Welcome to AfricArXiv
This initiative showcases UbuntuNet's commitment to fostering knowledge sharing, collaboration, and accessibility within the African research community. With AfricArxiv, researchers across the continent have a dedicated platform to disseminate their findings, making them accessible to a global audience. By facilitating open access to scholarly work, UbuntuNet Alliance plays a pivotal role in advancing the principles of open science, enhancing research visibility, and driving innovation across Africa.
Communities in AfricArxiv
Select a community to browse its collections.
- The general repository is open for individual submissions by researchers, librarians and research administrators.
- Showcase of project activities, presentations, and scholarly contributions curated by the AfricArXiv initiative.
- A Rapid Grant Fund to address research questions and implement science engagement activities associated with COVID-19
- An initiative to support the development of a harmonised quality assurance and accreditation system at institutional, national, regional and Pan-African continental level.
- Facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration among institutions, researchers, and educators within the Ubuntunet Alliance network.
Recent Submissions
Stabilization of Historical Archives in Mekelle City Municipality. Project Proposal
(2024-10-01) Asfha, Alula Tesfay; Gebrekristos, Selam; Gebrehiwot, Dawit
HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION: AI-DRIVEN GESTURE RECOGNITION
(2024-10-20)
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in human-computer interaction (HCI) has significantly transformed how users engage with technology, particularly through gesture recognition. This paper explores the advancements in AI-driven gesture recognition systems, emphasizing their potential to enhance user experience across various applications, from gaming and virtual reality to accessibility tools and smart environments. We analyze the underlying algorithms and machine learning techniques that facilitate real-time gesture detection and interpretation, highlighting the importance of accuracy and responsiveness in user interactions. Additionally, the paper discusses the challenges faced in developing robust gesture recognition systems, including variability in user behavior, environmental factors, and the need for extensive training data. By examining case studies and recent innovations in the field, we illustrate the growing impact of AI-driven gesture recognition on user interfaces and the future of interactive technology. Ultimately, this research aims to provide insights into the transformative role of gesture-based interactions in creating more intuitive, immersive, and inclusive digital experiences.
Microbial Biofilms in the African Plastisphere Implications for Freshwater Ecosystems and Contaminant Degradation
(2024-10-26) Xu, Lei; Hong, Ziming
Microbial biofilms on plastic debris, collectively known as the plastisphere, play a dual role in Africa’s freshwater ecosystems. These biofilms contribute to nutrient cycling and contaminant degradation, yet they also serve as potential vectors for pathogens and antibiotic resistance genes. Plastic waste in aquatic systems disrupts microbial communities, raising concerns over water quality and ecosystem health. Biofilm adaptability enhances pollutant breakdown, particularly for heavy metals and organic contaminants, while simultaneously increasing environmental contamination risks. This study emphasizes the need for further research to manage biofilm interactions with plastic pollution, addressing critical ecological challenges in Africa's freshwater environments.
Enhancing Research Visibility in Africa: Leveraging DOAJ for Open Access Publishing
(2024-10-24) Smith, Ina
Enhancing Research Visibility in Africa: Leveraging DOAJ for Open Access Publishing - AfricArXiv Open Science Webinar Series 2024
Petition for the dissolution of the United Nations and the prosecution of certain personalities and their associates for the crime of genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(2024-10-21) Rutazibwa, Privat
The main message of this unusually long 124-page petition is found in the nine "Recommended actions to world leaders" in section two of the document. They include, among others, that 'Congolese President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo be apprehended and tried for the crime of genocide', and 'to disband the United Nations for its military support of a genocidal regime and militias in DRC'.
This is a petition from a single individual. Its strength does not lie in a multitude of signatures, but in in-depth research, precise references and deliberately long quotations. Indeed, we believe that the world leaders it is addressing do not have the time to read the archives or conduct in-depth research on the conflict in eastern DRC. Moreover, the two reports of the ”Group of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo” created by the UN in 2000; the “Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003” released in August 2010; as well as the 41 reports produced between July 2004 and June 2024 by the “UN Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo” established by resolution 1533 (2004) of 12 March 2004 have not provided world leaders with credible information on the subject. Instead, they clearly embraced and promoted the conspiracy theories of racist anti-Tutsi ideology, as this petition shows. The activism linked to this racist ideology even pushed at least two of the former coordinators of this UN Group of Experts (GoE) to take part in the conspiracy which aimed to 'weaken the CNDP role and influence in the army', pushing for the creation of the rebellion of the M23. A report from this UN GoE had already complained about ‘the expanding and disproportionate power that ex-CNDP commanders and units held within the FARDC-led Amani Leo operations for the Kivus’. One of the actions recommended by this petition aims to prosecute these UN experts and their accomplices 'who sparked the conflict in eastern DRC in 2012 and who continue to fuel it with their false and racist narrative'.
The author of this petition is a researcher; not an activist. In 1990, he was ordained as a Catholic priest of the diocese of Goma in North Kivu in the DRC by Pope John Paul II in Kabgayi in Rwanda. In 1992, he renounced the priesthood and joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in the maquis of Byumba, in northern Rwanda, where the movement had launched its liberation struggle two years earlier. He obtained his laicization from Pope Francis in 2017. Since 1993, he has researched, published and spoken in the media about Rwanda and the African Great Lakes region, mainly to denounce and combat the racist and genocidal ideology responsible for violence and instability. Thanks to a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), he has been conducting research at Humboldt University since 2022 on colonial racialism and its consequences in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region of Africa. The images of extreme violence in the first subsection of this petition are not clashes between rival African tribes as presented by Western media and so-called researchers. They are the consequence of this ideology coming from the West and implemented in a radical way in Rwanda - before spreading to the entire region - by the Belgian colonial administration and the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers), during the first genocide against the Tutsi from 1959 as this is shown by unpublished documents cited in this petition. Denouncing this genocidal ideology and showing support for the political organizations that fight it like the RPF in Rwanda in the 1990s and the M23 today in the DRC is not showing partiality. It is a service of truth and righteousness consistent with faith in Jesus Christ. Claiming neutrality or defending the status quo, whether out of conviction, fear, interest, intellectual laziness or indifference, amounts to condoning the crime. The author applies a decolonial and interpretivist approach which allows him to carry out rigorous research, with his positionality.