Dried cassava chips have varied applications by end users that include breweries, confectionaries, starch and flour for food. In Uganda, over 80% of Cassava farmers dry their products by open sun drying and direct passive solar dryers. However, these two drying practices produce varying quality of dried products which may not be good all for the various end users. The quality of dried products depends on factors like cassava chip size, drying technology, temperature, air flow and relative humidity. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of cassava sun drying on a raised platform and drying in a direct passive solar dryer. The two drying technologies were assessed basing on drying rate and product quality of cassava using a randomized complete block design experiment. The measurements considered for drying rate and quality assessment were drying time, moisture content, pH, peak viscosity, starch content and microbial contamination in terms of Total plate count (TPC), Total coliforms (TC) and Yeast and moulds (YM). Results showed that samples dried on the raised platform had higher drying rates than those dried in solar dryer. Additionally, Cassava samples dried on the raised platform showed superior quality in terms of microbial contamination compared to samples dried in the solar dryer.

The increasing interest in human resource practices is driven by the hypothesis that employees and their management are critical to the success of an organization. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute significantly to several countries’ economies in terms of gross domestic product, employment fraction and exports. Human resource management (HRM) on the other hand plays a pivotal role in the growth and survival of SMEs if systematically understood and implemented in these businesses. As such, this paper aims to analyze factors that affect successful HRM and implementation in small and medium enterprises. Our findings demonstrate that SMEs need to make an effort to close the gap between demand and supply of labor for them to be able to compete with larger firms in the market. We conclude that the factors that affect human resource management are mainly due to the internal organization of these businesses and if HRM is properly implemented, it almost guarantees sustainability and competitive advantage of small firms. An “employee retention model” was formulated which can be used by SMEs to guide the retention of employees hence reducing staff turnover.

Although different technologies are developed and used by both men and women, less has been done in the analysis of gender consideration during technology development. As economies reposition themselves to compete in the global economy, the gender gap in technology development and adoption has caught the attention of planners. When projects include gender sensitive components the ability to defend the interests of women and men can be increased. The objective of this paper is to develop a strategy of gender incorporation in technology development. A literature review of case studies was done. In conclusion, the development of technologies is generally not based on a comprehensive analysis of gender roles. Additionally, technology development projects do not offer equal participation of both genders during execution of technology development projects due to the fact that on addition to productive activities, women also dedicate some of their time to reproductive activities in their families.