Simplified model to estimate impact on coastal water resources and loss of shore line land due to climate change and sea level rise

This paper presents a review of past to current observations in the study of climate change and sea-level rise. It appraised the relationship between climate change and sea-level rise, and other drivers on the climate system and factors contributing to sea-level rise. It also highlighting various impacts of climate change and sea-level rise and suggesting short to long term strategies for effective coastal management.A model was developed to provide an estimation of present sea-level rise invariably indicating how much land is lost and how much effect it will have on the water table and rivers especially in coastal areas where there is no data available. To obtain these estimates, numerical modelling was carried out using parameters selected during the study. These parameters with the help of a conversion table produced initial data which were then applied to available Wellington region data for scenarios of 0.5m, 1.0m and 1.5m sea-level rise. Model testing was carried out to measure loss of land and effect of on water table, and satisfactory results were obtained and presented here in. This model hopes to aid in the decision making process of what adaptation methods to employ or implement in certain coastal areas

Developing an Algorithm to Improve Positioning Accuracy of Low-Cost Global Navigation Satellite System Modules

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology is the most widely used technique for obtaining positioning and navigation information for various applications. However, GNSS is not an error free technology. Differential GNSS techniques are used to mitigate these errors and different commercial brands of GNSS receivers have been developed to avoid some errors where quality and  performance depends heavily on the price tag of such advance GNSS receivers due to the fact that technological capabilities adopted and  embedded in each single GNSS receiver. There are user cases where the few or more those capabilities has to keep leave behind thereby compromise the cost to benefit ratio. As an alternative to above problem, some low-cost GNSS modules are now available in the market which has quite low position accuracy but can be developed to address unique requirements of some user cases. In practical situations, Real-Time-Kinematic (RTK) positioning systems cannot be used everywhere due to its technical limitations and GNSS receivers use different levels of techniques such as moving baseline system or Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS). Further, heading information is also a very important parameter in marine industry for obtaining the vessel’s orientation. This research attempts to assess the capability of u-blox NEO M8N GNSS module for hydrographic surveys by developing a moving baseline GNSS configuration and simple Kalman filter based algorithm. The developed prototype was tested in both static and kinematic observations. The prototype achieved 0.5-2.5 meters of position accuracy at the 95% confidence level in static observations, while it archived around 3 meters of positioning accuracy in kinematic observations. This is a sufficient accuracy for Order 1a, Order 1b and Order 2 standards of hydrographic surveys according to the IHO S-44 guidelines

Fraud detection in a financial payment system

Many financial payment systems have to face fraudulent activities due to the fast-paced development of the technology. Fraud detection is essential for the proper management of fraud control. It automates the manual checking processes and helps the detection be done conveniently. It is important to research and find ways and means of proper methodologies which will help serve the purpose of fraud detection effectively. Machine Learning Approach becomes more popular and accurate compared to a rule-based approach in this scenario. This paper presents such a performance comparison among a few methods which were tested with a dataset

Biodiversity of the human oral mycobiome in health and disease

The organisms that colonize the human body over a lifetime are diverse, extensive and gargantuan. A fair proportion of the microbiota that constitutes this human microbiome live within our oral cavities mostly as harmonious associates causing only sporadic disease. An important core constituent of the microbiome is the mycobiome, representing various fungal genera. Up until recently, only a few species of fungi, mainly Candida species, were thought to constitute the human oral mycobiome. The reasons for this are manifold, although the uncultivable nature of many fungi in conventional laboratory media, and their complex genetic composition seem to be the major factors which eluded their detection over the years. Nevertheless, recent advances in computing and high‐throughput sequencing such as next‐generation sequencing (NGS) platforms have provided us a panoramic view of a totally new world of fungi that are human oral cohabitués. Their diversity is perplexing, and functionality yet to be deciphered. Here, we provide a glimpse of what is currently known of the oral mycobiome, in health and disease, with some future perspectives

Response and Survival Estimates of Patients With Plasma Cell Myeloma in a Resource-Constrained Setting Using Protocols From High-Income Countries:A Single-Center Experience From Sri Lanka

There is a significant disparity in global cancer care and outcome between countries. Progress in the treatment of symptomatic plasma cell myeloma (PCM) in high-income countries is not seen in low- and middle-income countries. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is was a retrospective cohort study of all patients diagnosed with PCM between May 1, 2013, and September 30, 2021, at the first hemato-oncology center in Sri Lanka. We aimed to provide data on clinicopathologic characteristics, response, and survival estimates. RESULTS: A total of 79 patients with PCM received first-line therapy during the study period. The median age was 64 years, and approximately one third (33%) of patients were older than 70 years. There were 42 (53%) males and 37 females. Hypercalcemia, renal impairment, anemia, and bone disease were detected in 36.7%, 38%, 72.1%, and 81%, respectively. Thirty-nine, 34, and six patients received a combination of cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone; bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone; and other treatments, respectively. The overall response rate (≥ partial response) was approximately 97% for both cyclophosphamide, thalidomide, and dexamethasone and bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone. Twenty-three (29%) of these patients died during the study period, but only 14 (18%) died due to PCM or associated sepsis. After a median follow-up of 40.6 months (range, 35.2-59.07 months), the median overall survival was 84.2 months (95% CI, 60.87 to not available). The 5-year estimated overall survival was 65%. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this is the only well-characterized study on long-term survival of patients with PCM in Sri Lanka. We have shown that it is possible to successfully apply Western treatment and supportive care protocols to the local population. These published data will help to benchmark and improve the treatment and develop blood cancer care in the local setting

Feminizing the city : gender and space in colonial Colombo

It took four centuries for modern Colombo to match the proportion of women population of the nation. By that time, Sri Lanka had become the first nation to elect a woman to the highest office. This presentation maps out the transformation of colonial Colombo from a White male Christian city to a “women-friendly” place, by white European and indigenous Lankan women. It focuses on changes in the colonial policy towards gender relations and the women’s practices that undermined those policies

The planners’ city: the construction of a town planning perception of Colombo

The cities that administrators administer, planners plan, and scholars examine are perceptions that represent the absolute city ‘that is out there’. This paper narrates how a new perception of the city based on British town planning, modified within the Empire, was established in Colombo, the former capital of Sri Lanka. It focuses on the interpretation and representation of physical realities in Colombo using the norms imported through the Housing Ordinance of 1915 and later the town planning discourse. The ordinance problematized the living environments of the poor residents, requiring solutions that were not available in Colombo. Instead of solving these, the colonial/imperial planner Patrick Geddes, and the others who followed him, carried town planning to Colombo and kept rewriting its history. The new perception of the city focused the attention of the authorities on a capitalist city, which was lain over the colonial city, marginalizing the poor. In this way the colonial planners taught the Ceylonese urban authorities and planners how to perceive and act on the city from a town planning vantage point. The discourse was not directly imposed or imported, but negotiated between many agencies including the (British) municipal authorities of Colombo, the colonial government, colonial/imperial planners, the newspapers, and other stakeholders. Many changes to this perception were introduced in Sri Lanka after independence, but they do not represent any substantial cultural questioning of this discourse. This is the contribution of this study.

Muslims in Australia: beyond religion and culture

This thesis looks for an answer to the problem of the negative image of the immigrant Muslim community in Australia, resulting from an implied association with fundamentalism. The hypothesis, which denied any rational basis to the negative image, was tested by comparing the responses of immigrant Muslim parents with those of their children between the ages of twelve and twenty five, to questions having fundamentalist significance. The rationale for the methodology used was based on the argument that a deviation by the second generation from parental conservatism was inconsistent with either the importation or the perpetuation of fundamentalism. A total of fifteen substantive questions were used in the survey. Fifty families, consisting of eighty eight parents and eighty six children, participated in the research. The literature review is divisible into two main analytic categories: Islamic ethics, or a Muslim critique of Muslim culture and society, and the sociology of lslam or the study of Muslim culture and society from the western academic perspective. The former category indicates that despite globalisation which promotes increasing involvement among people worldwide, fundamentalist Muslim doctrine denies the Muslim unrestricted freedom of movement to non-Muslim societies, in view of a perceived risk to the continuation of a fundamentalist religious identity. The literature review of the sociology of Islam complements this position by identifying some of the specific changes which have an adverse impact on the continuation of a fundamentalist religious identity in the West. In a secular, modern society there was also seen to be the potential for a conflict of ideas which distanced the second generation from the religious identity of their immigrant parents. Moreover, socio-cultural marginality was seen to provide the impetus for creativity in outlook. Identity formation in the West among the second generation was seen to be weighted in favour of the dominant secular culture of the host society, rather than the religious identity which immigrant parents might hold on to and wish to reproduce among the second generation. The research instrument was a pre-coded interview schedule, constructed through the literature review. An exploration of a wide ranging survey of Muslim culture and society served to identify the appropriate questions, as a necessary qualitative aspect to the subsequent quantitative evaluation of the empirical data. A significant statistical difference was found between the responses of parents and children, in favour of the second generation as a less conservative group. The theoretical approach to this inquiry took into account the social reality of the immigrant Muslim in a non-Muslim society. The Islamic worldview as a positivist theory was used, in addition to non-positivist critical theory from within the sociology of Islam. Both theoretical perspectives were employed in view of the need to make the study meaningful to Muslims, while critically evaluating the personal views of individual respondents. Other positivist sociological theories were avoided in view of the procedural need to restrict the theoretical perspective, as far as possible, to one or the other approach