Masters Theses and Dissertations

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Application of mobile phone-based system for improved crop production recommendation in arusha, Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2022-01) Edward, Alpha
Agriculture is a dominant activity globally as without which, food would not be produced, consequently depriving human development. Despite the massive role of agriculture in food security, its growth in crop production in Tanzania is being threatened by various challenges including limited access to agricultural information. This study focused on developing a mobile phone-based application for improved crop production recommendations. The study survey involved a total of 156 simple randomly selected respondents in Arusha district to assess whether or not they know how or can use mobile phones to search for internet-based agricultural services as a base for developing a mobile phone-based agricultural information app, and the data collected were analyzed by tableau software. The results show that about three-quarters of respondents possess smartphones and nearly one-third (32.7%) of all respondents use internet-based platforms to search for agriculture information. In terms of the specific need for a well-structured system such as the use of agriculture apps that would quicken access to agriculture information, 75.6% of all respondents said that they would appreciate having it. Also, about 80% of all respondents indicate the readiness for such platforms if availed online for the facilitation of processes in accessing agricultural information. Following these results, a Rapid Application Development (RAD) model was used along with software specific for the development of a mobile app and environments such as Android Studio, PostgreSQL Database and PostGIS to develop an android application. The developed mobile application takes into consideration soil types of different locations found within the Arusha district. Moreover, the app provides the farmer with information concerning soil type found in a specific location. Finally, a testing survey from the farmer’s acceptance concluded that this mobile app was accepted to be used by the farmers. Thus, the developed app is recommended for further testing and where possible, improvement on wider coverage and more functions that farmers will need in the future.
Automated uninterruptible power supply battery protector: case study of Tanzania atomic energy commission, Arusha-Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2022-08) Gurisi, Angelo
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to its load when the input power source fails and manages power fluctuations through its battery during power failure to allow a user to save work and shut down a system procedurally. The UPS’ electrical ability depends on its battery’s strength. At Tanzania Atomic Energy Commission (TAEC) users mostly leave their UPS on as they go home, and when there is blackout, the UPS batteries get drained to zero leading to a significant number of UPS getting damaged in a year. Automated Uninterruptible Power Supply Battery Protector (AUPSBP) is developed to protect UPS battery at the institution using Kanban Agile methodology which supported teamwork. The AUPSBP monitors the voltage from mains to UPS using a voltage sensor. When the sensor detects a lack of voltage from the mains to UPS, AUPSBP triggers timer counting down towards switching the UPS off. When tested, AUPSBP switched off the UPS when the set time of 5 minutes elapsed, and when UPS battery voltage was <100V protecting UPS battery from draining to zero during blackout. It sent Short Messages using Global System for Mobile communication when mains power was switched off, and when UPS was switched off before the set time of 5 minutes elapsed. The AUPSBP is effective for switching off UPS before its battery drains to zero to prevent battery damage on different types and sizes of UPSs with only changes in switch and timer. Therefore, AUPSBP is needed to protect UPS at TAEC.
Centralized admission system for advanced level private schools: case of Kilimanjaro region, Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2019-03) Fujo, Mwapashua
This research takes a look at the various challenges facing admission procedures for Advanced Level (A-Level) private schools case of Kilimanjaro Region in Tanzania. A total of 150 questionnaires was distributed to parents, A-Level students and school staffs, to find out procedures likewise the challenges being faced in the course of carrying out admission procedures and their level of satisfaction of the existing admission system. Thereafter, the analysis of the survey results confirms and quantify that 93.5% of admissions into A-Level private schools are performed manually by ink and paper. This manual system has its major problems which include difficulty in locating an appropriate school and subjects an applicant can get admissions, crucial times, wastage of time, and loss of forms and mutilation of forms throughout the entire method for admission. Consequently, the findings determined that, the admission system can only be improved by a new online software tool. To mitigate these challenges a centralized web-based solution, namely a Tanzania Central Processing Admission System (TCPAS) has been developed to resolve the identified admission challenges. The TCPAS tool has indicated outstanding changes towards maintenance of admission costs, control of forgery on entry qualifications, encourage the use of paperless admission, simplify admission process, reach of several geographically scattered candidates, and enhancing centralized data handling capability.
Corruption dynamics in Tanzania: Modeling the effects of control strategies
(NM-AIST, 2021-07) Danford, Oscar
Corruption can be defined generally as taking bribes, forcing out benefit, receiving money or gifts as favour in exchange for doing one’s job. Worldwide corruption is considered a problem that affects many countries in the world currently. Individuals loses their rights, lower community confidence in public authorities, termination of employment, absence of peace and security and misallocation of resources. Despite various measures which have been taken by different countries to control corruption, the problem still persists. The negative impacts of corruption are well known; however, little has been done on mathematical modelling on corruption, particularly the inclusion of mass education and religious teaching as a strategy for controlling corruption spread. In this study, the mathematical model for the dynamics of corruption in the absence and presence of these control measures are presented and analysed to determine which parameter are very sensitive to the spread of corruption and how will these control strategies help to reduce corruption. Most parameters used in this work are from different literature and some were assumed. The next generation matrix method is used to compute the basic and effective reproduction number which used to study the corruption dynamics. Sensitivity analysis results shows that, parameters of mass education and religious teaching are the most sensitive to the control of corruption. Also, stability analysis for equilibrium states by linearization, Lyapunov function and use of the Lassalle’s invariance principle was derived and the results shows that the corruption free equilibrium is locally and globally asymptotically stable when 𝑅0 < 1 and endemic equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable when 𝑅0 > 1. The model was simulated by using Runge-Kutta 4 th order in MATLAB and the results depict that when mass education  and religious teaching  are combined together as a control measures, corruption within the country is successfully controlled in a short period of time. The study recommends to invest more in provision of mass education to the citizens through creating general awareness to all and including it in education curriculum from pre-primary to university as well as to use religious leaders to teach their followers seriously about the impact of corruption. The numerical simulation results agreed with the analytical results.
A data analytic module for nutrition screening of children under five years in Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2016-04) Nyanjara, Sarah
Malnutrition is one of the major health problems in the world, and more prevalent in developing countries. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that malnutrition is associated to half of all deaths of children under five years. In Tanzania it is estimated that 43,000 children die and the government loses up to Tsh. 700 billion annually due to the effects associated with malnutrition. Due to its unbearable consequences several international organisation have initiated collective measures to combat malnutrition. Nutrition screening, the process of identifying whether the child is malnourished or not, is a proven and important step towards malnutrition eradication. Regular and effective nutrition screening allows early malnutrition or risk of malnutrition to be identified and proper treatment and malnutrition management to be effected. The whole process of nutrition screening and malnutrition management in Tanzania still requires a lot of improvements. The studies show that the nutrition screening is not effective and it is mostly manual. The process includes the use of papers (clinic card) in recording anthropometrics measurement and that Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) is the only tool used for nutrition screening despite the already identified shortcomings. In this study, a nutrition data analytic module for nutrition screening for children under five years is proposed and developed. The system will have the ability to store child records after the child is registered, perform nutrition screening to identify if the child is well nourished or malnourished, and establish the current state of malnourished child in order to allow appropriate action to be taken by a health worker. Additionally the progress of malnourished child will be established to allow proper malnutrition management. The module has the ability to create reports which will help researchers, stakeholders and other users to get nutrition related data and information and malnutrition trends. This study puts in place a nutritional data analytic module for nutrition screening. This will facilitate effective nutrition screening of children and hence improve children nutrition health.
Data visualization tool for student dropouts in Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2020-03) Kayanda, Angelika Mark
Education is a crucial sector and key component of many governments’ agenda. Despite that, students dropout has been among the persisting challenges in education, being experienced from basic education levels to colleges and universities. This work presents a study on data visualization in education and a glimpse of data visualization in other domains, and suggests a web based data visualization tool for student dropouts in Tanzania, targeting primary and secondary schools. It also presents users’ feedback regarding the developed web-based tool. This study collected data from the Government Basic Statistics Portal and the President’s Office - Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG). Rapid prototyping was employed to develop the proposed web-based data visualization tool for interactive visualization of the prepared data. Moreover, focus group discussions and questionnaires were used to gather feedback from the users, whereby majority agreed that data visualization is useful for understanding data and providing insights for reporting and decision making. Most users further agreed that the developed tool was easy to use, useful and recommendable. The various challenges that came up during the course of this study enlightens on the need for sound data collection practices and the need for good visualization literacy. The results from this study will be beneficial for decision makers in education domain by providing a wide range of options to visually compare and observe variations in the student dropouts trends, thus facilitating informed decisions. Moreover, this study will be useful source of information for further research in dropout prediction and modelling.
Design and implementation of tour guide portal for enhancing tourism in Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2020-03) Shidende, Deogratias
Tour guides contribute significantly to the enjoyment and satisfaction of tourist thereby promoting tourism worldwide. Unfortunately, in many developing countries, it has been problematic to locate a suitable tour guide for particular tourism or wildlife activities. Although in Tanzania, there are various efforts to ensuring tour guides are professional; however, there is no baseline information about tour guides that can help plan and promote tourism through a tour guide. Moreover, the registration process for tour guides are unnecessarily cyclical, costly and time-consuming. This study, therefore, seeks to design and implement a Tour Guide Portal that will facilitate access to tour guide information for the promotion of the tourism sector in Tanzania. The study employed qualitative and quantitative methods and has found that User Generated Contents through learning library, discussion forums and reviewing and rating tour guides, can enhance the tour guide profession. In this work, we used agile methodology through extreme programming to develop a tour guide portal. Further, we used real participants to execute task scenarios in combination with think-aloud protocol and system usability scale to evaluate the usability of tour guide portal. This evaluation has found that the tour guide portal is usable and suitable for tour guide management in Tanzania. Additionally, this study employed a lean canvas to create a business model that will determine the operationalisation of tour guide portal in Tanzania. The findings of this study imply that tour guide portal is a massive step towards promoting the tour guide profession in Tanzania. It will avail the tour guide statistics to the government, assist tourism stakeholders locating the right tour guide for a particular activity and consequently enhance tourism in Tanzania.
Design of an automatic escaped animal detection and monitoring system: a case study of Volcanoes National Park (VNP)
(NM-AIST, 2022-07) Zirakwiye, Innocent
The results have been shown that the people especially farmers living at the edge of Volcanoes National Park (VNP) practiced agricultural business due to the fertile soil found in the region. The rising number of agronomies in the zone, number of tourists, and illegal forest users such as poaching, and deforestation cause wild animals to get out of their habitats. Therefore, their crops are raided by forest animals which present a likely risk to damage crops whenever they get out of the forest. The current systems such as “Buffer Wall also known as wall of stones” was manually operated; electric fence systems resulted in death and pain to wild animals. Due to the development of automatic systems for detecting and monitoring all moving wild animals and intruders, it was stated that using automation at Buffer wall could be helpful for both wild animals and farmers keep safe. Security is an importance in the VNP whereby detection and monitoring wildlife would determine the needs by park officials. The objectives of developing an Automatic Escaped Animal Detection and Monitoring System were to reduce the probability of crop raids, death and injuries between wild animals and farmers, warning the wild animals through the use of buzzer, speaker with a recorder voice of lion and block of LEDs to remain in their habitats and the notifications sent to the park officials related to the forest animals getting out of the forest. Since wild animals and intruders found in buffer zone targeting to pass by the buffer wall for crop raiding and poaching activities; this system should primarily use sensing devices to detect and monitor their presence. On the other hand, for buffer wall security, warning equipment’s such as block of LEDs, Buzzer, SIREN Alarm and speaker should all together be activated. Whenever wild animals and trespassers would search to pass by another part would be activated the same way as the previous. The specialty of this technological system developed was to automate manual and improve the current systems by using Arduino NANO Microcontroller to execute system’s operations, GPS NEO 6M for locating moving wild animal, Ultrasonic sensor for detecting wildlife and calculating its speed, PIR sensor to detect intruders, GSM SIM900 to notify park rangers, reduction of crop raiding, and finally reducing death and pain of wild animals caused by current systems.
Developing a cost-effective computing model for optimal diets for people living with HIV
(NM-AIST, 2016-04) Kowa, Yasin
People living with HIV (PLWHIV) without proper treatment are vulnerable to many kinds of opportunistic infections due to their weaker immune systems than healthy people. Poor nutrition intensifies the progression of HIV into AIDS by further compromising the immune system. Therefore, achieving basic nutritional recommendations is important at all stages of the disease. However, economic limitation (poverty) and lack of knowledge to find adequate amounts with right combinations of different locally available foods hinders them to meet the recommended daily nutrients requirements, leading them to become weak in a very short time and even experience early mortality. In this research, I developed a mathematical model and extended it to a MATLAB based graphical user interface (GUI) that could be used as a computation tool to compute adequate amounts of available foods to achieve the recommended nutrients at a minimum cost compared to an alternative. The mathematical model is the combination of multiple linear regression models and a linear programming model. Multiple linear regression models use the factors of age, weight, height, and gender to predict the nutritional requirements in the body. The results from the multiple linear regression model were used to define the constraints in the linear programming model. The linear programming model was used to compute the adequate amounts of foods that would lead to the achievement of the recommended nutrients taking into consideration practical biological/physical and economic constraints. The Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed by the Graphical User Interface Development Environment (GUIDE) method in MATLAB. With the incorporated mathematical models it could be used to compute the adequate amount of foods. The GUI has five parts: the first part contains list of foods the user needs to select, the second part is to enter user’s particulars of age, weight, height and gender. The third part is to enter the cost of each selected foods. The fourth part is the computation part, which will initiate the computation. There is a status box, which shows whether the food combinations and financial constraints produce an optimal or non-optimal output and a reset button to enable clearance of previous computations and allowance of new data entrances. The last part is the output section which displays the amounts of foods to be bought and the total cost to be incurred when the computation is optimal. Results show that the multiple linear regression model has high predictive power by suggesting values that are close to the recommended daily/dietary intake (RDI). This was validated by testing the mean difference between paired samples using a t-test. By this analysis we found that there was no statistical ii difference between the means as the p  values were greater than the significance level of 0.05. The cost for optimal diets was less when model predicted values are used to limits the constraints in linear programming compared to when RDI values are used. The GUI developed could serve as the computation tool to compute adequate amount of foods to meet the recommended nutrients at minimum costs.
Developing a stochastic model for studying and simulating sediment transport in ports and harbors
(NM-AIST, 2020-03) Msamba, Oscar Menrad
A particle model for describing and predicting sediment transport in shallow water is developed with the use of random walk models by showing consistency between the Fokker-Plank equation and the Advection diffusion equations. In the model, erosion and deposition processes are developed probabilistically where by the erosion term is considered to be a constant and deposition term is taken as a function by relating sediment settling velocity and diffusion coefﬁcient. The model was simulated by considering three environment tests. In each environment test, the simulations show the distribution of each particle at any given time t. They also show the particles that will ﬁnally remain in suspension state and the particles that will be deposited during the transport process following the deployment of 10 000 particles. It was established that there is uniform distribution of particles in test environment I and III and a linear dependence between the number of particles in different grid cell and the water depth in test environment II.
Development of a fast and accurate method for the segmentation of diabetic foot ulcer images
(NM-AIST, 2020-06) Mwawado, Rehema H.
Globally, Diabetic Foot Ulcers (DFUs) are among the major sources of morbidity and death among people diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetic foot ulcers are the leading diabetes-related complications that result in non-traumatic lower-limb amputations among these patients. Being a serious health concern, DFUs present a significant therapeutic challenge to specialists, particularly in countries with limited health resources and where the vast majority of patients are admitted to healthcare facilities when the ulcers have fully advanced. Clinical practices currently employed to assess and treat DFU are mostly based on the vigilance of both the patient and clinician. These practices have been proved to experience major limitations which include less accurate assessment methods, time-consuming diagnostic procedures, and relatively high treatment costs. Digital image processing is thus a potential solution to address issues of the inaccuracy of visual assessment as well as minimizing consecutive patient visits to the clinics. Image processing techniques for ulcer assessment have thus been a center of study in various works of literature. In the available works of literature, these methods include measuring the ulcer area as well as using a medical digital photography scheme. The most notable drawbacks of such approaches include system complexity, complex-exhaustive training phases, and high computational cost. Inspired by the weaknesses of the existing techniques, this study proposes a segmentation method that incorporates a hybrid diffusion-steered functional derived from the Total variation and the Perona-Malik diffusivities, which have been reported that they can effectively capture semantic features in images. Empirical results from the experiments that were carried out in the MATLAB environment show that the proposed method generates clearer segmented outputs with higher perceptual and objective qualities. More importantly, the proposed method offers lower computational times—an advantage that gives more insights into the possible application of the method in time-sensitive tasks.
Development of a mobile application system for raha beverages company limited management communication at different levels
(NM-AIST, 2021-08) Daudi, Ngollo
The existing forms of communication at Raha Beverages Company Ltd are not effective enough hence bringing about the demand for an effective communication system in the company. The Raha Application is a system that supports internal communication across all levels of the company. As the company expands through the means of strategic planning in a certain time frame, these transitions bring about change in the company structure as well as processes ranging from production, transportation, the workforce to communication which runs in parallel. Forms and methods of data collection described involved were interviews, observations, document analysis, joint application design, brainstorming and prototyping. Interview and observation were the main used forms. This system was implemented using agile software development, which defines software development from program specification, design, implementation, and testing which are interleaved that support frequent delivery of new versions for evaluation. The mobile application is designed for internal communications at different levels among employees. Each employee will have to be given initial login credentials to enable first-time login but will be recommended to change the credentials once logged in according to their preferences. The mobile application system developed was tested and evaluated to assess its usability for effective communication. The system provided benefits like better management control, better decision making, improved efficiency in communication, a faster way of reporting, easy access and availability of information. Therefore, this study presents a mobile application system solution that will support sustainability in communication throughout the entire company for effective company communication
Development of a mobile application system for road accidents reporting and driver’s over-speeding behavior awareness in Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2020-06) Mrema, Ikunda Jackson
Road traffic accidents account as one of the major causes of injuries and loss of human lives. Various studies have shown that the implementation of road accident reporting systems can reduce road accidents injuries and deaths through time minimization in assisting the victims and also in the mapping of road accident-prone areas. This study reviewed several in-vehicle and smartphone sensor-based systems for road accident reporting and driver’s behavior awareness. Questionnaires, interviews, observations, document reviews were used to collect data from road users and traffic police officers. The study developed a mobile application system using the evolutionary prototyping method, where users tested the system and their feedbacks were incorporated iteratively. Findings from the survey revealed that road traffic accidents are mostly reported through police emergency numbers which are sometimes unreliable and unavailable giving traffic police officers challenges in knowing the precise accident location. Since traffic police officers are the recognized first responders in Tanzania, road accident information delays may increase the time taken to help road accident victims. The developed mobile application system has the potential to provide an alternative tool for the reporting of road accidents and over-speeding drivers in addition to the existing methods. The system would serve as a source of road accidents data from road users. The mobile applicat ion also collects users’ smartphone sensors logs for the future development of automatic road accident reporting systems. The developed mobile application system was validated and accepted by the users who agreed on its usefulness in improving road safety.
Development of a web and mobile application for drug abuse information awareness
(NM-AIST, 2019-02) Mnunguli, Joyce Philipo
The harmful use of illicit drugs, “Drug Abuse”, is the most frequent problem in the world. The awareness creation of drug abuse information to the community reduces the usage of illegal drugs. The collection and management of addicts’ data, statistics about addicts, storage and accessibility of drug abuse information are conducted on paper-based approaches. This results in several problems such as loss of data, time consumption in data collection and delay in reporting. This study aimed to improve accessibility of drug abuse information through development of mobile application for addicts’ data collection and web application for accessibility of drug abuse information awareness and retrieval of treatment center reports. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews and observations. The study shows that there is limited information on drug abuse issues to the community. The developed mobile and web applications were evaluated and tested through field study to assess usability and effective of data entry. The applications improve accessibility of drug abuse information, addicts’ data collection and reporting, statistics on drug usage and number of addicts on treatment, storage of addicts’ information and improving awareness program conducted by the drug control commission. Thus, provides drug abuse information awareness to the community, policy makers and researchers. The viability of both developed mobile and web application is to minimize resources such as human effort, cost, and time consumption during data collection, as well as appropriate storage of addicts’ data. A case study of Dar es Salaam and Arusha regions in Tanzania.
Development of an early detection tool for banana diseases: A case of Mbeya and Arusha region
(NM-AIST, 2020-12) Sanga, Sophia
In Tanzania, smallholder farmers are mainly involved in farming activities which contribute significantly to food security and nutrition. Kagera, Mbeya and Arusha regions lead in high banana production, however, diseases and pests are threats to the yields. Early detection and identification of banana diseases is still a challenge for smallholder farmers and extension officers due to lack of the necessary tools such as sensors and mobile applications. In this research, an early detection tool for banana fungal diseases was developed. This research presents deep learning models trained for the detection of banana diseases of Fusarium wilt and Black sigatoka and deployed on a smartphone for the early detection of the diseases in real time. The five models selected and trained include VGG16, Resnet18, Resnet50, Resnet152 and InceptionV3. The VGG16 model achieved an accuracy of 97.26%, Resnet50 achieved an accuracy of 98.8%, Resnet18 achieved an accuracy of 98.4%, InceptionV3 achieved an accuracy of 95.41% and Resnet152 achieved an accuracy of 99.2%. We therefore, used InceptionV3 model for deployment in mobile phones because it has low computation cost and low memory requirements of the all models. The developed tool was capable of detecting diseases with 99% of confidence of the captured leaves from the real world environment. The system was developed on Android based application in English language. The developed tool has the potential to support smallholder farmers and extension officers to detect banana fungal disease at early stages. We conclude that early detection of the diseases is important. Hence control and management of banana fungal diseases will be done early for the improvement of banana yield.
Development of discharge letter module onto care2x hospital information system
(2019-01) Wambura, Wambura M.
The discharge letter (DL) is an important means to communicate the information of the patient's hospital visit, treatments and care plans to the next caregiver and, possibly also, to the patient. Timely, precise and comprehensive discharge information transfer between patients care providers is critical for ensuring patients safety and effective care. A growing number of hospitals are implementing an open source system, Care2x as hospital information system (HIS) in Tanzania. One of the weaknesses for Care2x is that it cannot generate an electronic discharge letter. The main objective of this study was to develop an electronic discharge letter module and integrate it onto Care2x HIS. Interviews were performed with nine (9) physicians from three (3) hospitals, who were users of Care2x system, with a qualitative structured questionnaire to get their views and opinions on the contents of the discharge letter and on the corresponding usability requirements for it. Thereafter, a literature review on the following terms; Hospital Discharge letter, Hospital Discharge Communication, Care2x was performed. The schema of the new Discharge Letter module for Care2x HIS was developed and added to the existing Care2x schema. The DL module was implemented and users‟ user experiences were collected on the use of the developed discharge letter. In this study, the users were very satisfied with the electronic discharge letter. The users saw that the discharge letter module solved many problems associated with handwritten letter in terms of timeliness of production, the correctness of information, content, and legibility in hospitals which use Care2x.
Development of electronic fiscal device stock tracking module to monitor tax evasion in Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2020-03) Shao, Paul E.
The Electronic Fiscal Device (EFD) Machines have been operating in Tanzania since the year 2010 for the purpose of helping the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) to increase revenues from tax collection. Regardless of years of its existence, there are still reported cases of tax evasion and this study was conducted to review the current tax collection system and analyze requirements for the development of Stock Tracking Module (STM) to be embedded in the current tax collection system. Data collection was done in Kilimanjaro and Arusha the two regions of Tanzania involving tax officers and Information Technology (IT) personnel from TRA regional offices. This study opted pharmaceutical business as case study due to its sensitivity to human health and the fact that, its regulatory authority’s database can be linked with the developed system to track expired and fake drugs in the market. Data collection process involved quantitative and qualitative methods to gather information for the development of the system’s Stock Tracking Module (STM) such as interview, questionnaire, role-playing and observation. The study earmarked some problems relating to Electronic Fiscal Device Machine Management System (EFDMS) and EFD machine. The major problems encountered by TRA are; under declaration of sales by traders, non-usage of EFD machines, usage of fake EFD, overestimate of expenses, division of business and conducting business in unknown areas. The main outcomes of the study: The efficiency of the EFDMS was at average, thus, needed some improvements. Therefore, this study developed an enhanced EFD system by introducing stock tracking capabilities to monitor traders’ actions that translate to tax evasion in such ways as; underpricing of sales value, avoid using the EFD machine and use of fake EFD system which consequently increase government revenues.
Development of horticulture extension support system for the small holder farmers: A case of Tanzania
(NM-AIST, 2019-02) Maginga, Theofrida Julius
Horticulture as part of agricultural sector plays the role for food security, economic growth and nutrition improvement in developing countries. It draws attention for most governments as the main source of employment. Following the governments’ recognition of agricultural extension as key facilitator for achieving high crop productivity and an enabler to knowledge resources, number of extension officers have been recruited to help farmers. However, these extension officers cannot reach every farmer due to lack of enough resources and cultural barriers. Consequently, uniform availability of clear information for vegetable cultivations, on crop requirements, climatic information, pests and diseases is a challenge. Meanwhile, there are number of extension support systems that do not meet all the requirements. On this study, a survey that included 145 small holder farmers and 30 agronomists from three regions located in three main horticultural zones in Tanzania was conducted. The data collected through questionnaires and interviews. The findings depicted that a significant number of farmers are not so familiar with ICT enabled horticulture extension support systems. The analysis results also indicated few technological systems that do not yet serve all the farmers. Therefore, in this study an ICT-enabled horticulture extension support system has been developed to help farmers make proper decisions on vegetable cropping systems. The application provides information such as best sowing period of the crop based on weather data in a particular location, crop harvest day, crop requirements, crop pests and disease. Accessibility of this information will help to improve vegetable crop productivity.
Development of indoor industrial environment monitoring system based on wireless sensor networks for a digital assembly plant
(NM-AIST, 2021-06) Rotich, Philemon
The existing systems normally used to monitor the industrial environmental condition in factories in Kenya are mostly wired systems and more expensive. Despite the benefits of tools and emerging technology, most companies do not use automated systems due to the high installation and maintenance costs and a lack of formal early-warning mechanism. This research project intends to provide information using wireless sensor technology, which comprises of sensors, Zigbee, raspberry pi, Arduino Uno, and wireless sensor network (WSN). The system is developed using open-source hardware raspberry pi and Zigbee which proves to be cost-effective and has low power consumption. The sensors will collect the data of various environmental parameters and transmit it to the raspberry pi, which acts as a base station. The raspberry pi will then transmit the data using Zigbee, and the processed data displayed on GUI through the Zigbee on the receiver end. The database was developed using MYSQL DB and the web application written in the PHP programming language. In addidtion, the system is integrated with Zigbee technology to send SMS and e-mail notifications to the respective registered users. The developed system was tested at different plant areas to detect the concentration of Carbon monoxide, temperature, humidity, and dust in the factory. The result shows that the system responds positively when these parameters were detected and sends notification alerts via e-mail and SMS. Finally, the data collected can be used for further data analysis and research in the future.
Development of industrial IoT based monitoring and control system for radio broadcasting network in Tanzania: a case of Tanzania broadcasting corporation
(NM-AIST, 2022-07) Msimbe, Hamisi
The radio towers must be constructed in sharp elevations or mountains to ensure the maximum radio wave propagation and long-distance coverage of the radio station programs. Due to the sharp elevation positioning of radio towers, the tower operators or technicians are required to climb up every day to be able to take readings of the equipment. Strenuous and daily effort is needed to access these sharp locations either on foot or by car. A need to develop and implement a system that will monitor and send earlier notifications information on the status of the transmitter to the responsible tower operators. Therefore, this project aims to develop an IIoT based monitoring and control system for terrestrial broadcasting networks with outdated technology of Fm transmitter equipment which isstill used in Tanzania. As a result, the solution will effectively and timely assist tower operators to monitor, collecting information understanding and the existing problems that are happening at the radio towers without physically climbing to the radio towers. In addition, the system is cost-effective and collect information in real-time based as it is integrated with a mobile application in a smart device that is linked to the embedded system which is installed in a specific tower to monitor parameters such as forward power, reflected power, electrical units, fuel level, temperature, humidity, and smoke. This study has used a mixed-design approach of quantitative and qualitative methods using focus group discussions with 20 stakeholders to evaluate the developed system. The result of the evaluation shows that 90% of the respondents agreed that the developed system is robust and appropriate to manage the existing challenges at the radio towers.The radio towers must be constructed in sharp elevations or mountains to ensure the maximum radio wave propagation and long-distance coverage of the radio station programs. Due to the sharp elevation positioning of radio towers, the tower operators or technicians are required to climb up every day to be able to take readings of the equipment. Strenuous and daily effort is needed to access these sharp locations either on foot or by car. A need to develop and implement a system that will monitor and send earlier notifications information on the status of the transmitter to the responsible tower operators. Therefore, this project aims to develop an IIoT based monitoring and control system for terrestrial broadcasting networks with outdated technology of Fm transmitter equipment which isstill used in Tanzania. As a result, the solution will effectively and timely assist tower operators to monitor, collecting information understanding and the existing problems that are happening at the radio towers without physically climbing to the radio towers. In addition, the system is cost-effective and collect information in real-time based as it is integrated with a mobile application in a smart device that is linked to the embedded system which is installed in a specific tower to monitor parameters such as forward power, reflected power, electrical units, fuel level, temperature, humidity, and smoke. This study has used a mixed-design approach of quantitative and qualitative methods using focus group discussions with 20 stakeholders to evaluate the developed system. The result of the evaluation shows that 90% of the respondents agreed that the developed system is robust and appropriate to manage the existing challenges at the radio towers.

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