Theses from other institutions by UCU staff members
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- ItemDeveloping Library Products and Services to Support Blended Learning at Uganda Christian University and Its Affiliated Campuses(School of information technology, University of Pretoria, 2015-08) Galinnya, StephanasBlended learning (also referred to as online learning) support at Uganda Christian University (UCU) is still at its initial stages at both the Main Campus and Affiliated Campuses. Blended learning is the combination of different training media such as technologies, activities and types of events which are used to create an optimum training program for a specific audience (Bersin, 2004). Blended learning offers use of multiple teaching styles (that is lectures, action learning activities and demonstrations within the lecture room) to retain the students’ attention by accommodating the differing learning styles and thereby enhancing the learning experience of the students (Garrison and Kanuka, 2004). Prior to this research the library supported blended learning by providing a link to the library platform which currently houses thousands of online journals and a few e-books on different databases such as; AGORA, Wiley Inter Science, Oxford University Press, Cambridge Journals Online, Oxford university scholarship, HINARI, Emerald, OARE, JSTOR and many others which students and staff can access and retrieve for future reference with the provision of getting a print copy (UCU, 2013a). In an effort to better support blended learning this study attempted provide answers to the following research question: What online support services should be developed by the University Library in order to optimise the online component of blended learning initiatives at UCU? Several sub-questions were used to gain full understanding of the requirements for online support services. These are: What is blended learning and how does it differ from e-Learning? What is UCU’s strategy regarding the implementation of blended learning? What is the current state of online learning support services provided by UCU library and its Affiliated Campuses? Is there a need for expanding the services at UCU? What further services could UCU and the libraries of its Affiliated Campuses develop to support online learning? What are the benefits and the challenges of online learning support services be to library patrons at UCU and its Affiliated Campuses? And how can the library strategise to overcome challenges and sustain online learning support services? The methodology used to carry out the study focused on explaining the systematic ways used to solve the research problem of the study. The discussion under methodology covered the research design, research approach and the research strategies which were used to guide the study in exploring issues of developing the library services and products to support blended learning at UCU Main Campus and Affiliated Campuses. The chapter also discussed case study design, population of study, sampling method, data collection methods, data collection instruments, data quality control, data analysis; and ethical issues. This chapter ends with conclusion and gave an introduction to chapter four The key findings resulted from the empirical study described in the methodology, was divided into two parts. The first part presents the findings captured, and the second discusses the findings against the backdrop of the literature review reported in Chapter 2. The researcher administered both questionnaires and interviews to collect data. The questionnaires resulted in feedback from 30 respondents. 20 of which were academic staff, and 10 librarians based at UCU Hamu Mukasa Library. This was with an aim of capturing new ideas about developing library products and services to support blended learning at UCU, and comparing them. The interviews were scheduled and administered to 20 Heads of Departments. They were selected as key respondents because of their roles in decisions making and planning for the University. The findings were presented and discussed according to specific themes. The themes presented and discussed the description of respondents, technologies associated with online instructions, familiarity and access to technology to operate blended learning, and the proposed solutions to address the challenges faced. The study concluded with specific research objectives designed within the context of blended learning to; identify UCU’s strategy regarding the implementation of blended learning, explore the current state of online learning support services provided by UCU library and its Affiliated Campuses, identify the benefits and the challenges of online learning support services to the library patrons at UCU and its Affiliated Campuses, and formulate strategies to overcome challenges and sustain online learning support services. All these objectives were successfully achieved. The study recommended that there should be skills trainings, support, technology, pedagogy and human factor.
- ItemUganda Airlines(Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, 2020-12) Nsubuga, Solomon EriaThis practice-based research project aimed to explore borders for my art production from a Ugandan perspective. To help me explore borders, a project was embarked upon reinventing Uganda Airlines as a fictional conceptual frame. I regard myself as a border artist, operating from Uganda, itself an invented conceptual space /country in Africa. Uganda Airlines’ practices operate on artistic and formal borders deliberately highlighting the exclusion of Uganda in Western art. The objective of the project was to create a conceptual framework and space in which I can operate as a border artist and in this way contribute to the current understanding of art on the margins of contemporary art, operating within and against colonial legacies. Responding to the central question of whether the invisible country of Uganda can be made visible through its art, the project used the idea of a national airline because of its role in the creation and promotion of trans-nationality and its relationship to borders. Uganda Airlines is based on Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (2006) primarily because Anderson regards the nation as an imagined artefact and offers a conceptual frame that can interpret nationhood in artistic practice. In effect I am regarding the airline as an imagined community that exists ‘in the air’ operating entirely within an imagined space on the border. My position within this is that of an artist working ‘in the air’ or on the border. My artistic and theoretical position is also that of a trickster based on Lewis Hyde’s ideas of the trickster character in relation to porosity and articulation. As a ‘border-crossing’, ‘trickster’ artist my practice uses contingent operation in ‘pores’ and ‘joints’ (Hyde 2017: 252-280) as tactics. Political satire particularly in relation to the actual Uganda Airlines (a historically collapsed or presently fledgling national project) is widely used as a tactic. Contingency is integral to my approach to the practice, which extensively uses cheap materials such as recycled newspapers, cardboard and packing tape. The Practice is presented in three parts: Passengers, Fragments and False Flags. In Passengers, collage and methods based on tearing and layering were used. Paintings and drawings were also incorporated within the collage installations. In ‘Fragments’, the approach used in the video work parodies various forms of the media some of which were shot in ruined aircraft in Entebbe, Uganda. In False Flags printed imagery on cloth satirised nationalism and flags through images of aircraft parts used to generate digital ruins using photogrammetry. The practice as a whole can be characterised as a multi-media three- dimensional collage installation. The written thesis also uses Uganda Airlines as its conceptual frame and its structure is based on the ideas of the imagined spaces explored in the. For example, it begins with The Terminal of an undisclosed airport as its introduction wherein its various ‘destinations’ are presented. The literature review is presented as a passengers list reflecting my approach incorporating writers and artists into the conceptual frame of my project. I regard the written thesis partly as an extension of my creative practice while at the same time it functions as the written theoretical component of the PhD submission.
- ItemThe Chemical Composition of Haplochromis spp.(Loughborough University of Technology, 1981) Ssali, William MamiimaThe Haplochromis genus constitutes about 80% by weight of the fish in Lake Victoria yet only small amounts are utilised directly for food. There are over 150 species of Haplochromis, in the lake forming a species flock and any typical catch is made up of a mixture of many species. Morphological resemblance of the species makes identification of individual species very difficult. Little information has been published about the chemical composition of Haplochrornis. The present study provides chemical composition data for lioid. protein and other nutritionally important constituents of Haolochromis as an aid to the processing of the resource and its nutritional evaluation. Four batches of Haplochromis from Lake Victoria were received. The first batch was analysed only for total lipid. Fish from the other three batches, caught over a five month period, were each split into four weight groups. Data were obtained for the weight distribution in the batches, the relationship between weight and length of the fish, weight and maximum depth of the fish and for the proportions of head, gut and headless gutless portions in the different weight groups.
- ItemEffects of Repetitive DNA and Epigenetics on Human Genome Regulation(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2013-07) Jjingo, DaudiThe highly developed and specialized anatomical and physiological characteristics observed for eukaryotes in general and mammals in particular are underwritten by an elaborate and intricate process of genome regulation. This precise control of the location, timing and amplitude of gene expression is achieved by a variety of genetic and epigenetic tools and mechanisms. Such tools include cis- and trans- transcriptional regulation, epigenetic marks and chromosomal conformation in the nucleus [78, 79]. While all these regulatory mechanisms have been extensively studied, our understanding of the complex and diverse associations between various epigenetic marks and genetic elements with genome regulatory systems has remained incomplete. However, the last few years have seen a profound development in two areas that have significantly improved the depth and breadth to which their functions and relationships can be understood; 1) Next generation sequencing (NGS) and 2) its application in the genome-wide profiling of multiple DNA elements and functional factors. These include suites of histone modifications, transcription factors, DNA methylations and DNAse hypersensitive sites in various mammalian tissues by the ENCODE consortium and other research laboratories. The objective of this thesis has been to apply bioinformatic computational and statistical tools to analyze and interpret various recent high throughput datasets from a combination of Next generation sequencing and Chromatin immune precipitation (ChIP-seq ) experiments. These datasets have been analyzed to further our understanding of the dynamics of gene regulation in humans particularly as it relates to repetitive DNA, cis-regulation and DNA methylation. The thesis thus resides at the intersection of three major areas in the overarching domain of human genome regulation; transposable elements, cis-regulatory elements and epigenetics. It explores how those three aspects of regulation relate with gene expression and the functional implications of those interactions. From this analysis of high throughput datasets, the thesis provides new insights into; 1) the relationship between the transposable element environment of human genes and their expression, 2) the role of mammalian-wide interspersed repeats (MIRs) in the function of human enhancers and enhancement of tissue-specific functions, 3) the existence and function of composite cis-regulatory elements and 4) the dynamics and relationship between human gene-body DNA methylation and gene expression. The specific advances of my research in the field of human genome regulation are summarized as follows: Research advance 1: With both TE fractions and GL being highly correlated to gene length, this study evaluated the two parameters together and teased apart their relative contributions to the gene expression parameters of tissue-specificity and expression levels. By showing that GL is strongly correlated with overall expression level but weakly correlated with the breadth of expression, this study elicited evidence for the selection hypothesis [23] that attributes the compactness of highly expressed genes to selection for economy of transcription as opposed to the genomic design hypothesis [135]. In fact, TE fractions of human genes were shown to be more anti-correlated to gene expression levels, suggesting that TEs, rather than GL might be more important targets of selection for transcriptional economy. Finally, MIRs were found to be the only TEs that positively associate with tissue-specific gene expression. Relevance of TEs environment for gene expression was confirmed and distinct mechanisms by which they may contribute to genome regulation were adduced. Research advance 2: Mammalian-wide interspersed repeats (MIRs), previously shown to be related to tissue-specific gene expression [61], are shown to execute this function primarily through enhancers. This study found MIRs to be significantly enriched within enhancers and reports many novel MIR-derived enhancers. Indeed, the density of enhancer-MIRs around genes is shown to be significantly related to both their level of expression, their tissue specificity and to be involved in tissue-specific cellular functions. MIRs within enhancers are shown to possess significantly higher numbers of transcriptional factor binding sites (TFBSs) relative to the genomic background, a finding that might explain their co-option into enhancers and thus their longstanding conservation and wide distribution in the mammalian clade. Research advance 3: This research adduced evidence that confirmed previous postulations that distinctions between different classes of cis-regulatory elements may not be definitive and that different elements might share regulatory features and mechanisms. Taking boundary elements and enhancers within the human CD4+ T cells as examples, we identified 174 composite cis-regulatory elements, for which both enhancers and boundary elements are co-located. These composite cis-regulatory elements possess unique chromatin environments and regulatory features and are revealed to facilitate cell-type specific functions. Research advance 4: This research used the approach of a meta-analysis of new high throughput chromatin, methylation and gene expression datasets to address aspects of the long standing DNA methylation paradox [63]. Contrary to previous knowledge [2, 4, 56, 83, 88, 108], it is shown that the relationship between gene-body methylation and gene expression levels is not linear but actually non-monotonic (bell-shaped). These results confirm that gene-body DNA methylation does serve to repress spurious intragenic transcription. However, they also illustrate that role to be only epiphenomenal, with gene-body methylation levels being predominantly determined by the accessibility of the DNA to methylating enzyme complexes rather than by an evolutionary adaptation to minimize the spurious intragenic transcription.
- ItemThe Status, Rights and Treatment of Persons with Disabilities within Customary Legal Frameworks in Uganda: A Study of Mukono District(University of Cape Town, 2017-10-31) Dennison, David BrianThis thesis addresses the question: How do customary legal frameworks impact the status, rights and treatment of persons with disabilities? It is motivated by two underlying premises. First, customary legal frameworks are highly consequential in Sub-Saharan contexts. Second, human impairments are likely to impact status, rights and treatment in customary legal scenarios. In addition, the reality of deep legal pluralism and an anthropologically versed conception of customary law inform the research design. Customary legal content is rightly discerned by researching its substance and application within the lived environment. The researcher gathered input and stories of 63 persons with disabilities and conducted interviews of 23 community members with a heightened knowledge of cultural matters in order to discern the experiences of persons with disabilities in non-formal legal contexts. In her semi-autonomous social field approach, Sally Falk Moore considers diverse and layered sources of law when determining the normative legal content in lived contexts. However, this research uncovered little in the way of normative principles specially pertaining to persons with disabilities within lived environments. Instead, legally consequential occurrences take place in customary scenarios that are largely autonomous from formal actors and institutions. The perceived normative substance of formal and customary law can influence the outcome of customary scenarios, but the decision makers’ working knowledge of this legal content as it pertains to people with impairments is limited and disparate. Decision-making family, clan and community members take various factors into consideration when determining rights, status and treatment in customary scenarios. Suppositions about the capacity and functionality of persons with disabilities are particularly influential. Thus, human impairments can be consequential factors in these decisions. This thesis demonstrates that customary scenarios are highly significant forums for establishing customary rights and status in the contexts of marital relations, clan leadership, customary guardianship, and customary succession and land rights. Moreover, it indicates that effectual social and legal influences in these scenarios are multi-sourced, multi-layered and dynamic. Finally, the thesis offers practical change strategies suggested by the research for those seeking to improve the status, rights, and treatment of persons with disabilities in Mukono District and similar settings.