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Abstract: The tea industry plays an important role in Kenya’s economy providing both employment opportunities and earning the country foreign exchange. However, global competition in the industry demands that tea producers in the country improve efficiency. Over the years, achieving international competitiveness among tea factories in Kenya for better financial performance is a major challenge. This study investigated strategic practices and how they relate to the performance of tea factories in Kenya. The objective of this study was to determine how brand equity, management efficiency, costs of production and quality of raw materials related to the performance of tea factories in Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive research design approach because it explored and described the relationship between variables in their natural setting without manipulating them. The research was limited to 8 tea factories in Embu and Kirinyaga Counties. A population of 152 possible respondents comprising factory directors, factory managers, and factory supervisors were used to collect the necessary data required for this study. A sample of 47 respondents was selected using simple random sampling from different strata. Questionnaires were instruments of data collection. A pilot test was conducted to test the validity and reliability of the research instruments. Multiple regression analysis method was used to establish the statistical relationship between variables quantitatively while content analysis helped to analyze published content qualitatively. The study also established that there was a positive statistical relationship between strategic practices and performance of KTDA managed factories. The study recommended that KTDA factories should embrace on marketing, research and development, change management and technology integration for them to survive in the turbulent business environment.

Keywords: Brand Equity, Efficiency, Performance, Quality, Strategic Practices.
Title: Relationship between Strategic Practices and the Performance of Tea Factories in Kenya
Author: George Kimathi, Clement Nkaabu , Abel Moguche
ISSN 2350-1049
International Journal of Recent Research in Interdisciplinary Sciences (IJRRIS)
Paper Publications

Abstract: Secondary infertility is one type of female infertility in which a woman who had previously conceived is unable to subsequently conceive despite engaging in regular unprotected sexual intercourse for a period of one year. Although globally 60-80 million couples are suffering with infertility with most of them being in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a paucity of data on the prevalence of secondary infertility in Kenya. Moreover secondary infertility has a multi-factorial etiology but there is a paucity of data on its predictors in Kenya. This study was designed to determine the predictors of secondary infertility among women of reproductive age attending Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital. To this end a Case control study design of 113 cases and 113 age-matched controls was used. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaires. Categorical data was analyzed using Chi-square while association between secondary infertility and the predictors was analyzed using univariate and multivariate regression analysis to compute odds ratio (OR). Analysis revealed that those who had not undergone ANC screening were less likely 0.81(.04-1.6) to have secondary infertility relative to those who had not been screened. Therefore, public health programs aimed at preventing secondary infertility need to put in place through improved antenatal care screening services, improved screening for STIs and early treatment, proper obstetric care avoiding unsafe abortion, provision of family planning services adequately and pre-conceptual care.

Keywords: World Health Organization, Women of Reproductive Age, Total Fertility Rate, Kenya Fertility Survey, Focused Group Discussions, Traditional Birth Attendants.
Title: PREDICTORS OF SECONDARY INFERTILITY AMONG WOMEN OF REPRODUCTIVE AGE ATTENDING KISII TEACHING AND REFERRAL HOSPITAL, KISII COUNTY, KENYA
Case Pending..
ISSN 2350-1049
International Journal of Recent Research in Interdisciplinary Sciences (IJRRIS)
Paper Publications

Abstract: Automatic recognition of car license plate number became very important in our daily life because of the unlimited increase of cars and transportation systems which make it impossible to be fully managed and monitored by humans, examples are so many like traffic monitoring, tracking stolen cars, managing parking toll, red-light violation enforcement, border and customs checkpoints. Yet it’s a very challenging problem, due to the diversity of plate formats, different scales, rotations and non-uniform illumination conditions during image acquisition. This paper mainly introduces an Automatic Number Plate Recognition System (ANPR) using Morphological operations, Histogram manipulation and Edge detection Techniques for plate localization and characters segmentation.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, Edge Detection, Character segmentation, Contours, Image Processing Region of interest (ROI).
Title: Principle of Automatic Number Plate Recognition
Author: Abang, Paul A., Ananti, John E
ISSN 2350-1049
International Journal of Recent Research in Interdisciplinary Sciences (IJRRIS)
Paper Publications

Abstract: A reactor is a coil which has large number of turns and whose ohmic resistance value is much greater. They are used in electrical Power systems to limit the short circuit currents which can cause damage to the equipments of the power system. The additional reactance added in series with the system for protection, are called reactors. A current limiting reactor is a type of reactor which limits the heavy flow of current through other sections of the system. In this way, we don’t have to shut down the whole system; we can just isolate the faulty section. The objective of this paper is to show how the reactor is used to reduce or if possible completely remove the any effect of short circuits currents that may lead to the damage of power system equipments. Results obtained by installing a reactance in series with the system equipment shows that the short circuit current is drastically reduced thereby eliminating any contingency fault in the power station that may affect even the consumers of electricity.

Keywords: Air-core reactors, current limiting reactors, iron core Reactors, phase voltage, Reactor, short circuit.
Title: USE OF REACTOR AT POWER STATIONS IN MITIGATING THE EFFECTS OF SHORT CIRCUIT FAULTS IN POWER EQUIPMENTS
Author: John E. Ananti, Paul A. Abang
ISSN 2350-1049
International Journal of Recent Research in Interdisciplinary Sciences (IJRRIS)
Paper Publications