Malawi's TV white space regulations : a review and comparison with FCC and Ofcom regulations

Regulators are in the process of framing regulations to allow secondary use of vacant TV channels while protecting TV broadcast services from harmful interference. While the US and UK regulators have already passed such regulations in 2008 and 2015 respectively, other countries are still in drafting stages and the underlying circumstances in these countries could be different from those of the US and UK. Malawi released its final draft regulations in 2016. While the US and UK legislate for dynamic spectrum access and licence-exemption for secondary users, Malawi’s draft regulations require such users to apply for a licence for assigned TV white space spectrum. This paper provides an analytical review of Malawi’s regulations and a comparison with FCC and Ofcom regulations, which new regulations can build on. This analysis will also inform future work on network management tools that can enable practical deployment and coexistence of large-scale TV white space networks in a dynamic spectrum access environment in Africa

A Low-Cost Tubular Biogas Digester for Rural Households in Malawi

Effective development and promotion of biogas technology can offer numerous benefits to any country. However, development and adoption this technology in Malawi has for a long time been constrained by locally unaffordable biogas digester designs. Hence the aim of the study was to develop biogas digester from locally available materials and assess its performance under Malawian environmental conditions. The study consisted of three pairs of locally constructed tubular polyethylene digesters (same design) that were fed with pig dung, goat stomach waste and kitchen food wastes. One digester in each pair was enclosed in a greenhouse structure made from transparent polyethylene. Gas production onset was quickest in digesters containing pig dung (1 day) followed by those containing goat stomach wastes (3-4 days) and lastly kitchen food wastes (14 days). Average daily gas production from digesters was 35.7 L/day and the average percentage of methane content in the biogas was 62.1 %. We therefore conclude that the overall performance of the tubular polyethylene digesters that were feed with goat stomach waste and pig dung was superior compared to other studies done at similar ambient temperatures. The flame was sustainable and usable for home and industrial purposes as the methane content was above 52%. We therefore further conclude that tubular digesters can be fabricated and used under Malawi conditions. Key words: Energy sources, Biogas, digester, methane, design, wastes, Malawi

Assessment of noise levels in heavy and light industries in Blantyre City, Malawi

This study was aimed at assessing noise levels in various companies in Blantyre City, Malawi in relation to their compliance with the National Standards and the Occupational Safety, Health and Welfare Act of Malawi (1997) on noise pollution control program. The noise levels, ambient temperature and humidity were measured in various sections of the different industries in the city. A questionnaire was used to check if the industries applied any control measures to prevent induced hearing loss. The results show that noise levels in most industries are above the recommended limit level of 85 dBA. The study has also shown that only 21 % of the industries complied with the national regulations. Lack of noise data, awareness, commitment, and enforcement by the regulatory authorities were observed to be contributing factors to the failure to implement induced noise hearing loss control programmes. The study recommends that in some sections of the industries where the noise levels are high, programs to reduce or prevent hearing loss should be implemented. In addition, there is a need for regular inspections of noise levels in industries out to ensure compliance of permissible noise levels.Keywords: Compliance, Decibels, Hearing loss, Industries, Noise level

Design of a low cost Television White Space Z antenna

Abstract: The use of Television White Spaces (TVWS) for broadband communication has raised interest of late. In respect of rural areas, wireless is the only viable alternative for providing affordable telecommunications services. One limiting factor to the growth of wireless broadband penetration is the lack of available spectrum. White Spaces refer to regions of radio spectrum that are not used all the time in a specific geographical location. An assessment study on TV White Spaces availability in Malawi using affordable tools has been described and it was concluded that it is possible to assess the spectrum usage using low cost equipment. In this paper, the design aspects and the measured results of a low cost Television White Space Z antenna are described

Factors Influencing Extension Workers’ Behavioural Intentions Towards Digital Farm Technologies in Malawi

Information and Communication and digital farm technologies are vital in improving agriculture produc-tion. Despite introducing digital farm technologies in Malawi, the country continues to have low agriculture production. The country has a low uptake of technology, which is a major driving factor of agriculture productivity. Therefore, this research aims to examine factors that influence the behavioural intention of extension workers towards using digital farm technologies to improve agriculture production. The research covers 14 districts of Malawi, where the digital farm technology, National Agriculture Management Infor-mation System (NAMIS), is currently operational. Centring on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the quantitative study approach showed that perceived behaviour control and subjective norms influence be-haviour intention. At the same time, attitude is not a significant determinant of behaviour intention of using digital farm technologies

Efficient Certificate-Less Aggregate Signature Scheme with Conditional Privacy-Preservation for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks Enhanced Smart Grid System

Vehicular Ad hoc networks (VANETs) as spontaneous wireless communication technology of vehicles has a wide range of applications like road safety, navigation and other electric car technologies, however its practicability is greatly hampered by cyber-attacks. Due to message broadcasting in an open environment during communication, VANETs are inherently vulnerable to security and privacy attacks. However to address the cyber-security issues with optimal computation overhead is a matter of current security research challenge. So this paper designs a secure and efficient certificate-less aggregate scheme (ECLAS) for VANETs applicable in a smart grid scenario. The proposed scheme is based on elliptic curve cryptography to provide conditional privacy-preservation by incorporating usage of time validated pseudo-identification for communicating vehicles besides sorting out the KGC (Key Generation Center) escrow problem. The proposed scheme is comparatively more efficient to relevant related research work because it precludes expensive computation operations likes bilinear pairings as shown by the performance evaluation. Similarly, communication cost is within the ideal range to most related works while considering the security requirements of VANETs system applicable in a smart grid environment

Speed Management Strategy: Designing an IoT-Based Electric Vehicle Speed Control Monitoring System

Road accidents represent the greatest public health burden in the world. Road traffic accidents have been on the rise in Rwanda for several years. Speed has been identified as a core factor in these road accidents. Therefore, understanding road accidents caused by excessive speeding is critical for road safety planning. In this paper, input and out pulse width modulation (PWM) was used to command the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) controller which supplied voltage to the motor. A structural speed control and Internet of Things (IoT)-based online monitoring system was developed to monitor vehicle data in a continuous manner. Two modeling techniques, multiple linear regression (MLR) and random forest (RF) models, were evaluated to find the best model to estimate the required voltage to be supplied to the motors in a particular zone. The built models were evaluated based upon the coefficient of determination R2. The RF performs better than the MLR as it reveals a higher R2 value and it is found to be 98.8%. Based on the results, the proposed method was proven to significantly reduce the supplied voltage to the motor and consequently increase safety

Design of an IoT-Based Fuzzy Approximation Prediction Model for Early Fire Detection to Aid Public Safety and Control in the Local Urban Markets

Fire monitoring in local urban markets within East Africa (EA) has been seriously neglected for a long time. This has culminated in a severe destruction of life and property worth millions. These rampant fires are attributed to electrical short circuits, fuel spillages, etc. Previous research proposes single smoke detectors. However, they are prone to false alarm rates and are inefficient. Also, satellite systems are expensive for developing countries. This paper presents a fuzzy model for early fire detection and control as symmetry’s core contribution to fuzzy systems design and application in computer and engineering sciences. We utilize a fuzzy logic technique to simulate the performance of the model using MATLAB, using six parameters: temperature, humidity, flame, CO, CO2 and O2 vis-à-vis the Estimated Fire Intensity Prediction (EFIP). Results show that, using fuzzy logic, a significant improvement in fire detection is observed with an overall accuracy rate of 95.83%. The paper further proposes an IoT-based fuzzy prediction model for early fire detection with a goal of minimizing extensive damage and promote intermediate fire suppression and control through true fire incidences. This solution provides for future public safety monitoring, and control of fire-related situations among the market community. Hence, fire safety monitoring is significant in providing future fire safety planning, control and management by putting in place appropriate fire safety laws, policies, bills and related fire safety practices or guidelines to be applied in public buildings, market centers and other public places

Machine Learning-Based Patient Load Prediction and IoT Integrated Intelligent Patient Transfer Systems

A mismatch between staffing ratios and service demand leads to overcrowding of patients in waiting rooms of health centers. Overcrowding consequently leads to excessive patient waiting times, incomplete preventive service delivery and disgruntled medical staff. Worse, due to the limited patient load that a health center can handle, patients may leave the clinic before the medical examination is complete. It is true that as one health center may be struggling with an excessive patient load, another facility in the vicinity may have a low patient turn out. A centralized hospital management system, where hospitals are able to timely exchange patient load information would allow excess patient load from an overcrowded health center to be re-assigned in a timely way to the nearest health centers. In this paper, a machine learning-based patient load prediction model for forecasting future patient loads is proposed. Given current and historical patient load data as inputs, the model outputs future predicted patient loads. Furthermore, we propose re-assigning excess patient loads to nearby facilities that have minimal load as a way to control overcrowding and reduce the number of patients that leave health facilities without receiving medical care as a result of overcrowding. The re-assigning of patients will imply a need for transportation for the patient to move from one facility to another. To avoid putting a further strain on the already fragmented ambulatory services, we assume the existence of a scheduled bus system and propose an Internet of Things (IoT) integrated smart bus system. The developed IoT system can be tagged on buses and can be queried by patients through representation state transfer application program interfaces (APIs) to provide them with the position of the buses through web app or SMS relative to their origin and destination stop. The back end of the proposed system is based on message queue telemetry transport, which is lightweight, data efficient and scalable, unlike the traditionally used hypertext transfer protocol