Browsing by Author "Bekele, Henok"

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    A Case Based Reasoning Knowledge Based System for Hypertension Management
    (Addis Ababa University, 2011-07) Bekele, Henok; Kebede, Gashaw (PhD)
    Hypertension is a growing public health problem. In this paper, the potential of case based reasoning approach for hypertension management have been investigated. In order to conduct the research, the required knowledge for the study have been collected from hypertension compliant card histories, domain experts and other relevant documents through semi-structured interview and document analysis methods of knowledge elicitation. Then the knowledge is modeled in hierarchical tree manner and case structure of the case base is constructed. Forty five hypertension cases are collected from Brook Medical Service Plc and Bole 17 Health Center to construct the case base. The case based reasoning prototype for hypertension management is implemented by using python 2.6. Nearest Neighbor retrieval algorithm, voting method, domain expert feedback and incremental learning are used for the retrieval, reuse, revise and retain tasks of the prototype respectively. The collected hypertension cases are represented in the form of Feature-vector case representation approaches. The prototype is evaluated by using both statistical analysis and user evaluation. The statistical analysis uses leave-one-out cross validation testing proportion for both the retrieval and reuse processes. The retrieval performance of the prototype shows average value of 86.1% recall and 60% precision, while the performance of the reuse process shows an average value of 88.89% accuracy. The over all performance of the prototype as it is evaluated by domain experts is 3.99 out of 5. Given all these results, the performance of the prototype is promising. All in all the study achieves its objective by developing the prototype with promising performance and user acceptance, and demonstrating case based reasoning approach in designing knowledge based system for hypertension management.
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    Health Promotion through the Usage of Local Resources and Values or Norms in Hadiya Zone of Southern Ethiopia: The Case of Bobicho Kebele in Lemmo Woreda
    (Addis Ababa University, 2013-06) Bekele, Henok; Hebo, Mamo (PhD)
    This study aimed at discussing on the environmental health behavioral changes that are prevalent among Hadiya of southern Ethiopia. Specifically it is concerned on exposing the prevailing environmental health practices, the outcomes that appeared with the improvements, examining the attributes of the success and discussing on the condition of sustainability of practices. To this end, ethnographic method of data collection technique such as unstructured interview of key informants, focus group discussion and observations were employed. By using the aforementioned method, it is found that there are visible shift of behaviors of environmental practices which is manifested in people engagement of the practice by ceasing there old ways. For example, people began to use latrine as opposed to their old tradition of using open defecations. The shift of environmental practices have brought observable improvements in the health of the people that include reduction of communicable diseases, woman work load at house hold and having aesthetically valued environment. It is also found that there are intertwined factors behind the changes of the environmental health practices. Culture sensitive health intervention by which people sensitized through self disgusting mechanisms help the community to develop negative attitude toward waste environmental conditions; and have new conception of it. Active community participation that are recurring and conducted by the local language enabled people to involve in health issues and usage of community social structures such as local institutions, social work groups, and community based health workers play important role in terms of teaching and spreading of health messages and performing laborious activities that are rarely achieved by health professionals in local setting of Ethiopia. The prevailing environmental health practices are tending to sustain because the practices are integrated with in the community