Entrepreneurship is an important means to poverty reduction due to its capacity to identify and exploit business opportunities with a view to meeting an existing need. The determination of factors that increase the successful functioning of micro enterprises acts as an important step to the enhancement of the operational performance of these catalysts to economic development in a country. This project is vital determining the influence of entrepreneurial strategies on the performance of micro enterprises in Mukuru informal settlement, Nairobi Kenya. The entrepreneurial strategies considered in the study included social learning, financial management, trust and community development. Social learning strategy had a positive impact on performance of micro-enterprises (β = 0.398; p= 0.000) this was found to be as a result of resultant business ideas and also due to the realization that business flourish due to the support of other persons who come to buy goods or services. Limited knowledge on financial management was a common challenge faced by the MSME surveyed and as a result the entrepreneurs faced challenges to mobilize resources to finance their businesses. Capacity to keep business records and choose appropriate financing mix and investment options was found to be important to the improvement of performance of the firms. The financial management strategy was found to positively and directly influence performance of the firms (β = 0.590; p= 0.000). Similarly, strong trust ties among business partners facilitate mobilization of resources, reduction of transaction cost and resulted in improved cooperation among actors and thus improved the overall performance of the firms. The research recommended that government agencies in partnership with lenders to the small enterprises should organize for period training on financial education programs that will create awareness on available sources of funding to the small enterprises and start-up in the informal settlements. Since the study was relational factors in nature, it is recommended that future research should consider operational variables as well.

The necessity for advanced Strategic Management (SM) practices by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) is inevitably linked to limited resources and due diligence by the host government and donors. The main goal of this research was to assess the influence of strategic management practices on the allocations of funds in environmental NGOs in Nairobi City County in Kenya. The study took a descriptive survey design approach which was more suitable for gathering information of the selected NGOs in Kenya due to its broad application in planning, monitoring and evaluation policies. From the target of 52 environmental NGOs, 45 responses were received (response rate of 87%). Data was collected via a semi structured online questionnaire, was analyzed using Microsoft Excel and Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and presented in charts, graphs, tables and figures. The outcomes of this research led to the conclusion that over 71.1% (around 32 NGOs) of the environmental NGOs had an established strategic management department and 95% (43 NGOs) of the respondents in the NGOs were aware of the different strategic management practices adopted in their organization. This indicated the importance of strategic management practices for the survival of NGOs. The study also found that the four key aspects of strategic management practices (environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, monitoring and evaluation) were rated as important to a great extent by the environmental NGOs in Nairobi Kenya using a 5 point Likert scale. In terms of allocation of funds from the research it was agreed that feasibility of projects affected the amounts allocated for implementation of different projects for the NGOs, there was an increased demand for accountability of NGOs resources from the donors and the need for strategic management practices when allocating the scarce funds received and NGO program implementation strategies have been redesigned to include constituents of cost recovery, in which program beneficiaries make a contribution if not all, of the program costs. Lastly based on the regression analysis holding other variables at constant zero, a unit increase in strategic management practices lead to a 0.495 increase in the allocation of funds in environmental NGOs in Nairobi Kenya at a 5% level of significance and 95% level of confidence. It is thus deduced that strategic management practices influence allocation of funds in environmental NGOs. Further studies should be done by researchers to determine the effect of donor financing and sustainability of NGOs amidst a turbulent and ever-changing environment and another to evaluate the relationship of pre-funding and post-funding allocation of funds in NGOs.

Strategic leadership is a change in the emphasis of management away from internal dynamics and toward outward alignment with the organization's strategic objectives. In recent years, strategic leadership has become the most important and extensively utilized leadership technique. Strategic leadership practices define the organization's strategic direction and the strategic actions intended to boost the company's competitiveness. In point of fact, having a well-thought-out strategy does not guarantee that one will accomplish strategic objectives in the absence of involvement from strategic leaders. The general objective of the study was to establish the effect of strategic leadership practices on competitive advantage among manufacturing firms in Nairobi County, Kenya. This study was based on two theories, porter’s theory of competitive advantage as well as strategic leadership theory. This study used a descriptive research methodology known as cross sectional. The population of interest consisted of all 455 manufacturing enterprises in Kenya. There were a total of 46 businesses that made up the sample. A kind of sampling known as stratified sampling was used in the investigation. It was discovered that the majority of manufacturing companies embraced strategic direction and strategic controls to a significant degree, whereas a significant number of manufacturing companies embraced human capital development, corporate communication, and strategic controls to a moderate degree. It was discovered that practices of strategic leadership have an effect on a company's competitive advantage. According to the findings of the research, manufacturing companies in Kenya might enhance their competitive advantage by using strategic leadership practices. These activities have been demonstrated to increase a company's overall competitive advantage. The research also suggests that companies should focus their efforts primarily on the strategic leadership practices that will have the greatest effect on their competitive advantage

The main aim of this research project is to investigate the socioeconomic disparities and outcomes among teenage pregnancies in Machakos County. Further, the study examined how these socioeconomic disparities influence the occurrence of teenage pregnancies in the county and at the same time investigated the socio-economic outcomes of these teenage pregnancies. The study employed a cross-sectional descriptive study structure. The research was conducted in five select sub counties (20 households per Sub County), four level 4 hospitals and the Machakos County Referral Hospital all in Machakos County. Research participants were teenagers aged 13-19. A self/assistant administered questionnaire was used as the primary data collection tool. Participants were sampled using simple random sampling method. Data collected was analyzed using Stata Statistical software. The econometric model used was a multivariate regression model. The study results showed that 90% teenage pregnancies occurred between 15-19 years. Seventy eight percent of the pregnant teenagers were single. Further, the major socioeconomic determinants of teenage pregnancy were found to be mode of schooling with an odd ratio (OR) of 3.03; household income 2.84; fathers’ education level with OR of 2.99; and favors for sex with OR of 2.56. In conclusion, the studied socioeconomic determinants didn’t have significant influence on teenage pregnancies’ outcomes on marital status, financial dependence and schooling outcomes. The study recommends developing means and methods that economically empower parents and girls from low socioeconomic backgrounds; strengthening policies that address support for pregnant teenage girls and the dynamics facing teenage girls in day secondary schools.

Grammar development through the traditional rule-based method remains a challenge because the method is slow, time-consuming, expensive, knowledge-intensive, and laborious, particularly for under-resourced languages. Moreso, for the spoken Bantu languages. However, there is a high demand for these grammars for deep natural language processing, generation of well-formed output, or both, Controlled Natural languages Applications, and High precision machine translation. An in-depth review of previous research on improving grammar development reveals that these studies concentrated on rich-resourced languages and neglected under-resourced ones and have only concentrated on the syntax, ignoring the morphology in the shareable grammar. Therefore, there is an urgent need for cost-efficient methodologies that can accelerate grammar development to enable these languages to thrive in the digital ecosystem and minimize the language technology digital divide with the rich-resourced languages. Consequently, this research investigated an approach to reducing grammar development efforts for under-resourced languages in a rule-based multilingual environment by leveraging on cross-linguistic similarities to develop a congruent Bantu parameterized grammar and leveraging on the shared parameterized grammar to bootstrap Swahili grammar. The descriptive analysis method was used to analyze descriptive grammar for each geolinguistics and purposively chosen Bantu languages to empirically identify the point of generalization of parameters, regular expressions and grammar rules. Furthermore, universal and individual comparative analyses were used to produce a generalized descriptive grammar for the subset of the Bantu languages. Then, quasi-experiments were set up in Grammatical Framework (GF) using the morphology-driven approach to develop the Bantu parameterized grammar utilizing grammar and to bootstrap Swahili grammar to the Bantu parameterized grammar. The GF regression method was used to test each grammar during development and reusability evaluation was done using shared and modified rules metrics for shareability and portability respectively while accuracy evaluation used a 100-English sentence test-suite. The Bantu parameterized grammar shareability at morphology (parameters at 68.75% and paradigms at 65.3% ) and syntax at 89.57%, while portability at morphology (14.29% at paradigms and 18.75% at parameter) and syntax at 10.43%. The bootstrapped ivSwahili grammar had a shareability of at morphology (parameters at 68.75% and paradigms at 71.11%) and syntax at 91.41%, respectively, while portability at morphology (15.55% at paradigms and 18.75% at parameter) and syntax at 8.59%. In terms of accuracy, the grammars had 4-gram BLEU scores of 83.05%, 77.95% and 55.95% and WER of 12.82%, 13.39% and 23.90%, plus PER of 10.96%, 9.46% and 19.49% for Kikamba, Swahili and Ekegusii languages in that order. The research makes two conclusions, leveraging on the cross-linguistic similarities of principles and parameters significantly reduces multilingual grammars’ development effort and leveraging on congruent grammar to bootstrap a similar grammar takes less effort since most of the rule-base will be inherited from the congruent grammar. The study has several contributions. First, it has provided an approach of bootstrapping the development of multilingual grammar that significantly reduces the effort. Then extended GF reusability by providing standardized Swahili, Kikamba and Ekegusii grammars that are open resources. Furthermore, a hundred sentences test suite for the evaluation of grammars was created. Finally, by providing the missing parts through elicitation, mainly in the numeral, preposition fusion, and subject marker morpheme of the verb, a contribution was made to the descriptive grammar. Keywords: Parameterized grammar, grammar engineering, bootstrapping, grammar sharing, grammar porting, complex morphology and under-resourced languages

Perceived institutional aid among employees has an influence on the intensity of occupational-household incongruence among employees in various organizations. This research study determined that employees regard their institutions as supportive or unsupportive and these perceptions of support or otherwise has an association to occupational-family conflict among employees within the banking industry. The study used a descriptive research design with Work-family conflict as the dependent variable and perceived organizational support as the independent variable. The aim was to examine the existence of work-family interference, establish the proportion of discerned corporate employee assistance and determine the association between perceived organizational support and work-household incompatibility among employees within the banking industry in Kenya. The 53 participants in this research project were sampled from a population of 60 front line bank employees working within Nairobi County. The sample was determined through purposive random sampling and the data was acquired by use of Likert Scale closed ended questionnaires. The data was analyzed by the use of SPSS version 25. The results were presented using Tables and Figures. The results ascertained that there was a negative association between perceived corporate employee assistance and occupational-household interference among workers in the banking industry in Kenya. Employees who had developed positive perceptions regarding their organization’s support for the family well-being reported lower levels of work-family conflict whereas those who had negative perceptions in regard to organizational support for family well-being reported higher levels of work-family conflic

The firm’s financial strength is measured by the cash flows, when the cash inflows are more than the outflows, the organization is considered to be healthy. The use of debt to finance firm’s operation is more advantages since interest on debt is deductible. Optimal capital structure is the target. Optimal structure is attend when the company tends to maximize their value while minimizing their weighted cost of capital (WACC). This study pursue to investigate the effect of capital structure on the financial performance of non-financial firms listed at the Nairobi security exchange. The study will adopt descriptive research design. The target population for the study will consist of 12 non-financial firms listed at NSE. The collected data will analyzed using SPSS software. The study adopted descriptive research design. The target population for the study consisted of 12 non-financial firms listed at NSE. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS software. The study found out that 25.5% change in capital structure among nonfinancial firms listed on the NSE is explained by the three independent variables of the study (Leverage, liquidity and Size), moderate negative correlation exists between leverage and financial performance, a strong positive relationship exists between liquidity and financial performance and that a strong positive correlation exists between the Firm size and financial performance. The study concludes that capital structure affects financial performance of the non-financial firms listed at NSE. The study further concludes that statistically significant association exists between the independent variables (leverage, liquidity and size) and the dependent variable financial performance among non-financial listed firms on NSE. The study recommends that the management of all non-financial firms listed at NSE should judiciously strike a balance between the debts and equity in their capital structure. Non-financial listed firms should not have too much debt (leverage) in their capital structure as this increase the risk of insolvency. Non-financial firms listed at NSE should have considerable levels of debts in their capital structure so as to enjoy the interest tax shield that accrue from the use of debts in the capital structure and also enhance their liquidity positions by proper working capital management practices. This calls for shortening of their cash conversion cycles. Sound management of accounts receivables, accounts payables, inventory and cash of non-financial firms will also enhance their liquidity and therefore their ability to meet short term obligations as and when they fall due, there is also need for non-financial listed firms at NSE to employ growth strategies that will see their increment in sizes. An increase in size will enable nonfinancial firms to enjoy the advantages of economies of scale that accrue out of large scale of operations.

Electronic medical records are fundamental in ensuring patient medical data is accessible and available to healthcare workers. It comprises computerized medical information systems which help in collecting, storing, and displaying patient information. The study’s purpose was to investigate institutional determinants and the implementation of Electronic Medical Records in Government HIV Clinics in Nairobi County, Kenya. This study intended to achieve the following objectives: examine the extent to which leadership skills, human capacity, information communication technology, and stakeholder involvement influence the implementation of Electronic Medical Records in Government HIV Clinics in Nairobi City County. The research made use of a cross-sectional survey research design. This study targeted population of the study was 250 drawn from medical officers, nurses, clinicians, hospital administrators, ICT officers, records clerks, and counselors in Nairobi County, Kenya. A sample size of 152 participants was derived from the target population using Cochran’s formula from which proportionate stratified sampling was employed to obtain a sample for each stratum. Data was collected using open and closed-ended surveys and interview guides. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to ascertain reliability obtained through the split-half technique. Descriptive statistics in the form of frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation, and correlation were employed to analyze quantitative data. It was established that leadership skills with a positive correlation of 0.324; human capacity with a positive correlation of 0.842; information communication technology with a moderate positive correlation of 0.578; and stakeholder involvement with a moderate positive correlation of 0.501 had a significant influence on the implementation of Electronic Medical Records. The study recommended that there is a need for facility leaders to be on the frontline in advocating for system users to have better buy-in from the system users; users need to continuously be offered refresher training to enhance their knowledge in system use; there is a need to always engage and involve the system users in major system decisions to increase their buy-in and to improve accessibility and full usage of systems in the facilities there is need to have all departments provided with the equipment.

The world is changing drastically and diseases are evolving over time. One kind of such is cancer. Modern clinical treatments have come up to treat cancer and thus understanding of the temperature behaviour in human tissues is of essence. Thermal ablation is one kind of treatment to cancerous tissues by exposing them to very high temperature(hyperthermia) while protecting the temperatures of the surrounding tissue [1]. The main goal ofthermal ablation is to raise the temperature ofthe cancerous tissue to a point where cancer cells are destroyed while maintaining normal temperature for tissues that surround. There are other modern clinical treatments that need the understanding ofheat transfer in living tissues and these are cryosurgery, cryopreservation and thermal diagnostics [2]. Thus, study of bio heat transfer in living tissues has been an important topic to scientists over the last many years.

Commercial bank mergers and acquisitions lead to improved financial performance by reduction in tax burden. The company that makes losses will not pay taxes and the taxes paid by the profit-making firm will be less if the two companies merge thus making their net profits less leading to a lower tax liability. This study sought to determine effects of M&As on the success and value of banks in Kenya. A descriptive research approach was used in this study, which focused on banks that have undergone mergers and acquisitions. Event study, three years before and one year after mergers and acquisitions, was adopted based on secondary information from NSE, CBK, but also publicized publications. Descriptive, correlation and regression methods were utilized. From the results, merger/acquisition showed a positive significant regression coefficient an indication that M&A has a positive effect on financial performance of Kenyan commercial banks. For the liquidity, the Kenyan commercial banks showed low levels of liquidity of 82%. Liquidity had a positive regression coefficient indicating that liquidity of Kenyan Commercial banks has a positive effect on their performance. The study recommends that banks get into Mergers and acquisitions for increased returns on their assets. The banks also need to raise their current assets and reduce their current liabilities which would improve their financial performance. Further research should be done based on other factors influencing financial performance, other measures of the variables, primary data and other institutions other than commercial banks.