Bio-prospecting of Medicinal Bio-resources from the Kenyan Biodiversity: Reflections on Governance as the Missing Link - A Review Article

Medicinal biodiversity has since times immemorial served as one of the richest sources of bio-prospecting leading to the discovery of novel drugs for mankind globally. However, in Kenya, despite the Country being known to be a mega biodiversity hotspot, bio-prospecting has not been very successful mainly due to lack of effective institutional and legal frameworks. This article reviews the policy and legislation instruments governing medicinal biodiversity in Kenya in order to identify their weaknesses and strengths and come up with recommendations for effective economic exploitation of the Country’s’ mega diverse resource. The methodology employed was a qualitative content analysis of relevant biodiversity legislations in Kenya. Results reveal that there has been governance gaps as far as bio-prospecting activities in Kenya are concerned which has rendered the Country’s mega biodiversity vulnerable to bio-piracy at the expense of the poor  local communities who are the traditional knowledge owners. There is need to review the current pieces of legislation on medicinal biodiversity and work towards developing a strong National bio-prospecting policy together with an implementation plan. These are important to inform the overall national development agenda, in tandem with Vision 2030. Some of the policies were found out dated and rather obsolete and not serving the current interests and ambitions of the Country. There is therefore a need to revisit the policy and legislative instruments because they will continue frustrating bio-prospecting activities.  Moreover, we recommend the creation of a National Institute to coordinate and harmonize the legislations and National policies on medicinal biodiversity to seal loopholes, avoid conflicts and contradictions being experienced in the current legislative and policy frameworks. Keywords: Bio-prospecting; Bio-piracy; Governance; Kenya; Medicinal biodiversity DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/60-05 Publication date:March 31st 201

Decision support tools for site-specific fertilizer recommendations and agricultural planning in selected countries in sub-Sahara Africa

Peer Revie

Interoperability of ERP Software

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-7678-5.ch003Even though most organizations are using enterprise resource planning applications, very few people understand the underlying interoperability nature within them. Interoperability is the ability of systems to provide services to and accept services from other systems, and to use the services exchanged so as to operate together in a more effective manner. The fact that interoperability can be improved means that the metrics for measuring interoperability can be defined. For the purpose of measuring the interoperability between systems, an interoperability assessment model is required. A comparative analysis among these models is provided to evaluate the similarities and differences in their philosophy and implementation. The analysis yields a set of recommendations for any party that is open to the idea of creating or improving an interoperability assessment model

A Review of Agent Based Interoperability Frameworks and Interoperability Assessment Models

In a heterogeneous world, concurrent distributed development has led to many types of multi-agent systems that offer diverse functionality in agents as different types of platforms are not in a position to interoperate. Agents from different platforms are likely to use different types of messages or message formats and the interpretation is likely to differ. The main driver for interoperability is partly the customer who strives for universality when accessing multiple services, and partly producers who often need to act in fast to obtain a sustainable customer base. Implementations of agent systems differ greatly in architecture thereby negatively affecting interoperability, system diversity, rapid proliferation of agent technology, and advancement of the industry. In order to standardize some aspects of agent technology, considerable research has been conducted in the area of interoperability of agent technologies. Hence, it would be interesting to find out what agent systems interoperability frameworks have been proposed in the last few years. It would also be interesting to find out what interoperability assessment models exist. To address these issues, this paper presents the findings of a comprehensive literature review conducted with the aim of establishing existing agent based interoperability frameworks and interoperability assessment models

A LITERATURE SURVEY OF COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY METRICS FOR STATECHART DIAGRAMS

Statechart diagrams have inherent complexity which keeps increasing every time the diagrams are modified. This complexity poses problems in comprehending statechart diagrams. The study of cognitive complexity has over the years provided valuable information for the design of improved software systems. Researchers have proposed numerous metrics that have been used to measure and therefore control the complexity of software. However, there is inadequate literature related to cognitive complexity metrics that can apply to measure statechart diagrams. In this study, a literature survey of statechart diagrams is conducted to investigate if there are any gaps in the literature. Initially, a description of UML and statechart diagrams is presented, followed by the complexities associated with statechart diagrams and finally an analysis of existing cognitive complexity metrics and metrics related to statechart diagrams. Findings indicate that metrics that employ cognitive weights to measure statechart diagrams are lacking

Transaction Costs and Facilitating Conditions as Indicators of the Adoption of Mobile Money Services in Kenya

Kenya is depicted as one of the fastest growing mobile money ecosystem in the world. In addition to the traditional text and voice services, all mobile phone service providers in Kenya have incorporated mobile money as a core business function. Mobile money is viewed as a key driver that will ‘leap’ frog the economy of Kenya, bringing poor people into financial system who have been for a long time been excluded by financial institutions. Despite the positive advancements in mobile money, transaction cost and facilitating conditions remains a major hindrance to the adoption on mobile money services. This paper investigates impact of transaction cost and facilitating conditions in the adoption of mobile money in Kenya. A survey was conducted to gather data which was coded in SPSS 16. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to analyze the data and Structural Equation Modeling using Analysis of Moment Structures was used to validate the research model. The research model included three main components; transaction cost, facilitating conditions and adoption. The model was developed based on a review of technology adoption models. The analysis revealed that facilitating conditions impact positively to the adoption of mobile money services. Results demonstrate that facilitating conditions do influence adoption usage of mobile money services

Effects of manure and fertilizer on grain yield, soil carbon and phosphorus in a 13-year field trial in semi-arid Kenya

Long-term indicators of soil fertility were assessed by measuring grain yield, soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil Olsen phosphorous for a P-deficient soil. In one set of treatments, goat manure was applied annually for 13 years at 0, 5 and 10 t ha(-1), and intercrops of sorghum/cowpea, millet/green gram and maize/pigeonpea were grown. Yield depended on rainfall and trends with time were not identifiable. Manure caused an upward trend in SOC, but 10 t ha(-1) manure did not give significantly more SOC than 5 t ha(-1). Only 10 t ha(-1) manure increased Olsen P. Measurements of both SOC and Olsen P are recommended. In another set of treatments, manure was applied for four years; the residual effect lasted another seven to eight years when assessed by yield, SOC and Olsen P Treatment with mineral fertilizers provided the same rates of N and P as 5 t hat manure and yields from manure and fertilizer were similar. Fertilizer increased Olsen P but not SOC. Management systems with occasional manure application and intermediate fertilizer applications should be assessed. Inputs and offtakes of C, N and P were measured for three years. Approximately 16, 25 and 11% of C, N and P respectively were stabilized into soil organic matter from 5 t ha(-1) a(-1) manure. The majority of organic P was fixed as soil inorganic P