Evaluation of selected heavy metals on the artisanal gold mining sites in North Rift Region, Kenya

ASGM activity significantly contributes to the economies of developing countries with a consequent impact on the socio-ecological systems. The impacts are largely due to the wide use of mercury in the extraction processes. It also deforestates the exploited areas with consequent loss of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. ASGM has varied impacts of adverse health effects and it is said that mercury has more significant health effects than other heavy metals (Cd, Pb, As, and Cr). Due to dearth in the studies on artisanal mining in Kenya, the study sought to evaluate the concentration levels of selected heavy metals on the artisanal mining sites in Nandi and West Pokot Counties of Kenya in order to determine their nature, concentration levels and suggest mitigation measure. The study was done in two artisanal gold mining sites in Kapsaos in Nandi County and Sekker in West Pokot County in Kenya and employed a comparative analysis to examine the attributes of these locational spaces. Thirteen samples were randomly collected from tailings at different points from the tailing disposal site in Kapsaos areas and Sekker site. The samples were transported prepared and stored at Environmental Chemistry Laboratory, the University of Eldoret where it was subjected to Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS). The laboratory analysis results showed that the samples from both artisanal gold mining sites contained several heavy metals which included Chromium, Cadmium, and Lead. Overall, the mining sites in Nandi County had the following concentration of Cr, 0.4195 ppm, Cd, 0.2470 ppm, and Pb, 0.6300 ppm, while the mining sites in West Pokot county had the following concentrations:  Cr, 0.1790 ppm; Cd, 0.0050 ppm; and Pb, 0.7400 ppm. Besides, the concentrations levels of Lead and Cadmium were above the WHO guidelines. A casual look at the concentration levels indicates that the mining sites in Nandi County have higher concentration levels of selected heavy metals (Pb, Cd and Cr) that in West Pokot County which was attributable to the ASGM activities. The study concluded that ASGM activities excavates, destabilizes the stables states of elements and then concentrates them. Finally, the study recommends that ASGM be upscaled instead of being frowned upon. Further studies on the potential socio-economic impacts on the ASGM activities in Western Kenya because the activity is considered a complementary/supplementary economic activity. Keywords: Artisanal and small scale gold mining (ASGM), artisanal mining, selected heavy metals, mercury, heavy metal pollution DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-6-12 Publication date:June 30th 202

ELECTION VIOLENCE IN KENYA

This study focuses on the role of ethnic violence in Kenya’s electoral process from 1992-2013 with a specific reference to factors that shape and influence the election outcome. These include ethnic divisions, institutions, social cleavages and media. There is nothing that Kenyan citizens fear as the outbreak of a fresh ethnic conflict like those that rocked the country during the 1992 post-election violence. Kenyans believe that the wave of inter-ethnic conflicts which took place at most of the provinces were the worst since its independence in 1963. As a result Kenyans now believe that violence may arise during any future elections, hence making this an important topic for discussion. Ethnic conflicts during elections in Kenya have continued to generate confusion, panic and skepticism between the government and the opposition parties. In the light of the above scenario, this study attempts to find, analyze and verify the root causes of the ethnic conflicts in order to understand and propose solutions that could help the Kenyan government and society in their search for a better future through democratic consolidation. This study also attempts to discuss other crucial themes related to ethnic conflicts and their implications to the stability and development of Kenya. Using case studies of five election years 1992, 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2013 the study finds support for the hypothesis that ethnic divisions influence election violence

Quality Regulation in Expansion of Educational Systems: A Case of Privately Sponsored Students’ Programme in Kenya’s Public Universities

This paper examines the expansion and management of quality of parallel programmes in Kenya’s public universities. The study is based on Privately Sponsored Students Programmes (PSSP)at Moi University and its satellite campuses in Kenya. The study was descriptive in nature and adopted an ex-post facto research design. The study sample consisted of 460 privately sponsored students from all schools and campuses of Moi University and 140 teaching and non-teaching staff. A stratified random sampling procedure was used to identify the schools and the students while purposive sampling was used to identify the staff. Data collection was done using questionnaires for students and staff while administrators of schools and satellite campuses were interviewed. The study established thatthere are acute challenges in the managementof the PSSP which impact on the quality of educational programmes under the parallel and privately sponsored students’ programmes. Quality has been compromised. One of the challenges is the expansion in terms of increase in students’ number and satellite campuses in early every city in Kenya. The study further points out some mechanisms that could be adopted to ensure quality in the stated programmes in all public Universities in Kenya. The study recommended that since the quality of programmes in Public universities has declined, universities should invest in facilities, activities and infrastructure that support learning/teaching as the university’s core mandate. Secondly that public universities need to adhere to the established quality regulatory mechanisms in place to assure the students and other stakeholders of education of the quality of the education offered at universities. The recommendations from the study should be utilized by policy makers in Public Universities to come up with policies that address the shortcomings and in the process improve and meet the demand for quality education in those universities.Keywords:Privately Sponsored Students Programmes (PSSP), Education System, Public Universities, Quality

Extent of Adoption of Quality Management Systems in the Hospitality and Catering Industry: A Study of Selected Establishments in Nairobi.

The aim of this research was to establish the extent of adoption of two quality management systems in selected hospitality and catering establishments in Nairobi Kenya. Survey design was used and the target population was managers in the establishments. A sample size of 120 was used. Purposive sampling was used to select the managers because adoption of the systems was assumed to be a managerial responsibility. Interview schedules and questionnaires were used to collect primary data which was analyzed using descriptive statistics. From the findings majority of the respondents had knowledge about the existence of quality management systems but had not adopted the systems because of high costs involved in its implementation and lack of information. Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system (HACCP) was preferred than Assured Safe Catering (ASC). The establishments using Quality management systems highlighted the benefits of the systems that included success in production of quality products and increased profitability. However the systems had limitations such as demanding routine of maintenance of standards and involving intense documentation. Evidently, quality management systems are relevant to the hospitality industry and need to be adopted by operators in the food handling sector   Keywords: Adoption, Assured Safe Catering, Catering, Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system, Keny

Factors that affect the Outcome of Outside Catering in Kenya

Outside catering involves preparing and serving food at a location away from the business. The outcome of outside catering is important to caterers both as a marketing tool and in enhancing customer satisfaction. There are many factors that determine the outcome of outside catering which this study aimed to establish. The objective of this study was to examine the contribution of human, physical and natural factors on the outcome of outside catering as well as to identify the indicators that can be used to measure the outcome of outside catering. The study employed descriptive survey research design. The target population was 150 caterers in Nairobi in Kenya. The sample size comprised 120 outside caterers. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to identify the respondents. Questionnaires were used to collect data. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics and presented in the form of frequency tables, percentages and graphs. The results showed that human, physical and natural factors all determine the outcome of outside catering. The findings may benefit outside caterers in understanding and hence being careful on factors that affect the outcome of outside catering. In addition caterers may use the indicators that measure outcome of outside catering to improve or know the status of their work. Keywords: Human factors, Natural factors, Outcome, Outside catering, Physical factor

Exploring the use of participatory visual methods in teaching sexuality education within the HIV and AIDS education programme in selected Kenyan secondary schools

The HIV and AIDS prevalence in Kenya is still high and remains a major health concern despite the Kenyan government’s initiatives to create awareness about the epidemic through inclusion of the HIV and AIDS programme in schools. This is because the provision of sexuality, HIV and AIDS education in schools is not effective. Teachers face various challenges in the effective delivery of the subject due to their discomfort related to these sensitive topics. Therefore, learners are left inadequately supported by the teachers. With an immense variety of conflicting information about sexuality availed to young people through the social media and also through their peers, young people are left at risk of exploring their sexualities with inadequate and wrong information, thus exposing them to HIV infections. Since schools have been identified as ideal sites for the effective delivery of sexuality, HIV and AIDS education, teachers are expected to teach the learners using a variety of pedagogical strategies in order to achieve efficacy in the delivery of this subject, hence the need to explore teaching styles that could provide a safe space for the effective delivery of sexuality, HIV and AIDS education. This study sought to explore teachers’ experiences of using participatory visual methods in teaching sexuality education within the HIV and AIDS education programme in selected Kenyan secondary schools, in order to understand how such methods could affect the teaching of Sexuality education. This study employed a phenomenological research design, interpretivist paradigm and a participatory methodology. Memory accounts, reflective journals and focus group discussions were used for data generation with nine secondary school teachers, from three purposively selected schools in Kenya. Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory underpinned the study. The findings revealed that teachers are uncomfortable teaching sexuality education because of fear of leading learners astray, fear of victimization and sexualization, and fear of misleading and hurting learners because of lack of knowledge. This resulted in teachers feeling guilty due to ineffective delivery of Sexuality education. The findings also revealed that participatory visual methods were effective for use by the teachers and the learners in the classroom to navigate issues around sexuality, HIV and AIDS. This was because they are learner-centred, thus making learners producers of knowledge while at the same time encouraging optimism in teaching and learning. This study thus recommends pre-service teacher training on participatory methods of teaching. Educational institutions should also arrange for workshops to train in-service teachers on comprehensive sexuality, HIV and AIDS education and how to tackle it in their classrooms. Moreover, curriculum developers should make sexuality, HIV and AIDS education a compulsory subject to give it equal status with other examinable subjects, for it to be taken seriously. It is only through concerted efforts from everyone that Kenya can reach its target of Zero new HIV infections

Novel structures and applications of leaky thin-ridge silicon waveguides

The ability to utilize signals at optical frequencies, as opposed to say microwave frequencies, provides much more bandwidth and signal transmission speed to meet the increasing telecommunication demands in today's world. The ability to integrate optical circuits in the same manner as in electronic integrated circuits means that optical devices can be miniaturized and can even complement today's complex electronic circuits and devices. Silicon nanophotonics is a highly attractive platform for emerging integrated optical solutions in areas including optical signal transmission, signal processing, optical sensing and optical computing. This is primarily because the silicon platform is compatible with CMOS fabrication processes, which through significant investment have developed and matured over many years to serve the electronics industry. Transitioning into an optical platform that can exploit this vast electronics manufacturing industry is viable particularly for enabling low cost mass manufacturing of integrated photonic circuits. High refractive index contrast silicon waveguide platforms such as silicon-on-insulator (SOI) enable strong confinement of light in sub-micron waveguides as well as the sharp bending of waveguides with minimal loss. The SOI platform has therefore attracted research interest into the development of compact integrated silicon photonic circuits. Thin-ridge SOI waveguides are particularly promising because they minimize signal transmission loss by significantly reducing the waveguide etch-depth and therefore reducing scattering losses due to sidewall roughness. However, a consequence of the reduced etch-depth is the possibility for TM guided modes to couple to highly coherent TE radiation in the adjacent slab. This TM-TE coupling phenomenon, named lateral leakage radiation, is the subject of this thesis. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the possible exploitation of this inherent TE-TM coupling relationship. The novel structures presented herein could have potential applications which include optical biosensing, polarization rotation and resonant optical filtering. The main contributions of this research work include first and foremost the discovery of a resonant TE-TM coupling effect in thin-ridge waveguides. This resonance effect has a canonical Lorentzian response and the quality-factor can be controlled by adjusting the waveguide dimensions. It is also shown that several such resonator waveguides can be cascaded in a coupled resonator topology to realize higher order Chebyshev filter responses. Another contribution in this thesis is that a holographic-based grating structure exploiting the TM-TE coupling in thin-ridge waveguides can be used to efficiently convert a Gaussian TE slab beam into a collimated TM slab beam. It is shown that an apodized grating is the most suitable design for achieving this goal. Lastly, it is also shown through simulation that the lateral leakage effect can be utilized as a biosensor to measure refractive index changes at the surface of a thin-ridge waveguide caused by the deposition of biomolecules. A tapered thin-ridge waveguide in tandem with a planar lens structure is proposed as a potential sensor topology for evanescent field biosensing. In summary, it has been shown that lateral leakage in thin ridge waveguides can be enhanced using unique waveguide structures and exploited for integrated optical applications

Reducing Infant mortality using mobile applications : a paper on the potential impact of using technology to increase vaccination in infants

The conference aimed at supporting and stimulating active productive research set to strengthen the technical foundations of engineers and scientists in the continent, through developing strong technical foundations and skills, leading to new small to medium enterprises within the African sub-continent. It also seeked to encourage the emergence of functionally skilled technocrats within the continent.Today’s world is characterised by professionals who have minimal time with their families and especially their young children. Working mothers find it hard to keep track of the vaccines their babies have received and there exists no mechanisms to remind the mothers of the same. This paper proposes the development of a mobile application to increase the number of children who get timely vaccination in line with the attainment of United Nations Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4). This application is aimed to be used by working mothers for tracking vaccination dates for infants below 12 months of age. The Chanjo App is to be located in Kenya, where the target demography is found.Using the Object Oriented Analysis and Design methodology,the plan is to develop an application that will allow mothers to plan their infant’s immunisation as well as receive timely notifications on their schedule. This will be aided by the current boom in the uptake of smartphones (android and iOS) in the Kenyan consumer space [6]. It can be rightly assumed that the system can be implemented in numbers sufficient to achieve the MDG4 goal.Strathmore University (SU); Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE

Determinants of the Level of Revenue of Tourist Enterprises within the North Coastal Region of Kenya

Revenue of produced goods and/or provided services is determined by the volume of sales, prices of particular products, variety of products, ways of invoicing and period of payment. The current study was carried out at the north coastal region among tourist enterprises to establish factors that influence the amount of revenue they generate per year. The target population involved all enterprises relying on tourists for their business. They include hotel accommodation facilities, curio shops and tour companies. Simple random sampling technique was used to select a final sample of 97 enterprises, whose owners were given self administered questionnaires. Afterwards a regression on determinants of revenue by tourist enterprises was expressed as Y= ?o + ?1X1+ ?2X2+ …?n Xn+ ?; Where: Y – is the dependant variable; X1-n – are the independent variables; ?0 – is the constant ?1-n – are the regression coefficients or change induced in Y by each X,         while ? is the error. The results indicated that the net monthly income of enterprises was determined by the age of the enterprise (? = 0.169, p = 0.001), the location of the business (? = 0.149, p = 0.038) and the number of employees within the enterprise (? = 0.703, p < 0.0005). Therefore findings indicated that the main determinants of revenue for tourist enterprises at Kenya’s north coast were the age of the business, business location and the number of employees. Keywords: Tourist enterprises; Determinants of revenue; Firm; Tourist expenditure

Factors influencing choice of skilled birth attendance at ANC: evidence from the Kenya demographic health survey

Background: In Kenya, skilled attendance at delivery is well below the international target of 90% and the maternal mortality ratio is high at 362 (CI 254–471) per 100,000 live births despite various interventions. The preventative role of skilled attendance at delivery makes it a benchmark indicator for safe motherhood. Methods: Maternal health data from the Service Provision Assessment Survey, a subset of the 2010 Kenya Demographic Health Survey was analyzed. Logistic regression models were employed using likelihood ratio test to explore association between choice of skilled attendance and predictor variables. Results: Overall, 94.8% of women are likely to seek skilled attendance at delivery. Cost, education level, number of antenatal visits and sex of provider were strongly associated with client’s intention to deliver with a skilled birth attendant at delivery. Women who reported having enough money set aside for delivery were 4.34 (p \u3c 0.002, 95% CI: 1.73; 10.87) times more likely to seek skilled attendance. Those with primary education and above were 6.6 times more likely to seek skilled attendance than those with no formal education (p \u3c 0.001, 95% CI: 3.66; 11.95). Women with four or more antenatal visits were 5.95 (p \u3c 0.018, 95% CI: 1.35; 26.18) times more likely to seek skilled attendance. Compared to men, female providers impacted more on the client’s plan (OR=2.02 (p \u3c 0.014, 95% CI: 1.35; 3.53). Conclusion: Interventions aimed at improving skilled attendance at delivery should include promotion of formal education of women and financial preparation for delivery. Whenever circumstances permit, women should be allowed to choose gender of preferred professional attendant at delivery