Application of serious games to sport, health and exercise

Use of interactive entertainment has been exponentially expanded since the last decade. Throughout this 10+ year evolution there has been a concern about turning entertainment properties into serious applications, a.k.a "Serious Games". In this article we present two set of Serious Game applications, an Environment Visualising game which focuses solely on applying serious games to elite Olympic sport and another set of serious games that incorporate an in house developed proprietary input system that can detect most of the human movements which focuses on applying serious games to health and exercise

Effect of four bio film formulations on rice seed germination and seedling growth

Biofilms are consortia formed by different microbes of which the members are physically and metabolically interdependent and the consortia harbor properties distinct from those of their single components and thus have various applications including improved agricultural productivity. Beneficial biofilms can be developed in vitro and be used as biofertilizers called biofilmedbiofertilizers (BFBFs).Objective of this study was to formulate an effective BFBF formulation for rice. Seven bacterial species isolated from two different paddy soils (coastal and inland) were grown separately in association with a fungus. Four of these two-membered cultures selected as potential biofilm formulations based on forming intimate association, plant growth substance production and Nrfixing ability were tested for the impact on rice seed germination and seedling growth. The percentage seed germination and seedling vigour index of seeds treated with the above four biofilm formulations were significantly higher than the control indicating the potential of these formulations to be used as biofertilisers for rice and thus will be further tested

Use of Gliricidia sepium as a Nurse Plant to Reforest Man-made Grasslands in the Knuckles Forest Reserve, Sri Lanka

Biodiversity richness and socially beneficial watershed services are high in the KnucklesForest Reserve. However, the lower montane forest patches on the eastern slopes of the KFRare highly fragmented mainly due to anthropogenic disturbances. If these forest fragments arenot connected in the near future, they will disappear from the landscape due to their lowregeneration rates. Native tree species when used for restoration of these lands faces manydifficulties due to various biotic and abiotic stresses including harsh microclimatic conditionsand infertile soils. Therefore, usage of a nurse plant will facilitate the growth of target speciesdue to creation of favourable microclimatic conditions. Gliricidia sepium has been used as ashade plant in Sri Lanka, since colonial times. More recently it has been used for indigenousfarming practices, soil stabilization, living fences and as fuel wood, animal forage, greenmanure. In our research we investigate the potential of G. sepium as a nurse plant to establishfour native tree species on man-made grasslands in central Sri Lanka. The study wasconducted on four blocks of grasslands. Four replicates of each of the three island sizes(small 4 m2, medium 16 m2, and large 64 m2) were created inside each block. One set ofislands in each block were planted with G. sepium stakes at 2 m intervals in a grid format.The other set of islands in each block was kept as a control without planting G. sepiumstakes. Seedlings of Macaranga indica, Bhesa ceylanica, Symplocos cochinchinensis andEugenia bracteata were planted randomly in islands with and without G. sepium stakes.After three months of establishment, the survival rate of G. sepium in the four blocks wasmore than 80% and the survival rate of the G. sepium was 20% higher in the small andmedium islands than the large islands. The mean number of sprouts per stake was more thaneight in medium and large islands and less than six in small islands. The mean survival ratewas higher (5.8%) and the mean growth rates was lower (0.006%) for all the four nativespecies with G. sepium than without G. sepium after three months of planting. G. sepiumincreased the survival rates of native species after three months of establishment due tofavourable microclimatic conditions created by them. However, growth rate of the nativespecies which were planted with G. sepium was lower probably due to interspecificcompetition. Therefore, G. sepium can be used as an effective nurse plant in initial phases ofreforestation programmes to increase the survival rates of native tree species on degradedsubmontane sites in Sri Lanka.

Environmental contamination of pathogenic and intermediate pathogenic <em>Leptospira</em> spp in two divisional secretariats of Kandy district

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Carbon stocks in selected dry and wet zone forests of Sri Lanka

Understanding forest C sequestration of the tropical region is of paramount importance to reduce atmospheric CO2. Present study investigated C stocks of two selected wet (Udawattakele – Kandy) and dry zone (Sigiriya sanctuary) forests of Sri Lanka. Litter and soil samples were collected randomly in monthly intervals to cover an annual cycle. Plant biomass C stocks were calculated from standard biomass equations. Soil C was determined by chemical oxidation and loss on ignition (LOI) methods. Above ground biomass increment (AGBI) was predicted by a developed model.The wet zone forest contained higher plant biomass C (249 t C/ha), annual biomass increment (4.85 t C/ha/yr), soil C stock (108 t C/ha) and litter fall C stock (5.73 t C/ha) than those of the dry zone forest of which the corresponding values were 77.0 t C/ha, 4.72 t C/ha, 93.6 t C/ha and 4.72 t C/ha, respectively. Higher amounts of fine root and floor litter C stocks (2.7 t C/ha and 2.36 t C/ha, respectively) were present in the dry zone forest than the wet zone forest (2.4 t C/ha and 2.01 t C/ha, respectively).Total ecosystem C stock (361 t/ha) was higher in the wet zone forest than the dry zone forest (176 t/ha). In the dry zone forest, ca. 53% of the total C stock was in the soil, and ca. 44% was in the plant biomass, and corresponding values of the wet zone forest were 30% and 69%, respectively. Although these proportions were different, higher C stocks in the soil as well as plant biomass were stored in the wet zone forest contributing more towards C sequestration

A comparison of the performance of digital elevation model pit filling algorithms for hydrology

Digital elevation models (DEM) are widely used in hydrological applications for computing useful topographic parameters such as slope, flow direction, flow accumulation area and stream channel network. However, DEMs generally contain numerous topographic depressions which are real and/or artifactual. These depressions can take the form of single cells (pits) or contiguous areas in DEM (depressions). The problem with these pits and depressions is that they interrupt continuous flow paths in DEMs. To avoid these problems, all pits have to be rectified and create a depressionless DEM before calculating flow directions or any related topographic parameters. Agency provided DEMs may be pit filled, but pits can also be generated while interpolating DEMs for changing grid spacing (e.g. LiDAR data). Therefore pit filling is an essential requirement for any hydrological study. A number of algorithms have been developed over the past few decades to treat pits in DEMs. With the availability of high resolution data, DEMs typically contain millions of cells which increase file sizes and computational effort. Therefore, efficiency of pit filling algorithms has to be taken into account when using such DEMs in hydrological applications. In this paper, two of most widely used pit filling algorithms (Jenson and Domingue, 1988 and Planchon, 2001) are compared in terms of their performance and ability to extract topographical parameters. One arc second DEM derived from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data was used in the study. Two study areas were used in the comparison. The first study area is comprised of three catchments located in Eastern Australia and they were used for evaluating topographic changes made by pit filling algorithms. The second study area is located in East coast and it was used to compare the performance of the two algorithms across a regional extent. According to the results, both algorithms behave similarly in modifying existing topography, but calculated flow accumulations and drainage networks were slightly different from each other. When the filled area was relatively small, both algorithms have resulted in similar flow paths. But in relatively large filled areas, they have resulted in unrealistic parallel flow paths significantly different from each other. Both algorithms were implemented in the Python programming language to provide a common platform for comparison. Python is an interpreted language and the Cython tool has been recently developed to convert Python code to C code and allow it to be compiled. Cython was used to convert Python code to C extensions and the performance of both Python and Cython versions were evaluated. Time taken to execute pit filling algorithms on different sizes of DEMs was measured. The execution time of the Planchon algorithm showed a linear relationship with the size of the DEM while execution time of Jenson algorithm increased exponentially. Moreover, performance of both algorithms was evaluated for different resolutions, on a constant grid extent. The execution time of the Jenson algorithm increased with DEM resolution and showed a direct relationship to the total number of pits. However, execution time of Planchon algorithm remained almost constant regardless of the total number of pits. In Cython, both Jenson and Planchon algorithms showed significant improvement in execution time, relative to implementation in Python

Surface quality evaluation of 0.2 % C and AISI 304 steels in turning with sustainable lubricating condition

Metal working fluid (MWF) plays a significant role in metal machining operations to obtain the desired dimensional accuracy and better surface quality in the machined component. Legislations have set limits on the usage of mineral based MWFs because of their carcinogenic behavior and adverse effect on health and the environment. The saturated fatty acid of vegetable oil facilitates a better layer of lubricant between work tool interface compared with the mineral oil based MWFs. This paper describes the surface quality of 0.2 % C and AISI 304 steels while using formulated novel white coconut oil based MWF and mineral oil based MWF in flood cooling and dry machining. The machining parameters were selected according to the recommended specifications, and quality of the machined surface was measured. The novel white coconut oil based MWF has expressed better surface quality for almost all the set of machining parameters compared to other cooling configurations.</p