E-Government Implementation Process in Rwanda: Exploring Changes in a Socio-technical Perspective

Background: Failures in e-government projects to deliver expected results are frequent in the context of developing countries. These are partly attributed to the lack of balanced attention to both technical and social aspects in the implementation. However, there has been limited research on these aspects in the least Developed Countries. Objectives: Taking a socio-technical perspective, this study aims at exploring the extent of changes and effects in the implementation of e-government service-oriented initiatives in Rwanda, one of the Least Developed Countries. Methods/Approach: An empirical investigation was conducted, via interviews at 8 agencies during the period from January 2017 to May 2018. This involved two case projects, an Enterprise Content Management System and a One-Stop e-government system. Furthermore, government documents and online material were analyzed. Results: A number of changes in technology, processes and people aspects were faced in both projects. However, those changes are coupled with secondary effects; there is a need for a better fit between technical systems and social systems of organizations implementing e-government; a larger gap was identified in the first case project. Conclusions: Addressing the issues as a socio-technical system would contribute to improved work systems of agencies and better services

Integrated nutrient management for tomato-okra-stem amaranth cropping pattern in homestead area.

Due to increasing population, availability of crop land is decreasing rapidly and many croplands are being turned into homestead. The utilization of homestead is very important. Intensive crop cultivation with high yielding varieties to fulfil food demand for a swelling population has led to mining out the inherent plant nutrients from the soil. An experiment was conducted with tomato-okra-stem amaranth cropping pattern in a homestead area in Chhiata Series of Grey Terrace Soil (Aric Albaquept) under AEZ- 28 at Gazipur to find out the optimum dose of chemical fertilizer and organic manure for obtaining higher crop yield and to study the effect of integrated nutrient management (INM) on soil properties. The experiment consisted of eight treatments: T 1 (Poultry manure, PM @ 5 t ha -1), T 2 (Cowdung, CD @ 10 t ha -1), T 3 (Household waste, HW @ 10 t ha -1), T 4 (PM @ 2.5 t ha -1 + reduced recommended dose of fertilizer, RDF), T 5 (CD @ 5 t ha -1 + reduced RDF), T 6 (HW @ 5 t ha -1 + reduced RDF), T 7 (100% RDF) and T 8 (Control). Among the treatments, 2.5 ton poultry manure along with reduced rate of RDF performed the best in recording yields of tomato, okra and stem amaranth. Next to PM, HW @ 5 t ha -1 + reduced RDF had better results in respect of yield. Bulk density and organic C were improved by the application of organic manure; the highest nutrients uptake and availability was found in T 4 followed by T 6

Seasonality of cholera from 1974 to 2005: a review of global patterns

Abstract Background The seasonality of cholera is described in various study areas throughout the world. However, no study examines how temporal cycles of the disease vary around the world or reviews its hypothesized causes. This paper reviews the literature on the seasonality of cholera and describes its temporal cycles by compiling and analyzing 32 years of global cholera data. This paper also provides a detailed literature review on regional patterns and environmental and climatic drivers of cholera patterns. Data, Methods, and Results Cholera data are compiled from 1974 to 2005 from the World Health Organization Weekly Epidemiological Reports, a database that includes all reported cholera cases in 140 countries. The data are analyzed to measure whether season, latitude, and their interaction are significantly associated with the country-level number of outbreaks in each of the 12 preceding months using separate negative binomial regression models for northern, southern, and combined hemispheres. Likelihood ratios tests are used to determine the model of best fit. The results suggest that cholera outbreaks demonstrate seasonal patterns in higher absolute latitudes, but closer to the equator, cholera outbreaks do not follow a clear seasonal pattern. Conclusion The findings suggest that environmental and climatic factors partially control the temporal variability of cholera. These results also indirectly contribute to the growing debate about the effects of climate change and global warming. As climate change threatens to increase global temperature, resulting rises in sea levels and temperatures may influence the temporal fluctuations of cholera, potentially increasing the frequency and duration of cholera outbreaks

The public health significance of latrines discharging to groundwater used for drinking.

Faecal contamination of groundwater from pit latrines is widely perceived as a major threat to the safety of drinking water for several billion people in rural and peri-urban areas worldwide. On the floodplains of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta in Bangladesh, we constructed latrines and monitored piezometer nests monthly for two years. We detected faecal coliforms (FC) in 3.3-23.3% of samples at four sites. We differentiate a near-field, characterised by high concentrations and frequent, persistent and contiguous contamination in all directions, and a far-field characterised by rare, impersistent, discontinuous low-level detections in variable directions. Far-field FC concentrations at four sites exceeded 0 and 10 cfu/100 ml in 2.4-9.6% and 0.2-2.3% of sampling events respectively. The lesser contamination of in-situ groundwater compared to water at the point-of-collection from domestic wells, which itself is less contaminated than at the point-of-consumption, demonstrates the importance of recontamination in the well-pump system. We present a conceptual model comprising four sub-pathways: the latrine-aquifer interface (near-field); groundwater flowing from latrine to well (far-field); the well-pump system; and post-collection handling and storage. Applying a hypothetical dose-response model suggests that 1-2% of the diarrhoeal disease burden from drinking water is derived from the aquifer, 29% from the well-pump system, and 70% from post-collection handling. The important implications are (i) that leakage from pit latrines is a minor contributor to faecal contamination of drinking water in alluvial-deltaic terrains; (ii) fears of increased groundwater pollution should not constrain expanding latrine coverage, and (iii) that more attention should be given to reducing contamination around the well-head

Seasonality of cholera from 1974 to 2005: a review of global patterns

BACKGROUND: The seasonality of cholera is described in various study areas throughout the world. However, no study examines how temporal cycles of the disease vary around the world or reviews its hypothesized causes. This paper reviews the literature on the seasonality of cholera and describes its temporal cycles by compiling and analyzing 32 years of global cholera data. This paper also provides a detailed literature review on regional patterns and environmental and climatic drivers of cholera patterns. DATA, METHODS, AND RESULTS: Cholera data are compiled from 1974 to 2005 from the World Health Organization Weekly Epidemiological Reports, a database that includes all reported cholera cases in 140 countries. The data are analyzed to measure whether season, latitude, and their interaction are significantly associated with the country-level number of outbreaks in each of the 12 preceding months using separate negative binomial regression models for northern, southern, and combined hemispheres. Likelihood ratios tests are used to determine the model of best fit. The results suggest that cholera outbreaks demonstrate seasonal patterns in higher absolute latitudes, but closer to the equator, cholera outbreaks do not follow a clear seasonal pattern. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that environmental and climatic factors partially control the temporal variability of cholera. These results also indirectly contribute to the growing debate about the effects of climate change and global warming. As climate change threatens to increase global temperature, resulting rises in sea levels and temperatures may influence the temporal fluctuations of cholera, potentially increasing the frequency and duration of cholera outbreaks

Population Dynamics of Vibrios in Biotic Biofilm in the Aquatic Environment of Bangladesh

Abstract: The Vibrio sp. forming biofilm on biotic surface especially chitin and algae was investigated using artificial chitin and Anabaena variabilis from pure culture of laboratory and glued to plexiglass disc. The presence of culturable Vibrio spp. were investigated using cultural technique for TCBS agar medium after homogenization and physicochemical parameters were measured by standard techniques. The Pearson correlation coefficient applied by SPSS software. The results indicated that out of 13 sampling period, only V. cholerae O1 was isolated 7.7% sample while 30.8% samples were positive for V. cholerae non-O1, V. proteolyticus and V. mimicus from canal site. From pond ecosystem, all the chitin samples were negative for V. cholerae O1 but 15.4% were positive for V. cholerae non-O1 and V. proteolyticus and 30.8% samples were positive for V. mimicus. The biofilm formation is significantly correlated with the pH, DO and CO 2 concentration present of the corresponding water. This study indicates that biotic surface like chitin and algae could function to form biofilm and the water physicochemical parameters have the relationship with the Vibrio community present in the samples

Microbiological Contamination of Drinking Water Associated with Subsequent Child Diarrhea.

We used a prospective, longitudinal cohort enrolled as part of a program evaluation to assess the relationship between drinking water microbiological quality and child diarrhea. We included 50 villages across rural Bangladesh. Within each village field-workers enrolled a systematic random sample of 10 households with a child under the age of 3 years. Community monitors visited households monthly and recorded whether children under the age of 5 years had diarrhea in the preceding 2 days. Every 3 months, a research assistant visited the household and requested a water sample from the source or container used to provide drinking water to the child. Laboratory technicians measured the concentration of Escherichia coli in the water samples using membrane filtration. Of drinking water samples, 59% (2,273/3,833) were contaminated with E. coli. Of 12,192 monthly follow-up visits over 2 years, mothers reported that their child had diarrhea in the preceding 2 days in 1,156 (9.5%) visits. In a multivariable general linear model, the log10 of E. coli contamination of the preceding drinking water sample was associated with an increased prevalence of child diarrhea (prevalence ratio = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.05, 1.23). These data provide further evidence of the health benefits of improved microbiological quality of drinking water

A geofencing-based recent trends identification from twitter data

For facilitating users from information overloading by finding recent trends in twitter, several techniques are proposed. However, most of these techniques need to process extensive data. Therefore, in this paper, a geofencing-based recent trends identification technique is proposed, which acquires data based on a geofence. Afterwards, they are cleaned and the weight of these tweet data is calculated. For that, the frequency of tweet texts and hashtags are taken into account along with a boosting factor. Thereafter, they are ranked to recommend recent trends to the user. This proposed technique is applied in developing a system using Java and python. It is compared with other relevant systems, where it demonstrates that the performance of the proposed system is comparable. Over and above, since the proposed system integrates geofencing feature, it is more preferable over other systems

Safe distances between groundwater-based water wells and pit latrines at different hydrogeological conditions in the Ganges Atrai floodplains of Bangladesh.

BACKGROUND: Groundwater drawn from shallow tubewells in Bangladesh is often polluted by nearby pit latrines, which are commonly used toilets in rural and sub-urban areas of the country. METHODS: To determine the minimum safe distance of a tubewell from a pit latrine in different hydrogeological conditions of Bangladesh, 20 monitoring wells were installed at three study sites (Manda, Mohanpur and Bagmara) with the vertical and horizontal distances ranging from 18-47 to 2-15 m, respectively. Water samples were collected three times in three seasons and tested for faecal coliforms (FC) and faecal streptococci (FS) as indicators of contamination. Soil samples were analysed for texture, bulk density and hydraulic conductivity following standard procedures. Sediment samples were collected to prepare lithological logs. RESULTS: When the shallow aquifers at one of the three sites (Mohanpur) were overlained by 18-23-m-thick aquitards, the groundwater of the monitoring wells was found contaminated with a lateral and vertical distances of 2 and 31 m, respectively. However, where the aquitard was only 9 m thick, contamination was found up to lateral and vertical distances of 4.5 and 40.5 m, respectively. The soil textures of all the sites were mainly composed of loam and sandy loam. The hydraulic conductivities in the first aquifer at Manda, Mohanpur and Bagmara were 5.2-7.3, 8.2 and 1.4-15.7 m/h, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that the safe distance from the tubewell to the pit latrine varied from site to site depending on the horizontal and vertical distances of the tubewell as well as hydrogeological conditions of a particular area

Disgust sensitivity is not associated with health in a rural Bangladeshi sample.

Disgust can be considered a psychological arm of the immune system that acts to prevent exposure to infectious agents. High disgust sensitivity is associated with greater behavioral avoidance of disease vectors and thus may reduce infection risk. A cross-sectional survey in rural Bangladesh provided no strong support for this hypothesis. In many species, the expression of pathogen- and predator-avoidance mechanisms is contingent on early life exposure to predators and pathogens. Using childhood health data collected in the 1990s, we examined if adults with more infectious diseases in childhood showed greater adult disgust sensitivity: no support for this association was found. Explanations for these null finding and possible directions for future research are discussed