Local Community Participation in Solid Waste Management in Urban West Region-Zanzibar.

A study was conducted to assess the degree of community participation in solid waste management (SWM) in Urban West Region Zanzibar. The study used both the primary and secondary source data. The primary data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, observation and secondary data were collected through documentation from Zanzibar Municipal Council. Purposive sampling procedures were used to obtain representative wards; respondents were randomly selected from different households. The study involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches in data analysis. The study revealed that, 70.6 percent of respondents have waste storage facilities of different size and shapes, most of them dispose waste on the land, some areas have waste collection points, almost no separation between solid and organic waste, few people in community has awareness of solid waste management and almost 50 percent of respondents contribute cash and in kind for waste disposal. The study recommended that efforts should be directed towards training and awareness creation for purpose of enhancing community participation in SWM, also formation of Environment committees is crucial in order to increase the participation in SWM at lower level. For sustainable SWM emphasis should be directed towards composting and production of fertilizer for the growing subsector of urban agriculture as well as income generation. The study concluded that solid waste management is perceived to be a responsibility the municipal authority and the Zanzibar municipality can only collect and dispose off about 50% of the collected SW; also there is a need to educate and sensitize community on SWM. Keywords: Solid Waste, Municipal Solid Waste and Community Participatio

Rancangan Tanah Pemuda Sungai Lenek dan Rancangan Tanah Beliawanis Bukit Mambai Segamat Johor

Rancangan Tanah Belia ialah satu projek pembangunan tanah pertanian kelapa sawit secara komersial denean penempatan beramai-ramai khusus untuk belia dan beliawanis yang telah dilaksanakan oleh Kerajaan Negeri Johor semenjak awal tahun 1970an,sehingga hari ini terdapat 3 buah Rancangan Tanah Belia di negeri ini iaitu Rancangan Tanah Pemuda Ulu Tebrau di Johor Bahru,Rancangan Tanah Pemuda Sungai Lenek dan Rancangan Tanah Beliawanis Bukit Mambai yang keduaduanya terletak di Daerah'Segamat.Ketiga-tiea projek ini telah memberikan pekerjaan di bidang pertanian seramai 254 orang,84 orang darinya terdiri dari para beliawanis di ladang kelapa sawit yang seluas 1,012.87 hektar

Determination of Melting Layer Boundaries and Attenuation Evaluation in Equatorial Malaysia at Ku-Band

Upsurge in bandwidth demand in recent times for real-time data transmission have put serious constraints on satellite communication channels, leading to congestion of the lower frequency bands; necessitating migration to higher bands (Ku, Ka and V) with attendant problems such as signal fading, depolarization and attenuation due to presence of hydrometeors. There is need to separately account for attenuation due to the melting layer along the earth-space microwave links. One year data from ground-based S-band meteorological radar sourced from Kluang station of the Malaysian Meteorological Department was processed to build the vertical reflectivity of rain profile for UTM, Malaysia. Results from this work suggested that the effects of the melting layer on signal attenuation at Ku-band can be quite significant in the tropical and equatorial regions. It was estimated to be 13.36 dB and 15.44 dB at 0.01% of the time exceeded using Laws-parsons and Marshall-Palmer regression coefficients, respectively. Furthermore, it was observed that ITU-R. P.618-11 model largely under-estimated the attenuation along the slant-paths because of its failure to account for attenuation due to the melting layer in its formulation by its assumption of constant rain rate; thus rendering it unsuitable for rain attenuation predictions in the tropics

Seasonal and Diurnal Variability of Rain Heights at An Equatorial Station

Seasonal and diurnal rain heights variation at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor was studied. Slant path rain attenuation prediction and modeling is crucial to satellite equipment design; a major input is the rain height. One year meteorological ground-based, S-band, 3D RAPIC precipitation radar data at 500m resolution sourced from the Malaysian Meteorological Department was complemented with two-year TRMM PR data sourced from JAXA Earth Observation Research Center. After filtering, sorting, extraction and decoding of the data, vertical reflectivity profiles were constructed; from which rain height parameters were extracted. TRMM PR processed monthly (3A25) and daily (2A23) rainfall precipitation data were similarly used to obtain rain height parameters to investigate the seasonal and diurnal variations. Results from this work suggested that rain height parameters are influenced by both seasonal and diurnal variations. Higher seasonal variability was observed during south-west and pre-southwest monsoons. Rain heights were also observed to be higher in the night than in the day time

Quantification of Heavy Metals in Breast Milk Samples Sampled from Kilimani/Kidoti in Zanzibar

People of Zanzibar are perpetual users of tomatoes.  Different varieties of tomatoes are regularly consumed in day-to-day meals in Zanzibar. These fruits are farmed under different settings varying from purely organic mode to extensive use of agrochemicals. It is well known that the use of agrochemicals may give rise to heavy metals contaminations with significant health impacts to consumers. The use of fertilizers and pesticides in some areas during cultivation may bring about individuals to eat tomatoes together with harmful heavy metals. However, no study has been done to find the quantity of heavy metals entered in consumers’ bodies. The objective of this study was to quantify heavy metals present in breast milk of individual tomato consumers. The methodology used was sampling, processing, digestion and analysis. The instrument used for analysis was Atomic Absorption Spectrometer (AAS). Samples were collected, digested with HNO3 and H2O2 in a semi–closed glass digestion apparatus. After cooling, volume was adjusted to 25 ml with distilled water and analyzed by AAS. Zinc detected by AA spectrometer ranged from 231 μg/l to 1466 μg/l of milk, with average of 900±457 μg/l. Cadmium ranged from 24.1 μg/l to 35.9 μg/l with average of 31.1±3.46 μg/l. Lead ranged from 32.4 to 1630 μg/l with average of 707±582 μg/l. The concentration of Al metal, which was detected in only one sample, was 0.91 μg/l. The results show that breast milk contains heavy metals contaminants necessary to be removed before infant feeding

Rain attenuation models at ka band for selected stations in the southwestern region of Nigeria

Rain is the major factor in radio propagation analyses that is responsible for outage on terrestrial point-to-point and point-to-multipoint radio communication systems at millimeter wave bands. This hampers radio wave signal transmission in the tropics. This paper investigates the performance of ITU-R P.530-16, Silver Mello, Moupfouma and Abdulrahman rain attenuation prediction models using locally-sourced data. The aim is to determine their suitability or otherwise in tropical Nigeria. Two years daily rainfall data were sourced from the Nigerian Meteorological Services (NIMET) for six different stations in southwestern Nigeria. Southern Nigeria is predominantly influenced by the southwest monsoon wind from the Atlantic Ocean due to its proximity to the coastal belt. The data were analyzed using these prediction models by comparing with measured data. The ITU-R P.530-16 rain attenuation prediction model closely matched the measurement value for p≥0.1% of the time but over-estimated it at p<0.1% while Abdulrahman and Silver Mello proposed prediction models generally over-estimated for p<0.01 of time exceeded. Overall, Abdulrahman proposed prediction model presented the best performances; it was closely followed by Silver Mello, ITU-R and Moupfouma prediction models respectively. These results further accentuate the need for urgent review of the ITU-R P.530-16 prediction model or alternatively, the development of a separate rain attenuation prediction model specifically for the stations in the tropical region

Underwater Channel Characterization to Design Wireless Sensor Network by Bellhop

Acoustic underwater link due to low attenuation is employed for underwater sensor network (UWSN). Due to water changing physical properties and different environmental conditions, the sound propagation for every underwater channel are different. So, the most important parameters to design reliable UWSN are: the shadow zone determination, optimum nodes placement, high signal to noise ratio and more power efficiency of nodes. This paper simulates underwater channel for 7 KHz carrier frequency, with measured physical water properties and remote sensing data. Based on defined scenario, the research determines optimum nodes placement and link budget analysis based on bottom to surface acoustic link. The paper utilizes Bellhop acoustic toolbox as a simulator, GeoMapApp program to collects bathymetry data and Aviso+ database to determine wind speed on sea surface. As a result the paper based on simulation of sound propagation in channel and transmission loss determination in depth and range, finds the optimum nodes positions and link budget calculation to prove the results

Performance Evaluation of Rain Attenuation Models in a Tropical Station

The non-uniformity of rainfall in both the horizontal and vertical directions makes the estimation of slant path attenuation complex. At frequencies above 10 GHz, the effects of attenuation and noise induced by rain are quite significant. One year satellite attenuation data were sourced from Malaysia East Asia Satellite at Ku frequency band; using ASTRO beacon signals to monitor and measure the slant path rain rate and attenuation at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai. Four years’ one minute rain rate ground data at 0.01% of time exceeded were collected using rain gauge. The attenuation exceeded for other percentages of the time was obtained using statistical methods. Different rain attenuation prediction models were investigated and their performances compared. The validation results clearly suggested that the Breakpoint attenuation prediction model produced better results when compared with other models of interest.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v4i5.658

An Improved Slant Path Attenuation Prediction Method in Tropical Climates

An improved method for predicting slant path attenuation in tropical climates is presented in this paper. The proposed approach is based on rain intensity data R_0.01 (mm/h) from 37 tropical and equatorial stations; and is validated by using the measurement data from a few localities in tropical climates. The new method seems to accurately predict the slant path attenuation in tropical localities, and the comparative tests seem to show significant improvement in terms of the RMS of the relative error variable compared to the RMS obtained with the SAM, Crane, and ITU-R prediction models

Site Diversity Technique Application on Rain Attenuation for Lagos

This paper studied the impact of site diversity (SD) as a fade mitigation technique on rain attenuation at 12 GHz for Lagos. SD is one of the most effective methods to overcome such large fades due to rain attenuation that takes advantage of the usually localized nature of intense rainfall by receiving the satellite downlink signal at two or more earth stations to minimize the prospect of potential diversity stations being simultaneously subjected to significant rain attenuation. One year (January to December 2011) hourly rain gauge data was sourced from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) for three sites (Ikeja, Ikorodu and Marina) in Lagos, Nigeria. Significant improvement in both performance and availability was observed with the application of SD technique; again, separation distance was seen to be responsible for this observed performance improvements