Browsing by Author "Mhlanga, Samson"

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    Academic staff development strategies in engineering fields of study: case study of Zimbabwe
    (2013-06) Mhlanga, Samson; Matope, Stephen; Mugwagwa, Lameck; Phuthi, Nduduzo; Moyo, Vincent S.
    Higher education is the basic instrument of economic growth and technological advancement in any society. The economic meltdown in Zimbabwe which climaxed 2008 with an inflation level of 231million % exacerbated the brain drain. After the economic meltdown, Zimbabwe is in the process of rebuilding the quality of staff and the staffing levels in its higher education institutions. The challenge has been the decision on the mode of study: whether to go via taught masters or masters by research; where to allow the faculty members to study: in the region, or beyond; on a fulltime or on a part-time basis or on a split-site basis. These challenges have been due to the need to have a quick but quality programme of staff development, while maximising on the resources available for staff development. A survey was undertaken of the engineering related departments in Zimbabwe universities focusing on the existing staffing levels, their qualifications, current numbers undergoing study and their levels. The challenges faced by each institution from the administrative side and from the staff side are summarised. Recommendations on staff development strategies are given in conclusion.
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    Adaptation and implementation of local maternity dashboards in a Zimbabwean hospital to drive clinical improvement
    (World Health Organisation, 2013-11-27) Crofts, J.; Moyo, J.; Ndebele, W.; Mhlanga, Samson; Draycott, T.; Sibanda, T.
    Problem:The Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health of the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that national health outcome data were often of questionable quality and “not timely enough for practical use by health planners and administrators”. Delayed reporting of poor-quality data limits the ability of front-line staff to identify problems rapidly and make improvements. Approach: Clinical “dashboards” based on locally available data offer a way of providing accurate and timely information. A dashboard is a simple computerized tool that presents a health facility’s clinical data graphically using a traffic-light coding system to alert front-line staff about changes in the frequency of clinical outcomes. It provides rapid feedback on local outcomes in an accessible form and enables problems to be detected early. Until now, dashboards have been used only in high-resource settings. Local setting: An overview maternity dashboard and a maternal mortality dashboard were designed for, and introduced at, a public hospital in Zimbabwe. A midwife at the hospital was trained to collect and input data monthly. Relevant changes: Implementation of the maternity dashboards was feasible and 28 months of clinical outcome data were summarized using common computer software. Presentation of these data to staff led to the rapid identification of adverse trends in outcomes and to suggestions for actions to improve health-care quality. Lessons learnt: Implementation of maternity dashboards was feasible in a low-resource setting and resulted in actions that improved health-care quality locally. Active participation of hospital management and midwifery staff was crucial to their success.
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    Design of a Flood Water Powered Water Pump
    (National University of Science and Technology (NUST)., 2007-07-17) Dewa, Mncedisi; Mhlanga, Samson; Maphosa, N.; Phuthi, Nduduzo
    The paper set to discuss the research to develop a machine that collects water from flooded rivers and pumps it to a reservoir so that it can be used to water crops during the interludes of dry spells that characterize the Zimbabwe rain season. This water is not necessary intended to irrigate the crop on full scale, but just to bridge the crop and sustain it during the critical weeks of the dry spells which usually stresses the crop beyond recovery even after the rains resume. The simple machine designed relies totally on the force of the flood water to pump water from the river and send it to the reservoir, thus making it possible for the machine to be used in the rural areas where there is no electricity. The cost of the model that was built is given as well as the pictorial view of the model.
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    An Efficient Method for Rural Electronification Grid Design.
    (European Scientific Institute, 2014-09) Mhlanga, Samson; Nyakudya, R.
    This paper investigates the optimization of the electricity grid network in rural community of Chegutu district, in Zimbabwe. The Kruskal’s algorithm is used for the minimum spanning tree to carry out the optimization process.The project seeks to find how a network with a number of possible connections can have the least possible distance. The main objective of the optimization procedure is to minimize the total distance of the network connections, so as to minimize resources that are used when carrying out projects. Rural Electrification Agency has been failing to meet their targets for extension of the electricity grid network because of shortage of resources and input capital, thus the researcher adopts the idea of network optimization as a way of saving resources so that they can be used for other projects. The researcher used the algorithm to carry out the manual computation of the optimization process and also used C sharp programming language to create a code that is able to minimize the total distance of the network. In this dissertation the Kruskal’s algorithm has been translated into a simple model that can be easily used to map distances between nodes and vertices. The model presented in this dissertation help network service providers such as electricity, telephone and information technology to optimize their network resources so as to save money and resources for other uses in the future. The optimisation process shows that a total of 74km of 11kV power line could be saved from the network.