Abstract: The Moiyabana Coalfield, located ~80 km west of Mahalapye village in the South Eastern Kalahari sub-basin, is one of the potential areas for coal mining in Botswana. This project discusses the petrographic and geochemical results of a detailed investigation carried out on a borehole core of the Moiyabana area, eastern Botswana. Geologically, the Moiyabana coal seams occur in sedimentary rocks of Permian Age and are hosted in the Karoo Supergroup sequence. All coal seams are found w...
Abstract: The use of electronic voting systems (EVS’s) is seen as an alternative to traditional manual voting because it aims at increasing efficiency, lowering cost of running election, reducing counting mistakes and improving the accuracy of the results. This has led to electronic voting systems being adopted in most countries to replace traditional paper-based voting systems. Currently, Botswana uses a traditional paper-based voting system. This method of voting comes with several chall...
Abstract: Malaria is considered the main cause of morbidity and mortality in most countries of the sub- Saharan Africa. Though elimination of the disease is a priority in some African countries such as Botswana, there are bottlenecks that make it difficult to achieve such target. Factors associated with the environment and mosquito-vector capacity for disease transmission have contributions towards challenges affecting disease elimination. These are dynamics which have not been explored in t...
Abstract: A novel multi-templated Cu-Fe-Ni ion imprinted powder was synthesized to demonstrate the selective and simultaneous removal of targeted ions; Cu(II), Fe(II) and Ni(II), employing molecular imprinting technology (MIT) via template (print ions) guided by bulk polymerization method reacting methacrylic acid (MAA) as the functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethylacrylate (EGDMA) as cross linking agent in the presence of the initiator azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN); Cu(II), Fe(II) a...
Abstract: There is presently insufficient information on the atmospheric microbial level in Botswana, the occurrence and diversity of airborne microbes in Botswana is not well understood. In addition, there is also growing concern in the global spread of antimicrobial resistant bacterial pathogens that continue to emerge and pose a huge challenge to human health. This study, being the first of its kind in the country was aimed at understanding the occurrence, distribution and relative divers...
Abstract: The use of cattle disease diagnosis expert systems has the ability to improve the cattle production as they would help in disease control. Particularly if the system is usable, that is, if it is efficient, effective, satisfying and requires less effort to use. Cattle disease diagnosis expert systems have been adopted in recent years in the cattle production industry particularly in Asian countries like China. However, the usability of these systems still remains a challenge. There...
Abstract: This study focuses on using electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) to map coal seam and associated structures found within the seams in parts of the Mmamabula Coal Field- central Botswana. The coals of this area belong to the Ecca Group’ s Mmamabula Fm and Mosomane Fm. Several major faults are reported to have affected the Karoo strata in the Mmamabula area. The northern limit of the coalfields is defined by the ENE-trending Zoetfontein Fault which has a downthrow to the no...
Abstract: This thesis focuses on biological shielding calculations for a 10 MeV Rhodotron electron beam accelerator operating in dual mode to produce a 10 MeV primary electron beam and 7.5 MeV secondary X-rays, generated by hitting an optimized tantalum-73 (73Ta) target with the primary electron beam. The first part of this thesis describes the Rhodotron electron accelerator and its oper ating principle. A model is presented for the transverse optics of a TT-100 Rhodotron accelerator. Potent...
Abstract: New distributions namely, Lindley-Weibull Power Series (LWPS) class of distributions and the special case called Lindley-Weibull logarithmic (LWL) distribution, a new gamma generalized Lindley log-logistic (GELLLoG) distribution, Marshall-Olkin Lindley log-logistic (MOLLLoG) distribution and half logistic log-logistic Weibull (HLLLoGW) distribution and their sub-models are presented. Structural properties including hazard and reverse hazard functions, quantile function, moments, co...
Abstract: The ever-increasing population growth and economic developments have led to a demand for energy. Therefore, this has resulted in a depletion and ever rising prices of petroleum diesel, hence increasing environmental degradation. These complications have motivated this study for the search of an alternative eco-friendly and renewable source of energy such as biodiesel. Biodiesel has been found to be a potential alternative fuel for diesel. It has the potential to solve the energ...
Abstract: Water scarcity is one of the main challenges in sustainable development particularly in developing countries. The use of wastewater effluent for irrigation of crops is common in most water-stressed countries as this alleviates pressure on fresh water supply. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are regarded as hotspots for antibiotic resistance determinants; antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB), antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and mobile genetic elements (e.g. plasmids). These ant...
Abstract: Over the past years the use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) swarms has increased drastically. Multiple cooperative unmanned aerial vehicles have introduced numerous possibilities of performing several tasks, saving time, money and impediments. However, even though they are making life easier unequal responsibility propagation amongst unmanned aerial vehicles in a swarm is the biggest detriment that has resulted in inconsistent battery consumption. Missions have failed as a re...
Abstract: The development of easily recoverable and re-usable catalytic nanostructures exhibiting high performances using simple and cheap procedures for applications in bio-sensing and wastewater treatment technologies is currently a prominent area of research. Noble-metal inclusive magnetic nano-catalysts in particular, have of recent gathered interest owing to their ease of separation from reaction products, environmental benignity and improved activities through synergistic qualitie...
Abstract: Object recognition using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is increasingly becoming more useful. Tremendous success has been achieved on UAV object recognition in clear weather conditions where adequate illumination makes it easier for UAVs to recognize objects in the scene. Unfortunately, for outdoor applications, there is no escape from bad weather moments such as haze, fog, dust, smoke and smog. These weather nuisances occur due to suspended particles in the atmosphere, ultimately...
Abstract: A rank regression based procedure for testing for the existence of publication bias in meta-analysis is proposed. The method is designed to possess the robustness of the Begg rank correlation test for publication bias and the efficiency of Egger’s regression approach. The procedure uses the Jaeckel rank-regression framework along with a rank prediction protocol for estimating the intercept term of Egger-type regression models for a robust and efficient test of publication bias in...