An Empirical Study of Selected Challenges in Online Education; A Special Focus on G.C.E. (Advanced Level) Students in the Colombo District of Sri Lanka

The 21st century can be known as an era in which the universe has become one village with the rapid advancement in internet-based information and communication technology. Consequently, online methods were used to develop education opportunities widely in the distance learning process. Though many researchers have paid attention to the challenges and opportunities of online education in schools and universities, researchers have paid less attention to online education in the Sri Lankan school system. However, Sri Lankan schools were trending towards online education due to the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As a result, this study aims to identify the factors affecting online education usage and the challenges of online education by advanced-level students in the Colombo district. The advanced-level students in the Colombo district were the target population of this study. The sample was selected from Padukka, Hanwella, and Homagama Secretarial divisions under multistage cluster sampling, and the data was collected from 312 students using a questionnaire. Further, the independent sample t-test, Analysis of Variance and Structural Equation Model, was used to identify the self-determining factors. Consequently, social, communication, technical, demographic, and economic factors identified online education usage variables. Finally, this study suggested implementing Learning Management Systems and providing teachers and students with sufficient knowledge about online education. Overall, this study provided an opportunity to identify the challenges teachers and students face in online education and reduce time consumption and cost of the teaching and learning process. DOI: http://doi.org/10.31357/fhss/vjhss.v08i02.0

AWARENESS OF USAGE OF SUNSCREENS AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN IN KANDY, SRI LANKA

Objective: The objective of this research was to evaluate the awareness of usage of sunscreens among school children in Kandy, Sri Lanka.Methods: School children (138) who do outdoor sports were recruited from six schools. Knowledge and attitudes towards the usage and application of sunscreens were assessed using a researcher administered questionnaire. Statistical analyses were done using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS version-16).Results: Among the school children who do outdoor sports, 71 (51.4%) of participants used sunscreens and 67 (48.6%) of participants did not use sunscreens.Conclusion: According to the results most of the school children have a lack of knowledge, attitudes and practice towards the usage of sunscreens

An Assessment of Climate Change Impacts on Streamflows in the Musi Catchment, India

The long-term impacts of climate change on water resources are expected to be considerable in Southern India especially in the semi-arid regions. The effects of the changes on precipitation and temperature are expected to alter the hydrology of catchments and ultimately water security. A complicating factor in dealing with climate change from a water resource management perspective in India is the current government policies that promote watershed development (WSD), a policy that promotes the capture of runoff to increase groundwater recharge and irrigation development. In this paper the aim is to quantify the impacts climate change and WSD will have on the hydrologic behavior of the Musi catchment Andhra Pradesh. Global Climate Model (GCM) predictions of future climate are too coarse for hydrological modelling and fail to account for the most important influence on the monsoon rainfall patterns over India. In order to increase the spatial resolution of the models, a dynamic downscaling approach was used in this research. Three climate simulations corresponding to the IPCC-SRES A1B scenario were downscaled for the period 1961- 2098 using “Providing REgional Climates for Impact Studies” (PRECIS) regional climate modelling system. These simulations were based on three versions of the HadCM3 global climate model that showed realistic results for the Indian summer monsoon. The hydrology of the catchment was modelled using the SWAT hydrologic model. The model was set up for the entire Musi catchment in the Krishna Basin for which the model calibration and validation was carried out at the Osman Sagar and Himayat Sagar gauging stations. Monthly and annual inflows were used to carry out the model calibration. The model calibration and validation yielded Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients ranging between 0.65 and 0.75, which indicate a good model performance. The downscaled climate data was then used as forcing data in the model to carry out simulations for all three versions of the climate projection data ((Q0, Q1 and Q14). An analysis of flows at different time slices shows that stream flows decline in the near future (2011-40) and then an increasing trend towards the end of the century. Under the Q1 scenario, annual stream flows show a systematic decline over the period of analysis. The Q14 scenario shows an increase in stream flows over the next few decades followed by a decline towards the end of the century. Potential evapotranspiration is predicted to increase for all the climate scenarios. The reservoir component option available in SWAT was used to assess the impact of watershed development structures in the catchment and the analysis shows that stream flows have been declining due to the growth and impact of these structures in the catchment

Towards Digital Thinking and Practices: Experiences of Sri Lankan Teachers and Students

Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA), an open and free online programme of the Commonwealth of Learning, provides a framework to foster digital education. The Open University of Sri Lanka implemented an intervention during 2020-2021 to promote digital education in Sri Lankan secondary schools, through the adoption of C-DELTA. This paper presents how C-DELTA supported developing digital thinking and practices among teachers and students, challenges faced and supports received by them, and impacts of the intervention. Participants’ experiences were captured through questionnaire surveys, concept maps, focus group interviews, reflective stories, and video narratives. The findings revealed that the intervention has enhanced developing digital learning skills of teachers and students, and changing their thinking and practices, yet, amid various challenges. While the implementation of C-DELTA in schools has been slow during the COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic itself has shown the significance of improving digital literacy and digital practices

Compartmental Genomics in Living Cells Revealed by Single-Cell Nanobiopsy

The ability to study the molecular biology of living single cells in heterogeneous cell populations is essential for next generation analysis of cellular circuitry and function. Here, we developed a single-cell nanobiopsy platform based on scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM) for continuous sampling of intracellular content from individual cells. The nanobiopsy platform uses electrowetting within a nanopipette to extract cellular material from living cells with minimal disruption of the cellular milieu. We demonstrate the subcellular resolution of the nanobiopsy platform by isolating small subpopulations of mitochondria from single living cells, and quantify mutant mitochondrial genomes in those single cells with high throughput sequencing technology. These findings may provide the foundation for dynamic subcellular genomic analysis

Detection of Temporal Events and Abnormal Images for Quality Analysis in Endoscopy Videos

Recent reports suggest that measuring the objective quality is very essential towards the success of colonoscopy. Several quality indicators (i.e. metrics) proposed in recent studies are implemented in software systems that compute real-time quality scores for routine screening colonoscopy. Most quality metrics are derived based on various temporal events occurred during the colonoscopy procedure. The location of the phase boundary between the insertion and the withdrawal phases and the amount of circumferential inspection are two such important temporal events. These two temporal events can be determined by analyzing various camera motions of the colonoscope. This dissertation put forward a novel method to estimate X, Y and Z directional motions of the colonoscope using motion vector templates. Since abnormalities of a WCE or a colonoscopy video can be found in a small number of frames (around 5% out of total frames), it is very helpful if a computer system can decide whether a frame has any mucosal abnormalities. Also, the number of detected abnormal lesions during a procedure is used as a quality indicator. Majority of the existing abnormal detection methods focus on detecting only one type of abnormality or the overall accuracies are somewhat low if the method tries to detect multiple abnormalities. Most abnormalities in endoscopy images have unique textures which are clearly distinguishable from normal textures. In this dissertation a new method is proposed that achieves the objective of detecting multiple abnormalities with a higher accuracy using a multi-texture analysis technique. The multi-texture analysis method is designed by representing WCE and colonoscopy image textures as textons

Selective probing of mRNA expression levels within a living cell

We report on a selective and nondestructive measurement of mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) expression levels within a living cell. We first modify an atomic force microscope tip to create a tapered nanoscale coaxial cable. Application of an ac (alternating potential) between the inner and outer electrodes of this cable creates a dielectrophoretic force attracting mRNA molecules toward the tip-end which is pretreated with gene specific primers. We selectively extracted and analyzed both high (∼2500) and extremely low (11¯0) copy number mRNA from a living cell mRNA in less than 10 s