Natural Sciences

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An estimation of the economic value of irrigation water for wheat production at sable farms
(2012-07-25) Chitete, Client Mwanamambo
Water is a finite and vulnerable resource which plays a vital role in economic development.It needs to be managed through demand management (pricing) other than supply management. This study was carried out at Sable farms in Lusaka District of Lusaka Province, Zambia. The main objective of this study was to suggest a methodology to evaluate the economic value of water. Knowledge of value for the resource can help in the process of proper pricing, the widely and most effective demand management tool. Both primary and secondary data used in this study were collected using structured and semi structured questionnaires. Although many methods are available for valuing of resources, residual method has been rated the best for valuing environmental goods like water. The study therefore used this method to value water used for irrigation of wheat at sable farms. Sable farms use about 5130m^ of water per hectare of wheat during the entire growing period of wheat. Each cubic meter of water used to irrigate wheat generates an income of about ZMK 1,000 for the farmer. The financial and economic values of water used for irrigation of wheat at sable farms were found to be ZMKIOOO (US$0.21) and ZMKl 120 (US $0.23) per cubic meter respectively. These values indicate that the current price of water in Zambia which ranges from ZMK2/m'^ to ZMKlO/m^ is far below its economic value (ZMKl 120/m''). Residual imputation method proved to be a useful way of valuing water. The government should therefore encourage further research in this area through UNZA's IWRM Centre. The government should also come up with policies which will encourage water audits for all commercial farms in Zambia and consider the possibility of pricing water used for agriculture.
Water Accounting Framework-A Case Study of Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company
(2012-07-25) Makayi, Ben
The aim of this dissertation is to compile a water account system in order to organize water information in a more efficient and consistent data collection system for Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) for the financial year 2009.It then turns to an analysis of the handbook of The System of Environmental and Economic Accounting for Water (SEEAW), specifically looking at the Physical water Supply and Use Tables (PSUT) and how it applies in building the PSUT. The SEEAW is an international framework for organising hydrological and economic information in a consistent way and the framework allows for compilation of different "tables" which comprise the physical water accounts (PSUT). Water accounting is a useful tool for supporting Integrated Water Resource Management, by providing information on the amount of water being delivered, traded, extracted for consumptive use, and managed for environmental and other public benefit outcomes. This will help water policymakers, planners and managers make informed decisions about how to use water, and supports public and investor confidence. Just as financial accounting is essential for managing businesses, standard water accounting practice is needed to manage our water resources efficiently. PSUT provide information on the volumes of water abstracted, supplied within the economy and discharged back into the environment by economic activity and households were used. PSUT allow for the identification of the industries/sectors which put pressure on the environment via extraction and use and also indicate the industries/sectors consuming the most water.Collection of primary data involved carrying out a survey at LWSC using self administered questionnaire. The data collected was processed using PSUT to produce an initial estimate of physical water accounts for LWSC and offers a discussion on an application of the account.Water Account for LWSC, 2009 showed that during 2009, 87,490,000 MWR of water was extracted from the environment and used within the Lusaka City's economy. Of this, 82,490,000 MWR was extracted by LWSC for distribution to other users. A total of 134,940,000 MWR of water was used by Lusaka City's ecomomy and a total of 98,944,000 MWR of water was supplied to Lusaka City. These statistics indicate water use, abstraction and consumption by industry per capita water use which can be useful in providing a basis for setting funding and investment priorities in water infrastructure and evaluating past and current policy descisions. The statistics can also be used in making decisions about water allocations and settting water restrictions in periods of water scarcity and to able to predict future water demand.The development and maintenance of a water account framework for LWSC will require significant resources as well as the cooperation and goodwill of many agencies and individuals. LWSC needs to adopt the ISIC reporting format for easier compilation of water accounts. Collaboration with other departments especially Department of Water Affairs (DWA) which should take the lead in implementing of water accounts will play a significant role in future advancement of water accounts by for LWSC.
Challenges of Water Quality Water Provision to peri-urban areas by Lusaka Water and Sewarage Company:a case of Ng'ombe compound,lusaka
(2012-07-25) Namafe, Namafe
Water is a finite and vulnerable resource which plays a vital role in economic development. It needs to be managed through demand management (pricing) other than supply management. This study was carried out at Sable farms in Lusaka District of Lusaka Province, Zambia. The main objective of this study was to suggest a methodology to evaluate the economic value of water. Knowledge of value for the resource can help in the process of proper pricing, the widely and most effective demand management tool. Both primary and secondary data used in this study were collected using structured and semi structured questionnaires. Although many methods are available for valuing of resources, residual method has been rated the best for valuing environmental goods like water. The study therefore used this method to value water used for irrigation of wheat at sable farms. Sable farms use about 5130m^ of water per hectare of wheat during the entire growing period of wheat. Each cubic meter of water used to irrigate wheat generates an income of about ZMK 1,000 for the farmer. The financial and economic values of water used for irrigation of wheat at sable farms were found to be ZMKIOOO (US$0.21) and ZMKl 120 (US $0.23) per cubic meter respectively. These values indicate that the current price of water in Zambia which ranges from ZMK2/m'^ to ZMKlO/m^ is far below its economic value (ZMKl 120/m''). Residual imputation method proved to be a useful way of valuing water. The government should therefore encourage further research in this area through UNZA's IWRM Centre. The government should also come up with policies which will encourage water audits for all commercial farms in Zambia and consider the possibility of pricing water used for agriculture.
Proton recoil effects due to virtual phonton exchange in the binary encounter approximation
(2012-08-24) Mweene, Vincent Habatwa
The Binary Encounter Approximation cross-section for inner-shell ionization of atoms by protons is corrected for proton recoil, an effect due to the exchange of virtual photons in proton — electron scattering. The correction is found to be important only at very low projectile energies in high—Z targets.
Mo S H A Di :Shape-Shifting Human Addressable Digital Money
(2013-09-23) Chishala, Matete Mpundu
MoSHADi is a technologically centred approach to the money system intending to preserve the role of financial institutions and appointed authorities in the transition towards digital economies. It is designed around various means for users to define what money is to them but retaining the fundamental properties of money to the system in control. A major focus is on the layer whose purpose is to facilitate means of describing, accessing and utilising monetary value and the layers allowing value to flow securely, distinctly and efficiently over supporting digital communications network. The concept picks up from conventional aspects of money, both the physical and current electronic kind, and relying on the existence of regular objects, mechanisms and user defined patterns to render and carry value. The ability to assume various tangible and intangible forms achieves the form or shape-shifting property, adding an aspect of personalisation and inspiring pride in money ownership by allowing users to define what form or pattern constitutes the value of their money. While seemingly placing user interests at the centre from the surface of it, the system, to degree, indirectly encourages hard work to earn money and spending it to keep value in circulation in a transparent way and so bringing the interests of an entire financial system into perspective.
Assisted and Augmented Reading( AAR)
(2015-01-29) Mwima, Tobiah
The Mouse and keyboard is the major means of passing information from user to computer. Direct manipulation of objects via the mouse was a breakthrough in the design of a more natural and intuitive user interfaces for computers. However, in real life we have a rich set of communication methods at our disposal; when interacting with others, we, for example interpret their gestures, expressions and eye movements. This information can be used also when moving human -computer interaction toward the more natural and effective method. In particular, the eye gesture can be a more valuable source of information for a computer system to be aware of, if it has to provide assistance when appropriate.The focus of this research is on examining how the information acquired from a user's eye movements in human-to-computer interaction can be used to assist electronic book readers. For this purpose a simple prototype called assisted and augmented reading will be developed. Enhancing the reading experience and awarding electronic book readers some reward points, which will be dependent on the tracked reading progress; this will be an encouraging and motivating technique to help increase literacy levels. However, finding the point of focus on the screen by eye tracking using the ordinary webcam is the main hypothesis behind the development of this prototype. The implementation of this prototype will be founded on a C+-i-library called Open Computer Vision and IDE for C++.
Time Table Generation System
(2015-01-29) Biemba, Andrew
Timetabling is the allocation, subject to constraints, of given resources to objects in space-time domain to satisfy a set of desirable objectives as nearly as possible. Particularly, the university timetabling problem for classes or lectures can be viewed as fixing in time and space a sequence of meetings between instructors and students, while simultaneously satisfying a number of various essential conditions or constraints.The timetabling problem concerns virtually every educational institution, be it high school, college, or university and thus requires to be solved effectively. This is usually done 'by hand', taking several days or weeks of iterative repair after feedback from lecturers complaining that the timetable is unfair to them in some way.The basic challenge is to schedule lectures over a limited time period so as to avoid conflicts and to satisfy a number of side constraints. The problem, in its simplest form, is one of assigning lectures to periods and rooms such that either no conflicts or a minimum number of conflicts occur. By "conflicts", 1 mean when a lecture is scheduled to be lectured in two or more places at the same time or when two or more lectures are scheduled to be lectured in one place at the same time. Computer timetabling and administration systems do exist to ease this burden but each timetabling problem is as individual as the institution from which it originates.In this project, a program that uses an optimal algorithm is to be developed that provides a solution to the lecture timetabling problem. The system, to be developed in Java, Microsoft Access and an XML Knowledge Base, is a replacement of the traditional manual way used to create lecture timetables. The system will be tested using input from various departments at the University of Zambia. Ideally, the system is expected to be generic and thus accommodate various sets of requirements and be able to work in other universities and colleges.This system aims to schedule different lectures given a set of classrooms, lecture theatres, halls or labs in a specified time frame, say for instance, from 08:00 hours in the morning to 17:00 hours in the afternoon from Monday to Friday. Lunch break or any other break can be easily set, say from 13:00 to 14:00 hours according to a user's preference. It will take various inputs like details of students or student groups, courses, classrooms/halls and lecturers available. Depending upon these inputs, it will generate a possible time table which can be exported to html or pdf making optimal utilization of all resources in a way that will best suit any of the constraints or university rules. The system will have room for extension/expansion and shall be able to accommodate as many requirements as possible.The system is expected to produce significantly better timetables than those that were actually employed (produced by hand), and should always take a considerably short period of time to generate them. The application will provide an easy, time-saving way to generate lecture timetables within given constraints.
The Zambian Web-based Vehicle Trade and Inventory Management System( ZVTIMS)
(2015-01-29) Choongo, Wilson Mulomba
The purpose of this project is to come up with a platform where buyers are able to meet sellers and trade specifically in vehicles both commercial and domestic. This will be in a form of a web-based management information system.This will be a website where people can buy and sell things like bikes, cars and commercial vehicles. An efficient search facility will be provided to visitors to find things of their interest quickly. There will be a content management system (CMS) designed for the administrator(s) of the website. This will ease on the work of administrators on maintaining the site content. The system will further more create a timely access to potential sales of vehicles, creating marketing strategies for vehicles sales and provide an advertising platform for vehicles.The vehicle trade and inventory management information system to be developed in this project will offer fiinctionalities to quick access to buyers fi-om various parts of the country in Zambia .It v^ll enable monitoring of the results and performance of the buying and selling activity in the country .This information can then be used to control trade in the country so that relevant and measurable objectives can be checked by necessary authorities.
Agro Informatics System (AIS)
(2015-01-29) Velemu, Charles
Agriculture can be defined as the science or practice of farming, including the growing of crops and the rearing of animals. Agriculture is one of the most important sectors in Zambia's economy and could benefit tremendously with the application of information communication technology. Due to tremendous advances during the last decade, information technology is today affecting all the spheres of human life. We can exploit these advances to design a cost-effective system to provide expert advice to farmers and the general public. This project focuses on how information communication technology can be used to better improve agriculture in Zambia. This will be done by implementing an online electronic Agro trading system, a livestock and vegetable farming information repository, a google maps implementation showing crop distribution in different farming areas of Zambia and an electronic records management system for local cooperatives and associations.
Employee Management System
(2015-01-29) Simaanya, Mweemba
Employees are the backbone of any company therefore their management plays a major role in deciding the success of an organization [1]. Employees Management Software makes it easy for the employer to keep track of all records. This software allows the administrator to edit employees, add new employees, transfer/promote/terminate employees. Each employee in the database is associated with a position can be added and edited when need arises. Employees can be transferred between positions easily without having to retype back their information in the database. You can check to see if there are duplicate positions/employees in the database. Most of all, the employer can assign tasks to employees and assess their progress in order to keep track of employee performance. A flexible and easy to use Employee Management software solution for small and medium sized companies provides modules for personnel information management thereby organization and companies are able to manage the crucial organization asset - people [2]. The combination of these modules into one application assures the perfect platform for re-engineering and aligning Human Resource processes along with the organizational goals. This system brings about an easy way of maintaining the details of employees working in any organization. It is simple to understand and can be used by anyone who is not even familiar with simple employees system. It is user friendly and just asks the user to follow step by step operations by giving easy to follow options. It is fast and can perform many operations for a company. The goal of this project is to design and develop an employee management system to fill existing gaps in the electronic management of employees.
A Real Time,Dynamic and Extensible Information Map for Lusaka City
(2015-04-13) Munachitombwe, Michelo
Modem technologies have made it possible for amateur news applications and related journalistic applications (blogs, social networks, collaborative publishing) to capture news faster and in larger amounts than any other news systems. These technologies (e.g. smart phones) can ' take pictures, record audios and videos and have access to the internet. However location of specific and desired news items from this large amount of news is very difficult. Poor organization of this information results in a limiting rather than an improvement of the news application. The project attempts to alleviate this problem by organizing the news around a map with the help of a mapping service. Therefore the application created is an integration of an amateur news application with a web mapping service. The geographical dimension added to the application by the mapping system will improve the capture of proximal and timely news and will improve searching. Also in order to aid news discovery, the application has a recommender system where users can get recommendations about news items which might be of interest to them.
Problems of water supply in the Livingstone District Council
(2015-04-13) Hachileka, Excellent
An adequate water supply is literally a matter of life or death, not only for human beings but also for every form of animal and plant life. Nevertheless, until recently water has been taken for granted with little thought given to its conservation and use as a natural resource. As populations grow and urban areas expand in size, a proportional increase in water supply is necessary to satisfy increasing demand. However,there are usually problems encountered by water supply authorities in the provision of a regular supply of water.This study is a detailed assessment of the water supply system of the Livingstone District Council. The major water users were identified into four categories as domestic, commercial, institutional and industrial. Their positions, distance from the reservoirs as well as type of residential areas for domestic users were determined. In turn, the share of the total water for each water use category was determined. The study also assessed the adequacy of water quantities abstracted from the source and problems encountered in the process. This was done by a close examination of the capacities of the pumping equipment, rising mains, treatment plant reservoirs, the distribution system and an evaluation of the waterworks management. It was established that users were not satisfied with the amounts of water supplied. Tentative water supply problems were identified and in turn investigated closely to determine their effects individually and severally as interrelated factors.
Social Media Intelligence extractor
(2015-04-13) Kasonde, Mutanuka
In the last few centuries, information has highly appreciated in value and its sources have greatly increased in number. The introduction of the web 2.0, which allowed users not only to retrieve but also generate information as authors, gave birth to a whole new data source called social media. Social media is a term that integrates technology, social interaction and user generated content and differs from traditional broadcasting. It commonly comprises of technologies such as instant messaging programs, discussion forums, weblogs and wikis. Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia are examples of popular social media websites. The information generated is greatly useful to individuals, organizations, institutions and governments globally. But this information tends to be highly unstructured and certain times not trustworthy. Social Computing is a novel and emerging computing paradigm that involves a multi-disciplinary approach in analyzing and modeling social behaviors on different media and platforms to produce intelligent and interactive applications and results. The objective of this project is to summarize social media opinions on various subjects with the focus on Twitter and Facebook microblog systems. In this project, we propose and attempt to implement a system that uses various machine learning and computational techniques used in Social Computing to collect, extract, process, mine, and visualize the data. This summarization task is different from traditional text summarization because we are only interested in the positive, negative and neutral opinions people have expressed on specific features or topics. This will be done at both the sentence and at the post level (document level).
Hostel space(room) allocation
(2015-04-13) Manda, Osbeck
The Hostel space allocation system is a system developed for use by the Dean of Students. It was developed to be a prototype and was analyzing few major constraints characterizing Students. The system considers males independent from females; allocates bed spaces to students using a number of criteria like students health, the year they are in, the date they applied if they are in first year. The handicapped are given a higher priority than the physically fit. Students in the final year are given a higher priority over the other years because they have to concentrate on their projects. Tliose who applied early are given a higher priority over those who applied late. The other constraint is school performance, students are grouped into three categories. Those who perform highly or students recommended or those students who have B+'s and above in all the courses. Those who perform good but lower than the commended and tliuse who perform low. These constraints are all added up for each student and the final sum of their weights arc ranked from the highest to the lowest. The student having the greatest score gets the ruorn first and so on. The handicapped are allocated on the floor level because of their peculiar health. All these Categories are summed up into: -Health -Year of a student -School Performance -And Time of Application for first years
University of Zambia web based document archiving
(2015-04-14) Mwale, Waddington
Organizations in this digital age deal with a large number of papers in their day-to-day activities. Much of this paper is legal or confidential documentation, and it is a statutory requirement that they be preserved for a pre-specified number of years. Statutory or otherwise, paper documents need to be sorted, searched, accessed, copied, modified, access controlled, audit trailer, Corporations of all sizes have increasingly come to realize that document archiving can add value to the organization far beyond mere speed of retrieval by enabling users to retrieve.[1] This paper presents the design and implementation of a web-based document archiving and management system customized to serve the needs of an organization. The system is designed to replace a paper-based process that has gradually became unmanageable due to the increasingly large volume of documents that are handled in organisations and the need to distribute the documents across different departments or offices. Features of the new systems include online archiving of documents, download and upload and a secure mechanism for web access of documents, searching, auditing. Organizations produce piles of documents, images and other information electronically. The location of this information is a time consuming task. Users tend to file papers and to save documents in folders on their own computers. Nobody knows what information is across the organisation and what information is needed.
Blood Bank Management Information System
(2015-04-20) Juma, Nazana
The importance of Wood in the existence of mankind cannot be over emphasized. It supplies all nutrients and oxygen in the body; it has been medically proven that no human being can survive without blood. It is for this reason that blood banks were introduced; to help in the collecting, separating, and storing blood. A blood bank is a place for stocking blood donations from donors. To provide web based communication there are numbers of online web based blood bank management systems that exists for communicating between department of blood centres and hospitals, to satisfy blood necessity, to buy, sale and stock the blood, to give information about this blood. Manual systems as compared to Computer Based Information Systems are time consuming, laborious, and costly .Automation systems and information technology can greatly help medical facilities to improve their working efficiency and optimize the whole workflow. The main objective of this project was to develop a blood management information system to assist in the management of blood donor records and ease/or control the distribution of blood in various parts of the country basing ON THE HOSPITAL demands. Without quick and timely access to donor records, creating market strategies for blood donation, lobbying and sensitization of blood donors becomes very difficult. The blood management information system offers functionalities to quick access to donor records collected from various parts of the country. It enables monitoring of the results and performance of the blood donation activity such that relevant and measurable objectives of the organization can be checked. It provides to management timely, confidential and secure medical reports that facilitates planning and decision making and hence improved medical service delivery. The reports generated by the system give answers to most of the challenges management faces as far as blood donor records are concerned. The System was designed as a client/server and web-based system and implemented using open source solutions that include MySQL as the database and back-end storage engine, and PHP, HTML and JavaScript as the programming languages.
The physical, demographic and socio-economic characteristics of Sinia: A squatter settlement in Ndola
(2015-06-04) Nyanga, Fackson
Much research work has been done on various residences of low income groups. In industrialised and more densely populated countries much of the york has mainly been conducted in slums. In less developed and generally less densely populated countries, the concentration of people in Urban areas and the short fall in housing units to meet these numbers has led to the springing up of squatter settlements in various parts of the cities of these countries. Research surveys conducted in these settlements have mainly been for the purpose of development programmes. This survey, mere geographical than sociological in approach is intended as an introduction to Sinie, one on uhich much more intensive surveys may be based. Any Scholar interested in squatter settlements in Zambia will notice the big disparity in the availability of literature on squatter settlements in Lusaka and those of elsewhere in the country. Not leas than 60 percent of the research surveys conducted on squattar settlements in Zambia are on settlements in Lusaka. This study is ment to add on to the little that exists on squatter settlements on the Copperbelt. It probably is the first such study on Sinia. Because of limitations of space it has been necessitated that a lot of data be discarded and only the very most fundamental aspects of the settlement be tackled.
Maunyama settlement (Mongu Harbour): Ageographical perspective of people on the move
(2015-06-04) Moola, Nayoto
Illegal settlements are a chronic problem to landuse planners in Zambia in that they spring up in areas with other interded uses. Though more pronounced in urban centres, the rural centres have equally been affected. However the rural centres' illegal settlements have not received equal attention as the urban illegal settlements have from researchers. In Zambia, most of the illegal settlements have been caused by increase in population increase due to natural and migration, mostly rural-urban migration But migration has been the causer of the main illegal settlements. This is because have not been able to get he civil athorities and hence decided to accomodate themselves. Maunyamo settlement which is the study area. Mongu provides a good example of how economic disparities tend to influence people's movements. Settlers at Maunyamo settlement are primarily traders who have come to either buy or sell goods. Travellers along the Zambezi and Luanginga rivers coming to Mongu find the Bus station inconviniencing hence building their own shelters. Initialy there were no permanent serrlers at Maunyamo but later the migrants decided to study permanently. So the research attempts to give an account of how settlers survive at Maunyamo, their confrontations with the Harbourmaster and problems arising from the setters --presence at Mainyamo. Lastly it gives some recommendations which are not an end in themselves but guides those involved in the Maunyamo.
People's perceptions and attitudes towards cutting down of trees in chief Moono's area-Mumbwa
(2015-06-04) Maguswi, Mazuba
The world's forests are disappearing at a very fast rate due to cutting down of trees indiscriminately. In Africa most people live under the poverty datum line. Therefore, when it comes to economic status, a number of people have quite low income to sustain themselves in the day to day life. The only way possible to earn a living besides subsistence agriculture is to exploit the natural resources for example trees to make charcoal and other products. This creates competition among the people forcing them cut down trees indiscriminately regardless of the size and volume of trees. Very few, if any are concerned with the adverse effect, that come about from such activities. Hence the perceptions and attitudes of cutting down trees among most people in low income areas leaves much to be desired. Using structured interviews to obtain information pertaining to people's perceptions and attitudes to cutting down trees and by way of formulating hypotheses to test for significance in Chief Moono's area of Mumbwa a number of factor were established. Among most people in Chief Moono's area, low socio economic status was found to be one of the factors that influence people's perceptions and attitudes towards cutting down trees. And that a number of people are not really concerned with the conservation of trees, while males and females have similar views on the need to protect trees. Moreover, other factors like education, cultural beliefs and age seem to affect the perceptions and attitudes of people to cutting down of trees in Chief Moono's area.
Effects of water levies and the benefits from a Community-based water management scheme in George Compound
(2015-06-15) Chelemu, Chana
This study was carried out in George compound, which is located in the western part of Lusaka. The fieldwork was carried out in August 2000. The aim of the study was to find out the effects of water and the benefits of the community- based water project. The specific objectives were to assess the approximate percentage of households using water provided by the water project; to find out the percentage of households purifying their drinking water amongst the households using shallow wells; to assess the extent of water-borne diseases affecting the community in George compound; and to find out the benefits from the water project.A total of forty households were randomly selected and one respondent from each household each household was interviewed using a questionnaire. Other relevant information was obtained through simple observation and existing literature.The research revealed that presently, 47.5% of the households are using communal taps whilst the remaining 52.5% are still using shallow wells. Of those households using wells, 62% purify their drinking water whilst 38% do not. Between August 1999 and August 2000, only 30% of the households had experienced water-borne diseases in George compound. The types of diseases that were experienced during this period were diarrhoea, cholera and dysentery.The benefits from the water project have been seen through the reduction of water-borne diseases which were previously high. The water project has also brought about convenience due to the location of taps closer to the households and other also amenities which are discussed in chapter five. Other benefits are that time and energy are being conserved since the water sources are nearer. Lastly but not the least, money is also being saved by those households that had to pay for water from vendors.To conclude, it can be said that water levies have both positive and negative effects on the George compound community. The positive effects are those associated with the paying of levies including accessibility to clean and safe water and all the benefits mentioned above. The negative effect of water levies is that those who do not pay the levy have to use shallow wells. This usually leads to a decreased opportunity in accessing safe and clean water, especially if the water is contaminated and not properly treated. This consequently leads to an increase in the incidences of water-borne diseases.

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