Theses And Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11837/212

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 56

The classification performance of Bayesian Networks Classifiers: a case study of detecting Denial of Service (DoS) attacks in cloud computing environments
(University of Fort Hare, 2015) Moyo, Lindani; Sibanda, Khulumani
In this research we propose a Bayesian networks approach as a promissory classification technique for detecting malicious traffic due to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. Bayesian networks have been applied in numerous fields fraught with uncertainty and they have been proved to be successful. They have excelled tremendously in classification tasks i.e. text analysis, medical diagnoses and environmental modeling and management. The detection of DoS attacks has received tremendous attention in the field of network security. DoS attacks have proved to be detrimental and are the bane of cloud computing environments. Large business enterprises have been/or are still unwilling to outsource their businesses to the cloud due to the intrusive tendencies that the cloud platforms are prone too. To make use of Bayesian networks it is imperative to understand the ―ecosystem‖ of factors that are external to modeling the Bayesian algorithm itself. Understanding these factors have proven to result in comparable improvement in classification performance beyond the augmentation of the existing algorithms. Literature provides discussions pertaining to the factors that impact the classification capability, however it was noticed that the effects of the factors are not universal, they tend to be unique for each domain problem. This study investigates the effects of modeling parameters on the classification performance of Bayesian network classifiers in detecting DoS attacks in cloud platforms. We analyzed how structural complexity, training sample size, the choice of discretization method and lastly the score function both individually and collectively impact the performance of classifying between normal and DoS attacks on the cloud. To study the aforementioned factors, we conducted a series of experiments in detecting live DoS attacks launched against a deployed cloud and thereafter examined the classification performance in terms of accuracy of different classes of Bayesian networks. NSL-KDD dataset was used as our training set. We used ownCloud software to deploy our cloud platform. To launch DoS attacks, we used hping3 hacker friendly utility. A live packet capture was used as our test set. WEKA version 3.7.12 was used for our experiments. Our results show that the progression in model complexity improves the classification performance. This is attributed to the increase in the number of attribute correlations. Also the size of the training sample size proved to improve classification ability. Our findings noted that the choice of discretization algorithm does matter in the quest for optimal classification performance. Furthermore, our results indicate that the choice of scoring function does not affect the classification performance of Bayesian networks. Conclusions drawn from this research are prescriptive particularly for a novice machine learning researcher with valuable recommendations that ensure optimal classification performance of Bayesian networks classifiers.
Investigation of the NFC technology for mobile payments and the development of a prototype payment application in the context of marginalized rural areas
(University of Fort Hare, 2014) Gurajena, Caroline; Thinyane, Mamello
Both communication, and the methods and tools of commerce have evolved over time through the invention of new technologies. The latest of these technologies are mobile devices and electronic commerce respectively. The combination of these two technologies has resulted in the creation of electronic commerce which also enables mobile payments. Mobile payments (mpayments) are enabled by many technologies with Near Field Communication (NFC) being the most recent one. NFC is a wireless technology that enables mobile devices in close proximity to exchange data. The mobile device has already been enthusiastically accepted by the customers and they carry it with them wherever they go and this makes it a good device for providing a payment method alternative. This research looks at contactless mobile payment as a payment method. Customers in marginalized rural areas lack a payment alternative to cash hence in this research we are investigating and proposing the use of a NFC enabled mobile payment application for Marginalized Rural Areas. This research extensively evaluates and assesses the potential of using NFC enabled m-payments in Marginalized Rural Areas in South Africa by carrying out an investigation of the technology and its acceptance by customers. The investigation of the technology included implementation of a prototype application which was used to introduce the technology to the consumers. The customer acceptance of the NFC enabled mobile payments was evaluated using the Technology Acceptance model (TAM). The model was modified to suit the context of this study by adding more constructs. This research concluded that Near Field Communication enabled m-payments have great potential to be used and accepted by people in the marginalized rural areas.
The generalization ability of artificial neural networks in forecasting TCP/IP network traffic trends
(University of Fort Hare, 2014) Moyo, Vusumuzi; Sibanda, K
Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) have been used in many fields for a variety of applications, and proved to be reliable. They have proved to be one of the most powerful tools in the domain of forecasting and analysis of various time series. The forecasting of TCP/IP network traffic is an important issue receiving growing attention from the computer networks. By improving upon this task, efficient network traffic engineering and anomaly detection tools can be created, resulting in economic gains from better resource management. The use of ANNs requires some critical decisions on the part of the user. These decisions, which are mainly concerned with the determinations of the components of the network structure and the parameters defined for the learning algorithm, can significantly affect the ability of the ANN to generalize, i.e. to have the outputs of the ANN approximate target values given inputs that are not in the training set. This has an impact on the quality of forecasts produced by the ANN. Although there are some discussions in the literature regarding the issues that affect network generalization ability, there is no standard method or approach that is universally accepted to determine the optimum values of these parameters for a particular problem. This research examined the impact a selection of key design features has on the generalization ability of ANNs. We examined how the size and composition of the network architecture, the size of the training samples, the choice of learning algorithm, the training schedule and the size of the learning rate both individually and collectively affect the ability of an ANN to learn the training data and to generalize well to novel data. To investigate this matter, we empirically conducted several experiments in forecasting a real world TCP/IP network traffic time series and the network performance validated using an independent test set. MATLAB version 7.4.0.287’s Neural Network toolbox version 5.0.2 (R2007a) was used for our experiments. The results are found to be promising in terms of ease of design and use of ANNs. Our results indicate that in contrast to Occam’s razor principle for a single hidden layer an increase in number of hidden neurons produces a corresponding increase in generalization ability of ANNs, however larger networks do not always improve the generalization ability of ANNs even though an increase in number of hidden neurons results in a concomitant rise in network generalization. Also, contradicting commonly accepted guidelines, networks trained with a larger representation of the data, exhibit better generalization than networks trained on smaller representations, even though the larger networks have a significantly greater capacity. Furthermore, the results obtained indicate that the learning rate, momentum, training schedule and choice of learning algorithm have as much a significant effect on ANN generalization ability. A number of conclusions were drawn from the results and later used to generate a comprehensive set of guidelines that will facilitate the process of design and use of ANNs in TCP/IP network traffic forecasting. The main contribution of this research lies in the identification of optimal strategies for the use of ANNs in forecasting TCP/IP network traffic trends. Although the information obtained from the tests carried out in this research is specific to the problem considered, it provides users of back-propagation networks with a valuable guide on the behaviour of networks under a wide range of operating conditions. It is important to note that the guidelines accrued from this research are of an assistive and not necessarily restrictive nature to potential ANN modellers.
Exploring user experience (UX) factors For ICTD services
(University of Fort Hare, 2015) Nyambi, Pride Bongiwe; Thinyane, Mamello
Consistent with global entities such as the United Nations- through the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS), introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for human development has seen the introduction of ICT-based services aimed at facilitating socio-economic development of marginalized communities. The use of ICTs has always solicited the concept of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), which involves the methods which humans interact with technology. The types of User Interfaces (UIs) and interaction techniques that people use to interact with ICTs affects the way they perceive technology and eventually, their acceptance of the technology. Current ICT systems still haven‟t adopted the concept of placing the user at the core of the interaction. Users are still required to adapt themselves to the interface‟s characteristics; which limits the number of people who can use the system due to inabilities to adapt to the interface. As a result, the information embedded in these technologies is still inaccessible and useless to Marginalized Rural Area (MRA) users. Such usability challenges can be mitigated against and avoided by matching UI components with the users‟ mental models, language, preferences, needs and other socio-cultural artefacts. In this research, literature in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) is reviewed with emphasis on the usability and User Experience (UX) during user interaction with ICTs using various modes of interactions. HCI emphasizes the need for systems to take account of user‟s characteristics such as their abilities, needs, socio-cultural experiences, behaviours and interests. In efforts to meet the requirement of UX, the user, system and the context of use, need to be evaluated, taking into consideration that changing one entity modifies the UX. This will be achieved by persona profiling to determine the key characteristics of the user communities, clustered according to the key UX attributes. Subsequently, through detailed usability evaluations, including the use of System Usability Scale (SUS) to determine user satisfaction with various UI components/techniques per identified persona- thus providing and persona mapping for usability of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) services. The results from this research are reflective of the importance of creating personas for usability testing. Some of the personas do not have a problem with interacting with most of the interfaces but their choice of interface comes from a preference point of view. For some personas, their skills and level of experience with ICTs motivates their choice of interface. The common UI component that users from across the spectrum appreciate is UI consistency which makes interaction easier and more natural. Common obstacles with current User Interfaces (UIs) that inhibit users from MRAs include the hefty use of text in interfaces, unintuitive navigation structures and the use of a foreign language. Differences in UIs from different application developers present an inconsistency which challenges the users from rural areas. These differences include the layout, the text entry methods and the form of output produced. A solution to this has been identified from the usability test as the use of speech-enabled interfaces in a language that can be understood by the target audience. In addition, through literature study it has been found that UX of interfaces can be improved by the use of less textual or text-free interfaces. Based on literature, users from MRAs can benefit from using hand-writing based UIs for text-based entry which mimics pen and paper environment for literate users who have experience with writing. Finally, the use of numbered options can assist illiterate users in tasks that requires users to choose options and for navigation. Therefore, consistency in UIs designed to be used by MRA users can improve usability of these interfaces and thus, improving the overall UX.
Development of high performance computing cluster for evaluation of sequence alignment algorithms
(University of Fort Hare, 2015) Ngxande, Mkhuseli; Moorosi, Nyalleng; Thinyane, Mamello
As the biological databases are increasing rapidly, there is a challenge for both Biologists and Computer Scientists to develop algorithms and databases to manage the increasing data. There are many algorithms developed to align the sequences stored in biological databases - some take time to process the data while others are inefficient to produce reasonable results. As more data is generated, and time consuming algorithms are developed to handle them, there is a need for specialized computers to handle the computations. Researchers are typically limited by the computational power of their computers. High Performance Computing (HPC) field addresses this challenge and can be used in a cost-effective manner where there is no need for expensive equipment, instead old computers can be used together to form a powerful system. This is the premise of this research, wherein the setup of a low-cost Beowulf cluster is explored, with the subsequent evaluation of its performance for processing sequent alignment algorithms. A mixed method methodology is used in this dissertation, which consists of literature study, theoretical and practise based system. This mixed method methodology also have a proof and concept where the Beowulf cluster is designed and implemented to perform the sequence alignment algorithms and also the performance test. This dissertation firstly gives an overview of sequence alignment algorithms that are already developed and also highlights their timeline. A presentation of the design and implementation of the Beowulf Cluster is highlighted and this is followed by the experiments on the baseline performance of the cluster. A detailed timeline of the sequence alignment algorithms is given and also the comparison between ClustalW-MPI and T-Coffee (Tree-based Consistency Objective Function For alignment Evaluation) algorithm is presented as part of the findings in the research study. The efficiency of the cluster was observed to be 19.8%, this percentage is unexpected because the predicted efficiency is 83.3%, which is found in the theoretical cluster calculator. The theoretical performance of the cluster showed a high performance as compared with the experimental performance, this is attributable to the slow network, which was 100Mbps, low processor speed of 2.50 GHz, and low memory of 2 Gigabytes.
An analysis of the correlation beween packet loss and network delay on the perfomance of congested networks and their impact: case study University of Fort Hare
(University of Fort Hare, 2013) Lutshete, Sizwe; Sibanda, K
In this paper we study packet delay and loss rate at the University of Fort Hare network. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the information derived from a multipoint measurement of, University of Fort Hare network which will be collected for a duration of three Months during June 2011 to August 2011 at the TSC uplink and Ethernet hubs outside and inside relative to the Internet firewall host. The specific value of this data set lies in the end to end instrumentation of all devices operating at the packet level, combined with the duration of observation. We will provide measures for the normal day−to−day operation of the University of fort hare network both at off-peak and during peak hours. We expect to show the impact of delay and loss rate at the University of Fort Hare network. The data set will include a number of areas, where service quality (delay and packet loss) is extreme, moderate, good and we will examine the causes and impacts on network users.
A methodological framework for ICT roadmap development for rural areas
(University of Fort Hare, 2012) Jere, Nobert Rangarirai; Thinyane, M; Terzoli, A
The use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) can support sustainable development within societies. ICTs have been supported by governments, private companies, non-governmental organisations, academic institutions and individuals. However, technological changes have made most ICT initiatives haphazard due to poor planning. There is no systematic plan on how to deploy services, infrastructure and devices especially in rural areas. For instance, in some cases, computers have been donated to communities in rural areas yet they are not being used, and ICT services have been deployed without the supporting ICT infrastructure. One of the solutions to addressing these ICT challenges is through the use of roadmaps to guide ICT solution implementation. This thesis proposes an ICT roadmap methodological framework to improve ICT roadmap development for rural ICT solutions. A composite methodological approach was employed in this research. This involves the use of qualitative research techniques such as participant observation, design exercises, workshops, focus groups and individual interviews supported by ethnographic studies. The Siyakhula Living Lab in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa was used as the case study. Studies were conducted to identify the current state of ICTs in rural areas, the future of ICTs and overview of roadmap developments. Rural users in South Africa, ICT experts in Europe and Africa, government officials and academic institutions were engaged to understand the current ICT planning, developments and needs. The author found that there are variations in individual ICT services required by rural users but, most ICT services in need fall mainly in the areas of health, education, entrepreneurship, agriculture and employment creation for rural people. These services require ICT devices and infrastructure which include computer peripherals, mobile phones, radios, televisions and wireless infrastructure, mobile infrastructure, satellites and broadcasting infrastructure respectively. It was found that the common future ICT projections expected in rural areas include: growth of mobile usage, social networking, increase internet services and localization of services. The roadmap framework is built based on the current state of ICTs, trends in ICTs, future technological projections and the plans currently been initiated in African continent. The ICT roadmap methodological focuses on how roadmaps could accommodate infrastructure, services and ICT devices to reach rural people. This should help rural users to be able to access public services within their respective communities using available ICT devices. ICT stakeholders could use the designed framework to improve the ICT roadmap development process for rural ICT users in Africa.
A decentralized multi-agent based network management system for ICT4D networks
(University of Fort Hare, 2014) Matebese, Sithembiso; Thinyane, Mamello; Moroosi, N
Network management is fundamental for assuring high quality services required by each user for the effective utilization of network resources. In this research, we propose the use of a decentralized, flexible and scalable Multi-Agent based system to monitor and manage rural broadband networks adaptively and efficiently. This mechanism is not novel as it has been used for high-speed, large-scale and distributed networks. This research investigates how software agents could collaborate in the process of managing rural broadband networks and developing an autonomous decentralized network management mechanism. In rural networks, network management is a challenging task because of lack of a reliable power supply, greater geographical distances, topographical barriers, and lack of technical support as well as computer repair facilities. This renders the network monitoring function complex and difficult. Since software agents are goal-driven, this research aims at developing a distributed management system that efficiently diagnoses errors on a given network and autonomously invokes effective changes to the network based on the goals defined on system agents. To make this possible, the Siyakhula Living Lab network was used as the research case study and existing network management system was reviewed and used as the basis for the proposed network management system. The proposed network management system uses JADE framework, Hyperic-Sigar API, Java networking programming and JESS scripting language to implement reasoning software agents. JADE and Java were used to develop the system agents with FIPA specifications. Hyperic-Sigar was used to collect the device information, Jpcap was used for collecting device network information and JESS for developing a rule engine for agents to reason about the device and network state. Even though the system is developed with Siyakhula Living Lab considerations, technically it can be used in any small-medium network because it is adaptable and scalable to various network infrastructure requirements. The proposed system consists of two types of agents, the MasterAgent and the NodeAgent. The MasterAgent resides on the device that has the agent platform and NodeAgent resides on devices connected to the network. The MasterAgent provides the network administrator with graphical and web user interfaces so that they can view network analysis and statistics. The agent platform provides agents with the executing environment and every agent, when started, is added to this platform. This system is platform independent as it has been tested on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. The implemented system has been found to provide a suitable network management function to rural broadband networks that is: scalable in that more node agents can be added to the system to accommodate more devices in the network; autonomous in the ability to reason and execute actions based on the defined rules; fault-tolerant through being designed as a decentralized platform thereby reducing the Single Point of Failure (SPOF) in the system.
Implementation of a facebook crawler for opinion monitoring and trend analysis purposes: a case study of government service delivery in Dwesa
(University of Fort Hare, 2014) Mfenyana, Sinesihle Ignetious; Moroosi, Nyalleng; Thinyane, Mamello
The Internet has shifted from the Web 1.0 era to the Web 2.0 era. In the contemporary era of web 2.0, the Internet is being used to build and reflect social relationships among people who share similar interests and activities. This is done through services such as Social Networking Sites (Facebook, Twitter etc.) and the web blogs. Currently, there is a very high usage of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) and blogs where people share their views, opinions, and thoughts. This leads to the production of a lot of data by people who post such content on SNSs. As a result, SNSs and blogs become the ideal platforms for opinion monitoring and the trend analysis. These SNSs and Blogs could be used by service providers for tracking what the public thinks or requires. The reason being, having such knowledge can help in decision making and future planning. If service providers can keep track of such views, opinions or thoughts with regard to the services they provide, they can better their understanding about the public or clients’ needs and improve the provision of relevant services. This research project presents a system prototype for performing opinion monitoring and trend analysis on Facebook. The proposed system crawl Facebook, indexes the data and provides user interface (UI) where end users can search and see the trending of a topics of their choice. The system prototype could also be used to check the trending topics without having to search. The main objective of this research project was to develop a framework that will contribute in improving the way government officials, companies or any service providers and normal citizens communicate regarding services they provide. This research project is premised on the conceptualization that if the government officials, companies or any service providers can keep track of the citizen’s opinions, views and thoughts with regards to services they provide it can help improve the delivery of such services. This research and the implementation of the trend analysis tool is undertaken in the context of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), an Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD) intervention for Dwesa marginalized community.
A feasibility study of wireless network technologies for rural broadband connectivity
(University of Fort Hare, 2013) Twele, Nombulelo; Thinyane, M
The adoption of wireless broadband technologies to provide network and Internet connectivity in rural communities has conveyed the possibility to overcome the challenges caused by marginalization and many other characteristics possessed by these rural communities. With their different capabilities, these technologies enable communication for rural communities internally within the community and externally on a global scale. Deployment of these technologies in rural areas requires consideration of different factors - these are in contrast, to those considered when deploying these technologies in non-rural, urban areas. Numerous research show consideration of facts for deployment of broadband technologies in urban/ non-rural environments and a little has been done in considering facts for deployment in rural environments. Hence this research aims to define guidelines for selection of broadband technologies and make recommendations on which technologies are suitable for deployment in rural communities, thereby considering facts that are true only within these rural communities. To achieve this, the research determines the metrics that are relevant and important to consider when deploying wireless broadband technology in rural communities of South Africa. It further undertakes a survey of wireless broadband technologies that are suitable for deployment in such areas. The study first profiles a list of wireless communication technologies, determines and documents characteristics of rural communities in Africa, determines metrics used to declare technologies feasible in rural areas. The metrics and rural characteristics are then used to identify technologies that are better suited than others. Informed by this initial profiling, one technology: mobile WiMAX is then selected for deployment and further evaluation. A technical review of mobile WiMAX is then carried out by deploying it at our research site in the rural, marginalized community of Dwesa (Eastern Cape, South Africa). The final section of this research provides recommendations that mobile WiMAX, LTE and Wi-Fi are the best suitable technologies for deployment in rural marginalized environments. This has been supported by extensive research and real life deployment of both Wi-Fi and mobile WiMAX. This research also recommends consideration of the following facts when seeking deployment of these technologies in rural communities: the geographical setting of the target terrain, the distances between sources and target customers and distances between target communities, weather conditions of the area, applications to be deployed over the network, social well-being of the community and their financial freedom as well.
A P2P middleware design for digital access nodes in marginalised rural areas
(University of Fort Hare, 2010) Wertlen, Ronald; Chadwick, J
This thesis addresses software design within the field of Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICTD). Specifically, it makes a case for the design and development of software which is custom-made for the context of marginalised rural areas (MRAs). One of the main aims of any ICTD project is sustainability and such sustainability is particularly difficult in MRAs because of the high costs of projects located there. Most literature on ICTD projects focuses on other factors, such as management, regulations, social and community issues when discussing this issue. Technical matters are often down-played or ignored entirely. This thesis argues that MRAs exhibit unique technical characteristics and that by understanding these characteristics, one can possibly design more cost-effective software. One specific characteristic is described and addressed in this thesis – a characteristic we describe here for the first time and call a network island. Further analysis of the literature generates a picture of a distributed network of access nodes (DANs) within such network islands, which are connected by high speed networks and are able to share resources and stimulate usage of technology by offering a wide range of services. This thesis attempts to design a fitting middleware platform for such a context, which would achieve the following aims: i) allow software developers to create solutions for the context more efficiently (correctly, rapidly); ii) stimulate product managers and business owners to create innovative software products more easily (cost-effectively). A given in the context of this thesis is that the software should use free/libre open source software (FLOSS) – good arguments do also exist for the use of FLOSS. A review of useful FLOSS frameworks is undertaken and several of these are examined in an applied part of the thesis, to see how useful they may be. They form the basis for a walking skeleton implementation of the proposed middleware. The Spring framework is the basis for experiments, along with Spring-Webservices, JMX and PHP 5’s web service capabilities. This thesis builds on three years of work at the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), an experimental testbed in a MRA in the Mbashe district of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Several existing products are deployed at the SLL in the fields of eCommerce, eGovernment and eLearning. Requirements specifications are engineered from a variety of sources, including interviews, mailing lists, the author’s experience as a supervisor at the SLL, and a review of the existing SLL products. Future products are also investigated, as the thesis considers current trends in ICTD. Use cases are also derived and listed. Most of the use cases are concerned with management functions of DANs that can be automated, so that operators of DANs can focus on their core business and not on technology. Using the UML Components methodology, the thesis then proceeds to design a middleware component architecture that is derived from the requirements specification. The process proceeds step-by-step, so that the reader can follow how business rules, operations and interfaces are derived from the use cases. Ultimately, the business rules, interfaces and operations are related to business logic, system interfaces and operations that are situated in specific components. The components in turn are derived from the business information model, that is derived from the business concepts that were initially used to describe the context for the requirements engineering. In this way, a logical method for software design is applied to the problem domain to methodically derive a software design for a middleware solution. The thesis tests the design by considering possible weaknesses in the design. The network aspect is tested by interpolating from formal assumptions about the nature of the context. The data access layer is also identified as a possible bottleneck. We suggest the use of fast indexing methods instead of relational databases to maintain flexibility and efficiency of the data layer. Lessons learned from the exercise are discussed, within the context of the author’s experience in software development teams, as well as in ICTD projects. This synthesis of information leads to warnings about the psychology of middleware development. We note that the ICTD domain is a particularly difficult one with regards to software development as business requirements are not usually clearly formulated and developers do not have the requisite domain knowledge. In conclusion, the core arguments of the thesis are recounted in a bullet form, to lay bare the reasoning behind this work. Novel aspects of the work are also highlighted. They include the description of a network island, and aspects of the DAN middleware requirements engineering and design. Future steps for work based on this thesis are mapped out and open problems relating to this research are touched upon.
Mobile phones interaction techniques for second economy people
(University of Fort Hare, 2010) Edim, Azom Emmanuel; Muyingi, H N
Second economy people in developing countries are people living in communities that are underserved in terms of basic amenities and social services. Due to literacy challenges and user accessibility problems in rural communities, it is often difficult to design user interfaces that conform to the capabilities and cultural experiences of low-literacy rural community users. Rural community users are technologically illiterate and lack the knowledge of the potential of information and communication technologies. In order to embrace new technology, users will need to perceive the user interface and application as useful and easy to interact with. This requires proper understanding of the users and their socio-cultural environment. This will enable the interfaces and interactions to conform to their behaviours, motivations as well as cultural experiences and preferences and thus enhance usability and user experience. Mobile phones have the potential to increase access to information and provide a platform for economic development in rural communities. Rural communities have economic potential in terms of agriculture and micro-enterprises. Information technology can be used to enhance socio-economic activities and improve rural livelihood. We conducted a study to design user interfaces for a mobile commerce application for micro-entrepreneurs in a rural community in South Africa. The aim of the study was to design mobile interfaces and interaction techniques that are easy to use and meet the cultural preferences and experiences of users who have little to no previous experience of mobile commerce technology. And also to explore the potentials of information technologies rural community users, and bring mobile added value services to rural micro-entrepreneurs. We applied a user-centred design approach in Dwesa community and used qualitative and quantitative research methods to collect data for the design of the user interfaces (graphic user interface and voice user interface) and mobile commerce application. We identified and used several interface elements to design and finally evaluate the graphical user interface. The statistics analysis of the evaluation results show that the users in the community have positive perception of the usefulness of the application, the ease of use and intention to use the application. Community users with no prior experience with this technology were able to learn and understand the interface, recorded minimum errors and a high level of v precision during task performance when they interacted with the shop-owner graphic user interface. The voice user interface designed in this study consists of two flavours (dual tone multi-frequency input and voice input) for rural users. The evaluation results show that community users recorded higher tasks successes and minimum errors with the dual tone multi-frequency input interface than the voice only input interface. Also, a higher percentage of users prefer the dual tone multi-frequency input interface. The t-Test statistical analysis performed on the tasks completion times and error rate show that there was significant statistical difference between the dual tone multi-frequency input interface and the voice input interface. The interfaces were easy to learn, understand and use. Properly designed user interfaces that meet the experience and capabilities of low-literacy users in rural areas will improve usability and users‟ experiences. Adaptation of interfaces to users‟ culture and preferences will enhance information services accessibility among different user groups in different regions. This will promote technology acceptance in rural communities for socio-economic benefits. The user interfaces presented in this study can be adapted to different cultures to provide similar services for marginalised communities in developing countries
Investigation and development of an e judiciary service for a citizen oriented judiciary system for rural communities
(University of Fort Hare, 2010) Scott, Mfundo Shakes; Muyingi, N H; Terzoli, A; Thinyane, M
One of the factors that contribute towards slow rural development is the presence of the digital divide. An area where the digital divide is still prevalent is the administration of justice within traditional contexts. One of the areas affected by this problem is the Dwesa rural community, situated on the Wild Coast of the former homeland of Transkei, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. To address this problem for the Dwesa community, a research project on developing and implementing an e-Judiciary service was undertaken. The primary objective of this project was to develop a web application to support traditional justice administration in the Dwesa community. Due to the lack of a proper legal environment in this community, the e-Judiciary service acts as a portal for safe-keeping of judicial information. Such a system also serves as a platform for the administration of minor offences that are solved by the traditional courts. Furthermore, it provides a better working environment for traditional judicial leaders and eliminates the difficulty of accessing legal information by the rest of the community. Through the availability and use of the service, community members are provided with understanding and knowledge about judiciary operations and services in their community.
Investigating wireless network deployment configurations for marginalized areas
(University of Fort Hare, 2011) Ndlovu, Nkanyiso; Thinyane, M; Terzoli, A
In recent years, immense effort has been channelled towards the Information and Technological development of rural areas. To support this development, telecommunication networks have been deployed. The availability of these telecommunication networks is expected to improve the way people share ideas and communicate locally and globally, reducing limiting factors like distance through the use of the Internet. The major problem for these networks is that very few of them have managed to stay in operation over long periods of time. One of the major causes of this failure is the lack of proper monitoring and management as, in some cases, administrators are located far away from the network site. Other factors that contribute to the frequent failure of these networks are lack of proper infrastructure, lack of a constant power supply and other environmental issues. A telecommunication network was deployed for the people of Dwesa by the Siyakhula Living Lab project. During this research project, frequent visits were made to the site and network users were informally interviewed in order to gain insight into the network challenges. Based on the challenges, different network monitoring systems and other solutions were deployed on the network. This thesis analyses the problems encountered and presents possible and affordable solutions that were implemented on the network. This was done to improve the network‟s reliability, availability and manageability whilst exploring possible and practical ways in which the connectivity of the deployed telecommunication network can be maintained. As part of these solutions, a GPRS redundant link, Nagios and Cacti monitoring systems as well as Simple backup systems were deployed. v Acronyms AC Access Concentrators AMANDA Automatic Marylyn Network Disk Archiver CDMA Code Divison Multiple Access CGI Common Gateway Interface.
Developing SOA wrappers for communication purposes in rural areas
(University of Fort Hare, 2010) Samalenge, Jimmy; Thinyane, Mamello
The introduction of Web Services as a platform upon which applications can communicate has contributed a great deal towards the expansion of World Wide Web technologies. The Internet and computing technologies have been some of the factors that have contributed to the socio-economic improvement of urban and industrial areas. This research focuses on the application of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services technologies in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) contexts. SOA is a style used to design distributed systems, and Web Services are some of the common realizations of the SOA. Web Services allow the exchange of data between two or more machines in a simple and standardized manner over the network. This has resulted in the augmentation of ways in which individuals in a society and in the world communicate. This research aims to develop a SOA-based system with services that are implemented as Web Services. The system is intended to support communication activities of Dwesa community members. The communication methods identified as the most commonly used in the Dwesa community are Short Message Services (SMSs) and voice calls. In this research we have identified further methods (i.e. Multimedia Message Service, Electronic mail and Instant Messaging) to augment communication activities in Dwesa. The developed system, therefore, exposes SMS Web Service, MMS Web Service, Email Web Service and IM Web Service that are consumed in machine-to-machine, machine-to-person and person-to-person types of communication. We have also implemented a one-stop communication shop, through a web portal which provides interfaces to the different communication modules. Elaborate functional and usability testing have also been undertaken to establish the viability and end-user acceptance of the system respectively. This research has provided the initial validation of the effectiveness of the SOA-based system in ICT4D contexts
Development of an M-Payment system prototype for a marginalized region (Dwesa case study)
(University of Fort Hare, 2011) Mpofu, Handsome C; Thinyane, M
Wireless technologies, such as Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) and Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), are making it easier to provide the much needed telecommunications infrastructure in marginalized areas worldwide. These technologies enable the rapid deployment of network services as well as their redistribution throughout these marginalized areas. The ability to bring Internet connectivity to previously underserviced and marginalized areas has the potential to leap-frog socio-economic development and improve participation in the global knowledge economy. This study investigated how wireless access technologies, such as WiMAX and WiFi, can be integrated and used to deliver ubiquitous distributed Internet connectivity with increased capillarity in rural areas. The research was undertaken within an ICT for Development (ICT4D) intervention called Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL) which is based in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The research further eliminated the accessibility constraints associated with long distances and remoteness from the Digital Access Nodes (DANs) and provided increased penetration in the network in contrast to the traditional Telecentre model which has been used extensively in ICT4D interventions. This was achieved by deploying WiFi hotspots around the DANs and extending the existing SLL WiMAX backbone to increase the network footprint to neighboring communities. The technical result of the research has been the provision of increased capillarity on the network and service redistribution throughout the entire Dwesa community. Consequently, this has given local community members an opportunity to access network services easily and ubiquitously. Finally, the research investigated and presented the benefits of such wireless network deployment configurations on ICT4D activities in marginalized areas.
Dynamic adaptive cost model for wireless Internet connectivity in African rural communities
(University of Fort Hare, 2010) Sibanda, Khulumani; Muyingi, P
In today’s dynamic technological landscape, wireless communication networks have become an important part of economic development. The emergence of wireless technologies raises hopes to extend communication to remote areas that have not seen any tangible deployment to date. As developing nations pin their hopes to wireless technologies, cost models for wireless communication networks are becoming vital to support the emerging technologies. However, varying cost changes raise critical challenges to the estimation of both capital expenditure and operational expenditure. The network deployment process has numerous events that may cause adjustments to initially estimated project costs. These adjustments are necessary for a cost management plan and this plan includes monitoring cost performance and ensuring that only appropriate changes are made to the network project. The incidents that may cause cost changes can not be entirely predicted as their distribution tend to change dynamically from time to time. Estimating network deployment costs in such a dynamic environment necessitates cost models that can adapt to random occurrence of cost changes. Widely used cost models are usually performed by experienced personnel whose engineering experience is derived from deploying similar networks. In this approach experienced personnel add a certain percentage to the cost estimate to cater for contingency costs. Certainly such an approach depends on individual opinion, making it subjective and void of mathematical estimating relationships which are of paramount importance in ensuring that estimated deployment costs are sufficient to deal with cost uncertainties. We observe that existing approaches can only explore a limited solution space and hence can lead to cost overruns if implemented in dynamically cost changing environments. This thesis presents a wireless communication network deployment cost model that incorporates uncertainties into the final cost estimate. The model is adaptive to unpredictable cost changes since it allows adjustments of confidence levels when calculating contingency costs. This allows dynamically updating the cost changes without the cost model being reconstructed from scratch. We make use of the Poisson process in modeling the occurrence of incidents that are responsible for causing cost changes during network deployment. We also show that the occurrence of the incidents causing cost change are random and tend to follow the Poisson distribution. Using different levels of confidence we model various cost contingencies and make sensitivity analyses to identify the probability of cost overrun when given different contingencies. The dynamic adaptive cost model can be used either at the strategic level to understand the cost of a particular technique or at the operational level, as a way to show how Poisson process in network deployment can compare with engineering experience and other estimating techniques. We believe that the model is useful for remote areas where deployment costs are volatile and the distribution of incidents causing cost change to original cost estimates are diverse and dynamically changing. Further we expect that our research improves the knowledge base of information about the costs for rural communities to connect to the Internet, consequently providing useful input to future policy debates. This work is further poised to be a utility function to help those planning internet infrastructure deployments in least developed regions.
A comparison of open source object-oriented database products
(University of Fort Hare, 2009) Khayundi, Peter; Chadwick, J
Object oriented databases have been gaining popularity over the years. Their ease of use and the advantages that they offer over relational databases have made them a popular choice amongst database administrators. Their use in previous years was restricted to business and administrative applications, but improvements in technology and the emergence of new, data-intensive applications has led to the increase in the use of object databases. This study investigates four Open Source object-oriented databases on their ability to carry out the standard database operations of storing, querying, updating and deleting database objects. Each of these databases will be timed in order to measure which is capable of performing a particular function faster than the other.
Exploring user-driven telephony services in an information and communication technology for development context
(University of Fort Hare, 2011) Kunjuzwa, Dumani Tau; Thinyane, M
There is a great difference that exists between people who have access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and those who do not. As a developing nation, South Africa is badly affected by the so-called Digital Divide. Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) interventions are rapidly increasing in marginalized and rural communities in striving to bridge this digital divide. This research project is undertaken within the context of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL) which is an ICTD intervention at Dwesa rural community. This research investigates how audio-based services can be applied locally for communication and information sharing. This research aims to develop a user-driven telephony framework which will enable users to construct customized audio-based services. This aims to empower the Dwesa community for skill development and supports the user-driven innovation. The Internet and Telephones are the most popular technologies that are widely used in our daily life for purposes of communication and information access. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) integrates these two separate technologies (Internet and Telephones) to produce real-time multimedia communication services such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems. In addition, the ability of VoIP presenting information through voice plays a crucial role, more especially to those who do not have web visual access or those who are computer illiterate.
Development of isiXhosa text-to-speech modules to support e-Services in marginalized rural areas
(University of Fort Hare, 2011) Mhlana, Siphe; Kogeda, O.P; Thinyane, M
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects are being initiated and deployed in marginalized areas to help improve the standard of living for community members. This has lead to a new field, which is responsible for information processing and knowledge development in rural areas, called Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D). An ICT4D projects has been implemented in a marginalized area called Dwesa; this is a rural area situated in the wild coast of the former homelandof Transkei, in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. In this rural community there are e-Service projects which have been developed and deployed to support the already existent ICT infrastructure. Some of these projects include the e-Commerce platform, e-Judiciary service, e-Health and e-Government portal. Although these projects are deployed in this area, community members face a language and literacy barrier because these services are typically accessed through English textual interfaces. This becomes a challenge because their language of communication is isiXhosa and some of the community members are illiterate. Most of the rural areas consist of illiterate people who cannot read and write isiXhosa but can only speak the language. This problem of illiteracy in rural areas affects both the youth and the elderly. This research seeks to design, develop and implement software modules that can be used to convert isiXhosa text into natural sounding isiXhosa speech. Such an application is called a Text-to-Speech (TTS) system. The main objective of this research is to improve ICT4D eServices’ usability through the development of an isiXhosa Text-to-Speech system. This research is undertaken within the context of Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), an ICT4D intervention towards improving the lives of rural communities of South Africa in an attempt to bridge the digital divide. Thedeveloped TTS modules were subsequently tested to determine their applicability to improve eServices usability. The results show acceptable levels of usability as having produced audio utterances for the isiXhosa Text-To-Speech system for marginalized areas.

Browse

Recent Submissions