MMTI Theses and Dissertations (2013)

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http://hdl.handle.net/11071/2196

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    Use of regular expressions for multi-lingual detection of hate speech in Kenya
    (iLabAfrica, 2014) Maloba, Wilson Jeffrey
    Hate speech has of late become a sensitive issue in Kenya given that it helped trigger the post election violence of 2007/2008. At the same time, the percentage of the populace that has internet access has continued to grow giving rise to an active online community whose activity is scarcely monitored. The current detection of these hate messages is manual as it mostly relies on what is captured on the media or text that an online user happens to flag. Given that bloggers have come under investigation for the content they post online shows intent on the part of regulatory bodies to clean up online communication, however, a widespread and automated means by which this cleanup can be achieved is yet to formally materialize. The main objective of this research was to establish an automated means of detecting textual hate speech in Kenya for the Sheng and Swahili languages. This was achieved by incorporating the use of regular expressions whose power and flexibility were found to be best suited to the unstructured nature of the Sheng language in particular. In this study a corpus was created using data collected from correspondents. The data was collected using questionnaires and direct interviews. Hate speech in Kenya is tribal and the annotators submitted texts that they determined to be hateful towards certain tribes, texts that were non-hateful in nature were submitted as well. The constituted corpus was divided into two segments; one portion was used to formulate the rules used by the system to detect hate speech while the second portion was used to test the functionality of the system. The test data was pre-labelled by the human correspondents and accuracy was measured as a direct comparison between the systems‟ classification of the test data and that of the human annotators. The system was able to distinguish between hate speech and non-hate speech to an accuracy of 71.4%.
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    A mobile application to support and strengthen maternal health services: case of Nairobi
    (iLabAfrica, 2014) Odwako, Vincent Anyanje
    In developing countries like Kenya, many deaths are attributed to infectious diseases and complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Men and women don’t have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of fertility regulation. Most of the information pertaining maternal health services found on websites is too general and that not so many people have access to the internet. Such information is also found in health journals at unaffordable fee. On the other hand, health consultants charge exorbitant amounts of money to provide maternal health services and care. Also, women forget or ignore to go for the recommended antenatal checkups posing a risk to them and the unborn child. Healthcare professionals from Jacaranda health participated in the research through questionnaires and interviews so as to provide a more holistic picture in the area of maternal health. Project testing and evaluation score form was used to test the developed application on areas of functionality, usability, performance and integration. The purpose of this research was to support and strengthen maternal health services and care using mobile phones in Kenya. Therefore, a solution to access maternal health services and care was offered on one’s finger tips. This was a project to improve life and access to information via the mobile phone. The application provides all round information on maternal health services and has a discussion forum to boost collaboration between health practitioners. The application also has SMS functionality to remind pregnant women to go for antenatal checkups as well as provide health related campaigns and awareness. The test results of the developed application indicated that users felt that the system was able to meet their requirements effectively. The application was accepted by medical professionals at Jacaranda health since it was able to meet most of their needs. The application is useful for the general public, people living with HIV and AIDS, health workers and treatment activists.
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    A unified service delivery platform for emerging mobile applications: analysis of its implementation and integration within the mobile network in Kenya
    (iLabAfrica, 2014) Magare, Silas Omundi James
    Emerging mobile applications such as Android and J2ME are delivered through application stores while most conventional applications such as Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD) and SIM Tool Kit (STK) are provisioned through Mobile networks. The conventional applications seem to have an edge over the emerging counter parts majorly because conventional applications get exposure via mobile operators who command a majority share in the mass market. The research was looking into a possibility of having emerging mobile applications provisioned over the mobile network and the best implementation practice should it succeed. The Literature reviewed found out that, currently, prominent features which make conventional applications technically appealing in the network such as OTA auto provisioning, are not fully in place for emerging mobile applications. Research found out that, successful realization of the platform is depended upon good security framework, user preference and technology. Henceforth, it found out that, it is possible for some features proposed in the research to be implemented within the current generation of networks, but it will strain the resources, hence, a need for expansion of the current network to accommodate the increasing demand of emerging mobile applications. Therefore, most features this research envisioned will be fully implemented in the next generation of networks which will be IP based. In the current network scenario, developers need to come up with hybrid applications involving integration of conventional and emerging mobile applications for best benefits. Finally, there is an urgent need for a synergy between mobile operators, device manufacturers and mobile platforms providers to speed up the realization of a robust unified service delivery platform for emerging mobile applications.
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    An Interactive school communication system
    (iLabAfrica, 2014) Kigen, James Chelogoi
    For most schools in Kenya parents have to be physically present at the school to follow on their kids school progress, considering the busy schedules of the modern day parent this may not be easy for them. Also the flow of communication is normally one way from the school to parents. In that regard this project provides a means that parents can follow on their school going children’s progress from wherever, enable two-way communication between the school and parents and/or students. A mobile solution Instant Results is proposed to solve this problem. Instant Results is a mobile application that enables parents and/or students to query for academic results, and follow on their children’s school progress using their mobile phones. This project provides; Reliable and up to date information about school academic results to users in a manner that is very easy to access at all times. The system is designed, developed and tested by subject matter experts during the research period. The research concludes that the mobile solution would add value to the communication channel between all the school stakeholders. It also concludes that the application is ready for the market as it passed all the required tests carried out.The research recommends further work to developing more modules for the system as well as a follow up research to test on the effectiveness of the system.
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    E- Content delivery platform for university students
    (iLabAfrica, 2014) Kuria, Karen
    The recent growth in the telecommunications field has experienced an exponential increase in network coverage, speed, and technological innovation in Kenya. The growth has also led to increased use of Information Communication Technology in education. The demand for higher education has escalated and many institutions are turning to eLearning to expand their presence online. The demand for local educational content is also increasing with the growth of eLearning in Kenya.There is therefore a need to build capacity for the development and distribution of local e-content.There is need for a platform that enables easy exchange of educational content in Kenya and especially one that incorporates mobile payments systems that are commonly available. Authors of educational content need a way of sharing their content with students for free or at a fee. The purpose of this research was to find out the relevant information and structure that would be suitable in an e-content distribution platform. The researcher studied the current e-content platforms in use by university students by sampling students in five universities.The research was done through interviews and questionnaires. The analysis of the feedback revealed that in as much as most institutions have e-learning platforms, the acquisition and the distribution of e-content was still not as easy. However the study revealed that most of the students were open to the idea of paying for content from a commercial platform.The results of the study were the design and implementation of a content delivery framework that enabled easy exchange of educational content between authors of such content and students. To achieve this a mobile-web based platform which uses DRM to protect downloaded material was developed, which enables authors to upload their materials easily and students to download the material easily thus bridging the gap between availability of e-content and accessibility of e-content for learning purposes.