MODELING THE IMPACTS OF E-GOVERNMENT SERVICES ON CORRUPTION REDUCTION IN RWANDA: A CASE EVIDENCE FROM NYAMASHEKE DISTRICT, RWANDA

The study entitled modeling the impacts of e-government services on corruption reduction in Rwanda: Case evidence from Nyamasheke District, Rwanda was about assessing the contribution of e-government services use on reducing corruption in the area under study. The study was guided with the objective of exploring the utilization of multinomial logistic regression (MLR) in modeling the impact of e-government services on reduction status of corruption. In this regard, the MLR model was performed using a maximum likelihood estimation method on the data set collected to find the parameter estimates of the model describing the relationship between the explanatory and the outcome variables and determine the significance of the explanatory variables that contribute significantly to the reduction status of corruption in the area under study. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect data from 381 respondents from the target population of 8041 using Solvin’s formula for sample size calculation. Data were collected using questionnaire and interview schedule techniques and analyzed using SPSS-23. In this analysis, the results show that on the total of eleven independent variables, the explanatory variables such as age, income, ownership of the devices used in applying for the local government services and the advice types were dropped from the training set of explanatory variables that contribute significantly to the reduction of corruption in the area under study. In model selection that overall fits well the data, the obtained variables that contributed significantly to the outcome variable were education, e-government services’ use status, cost of accessing e-government services and the e-government services types delivery. The parameters estimate of the selected model revealed that the variables that best predicted the probability of reducing corruption once the e-government services are delivered online were education, status of using e-government services, types of e-government services delivery online while the cost of accessing the e-government services decreased the logit (the probability) of reducing corruption. The main challenges faced by users of e-government services were the cost given while applying to these e-government services is high and lack of enough skills to cope with technological usage. Finally the study recommended that local leaders in the area under study should strengthen the online system in delivering local services to people, educate people to be aware about the use of e-government services since the more a person is educated the more is attempting to use e-government services and then reduce the cost of using e-government services while applying to the local services since this has been the only explanatory variable that decreased the logit of reducing corruption in the study area. Article visualizations

PRODUCTIVITY AND PROFITABILITY OF RICE PRODUCERS OF KIRIMBI MARSHLAND IN NYAMASHEKE DISTRICT, RWANDA: A GENDER WISE ANALYSIS

The topic of gender in agriculture sector has had an increasing interest for many researchers. Authors of this paper assess the productivity and profitability levels of rice producers of Kirimbi marchland in Nyamasheke district using an indicative gender approach. To achieve the objective, data were collected from 333 farmers whereas 198 were male farmers while 135 were female farmers using an interview schedule. This study employs a mixed approach of research viz qualitative and quantitative to analyze the study. Descriptive statistics method was used to describe the data with continuous variables while inferential statistics method was used to ascertain whether there is difference significant between productivity levels of male and female farmers, profitability levels of male and female farmers and benefit cost ratio levels of male and female farmers in Kirimbi marshland. Findings of the study revealed that land productivity for female farmers is high compared to that of males though there is a meager difference between productivity levels. With regards to benefit cost ratio, it is high for male farmers than that of female farmers. It was also found that rice farm business for female farmers was not profitable as the BCR equals to 0.45 therefore female farmers were advised to revisit their expenditures patterns because it was observed that the higher amount of variable costs led to the rice business to be a non-profitable business. For both categories, the average cost of field protection was the highest among others. It is also seen through the differences in total costs where the total cost for males was found to be 609,841Rwf and 979,073Rwf for females which indicates that females spent more money on various agricultural practices and inputs than male. This might lead to loss and affected negatively the BCR of female farmers found to be less than one. Article visualizations

Index selection of beef cattle for growth and milk production using computer simulation modelling

The Texas A&M University (TAMU) Beef Cattle Production model was expanded to include basic concepts of quantitative genetics. The traits simulated were birth weight, yearling weight, mature weight and milk production. The progeny inherited attributes from both the sire and the dam. The incorporation of genetic concepts into the model allowed for the introduction of variation between individuals and generations. This was achieved by interfacing the original model with stochastic genetic subroutines including a restricted selection index for desired genetic change. The index included birth weight and yearling weight. In addition, a function for estimating dystocia was also added. The model was used to simulate selection strategies for a small-to-moderate size breed of cattle and a large-size breed using a restricted selection index. There was an increase in both birth and yearling weight after 20 years of selection in the small-to-moderate size breed, and there was also an increase in dystocia. Antagonistic selection to decrease birth weight and increase yearling weight was simulated for the large breed. Birth weight and dystocia problems declined while yearling weight increased for all classes of animals. In both experiments correlated responses were recorded for mature size and milk production. It was concluded that the modified TAMU Beef Cattle Production model offers breeders an opportunity to compare different selection strategies and evaluate different breeding plans. (South African Journal of Animal Science, 2001, 31(2): 65-76

The Texas A&M Sheep and Goat Simulation Models

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SE 03. Financial projections for the evaluation of technological alternatives in the Mexican dual purpose production system

The overall objective of this work was to perform an economic analysis of technological alternatives for the dual purpose production systems under Mexico’s tropical conditions. This production unit was based on grazing 100 ha of improved species of grass and supplemented with Napier grass and corn silage during the dry season. Two alternative scenarios were analyzed: 1) the use of BST and 2) the purchase of a milk cooling tank. A farm level, income and policy simulation model (FLIPSIM), developed at Texas A&M University was used to analyze the production and financial conditions of the production unit over a six year planning horizon (1995-2000). The results indicate that to pay for the use of BST, on average, the milking herd should increase milk production by 21.38 % for the first year in the planning horizon. As inflation decreases and financial conditions improve over time, smaller increments in milk production would be necessary to pay for the hormone. The initial investment necessary for the purchase and associated facilities for a milk cooling tank and operation costs associated to cooling the milk required the net income to increase to US$12,500 over the baseline during the first year for the farm to break-even. The more dramatic effect is realized in the first year because of the 20$ 4,000 to US$5,700 over the rest of the planning horizon. The effect of this on the unitary BE milk price is a difference of US$ 0.046 /liter of milk in the first year and a range of US$ 0.015 - 0.0213 /liter of milk over the rest of the planning horizon