Payments for Environmental Services under Emerging International Agreements: A Basis for Inclusion of Agricultural Soil Carbon Sinks.

This review places in context the role agricultural soils play in global carbon dynamics, and their potential interaction with climate change through soil carbon sequestration. The paper first examine the potential of soils as carbon sinks, agricultural practices and dynamics in soil organic carbon, emerging agreements on payments for environmental services (PES) that mitigate global warming through enhanced carbon sinks, exclusion of agricultural activities in PES under Kyoto Protocol, and the basis for inclusion of agricultural soil carbon sinks through sustainability based production systems. Soils are one of the planets largest sinks for carbon and hold potential for expanded carbon sequestration through changes in management. The global soil organic carbon (SOC) inventory is estimated to be 1200-1600 billion metric tonnes, which is equal to or slightly greater than amounts stored in terrestrial vegetation (500-700 billion metric tonnes) and the atmosphere (750 billion metric tonnes), combined. Agricultural soils, having been depleted of much of their native carbon stocks, and occupying an estimated 1.7 billion hectares, have a more significant potential SOC sink capacity. Global estimates of this sink capacity are in the order of 20-30 billion metric tonnes over the next 50-100 years. The total global agricultural soils SOC stocks are estimated at 167-170 billion metric tonnes. When soil is put into cultivation, associated biological and physical processes result in a release of SOC over time, often 50% or more, depending on soil conditions and agricultural practices. Consequently, there is potential to increase SOC in most cultivated soils. Many management practices have been demonstrated to increase SOC, including incorporation of crop residues, and increases in cropping intensity and fertilization. Past and on-going biophysical studies have been able to identify and demonstrate organic based soil fertility management practices, with modest applications of mineral fertilizers that would concurrently lead to improvement in SOC levels, nutrient loss amelioration and improved agricultural productivity. Management practices that could add 4 T C ha-1 yr-1 in the system have been demonstrated. Due to the potential impacts of climate change on the environment as a result of increasing concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere, particularly carbon dioxide, the world community established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. The responsibility of IPCC is to undertake an assessment of the science, impacts, adaptation, and mitigation options in relation to climate change and advise the Conference of Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At the sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) in Marrakech, Morocco, limits were placed on the nature of activities that could be undertaken and the amount of carbon credits that could be generated through land use change and forestry activities to benefit from PES. These limits excluded all activities associated with management of natural forests and agricultural lands. This review argues that a demonstration of sustainability of carbon sinks in agricultural soils under empirically derived predictable management practices could serve as a basis for arguing the case for inclusion of carbon sinks in such systems in payments for environmental services under the Clean Development (CDM) of Kyoto Protocol.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Risk Management in Financial Information Systems using Bayesian Networks

During the last 20 years many technological advances have inundated the entire spectrum of our everyday lives. None of these advances has had such an impact like the IT revolution which can only compare with the Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century. The advent and acceptance of Information Technology as the norm rather the exception has seen this sector move from a tedious and cumbersome manually managed and run sector, to an almost paperless industry that is almost entirely dependent on Information Systems. With the growth of the dependency on IT, the impact of risk concerns on the development and exploitation of information systems has also increased exponentially. Within the financial services industry, risk management involves assessing and quantifying business risks, then taking measures to control or reduce them. These methods are generally built around a well structured process. However, the product coming from the different risk management steps is still largely informal, and often not analytical enough. This lack of formality hinders the automation of the management of risk-related information. Furthermore, these risk management system focuses on specific phases of the software life cycle, without recognizing that risks in one stage can have an impact on other stages. This necessitates the proposed study in order to propose a generic approach that may be deployed to mitigate risks from the early stages of financial information systems development for daily financial institution operations until the post-implementation phases. This paper proposes a new approach for performing a risk analysis study of financial information systems. It is aimed at developing a generic approach for Risk Analysis and Management applicable from the early phases of information system development unlike in the existing models which are applied after the development process. It can be utilized for identifying and valuating the assets, threats, and vulnerabilities of the information system, followed by a graphical modeling of their interrelationships using Bayesian Networks. The proposed approach will exploit the results of the risk analysis for developing a Bayesian Network model, which presents concisely all the interactions of the undesirable events for the system. Based on “what–if” studies of system operation, the Bayesian Network model identifies and prioritizes the most critical events. Keywords: Riks, risk management, Bayesian Network mode

Factors Affecting Acceptance, Adoption and Use of Online SNS by Seniors

The use of Online Social Networks is higher among the youth as compared to the use of the same by seniors in Kenya. Online social networking has the potential to enrich the lives of seniors by providing them with an easy way to stay in touch with friends and family. Software Engineers and designers are anxious to capture the needs of this demographic through this new channel. Yet very little is known about what influences seniors to use online social networks in relation to development and design of this online social networks.This study uses results from a pilot study conducted in some Universities in Kenya as well as theory and literature to identify and examine what key factors influence seniors to accept and use online social networks then map the factors to enhance an already existing model Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) used to explain Acceptance and Use of technology. The enhanced model that emerged describes the key factors that influence acceptance and use. Specifically the model indicates that perceived privacy, security and trust, proclivity to give and get information, content of Online Social Networking Sites(SNS) are some of the key factors that influence seniors to use online social networks. The enhanced model is a first step of an ongoing research project that aims to provide software engineers and designers with the requirements of seniors in Online Social Networks. Keywords: Online Social Networks, Elderly, UTAUT, SNS, Online Social Networking Use and Acceptance

Lack of Awareness by End Users on Security Issues Affecting Mobile Banking: A Case Study of Kenyan Mobile Phone End Users

The use of mobile phones in African has seen a formidable growth. The use of mobile phones to perform business and financial transactions seems to be on the increase as well. The rise in use of mobile phones to perform financial transactions also increases the risks associated with such transactions and especially man in the middle attacks. These compounded with lack of awareness among users means that they (the users) are highly exposed to such attacks. Due to the popular use of mobile banking in Kenya and the third world in particular, securing communication between the mobile device and the back end server has become a fundamental issue. This is due to the fact that hackers have the ability to steal banking information using various techniques, particularly the duping of mobile phone users to believe that they are communicating with a genuine program from their bank while in reality a user is simple giving away sensitive information to the hacker. This paper aims to investigate the level of awareness among users of mobile banking transactions in regards to man in the middle attacks and whether the awareness or lack of it can increase or deter such attacks Key words: mobile phones, Mobile banking services, Security, man in the middle attack

Economic Evaluation of Organic and Inorganic Resources for Recapitalizing Soil Fertility in Smallholder Maize-based Cropping Systems of Central Kenya

Structural adjustments programs (SAPs) in the last two decades have eliminated all farm-support programs leading to low usage of fertilizers by Kenyan smallholders. One way of addressing this problem is use of organic nutrient resources. This paper examines their cost-effectiveness as capital investments in replenishment of Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K) and soil organic matter (SOM) in smallholder, Maize-based cropping systems. On-farm trials were established in Maragwa and Kirinyaga Districts in 2003/04. Maize was planted in 3 replicates in randomised complete block design (RCBD) using different levels of organic and inorganic fertilizer resources. A blanket rate of 40kg P/ha was applied in all treatment except the control to increase organic N-utilization efficiency. The test crop was harvested, oven-dried and weighed. Net Present Values (NPV) were computed using Partial Budgeting Analysis Model. Increasing levels of inorganic N increased maize yields significantly (P<0.05). However, higher yields were necessary but not sufficient criteria to determine profitability of different treatments. Manure + 60 kg N/ha gave highest NPV (USD 564), Manure + 40kg N/ha gave second highest NPV (USD 511) in Maragwa District while Manure + 60kg N/ha gave highest NPV (USD 633) and Manure + 40kg N/ha second highest NPV (USD 618) in Kirinyaga District. These results suggested that higher N-levels were not necessarily the most economical. Use of organic resources with modest amounts of mineral fertilizers seemed more profitable and held the key to enhancement of nutrient budgets, food security and rural livelihoods.Natural resource capital, Net present values (NPV), Nutrient budgets, Smallholder farmers, Soil organic matter (SOM), Structural adjustment programs (SAPs), Crop Production/Industries, Land Economics/Use,

Framework for Personalization of sms advertising of goods and services

The exponential growth of wireless as a communication medium offers exciting new advertising opportunities and demand that wireless becomes a new channel of the marketing communications mix. With it, comes the ever-growing niche for short message service (sms) advertising, creating a need for personalization to enable users quickly get goods and services as well as be able to post own advertisements. Personalization entails targeted advertising based on client profiles in a bid to enhance the experience for mobile owners and brands. Even though several personalization strategies exist, they require the presence of a structured and well-maintained database. However, building such a database for sms campaigns requires that clients must divulge information about their habits, interests, and preferences. Even though data can be obtained explicitly from consumers, instead of existing databases, there is a tendency to resist sharing of personal details because of privacy reasons. This creates an inevitable trade-off between personalization and control granted to the consumer, hence the need for an intervention to leverage on ‘anonymous’ personalization of sms advertising. In existing personalization strategies, most efforts seem to be directed toward internet-based advertising in which users make explicit or implicit choices, which are collected into a database. This data then become the basis of the user’s profile, which allows recommendations to be targeted to the user. This faces the privacy challenges as some users are reluctant to give their personal details. Thus, this research proposes a process to design and create a framework for personalizing sms advertising without user registration or subscription. Our proposed framework anticipates that users will only require their cell phone numbers to advertise or search for information, which will be used in personalization. The proposed model envisions creation of a mobile phone based artifact that uses SMS to promote commercial relationships, and establish a virtual open market that provides an opportunity to all mobile phone users. Keywords: personalization, SMS advertisin

An enhanced Least Significant Bit Steganographic Method for Information Hiding

The least significant bit (LSB) insertion method is a simple steganographic algorithm that takes the least significant bit in some bytes of the cover medium and swaps them with a sequence of bytes containing the secret data in order to conceal the information in the cover medium. However its imperceptibility and hiding capacity are relatively low. This is as revealed by the statistical characteristics of its resultant stego images compared to the original cover images. To increase the level of imperceptibility and the hiding capacity in the LSB insertion method, this research proposes an enhanced LSB method that employs a selective and randomized approach in picking specific number of target image bits to swap with the secret data bits during the embedding process. To facilitate the selective picking of the target image bits, the standard minimal linear congruential number generator (LCG) is used. The message digest (digital signature) of a user supplied password is used to seed the LCG and to extract the message from the cover medium. In measuring the effectiveness of the proposed method, the study adopted an experimental research design where the statistical characteristics of the proposed method stego images were compared with those of the traditional LSB method in a comparative experiment designed to establish the levels of image distortion (noise) introduced in the original cover image when either of the methods is used under the same payload and image. The experiment results indicated improved levels of imperceptibility and hiding capacity in the proposed method. Key Words: Steganography, Steganalysis, Stego image, payload, imperceptibilit

The status of Object-oriented Software Reuse and Reusability Assessment in the Kenyan Software Engineering Industry

There are published claims of widespread ad-hoc reuse within the software Engineering industry—a situation that has caused organizations not to gain optimal benefits from reuse. The general impression created by literature is that, software developers hardly consider the concept measurement as a way of assessing reusability of developed software, thus the resulting software lack adequate reusability. This result to a common conclusion that, the software Engineering industry is still grappling with software development challenges that reuse is intended to solve. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the status of reuse and reusability assessment, which should form a basis for addressing the problems that hinder effective reuse. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study that surveyed software developers who had knowledge in OO software development. From the analysis of fifty-four (54) valid responses, the study establishes the status of reuse and reusability assessment, as well as the perceptions and awareness of OO developers on the concept of software measurement, with regards to software quality. Based on the findings of the survey, we give recommendations on how organizations can improve the reuse practice. Keywords: Software reuse, Software reusability, Software Metrics, Software Measuremen

A Metrics-based Framework for Measuring the Reusability of Object-Oriented Software Components

The critical role played by software in socioeconomic advancement, has seen a rapid demand for software; creating a large backlog in affordable and quality software that needs to be written.  Although software reuse is capable of addressing this issue, effective reuse is seldom to come by, thus the issue still remains unresolved. In order to achieve effective reuse, practitioners need to focus on reusability: the property that makes software reusable. Although Object Oriented Software Development (OOSD) approach is capable of improving software reusability, a way of ascertaining if the required degree of reusability is being achieved during the OOSD process is required. This can be achieved through measurement. The task involved in measuring reusability of Object oriented (OO) software is to; determine major reusability attributes of reusable components, relate these characteristics with factors that influence them, link each factor with measurable OO design features that determines them, relate each feature with appropriate metrics, and find out how these metrics collectively determine the reusability of components. A novel framework for achieving this task is proposed in this paper. Keywords: Software reuse, Software Reusability, Software Metrics, Software Componen