OpenPING: A Reflective Middleware for the Construction of Adaptive Networked Game Applications

The emergence of distributed Virtual Reality (VR) applications that run over the Internet has presented networked game application designers with new challenges. In an environment where the public internet streams multimedia data and is constantly under pressure to deliver over widely heterogeneous user-platforms, there has been a growing need that distributed VR applications be aware of and adapt to frequent variations in their context of execution. In this paper, we argue that in contrast to research efforts targeted at improvement of scalability, persistence and responsiveness capabilities, much less attempts have been aimed at addressing the flexibility, maintainability and extensibility requirements in contemporary distributed VR platforms. We propose the use of structural reflection as an approach that not only addresses these requirements but also offers added value in the form of providing a framework for scalability, persistence and responsiveness that is itself flexible, maintainable and extensible. We also present an adaptive middleware platform implementation called OpenPING1 that supports our proposal in addressing these requirements

Improved E-Business Through Effective Knowledge Management Using The Business-To-Consumer E-Business Model

This paper was focused on establishing the relationship between effective Knowledge Management practices and improved e-business. The use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to improve Knowledge Management has gained recognition, the main factors being the push for successful innovation, having devoted and motivated individuals, and paying attention to a wide range of management activities and attitudes such as the ability to scan, predict and respond to the dynamic business environment. In the last twenty years, the importance of Knowledge Management in the business world has been ignored. This paper, therefore, aims to establish the effect of Effort Expectancy, Facilitating Conditions, Performance Expectancy, Social Influence, Relative Advantage, Complexity, Compatibility, Observability, Collaborative System, Management Software, Human Capital, and Relational Capital on effective Knowledge Management in the Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-business retail industry in Nairobi County, Kenya. The study was based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology and the innovation diffusion theory. It entailed a descriptive cross-sectional research design. A total of 138 Information Technology employees of online retailers in Kenya respondents were sampled. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The data was then analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was then used to validate the model.  The study found that all the factors have a significant and positive relationship with knowledge management in retail online stores. It was found that there was a significant effect of complexity, compatibility, effort expectancy, relational capital, human capital, management software, collaborative system, facilitating conditions, performance expectancy, social influence, relative advantage and information systems success factors with knowledge management in the retail industry. The results also show that all the factors explain 72.6% of the proportion in knowledge management in retail online stores in Kenya, as the overall R2 value was 0.726. The study concluded that there were factors that influenced e-business adoption for knowledge management in the retail industry. These factors included e-business facilitating and individual factors, organizational usage factors, organizational structure factors and information systems success factors. The study also concluded that these factors all had a significant influence on knowledge management. The study recommends an awareness and training policy for all staff in the retail industry, which will emphasize the importance of e-business factors that were found to contribute to knowledge management.  Keywords: e-business, Business-to-consumer (B2C), Knowledge Management (KM), organization, retai

Authentic leadership: a paradigm for advancing ethical practices in teacher education

The subject of authentic leadership continues to be largely unexplored, especially in the teacher education institutions, despite the reports of entrenched corruption, wastage of resources by leaders, and negative subordinate behaviours. This study aims to analyse how authentic leadership can promote ethical practices in primary teacher education in Kenya. Within the realm of phenomenological research design, semi-structured interviews were utilized as the data collection instrument. The respondents were 35 leaders from public primary teacher training colleges (TTCs) and regional education officers. The qualitative data of the interviews was analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicated that authentic leadership generates trusted role models who have the capacity to promote ethical practices within primary TTCs. Finally, the study proposed a philosophical paradigm of authentic leadership based on moral rightness and moral goodness to influence the mind-set of individuals within TTCs to internalize ethical practices as a routine lifestyl

A Sustainability Model for Continental Hybridization of High Performance Computing (HPC) in Africa

The potential for High-performance computing (HPC) opportunities in the areas of health, environment, energy, climate change, business and livelihood are immense in Africa. However, the lack of sufficient HPC facilities and capacity skills deficiencies continue to curtail its growth. This paper maps the status of HPC facilities in Africa. Thereafter based on a review of various business and funding models, it suggests a hybridization model as a way for building sustainable HPC infrastructures across the continent to provide support for teaching and learning, research and education. The main contribution of this paper is the anchoring of hybridization as a sustainable business model for improving the access and establishment of HPC infrastructure in Africa

Design of Dual -Band Coax Patch Antenna for GSM and Bluetooth Applications

This paper proposes the design of dual-band coax patch antenna for GSM and Bluetooth applications. The proposed antenna is suggested to be used in a mobile phone handset that covers dual frequency bands which include GSM1900(1850-1990MHz) and Bluetooth(2400-2483.5MHz).The simulation of the antenna is performed using a High Frequency Structure Simulator(HFSS) software. Analysis for return loss, VSWR, gain and radiation pattern were carried out. The proposed antenna shows return loss of -29dB at 1.9GHz and -30dB at 2.4GHz which implies good results. The impedance matching is good at the desired frequencies with VSWR < 2 respectively. The overall simulation results shows that the antenna worked well at the desired dual frequencies and hence making the antenna suitable for use in both GSM and Bluetooth applications. This antenna is implemented on FR4 Epoxy dielectric substrate with relative permittivity

Determination of Good and Bad Signal in a Given Random Signals Using MATLAB

In this modern world we are surrounded by all kinds of signals in various forms. Some of the signals are natural, but most of the signals are manmade. Some signals are necessary (speech), some are pleasant (music), while many are unwanted or unnecessary in a given situation. Therefore extracting or enhancing the useful information from a mix of conflicting information is the simplest form of signal processing [1]. Signal processing is so wide and very interesting in solving many engineering problems, in this paper we used it in bad and good signal detection where by the different samples of signals (sound wave) were provided and from there to select the good ones or bad ones using MATLAB software with the help of Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Signal analysis procedures have been followed to get the required results by comparing the good known signal s1 and the rest of unknown random signals s2 and s3. Most parameters used in comparison are cross correlation factor and the magnitude of the given signal samples. In the final part we will be able to see the resulting waves using MATLAB showing both magnitude and cross correlation

Recency Tendency: Responses to Forced-Choice Questions

The present study was conducted to investigate whether forced-choice questions would lead to any particular tendency in young children’s responses. Two experiments were conducted in which 3- to 5-year-olds children were shown a short animation and then were asked a set of two-option, forced-choice questions. Consistent findings were obtained: (i) Forced-choice questions influenced children’s responses; (ii) Children displayed a consistent ‘recency tendency.’ That is, they tended to choose the second option in forced-choice questions; (iii) This tendency grew weaker as children aged. The findings suggest that forced-choice questions carry some suggestibility load and can bias children’s responses

Investigating expressed RNA variants that are related to disease severity in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients with mild-to-severe disease

Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to be a significant public health challenge globally. SARS-CoV-2 is a novel virus, and the understanding of what constitutes expressed RNAseq variants in healthy, convalescent, severe, moderate, and those admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) is yet to be presented. We characterize the different expressed RNAseq variants in healthy, severe, moderate, ICU, and convalescent individuals. Materials and methods: The bulk RNA sequencing data with identifier PRJNA639275 were downloaded from Sequence Reads Archive (SRA). The individuals were divided into: (1) healthy, n = 34, moderate, n = 8, convalescent, n = 2, severe, n = 16, and ICU, n = 8. Fastqc version 0.11.9 and Cutadapt version 3.7 were used to assess the read quality and perform adapter trimming, respectively. STAR was used to align reads to the reference genome, and GATK best practice was followed to call variants using the rnavar pipeline, part of the nf-core pipelines. Results: Our analysis demonstrated that different sets of unique RNAseq variants characterize convalescent, moderate, severe, and those admitted to the ICU. The data show that the individuals who recover from SARS-CoV-2 infection have the same set of expressed variants as the healthy controls. We showed that the healthy and SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals display different sets of expressed variants characteristic of the patient phenotype. Conclusion: The individuals with severe, moderate, those admitted to the ICU, and convalescent display a unique set of variants. The findings in this study will inform the test kit development and SARS-CoV-2 patients classification to enhance the management and control of SARS-CoV-2 infection in our population