Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Financial Livelihood Assets: A Case Study in Mahawewa Divisional Secretariat Division, Sri Lanka

The most recent catastrophe, COVID-19 changed the lives and the livelihoods of the people in the world and in Sri Lanka. The main objective of this study was to identify the nature of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial assets of the community engaged in six (06) livelihood types and the measures taken by the government and social organizations to mitigate the impact. A total of 64 families representing the livelihood types in two Grama Niladhari divisions in the study area were selected for the sample by employing stratified random sampling technique. Data were collected through questionnaire survey and informal discussions while the data analysis was mainly done through Chi Squared Analysis. The study confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected on the income generation and savings of the community in the study area. Further, 13% (out of 16) and 07% (out of 14) of households engaged in agriculture and fisheries respectively has earned a monthly income of over 150,000 while no household in all categories has earned a monthly income of less than 5,000 before the COVID 19 pandemic. However, the monthly income generation of 82%, and 57% of households who engaged in tourism and both fisheries and self-employments has significantly dropped to less than 5000/= respectively during the COVID 19 pandemic. Also, the pandemic has adversely affected the income generation of the households in fisheries, tourism and self-employment sectors compared to agriculture sector. Savings of the same categories was also reduced due to the pandemic. The study further ascertained that the government and social organizations have taken several measures to provide essential items to cope with the economic impacts of COVID 19. DOI: http://doi.org/10.31357/fhss/vjhss.v07i01.1

Economic Value of Climate Variability Impacts on Coconut Production in Sri Lanka

This paper assesses the economic value of climate variability, employing a percentile analysis on an array of 31-years national annual coconut production data from 1971 to 2001. Of the production array, 10% and 90% percentiles have been considered respectively as lower and upper production extremes. The 60% of production departures of each year of extremes with respect to the mean production of 10% to 90% percentile were attributed to climate variability because studies show that the 60% of the variation of coconut production is explained by climate. These production deviations were then valued multiplying by free-on-board (FOB) prices of fresh coconuts. Results show that the foregone income from coconuts due to low rainfall varied between US$32 million to US$ 73 million while the incremental coconut income in crop glut extremes due to high rainfall varied between US$42 million and US$ 87 million. Results show that the climate variability causes income losses to the economy estimated at US$32 million to US$ 73 million in years of extreme crop shortage. And in years of extreme crop surplus, the economy realises income gains of US$42 million to US$ 87 million. These indicate the potential for significant economic benefits from investments in adaptations that would reduce variability in nut production which is caused by variations in climate. Further work is however needed to estimate the effectiveness and economic benefits that might be achieved from investments in adaptation

Primordial Black Holes, Eternal Inflation, and the Inflationary Parameter Space after WMAP5

We consider constraints on inflation driven by a single, minimally coupled scalar field in the light of the WMAP5 dataset, as well as ACBAR and the SuperNova Legacy Survey. We use the Slow Roll Reconstruction algorithm to derive optimal constraints on the inflationary parameter space. The scale dependence in the slope of the scalar spectrum permitted by WMAP5 is large enough to lead to viable models where the small scale perturbations have a substantial amplitude when extrapolated to the end of inflation. We find that excluding parameter values which would cause the overproduction of primordial black holes or even the onset of eternal inflation leads to potentially significant constraints on the slow roll parameters. Finally, we present a more sophisticated approach to including priors based on the total duration of inflation, and discuss the resulting restrictions on the inflationary parameter space.Comment: v2: version published in JCAP. Minor clarifications and references adde

Brane Inflation and the Overshoot Problem

We investigate recent claims that brane inflation solves the overshoot problem through a combination of microphysical restrictions on the phase space of initial conditions and the existence of the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) attractor in regimes where the slow-roll attractor does not apply. Carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the parameter space allowed by the latest advances in brane inflation model-building, we find that these restrictions are insufficient to solve the overshoot problem. The vast majority of the phase space of initial conditions is still dominated by overshoot trajectories. We present an analytic proof that the brane-inflationary attractor must be close to the slow-roll limit, and update the predictions for observables such as non-Gaussianity, cosmic string tension and tensor modes.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, matches version published in PRD. Minor clarifications, references adde

Examining the use of process evaluations of randomised controlled trials of complex interventions addressing chronic disease in primary health care-a systematic review protocol

© 2016 The Author(s). Background: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of complex interventions in primary health care (PHC) are needed to provide evidence-based programmes to achieve the Declaration of Alma Ata goal of making PHC equitable, accessible and universal and to effectively address the rising burden from chronic disease. Process evaluations of these RCTs can provide insight into the causal mechanisms of complex interventions, the contextual factors, and inform as to whether an intervention is ineffective due to implementation failure or failure of the intervention itself. To build on this emerging body of work, we aim to consolidate the methodology and methods from process evaluations of complex interventions in PHC and their findings of facilitators and barriers to intervention implementation in this important area of health service delivery. Methods: Systematic review of process evaluations of randomised controlled trials of complex interventions which address prevalent major chronic diseases in PHC settings. Published process evaluations of RCTs will be identified through database and clinical trial registry searches and contact with authors. Data from each study will be extracted by two reviewers using standardised forms. Data extracted include descriptive items about (1) the RCT, (2) about the process evaluations (such as methods, theories, risk of bias, analysis of process and outcome data, strengths and limitations) and (3) any stated barriers and facilitators to conducting complex interventions. A narrative synthesis of the findings will be presented. Discussion: Process evaluation findings are valuable in determining whether a complex intervention should be scaled up or modified for other contexts. Publishing this protocol serves to encourage transparency in the reporting of our synthesis of current literature on how process evaluations have been conducted thus far and a deeper understanding of potential challenges and solutions to aid in the implementation of effective interventions in PHC beyond the research setting. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42016035572

The Energy Density of "Wound" Fields in a Toroidal Universe

The observational limits on the present energy density of the Universe allow for a component that redshifts like $1/a^2$ and can contribute significantly to the total. We show that a possible origin for such a contribution is that the universe has a toroidal topology with "wound" scalar fields around its cycles.Comment: 11 pages, 1figur

Use of gas liquid chromatography in combination with pancreatic lipolysis and multivariate data analysis techniques for identification of lard contamination in some vegetable oils

A study was conducted to investigate the use of gas liquid chromatography (GLC) to identify lard (LD) contamination in palm oil (PO), palm kernel oil (PKO), and canola oil (CLO). Vegetable oils were deliberately adulterated with animal fats such as LD, beef tallow (BT), and chicken fat (CF) in varying proportions. In order to monitor the fatty acid (FA) compositional changes due to adulteration, GLC analyses of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) were performed on 2-monoacylglycerol (2-MG) and neutral triacylglycerol (TAG) isolated from each sample. For the evaluation of FA data, multivariate statistical techniques were employed. The results showed that canonical discriminant (CANDISC) analysis was the most effective technique for discriminating LD-adulterated samples from those adulterated with other animal fats. Additionally, mathematical equations obtained by simple regression analysis could be used for quantification of LD contents in admixtures