Most organizations use IT projects as vehicles to implement the IT strategy which contributes to achieving organizational strategic objectives and goals. Agile project management has been a potential solution to deliver successful IT projects instead of the traditional waterfall approach. This potential has resulted in organizations adopting agile project management to deliver IT projects on time and realise benefits. However, auditors especially those whose experience lies with more traditional and system development life cycle controls are struggling with how to audit agile projects. The problem addressed in this article is lack of an audit framework for auditing agile projects to ensure IT project success. The purpose of this article is to present the proposed conceptual framework for auditing agile projects that are implemented using Scrum methodology. The framework introduces audit processes in each process of the Scrum methodology. The quantitative research method used online survey questionnaire to validate the conceptual framework amongst IT professionals in South Africa. The data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0. The research revealed that there was a significant correlation between the identified audit processes and agile project success. This research emphasizes on the need to take into account auditing agile project from its initiation to closure. This article contributes to the body of knowledge with regard to project auditing. Auditors can use the proposed framework to audit agile projects which are implemented using Scrum methodology to ensure successful completion of IT projects.
Smallholder dairy producers account for around half of all African livestock ventures; nevertheless, they face challenges in producing more milk due to an insufficient framework and infrastructure to maximize their output. Smallholder dairy producers in this scenario use a variety of tactics to boost milk output. However, the attempts need multiple heuristics, time, and financial investment. Furthermore, because of a lack of extension officers, smallholder dairy producers become trapped in failure cycles, unsuccessful attempts, and a diminished motivation to continue farming. Therefore, the interventions were more straightforward as smallholder dairy producers with comparable characteristics grouped. This research aimed to create a rule-based engine that automatically assigns smallholder dairy producers to predefined clusters. About 78 stakeholders were interviewed, including 69 smallholder dairy producers and 9 extension officers from Meru-Arusha, Tanzania. The 10 production features and 6 predefined clusters were adopted from the previous study. Therefore, a rule-based engine used the selected 10 production features. As a result, the rule-based engine automatically assigns the smallholder dairy producers to their respective clusters. Therefore, smallholder dairy producers share their farming skills and experience to increase milk output through these clusters. Furthermore, extension officers in the system provide timely assistance to smallholder dairy producers with farming concerns.
Background: Malaria remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality, especially in the sub-Saharan African region. Malaria is considered preventable and treatable,but in recent years, it has increased outpatient visits, hospitalisation, and deaths worldwide, reaching a 9% prevalence in Tanzania. With the massive number of patient records in the health facilities, this study aims to understand the key characteristics and trends of malaria diagnostic symptoms, testing and treatment data in Tanzania’s high and low endemic regions. Methods: This study had retrospective and cross-sectional designs. The data were collected from four facilities in two regions in Tanzania,i.e., Morogoro Region (high endemicity) and Kilimanjaro Region (low endemicity). Firstly, malaria patient records were extracted from malaria patients’ files from 2015 to 2018. Data collected include (i) the patient’s demographic information, (ii) the symptoms presented by the patient when consulting a doctor, (iii) the tests taken and results, (iv) diagnosis based on the laboratory results and (v) the treatment provided. Apart from that, we surveyed patients who visited the health facility with malaria-related symptoms to collect extra information such as travel history and the use of malaria control initiatives such as insecticide-treated nets. A descriptive analysis was generated to identify the frequency of responses. Correlation analysis random effects logistic regression was performed to determine the association between malaria-related symptoms and positivity. Significant differences of p < 0.05 (i.e., a Confidence Interval of 95%) were accepted. Results: Of the 2556 records collected, 1527(60%) were from the high endemic area, while 1029(40%) were from the low endemic area. The most observed symptoms were the following: for facilities in high endemic regions was fever followed by headache, vomiting and body pain; for facilities in the low endemic region was high fever, sweating, fatigue and headache. The results showed that males with malaria symptoms had a higher chance of being diagnosed with malaria than females. Most patients with fever had a high probability of being diagnosed with malaria. From the interview, 68% of patients with malaria-related symptoms treated themselves without proper diagnosis. Conclusions: Our data indicate that proper malaria diagnosis is a significant concern. The majority still self-medicate with anti-malaria drugs once they experience any malaria-related symptoms. Therefore, future studies should explore this challenge and investigate the potentiality of using malaria diagnosis records to diagnose the disease.
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