Theses and Dissertations

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Ipv6– network security in polytechnic of Namibia network
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2007) Bere, Mercy
Increasing demand for IP addresses on the IPv4 address space made the introduction of a new addressing scheme with more addresses inevitable. IPv6 was designed to address the issue of small address space in IPv4. In addition to increasing the address space IPv6 is presumably supposed to increase the security of networks. However, does IPv6 really improve network security? Based on the IPv6 design, it can be argued that IPv6 does improve network security to some extent. IPv6 was designed in such a way that every IPv6 node should support Internet Protocol Security (IPSec), an Internet security standard for protecting communications over IP. The implementation of IPv6 networks is still in its infancy and thus many of its security aspects still need to be thoroughly reviewed and possibly contrasted with highly pertinent IPv4 security issues. Despite its firm security based design structure, research has established that IPv6 may also be susceptible to some of the common IPv4 networks attacks, such port scan attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks and denial of service attacks, as well as to other attacks that are IPv6 specific such as misuse of ICMPv6 and fragmentation attacks. Therefore it can be argued that IPv6 networks are also susceptible to network attacks. However to what extend is IPv6 susceptible? In order to research this, a live IPv4 network was tested for network security and compared to a emulated IPv6 network. As will be discussed in this research, it was found out that both IPv4 and IPv6 networks are susceptible to many types of network attacks.
Research and Development of a mobile voice over IP application which is hosted by open source software running on inexpensive backend servers
(NUST, 2013-03) Muronga, Veiko
Voice over IP has been driven by the convergence of voice and data on a single transport medium. This means cheaper service usage fees for the user if the offering is costed properly. But for a service provider there is still an increase in expenditure, solely related to spending on infrastructure such as call servers, phones and gateways. This study is aimed at analysing a different strategy of deploying VoIP, by starting at a lower base, meaning hosting the VoIP application on inexpensive hardware and open source Software. Secondly, the study looks at how to extend the service to mobile subscriber by introducing a mobile VoIP (mVoIP) application. The study’s main goal is to introduce telecommunication services at the lowest cost possible while considering reduced complexity, optimisation, manageability and flexibility. Barriers to deploying VoIP such as reliability and quality of service are also addressed by the study. The mVoIP infrastructure is made out of the following main components: Mobile VoIP app, Wireless Access Point and VoIP Server. Each main component’s functionality and characteristic are carefully explored in order to understand its contribution to the solution and the study as a whole. The research also looks at other projects where similar approaches were used to deploy inexpensive VoIP services. Factors leading to acceptance or rejection of the technology have served as guidance to the study. During the design, the research compares different open source VoIP server software’s functionalities and features in order to make a selection of the software to use for the projects pilot network deployment. A development platform for the mobile application is also selected based on characteristics such as: the range of devices it runs on, the market share of the platform and the learning curve of the platform. The development of the application follows the six steps from the Eri Mobile’s “Mobile Development Process”: Concept Sketching, Research/Strategies, Wire-Framing, User Interface Design, Development and Testing. The test scenarios for the research are all lab-based, but it is highlighted that implementing the solution on broadband, 3G and 4G networks can improve the service drastically in the areas of network coverage, Quality of Service and Mobility.
An empirical study of the planning and implementation of competency based education and training in vocational education training centres in Namibia: The case of Namibia Training Authority.
(2014) Bock, Lukas
Namibia is currently undergoing a dramatic reform of its overall development strategy through its national statement, Vision 2030. As part of the response to make Vision 2030 a reality, the government came up with an Education and Training Sector Improvement Programme (ETSIP), which represents the education and training sector’s response to the call of Vision 2030. Its key purpose is to substantially enhance the sector’s contribution to the attainment of strategic national developmental goals and to facilitate the transition to a knowledge-based economy. The emphasis, according ETSIP, is on enhancing the quality of life for all and that calls for the intended rapid economic growth to be accompanied by equitable social development, according to Vision 2030. These twin goals of growth with equity are to be pursued within a broader strategic framework of transforming the economy into a knowledge-based economy (ETSIP, 2006). However, a critical impediment to the acceleration of growth, according to ETSIP, is the sluggish and sometimes even declining productivity in some of the sectors. This could be ascribed to the shortage of skilled workers on various levels and of various areas within industry. Without acceleration of economic growth, it is difficult for Namibia to create jobs to curb the current 51% unemployment rate, especially jobs that signal productivity growth, reduce poverty and attain equitable social development. Employers note the shortage of qualified artisans and technical staff as a constraint on increasing their productivity (ETSIP, 2006). One way of addressing this burning issue of skills shortages and unemployment, by the Namibian government, was the establishment of The Namibian Training Authority (NTA) under the Vocational, Education and Training Act (2008), with the aim of taking over management and direction of Vocational Education Training (VET) in Namibia. One of the strategic objectives for the restructuring is to improve the quality of VET, by establishing a Competency Based Education and Training (CBET) Programme (NAMCOL, 2011). The purpose of this case study was thus, to uncover the perceived (understood) effectiveness, of the transformation process of developing and implementing the CBET Program as a method of training in vocational training centres in Namibia by the NTA. An interpretive philosophical overview with a qualitative approach was found suitable for this study. The research design was a case study; and the specific research method for data collection was semi- structured interviews that were conducted at the research site; the NTA. A non-probability sampling technique was chosen and participants were selected purposively. The unit of analysis were those managers directly involved in the transformation process. Data were organised, categorised and interpreted in such a way that it would reflect the issues covered by the data obtained from the six subjects, which can then be adequately summarised in order to draw conclusions, for the purpose of making relevant recommendations. Looking at the change management strategies utilised (or not) by NTA in the transformation process, will hopefully, promote an understanding or inform practice in similar situations. It could, furthermore, be useful for investigating how an individual or programme changes over time, perhaps as the result of certain circumstances or interventions. The results could be used as a guiding tool to inform others of some of the realities that could be expected and how these realities can be dealt with when going through a process of change. It could also put other change agents at ease knowing that, there are companies out there experiencing similar obstacles as those faced by them and yet they were able to pull through successfully. The effectiveness could only be determined in terms of the research questions formulated by the main research question. From the findings, it can be deduced that the implementation of the new system was not totally ineffective, but also not a hundred percent effective. Research question four was not achieved at all, meaning that in the absence of a proper change management model or strategic plan the implementation was not really successful. Recommendations were given by the participants themselves on how to improve the effectiveness there off.
Enterprise Architecture Framework for the Namibian Government_Wide
(NUST, 2015-02-09) Shaanika, Irja, N.
Framework 1 ABSTRACT Every organisation tries to operate in a dynamic environment; as a result, no organisation intends to stay the same. Thus the organisation’s survival depends on how fast and well they react and respond to change. The changes are expected to come from both business and technological perspectives. Change is implored and implemented through different approaches, such as Enterprise Architecture (EA). Organisations adopt EA as a way to map and describe organisational structure, business activities, and how information and technologies can be used to support, enable and automate business processes. Enterprise architecture plays an important role in guiding organisations’ operations and implementation of new technologies in dynamic environments. However, with all the benefits that EA brings to organisations, they are still challenged by their operations. The study employed the qualitative method as the research strategy. Qualitative method was selected primarily because of its explanatory nature. Also, it enables researchers to study phenomenon in their natural settings, which was critical in this research. The researcher avoids assumptions and expectations but rather study the environments as they are presented in order to understand them. The study used a case study approach and semi-structured interviews for data collection. Activity Theory (AT) was applied during data analysis and it provided a third eye needed to understand the technical and non-technical factors that could impact the development and implementation of EA. Based on the interpretation of the findings from the analysis of data, the Namibian government wide enterprise architecture framework was developed. The framework act as guidance in the selection, development, implementation and maintenance of information system and technologies in the Namibian Ministries computing environment,
DESIGNING A CLOUD BASED ELEARNING IMPLEMENTATION MODEL FOR HIGHER AND TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN NAMIBIA
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2017-02) Chitauro, Shadreck
Main stream academic institutions are aiming to improve from past trends and venturing into new emerging technologies for quality delivery of teaching and learning. One of these trends that enhance teaching and learning is termed eLearning. ELearning is when teaching and learning is facilitated through the use of information communication technologies. ELearning is highly popular because it is flexible, it supports self-paced learning, and learners can access learning material anywhere, anytime and in the absence of the instructor. The problem with eLearning is that of managing data, ensuring security, limited server space, infrastructure sourcing and expensive maintenance. In addition to these problems, most academic institutions in the developing world are unable to fully finance eLearning systems and the skills for the support of these systems. Higher and tertiary institutions in Namibia which also use eLearning in their day to day teaching and learning activities are faced with slow bandwidth challenges. However, cloud computing can ease the financial burdens and reduce support issues brought about by lack of information technology skills and infrastructure. A qualitative case study at one Namibian tertiary institution was used in which interviews and experiments were used to obtain data. ELearning administrators at the case site were interviewed and it was established that at this tertiary institution the eLearning system also experiences infrastructure problems, support issues due to lack of expertise and insufficient human resources. In addition, their eLearning server reduces performance as the number of concurrent users connecting to it increases. Thus, migrating to a public cloud would solve most of these issues but there was no concrete plan as to how to migrate to cloud. Consequently, this research used design science research to design a cloud based implementation model for higher and tertiary institutions in Namibia so that academic institutions can seamlessly migrate to cloud. An experimental cloud was setup using a cloud based implementation model. The results of the experiment proved that the biggest challenge being faced by this tertiary institution’s eLearning server can be overcome. One of the challenges that could be solved is that the server is slow due to the ratio of RAM on the server, which is not proportionally adequate to the number of users. Most eLearning technical challenges and technical support challenges were solved. The use of cloud computing was proposed as a solution to these challenges.
Geochemical analysis of groundwater in the Omaruru-Swakop basin,Namibia
(Namibia University of Science Technology, 2017-06) Paulus, Petrus Tuhafeni
DEVELOPMENT OF AN ADOPTION MODEL OF DIGITAL SERVICES FOR UNEMPLOYED YOUTH IN AN INFORMAL SETTLEMENT IN NAMIBIA
(2018-04) Kambunga, Asnath Paula
ABSTRACT Youth unemployment has become an increasing socio-economic issue in Namibia. Thus, numeral initiatives have been started to fight this trend in order to empower the current marginalised and unemployed youth to sustain a livelihood. This includes skills training opportunities, services and technology development. However, the adoption and integration of such services and technologies has not always been successful. Consequently, this study aims to investigate and implement an appropriate adoption model for youth services in Namibia. Different existing technology adoption models were evaluated in relation to the context of marginalised youth in urban areas, especially informal settlements of Windhoek. For the purpose of this study, youth from the Havana informal settlement were involved in designing and assessing technologies and services suitable to them, at the same time as the development of the proposed technology adoption strategy. The technology adoption strategy was adapted alongside the successful deployment of NamStarter a crowdfunding system for social entrepreneurship initiatives in Havana. An action research methodology was used as the approach to carry out the research and interventions. Based on our empirical results we argue that an appropriate technology adoption model in the context of informal settlements does not rely on the assumption that users pre-formulate intent before an action, as framed in the theory of reasoned action, which has been the basis for many mainstream technology adoption models. Contrary we propose a technology adoption model relying on behaviour or technology use prior to attitude change. The model emphasises factors of social influence and enablers creating capabilities as the main drivers for technology adoption in informal settlements.
A Lightweight Authentication Architecture for Unsupervised Internet of Things (IoT) in Smart Home Applications
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2018-11) Gamundani, Attlee, M
The Smart Home environment is made up of different objects that have sensing capabilities and have the potential to interact with each other seamlessly. This brings a lot of convenience to the control and monitoring of the surroundings around the home environment. This reality is brought about as a result of the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon. The potential benefits presented by IoT technologies around the Smart Home environment can and are hampered by security issues that are yet to be resolved both at the perception layer and the transmission layer. A simulated Smart Home environment that modelled critical application requirements for Assisted Ambient Living (AAL) spaces and Energy Saving Solutions (ESS) was used to evaluate the proposed lightweight authentication architecture’s efficiency, which was tested against existing similar solutions around the same functionality. The lightweight authentication architecture presented in this submission was tested using the SCYTHER tool, which allowed verification, falsification and security testing by checking on various classes of attacks and possible architecture behaviour. The architecture turned out secure for tested threats, guided by the Dolev-Yao model. The contribution of this research, is its pragmatic approach to the security design for unsupervised constrained things. Key findings from this work highlight two important aspects for proper security advancement, which are identity management of things in the IoT space and the scalability of using agent based models to reduce resource demands at the device level. As an envisaged future relevance of this work, the vision of smart cities can be realised
Designing an Interactive Game for Preventing Online Child Abuse in Namibia
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2018-12) Muntuumo, Josephina
In the wake of digitalisation, technology has changed the world, connecting people with information and services at the touch of a finger. Regular Internet access, smartphones and other technological advances have made the world a global village by bringing people from various geographical locations together. Despite the positive changes, the pace and scale of this technological revolution have created space for nefarious actors. Identity theft, data breaches, fake news, phishing and hacking are among the many dangers many people face online. Namibia has been grappling with issues centering on cyber security education, policy and lack of online safety awareness. In recent years, Namibia has experienced cybercrime, money laundering and child abuse initiated on the online platform. As such, this study developed an interactive video game to teach online safety in Namibia to combat online child abuse. An online survey, game design challenge workshops, and focus groups were used to gather information. A total of 84 relevant stakeholders (students, parents, teachers, and game developers) participated in two game design challenge workshops and alpha and beta testing sessions. These workshops followed a solid co-design practice. We designed and developed two Namibian inspired game prototypes that were combined into one game which was implemented and tested during this study. All the game prototypes followed an iterative process of information gathering and sharing stories of online inappropriate behaviours, drawing storyboards, designing wireframes, and testing with cognitive walkthroughs and a think-aloud protocol, alpha and beta testing. The final game is called Onlinicus- Share your Story versioned in 2D and 3D respectively. The uniqueness of this game comes from the scenario design as the game concept is entirely story based. The use of predefined personas and utilising participants’ own stories contributed to the richness of the stories and games developed.
A Bio-Immunology Inspired Security Model to Defend Industrial Control Systems from Advanced Persistent Threats
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-01) Chitauro, Mercy
Industrial Control Systems (ICS) control critical industrial processes. For example, there are ICS networks that control electricity, water distribution, food, and pharmaceutical and beverage production. Historically, ICS networks were safe from network attacks because they were not interconnected to business Information Technology (IT) networks and the Internet. However, with the passage of time, ICS were interconnected to business networks. Because traditional IT networks are built on the TCP/IP suite, ICS became susceptible to network attacks that already existed in TCP/IP networks and to ICS specific attacks. Successful attacks in ICS networks may compromise the ICS infrastructure, system configurations and components. ICS security standards and frameworks were drafted and approved by different organisations for use in the implementation of ICS security. ICS can be secured using these standards or any other means as recommended by ICS security experts. Even though ICS are secured using these recommended methods, they are still being successfully attacked by Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). APTs are targeted attacks which are successful because they do not attack any system that they might be in but become active in only those systems they were designed for. APTs have the ability to circumvent available security control and regular intrusion detection systems, and in addition, antiviruses are not able to detect APTs. There is no known technique available to identify APTs that attack ICS because APTs are discovered after they have been in the system for some time and usually only after they have executed their payload. Subsequently, this means that present ICS security implementations are not capable of defending ICS when they are attacked by APTs. By design, ICS security systems should be capable of defending ICS components from any attacks. They are likened to the biological immune system which is responsible for detecting and protecting the biological body from harmful microorganisms. The biological immune system’s most crucial function is that of preventing infections and eradicating already established
Designing an Automated e-Readiness Assessment Tool to Assess Local Authorities in Namibia
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-01) Cloete, Angelo
E-Readiness assessments have been identified as a pre-requisite for successful systems implementations and therefore it is a pre-requisite for e-Government as well. It is however difficult to use existing e-Readiness assessment tools as most have been designed to cater for a specific context. In the absence of previous assessments, the level of e-Readiness of local authorities in Namibia is undetermined. The aim of the study is to design an automated assessment tool to assess the level of e-Readiness of Local Authorities, focusing in particular on the Municipality of City of Windhoek. This assessment will be carried out using the newly designed automated assessment tool. Two online surveys were designed and conducted. One was specifically designed for the Information Communication Technology Department and another one was designed for the staff members of all other departments. The surveys measured the e-Readiness of the Local Authority in terms of online service provision, its computer systems, hardware/network infrastructures and the skills set of employees. The findings indicate that the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in research efforts, greatly improves the process, as the automated e-Readiness assessment tool delivered faster assessments and at a lesser cost. The results from the automated assessment tool shows that it can be used to measure e-Readiness at different Local Authorities.
A Secure framework for clound-based computing service adoption in the Namibian Government Information sector
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-01-31) Nghihalwa, Eunike Ndahambelela
Cloud computing has taken over most of the organizations IT departments operations and is making headlines across the globe. Despite cloud computing benefits, security issues and challenges remains a priority concern. The Namibian government is prompt to contemplate solutions that are cost effective and deliver efficient and effective information and communication technology services to her people. This paper presents a Secure Cloud Adoption framework (SCAF) for the Namibian government IT departments, a case study for Office of the Prime Minister and Ministry of Urban and Rural Development IT departments. Design Science Research (DSR) strategy was used to develop the SCAF framework. The framework consists of four components namely: organizational factors, technological enablers, environmental factors and users characteristics. The study reveals that SCAF can safe guide the Namibian government IT departments on how to adopt cloud computing with minimum security risks.
Factors influencing the adoption and redesign of the ewallet service in Namibia.
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-02) Sheya, Maria Namupala
The use of mobile phones in everyday life has increased dramatically in recent years, making mobile phones a very integral part of our lifestyle. Namibia is amongst 105 countries with more cellular subscriptions than inhabitants. The increased ownership of smart phones and the affordability of mobile data packages offered more ways for banks to make even more services available such as, customer-to-customer direct payment services. Banks have rolled out this service under various names such as eWallet, Blue-Wallet and Easy-Wallet. This means that, consumers no longer have to walk around with a wallet full of cards or cash as their cell phones offer access to their banks, and convenience of banking everywhere. Despite the potential benefits to consumers, especially those without bank accounts, the adoption rate among consumers was limited. The aim of this research was to investigate the factors that are influencing consumer adoption of the eWallet service in Namibia and provide insights on how to redesign the eWallet service for increased adoption. The research methods included a semi structured questionnaire and interviews. The findings of the research indicates that, factors such as effective communication, system availability and reliability, transaction speed, usefulness, cost, system response, security and trust, convenience and accuracy of transaction influencing consumer adoption of eWallet services. A redesign of the eWallet service based on the findings and design heuristics were proposed.
Development of a citizen-centric e-government model for effective service delivery in Namibia
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-04) Fröhlich, Karin
E-Government is regarded as an important tool to help governments meet their goals. The theory of New Public Management arguably motivated the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) in government with the idea of improving service delivery. However, e-Government use by citizens remains low. On the other hand, government’s vision of an inclusive e-Government has to still yield results, as many citizens are still not using the available e-government services. This challenge is common across Africa given the limited resources and other socio-economic challenges that are often given a higher priority over e-Government initiatives. This study used a public value theory to understand expectations of citizens from e-Government as suggested in the literature. The public value theory was adapted to the Namibian context using the available literature. Critical factors for attaining a citizen-centric e-Government were grouped into three main groups namely achievement of socially desirable outcomes, efficiency of public organizations and the delivery of public service. This study went on to identify key supportive factors for a government to achieve citizen-centric e-Government. This included access to ICT infrastructure, ICT skills, citizen’s attitude, creating local partnerships and understanding the citizen’s information needs. This study is a mixed method approach where qualitative and quantitative data (through questionnaires and interviews) were used as a data collection method. This study was conducted in seven (7) out of the fourteen (14) regions in Namibia. The participants are from seven (7) regional offices and one hundred and eighty-eight (188) respondents, and eight participants who took part in the interviews. The selection was done using the appropriate sampling procedures. Statistical analysis was used to carry out on the data gathered by use of a questionnaire while a content analysis was used on data gathered by use of interviews. The findings show that citizens are ready to embrace e-Government, though a lot still needs to be done in the area of provision of infrastructural facilities. At the end, a citizen-centric e-Government model for effective service delivery in Namibia was developed.
Designing a Health Information System Adoption Roadmap for Quality Healthcare in Namibia
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-07) Mutelo, Sinte Christabel
The Ministry of Health and Social Service (MoHSS), as part of the government of The Republic of Namibia and with the help of Non-Governmental Organisation (NGOs), has implemented Health Information Systems (HIS) within its different directorates to maximise the quality of care. Healthcare Information Systems offer benefits such as improving service delivery, providing real-time information, reducing organisation and personnel costs, and improving the quality of patient care. However, these benefits may not be seen in organisations where systems implementation and the adoption of policies and procedures are not adequately custom-made for systems users. Currently, the MoHSS has over 60 systems within its different directorates, with some functional and some not. Furthermore, there is no roadmap to guide the Ministry in the planning and adopting of HIS and the integration of existing systems donated by NGOs. Hence, to ensure maximised potential of the HIS, the MoHSS should have a clearly documented and ready-for-implementation roadmap that can serve as a strategic guide to the implementation of HIS. This research provides a roadmap which will guide HIS adoption to enhance quality healthcare in Namibia. Based on the research objectives, a qualitative method approach was selected. A case study strategy was adopted for the Ministry of Health and Social Services. Interviews, documents, and questionnaires were used to collect data about the case studies. Activity Theory (AT) was applied during data analysis. AT provided a deeper understanding about employees and technologies that could affect the development of a roadmap. The findings showed that governance, stakeholder involvement, HIS strategic plans, HIS experts and IS infrastructures are factors to take into consideration in the adoption of HIS by the Ministry. A roadmap for the implementation of HIS was developed based on the interpretation of the data. The roadmap provides a guide for the planning, selection, implementation, and adoption of HIS to produce quality healthcare services in Namibia.
Development and usability evaluation of a mobile-based cross-platform interactive museum guide- iMuseum.
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-08) Kandjimi, Herman
Public participation and visitor satisfaction in museums are directly related to the experience of learning, discovery and involvement in motivating learning behaviours. In most cases, visitors’ experiences are significantly improved if they gain substantial knowledge on each artefact of interest from the museum guides and this is critical to user satisfaction, however, the ratio of human guides to visitors is grossly inadequate. A visitor touring in a group is hardly taken care of individually by the human guide. In addition, existing information systems for museums guides are often limited to museum-based gadgets or platform-specific smart devices provided by the museums, but not always familiar to the visitor. This study explored alternative ways that avail museum content to a broader user base while offering an increasing and personalised interactive content through multiple visitors' own smart devices. A constructive research methodology that uses quantitative and qualitative data plus incremental software prototyping development and testing were used in this study, with the main objective of producing a location-aware interactive virtual guide that is easy to use, stable and able to run on a broad range of mobile device operating systems. The outcome systems were developed with AngularJS Framework (Web application) and Ionic Framework (cross-platform mobile application), these two combined constitutes an overall museum’s mobile guide system-iMuseum. The system aims to offer the museum a platform that will enable more visitors to have individual experience and interact with historical artefacts, plus additionally offer relevant information when and wherever a visitor needs it without having an employee going around with everyone. This study was contextualized to Namibian museums using the Independence Memorial Museum (IMM) as a testing site. The contributions of this study can then be used to implement related systems in other learning and cultural heritage institutions like galleries, libraries, achieves and museums(GLAM).
The effect of group a streptococcus on maternal and neonatal morbidity in Windhoek
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2019-10) Vries, Azaria Amadea
Purpose of the research: Globally, puerperal infections cause morbidity in 5-10% of all pregnant women each year. To date, there is very little data in Namibia on the colonization and antibiotic susceptibility patterns of S. pyogenes in pregnant women and neonates. This study aimed at determining the prevalence, antimicrobial susceptibility patterns and genetic based resistance of the isolates from pregnant women at 35 weeks to 37 weeks gestation and neonates at 6 week postdelivery follow up at the Windhoek Central Hospital (WCH) maternity ward.
A HIERARCHICAL COOPERATIVE INTRUSION DETECTION METHOD IN AD-HOC WIRELESS NETWORKS
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2020-01) Ankome, Teresia
In recent years, ad-hoc wireless networks have experienced an increase in popularity and usage due to their flexibility and the ability to provide connectivity from anywhere, at any time. Ad-hoc wireless network provides mobile communications to nodes in situations where the participating nodes are not in need of existing network infrastructure. The detection of malicious nodes is hard to achieve due to its dynamic nature of nodes mobility, lack of infrastructure and the nature of the wireless channel. Most traditional Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are designed to operate in a centralized manner, and do not operate properly in MANET as data in mobile ad-hoc networks are distributed in different network devices. Hierarchical Cooperative Intrusion Detection Method (HCIDM) is a distributed intrusion detection mechanism that uses collaboration between nodes to detect active attacks against the routing table of a mobile ad-hoc wireless network. HCIDM operation reduces the effectiveness of the attack by informing other nodes about the existence of the malicious nodes, its operating mode and keeps the performance of the network within an acceptable level. The novelty of the mechanism lies in the way the responsibility to protect the network is distributed among nodes, the trust level is computed and the information about the presence of a malicious activity is communicated to potential victims, that is, nodes within the radio range of the attacker. HCIDM operates as a middle box between the network traffic and the routing protocol. HCIDM is tested using the Network Simulator (NS-2) in an AODV-enabled mobile ad hoc wireless network. The accuracy and the efficiency of HCIDM are tested during a black hole attack in a network with mobile nodes, starting with a small network topology and increasing the number of nodes to test its performance in a large network. The throughput, delay and packet loss are used as metrics for evaluating the performance of HCIDM.
A persuasive souvenir system (PSS) to increase Namibian museums turnout using RFID technology.
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2020-01-20) Nashandi, Ndinelago Tupopila
i DECLARATION I, Ndinelago T Nashandi, hereby declare that the work contained in the thesis for my Master in Computer Science, entitled ‘A Persuasive Souvenir System (PSS) to increase Namibian museums turnout using RFID Technology’ is my own original work and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it at any university or other higher education institution for the award of a degree. I further declare that I fully acknowledge any sources of information used for the research in accordance with the rules of the Institution. Signature: NNashandi Date: 20/01/2020 SIGNATURE OF THE SUPERVISOR I, Prof Hippolyte N Muyingi, herewith declare that I supervised this thesis. Signature: ______HNMuyingi_______________ Date: ___20/01/20________________ ii Abstract An advance in information technology has seen many museums in the world embarking on extensive and continuous developments that can be used to improve visitor experience. The extensive and continuous developments are done by creating an interactive environment that attracts more visitors to museums and sustains their role of imparting knowledge and cultural education (Busch & Sieck, 2015). There are abundant possibilities in addressing low museum turnout. The possibilities range from simple a written guide to a virtual and augmented reality; the increase of handheld devices is more used to enhance visitors’ experience within the museum (Hsi, 2004). Initial observation of turnout at Independence Memorial Museum suggests that very few Namibians, compared to foreign visitors, visit local museums. This information is based on statistical data provided by the Independence Memorial Museum, generated from 2015 to 2018, and data from an online questionnaire that was conducted in this study. The data shows that very few Namibian visits museums or do not repeat their visit to museums. Independence Memorial museum, whose impressive multi-story building was inaugurated on the 20th March 2014, revealed that statistics of local museums visitors are low or approximately equal to the number of foreign visitors. Windhoek city has the highest number of inhabitants in the country, with a population of approximately 400 000 (City of Windhoek, 2016). Only 5% of 400 000 Windhoek population visits the museum yearly, making it a worrisome number. The number of students’ trips to museums, organised by schools, is also low, with figures dropping from 5 583 learners in 2015 to 3 290 in 2018. This proportion is low, considering the fact that Windhoek has the highest number of schools in Namibia. This shows how Namibian citizens are far away from attaining knowledge that is preserved therein. This also threatens the sustainability of cultural institutions, including museums, as well as their mission of educating the society about their Namibia cultural heritage. This study proposed a possibility of solving this problem through persuasive technology by developing a Persuasive Souvenir System (PSS) that could attract and retain more visitors. The study posits that visitors will spend more time viewing the most attracting or interesting artefact in a museum. Thus, marking iii up this experience through a souvenir of the most visited artefact can be a trigger to attract the visitor to revisit the museum. Alternatively, by sharing the experience, the visitor would get friends or close relatives becoming interested to also visit. The system for Namibian museums was developed using C# programming language, and it makes use of identification and tracking technology, which aims to promote and boost the numbers of visitors to local museums by rewarding them with a souvenir card, consisting a photo of them, coupled with their most attracted or interested artefact and description. This system has been successfully developed through a prototyping methodology, and it has also been evaluated. However, due to limited time trial, and taking into account that there is a possibility of visitors taking longer time to decide whether they should visit the museum again or not , the study could not prove if the PSS is indeed able to convince visitors to revisit the museum or new visitors to start visiting the museum. The persuasive component evaluation is part of suggested future works, and it will need to be tested in a long term.
Velo: A unifying domain-specific language to abstract containerization and orchestration in complex applications
(Namibia University of Science and Technology, 2020-02) Ishuuwa, Gervasius
Application containerisation has been introduced to mitigate the discrepancies of the execution environment con guration and set up a complex application goes through from development to production, including other steps such as testing, staging, etc. Through an isolation mechanism, containers bundle into one package (binaries plus all their dependencies) the entire runtime environment required for an application or any of its components. Depending on the complexity of the adopted architectural style, container orchestration, the management and provisioning of containers, their loadbalancing, security, scaling, and their network con guration might be needed to smoothen the overall deployment and execution experience. In the peculiar case of cloud-native applications, containerisation and orchestration are even more crucial. Application containerisation and orchestration have risen as two interrelated technologies. However, they are handled with di erent toolset and formalisms. This increases the complexity of deploying such applications due to various moving parts. Moreover, for an independent team to try out some components of an existing application, they now have to stick to the prior deployment decisions made on their behalf. We argue that a better approach is to describe the desired state of both containerisation and orchestration and leave it to each team to decide on the actual tools and infrastructure they intend to use. In this research, we introduce velo, a unifying abstraction domainspeci c language (DSL) for application containerisation and orchestration. Intuitively, velo lets the user express the desired state of containerisation and orchestration for a complex application. It has two components: (1) an abstract speci cation language that describes the containerisation and orchestration for a complex application; and (2) a transpiler, a source-tosource compiler into both a container-speci c and an orchestration-speci c environments. In order to de ne the speci cation language, we studied various containerisation and orchestration tools, including docker, rocket, kubernetes, mesos marathon, docker compose and docker swarm. The resulting concepts are centred around a virtual bag, a space within the infrastructure where containers can be run, and a container, an isolated space in the cluster where various processes corresponding to services will run and access resources (CPU, network, I/O, etc.). Containers are instantiated within a virtual bag. Each of these concepts can be further re ned and represented in di erent ways. As well, several ne-grained descriptors are introduced to complete the speci cation of an application containerisation and orchestration. Furthermore, these descriptors can be provided during speci cation time or at compilation. The compiler in velo is implemented against the grammar de ned for 4 the speci cation language. It gives the user the possibility to generate both the container le and the orchestration description based on the same initial speci cation. Currently, we generate a Dockerfile for the containerisation, and kubernetes, mesos marathon and docker compose for orchestration. Following the grammar, the compiler can also automatically detect whether or not to prompt the user for missing descriptors. We conducted a theoretical and practical evaluation of velo. The theoretical evaluation focuses on the semantics of the speci cation language as well as the correctness of its compiler. As for the practical evaluation, we tested velo following various scenarios and discuss our ndings.

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