One of these days, I happened to search for “fuzzy logic” on wikipedia and I was amazed to find out that they cite another researcher, R.H. Wilkinson, in stead of the well known Lotfi Zadeh, as the author of the first paper on fuzzy logic. Wikipedia says: The first paper on Fuzzy Logic (defined as a multivalued logic based upon set theory) was published by R.H. Wilkinson in 1963 following his first proposals in his 1961 Electrical Engineering master thesis. He was the first one to redefine... Read Full Story

I have good news from South Africa for those aspiring for higher degrees and research in ICT.The Meraka Institute, which is managed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research in Pretoria, South Africa, is offering studentships and internships in the following programs: Human Language Technology (HLT) Research Group Knowledge Systems Research Group (KSG) High Performance Computing (HPC) and Biomedical Informatics Information Security ICT for Earth Observation (ICT4EO) Research Group... Read Full Story

Towards the end of last month, I attended the Nsima party which took place at the Hiroo JICA office here in Tokyo. This party was organized by the Malawi Society of Japan in liaison with the Malawi Embassy  to commemorate Malawi’s independence day, 6 July. The Malawi Society of Japan, which was created in 1983, is  composed of ex-Japanese volunteers who had served in Malawi under the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) program. Nsima is the staple food in Malawi and... Read Full Story

Colleagues, I am kinda confused here. I am trying to find out the de facto Wireless Sensor Network Simulator. I have done a lot of searching on the Internet with very limited success. The more I search, the greater the number of new simulators that pop up. At some point, I landed on Tranh Minh Tam’s research blog and I felt that long at last, I was going to be helped.But alas! Poor me.The more I looked at Tam’s list of Wireless Sensor Network Simulators, the more I got confused. Previously, I... Read Full Story

Red Orbit reports that Malawi has taken up Brazil’s lead and is now planning to switch from petrol to ethanol as the main vehicle fuel. Experiments on converting cars to run on this ethanol have gone well. Last year, I asked the Malawi government to take the issue of ethanol driven vehicles as a matter of urgency. We must adopt these vehicles as fast as we can. If we had Parliament in Malawi, this is one of the most important issues that they should have been discussing and making sure that... Read Full Story

If you are looking for funded postgraduate research, the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) has some good news for you. The IRCSET has unveiled a €10.8 million scheme which will fund the early career formation of new doctoral and masters researchers in the sciences, engineering and technology. The Postgraduate Scholarship Research Scheme (Second Call) will operate in 2008 under the Council’s Embark Initiative. I am told that earlier this year in its 1st... Read Full Story

Migrating to this self-hosted Wordpress blog has been one of the most exciting events in my journey as a blogger. Now I can tap into the huge extension capabilities of Wordpress (WP) and grow my online community easily. It has also given me an opportunity to improve my PHP and server-side skills in general. Despite these advantages, life as a self-hosted WP blogger can sometimes be a nightmare. The frequent WP version releases have been too much to handle for a busy person like me. When I... Read Full Story

One thing that I have enjoyed so much here in Japan is the ability to make phone calls over the Internet.The bandwidth this side is very good. I am now able to make those free PC-to-PC Skype calls. I have had several conference calls with friends in other countries already. Apart from Skype, there is a wide range of other companies offering VoIP services.Their rates are generally low such that I talk with friends and relatives back in Malawi for long periods. Apart from Skype, I also use Vyke... Read Full Story

One thing that I have enjoyed so much here in Japan is the ability to make phone calls over the Internet.The bandwidth this side is very good. I am now able to make those free PC-to-PC Skype calls. I have had several conference calls with friends in other countries already. Apart from Skype, there is a wide range of other companies offering VoIP services.Their rates are generally low such that I talk with friends and relatives back in Malawi for long periods. Apart from Skype, I also use Vyke... Read Full Story

The Daily Times reports that the Mzuzu Coffee Association of Malawi will from next month start exporting its coffee to the niche United Kingdom market. This development follows a deal that the Mzuzu Coffee Association secured with a UK based company at the 20th international trade fair held in Blantyre. According to the Daily Times, The Chief Executive Officer of the Association, Mr Harrison Kalua, who also serves as president of Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry... Read Full Story