Cordierite gneiss from the Wanni Complex, Sri Lanka: Petrology, phase equilibria modeling and U-Pb zircon geochronology

The Tenth Symposium on Polar Science/Ordinary sessions: [OG] Polar Geosciences, Wed. 4 Dec. / Entrance Hall (1st floor), National Institute of Polar Researc

Factors Affecting the Effectiveness of Flood Resilience Plan for Urban Sustainability of Ratnapura Municipal Council Area

Natural disasters adversely affect urban built-up areas all over the world. Flood is the most destructive natural disaster that affects Ratnapura, the provincial capital of the Sabaragamuwa Province in Sri Lanka. This monsoonal flooding is a prolonged problem that arises mainly due to the overspill of River Kalu and other water bodies connected to the river during heavy rainy seasons. It causes short-term and long-term damages to human lives, properties, the economy, and the environment. Floods cause severe damages to private residential buildings. Hence, the availability of a flood resilience plan is a significant feature of the good governance of the Local Authorities. There are many factors to consider when preparing a flood resilience plan. This study aims to assess the factors affecting the effectiveness of the existing flood resilience plan in the Ratnapura Municipal Council Area. The main data instrument used is a questionnaire survey from residents in the flood-prone area. It assessed the effectiveness of actions taken by the government pre-disaster, during a disaster, and post-disaster. Various factors affecting the flood resilience plan were identified and categorized: community resilience, economic resilience, ecological resilience, emergency readiness and responsiveness, infrastructure resilience, and social and cultural resilience. Findings revealed that the respondents were more satisfied with emergency readiness and responsiveness out of the five main categories. In addition, respondents address the effectiveness of the existing flood resilience plan and its affected factors like community resilience, economic resilience, emergency readiness and responsiveness, infrastructure resilience and social, and cultural resilience. Findings will be helpful for town planners and the Municipal Council of Ratnapura to identify flood resilience strategies through community perspectives to mitigate the flood hazard and propose innovative strategies to achieve urban sustainability and build resilient communities

Factors Affecting the Effectiveness of Flood Resilience Plan for Urban Sustainability of Ratnapura Municipal Council Area

Natural disasters adversely affect urban built-up areas all over the world. Flood is the most destructive natural disaster that affects Ratnapura, the provincial capital of the Sabaragamuwa Province in Sri Lanka. This monsoonal flooding is a prolonged problem that arises mainly due to the overspill of River Kalu and other water bodies connected to the river during heavy rainy seasons. It causes short-term and long-term damages to human lives, properties, the economy, and the environment. Floods cause severe damages to private residential buildings. Hence, the availability of a flood resilience plan is a significant feature of the good governance of the Local Authorities. There are many factors to consider when preparing a flood resilience plan. This study aims to assess the factors affecting the effectiveness of the existing flood resilience plan in the Ratnapura Municipal Council Area. The main data instrument used is a questionnaire survey from residents in the flood-prone area. It assessed the effectiveness of actions taken by the government pre-disaster, during a disaster, and post-disaster. Various factors affecting the flood resilience plan were identified and categorized: community resilience, economic resilience, ecological resilience, emergency readiness and responsiveness, infrastructure resilience, and social and cultural resilience. Findings revealed that the respondents were more satisfied with emergency readiness and responsiveness out of the five main categories. In addition, respondents address the effectiveness of the existing flood resilience plan and its affected factors like community resilience, economic resilience, emergency readiness and responsiveness, infrastructure resilience and social, and cultural resilience. Findings will be helpful for town planners and the Municipal Council of Ratnapura to identify flood resilience strategies through community perspectives to mitigate the flood hazard and propose innovative strategies to achieve urban sustainability and build resilient communities

Relationship of Serum Cholesterol and Triglycerides Levels with the Body Mass Index in a Group of Healthy Undergraduates

Introduction: Knowledge about the relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and serum lipid levels is important in detecting the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The present study assessed the correlations of serum total cholesterol and triglyceride levels with BMI in a group of healthy undergraduates. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 104 students of the Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, University of Ruhuna. Serum total cholesterol and triglyceride levels of fasting blood samples were measured using enzymatic kits. Students’ heights and weights were measured, and BMI values were calculated. Information regarding students’ dietary habits, lifestyle and family history of diseases related to dyslipidemia was collected using a pre-tested and self-administered questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS-20.0. Results: Mean (±SD) serum total cholesterol and triglyceride levels of the samples were 191.34±36.13 mg/dL and 116.25±59.9 mg/dL, respectively. The mean BMI was 22.48±3.59kg/m2. The total population had significant positive correlations between; BMI and total cholesterol level (r=0.23, p=0.017), and BMI and triglyceride level (r=0.42, p<0.001). There was no significant correlation between BMI and cholesterol levels in male students (p=0.800) but, a significant positive correlation was found between triglyceride levels and BMI of them (p=0.017). Among female students, significant positive correlations with BMI were observed for both cholesterol (p=0.005) and triglyceride (p=0.002) levels. Family history of dyslipidemia related disease conditions showed a significant effect on the elevation of serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels of the students. Although there was no significant difference, the highest serum lipid levels were detected among students who consumed eggs more than once a day. Conclusions: Significant positive correlations were found between BMI and both serum total cholesterol and triglycerides levels in female students. Among the male students, there was a significant positive correlation between BMI and triglycerides, and no correlation between BMI and cholesterol levels. Keywords: Body mass index, Cholesterol, Correlation, Triglyceride, Undergraduate

Modelling sustainable supply networks with adaptive agents

© 2018 IEEE. This paper proposes a multi-agent modelling approach that supports supply network configuration decisions towards sustaining operations excellence in terms of economic, business continuity and environmental performance. Two types of agents are employed, namely, physical agents to represent supply entities and auxiliary agents to deal with supply network configuration decisions. While using the evolutionary algorithm, Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II to optimize both cost and lead time at the supply network level, agents are modelled with an architecture which consists of decision-making, learning and communication modules. The physical agents make decisions considering varying situations to suit specific product-market profiles thereby generating alternative supply network configurations. These supply network configurations are then evaluated against a set of performance metrics, including the energy consumption of the supply chain processes concerned and the transportation distances between supply entities. Simulation results generated through the application of this approach to a refrigerator production network show that the selected supply network configurations are capable of meeting intended sustainable goals while catering to the respective product-market profiles

Multiagent Optimization Approach to Supply Network Configuration Problems With Varied Product-Market Profiles

IEEE This article demonstrates the application of a novel multiagent modeling approach to support supply network configuration (SNC) decisions toward addressing several challenges reported in the literature. These challenges include: enhancing supply network (SN)-level performance in alignment with the goals of individual SN entities; addressing the issue of limited information sharing between SN entities; and sustaining competitiveness of SNs in dynamic business environments. To this end, a multistage, multiechelon SN consisting of geographically dispersed SN entities catering to distinct product-market profiles was modeled. In modeling the SNC decision problem, two types of agents, each having distinct attributes and functions, were used. The modeling approach incorporated a reverse-auctioning process to simulate the behavior of SN entities with differing individual goals collectively contributing to enhance SN-level performance, by means of setting reserve values generated through the application of a genetic algorithm. A set of Pareto-optimal SNCs catering to distinct product-market profiles was generated using Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II. Further evaluation of these SNCs against additional criteria, using a rule-based approach, allowed the selection of the most appropriate SNC to meet a broader set of conditions. The model was tested using a refrigerator SN case study drawn from the literature. The results reveal that a number of SNC decisions can be supported by the proposed model, in particular, identifying and evaluating robust SNs to suit varied product-market profiles, enhancing SC capabilities to withstand disruptions and developing contingencies to recover from disruptions

The Migration and Conditions of Immigrant Labour in Ceylon 1880-1910.

Immigrant labourers in Ceylon were wholly Indian and were predominantly plantation workers. The rapid expansion of plantation agriculture in our period, which was spearheaded by British capital and enterprise, took place under a supply of immigrant labour, which was on the whole favourable to the industry. The planters were tapping a free labour market in South India, for India did not impose restrictions on migration to Ceylon so long as the immigrants were on monthly contracts with the facility to return to their villages periodically. The planters preferred free as against indenture labour, for it opened up a chronic surplus of labour in a poverty-stricken condition to the free market forces of supply and demand. They, on the whole, concentrated on improving the methods of recruitment and transportation of labour so as to increase the inflow. The planters' problem was not so much the inadequacy of the labour supply as the problem of labour instability---of keeping the labourers on the estate for long periods. The coffee planter's technique was to withhold part of the wages until the end of the crop season. But the tea planter, with a year round demand for labour, required a longer hold. His technique was to place the labourer under a dead-weight of indebtedness to the estate. This was done by giving out indiscriminate cash advances, with a low wage scale where the wages were inadequate to work off the debt. The planters preferred to compete for labour on advances than on the wage scale. The cash advances, therefore, came to play the role which the wages play in a present-day labour market. With a low and a stagnant wage scale, the labourers turned to the advances to meet the gap between inadequate wages and the rising cost of living, but in the process got steeped in indebtedness. Being familar with indebtedness in South India, the immigrant acquiesced. The system brought about little economic progress for the labourer. The migratory nature of the labour population and the kanganies' hold over the labour gangs contributed to the overall poverty. Government policy was one of non-interference into planter-labour industrial relations. However, in those other spheres in which the Colonial Government opted to interfere, viz., in providing transport facilities for the immigrants and also labour welfare schemes, labour conditions saw some improvement. But these measures did not bring about a striking progress in labour life partly because these schemes were not sufficiently far reaching in a period of rapid expansion of the immigrant labour population and more important, because of the overall impoverished and debt-ridden state of the labour community