Hydrology of the Upper Ganga River

River basins / Flow / Hydrology / Models / Runoff / India / Nepal / Tibet / Bangladesh / Upper Ganga River

“AccessBIM” - A Model of Environmental Characteristics for Vision Impaired Indoor Navigation and Way Finding

The complexity of modern indoor environments has made navigation difficult for individuals with vision impairment. Hence, this thesis presents the AccessBIM framework, which is an optimized database that’s facilitates generation of a real-time floor plan with path determination. The AccessBIM framework has the potential to play an integral role in improving the independence and quality of life for people with vision impairment whilst also decreasing the cost to the community related to caretakers

Exploring the applicability of biological and socioeconomic tools in developing EAFM plans for data absent areas : Spinner dolphin EAFM for Kalpitiya, Sri Lanka

Acknowledgements University of Aberdeen, UK and Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystems (BOBLME) project are acknowledged for partial funding of this research.Peer reviewedPostprin

The implementation of the Tsunami Livelihood Restoration Project: Progress report 2005

Natural disasters / Rehabilitation / Living conditions / Farmers’ associations / Sri Lanka / Hambantota District

Nutrient dynamics of seasonal tanks in the dry zone of Sri Lanka in relation to their hydrological regimes

Village tanks are put to a wide range of uses by the rural communities that depend on them for their survival. As the primacy of irrigation has decreased under these tanks due to a variety of climatic and economic reasons there is a need to reevaluate their use for other productive functions. The research presented in this paper is part of a programme investigating the potential to improve the management of living aquatic resources in order to bring benefits to the most marginal groups identified in upper watershed areas. Based on an improved typology of seasonal tanks, the seasonal changes and dynamics of various water quality parameters indicative of nutrient status and fisheries carrying capacity are compared over a period of one year. Indicators of Net (Primary) Productivity (NP): Rates of Dissolved Oxygen (DO) change, Total Suspended Solids (TSS): Total Suspended Volatile solids (TVSS) ratios are the parameters of principle interest. Based on these results a comparative analysis is made on two classes of ‘seasonal’ and ‘semi-seasonal’ tanks. Results indicate a broad correlation in each of these parameters with seasonal trends in tank hydrology. Highest productivity levels are associated with periods of declining water storage, whilst the lowest levels are associated with the periods of maximum water storage shortly after the NW monsoon. This variation is primarily attributed to dilution effects associated with depth and storage area. During the yala period, encroachment of the surface layer by several species of aquatic macrophyte also has progressively negative impacts on productivity. The most seasonal tanks show wider extremes in seasonal nutrient dynamics, overall, with less favourable conditions than the ‘semi-seasonal’ tanks. Never the less all the tanks can be considered as being highly productive with NP levels comparable to fertilised pond systems for much of the year. This indicates that nutrient status is not likely to be amongst the most important constraints to enhancing fish production. Other potential management improvements based on these results are discussed. [PDF contains 19 pages

Effects of Hydraulic Connections on Unsaturated Flow in Dual-Permeability Media

A geological medium that exhibits two distinct types of flow is known as dual-permeability medium. Unconsolidated deposits composed of coarse (\u3e 2 mm diameter) clasts (gravel, talus, rockslide debris), engineered systems (heap leach piles, capillary barriers, rock fill), and mine/construction waste fall into this category. The large inter-clast pores that are characteristic of this type of media will drain at near zero matric potentials constraining flow to the interiors of porous clasts and/or the clast surfaces. In either case, water must pass through hydraulic bridges (porous contacts and/or pendular water) that form physical connections between neighboring clasts. Therefore, properties of hydraulic connections place a primary control on flow structure. This dissertation presents three projects designed to study the influence of hydraulic connections on unsaturated flow in dual-permeability media. A numerical experiment performed to examine how the cross-sectional area and hydraulic conductivity of a bridge influence steady-state flow through a spherical clast is presented in the second chapter of the dissertation. The cross-sectional area of the bridges relative to that of the clast (Ar) was varied across six orders of magnitude between simulations. The ratio of hydraulic conductivity between bridges and clasts (Kb/Kc) was varied across 12 orders of magnitude to consider resistive, neutral, and conductive bridges. Results show a non-linear dependency of volumetric flow through the clast on both Ar and Kb/Kc. The intra-clast flow distribution shifts outwards as Ar increases. Conductive bridges promote this process and resistive bridges impede it. The third chapter presents a series of bench-scale experiments performed to evaluate the geometry of a pendular bridge under different flow rates through it and at different inclinations. Results show that bridge size increases in a nonlinear fashion with flow rate and decreases with inclination from vertical. The vertical profile of the bridge closely resembled a parabola in all experiments, in contrast to the profile of a static bridge that resembles the arc of a circle. Bridge geometry was independent of flow history. Flow is active through the entire volume of the bridge and exhibits non-laminar characteristics. The fourth chapter describes a series of bench-scale experiments designed to explore the influence of matrix-to-matrix hydraulic connections on two-dimensional transient wetting of a porous matrix. Cross-sectional area of the connection (Ar) relative to that of the matrix block and location of the connection relative to edges of the block were varied between trials. Results show that the rate of imbibition into the porous block nonlinearly increases with Ar. Moving the connection towards an edge of the block significantly decreases the imbibition rate. Saturation increase of the matrix block before the wetting front reaches all edges remains consistent independent of the connection. The last chapter summarizes results of the research and discusses about future research on this topic

Automatic Video Classification

Within the past few years video usage has grown in a multi-fold fashion. One of the major reasons for this explosive video growth is the rising Internet bandwidth speeds. As of today, a significant human effort is needed to categorize these video data files. A successful automatic video classification method can substantially help to reduce the growing amount of cluttered video data on the Internet. This research project is based on finding a successful model for video classification. We have utilized various schemes of visual and audio data analysis methods to build a successful classification model. As far as the classification classes are concerned, we have handpicked News, Animation and Music video classes to carry out the experiments. A total number of 445 video files from all three classes were analyzed to build classification models based on Naïve Bayes and Support Vector Machine classifiers. In order to gather the final results we developed a “weighted voting - meta classifier” model. Our approach attained an average of 90% success rate among all three classification classes

Impact of Working Capital Management on Corporate Investments: Evidence from Sri Lankan Manufacturing Sector

The study examines the value effect of working capital management (WCM) for a sample of 28 Sri Lankan manufacturing firms from 2010 to 2015. Previous studies on Sri Lankan manufacturing firms have primarily focused only on net working capital and firm profitability whereas the current research attempts to extend it by providing evidence that corporate investment is a possible method through which efficient management of working capital can be translated into better firm performance. For this purpose, panel data methodology is used to measure the relationship between corporate investment and net working capital. The findings indicate that operating performance of a firm can be improved by utilizing the net working capital through channeling it on corporate investment. Keywords: Working capital management, Investment, Performanc