With increasing global demand of institutions for higher learning to produce skilled graduates who are market ready with creative, technical and functional digital skills that could add value to any initiative, the study set out to investigate the integration of digital literacy in the teaching of automotive engineering in public and private at both levels of study in diploma and certificate in Technical Vocational and Education Training institutions in Bungoma County, Kenya. Guided by Technological Acceptance Model and Diffusion of Innovation theory, the study focused on four objectives of integrating digital tools, digital infrastructure, and digital literacy skills of students, digital elements and in teaching of automotive engineering. Sample size was 200 students and 30 trainers. The study employed descriptive research design approach where the researcher sought to systematically measure and quantify elements of digital literacy in relation to a discipline in TVET. The data collected was analyzed based on the responses from the completed research instruments in the study. The collected data for the four objectives of this study was analyzed quantitatively using SPSS statistical package (version 21).This was significant for descriptive statistics. This involved the use of frequencies, percentages and total scores. While tables, pie-charts, bar and column charts were used to present the analyzed results. The study found out that trainers and students in public TVET institutions in Bungoma County have integrated digital literacy in teaching and learning more than their counterparts from Private TVET. This is because of government support in laying digital infrastructure. That students’ level of study whether certificate or diploma and age have a bearing on integration of digital literacy skills, tools and application of digital elements in the teaching of automotive engineering. Study recommended the review of automotive engineering curriculum on new digital technologies, upgrade of digital infrastructure by TVET institutions, capacity building for trainers on new technologies, need for a study to be done on digital literacy tools for other subjects and a further study on digital devices influence of student performance in institutions of higher learning.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication previously used to treat them. This phenomenon has emerged as a public health concern globally. Campylobacter is one of the four key global causes of diarrhea diseases and it is considered to be the most common bacterial cause of human gastroenteritis in the world. The high incidence of Campylobacter diarrhoea, as well as its duration and possible complications, makes it highly important from a socio-economic perspective. This bacterium is commonly found as a contaminant of foods of animal origin particularly poultry products. Humans get infected by consumption of contaminated meat and meat products. Studies in Kenya and elsewhere indicate that poultry are the major source of Campylobacter infections in humans. Poultry production is an important economic activity in Kenya both in large scale (commercial) and small holder set ups. However, the situation in commercial broiler production systems in Kenya with regard to Campylobacter bacteria has not been previously evaluated. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence and antimicrobial resistance profiles of Campylobacter in intensively managed commercial broiler production systems in Kenya to three commonly used antibiotics namely ciprofloxacin, tetracycline and erythromycin, and genetic characterization of the various species of Campylobacter occurring in the broilers. A cross-sectional study with the specific objectives being to determine the prevalence levels, genetic characterization of the various species of Campylobacter and antimicrobial resistance profiles to commonly used antibiotics in Kenya, was carried out between February 2015 and October 2016. Cloacal swabs were collected from a total of randomly selected 600 day-old-chicks at the hatchery over a period of four consecutive months at a rate of 150 samples per month. Likewise, 300 (n=300) cloacal samples were collected from randomly selected broilers that were ready for slaughter for purposes of consumption. Fifty samples were collected from each farm. These broilers were from farms located in six counties of Kenya, namely Kajiado, Machakos, Murang’a, Kiambu, Nairobi and Nakuru. The sample collection was done at a point just before the carcasses entered into the scalding tank. The sterile swabs used for cloacal swabbing were immediately immersed into Stuart® transport media and stored in a cooler box and transported to the laboratory at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Public Health Pharmacology and Toxicology for microbiological evaluation. The cloacal swabs from day old and 33-day old market - ready broilers were streaked on charcoal cefoperazone dextrose agar (CCDA), and anaerobically cultured at 42oC for 48 hours and morphological characteristics described. The Kirby-Baeur disk diffusion method of antimicrobial sensitivity determination was used and zones of inhibition diameters were compared with the EUCAST v 7.1 clinical break-point standards for interpretation. The raw data collected were entered into MS Excel v.2016, with positive samples recorded as numeral 1 (one) and negatives as 0 (zero). The same was applied to antimicrobial sensitivity where 1 represented sensitivity and 0 represented non-sensitivity. These data were then imported into SPSS v.20 statistical software for analysis to determine the prevalence, proportions, means and analysis of variance (ANOVA). A structured questionnaire was administered to supervisor and manager of each farm to gather information on day to day management of the broiler farms and knowledge levels regarding antimicrobial usage. No Campylobacter growth was reported from all the samples from the hatchery while bacterial growth was reported from samples from market ready birds from all the counties with the general prevalence rate of 92.3% (range of 80 to 100%), highest in Murang’a and lowest in Kajiado counties. The species identified included C. jejuni (66%), C. lari,(10%), C. coli (5%), C. fetus (1.7%), C. upsaliensis (1.7%) and C. hyoinstestinalis(0.6%). C. jejuni was the most prevalent and occurred in all counties while C. hyointestinalis had low prevalence and was only reported from Machakos county. The Campylobacter species were found to be resistant to ciproflaxacin, tetracycline and erythromycin which are commonly used in poultry production. Two counties (Kajiado and Nakuru) had prevalence rates of 82% and 88% for C. jejuni respectively, while the rest of the counties had over 90%. On average 98.5% of the isolates showed resistance to ciprofloxacin while 100% were resistant to both tetracycline and erythromycin. This study found that the types of antimicrobials used in the commercial broiler farms were phosphomycin/ tylosin and phenol. None of the farms reported using ciprofloxacin or erythromycin but one had used tetracycline at one time only. On the contrary these antimicrobials are commonly used by small scale broiler farmers, humans and other animals. This may attribute to the high resistance rates observed. The study concluded that there was prudent use of indicated antimicrobials and Campylobacter species were present in market - ready broilers from commercial large-scale production systems in Kenya at high prevalence rates with C. jejuni as the most prevalent. The isolates also exhibited high resistance levels to antimicrobials commonly used in both veterinary and human medicine. It is recommended from this study that the farm management should engage managers and supervisors with a good level of knowledge on antimicrobials. Ineffective antimicrobials should be avoided or withdrawn. Further studies should be done to establish at what age broilers become infected and also if the critical control points in processing plants are effective in the control of Campylobacter contamination.

The study sets out to analyse language as a survival strategy in Jennifer Makumbi’s Manchester Happened (2019). The study interrogates the short stories focusing on the creative use of language to represent characters who depend on varied linguistic choices to survive in transcultural systems. In addition, the study examines cultural translation established through cross-cultural contacts as brought out in the primary text. The study evaluates the linguistic hybridity exhibited in the short stories in enunciating survival in cross-cultural systems. An evaluation of hybridity in the use of language in the short stories enables this research to explore the binary linguistic and cultural spaces occupied by immigrant characters. It also analyses the role of language as a survival tool for immigrant returnees. The study employs stylistics, postcolonial literary theory and concepts from translation studies as the interpretive matrix for analysis. Stylistics enhances the interpretation of the intersection between language and literary textsin articulating survival in varied spaces; post-colonial theory directs this study by focusing on the complexities of cross-cultural relations that characterise survival in the transnational spaces; and translation studies focuses on the significance of language, naming and renaming, and social structures in cultural translation as evident in the short stories under scrutiny. The study arrives at the conclusion that the short story is a rich genre that can be used to relay the myriad experiences concerning the survival of immigrants despite its brevity in form. The unified experience that is realised through an encounter with the short stories affirms the nature of the short story form in representing reality in totality. The conclusion that hybridity in the use of language is significant in negotiating cross-cultural contacts is arrived at by examining the fictional immigrants’ linguistic choices. The study establishes that social structures are contact zones for cross-cultural exchange.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between Donor Output Based Aid Financing and performance of water projects in Nyeri County. Donor funds are key for the social economic development among developing nations including Kenya. Donor funds have significantly financed water and sanitation projects which are mostly public projects undertaken by the national and local governments and their agencies. These projects undertaken by the water service providers enhance access to quality, clean and safe water for all communities in their jurisdiction. Traditionally, donor funds were disbursed directly to the implementing agents at the initial stage. However, varied challenges constrained successful completion and full benefit to the communities due to corruption, embezzlement, poorly structured strategies among other factors. Output based financing has however been developed and adopted in recent past by donor communities. However, it has not been clear whether this funding structured enhanced performance of water projects. Thus this study seeks to evaluate the relationship between Donor Output Based Aid financing and water projects performance in Nyeri County. Specifically, the study evaluated the relationship between output based subsidies, commercial loans and technical support and water projects performance in Nyeri County. Literature was reviewed and the guiding theories included: the theory of change, profit theory and Resource Dependency Theory. The descriptive survey was adopted while targeting ninety nine staff of five water service provision companies including Nyeri Water and Sanitation Company, Othaya/MukurweiniWater and Sanitation, Mathira Water and Sanitation Company, Tetu and Aberdare Water and Sanitation Company and NaroMoru Water and Sanitation Company, in Nyeri County. Census sampling was applied and all (99) participated in data collection. Questionnaires was used to collect data, having been piloted to test their reliability and validity. Collected data was analysed through descriptive ( means and standard deviation) and inferential statistics applied regression method. The statistical programme for social sciences was utilized to enhance data analysis. The data was presented through tables, charts and graphs accompanied by discussions on findings. The findings indicated that majority of the respondents were satisfied with the donor OBA model of financing their water projects. The study concludes that most water companies were satisfied on the subsidies received, the commercial financing and technical support as far as donor support and financing through OBA model is concerned.

Construction education in South Africa is in the main undertaken using positivist methodologies which are at the core of university education. Current construction curriculums present subjects and content in silos that have no connection to each other. Students therefore experience individual classes, sessions and content perceived to have no connection or relationship with each other. Also, in this positivist approach assessment tools generally take the form of tests, examinations, assignment and projects. Success in tests and examinations indicates to the lecturer that a student has learnt something. Conversely, failure in tests and examinations suggests that no learning has taken place at all. The student experience is therefore typically one of being a receptacle in which information is deposited. Construction programmes have responded to these criticisms by experimenting with various pedagogy approaches like inquiry based learning (IBL), to improve the quality and employability of their graduates while trying to narrow the gap between what academia produces and what industry needs. Consequently, engineering and science disciplines began shifting from the lecturebased classroom and assessment format to emphasise active, research-based, and problem-based student learning. It is within this context that several researchers have called for changes in the curriculum and assessment design. This study researched the problem that the current mode of assessments in construction education at undergraduate level does not adequately measure learning so does not prepare students for construction professional practice and therefore requires an alternative assessment design model which incorporates different contemporary theories of learning synergistically in an IBL pedagogical framework. The research followed a subjective ontological philosophy, a deductive research approach, a survey research strategy, a cross sectional time horizon and a data collection technique and procedure of a questionnaire using the non-probability sampling technique of convenient sampling. The research procedure included an extensive literature review of articles that fully discussed the use of inquiry for learning in an educational context. The search resulted in 49 articles. These articles were further reviewed to identify the common facets of Inquiry based learning pedagogy. Thirty-two facets were identified as the common and importance facets. The facets were reduced to 28 base on the frequency of appearance in the IBL articles. Delphi survey with 14 construction education experts was used to identify 18 facets as the most important and having the greatest impact on assessment design in Inquiry based learning pedagogy. These facets were used to develop a conceptual model. The developed conceptual model was refined and tested using student survey assessment questionnaire administered online to 563 undergraduate students studying construction programmes at six universities in South Africa. The data from the student survey were screened using the anomaly detection node in IBM SPSS Modeller v 27, excel and statistics before subjecting them to exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using IBM SPSS v27. Subsequently, structural equation modelling (SEM) using IBM SPSS AMOS v27 was used to assess and validate the structural relationship among the research constructs. The results show that the 18 facets of IBL pedagogy directly and positively influence the development of effective assessment tools to measure learning and achieve effective learning in construction programmes in South Africa and the eight hypotheses between assessment design, facets of IBL and learning were also supported. Subsequently, an IBL assessment design framework for construction programmes was developed which integrate and relate theories of learning and IBL pedagogy to construction practice and learning. The assessment model provides a foundation for policy makers, lecturers, curriculum developers and other stake holders in the improvement of the quality of education in construction education by developing effective assessment tools.

In this thesis, we study multivalued monotone operators in Hadamard spaces and introduce a new mapping given by a nite family of these operators. We propose a modied Halpern-type algorithm for this mapping and prove that the algorithm converges strongly to a common solution of a nite family of monotone inclusion problems and xed point problem for a nonexpansive mapping in Hadamard spaces. Furthermore, we study some viscosity approximation techniques for approximating a common solution of a nite family of monotone inclusion problems and xed point problem for nonexpansive mapping, which is also a unique solution of some variational inequality problems in Hadamard spaces. More so, we propose and study some viscosity-type proximal point algorithms for approximating a common solution of minimization problem and xed point problem for nonexpansive multivalued mappings, which is also a unique solution of some variational inequality problems in Hadamard spaces. We then progress to propose some iterative algorithms for approximating a common solution of a nite family of minimization, monotone inclusion and xed point problems for demicontractive-type mappings in Hadamard spaces. In addition, we study equilibrium problems in Hadamard spaces and propose some viscosity-type proximal point algorithms, comprising of a nonexpansive mapping and resolvents of monotone bifunctions. We then prove that the proposed algorithms converge strongly to a common solution of a nite family of equilibrium problems in Hadamard spaces. To generalize the study of equilibrium problems in Hadamard spaces, we introduce a new optimization problem in Hadamard spaces, called the mixed equilibrium problem, and establish the existence of solutions for this problem in Hadamard spaces. We then analyze the asymptotic behavior of the sequence generated by a certain proximal point algorithm for this new optimization problem in Hadamard spaces. We also introduce and study a new class of mappings called the generalized strictly pseudononspreading mappings in Hadamard spaces. We then propose a Mann and Ishikawa-type algorithms for this class of mappings and prove that both algorithms converge strongly to a xed point of the generalized strictly pseudononspreading mapping. More so, we propose an S-type iteration and a viscositytype iteration for approximating a xed point of this mapping, which is also a solution of minimization and monotone inclusion problems in Hadamard spaces. To further generalize the study of optimization and xed point problems, we study the concept of minimization and xed point problems for nonexpansive mappings in geodesic metric spaces more general than Hadamard spaces, namely, the p-uniformly convex metric spaces. We introduce the concept of split minimization problems in p-uniformly convex metric spaces and study both Mann and Halpern proximal point algorithms for solving these problems in these spaces. Furthermore, we introduce the classes of asymptotically demicontractive multivalued mappings in Hadamard space, strict asymptotically pseudocontractive-type mappings in p-uniformly convex metric space and generalized strictly pseudononspreading mappings in p-uniformly convex metric spaces. Moreover, we propose several iterative algorithms for approximating a common xed point of nite family of these mappings. As application of the above study, we solve variational inequality problems and convex feasibility problems in Hadamard spaces. More so, we give several nontrival numerical examples of our results. Using these examples, we carry out various numerical experiments of these results in comparison with other important existing results in the literature. The results of the numerical experiments show that our theoretical results have competitive advantages over existing results in the literature. In some cases, we see that these numerical results are not applicable in Hilbert and Banach spaces. This means that, established results concerning optimization and xed point problems in these spaces (Hilbert and Banach) cannot be applied to such examples. Finally, some open problems regarding our results are identied and discussed, which oer many opportunities for future research.

Gynandropsis gynandra (Spider plant) is an African leafy vegetable rich in minerals, vitamins, and health-promoting compounds with great potential in addressing malnutrition. The species is used as food and medicine and provides substantial incomes for smallholder’s farmers with an increasing interest for its cultivation in Africa. Spider plant is also an important resource for pharmaceutical industries. However, its production is still hampered by low leaf yield, early flowering, pests and disease and poor seed germination, resulting from the lack of improved cultivars. Our study intended to develop high yielding and nutrient-dense cultivars for farmers through merging modern molecular and classical plant breeding tools to increase income generation and improve nutrition and health. Specifically, the study: i) assessed the phenotypic variability among advanced lines of spider plant using biomass and related traits; ii) profiled the leaf mineral content among advanced lines of G. gynandra; iii) determined the combining ability, gene action and heterosis of mineral content in spider plant; iv) identified the genetics of the inheritance of biomass and related traits in spider plant; and v) deciphered genomic regions associated with combining ability and heterosis of biomass and related traits in G. gynandra. The evaluation of 71 advanced lines of spider plant derived from accessions originating from Asia, East, Southern and West Africa using biomass and related traits revealed significant difference among lines and principal component analysis grouped them into three clusters: Asia (Cluster 1), West Africa (Cluster 2), and East/Southern Africa (Cluster 3). The West and East/Southern African groups were comparable in biomass productivity and superior to the Asian group. Specifically, the West African group had high dry matter content and flowered early while the East/Southern African group was characterized by broad leaves and late flowering. The maintenance of lines’ membership to their group of origin strengthens the hypothesis of geographical signature in cleome diversity as genetic driver of the observed variation. The leaf mineral profile of 70 advanced lines of spider plant derived from accessions originating from Asia, East, Southern and West Africa revealed significant variation among lines and zinc, calcium, phosphorus, copper, magnesium, and manganese as landmark elements in the genotypes. East and Southern African genotypes were clustered together in group 1 with higher phosphorus, copper and zinc contents than Asian and West African lines, which clustered in group 2 and were characterized by higher calcium, magnesium and manganese contents. An additional outstanding group 3 of six genotypes (three, two, and one from Asia, Southern Africa and Eastern Africa, respectively) was identified with high iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese and calcium contents and potential candidates for cultivar release. Significant differences (P < 0.001) were observed among and between experimental hybrids and parents for the levels of all mineral contents. Significant general and specific combining ability effects together with variance components analysis revealed that both additive and nonadditive gene action controlled mineral content with a predominance of nonadditive gene action. Mid- and best-parent heterosis ranged from -84.98 and 404.79% for minerals. Parents with good general combining ability were identified, as well as crosses with high specific combining ability and heterosis. There were significant and moderate to strong correlations between mean hybrid performance, specific combining ability effects and heterosis levels and low to moderate correlations between general combining ability and mean parents’ performance. Similar to leaf mineral content, significant differences (P < 0.001) were observed among and between hybrids and parents for fourteen agronomic traits. Hybrids outperformed their parents with more than 50% for total and edible fresh biomass, showing the existence of hybrid vigour. Mid- and best-parent heterosis varied between -51.89% and 192.10% with only positive heterosis effects for leaf area and total fresh biomass, characterized by an average mid-parent heterosis greater than 50%. Significant general and specific combining ability (GCA and SCA) effects together with variance component analysis revealed that both additive and nonadditive gene action, controlled biomass and related traits in the species with the predominance of additive gene action. Moderate to high broad- and narrow-sense heritability was observed for most agronomic traits, except for dry matter content. The environment significantly interacted with genotype, GCA and SCA. Parents with good GCA and crosses with high SCA and heterosis were identified. There were significant changes from parents to hybrids in the association of harvest index and time to 50% flowering with biomass per plant and leaf traits on the one hand and between harvest index and dry matter content on the other hand. A core set of 594 diversity array technology sequencing (DArt-seq) markers were identified and differentiated the 38 parental lines into three clusters linked with the provenance of the original accession. Using this set of markers, a genome-wide association analysis revealed two markers linked to heterosis level for flowering time, a single marker for edible biomass, one marker for total fresh biomass and one marker for the number of primary branches. Specifically, the marker MABiomLa1 was a pleiotropic marker and was associated with heterosis level for biomass and leaf area. In contrast, no consistent markers associated with combining ability were observed for general combining ability and might be due to the low number of parents and the density of markers used. The study thus revealed that reciprocal recurrent selection would be a sound breeding strategy for G. gynandra improvement with the development of hybrid cultivars to exploit heterosis. These findings showed that G. gynandra could be used as a model plant to study the genetic mechanism underlying heterosis in orphan leafy vegetables. The identified markers open room for implementing marker-assisted selection in the species for better exploitation of heterosis.

Conventional agricultural management practices that farmers in Africa and South Africa have practiced have led to a decline in soil fertility. Organic amendments have shown to improve soil quality and fertility status when incorporated into the soil. Smallholder farmers manage their fields differently according to resource endowment, distance of fields from the homestead (i.e homefield and outfield), and labour. The use of organic inputs as fertilizers to remediate the soils from which the loss of nutrients occurred depends on their decomposition rates and nutrient release patterns. Factors such as soil type, climate and application rates of the amendments affect the decomposition and mineralization of these amendments in soils. The objective of this study was to determine (i) carbon and phosphorus pools from different fields from uMbumbulu and Msinga as affected by farmer typology and (ii) the characteristics of organic amendments and their decomposition and mineralization of nitrogen and phosphorus in soil. Three typologies (i.e. resource constrained, moderately resourced and resource endowed) were selected for both Msinga and Mbumbulu. Two fields per typology were used, namely homefield (<100m from homestead) and outfield (>150m from home) for Msinga while for uMbumbulu it was fields with mixed cropping and monocropping system. Three farms were selected per typology and field type with three replications. Soil samples were collected from the farms of different typologies at 0 – 20cm and analyzed for soil organic carbon (SOC) and phosphorus pools. Organic amendments including cattle manure, goat manure, accelerator and maize residues were sampled from different farms in Msinga and uMbumbulu and characterized. Composite samples of these amendments, separately and in combination, were then incorporated in soils and incubated for 84 days during which soil pH, P and mineral-N (ammonium-N and nitrate-N) were analyzed. Farmer typologies did not affect carbon and phosphorus pools of the soils on farms at Msinga and uMbumbulu. Carbon pools under different cropping systems and typologies for uMbumbulu showed significant difference with total carbon concentrations being the highest under monocropping system (40.3 g/kg) followed by c- POMC, f-POMC, MAOC and DOC and also under resource constrained typology, total carbon was the highest (44.6 g/kg). Carbon pools under Msinga did not follow the same trend both under cropping system and typology since there was no significant difference. More P was in a reductant P form in uMbumbulu soil both under different cropping systems and typology with concentration of 224-310 mg/kg under cropping system and 145-447 mg/kg within typology. Available P had lower concentrations in both cropping system (8.9-11.8 mg/kg) and typology (9.6-11.7 mg/kg) with Al-P and Fe-P showing no significant difference in uMbumbulu soil. Msinga soils followed the same trend of P pools showing no significant different in Al-P and Fe-P as uMbumbulu. Msinga soils showed more positive correlation between carbon and phosphorus pools than uMbumbulu soils. Msinga amendments appeared more beneficial than uMbumbulu with high pH levels and cattle manure having low C/N ratio content which allows rapid decomposition. More nutrients were available for plant uptake as Msinga amendments had higher concentrations of bases. The Accelerator had higher ammonium-N concentration (128 g/kg N on day 84) than other treatments showing higher decomposition rate in the uMbumbulu soil. When the manures were combined with maize residues, they had lower ammonium-N concentration due to C:N ratio of the maize residues. After day 7 of incubation, nitrate-N and mineral-N concentration increased in all treatment in both mg/kg soil and g/kg of N present. Like in the first incubation experiment (uMbumbulu soil), the control in the Msinga soil had higher nitrate-N than all treatment combinations containing maize residues between 14 to 56 days of incubation except for the accelerator+maize residues. Maize residues in both experiments (uMbumbulu and Msinga soils) showed lower mineralization of N and P and Msinga amendments had higher nutrient mineralisation than those from uMbumbulu. The findings of the study imply that carbon and phosphorus pools in the two study sites could be affected by environment factors more than management practices and that maize residues will require a longer period of time to allow maximum decomposition and mineralize nutrients compared to the accelerator, cattle, and goat manure. More studies need to be done on environmental factors such as climate, parent material, and topography, as they might be the primary drivers of carbon and phosphorus pools.

HIV/AIDs is a disease which has caused the loose of many lives globally especially in developing countries Kenya being one of them. Kenya is on track to achieve the global targets of zero new infections, zero Aids related deaths and zero discrimination by the year 2030. To achieve this target Kenya incorporated the use of mobile health in its hospitals which was seen as tool for treatment, prevention and control of HIV/AIDs which is a long life disease with the patients taking drugs for the rest of their life. However with even the use of mobile health, there has been slow progress of counteracting HIV/AIDs with estimation of new infections to be 52800 and 28200 deaths of Aids related sickness been reported annually in the year 2017. This research evaluated the effectiveness of mHealth initiative short message services (SMS) use on PLHIV as a tool for their treatment, prevention and control in SWOP clinic in Kenya. The research adapted health belief model (HBM) to evaluate whether its variables had an influence on effectiveness of short message services(SMS) use on PLHIV as tool for treatment, prevention and control of Aids. The research design adopted for the study was a survey research design. The population of study was PLHIV under ART and enrolled for SMS services. The instrument for data gathering used for the research was closed ended questionnaires. The sample size was 68. Simple random sampling technique was use to select a sample of 68 PLHIV at SWOP clinic. Descriptive and inferential analysis were the methods used for analysis of the data gathered. The study findings concluded that 83% of variations in effectiveness of the SMS were influenced by perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers, cue to action, self-efficacy, confidence, threat, cost and information. The study also recommends that there is a need for public private partnership to be established. This will help implementation of M-health initiatives as the private sector will be encouraged to heavily contribute in supporting the public sector. The research concluded that SMS is an effective tool for treatment prevention and control of HIV/AIDs.

Invasive alien plants have the potential to alter ecosystem function. While a growing number of studies have focused on the effects of invading plants on native biodiversity and the underlying community dynamics, there is still a lack of studies that detail the impact of invasive plants, such as Parthenium hysterophorus L. (Asteraceae), at higher trophic levels. This study investigated whether P. hysterophorus and its biological control agent, the stem-boring weevil Listronotus setosipennis (Hustache) Coleoptera: Curculionidae, affected ant diversity, assemblages and arthropod activities in the KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa. The objectives of this study were to assess the impacts of P. hysterophorus invasion and presence of L. setosipennis on the diversity and assemblage composition of ants, a dominant terrestrial group. Additionally, whether vegetative variables in habitats invaded by P. hysterophorus affected ant assemblages, was examined. Lastly, the study investigated the impacts of the presence and absence of L. setosipennis on other arthropod activities. To study ant diversity and assemblage composition, ants were collected using pitfall traps, over five sampling periods from December 2019 to March 2020, in nine locations around KwaZulu- Natal and Mpumalanga provinces. At each site, three treatments were sampled; viz. P. hysterophorus invaded habitat, P. hysterophorus invaded habitat with L. setosipennis present, and habitat without P. hysterophorus. Species richness and abundance were compared between treatments using ANOVA and the Post-hoc Turkey test. Assemblage composition was analyzed using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS). A Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) was also used to correlate the best environmental variable with ant diversity and assemblage composition. Some 16 463 ant specimens that were collected were identified from four subfamilies, 27 genera, and 55 species. Results indicated that the presence of P. hysterophorus and its biological control agent L. setosipennis did not significantly alter ant diversity, as indicated by species richness and abundance, and assemblage composition, although some differences occurred across locations. The results also showed that vegetative variables (P. hysterophorus height, flowering and cover) did not significantly influence ant assemblages. A separate experiment at six locations in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga provinces, arthropod activities on P. hysterophorus plants were studied during timed observations at 07h00, 10h00 and 12h00 during monthly sampling from December 2020 to March 2021. Although some arthropod groups were less common visitors to P. hysterophorus than others, this study showed that the presence of L. setosipennis had no significant effect on overall arthropod activities. However, results demonstrated greater activity for some arthropods groups, specifically Hymenopterans, in both treatments, accounting for 60% of all arthropods recorded. Other studies have reported either a positive or negative impact on arthropods by invasive alien plants. These plants may provide a better food resource for native insects and other arthropods, causing them to be attracted to them. However, invasive alien plants have also been linked to a decline in invertebrate species diversity or changes in the composition of populations. This study contributed to growing knowledge on the impacts of invasive alien plants and on terrestrial arthropods, the most prominent group of invertebrates, that are also known to be significant indicators of biological change.