Faculty of Computer and Engineering

Cloud computing services are being touted as a major enabler for small businesses lately. This new paradigm is seen to offer unique opportunities to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) worldwide and developing economies are no exception. It presents SMEs access to similar technologies available to their larger counterparts and those in the developed world which inherently creates innovativeness, increases competitive advantage and impacts their operations and processes. This paper seeks to determine the level of awareness and familiarity with this emerging computing paradigm. The results of the study indicated that a slight majority of the respondents were familiar with cloud computing on the individual level but the level of awareness amongst the larger SME industry was low to medium. The finding therefore recommends education and sensitization on cloud computing in order to increase awareness and knowledge about this emerging technology and its prospects. This is seen as one sure way of enhancing its uptake in developing and emerging markets.

This contribution describes the procedure of evaluating the calibration of thermocouple by means of its comparison with the thermocouple standard. In the process of thermocouple calibration by means of comparison, the resulting uncertainty specified by applying the generalized procedure for evaluating the calibration of measuring devices with continuous scale. The advantage of this method of evaluation is the determination of uncertainties in the whole range of the calibration. The conclusion of this paper states the illustrated differencies between cases when covariances are into account or are not.