UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Tucker, William D."

Browsing by Author "Tucker, William D."

Now showing 1 - 13 of 13

A health informatics model for user-centred design using a positive deviance approach: A case for diabetes self-management
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Petersen, Fazlyn; Pather, Shaun; Tucker, William D.
Over the past twenty years there have been substantive efforts across the African continent to ensure penetration and reach of mobile technology to the citizenry. However there continues to be a debate on precisely how developmental outcomes may be forged through this escalating penetration of communications technologies. This paper responds to the question of how development outcomes in the area of health, and specifically that of diabetes mellitus, can be achieved through the effective application of ICTs in the context of mobile applications. Diabetes Mellitus is a leading cause of morbidity in low-income and middle-income countries, with the number of patients projected to increase globally to 205 million by 2035. The increased number of patients in countries with limited resources requires innovative approaches to support a regime of patient self-management. In pursuance of this, and given the increasing pervasiveness of communications infrastructure amongst communities in South Africa, the role of Information and communications technology (ICT) in addressing the problem requires investigation. In particular, issues in relation to the adoption and effective use of ICTs, especially amongst previously disadvantaged and underserved communities, warrants exploration. The paper thus assesses the role of m-health at primary care level and posits a user-centred design approach to involve patients in designing an m-health intervention which meets their needs.
Affective gesture fast-track feedback instant messaging (AGFIM)
(University of Western Cape, 2005) Adesemowo, A. Kayode; Tucker, William D.
Text communication is often perceived as lacking some components of communication that are essential in sustaining interaction or conversation. This interaction incoherency tends to make text communication plastic. It is traditionally devoid of intonation, pitch, gesture, facial expression and visual or auditory cues. Nevertheless, Instant Messaging (IM), a form of text communication is on the upward uptake both on PCs and on mobile handhelds. There is a need to rubberise this plastic text messaging to improve co-presence for text communications thereby improving synchronous textual discussion, especially on handheld devices. One element of interaction is gesture, seen as a natural way of conversing. Attaining some level of interaction naturalism requires improving synchronous communication spontaneity, partly achieved by enhancing input mechanisms. To enhance input mechanisms for interactive text-based chat on mobile devices, there is a need to facilitate gesture input. Enhancement is achievable in a number of ways, such as input mechanism redesigning and input offering adaptation. This thesis explores affective gesture mode on interface redesign as an input offering adaptation. This is done without a major physical reconstruction of handheld devices. This thesis presents a text only IM system built on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE). It was developed with a novel user-defined hotkey implemented as a one-click context menu to "fast-track" text-gestures and emoticons. A hybrid quantitative and qualitative approach was taken to enable data triangulation. Results from experimental trials show that an Affective Gesture (AG) approach improved IM chat spontaneity/response. Feedback from the user trials affirms that AG hotkey improves chat responsiveness, thus enhancing chat spontaneity.
Comparison and evaluation of mass video notification methods used to assist Deaf people
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Hoorn, Ryno; Venter, I.M.; Tucker, William D.; Dept. of Computer Science
In South Africa, Deaf people communicate with one another and the broader community by means of South African Sign Language. The majority of Deaf people who have access to a mobile phone (cell phone) use Short Message Service (SMS) to communicate and share information with hearing people, but seldom use it among themselves. It is assumed that video messaging will be more accessible to Deaf people, since their level of literacy may prevent them from making effective use of information that is disseminated via texting/SMS. The principal objective of the esearch was to explore a cost-effective and efficient mass multimedia messaging system. The intention was to adapt a successful text-based mass notification system, developed by a local nongovernmental organization (NGO), to accommodate efficient and affordable video mass messaging for Deaf people. The questions that underpin this research are: How should video- streaming mass-messaging methods be compared and evaluated to find the most suitable method to deliver an affordable and acceptable service to Deaf people? What transport vehicles should be considered: Multimedia Message Service (MMS), the web, electronic mail, or a cell phone resident push/pullapplication? Which is the most cost effective? And, finally: How does the video quality of the various transport vehicles differ in terms of the clarity of the sign language as perceived by the Deaf? The soft-systems methodology and a mixed-methods methodology were used to address the research questions. The soft-systems methodology was followed to manage the research process and the mixed-methods research methodology was followed to collect data. Data was collected by means of experiments and semi-structured interviews. A prototype for mobile phone usage was developed and evaluated with Deaf members the NGO Deaf Community of Cape Town. The technology and internet usage of the Deaf participants provided background information. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyse the quantitative data, and content analysis was used to analyse the documents and interviews. All of the Deaf participants used their mobile phones for SMS and the majority (81.25%) used English to type messages; however, all indicated that they would have preferred to use South Africa sign language on their mobile phones if it were available. And they were quite willing to pay between 75c and 80c per message for using such a video-messaging service.Of the transport vehicles demonstrated, most Deaf people indic indicated that they preferred to use the SMS prototype (with a web link to the video) rather than the MMS prototype with the video attached. They were, however, very concerned about the cost of using the system, as well as the quality of the sign language videos.
Determinants for the acceptance and use of mobile health applications: Diabetic patients in the Western Cape, South Africa
(University of Western Cape, 2019) Petersen, Fazlyn; Pather, Shaun; Tucker, William D.
The increased pervasiveness of information communication and technology and increasing internet access creates anticipation for how contemporary technologies can address critical developmental problems. Non-communicable diseases are the leading cause of death globally, even though more than 40% of the deaths are premature and avoidable. Diabetes is such a disease that causes 80% of non-communicable disease deaths in low and middle-income countries. Diabetes is also the leading cause of death in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Diabetes thus constitutes a challenge to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3 that focuses on health and well-being for all people, at all ages. The potential of technology, such as the use of m-health applications, is recognised as a means to advance the Sustainable Development Goals through supporting health systems in all countries.
Determinants for the acceptance and use of mobile health applications: Diabetic patients in the Western Cape, South Africa
(University of Western Cape, 2019) Petersen, Fazlyn; Pather, Shaun; Tucker, William D.
The increased pervasiveness of information communication and technology and increasing internet access creates anticipation for how contemporary technologies can address critical developmental problems. Non-communicable diseases are the leading cause of death globally, even though more than 40% of the deaths are premature and avoidable. Diabetes is such a disease that causes 80% of non-communicable disease deaths in low and middle-income countries. Diabetes is also the leading cause of death in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Diabetes thus constitutes a challenge to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3 that focuses on health and well-being for all people, at all ages. The potential of technology, such as the use of m-health applications, is recognised as a means to advance the Sustainable Development Goals through supporting health systems in all countries.
Digital infrastructure and food systems in rural communities of Zimbabwe
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Gwaka, Leon Tinashe; Tucker, William D.
This study examines the relationship between digital infrastructure and the sustainability of livestock systems in Beitbridge, Zimbabwe. The study aims to answer the question: Do digital infrastructure transformations impact the sustainability of livestock systems in rural communities? By answering this question, the study contributes towards efforts to enhance food security in rural communities, achieve Sustainable Development Goals (1, 2, 5 & 9) at grassroots levels as well as achieve the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation. The study details a digital infrastructure intervention in Beitbridge and applies post-positivist approaches towards the intervention’s impact assessment to develop recommendations on whether digital infrastructure interventions should be prioritized in rural communities towards improving food security. The study was conducted in four villages of Ward 15 in Beitbridge and the target population were livestock system actors. Using a mixed methods approach, data collection, with the assistance of locally recruited research assistants, was conducted between 2015 and 2018. Qualitative data were collected using community visioning workshops, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and participant observations. Household survey questionnaires were used to gather quantitative data. Data analysis was completed using a mixed methods approach. The first objective of the study, using the Socio-Ecological System framework, was to characterise the livestock system, explore livestock contribution towards household food security and determine the livestock system’s sustainability. The study established that livestock play multiple roles towards household food security contributing to different dimensions of food security. Households sell livestock to generate income to purchase (access) food and include animal source foods in their diets even though different consumption patterns of different livestock species were observed. Apart from this, livestock also play sociocultural roles. However, the study established that the livestock system is fragile, stemming from multiple factors such as poor governance and a lack of appropriate infrastructure. Secondly, using Kleine’s Choice Framework, the study investigated the potential of digital technologies to contribute towards sustainable livestock systems. Study findings suggest that digital technologies can enhance the dimensions of choice of livestock system actors. However, a lack of digital infrastructure inhibits the integration of digital technologies in the livestock system. The potential of these technologies and the fragility of local value chains has however triggered interventions by government and non-governmental organisations including the MOSMAC project in Beitbridge rural.
The effect of government facilitated ICT access interventions on the well-being of marginalised communities in the Overberg District, South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Kassongo, Rashidi François; Tucker, William D.
In recent years there has been a shift towards the assessment of the contribution of technology to citizens’ well-being rather than a focus on issues only related to the availability of ICT infrastructure. However, the mere change in evaluation foci does not mean that all is fine. The South African government considers Government Facilitated Access (GFA1) to computers and the internet as a critical tool for transforming the way it conducts its business with its citizenry. In so doing it seeks the improvement of socio-economic well-being of marginalised communities through improved service delivery.
A Mobile Deaf-to-hearing communication aid for medical diagnosis
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Mutemwa, Muyowa; Tucker, William D.
Many South African Deaf people use their mobile phones for communication with SMSs yet they would prefer to converse in South African Sign Language. Deaf people with a capital `D' are different from deaf or hard of hearing as they primarily use sign language to communicate. This study explores how to design and evaluate a prototype that will allow a Deaf person using SASL to tell a hearing doctor how s/he is feeling and provide a way for the doctor to respond. A computer{based prototype was designed and evaluated with the Deaf people in a previous study. Results from the user trial of the computer{based mock{up indicated that Deaf users would like to see the prototype on a cell phone. Those user trial results, combined with our own user survey results conducted with Deaf people, are used as requirements. We built a prototype for a mobile phone browser by embedding SASL videos inside XHTML pages using Adobe Flash. The prototype asks medical questions using SASL videos. These questions are arranged in an organized way that helps in identifying a medical problem. The answers to the questions are then displayed in English and shown to the doctor on the phone. A content authoring tool was also designed and implemented. The content authoring tool is used for populating the prototype in a context free manner allowing for plug and play scenarios such as a doctor's office, Department of Home A airs or police station. A focus group consisting of Deaf people was conducted to help in the design and pilot trial of the system. A final user trial was conducted with more than thirty Deaf people and the results are presented and analyzed. Data is collected with questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and video recordings. The results indicate that most of the Deaf people found the system easy to learn, easy to navigate through, did not get lost and understood the sign language in the videos on the mobile phone. The hand gestures and facial expressions on the sign language videos were clear. Most of them indicated they would like to use the system for free, and that the system did not ask too many questions. Most of them were happy with the quality of the sign language videos on the mobile phone and would consider using the system in real life. Finally they felt their private information was safe while using the system. Many South African Deaf people use their mobile phones for communication with SMSs yet they would prefer to converse in South African Sign Language. Deaf people with a capital `D' are different from deaf or hard of hearing as they primarily use sign language to communicate. This study explores how to design and evaluate a prototype that will allow a Deaf person using SASL to tell a hearing doctor how s/he is feeling and provide a way for the doctor to respond. A computer{based prototype was designed and evaluated with the Deaf people in a previous study. Results from the user trial of the computer{based mock{up indicated that Deaf users would like to see the prototype on a cell phone. Those user trial results, combined with our own user survey results conducted with Deaf people, are used as requirements. We built a prototype for a mobile phone browser by embedding SASL videos inside XHTML pages using Adobe Flash. The prototype asks medical questions using SASL videos. These questions are arranged in an organized way that helps in identifying a medical problem. The answers to the questions are then displayed in English and shown to the doctor on the phone. A content authoring tool was also designed and implemented. The content authoring tool is used for populating the prototype in a context free manner allowing for plug and play scenarios such as a doctor's office, Department of Home A airs or police station. A focus group consisting of Deaf people was conducted to help in the design and pilot trial of the system. A final user trial was conducted with more than thirty Deaf people and the results are presented and analyzed. Data is collected with questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and video recordings. The results indicate that most of the Deaf people found the system easy to learn, easy to navigate through, did not get lost and understood the sign language in the videos on the mobile phone. The hand gestures and facial expressions on the sign language videos were clear. Most of them indicated they would like to use the system for free, and that the system did not ask too many questions. Most of them were happy with the quality of the sign language videos on the mobile phone and would consider using the system in real life. Finally they felt their private information was safe while using the system.
Packet aggregation for voice over internet protocol on wireless mesh networks
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Zulu, Docas Dudu; Tucker, William D.
This thesis validates that packet aggregation is a viable technique to increase call ca-pacity for Voice over Internet Protocol over wireless mesh networks. Wireless mesh networks are attractive ways to provide voice services to rural communities. Due to the ad-hoc routing nature of mesh networks, packet loss and delay can reduce voice quality.Even on non-mesh networks, voice quality is reduced by high overhead, associated with the transmission of multiple small packets. Packet aggregation techniques are proven to increase VoIP performance and thus can be deployed in wireless mesh networks. Kernel level packet aggregation was initially implemented and tested on a small mesh network of PCs running Linux, and standard baseline vs. aggregation tests were conducted with a realistic voice tra c pro le in hop-to-hop mode. Modi cations of the kernel were then transferred to either end of a nine node 'mesh potato' network and those tests were conducted with only the end nodes modi ed to perform aggregation duties. Packet ag- gregation increased call capacity expectedly, while quality of service was maintained in both instances, and hop-to-hop aggregation outperformed the end-to-end con guration. However, implementing hop-to-hop in a scalable fashion is prohibitive, due to the extensive kernel level debugging that must be done to achieve the call capacity increase.Therefore, end-to-end call capacity increase is an acceptable compromise for eventual scalable deployment of voice over wireless mesh networks.
Pharmacy perspectives in the design and implementation of a mobile cellular phone application as a communication aid for dispensing medicines to deaf people in the South African context
(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Parker, Mariam B.; Bheekie, Angeni; Tucker, William D.
South Africa's White Paper for the transformation of the health care system in South Africa (DOH, 2007) acknowledges major disparities and inequalities as a result of an imprint by apartheid policies. In its transition to democracy, health promotion strategies have been initiated to address these disparities. However, such strategies have been narrowed and "favoured target audiences that are literate, urban-based and who have easy access to print and audio-visual media" (DOH, 1997). This implies that many vulnerable and marginalised groupings in South Africa, including the Deaf community are excluded from health promotion endeavours. Deaf people in South Africa communicate using South African Sign Language (SASL) and majority of the Deaf community exhibit poor literacy levels. Deafness is a significant communication barrier which limits a Deaf person's prospect to attain the best possible health care (Barnett, et al 2011). Various means of communication including spoken language, written instructions and the use of pictograms are used by healthcare workers to communicate health-related information. For many members of the Deaf community who communicate primarily in sign language, these methods are a sub-standard and prevent the attainment of optimum therapeutic outcomes. With regard to pharmaco-therapeutic services, Deaf people cannot hear the spoken language used by pharmacists during patient counselling, and their compromised functional literacy hinders the ability to read instructions on medicine labels. With both the spoken and written means of communication compromised, the Deaf patient's ability to comprehend instruction by pharmacists on how to use their medicines is inadequate and as a result, a Deaf patient may leave the pharmacy with medicine, but a poor understanding of how to use the medicine safely and effectively. Previous researchers have worked on building a technology base, including industrial design and computer science expertise to conceptualize the groundwork of a mobile phone application called SignSupport to facilitate communication between medical doctors and Deaf individuals. The particulars of the pharmacy scenario however, require a pharmacy-specific device to be of use in the dispensing of medicines to a Deaf patient in a pharmacy. The over-arching goal of this thesis is to design and evaluate a mobile phone application to facilitate the communication of medicine instructions between a Deaf patient and a pharmacist. Qualitative, participatory action research and community-based co-design strategies were directed toward Deaf participants, senior pharmacy students and pharmacists to create a prototype of the afore-mentioned mobile phone application. Preliminary results indicated that the application was suitable to pharmacists and Deaf community. Furthermore, both sets of users approved the overall design and were receptive to and keen on the practical uses of the application. Inadequacies pointed out by the Deaf community and pharmacists were addressed as an iterative modification to the prototype and culminated in version 2 which was deployed in an actual hospital pharmacy in 2015. Hospital usability studies generated largely positive results from both Deaf users and pharmacists, indicating that SignSupport is able to facilitate communication between pharmacists and Deaf patients. Next steps include advancing the application to a market–ready version that is downloadable and available as an application on the play stores of commercially available smart phones.
Semi-synchronous video for deaf telephony with an adapted synchronous codec
(University of the Western Cape, 2009) Ma, Zhenyu; Tucker, William D.
As Information and Communication Technology (ICT) matures, communication services must be improved to meet the needs of all types of users. For some uses, current Video over Internet Protocol (IP) brings unsatisfactory and even unrecognisable quality of video sequences. Such communication does not always meet the needs of Deaf 1 people. Asynchronous video messaging, such as EyeJot (www.eyejot.com), offers Deaf people the ability to send and receive video messages like email. Unfortunately, communicating like this incurs much delay, resulting in slow response. Even though text messaging is popular among Deaf people via cellphone or Internet, but they would prefer to use sign language for communication. Video Relay Service (VRS) attempts to help Deaf users communicate with hearing people in sign language. VRS provides synchronous video and voice services to enable those who use sign language to communicate with hearing people through a relay interpreter across the world via the Internet.
Social and technical issues of IP-based multi-modal semi-synchronous communication: rural telehealth communication in South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2005) Vuza, Xolisa; Tucker, William D.; Dept. of Computer Science; Faculty of Science
Most rural areas of developing countries are faced with problems like shortage of doctors in hospitals, illiteracy and poor power supply. Because of these issues, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is often sees as a useful solution for these areas. Unfortunately, the social environment is often ignored. This leads to inappropriate systems being developed for these areas. The aims of this thesis were firstly, to learn how a communication system can be built for a rural telehealth environment in a developing country, secondly to learn how users can be supported to use such a system.
Toward Authentication Mechanisms for Wi-Fi Mesh Networks
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Saay, Mohammad Salim; Tucker, William D.
Wi-Fi authentication mechanisms include central authentication, dynamic and distributed authentication and some encryption methods. Most of the existing authentication methods were designed for single-hop networks, as opposed to multihop Wi-Fi mesh networks. This research endeavors to characterize and compare existing Wi-Fi authentication mechanisms to find the best secure connection mechanism associated with Wi-Fi mesh network fragmentation and distributed authentication. The methodology is experimental and empirical, based on actual network testing. This thesis characterizes five different types of Wrt54gl firmware, three types of Wi-Fi routing protocols, and besides the eight Wi-Fi mesh network authentication protocols related to this research, it also characterizes and compares 14 existing authentication protocols. Most existing authentication protocols are not applicable to Wi-Fi mesh networks since they are based on Layer 2 of the OSI model and are not designed for Wi-Fi mesh networks. We propose using TincVPN which provides distributed authentication, fragmentation, and can provide secure connections for backbone Wi-Fi mesh networks.

Browsing by Author "Tucker, William D."

Results Per Page

Sort Options