Joseph Chuma

Design and simulation of an automatic room heater control system

This paper presents the design and simulation of an Automatic Room Heater Control system. This system allows the user to set a desired temperature which is then compared to the room temperature measured by a temperature sensor. With the help of a microcontroller, the system responds by turning ON any of the two (2) loads (Fan or a heater) automatically depending on the temperature difference. The Fan is triggered ON when the room temperature is higher than the set temperature and the heater is triggered ON when the room temperature is lower than the set temperature. The system was designed and simulated using Proteus 8, circuit building software used for building electronics system. Proteus software was used to design and simulate the main circuit, and Micro-C hex file was loaded on the Proteus schematic design. For coding the PIC Microcontroller, Micro-C compiler was used. A 5 V DC power supply was designed in order to provide a biasing voltage to most of the active devices used in the system design circuit. The DC power supply was designed and simulated using Multisim software. The system was simulated and simulation results were in accordance to the design specifications.

Network Traffic Model: A Case of BIUST Network

Network traffic model and analysis provides the average load, bandwidth requirements and the different application of the available bandwidth for a particular network, in addition to several other details of the network. This paper presents mathematical model used for modelling real world problems using Botswana International University of Science and technology (BIUST) network traffic as a case. Sophisticated analysis of data is done to model the BIUST network with the succor of statistics, as it implies the collection and interpretation of data through mathematical processes called stochastic processes. From the attained results, the model and estimation of packet traffic distribution for BIUST Network based on Pareto distribution, it was perceived that about 20% of the users had about 80% of the bandwidth consumed.

Design and Implementation of Security in Healthcare Cloud Computing

As technology keeps on evolving, different organisations make use of the recent trends in technology and the health sector is no exception. As the cost of healthcare services is increasing, healthcare professionals are becoming scarce. Healthcare organisations have also adopted the latest technology of cloud computing. The introduction of cloud computing has proved to be a feasible idea on the information technology community. Rather than keeping the patient’s information in a file in a health facility he/she was treated in, the information is stored in a cloud so that it can be shared amongst all health organisations and health professionals. Information is stored in a central place where it can be easily accessed, thus saving time and avoiding repetition of always writing the information each time a patient is attended to in a different facility. However, there are issues with sharing such information on the cloud since it is sensitive information. Ensuring this sensitive information security, availability and scalability are a major factor in the cloud computing environment. In this study, we proposed a mathematical model for measuring the availability of data and machines (nodes). We also present the current state-of-the-art research in this field by focusing on several shortcomings of current healthcare solutions and standards and we further proposed a system that will encrypt data before it is being sent to the cloud. The system is intended to be linked to the cloud in such a way that, before the client submits the data to the cloud and, the data will go through that system for encryption. The paper presents the steps to achieve the proposed system and also a sample encrypted and decrypted file.

A wireless sensor network solution for monitoring water quality in Botswana

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) provide reliable and affordable infrastructure for various applications ranging from environmental monitoring, industrial automation, telemedicine, to military surveillance. These networks allow monitoring processes to be conducted remotely, in real-time and with minimal human intervention. Water quality monitoring is essential to the provision of clean and safe water. In Botswana, Water Utilities Corporation (WUC), has adopted a conventional like process that employs several independent hand held meters for sampling different water quality parameters manually. However, this process has proved to be ineffective since it is expensive, time consuming, requires considerable human resource capacity and lacks real-time results to promote proactive response to water contamination. In this work, an integrated WSN based solution that employs Libeliums Waspmote platform has been developed. The sensor node is based on ATMELs ATmega 1281 8-bit low power microcontroller which can operate for more than a year without recharging its battery. Results have shown that the proposed system managed to sample associated water quality parameters in real time with the same accuracy as currently adopted methods. In addition, the system is autonomous, easy to install, highly scalable and has a relatively high sampling rate which improves the temporal resolution of the monitoring process.

Modeling high-Q square spiral with variable segment width and spacing

This paper presents the design and optimization of a square spiral using layout optimization technique. The ohmic losses are reduced by varying the width of the spiral segments with the outermost segment having a wider width and the innermost segment having a narrower width. The spiral shows a reduction in series resistance, and a significant quality factor improvement of about 11%.

A low-loss 2 nd order chebychev microwave cavity band pass filter

In this paper, the low-loss coaxial probe fed microwave cavity filter is presented. The filter has recently shown great performance improvement in its selectivity and S-parameter response, but the rate of signal to noise ratio due to spurious modes in the pass band is significantly too high to ignore. A 2nd order band pass filter is investigated and its S-parameter response analysed by employing improved dielectric-loaded cavity resonators. The design is based on a low pass Chebyshev prototype at 1 dB insertion loss and 10 dB return loss. An efficient analytical method for reducing the spurious bandwidth of the filter is also devised to improve the filter response. The results shows that the filter, on its single mode operation state, provides increased selectivity and a significant amount of Q values are achieved to reduce the transmission losses.