Challenges and proposed solutions towards telecentre sustainability : a southern Africa case study

Access to information through telecentres is essential for social and economical growth in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa. While many governments have established telecentres as means of bridging the increasingly wide digital divide in rural or unserved areas, their corresponding sustainability or continual operation is in doubt due to various challenges. These challenges to information and communications technology (ICT) access has resulted in many of the rural population being unable to exploit the potential of promoting social economic development through innovative business solutions and education. In this study we evaluate the sustainability of telecentres in Zambia and South Africa and propose possible solutions to the problems that telecentres face. Strictly speaking, we focus on two telecentres; Comsol telecentre in KZN, South Africa and Kanyonyo Resource Centre in Mongu, Zambia

Text segmentation and recognition in unconstrained imagery

Abstract: In this paper, we present a novel method for recognizing and segmenting symbols and text in complex image sequences. The algorithm is designed to take advantage of the massive computing capability of parallel processing architectures..

Approximation in Sobolev spaces by piecewise affine interpolation

Functions in a Sobolev space are approximated directly by piecewise affine interpolation in the norm of the space. The proof is based on estimates for interpolations and does not rely on the density of smooth functions.Comment: 6 page

Optimization of resources for H.323 endpoints and terminals over VoIP networks

Abstract: We suggest a method of optimizing resource allocation for real time protocol traffic in general, and VoIP in particular, within an H.323 environment. There are two options in the packet network to allocate resources: aggregate peak demand and statistical multiplexing. Statistical multiplexing, our choice for this case, allows the efficient use of the network resources but however exhibits greater packet delay variation and packet transfer delay. These delays are often the result of correlations or time dependency experienced by the system’s queue due to the variations observed in different point processes that occur at a point of time. To address these issues, we suggest a queuing method based on the diffusion process approximated by Orstein-Ulenbeck and the non-validated results of Ren and Kobayashi

Alignment invariant image comparison implemented on the GPU

Abstract: This paper proposes a GPU implemented algorithm to determine the differences between two binary images using Distance Transformations. These differences are invariant to slight rotation and offsets, making the technique ideal for comparisons between images that are not perfectly aligned..

Beam steering for circular switched parasitic arrays using a combinational approach

In this paper we present a method of electronic beam steering for circular switched parasitic array (SPA) antennas. In circular SPA antennas, one achieves azimuth beam steering by open-circuiting and short-circuiting different parasitic elements, usually with only one parasitic element open-circuited at a time. For the SPA antenna with few parasitic elements, this results in low azimuth beam steering resolution. In the proposed method, we iterate through different combinations of parasitic elements and the possible switch states of the lumped impedance loads connected to the parasitic elements. Our method aims to increase the azimuth beam steering resolution of the circular SPA antennas. The method is verified using a combination of simulation (using both MATLAB and WIPL-D) and a SPA antenna prototype implementation. The MATLAB code uses the induced EMF method, while the WIPL-D uses the Methods of Moment (MoM) for solving the antenna impedances. The three sets of results (simulations and measurement) match very well at 2.4 GHz. The results indicate the availability of more options (different loading configurations) for electronic beam switching that can be adopted to improve the beam steering resolution of circular SPA antennas

International Women’s Day: what fathers can do for gender equality

How can fathers push for more gender equality? Monika Queisser, Willem Adema and Chris Clarke write that in spite of an increasing number of countries granting parental leave, the number of fathers making use of these rights is still very low. They point out that financial considerations are powerful factors in making leave decisions, as women still make considerably less money than men. This is not, however, the only impediment: prejudices and cultural pressure also play a crucial role and if this picture is to change it will require greater efforts from both employers and fathers themselve