Browsing by Author "Musundi, Sammy"

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Assessment of Water Quality in Boreholes and Wells in Waa Location, Kwale County - Kenya
(Journal of Scientific and Engineering Research, 2017) Kilwake J. Wanjala; Mwakio, Tole; Musundi, Sammy
Water from boreholes and dug wells is extensively used in Kwale County, especially by rural communities living away from established market centers, where piped water is commonly available. The study aimed to assess the quality of water in boreholes and dug wells found in Waa location of Kwale County – Kenya. Selection of the boreholes and dug wells was carried out using purposive sampling and simple random sampling. All the seventy one boreholes and wells in Waa location were visited and inspected to determine their sanitary condition and functionality. Twenty eight samples of water that were collected in duplicate from 14 boreholes and dug wells (30% of total number) were analyzed for faecal coliform (Escherichia. coli), total coliform count, pH, total dissolved solids, turbidity, colour, total hardness, salinity, chloride content, electrical conductivity, total alkalinity, Ca2+ and Mg2+ using 3M PetrifilmTM method, pH meter, HACH digital titrator, Total dissolved solids/Conductivity meter, and DR 2000 (HACH) spectrophotometer at KIMAWASCO laboratory. The study revealed that 32% of the boreholes and dug wells have either permanently or temporarily failed to discharge good quality drinking water to the local community reliably. This state has been attributed to negligence from the relevant authorities and agencies in terms of water quality monitoring and low level of community involvement in the development of these water projects. The County government of Kwale and water resource providers should build the capacity of the community in water resource management, introduce desalination and water treatment plants to provide safe drinking piped water.
An Empirical analysis of Commercialization of Small holder Farming: Its inclusive household Welfare Effects
(2916-04-18) Wasseja, Mustapha M.; Mwenda, Samwel N.; Musundi, Sammy; Jerobon, Josephine; Ochieng, Pascal *
This paper assesses the potential impact of commercialization of agriculture on household welfare of farmers in eastern Kenya under the Mwea rice scheme. The study consists of cross-sectional data collected with structured survey questionnaires. Stratified sampling was adopted with each of the four zones in the District forming a stratum. The number of respondents was 368 selected conveniently with the help of the National agriculture advisory services officers. The causal relationship and impact of commercialization on welfare were estimated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and regression analysis. The analysis results revealed significant positive relationship between commercialization and household welfare, with key variables of market access and internal farming activities positively and significantly contributing to improved household incomes and farm outputs. The regression result further predicted a 16.9% improvement in household welfare if farmers actively worked on improving market access and internal farm activities like fertilizers and pesticides. It’s therefore recommended that farmers work on all aspects that can improve on their farm outputs and also get links to both nearby and far markets. Formation of saving schemes will help them pool resources to buy inputs like tractors, lobbying central and local governments for infrastructure in the districts and negotiating better output prices. All this will help improve farmers’ household welfare and standards of living in this area.
Modeling HIV/AIDS Co Infection with Malaria and Tuberculosis: The role of treatment and counseling
(2018-05) Okong’o, Mark; Lawi, George; Musundi, Sammy; Magana, Adiel M.
HIV/AIDS remains one of the leading causes of death in the world with its effects most devastating in Sub Saharan Africa due to its dual infection with opportunistic infections especially malaria and tuberculosis. This study presents a co infection deterministic model defined by a system of ordinary differential equations for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The HIV/AIDS only model is analyzed to determine the conditions for the stability of the equilibria points and assess the role of treatment and counseling in controlling the spread of the infections. This study shows that effective counseling reduces the value of the reproduction number for HIV/AIDS (RH) to less than unity eliminating the HIV/AIDS problem. Numerical simulations show that applying anti-retroviral treatment (ARV’S) without effective counseling increases the value of RH, worsening the HIV/AIDS problem, however ARV treatment coupled with effective counseling reduces the value of RH to a level below one eliminating the disease. The study further shows that when the proportion of those receiving ARV treatment without effective counseling increases, the value of RH also increases to a level above one, however effective counseling maintains the value of RH below unity therefore strategies for the control of HIV/AIDS should emphasize counseling and not only treatment.
On Characterization of u-ideals determined by sequences’’
(2013) Matuya, wanyonyi john; Makila, Patrick; Simiyu, Achiles; Shem, Aywa; Musundi, Sammy
The area of ideals is important in the study of Analysis, algebra, Geometry and Computer science. The various types of ideals have been studied, for example m ideals and h ideals. The m ideals defined on real Banach spaces are referred to as u - ideals. The natural examples of u - ideals with respect to their biduals, are order continuous Banach lattices. Using the approximation property, we shall study properties of u - ideals and their characterization. We define the set of compact operators K (X) on X to be u - ideals given that X is a separable reflexive Banach space with approximation property if and only if there is a sequence (Tn ) of finite rank of operators with lim 2 1 n n →∞ I T − = and lim n n →∞Tx x = . We shall show that u -ideals containing no copies of sequences 1  are strict u - ideals