Browsing by Author "Tadesse, Nigussie"

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    Handwritten Amharic text Recognition Applied to the Processing of Bank Cheques
    (Addis Ababa University, 2000-05) Tadesse, Nigussie; Alemayehll, Nega (PhD); Alemu, Worku (PhD)
    The advent and wide application of Information Technology (IT) has brought changes on the way we perform things. One area where IT particularly computers has showed significant improvement in efficiency and effectiveness of activities is by handling routine, repetitive, boring and error prone tasks. Among such tasks bank check reading is the one that can be handled by computers in a stable manner using the OCR technology. In this piece of work an attempt was made to adopt a recognition algorithm for handwritten Amharic text. To achieve this target some preprocessing. segmentation and normalization techniques implemented for other scripts were reviewed. The Feature oj hand printed Amharic text in general and hand printed legal amounts in particular were studied. Based on the identified Features some of the preprocessing. segmentation and normalization algorithms were implemented and tested on a set of hand printed data collected using sample checks. In addition, different feed forward neural networks with back-propagation learning algorithm were implemented and the test results as well as the procedure of the test are recorded. Finally recommendations are forwarded pointing out some points for further consideration.
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    Premarital Sexual Practice and Perception of Sexual and Reproductive Health Risks Associated With It Among in-School Youths In Shoa Robit Town, North Shoa Zone, Amhara Region, Ethiopia
    (Addis Ababa University, 2014-06) Tadesse, Nigussie; Mengistu, Daniel (PhD)
    Introduction: More than one billion people in the world are between the ages of 15 and 24, and most live in developing countries. Unsafe sex is a major threat to the health and survival of millions of adolescents. Each year, one in 20 adolescents worldwide contracts an STI including HIV/AIDS. Objectives: to assess premarital sexual practices and perception of sexual and reproductive health risks associated with it among in-school youths of Shoa Robit town, North Shoa Zone, Amhara National Regional state, Ethiopia Method of the study: An Institution based cross-sectional study design including both quantitative and qualitative surveys was used. To determine number of students to be included in the study, a single population proportion formula was used based on the assumption of 19% prevalence (p) in school youth premarital sex by using design effect 1.5 and at 95% confidence interval with marginal error of 4%, and finally the sample size would be 540. Result: Of the calculated sample size, total of 508 respondents completely filled to the questionnaire in the study with response rate of 94.1%. Among a total participants 274(53.9%) were females and 234 (46.1%) were males. Among the study subjects, 224 (44.1%) of them reported that they had premarital sexual intercourse at the time of the survey, of which 106 (47.3%) for males and 118(52.7%) for females. The mean age of sexual intercourse was 17.5± 1.5 years for males and 16.8± 1.4 years for females. Youths who come from urban were more likely experience sex than youths from rural (AOR=3.432; 95%CI=1.971, 5.965). Youths who drink alcohol, smoke cigarette, chew chat and watch pornographic films were more likely experience sex than who did not (AOR= 2.538; 95%CI=( (1.378-4.674), (AOR= 6.715; 95%CI=1.422,31.711), ( AOR= 5.946; 95%CI=0.998, 35.445) and (AOR= 5.119; 95%CI=2.983, 8.784) respectively. Conclusion and recommendation: In general, from this particular study, we can conclude that the level of sexual and reproductive health risk perception towards STI including HIV/AIDS, among in school youths is generally minimal. Consequently, risky sexual practices are widely prevalent. School based information, education and behavioral change communication intervention including life skill training should be given