Well-Being of Occupants of Low-Income Housing Projects in Colombo

The purpose of this study is to assess the well-being in terms of economic, social, and environmental aspects of the displaced community from low-income housing projects in Colombo, Sri Lanka. For this purpose, the primary data was collected by interviewing 25 resettled households who were living in low-income housing projects and observing them. The secondary data was collected via articles, books, newspapers, gazette notifications, etc., to data utilization and further validation of the study findings. Using the thematic analysis method, the study findings were ascertained. The key findings of the study revealed that the relocation of people from informal settlements to new homes could be seen as a testament to the positive and negative effects of the financial, social, and environmental changes that have taken place in their lives. This study is important to identify the basic problems of the new housing families in the city of Colombo and to be able to provide the information needed to make resettlement housing plans and infrastructure to minimize those problems in future housing projects. © 2022 The Authors. Published by Department of Estate Management and Valuation, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Keywords: Urban poverty, Low- income housing, unauthorized houses, wellbeing, Sri Lank

Modeling the non-recycled Fermi gamma-ray pulsar population

We use Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detections and upper limits on non-recycled pulsars obtained from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) to constrain how the gamma-ray luminosity L depends on the period P and the period derivative \dot{P}. We use a Bayesian analysis to calculate a best-fit luminosity law, or dependence of L on P and \dot{P}, including different methods for modeling the beaming factor. An outer gap (OG) magnetosphere geometry provides the best-fit model, which is L \propto P^{-a} \dot{P}^{b} where a=1.36\pm0.03 and b=0.44\pm0.02, similar to but not identical to the commonly assumed L \propto \sqrt{\dot{E}} \propto P^{-1.5} \dot{P}^{0.5}. Given upper limits on gamma-ray fluxes of currently known radio pulsars and using the OG model, we find that about 92% of the radio-detected pulsars have gamma-ray beams that intersect our line of sight. By modeling the misalignment of radio and gamma-ray beams of these pulsars, we find an average gamma-ray beaming solid angle of about 3.7{\pi} for the OG model, assuming a uniform beam. Using LAT-measured diffuse fluxes, we place a 2{\sigma} upper limit on the average braking index and a 2{\sigma} lower limit on the average surface magnetic field strength of the pulsar population of 3.8 and 3.2 X 10^{10} G, respectively. We then predict the number of non-recycled pulsars detectable by the LAT based on our population model. Using the two-year sensitivity, we find that the LAT is capable of detecting emission from about 380 non-recycled pulsars, including 150 currently identified radio pulsars. Using the expected five-year sensitivity, about 620 non-recycled pulsars are detectable, including about 220 currently identified radio pulsars. We note that these predictions significantly depend on our model assumptions.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by ApJ on 8 September 201

TIME ON THE MARKET OF RESIDENTIAL CONDOMINIUM UNITS WITH PRE-SALE ARRANGEMENT IN COLOMBO DISTRICT

The purpose of this paper is to study the time on market (TOM) for residential condominium units under pre sales arrangements and what key factors drive that TOM. The contextual understanding of previous studies on TOM for residential properties confined for properties sold either in the secondary market or properties where construction is completed. This study focuses on the relationships among TOM, listed price, and basic property characteristics of residential condominium units sold under the provisional condominium plan in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Following non-probability sampling technique, this study examines TOM of 189 pre-sale residential condominium units in Colombo district which came into market between 2016 January to 2019 January. Developers were approached to collect required data such as transaction price, transaction date, final listed date listed price, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, floor area, floor level, construction completion, discounting rates likewise. Data analysis followed descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation, and multiple regression model. The analysis highlighted that from January-2016 to January-2019, TOM of provisional residential condominiums of Colombo varied from 12.76 to 5.51 months. The results further highlighted that the TOM of a pre-sale provisional residential condominium unit is a function of floor area, number of bathrooms, level of the unit, construction completion & discount rate. The study highlights that during the period considered, the floor area units of 744sqft at the initial stage of construction with a discount rate between 10% to 20% from the listed price can predicted to have the lowest TOM.. Keywords: Time on the Market; Pre-sale; Residential Condominium Units; Listed Price; TransactionPrice

Adult liver transplantation in the congenital absence of inferior vena cava

Whereas congenital absence of inferior vena cava observed in paediatric population more often than not, as an isolated or syndromic variety, this is seldom encountered in adult liver transplant recipients. There appear few sporadic reports in the literature on experience of such anomaly in adults. Given the rarity of situation, surprising encounters of such anomalies may pose challenge to the unprepared transplant surgeon and unfavourable outcomes may even have resulted in under-reportage of this condition. In this brief report we document our recent experience with two such cases and this is supplemented with extensive reference to the literature on classification of such anomalies with the endeavour to document implications of such in the adult liver transplant setting. (C) 2015 IJS Publishing Group Limited. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Regionalisation for lake level simulation – the case of Lake Tana in the Upper Blue Nile, Ethiopia

In this study lake levels of Lake Tana are simulated at daily time step by solving the water balance for all inflow and outflow processes. Since nearly 62% of the Lake Tana basin area is ungauged a regionalisation procedure is applied to estimate lake inflows from ungauged catchments. The procedure combines automated multi-objective calibration of a simple conceptual model and multiple regression analyses to establish relations between model parameters and catchment characteristics. <br><br> A relatively small number of studies are presented on Lake Tana's water balance. In most studies the water balance is solved at monthly time step and the water balance is simply closed by runoff contributions from ungauged catchments. Studies partly relied on simple <i>ad-hoc</i> procedures of area comparison to estimate runoff from ungauged catchments. In this study a regional model is developed that relies on principles of similarity of catchments characteristics. For runoff modelling the HBV-96 model is selected while multi-objective model calibration is by a Monte Carlo procedure. We aim to assess the closure term of Lake Tana's water balance, to assess model parameter uncertainty and to evaluate effectiveness of a multi-objective model calibration approach to make hydrological modeling results more plausible. <br><br> For the gauged catchments, model performance is assessed by the Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient and Relative Volumetric Error and resulted in satisfactory to good performance for six, large catchments. The regional model is validated and indicated satisfactory to good performance in most cases. Results show that runoff from ungauged catchments is as large as 527 mm per year for the simulation period and amounts to approximately 30% of Lake Tana stream inflow. Results of daily lake level simulation over the simulation period 1994–2003 show a water balance closure term of 85 mm per year that accounts to 2.7% of the total lake inflow. Lake level simulations are assessed by Nash Sutcliffe (0.91) and Relative Volume Error (2.71%) performance measures

Organization of atomic bond tensions in model glasses

In order to understand whether internal stresses in glasses are correlated or randomly distributed, we study the organization of atomic bond tensions (normal forces between pairs of atoms). Measurements of the invariants of the atomic bond tension tensor in simulated 2D and 3D binary Lennard-Jones glasses, reveal new and unexpected correlations and provide support for Alexander's conjecture about the non-random character of internal stresses in amorphous solids