BoBBLE: ocean-atmosphere interaction and its impact on the South Asian monsoon

The Bay of Bengal (BoB) plays a fundamental role in controlling the weather systems that make up the South Asian summer monsoon system. In particular,the southern BoB has cooler sea surface temperature (SST) that influence ocean-atmosphere interaction and impact on the monsoon. Compared to the southeast, the southwestern BoB is cooler, more saline, receives much less rain, and is influenced by the Summer Monsoon Current(SMC). To examine the impact of these features on the monsoon, the BoB Boundary Layer Experiment (BoBBLE) was jointly undertaken by India and the UK during June–July 2016. Physical and bio-geochemical observations were made using a CTD, five ocean gliders, a uCTD, a VMP, two ADCPs, Argo floats, drifting buoys, meteorological sensors and upper air radiosonde balloons. The observations were made along a zonal section at 8◦N between 85.3◦E and 89◦E with a 10-day time series at 89◦E, 8◦N. This paper presents the new observed features of the southern BoB from the BoBBLE field program, supported by satellite data. Key results from the BoBBLE field campaign show the Sri Lanka Dome and the SMC in different stages of their seasonal evolution and two freshening events during which salinity decreased in the upper layer leading to the formation of thick barrier layers. BoBBLE observations were taken during a suppressed phase of the intraseasonal oscillation; they captured in detail the warming of the ocean mixed layer and preconditioning of the atmosphere to convection

ASIRI : an ocean–atmosphere initiative for Bay of Bengal

Author Posting. © American Meteorological Society, 2016. This article is posted here by permission of American Meteorological Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 97 (2016): 1859–1884, doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00197.1.Air–Sea Interactions in the Northern Indian Ocean (ASIRI) is an international research effort (2013–17) aimed at understanding and quantifying coupled atmosphere–ocean dynamics of the Bay of Bengal (BoB) with relevance to Indian Ocean monsoons. Working collaboratively, more than 20 research institutions are acquiring field observations coupled with operational and high-resolution models to address scientific issues that have stymied the monsoon predictability. ASIRI combines new and mature observational technologies to resolve submesoscale to regional-scale currents and hydrophysical fields. These data reveal BoB’s sharp frontal features, submesoscale variability, low-salinity lenses and filaments, and shallow mixed layers, with relatively weak turbulent mixing. Observed physical features include energetic high-frequency internal waves in the southern BoB, energetic mesoscale and submesoscale features including an intrathermocline eddy in the central BoB, and a high-resolution view of the exchange along the periphery of Sri Lanka, which includes the 100-km-wide East India Coastal Current (EICC) carrying low-salinity water out of the BoB and an adjacent, broad northward flow (∼300 km wide) that carries high-salinity water into BoB during the northeast monsoon. Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) observations during the decaying phase of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) permit the study of multiscale atmospheric processes associated with non-MJO phenomena and their impacts on the marine boundary layer. Underway analyses that integrate observations and numerical simulations shed light on how air–sea interactions control the ABL and upper-ocean processes.This work was sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR) in an ONR Departmental Research Initiative (DRI), Air–Sea Interactions in Northern Indian Ocean (ASIRI), and in a Naval Research Laboratory project, Effects of Bay of Bengal Freshwater Flux on Indian Ocean Monsoon (EBOB). ASIRI–RAWI was funded under the NASCar DRI of the ONR. The Indian component of the program, Ocean Mixing and Monsoons (OMM), was supported by the Ministry of Earth Sciences of India.2017-04-2

Pathways between childhood trauma, intimate partner violence, and harsh parenting : findings from the UN multi-country study on men and violence in Asia and the Pacific

2016-2017 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journal201804_a bcmaVersion of RecordPublishe

Inscribing the Victor’s Land: Nationalistic Authorship in Sri Lanka’s Post-war Northeast

This article examines the nationalistic authorship of space in Sri Lanka’s post-conflict Northeast as part of the state’s nation-building strategy and as a continuation of a post-colonial process of Sinhala-Buddhist nationalistic revival. Exploring issues of historiography, conflict resolution, physical vehicles of ideology and collective memory, the article demonstrates how land policies, development and the tourism industry in a post-conflict context can go hand-in-hand with dispossession, militarisation and the humiliation of a ‘defeated’ minority community

COVIDiSTRESS diverse dataset on psychological and behavioural outcomes one year into the COVID-19 pandemic

During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the COVIDiSTRESS Consortium launched an open-access global survey to understand and improve individuals’ experiences related to the crisis. A year later, we extended this line of research by launching a new survey to address the dynamic landscape of the pandemic. This survey was released with the goal of addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion by working with over 150 researchers across the globe who collected data in 48 languages and dialects across 137 countries. The resulting cleaned dataset described here includes 15,740 of over 20,000 responses. The dataset allows cross-cultural study of psychological wellbeing and behaviours a year into the pandemic. It includes measures of stress, resilience, vaccine attitudes, trust in government and scientists, compliance, and information acquisition and misperceptions regarding COVID-19. Open-access raw and cleaned datasets with computed scores are available. Just as our initial COVIDiSTRESS dataset has facilitated government policy decisions regarding health crises, this dataset can be used by researchers and policy makers to inform research, decisions, and policy. © 2022, The Author(s).U.S. Department of Education, ED: P031S190304; Texas A and M International University, TAMIU; National Research University Higher School of Economics, ВШЭThe COVIDiSTRESS Consortium would like to acknowledge the contributions of friends and collaborators in translating and sharing the COVIDiSTRESS survey, as well as the study participants. Data analysis was supported by Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) Research Grant, TAMIU Act on Ideas, and the TAMIU Advancing Research and Curriculum Initiative (TAMIU ARC) awarded by the US Department of Education Developing Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (Award # P031S190304). Data collection by Dmitrii Dubrov was supported within the framework of the Basic Research Program at HSE University, RF

Long Lamai community ICT4D E‐commerce system modelling: an agent oriented role‐based approach

This paper presents the post‐mortem report upon completion of the Long Lamai e‐commerce development project. Some weaknesses with regards to the current software modelling approach are identified and an alternative role‐based approach is proposed. We argue that the existing software modelling technique is not suitable for modelling, making it difficult to establish a good contract between stakeholders causing delays in the project delivery. The role‐based approach is able to explicitly highlight the responsibilities among stakeholders, while also forming the contract agreement among them leading towards sustainable ICT4D

Validation of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for quantitative analysis of histamine in fish and fishery products Validation of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method for quantitative analysis of histamine in fish and fi

Abstract: A high-performance liquid chromatography method is described for quantitative determination and validation of histamine in fish and fishery product samples. Histamine is extracted from fish/fishery products by homogenizing with tri-chloro acetic acid, separated with Amberlite CG-50 resin and C18-ODS Hypersil reversed phase column at ambient temperature (25°C). Linear standard curves with high correlation coefficients were obtained. An isocratic elution program was used; the total elution time was 10 min. The method was validated by assessing the following aspects; specificity, repeatability, reproducibility, linearity, recovery, limits of detection, limit of quantification and uncertainty. The validated parameters are in good agreement with method and it is a useful tool for determining histamine in fish and fishery products

Applicability of Constructed Wetlands for Water Quality Improvement in a Tea Estate Catchment: The Pussellawa Case Study

Water in agricultural catchments is prone to pollution from agricultural runoff containing nutrients and pesticides, and contamination from the human population working and residing therein. This study examined the quality of water in a drainage stream which runs through a congested network of ‘line houses’ (low-income housing, typically found arranged in straight ‘lines’ on estates) in the tea estate catchment area of Pussellawa in central Sri Lanka. The study evaluated the applicability of vertical subsurface flow (VSSF) and horizontal subsurface flow (HSSF) constructed wetlands for water polishing, as the residents use the stream water for various domestic purposes with no treatment other than possibly boiling. Water flow in the stream can vary significantly over time, and so investigations were conducted at various flow conditions to identify the hydraulic loading rate (HLR) bandwidth for wetland polishing applications. Two wetland models of 8 m × 1 m × 0.6 m (length × width × depth) were constructed and arranged as VSSF and HSSF units. Stream water was diverted to these units at HLRs of 3.3, 4, 5, 10, 20, and 40 cm/day. Results showed that both VSSF and HSSF wetland units were capable of substantially reducing five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), total suspended solids (TSS), fecal coliform (FC), total coliform (TC), ammonia nitrogen (NH4+-N), and nitrate nitrogen (NO3−-N) up to 20 cm/day HLR, with removal efficiencies of more than 64%, 60%, 90%, 93%, 70%, and 59% for BOD5, TSS, FC, TC, NH4+-N, and NO3−-N, respectively, in the VSSF wetland unit; and more than 66%, 62%, 91%, 90%, 53%, and 77% for BOD5, TSS, FC, TC, NH4+-N, and NO3−-N, respectively, in the HSSF wetland unit

KEY SUCCESS FACTORS LEADING TO BUSINESS GROWTH OF MICRO LEVEL APPAREL MANUFACTURERS IN GAMPAHA DISTRICT

Micro level apparel industry came into operations in Gampaha district of Sri Lanka after the open economy. It began with parallel to establishing free trade zones in Sri Lanka. Some of them are growing and climbing in industry scale ladder and others have to shut down their businesses even though there are several favorable factors for the growth. The growth and survivability of them has become questionable. Even though there is some research carried out to identify challenges and success factors faced by micro businesses in Sri Lanka there is no research that has been conducted to investigate key success factors of micro level apparel manufacturers particularly to Gampaha district. Hence there is a clear knowledge gap existing and filling this knowledge gap to a significant extent has become the problem of this study. The objectives of the study were to identify the key success factors leading to business growth of the micro level entrepreneurs in the apparel industry of Gampaha District, determine the relationship between the key success factors and their business growth, and provide recommendations to ensure the growth of them. In the conceptual model three factors were identified as key to success. They were management of financial issues, market orientation and entrepreneurial skills. Using a list of micro level apparel industry entrepreneurs, a sample of 100 were randomly selected to cover all 13 district secretariat divisions of the district. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The reliability and validity of the measurements were verified using Cronbach’s alpha and exploratory factor analysis respectively. Descriptive statistics, regression and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze data.It was found that the micro level apparel entrepreneurs in the Gampaha District encountered problems in management of financial issues and market orientation. It was also found that management of financial issues significantly affected their business growth. To conclude it has been recommended to provide increased access to capital and financial management skills to the micro level entrepreneurs in order to improve their business growth. Further it suggested that programmes to be carried out to improve their market orientation which leads to their business growth. Key Words: Business Growth, Entrepreneurial Skills, Management of Financial Issues, Market Orientation,Micro Level Apparel IndustryFor full paper: [email protected]