Projects

Abstract

The need for effective text input methods on smart phones has increased with the advent of virtual keyboard being one of the major methods. The nature of the Ethiopic characters that are used for writing of several languages such as Amharic, Tigrigna, Geez, etc. needs special considerations in its design. Though it is UNICODE supported, the large quantity of the characters brings a challenge for designing a virtual Ethiopic keyboard for smart phones. We designed the layout for the virtual keyboard considering these inherent challenges. We then developed a working virtual Ethiopic keyboard system. The developed virtual keyboard is implemented and tested on the emulator and the real Android based smart phones. The system is also designed in such a way that users can switch between our virtual Ethiopic keyboard and the default virtual English keyboards for multi-script text entry in the different applications that can exist on smart phones.

Note: Amharic is the working language of the federal government of Ethiopia (a country with a population of about 80 million) and is spoken and written as a first or second language in many parts of the country. Tigrigna is a language for about nine million people particularly in Tigrai region of Ethiopia and in Eretria.

Abstract

The current approach of collecting data uses pre-designed paper based formats. Data collection through this method creates delay to respond to the reported issue on time and the collected data from the field can also be lost or damaged in the way of the process. In addition, since the data collection is paper-based, it becomes difficult for immediate analysis of the collected data or to retrieve required information from the collection. To solve these problems, SMS-based data collection is proposed and applications for “Mobile Health- and Demographic-Data Reporting and Communication System” are designed and developed. With our work, we are able to demonstrate the use of smart phones with SMS service for data collection and communication in medical domain. We demonstrated the way how most of the drawbacks and challenges in the previous systems can be handled more efficiently. As a result, the system can greatly reduce the amount of time required to report health and demographic data, can cover a wider surveillance area as far as there is a mobile phone network coverage, can be used to provide the right information at the right time and to the appropriate decision making body. For making the systems usable in local languages such as “Amharic”, we used the virtual Ethiopic keyboard that we designed and implemented earlier. The VEK keyboard permits a multi-script and multi-language data entry on the applications of the Android smart phones.

A video for description of the project. (on You Tube)

Abstract

One of the emerging applications of mobile phones is collection and delivery of information from remote site. What makes the services such as SMS based applications more interesting is that: mobile networks are mostly well established systems and even the most remote locations are having access to mobile phone services. Thus, it can be used by field workers and health assistants from sites where there is limited infrastructure such as electricity and internet access.

In many of the current approaches, health extension workers collect data using paper or pre-designed form and report it back to the near-by health center or Health post. This usually creates delay to respond to the reported issue on time. The collected data from the field can also be lost or damaged in the way of the process. In addition, since the data collection is paper-based, it becomes difficult for immediate analysis of the collected data or to retrieve required document from the collection. To solve these problems, in some countries, SMS-based data collection application is used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data through SMS messages.

In this work, the requirements of the for epidemic and communicable disease cases reporting system of the Ministry of Health of the Federal Government of Ethiopia is identified. Then, systems analysis and design was conducted and the available technologies are explored to come up with a viable SMS-based mobile e-health system for reporting and communication of medical cases in general and epidemic and communicable diseases in particular. The proposed system supports the reporting of health cases and the request for medical professionals’ assistance at remote locations. The system permits health assistants to collect and send the required data to a central database server. As a result, medical data collection can be done easily, instantly and with minimum data loss directly from the site of the incidence to a central location where data interpretation, analysis or decisions can be made.

As a result, this system can greatly reduce the amount of time required to report incidents, can cover a wider surveillance area as far as there is a mobile phone network, can be used to provide the right information at the right time and to the appropriate decision making body.