Characterization of Small-Scale Farmers and Assessment of Their Access to Crop Production Information in Selected Counties of Kenya

Small-scale farming accounts for 78% of total agricultural production in Kenya and contributes to 23.5% of the country’s GDP. Their crop production activities are mostly rainfed subsistence with any surplus being sold to bring in some income. Timely decisions on farm practices such as farm preparation and planting are critical determinants of the seasonal outcomes. In Kenya, most small-scale farmers have no reliable source of information that would help them make timely and accurate decisions. County governments have extension officers who are mandated with giving farmers advisory services to farmers but they are not able to reach most farmers due to facilitation constraints. The mode and format of sharing information is also critical since it’s important to ensure that it’s timely, well-understood and usable. This study sought to assess access to geospatial derived and other crop production information by farmers in four selected counties of Kenya. Specific objectives were to determine the profile of small-scale farmers in terms of age, education and farm size;to determine the type of information that is made available to them by County and Sub-County extension officers including the format and mode of provision;and to determine if the information provided was useful in terms of accuracy, timeliness and adequacy. The results indicated that over 80% of the farmers were over 35 years of age and over 56% were male. Majority had attained primary education (34%) or secondary education (29%) and most farmers in all the counties grew maize (71%). Notably, fellow farmers were a source of information (71%) with the frequency of sharing information being mostly seasonal (37%) and when information was available (43%). Over 66% of interviewed farmers indicating that they faced challenges while using provided information. The results from the study are insightful and helpful in determining effective ways of providing farmers with useful information to ensure maximum benefits.

IAM Excellence: Exploring Saviynt’s Role in Modern Information Technology

Organizations may increase data security and operational efficiency by connecting Salesforce with Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems like Saviynt. This study delves deeply into the details of this revolution that is being encouraged to shift towards IAM software and potential drawbacks such as excessive provisioning and implementation issues. The study illuminated excellent practices and emphasized the importance of constant monitoring by using secondary theme analysis and qualitative research as proof. The findings indicate Saviynt as a viable solution and provide detailed information for firms seeking a smooth and secure integration path.

Challenges and New Directions of Information Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities in China: From the Perspective of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Accessibility is the basis and prerequisite for persons with disabilities to enjoy and exercise all human rights and fundamental freedoms With the rapid development of the internet, providing and promoting information accessibility is considered an important obligation for the State In the process of transforming international human rights law into domestic law, how to deal with the human rights protection of persons with disabilities and the obligations of the private sector to ensure persons with disabilities receive services and products that meet the requirements and principles of information accessibility has become a development issue in the new era Against the backdrop of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in the context of the booming development of the cause of persons with disabilities in China, legal scholars, persons with disabilities, and organizations have jointly proposed the Beijing Initiative on the Principles of Information Accessibility for Science and Technology Products It clarifies that the private sector should embrace the human rights model advocated by the Convention in terms of information accessibility, and provide equal participation for persons with disabilities in the process of designing, producing and selling scientific and technological products The Initiative also states that the private sector should keep pace with the United Nation’s sustainable development goals and the basic national policy of building a well-to-do society in an all round way, ensuring persons with disabilities are included within a moderately well-off society It also provides civil opinions on the formulation and clarification of relevant laws in the future.

Men with prostate cancer and the accessibility to information—a literature review

Objective: To explore possible consequences of short stays in hospitals, as these short contacts reduce the patients’ time for information and support. Method: A literature survey was carried out to get an insight in possible consequences by summarizing the state of knowledge on how men with prostate cancer undergoing prostatec-tomy surgery experience their contacts with the healthcare professionals. Results: A consequence is that often men with prostate cancer, treated with prostatectomy surgery, do not receive the individualized support, infor-mation, and dialogue they need, which leads to feelings of uncertainty, insecurity, and loss of control. The men use the Internet in their search for information and support, which makes them able to stay in control and be active, responsible partners in their own course of treatment. Conclusion: For men to feel secure and certain the accessibility of the healthcare professionals and the healthcare professionals’ ability to individualize information and support are important aspects. Practice Implications: It is relevant to provide male cancer patients with tools that can underpin their contact to the healthcare professionals. Utilizing Web 2.0 technologies, Internet based tools can support exchange-ability, towards dialogue-based contacts, between men with prostate cancer and healthcare professionals.

Spatial Accessibility of Emergency Facilities to Road Accident Victims in Federal Capital City

This paper studied the spatial accessibility of emergency facilities to road accident victims in Federal Capital City to determine the sufficiency of existing emergency health care facilities and rescue facilities in servicing accident victims. This is useful for developing means of saving the lives of accident victims in the Federal Fapital City (FCC). The data used comprised of Nigerian Sat II 2013 multispectral imagery (5 m multispectral and 2.5 m Panchromatic) of FCC obtained from the National Space Research and Development Agency (NARSDA), coordinates of seventy (70) accident black spots, five (5) zebra points and sixteen (16) emergency health care facilities obtained from Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC). ArcGIS 10.0 software was used to display, visualize, identify and extract features from the imagery, and create maps from different layers of the spatial data, choose colors and symbols, create buffer zones, analyze spatial relationships, and design map layouts. Purposeful sampling method was adopted to administer 99 questionnaires to accident victims in the hospitals within the FCC. The spatial data were used to determine the time of rescue, type of rescue and coverage time of rescue operation. The statistical data were used to assess the spatio-temporal distribution of accidents and determine the level of response by the rescue teams. The results show that accident victims have adequate access to health facilities but inadequate access to zebra points, and passers-by have more effective accident response than the government action agencies. Specific points for the creation of additional zebra points were identified through buffering, and the creation of sustainable Good Samaritan programs and training for community persons in first aid were suggested. Meanwhile, further research to determine the impact of time of rescue, type of rescue and category of hospital on the accident victims was suggested.

Enriching online access to health information for the public: Efforts from a medical library in China

Purpose: Disseminating medical and health information is a mission of a public medical library. This paper describes a practice of a medical library in providing online access to health information for the general public.Design/methodology/approach: A four-step workflow is developed to integrate and disseminate heterogeneous health information from medical associations. First, a raw data repository is developed to manage the original submissions from information providers.Second, each document in the raw data repository is represented in a standardized XML schema. Third, the medical terms are identified and manually annotated, enriching the semantics of health information. Lastly, all the semantically enriched XML documents are converted to HTMLs for online dissemination.Findings: A health information website, CHealth, was developed for Chinese speakers. It provides free online access for all without any login or IP constrains. CHealth is available at www.chealth.org.cn.Research limitations: The current workflow is time-consuming and labor-intensive due to the lack of information submission/exchange standard and commonly agreed-on consumer health terminology in Chinese.Originality/value: In this work, the target audience of the medical library has been extended from traditional academic/professional to the general public. Methodologies in library sciences have been combined with those in consumer health informatics in CHealth development.

Constraints of Women Farmer’s Access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for Agricultural Information in Oyo State, Nigeria

The study investigated constraints of women farmers access to ICTs for agricultural information in Oyo State.A total of 120 respondents were sampled.Data were retrieved using interview schedule and were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.Statistics reveal respondents average age,average household size and average monthly income as x=45.8,x=10.6 and x=₦7,800.34 respectively,majority(86.7%)were married,58.3%representing respondents with primary education.Mobile phone(x=0.98)was the most available among the respondents while poor ICTs infrastructure(x=1.55)and difficulty in the utilization of ICTs gadgets(x=1.62)ranked highest as constraints access to ICTs for agricultural information.Significant relationship existed between respondents average monthly income(r=0.492,p=0.000),educational level(χ^(2)=4.726,p=0.021)and the constraints access to ICTs for agricultural information.Scaling up the ICTs infrastructure base around farming clusters and capacity building like training on ICTs to access agricultural information retrieval is advocated for women farmers.

Information Commons的理性审视

文摘Information Commons(信息共享中心)是20世纪90年代后期兴起的一种新型图书馆服务模式。本文论述了IC兴起的背景,分析了其构成和服务模式;并从信息服务模式演变、图书馆功能发挥、信息共有理念等角度对其进行审视,揭示了IC“空间共用、资源共用”、“用户交流互动”、“维护信息共有”等核心理念。

Integration of Location-Allocation and Accessibility Models in GIS to Improve Urban Planning for Health Services in Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah, Saudi Arabia

In this study, accessibility and location-allocation models have been integrated into GIS to improve spatial planning and environmental sustainability of health services in Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah. This integration provides a planning framework in order to check the efficiency of the spatial allocation of health services and to generate alternatives either by proposing an active service or to improve an existing one. To achieve these objectives, the accessibility to the service area was analyzed within the analysis of health services networks, which are divided into eight types: public hospitals, specialized hospitals, health units, healthcare centers, infirmaries, clinic complexes, the Red Crescent Center, and ambulance facilities, with time intervals of (5 minutes - 10 minutes - 15 minutes) to access coverage ranges, and the location-allocation model was used based on the maximum coverage model within a response time not exceeding 15 minutes, The results of the study revealed the poor distribution of health services Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah suffers from weak accessibility to health services coverage areas and is unable to meet the needs of its population at present. The current need for health services reached twenty-four locations, including two public hospitals, three specialized hospitals, two health centers, three ambulance facilities, four infirmaries, three clinic complexes, four health units, and three Red Crescent centers.

Information seeking and anxiety among colonoscopy-na?ve adults: direct-to-colonoscopy vs traditional consult-first pathways

AIM To investigate the effects of direct to colonoscopy pathways on information seeking behaviors and anxiety among colonoscopy-na?ve patients.METHODS Colonoscopy-na?ve patients at two tertiary care hospitals completed a survey immediately prior to their scheduled outpatient procedure and before receiving sedation.Survey items included clinical pathway(direct or consult),procedure indication(cancer screening or symptom investigation),telephone and written contact from the physician endoscopist office,information sources,and pre-procedure anxiety.Participants reported pre-procedure anxiety using a 10 point scale anchored by "very relaxed"(1) and "very nervous"(10).At least three months following the procedure,patient medical records were reviewed to determine sedative dose,procedure indications and any adverse events.The primary comparison was between the direct and consult pathways.Given the very different implications,a secondary analysis considering the patient-reported indication for the procedure(symptoms or screening).Effects of pathway(direct vs consult) were compared both within and between the screening and symptom subgroups.RESULTS Of 409 patients who completed the survey,34% followed a direct pathway.Indications for colonoscopy were similar in each group.The majority of the participants were women(58%),married(61%),and internet users(81%).The most important information source was family physicians(Direct) and specialist physicians(Consult).Use of other information sources,including the internet(20% vs 18%) and Direct family and friends(64% vs 53%),was similar in the Direct and Consult groups,respectively.Only 31% of the 81% who were internet users accessed internet health information.Most sought fundamental information such as what a colonoscopy is or why it is done.Pre-procedure anxiety did not differ between care pathways.Those undergoing colonoscopy for symptoms reported greater anxiety [mean 5.3,95%CI: 5.0-5.7(10 point Likert scale)] than those for screening colonoscopy(4.3,95%CI: 3.9-4.7).CONCLUSION Procedure indication(cancer screening or symptom investigation) was more closely associated with information seeking behaviors and pre-procedure anxiety than care pathway.

Outage Performance and Optimal Design of MIMO-NOMA Enhanced Small Cell Networks with Imperfect Channel-State Information

This paper focuses on boosting the performance of small cell networks(SCNs)by integrating multiple-input multiple-output(MIMO)and nonorthogonal multiple access(NOMA)in consideration of imperfect channel-state information(CSI).The estimation error and the spatial randomness of base stations(BSs)are characterized by using Kronecker model and Poisson point process(PPP),respectively.The outage probabilities of MIMO-NOMA enhanced SCNs are first derived in closed-form by taking into account two grouping policies,including random grouping and distance-based grouping.It is revealed that the average outage probabilities are irrelevant to the intensity of BSs in the interference-limited regime,while the outage performance deteriorates if the intensity is sufficiently low.Besides,as the channel uncertainty lessens,the asymptotic analyses manifest that the target rates must be restricted up to a bound to achieve an arbitrarily low outage probability in the absence of the inter-cell interference.Moreover,highly correlated estimation error ameliorates the outage performance under a low quality of CSI,otherwise it behaves oppositely.Afterwards,the goodput is maximized by choosing appropriate precoding matrix,receiver filters and transmission rates.In the end,the numerical results verify our analysis and corroborate the superiority of our proposed algorithm.

Decentralized Mobile SNS Architecture and Its Personal Information Management Mechanism

Mobile SNS is one of the most popular topics of mobile Internet.In order to fulfill the user demand for self-maintained independent social network and ensure the privacy of their personal information and resources,the paper proposes system architecture of decentralized mobile SNS.In the temporary scenarios,the system makes use of the existent specification of FOAF(Friendof-a-Friend) to describe users' personal information and act as a certificate to be identified by SNS sites.Ticket-based Access Authorization System(TAAS) is provided to grant permission to acquire resources on personal portal.Meanwhile,the mechanism and algorithm are devised for user profile complete deletion when users are going to quit the service for the temporary scenarios.

An Information Theory Approach to the Data Compression and Imaging System for Synthetic Aperture Radar （SAR）

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is portrayed as a multiple access channel. An information theory approach is applied to the SAR imaging system, and the information content about a target that can be extracted from its radar image is evaluated by the average mutual information measure. A conditional (transition) probability density function (PDF) of the SAR imaging system is derived by analyzing the system and a closed form of the information content is found. It is shown that the information content obtained by the SAR imaging system from an independent sample of echoes will decrease and the total information content obtained by the SAR imaging system will increase with an increase in the number of looks. Because the total average mutual information is also used to define a measure of radiometric resolution for radar images, it is shown that the radiometric resolution of a radar image of terrain will be improved by spatial averaging. In addition, the imaging process and the data compression process for SAR are each treated as an independent generalized communication channel. The effects of data compression upon radiometric resolution for SAR are studied and some conclusions are obtained.

Network coding with diversity and outdated channel state information

Physical-layer network coding （PNC） has the potential to significantly improve the throughput of wireless networks where the channels can be modeled as additive white Gaussian noise （AWGN） channel. As extending to mul- tiple channels, this technique requires both amplitude and phase compensation at each transmitter and will lead to inef- ficient systems yielding no diversity even with perfect channel state information （CSI）. In order to avoid these limita- tions, we apply network coding with diversity （NCD） to achieve a form of selection diversity and extend NCD to coop- erative multiple access channels in this paper. However, in practical wireless communication systems, the CSI could become outdated due to the difference between the CSI used in the relay selection and data transmission phases. Hence, the selected relay may not be the best one during data transmission phase due to the dynamic change in the wireless channels. Therefore, we first explore the relation between the present and past CSIs. Exploiting this relationship, the NCD scheme with outdated CSI is investigated based on the past CSI. To evaluate the performance of this scheme, an information-theoretic metric, namely the outage capacity, is studied under this condition.

A joint optimization scheme of resource allocation in downlink NOMA with statistical channel state information

In a real communication scenario,it is very difficult to obtain the real-time channel state infor-mation(CSI)accurately,so the non-orthogonal multiple access(NOMA)system with statistical CSI has been researched.Aiming at the problem that the maximization of system sum rate cannot be solved directly,a step-by-step resource allocation optimization scheme based on machine learning is proposed.First,in order to achieve a trade-off between the system sum rate and user fairness,the system throughput formula is derived.Then,according to the combinatorial characteristics of the system throughput maximization problem,the original optimization problem is divided into two sub-problems,that are power allocation and user grouping.Finally,genetic algorithm is introduced to solve the sub-problem of power allocation,and hungarian algorithm is introduced to solve the sub-problem of user grouping.By comparing the ergodic data rate of NOMA users with statistical CSI and perfect CSI,the effectiveness of the statistical CSI sorting is verified.Compared with the orthogonal multiple access(OMA)scheme,the NOMA scheme with the fixed user grouping scheme and the random user grouping scheme,the system throughput performance of the proposed scheme is signifi-cantly improved.

A Study on the Difference of Information Acquisition Ability among Students in Higher Vocational Colleges

The explosive growth of all kinds of online information brought by mobile Internet has brought challenges to the information acquisition ability of students in higher education institutions. In order to explore the differences, influencing factors and ways to improve the information acquisition of college students in higher education institutions, 306 questionnaires from students in five higher vocational colleges were collected and analyzed. It was found that there was no significant difference in the information acquisition ability of students by gender. However, the majors of higher vocational college students have a significant impact on their information acquisition ability. It was suggested to taking comprehensive measures to improve the information acquisition ability of students in higher vocational colleges according to their characteristics.

Integrating Universal Design Standards and Building Information Modeling at the Conceptual Design Stage of Buildings

A projection of the Canadian population shows that in 2024 one in five Canadians will be over 65 years old. This shift forces designers to consider the entire lifetime of occupants during the design of new buildings. Universal Design (UD), which is a design that accommodates all people to the greatest extent possible and aging in place design that is deeply rooted in the principles of UD, aim to house people irrespective of their age, ability, and chronic health conditions. Building Information Modeling (BIM) significantly helps advance the development of the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry in a more collaborative and automated way. Integrating BIM and UD allows designers to incorporate UD standards easily and efficiently at the conceptual design stage of buildings by using the functionalities and capabilities of BIM tools. Therefore, this study presents the development of an automated computer model to facilitate the adoption of UD standards and processes. The novelty highlighted in this model resides in the creation of an automated method that employs a newly created plug-in and databases to assist designers to incorporate UD standards at the conceptual stage in a timely and cost-effective manner. Furthermore, the study introduces the methodology consisting of collecting, categorizing, and storing data from various universal design and accessible design guidelines in the developed databases and developing new plug-ins in BIM tool to link the developed databases in order to automate the process of retrieving necessary information and components to help designers and owners select optimal design alternatives based on their predefined criteria.

Method to Evaluate the Location of Aged Care Facilitiesin Urban Areas Focusing on the Equity in Terms ofUsers’Accessibility

The present study developed and tested a method to evaluate the location of aged care facilities from the viewpoint of whether they are equitably located for users,using the improved Median Share Ratio(MSR).By evaluating the current location of aged care facilities,it is possible to extract the districts which are short of facilities.The evaluation method was applied to Chofu and Kiyose Cities in Tokyo Metropolis,Japan,and the evaluation result of weighting and that of not weighting by elderly population were compared and discussed.Consequently,adopting the evaluation method with weighting by elderly population,it is possible to adequately examine the districts where new aged care facilities should be constructed.From this evidence,it is significant to evaluate the location of aged care facilities,using the improved MSR with weighting by elderly population in the study.