Browsing by Author "Sansa Otim, Julianne"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Electricity Theft in Kampala and Potential ICT Solutions
    (Springer, Cham, 2014) Mbabazi Mutebi, Ruth; Sansa Otim, Julianne; Okou, Richard; Sebitosi, Ben
    Electricity theft is the main source of non-technical losses in electricity distribution utilities. This paper presents data from an ongoing research to study the causes of electricity theft in Kampala, Uganda and people’s response to the efforts being made to reduce it. Our study reveals that electricity theft in Kampala is largely due to economic reasons and corruption within the utility company. It confirms that people perceive electricity theft as the utility’s problem and are not willing to report electric theft suspects. We propose ICT technologies to encourage consumer participation in reducing electricity theft.
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    A Joint Power, Delay and Rate Optimization Model for Secondary Users in Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks
    (Sensors, 2020) Ssajjabbi Muwonge, Bernard; Pei, Tingrui; Sansa Otim, Julianne; Mayambala, Fred
    To maximize the limited spectrum among primary users and cognitive Internet of Things (IoT) users as we save the limited power and energy resources available, there is a need to optimize network resources. Whereas it is quite complex to study the impact of transmission rate, transmission power or transmission delay alone, the complexity is aggravated by the simultaneous consideration of all these three variables jointly in addition to a channel selection variable, since it creates a non-convex problem. Our objective is to jointly optimize the three major variables; transmission power, rate and delay under constraints of Bit Error Rate (BER), interference and other channel limitations. We analyze how total power, rate and delay vary with packet size, network size, BER and interference. The resulting problem is solved using a branch-and-cut polyhedral approach. For simulation of results, we use MATLAB together with the state-of-the-art BARON software. It is observed that an increase in packet size generally leads to an increase in total rate, total power and total transmission delay. It is also observed that increasing the number of secondary users on the channel generally leads to an increased power, delay and rate.
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    On Improvement of the Weather Information Management in Uganda
    (UbuntuNet-Connect, 2012) Sansa Otim, Julianne; Waisswa, Milton
    Weather forecasts are used to make important decisions (e.g. reduce crop damage, reduce property damage, save lives, safety in the aviation industry) that can enhance a country's economy. This paper presents the challenges faced in managing Uganda's weather information which are: a sparse meteorology network, manual data processing and lack of access to the weather information by most stakeholders. This paper then goes ahead to propose an integrated approach that combines off-theshelf (cheap) wireless sensor technology, free satellite data, earth science grid infrastructure and mobile computing to address the identified challenges. It is anticipated that these efforts will improve accessibility and accuracy of weather information to all that need it and hence have a positive impact on the economy.
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    Towards a Persuasive Technology for Electricity Theft Reduction in Uganda
    (Springer, Cham, 2017) Mbabazi Mutebi, Ruth; Sansa Otim, Julianne; Sebitosi, Ben
    Technology for changing attitude and behaviour, known as persuasive technology, has been applied to solve many challenges, ranging from personal health and finance, to environmental sustainability. In this paper, an application to persuade electricity consumers in Kampala, Uganda, to partner with the electricity utility company in fighting electricity theft is proposed. The persuasive application will implement a number of persuasive techniques including tailoring, reduction, notifications and suggestion. These techniques, along with the choice of technology, were derived basing on Fogg’s process of persuasive systems development.