Study of water usage in rural areas

Study of water usage in rural area

EFFECT OF GRAZING ON SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES IN INTEGRATED FARMING SOILS.

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of grazing on somesoil properties; bulk density (BD), true density, porosity, moisture content(Me) and pH. The effect of long term grazing (>20 yrs) was examined in acoconut - pasture - cattle integrated farming system in Kamburupitiya area.Short term grazing effect was compared with an adjoining coconut plantationpermitting 18 buffaloes to graze for 6 months. Another adjoining ungrazedcoconut farm soil was considered as control. Soil samples were taken fromthe topsoil using a core sampler (v = 98.21 em"). Four replicate samples weretaken three times with 30 days interval and analyzed in triplicates. Data werestatistically analyzed using SAS.Soils collected from the long term integrated farming site had a significantlyhigher (p < 0.05) average pH (5.58) than that of non-integrated sites (4.65).Reduction of acidity may be due to the improvement of soil nutrients viadung, urine and accumulation of litter. It was observed that the soil inintegrated sites were comparatively dark in color. BD of integrated soil(1.15g/cm3) was significantly lower than that of non-integeated soil (21.26%)due to the better ground cover by dominant prostate type herbages comparedto ungrazed soils where erect type herbages were prominent. Soil porosityalso improved due to integration (47.76%) with that of non-integrated soil(43.76%). There was no significant difference observed under the effect ofshort term grazing. A considerable time period may be required to change toimproved soil properties.It is concluded that long term crop-livestock integration could improve thesoil physiochemical properties

Medical Guide System

Currently, getting access to emergency services and consumer health services requires calling a knowledgeable person on the regular phone or using different self-care techniques for illnesses without consulting a doctor. We are improving and expanding new channels of personal communication to facilitate interaction between emergency users and the emergency service system. Given the widespread use of smart devices in our society, we are developing a web application called "Quick Health" for emergency management, with the main feature of answering a question asked by another party or evaluating a given answer, as well as posting a problem and exchanging ideas with others. Our goal is to define a platform that is totally usable by everyone, regardless of their technological or linguistic proficiency. This paper's main goal is to clarify how to adapt traditional applications to modern web applications by taking into account not only web technologies but also social networking behavior. Keywords - Healthcare Emergency System: Medical Guidance; User Interaction; Web Applications &nbsp

Media properties of different vermicompost and coir dust mixtures

In recent years, the demand for coir dust has increased as it is widely used as a growth medium in soilless culture. Since it is low in nutrients, when mixed with vermicompost, will provide a better growthmedium for plant establishment. Therefore, this study was carried out to evaluate the properties ofdifferent verrnicornpost and coir dust mixtures. Tomato was used as the test plant and four differentmedia compositions were tested with and without nutrient supplement. Media properties includingchemical (N, P, K, Ca, and Mg levels, pH and Electrical conductivity [ECl) and physical properties(Bulk density, Field capacity and drying pattern) were measured in the time period.Nutrient levels, pH, EC, bulk density, and drying rates were found to be decreased and only fieldcapacity increased with increasing the proportion of coir dust. According to the result obtained,vermicompost alone can be used as a plant growth medium. But poor porosity and aeration ofvermicompost limit the root growth and lowered the water holding capacity. Therefore, medium with75% verrnicompost and 25% coil' dust is more suitable than vennicompost alone. Medium with 50%verrnicornpost and 50% coir dust has better physical properties, but nutrient level is not sufficient tosupport plant growth. Therefore nutrient supplement is needed to use it as growing medium.

Supressão de plantas daninhas por leguminosas anuais em sistema agroecológico na Pré-Amazônia.

Este trabalho teve por objetivos identificar e avaliar a agressividade potencial das plantas daninhas em um agrossistema com leguminosas herbáceas anuais como cobertura de solo. Foram plantadas, nas ruas de um sistema de aléias de sombreiro ( Clitoria fairchildiana) e no final do período agrícola, as leguminosas mucuna-preta, feijão-guandu, feijão-de-porco e calopogônio, em sistema de blocos ao acaso com cinco repetições. Para estudo da dinâmica da composição florística, avaliaram-se a freqüência, densidade, dominância, similaridade, diversidade de espécies e biomassa das plantas daninhas. Foram identificadas 42 espécies de plantas espontâneas, das quais as mais freqüentes e de maior densidade e dominância foram Leptochoa virgata, Panicumlaxum e Sidasp. Não foram detectadas diferenças significativas para densidade, número de espécies, diversidade e biomassa entre as plantas daninhas emergidas nos quatro tratamentos com leguminosas; nem destas em relação ao controle

Impact of antenna correlation on the performance of partial relay selection

Antenna correlation is generally viewed as an obstacle to realize the desired performance of a wireless system. In this article, we investigate the performance of partial relay selection in the presence of antenna correlation. We consider both channel state information (csi)-assisted and fixed gain amplify-and-forward (AF) relay schemes. The source and the destination are equipped with multiple antennas communicating via the best first hop signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) relay. We derived the closed form expression for outage probability, average symbol error rate (SER) for both schemes. Further, an exact expression is derived for the ergodic capacity in the csi-assisted relay case and an approximated expression is considered for the fixed gain case. Moreover, we provide simple asymptotic results and show that the diversity order of the system remains unchanged with the effect of antenna correlation for both types of relay schemes

Case Reports Metformin therapy for diabetes mellitus in Prader-Willi syndrome

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a rare neurogenetic disorder, which occurs in l per 15,000 live-born children. First described in 1956 by doctors Prader, Labhart and Willi, it is the commonest cause of syndromic obesity in childhood. Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a rare complication of children with PWS. A literature search revealed that most PWS children with DM have required insulin as their treatment while only a couple have responded to oral hypoglycaemic drugs. We report a 11 year old girl with PWS complicated by DM treated with the oral hypoglycaemic drug metformin. Case report An eleven year old girl from Weddagala presented to Ratnapura General Hospital with a three week history of polyuria, nocturia and polydipsia. She was born at term, weighing 1800g, to healthy non consanguineous parents following a pregnancy complicated by intrauterine growth retardation. As a newborn she was hypotonic with a feeble cry and feeding difficulties necessitating nasogastric feeding in the neonatal unit for almost a month. Cup and spoon feeding was continued at home for nearly four months by extra-caring parents. Weight gain was poor during the first two years of life but accelerated subsequently as a result of voracious appetite and obsessional overeating. The developmental milestones were markedly delayed; she began to walk and grasp objects at 3 years and spoke the first clear words at 4 years. Currently she has moderate learning difficulties and special educational needs. In the absence of facilities for special education in her remote hamlet, she does not attend mainstream school but receives elementary education at home. Her appetite remains voracious; she takes five rice meals a day and craves fo

Ambient PM2.5 Exposure and Respiratory Disease Hospitalization in Kandy, Sri Lanka

Introduction: Ambient air pollution (AAP) is high in the South Asian region. Evidence of associations between AAP and health outcomes are sparse in this region due to limited exposure and lack of quality heath-data. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of ambient PM2.5 on respiratory diseases (RD) hospitalization in Kandy, Sri Lanka.Methods: For the period of 2019-01-01 to 2019-12-31, PM2.5 measurements were obtained using validated small sensors and daily RD hospitalization data were obtained from two major hospitals. In 2019 two distinct seasons of AAP were identified. First, we modeled the associations between RD hospitalization in high AAP period by selecting 3 months (19-03-01 to 19-05-31) compared to 3 months of the low AAP period (19-08-01 to 19-10-31) as the reference.Results: During 19-03-01 and 19-05-31, higher daily average PM2.5 levels (48.8μg/m3±14.9) were observed compared to 19-08-01 and 19-10-31 (25.3μg/m3±5.4). Compared to the low AAP reference period, high AAP period was associated with increased hospital admissions for RD, Rate Ratio (RR) 1.21(95%CI 1.15–1.28). Risk of RD hospital admissions were higher among elders (>65 years) RR 1.31(95%CI 1.20–1.43) in contrast to <65-year old’s, RR 1.16 (95%CI 1.09–1.24). Compared to low AAP period high AAP period was associated with increased risk of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (RR 1.35 (95%CI 1.20–1.51)) and pneumonia (RR 1.58 (95%CI 1.13-2.20)) hospital admissions.Conclusion: High AAP levels and frequency of these events are much common in developing countries like Sri Lanka and these are linked with increased hospital admissions for RD. Continuous efforts are crucial to improve ambient air quality in this region

Collaborative multi-vehicle localization and mapping in marine environments

This paper explains an application scenario of collaborative multi-vehicle simultaneous localization and mapping algorithm (CSLAM) in a marine environment using autonomous surface crafts (ASCs) in order to validate its performance. The motivation behind this is that a team of ASCs can explore a marine environment more efficiently and reliably than a single ASC. However use of multiple ASCs poses additional scaling problems such as inter-vehicle map fusion, and data association which needs to be addressed in order to be viable for various types of missions. In this paper we first demonstrate the steps of extending the single vehicle extended kalman filter based simultaneous localization and mapping (EKF-SLAM) approach to the multi-vehicle case. Performance of the algorithm is first evaluated using simulations and then using real data extracted from actual sea trials conducted in the littoral waters of Singapore (Selat Puah) using two ASCs. GPS data is used to assess the accuracy of localization and feature estimations of CSLAM algorithm. The improvements that can be achieved by using multiple autonomous vehicles in oceanic environments are also discussed.Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology. Center for Environmental Sensing and Monitorin