 35 days. The results indicated that the maximum body weight and survival was achieved by fry fed on Artemia, followed by those fed on the combination of the three food types, then by Artemia + Artificial. On the other hand, the minimum growth and survival were observed from the fry fed only with Chlorella suspension. The fry fed only with Artificial feed showed moderate growth and good survival. In the second experiments a series of trials were carried out to detect the response of tilapia fry to live food suspension of Chlorella, Artemia, and Artificial feed, and the smell of the filtrates of the Chlorella, Artemia and Rotifers cultures. Another trial was designed to study the response of tilapia fry to different environmental opaque colours (green, yellow, red, and blue). These experiments were carried out in a rectangular glass basin divided into six tracks using five longitudinal transepts. These tracks were used as swimming pools. At both ends of each track mobile doors were inserted to separate a small chamber. In the food suspension experiment, the basin was filled with tilapia fish tanks water. The mobile doors were tightly fixed at both ends. The small chambers of two tracks were filled with Chlorella on one side and with experiment water on the opposite side. The chambers of another two tracks were filed with Chlorella on one side and Artemia on the opposite side, while the remaining two track ends were filled with ChIorella on one side and Artificial feed on the opposite side on the suspension experiment. For the smell experiment the basin was filled with tap water and the Artificial feed replaced by Rotifers. Also, the doors of the chambers were raised about 0.5 cm in the beginning of the experiment. Five tilapia fry were introduced into the middle of each track at the beginning of the experiments. The movement of the fry towards one source of food/extract or another was recorded every 5 minutes for a total of 30 minutes. The same process was followed on the four colour experiments but with a little modification: the doors of the chambers were removed and sheets of opaque colours inserted in the end of champers. In each experiment, a single colour was examined against the other three, as well as against itself. The results have shown that the tilapia fry favoured the suspensions of Artemia nauplii and Artificial feed more than the Cholorella suspensions. Furthemore the tilapia fry were attracted by the smell of Artemia and Rotifers filtrates more than the filtrate of the Chlorella culture. However, the chlorella filtrate was highly attractive to the fry compared with the blank conditions. Results from the color experiments showed that green is the most attractive color followed by yellow then blue, while red was the least attractive one. In conclusion, Artemia nauplii was the best live food, followed by Artemia nauplii combined with Artificial feed, to accelerate the growth rate of the fry. Moreover, it is recommended to use algae extract which may act as a natural colouring agent as well as an odour stimulator

An Assessment on the Factors Influencing Employee Absenteeism in Public Educational Organizations in Songea Municipality.

This study assessed the factors influencing employee (teacher) absenteeism in public educational organizations in Songea Municipality, Ruvuma region. The study was guided by three research objectives aimed at; examining the nature of employee absenteeism in public educational institutions; identifying the factors influencing employee absenteeism in public educational institutions and exploring the strategies employed to reduce employee absences in public educational institutions. The study employed a mixed research approach and a multiple embedded case study design. Quantitative data used in this study were analyzed by statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 20 and qualitative data were analyzed by using content (thematic) analysis. The findings revealed that public schools employee (teachers) involved in excused and unexcused absenteeism in connection to teachers’ personal characteristics, level of education, administrative position and time aspects. The finding revealed that, for 88.9% majority of employee (teachers) were absent because of economic reasons which included low incentives and participating in private income generating projects. Furthermore, the finding revealed that illness and social problems strongly influenced employee to be absent in excused frame work accepted by government policies. Moreover, the study found that, the use of teachers’ attendance register, class journals, and bonus of teachers for good students’ result, were some strategies used to control teacher absenteeism. Based on the findings the study recommends that, the government and the school should improve teachers’ incentives, teaching and learning environment and supervision of schools so as to encourage and motivate teachers to attend and effectively teach students. Keywords: Employee, Employee Absenteeism, Public Educational, Organizations

Effects of User Awareness on Privacy Protection of the Internet User in Tanzania. A Case Study of Drug Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA)

This study aimed to examine the effects of user awareness on privacy protection of the Internet user. In conducting this study, the researcher employed by theory of planned behaviour by Ajzen (1985) and the descriptive research design and mixed research approach whereby data was collected from 98 respondents through questionnaire and interview. Data collected was analyzed using SPSS for quantitative data and thematic analysis was employed to analyse qualitative data obtained through interview. The results obtained from regression analysis shows that User Awareness (UA) has (β = .315, p< .001). These findings conclude that there is a positive and significant relationship between user awareness and the privacy protection behaviours among internet users. From the findings it can be concluded that user of internet needs to be aware of what data is being collected, how it be used and who will have access. This study recommends that the management of DCEA should conduct privacy impacts assessment, it also recommends that DCEA should provide an improved regular training and awareness programs for employees, moreover, it also recommends the use of data encryption services this will ensure that sensitive data are encrypted and protected in transit and at rest to protect it from unauthorized access, particularly in the event of breach or data loss. Lastly it recommends on improvement on incident response measures, whereby DCEA is required to improve its comprehensive incidence response plan for data breaches or privacy incidents, outlining how to detect, report and respond to such event promptly

The effect of government expenditure on economic growth: The case of Tanzania using VECM approach

The purpose of this paper is to observe empirically the effect of the government spending annex economic growth in Tanzania for the period covered 1990 to 2015 using VECM approach. The results revealed the existence of long-run cointegration among all our variables. Also, the results showed that government expenditure, foreign direct investment inflows, gross capital formation and inflation have positive and significant associations with Tanzania economic growth in the long-run and short-run as well. However, the government and policy-makers must become stable the variation of the inflation rate of commodities to persuade economic growth of Tanzania. Finally, the study suggests that government expenditure promotes economic growth in Tanzania and the paper recommends that more of government's resources should highly allocate to capital expenditure. Keywords: Government Expenditure, Economic Growth, VECM, and Tanzania

Some Subclasses of Univalent and Bi-Univalent Functions Related to K-Fibonacci Numbers and Modified Sigmoid Function

يهتم هذا البحث بفئات فرعية معينة من الدوال احادية التكافؤ وثنائية التكافؤ فيما يتعلق بمنحنيات تشبه الصدفة المرتبطة بأرقام فيبوناتشي k تتضمن دالة التنشيط السيني المعدلة θ(t)=2/(1+e^(-t) ) ,t ≥0في قرص الوحدة|z|<1. تقديرات المعاملات الاولية |c_2 | , |c_3 | تم التحقق من عدم المساواة Fekete-Szego ̈ ومحدد هانكل الثاني للدوال في فئاتنا.              This paper is interested in certain  subclasses of univalent and bi-univalent functions concerning  to shell- like curves connected with k-Fibonacci numbers involving modified Sigmoid activation function θ(t)=2/(1+e^(-t) ) ,t ≥0 in unit disk |z|<1 . For estimating of the initial coefficients |c_2 | , |c_3 |, Fekete-Szego ̈ inequality and the  second Hankel determinant have been investigated for the functions in our classes.

Population dynamics and management of scalloped spiny lobster Panulirus homarus in Oman coastal waters

Spiny lobster (Panulirus homarus) population, one of the most valuable fishery resources in Oman, is assessed based on the length frequency data collected from the Arabian Sea during the lobster fishing season. The assessment was carried out using 6,498 lobsters covering a length range of 37- 134 mm carapace length (CL), sampled in Arabian Sea coastal waters during March and April, 2011 and 2012. By applying the Y/R analysis on the pseudo-cohort of 2011-2012 using VIT program, it is noticed that this stock is heavily exploited, being the fishery operating below the optimal yield level since the current Y/R is greatly lower than the maximum. Results suggest a decreasing trend in the average fishing mortality along the studied period by about 40-60%. The effects of different management scenarios including present strategy on the short-term yield of the stock were explored and some addition management measures were proposed. Keywords: Oman, Arabian Sea, Panulirus homarus, population dynamics, stock assessment, management

Detection of Leishmania Antigen from Buccal Swabs in Kala-azar Patients Using KATEX Method

Background: Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) or kala-azar is a chronic protozoan infection in humans that is fatal unless treated and is associated with significant global morbidity and mortality. Confirmation of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) diagnosis requires microscopic examination to visualize the causative agent Leishmania Donovani usually in spleen or bone marrow aspirate. Tissue aspiration is invasive, potentially risky and require skilled personnel. KATEX (Kalon biologicals) antigen test for VL in buccal swabs has not been evaluated locally and could offer a significant advantage in screening patients suspected of VL.  Method: A cross sectional study was conducted after receiving approval from KEMRI SERU. We obtained buccal swabs from patients presenting at Kimalel Health Centre, Baringo County, Kenya from VL cases and controls. VL was defined as patients meeting VL case definition with positive splenic aspirate microscopy while endemic controls were defined as patients presenting to the health center with no fever and no prior history of Kala azar but living in VL endemic. Latex agglutination based test (KATEX) was used to detect parasite antigen in buccal swabs. It was a proof of principle study carried out to explore the ability to use KATEX, a simple non-invasive diagnostic test to detect leishmania antigens in buccal swabs, determine the ability of the kit to detect leishmania antigens in buccal cells of kala-azar patients and compare the sensitivity and specificity of KATEX - buccal assay using microscopy as the gold standard. Results: 88 patients were analyzed, including 44 VL and 44 non-VL patients. The median age of VL patients was 18 years with predominance of males (68.2%). None of the tested VL patients were co-infected with HIV. KATEX kit was able to detect visceral leishmaniasis antigens from the buccal swabs giving a sensitivity of (81.8%; 95%CI: 67.3% to 91.8%, specificity of (79.5%; 95%CI: 64.7 –90.2%), Positive predictive value n= 36(80.0%); 95%CI: 65.4% to 90.4% and Negative predictive values n = 35(81.4%); 95% CI: 66.6% to 91.6%. Conclusion and Recommendation: Buccal swab test assay using KATEX is an easy test to perform and promising non-invasive based antigen detection test which may be useful for screening kala-azar patients and could be applied in the diagnosis of VL. It is a functional assay that warrants a larger study with a larger sample size for the purpose of evaluating the utility of the test in diagnosing visceral leishmaniasis. There is dire need to identify non-invasive, less risky and field adapted point of care diagnostics for VL. Keywords: Kala-azar; Visceral Leishmaniasis; Diagnosis; KATEX; Latex; Buccal swab antigen detection