Working Capital Management & Financial Performance of Manufacturing Sector in Sri Lanka

Working capital management is considered to be a crucial element in determining the financial performance of an organization. The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between working capital management and financial performance of listed manufacturing firms in Sri Lanka. A sample of 30 manufacturing firms listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange was used for this study. Data were collected from annual reports of sampled firms for the period of 2008 to 2011. Performance was measured in terms of return on assets and return on equity while cash conversion cycle, current assets to total assets and current liabilities to total assets were used as measures of working capital management. Correlation and regression analysis were used for the analysis. The findings reveal that, there is no significant relationship between cash conversion cycle and performance measures. The study also concludes that, manufacturing firms in Sri Lanka follow conservative working capital management policy. Key words: Working Capital Management, Performance, Cash Conversion Cycle

A Conceptual Review on Strategic Planning for Universities in Sri Lanka

Strategic planning for universities is increasingly becoming popular nowadays as almost all the universities have started adopting a framework for developing a strategic plan to be incorporated in their corporate plan. As far as Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) are concerned, the extent to which they have achieved the things laid down in the strategic plan is used as a yardstick to keep their identity sustainable. Since it is almost applicable to all the universities, Sri Lanka is no exception. Strategic planning consists of two parts named managing today as well as managing tomorrow. It is imperative for all the universities to have a strategic plan so as to steer them towards achieving their vision, mission, goals and objectives. Keywords: Strategic planning, strategic plan, sustainable, corporate plan, HEIs

Automotive Networks : A Review

In recent years, rapid growth in the field of electronics and computer technology which makes the life simpler and faster. This development hits the automobile sector, which makes increases the systems in vehicle like infotainment system, safety system and security system. These systems are integrated to know the status of the vehicle for each and every second, this is done by means of different networking protocols. In this paper, the different network architecture and protocols are discussed and which is best suited for automobile in the current scenario

Chemotherapy drug regimen optimization using deterministic oscillatory search algorithm

Purpose: To schedule chemotherapy drug delivery using Deterministic Oscillatory Search algorithm, keeping the toxicity level within permissible limits and reducing the number of tumor cells within a predefined time period.Methods: A novel metaheuristic algorithm, deterministic oscillatory search, has been used to optimize the Gompertzian model of the drug regimen problem. The model is tested with fixed (fixed interval variable dose, FIVD) and variable (variable interval variable dose, VIVD) interval schemes and the dosage presented for 52 weeks. In the fixed interval, the treatment plan is fixed in such a way that doses are given on the first two days of every seven weeks such as day 7, day 14, etc.Results: On comparing the two schemes, FIVD provided a higher reduction in the number of tumor cells by 98 % compared to 87 % by VIVD after the treatment period. Also, a significant reduction in the number was obtained half way through the regimen. The dose level and toxicity are also reduced in the FIVD scheme. The value of drug concentration is more in FIVD scheme (50) compared to VIVD (41); however, it is well within the acceptable limits of concentration. The results proved the effectiveness of the proposed technique in terms of reduced drug concentration, toxicity, tumor size and drug level within a predetermined time period.Conclusion: Artificial intelligent techniques can be used as a tool to aid oncologists in the effective treatment of cancer through chemotherapy.Keywords: Deterministic Oscillatory Search, Chemotherapy scheduling, Drug schedule, Artificial intelligenc

Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures: Evidence from the Listed Companies in Sri Lanka

Purpose: The primary objective of this study is to investigate the nexus between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility disclosure in Sri Lankan listed firms. Design/Methodology/Approach: Corporate governance was evaluated using the following criteria: board size, board independence, role duality, women representation, audit committee size, and ownership concentration. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) methodology was utilized to assess Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure (CSRD) using content analysis. This study collects balanced panel data from 44 Sri Lankan listed firms over a five-year period, from 2018 to 2022. Because of their highly regulated nature, the banking, finance, insurance, and investment trust industries were omitted from the sample. All of the information was gathered from yearly reports published on the Colombo Stock Exchange's website in Sri Lanka. Findings: Test results suggest that board size, independence, and women representation have no significant relationship with CSRD. Role Duality, Audit Committee Size and Ownership Concentration exhibit a significant association with CSRD. Moreover, the mean value of the CSRD is 44.56 percent for the selected listed companies in Sri Lanka. Originality: This study contributes to determining the extent to which companies have adhered to the GRI as a widely acknowledged disclosure framework. It provides value to the company's management in order for them to make better judgments on whether the firms should involve them in more corporate governance disclosures in order to raise the degree of CSR to enhance transparency and to promote stakeholders' well-being. The outcome also has ramifications for regulatory agencies in developing obligatory reporting requirements for all listed firms to comply with the GRI framework

Mitigating Instability in Electric Drive Vehicles Due to Time Varying Delays with Optimised Controller

The instability in the Electric vehicle would reduce the performance and even severely damage the system. This instability is mainly due to the random time-varying delays occurring in CAN network and the improper efficiency of controllers. This uncertainty and error occurrence makes it difficult to design the electric vehicles considering the advantages of Electric Vehicles being, the future to reduce harmful emissions due to fossil fuels, the instability can be mitigated by using optimized H∞ controller. The results of Simulations through MATLAB demonstrate the Effectiveness of the improved controller by comparing with the normal PI controller. The results of comparison illustrate the strength of explicitly

Screening for adulticidal bioactivity of South African plants against Anopheles arabiensis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study was conducted to evaluate whether a selection of South African ethnomedicinal plants included in this study displayed insecticidal properties when screened against adult stages of the mosquito.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>381 crude extracts of 80 plant taxa in 42 families were sprayed onto ceramic tiles and screened using the cone bio-assay method for insecticide efficacy testing. Blood-fed, female <it>Anopheles arabiensis </it>mosquitoes were exposed to the treated tiles for a period of sixty minutes. Mosquito mortality was monitored for twenty-four hours.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of all the extracts analysed, the highest activity was observed in <it>Ptaeroxylon obliquum </it>(Ptaeroxylaceae) and <it>Pittosporum viridiflorum </it>(Pittosporaceae), a single extract from each, exhibiting more than 50% mortality. A large proportion (81.63%) of the extracts tested displayed low levels of mosquitocidal activity. The remainder of the extracts (17.85%) exhibited no bioactivity (0% mortality).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The screening results have shown that in accordance with WHO standards, none of the crude extracts tested had exhibited greater than 60% mortality against the adult stages of the malaria vector <it>Anopheles arabiensis</it>.</p

Investigation and correction of error in impedance tube using intelligent techniques

AbstractErrors arise in the measurement of sound absorption coefficient using impedance tube due to various factors. Minimizing the errors require additional hardware or proper calibration of certain components. This paper proposes a new intelligent error correction mechanism using mathematical modelling and soft computing paradigms. A low cost impedance tube is designed, developed and its performance is compared with a commercially available standard tube. A particle swarm optimization and neural network based system is developed to reduce the random and systematic errors in the developed impedance tube. The proposed system is tested using various porous and non-porous functional textile materials and the results are validated. A significant reduction in error is obtained at all frequency ranges with PSO based prediction method

Opracowanie tuby impedancyjnej do pomiaru akustycznych właściwości materiałów tekstylnych

Measurement of the sound absorption coefficient using an impedance tube is prone to errors due to various reasons. Conventionally minimising the errors requires additional hardware or proper calibration of many components used for measurement. This paper proposes a new error correction mechanism using a filtering technique. A low cost impedance tube was designed, developed and its performance was compared with a commercially available high cost tube. The errors which arose during the measurement of the sound absorption coefficient were minimised using different types of filters (low pass, band pass, LMS filtering). The purpose of the filter is to eliminate unwanted signals or noise which occur during the processing of analogue signals in the experiment. The system proposed was tested using various porous and non-porous functional textile materials and the results validated. A significant reduction in error was obtained at all frequency ranges with digital filters.Pomiar współczynnika pochłaniania dźwięku za pomocą tuby impedancyjnej jest podatny na błędy. Konwencjonalne minimalizowanie błędów wymaga dodatkowego sprzętu lub odpowiedniej kalibracji wielu komponentów używanych do pomiaru. W artykule zaproponowano nowy mechanizm korekcji błędów za pomocą techniki filtrowania. Zaprojektowano i opracowano stosunkowo tani sposób wykonania nowego rodzaju tuby impedancyjnej i porównano jej działanie z dostępną na rynku tubą. Błędy, które powstały podczas pomiaru współczynnika pochłaniania dźwięku zostały zminimalizowane za pomocą różnych rodzajów filtrów (dolnoprzepustowym, środkowoprzepustowym, filtracyjnym LMS). Celem zastosowania filtra było wyeliminowanie niepożądanych sygnałów lub szumów, które występują podczas przetwarzania sygnałów analogowych podczas eksperymentów. Proponowany system został przetestowany przy zastosowaniu różnych porowatych i nieporowatych funkcjonalnych materiałów tekstylnych. Na podstawie uzyskanych wyników stwierdzono, że za pomocą filtrów cyfrowych można uzyskać znaczącą redukcję błędów we wszystkich zakresach częstotliwości

Smart Parking System Based on RFID & GSM Technology

In the modern world with about a billion vehicles present around the globe, and being in a densely populated country like India creates the need for an efficient parking system and with world advancing towards automation, there is also a need for an automated parking system. Mainly the problem of parking arises in big cities and this causes problems like traffic congestion, driver frustration &amp; air pollution, etc. The issue mainly arises from not knowing whether the parking spaces is available at any given point of time. Even if known, many vehicles may be competing for limited parking spaces causing severe traffic congestions. Even there are problems that can be caused with regards to the parking management. It may be difficult for the parking management to organise the parking of the vehicles in an orderly manner. Thus we are trying to resolve the problems stated by developing an RFID based smart parking system that monitors the availability of idle parking slots and guides the vehicle to the nearest such slot by sending a message to the mobile number registered in the vehicle’s RFID. The proposed system uses infrared transmitter-receiver pairs that remotely communicate the status of parking occupancy to the Arduino UNO microcontroller and displays the vacant slots on the display at the entrance of the parking so that the user gets to know the availability /unavailability of parking space prior to his/her entry into the parking place. Implementation involves minimal human interaction and provides a seamless parking experience thereby reducing a lot of time wasted by the user in parking his/her vehicle. Key Words:  Parking System, RFID, Arduino UN