Effectiveness of Short Message Service Support on Adherence to Chemotherapy Treatment among Patients Attending Cancer Treatment Facilities in Kenya

Introduction: Cancer is a chronic debilitating disease that unnerves patients, communities, and nations. At some point in cancer patient’s disease experience, chemotherapy is used, and the patient is expected to adhere to treatment to improve survival and quality of life. Methods: This multisite Cluster Randomized Trial (CRT) evaluated the effectiveness of mobile phone Short Message Service (SMS) support on the adherence to treatment schedules among adult cancer patients in Kenya. Data was collected using questionnaires. Ethical approvals were obtained from relevant Ethical Review Boards (ERBs). Results: The mean adherence was 83%. There was a significant difference between treatment arms in relation to the adherence. The intervention arm had a higher mean adherence difference, M = 3.913, 95% CI 2.632-5.193, t (402) = 6.006, p ≤ 0.001), with Cohen’s d = 0.60. Although not significant, (χ2dd = 0.151, df = 1, p = 2.064), more women were perfect adheres than males. Perfect adherers were satisfied with SMS support (χ2dd = 7.620, df = 1, p = 0.06), were in the intervention arm (χ2dd = 22.942, df = 1, p ≤ 0.001), and had trust in the care provider (χ2dd = 10.591 p ≤ 0.001). SMS support was not significant in the multivariate analysis but had an estimated effect size of 0.958 (z = 1.424, p = 0.154, CI = 0.242-3.781), indicating that mean adherence was slightly better in the presence of the intervention. Conclusions: SMS-support intervention has demonstrated superiority in influencing adherence. Further, health system-related factors have a significant influence on the adherence to chemotherapy treatment. Interventions to re-design health systems that are responsive to unmet care needs of cancer patients must be explored. .

A New Service Based on CDMA Short Message System-Roaming Advertisement

Through the comparison of the features of GSM and CDMA shortmessage services,the paper shows that the CDMA short messagecenter has stronger service capability and provides more value-added services.

Design and Development an Interactive On-the-Job Training Monitoring and Help Desk System with SMS for College of Information and Communication Technology

This study aimed to develop An Interactive On-the-Job Training Monitoring and Help Desk System with SMS for the College of Information and Communication Technology Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology. The system made the OJT course procedure trouble-free by emerging a system accessible through the internet. Students have a user account, which gives them the aptitude to upload document files of their reports, thereby minimizing the time and energy spent traveling from the company’s location to the university and the other way around. Similarly, the OJT coordinators of the college are given their accounts to access and check the reports submitted by the students. The system is capable of generating reports and requirements in real-time, as long as all data is stored within the database and, therefore, the process is completed online. In addition, the system provides an interactive website that might help both students and coordinators to communicate instantaneously by having an online help desk where the students can ask related questions on their OJT course that the OJT coordinator and other students will answer. The coordinators can send a brief message service to the students enrolled within the OJT course through the utilization of the proposed system - this can be for the students who aren’t capable of opening their account more often, in order that they are still informed of the announcements they need to understand immediately. The interactive OJT help desk system with SMS can be used as a tool to help the students of the College of Information and Communication Technology (CICT) and the OJT coordinators in their tasks more conveniently.

Factors associated with mobile phone ownership and potential use for rabies vaccination campaigns in southern Malawi

Background:Rabies is a fatal but preventable viral disease,which causes an estimated 59000 human deaths globally every year.The vast majority of human rabies cases are attributable to bites from infected domestic dogs and consequently control of rabies in the dog population through mass vaccination campaigns is considered the most effective method of eliminating the disease.Achieving the WHO target of 70%vaccination coverage has proven challenging in low-resource settings such as Sub Saharan Africa,and lack of public awareness about rabies vaccination campaigns is a major barrier to their success.In this study we surveyed communities in three districts in Southern Malawi to assess the extent of and socio-economic factors associated with mobile phone ownership and explore the attitudes of communities towards the use of short message service(SMS)to inform them of upcoming rabies vaccination clinics.Methods:This study was carried out between 1 October–3 December 2018 during the post-vaccination assessment of the annual dog rabies campaign in Blantyre,Zomba and Chiradzulu districts,Malawi.1882 questionnaires were administered to households in 90 vaccination zones.The surveys gathered data on mobile phone ownership and use,and barriers to mobile phone access.A multivariable regression model was used to understand factors related to mobile phone ownership.Results:Most survey respondents owned or had use of a mobile phone,however there was evidence of an inequality of access,with higher education level,living in Blantyre district and being male positively associated with mobile phone ownership.The principal barrier to mobile phone ownership was the cost of the phone itself.Basic feature phones were most common and few owned smartphones.SMS was commonly used and the main reason for not using SMS was illiteracy.Attitudes to receiving SMS reminders about future rabies vaccination campaigns were positive.Conclusions:The study showed a majority of those surveyed have the use of a mobile phone and most mobile phone owners indicated they would like to receive SMS messages about future rabies vaccination campaigns.This study provides insight into the feasibility of distributing information about rabies vaccination campaigns using mobile phones in Malawi.

SMS Encryption and Decryption Using Modified Vigenere Cipher Algorithm

Despite many online messaging services,short message service(SMS)is still used because of its simplicity.However,such services can be easily cracked,making SMS more vulnerable to send confidential information.Therefore,appropriate cryptographic algorithms must be applied to ensure security.One of the most common cryptographic techniques used for encrypting and decrypting messages is the Vigenere cipher.However,Vigenere cipher can be cracked easily because the previous approach involved 26×10 matrixes,and the key comprised of alphabets.If the key length is small,then it becomes easier to crack the plain text by permutation.So here in this work,we have proposed a modified Vigenere cipher technique to enhance its security standards.Existing Vigenere cipher attack is not more secured,and thus we developed a method that improves the security in Vigenere cipher using Rivest-Shamir-Adleman(RSA).RSA is an asymmetric algorithm that has public and private keys.The advantage of using this algorithm is that finding factors for the large composite numbers is difficult.This method is secured but time consuming.In this proposed method,we combined RSA with Vigenere cipher so that the proposed algorithm is secured and consumes less time than RSA algorithm.This approach is widely used to encrypt SMS.