Why is finance critical? A dialogue with a women's community in Sri Lanka

The busrt of the bubble has given momentum to the search of escape routes from the current transnational financial system and its underlying principles. For the past century, The transnational financial system has relied heavily on currency exchange, security backed loans, stocks and shares - all operated through banks, investment agencies, insurance brokers and stock markets. This global financial architecture centred on monetray values. It strived for financial wealth and achieved it for few out of many. This study shows that the practice of finance can create a wealth of a different - a scoial- nature. Applying an ethnographic approach to financial practices, this study tries to uncover how the sociocultural aspects of finance practiced among the poor rural women in Sri Lanka lead to the creation of social wealth beyond financial wealth. It discovers how finance is critical to such communities becauise it is creating wealth beyond financial measurement. Finance comes to Sinalhese women's everyday lives through traditional savings systems - seettu, household and group saving and it operates through frienships, kin relationships and social realtions. These community organisation develop social wealth through their thrifts, based on traditional practices of saving.Since transnational finance is driven by monetary values only, it overlays structures and that ignores local cultures, social networks and community identies necessary for the creation of social wealth. As a consequence, encounters with transnational finance inspire resistance in citizens of developing nations such as Sri Lanka. In an attempt to preserve their more tradional ways of exchange, communities find themselves workign agianst finance. Therefore in this paper I am interested in engaging in a dialogue with a rural community, to learn their ways of organising finance and the extent to which finance becomes critical to their everyday live

The Power of Opinion Leaders: A Study on First Time Voters of the University of Colombo

A Qualitative Research done on first time voter attitude formation in Sri Lanka finds that influence occurs through the need to identify with expert opinion leaders, who are perceived to have credibility (expertness and trustworthiness). These influencers were more politically and socially engaged than others, had better political knowledge, and were disciplined in word, and thought, which agrees with extant research findings

Space qualified nanosatellite electronics platform for photon pair experiments

We report the design and implementation of a complete electronics platform for conducting a quantum optics experiment that will be operated on board a 1U CubeSat (a 10 x 10 x 10 cm satellite). The quantum optics experiment is designed to produce polarization-entangled photon pairs using non-linear optical crystals and requires opto-electronic components such as a pump laser, single photon detectors and liquid crystal based polarization rotators in addition to passive optical elements. The platform provides mechanical support for the optical assembly. It also communicates autonomously with the host satellite to provide experiment data for transmission to a ground station. A limited number of commands can be transmitted from ground to the platform enabling it to switch experimental modes. This platform requires less than 1.5W for all operations, and is space qualified. The implementation of this electronics platform is a major step on the road to operating quantum communication experiments using nanosatellites.Comment: 6 pages, 11 figure

Silicon avalanche photodiode operation and lifetime analysis for small satellites

Silicon avalanche photodiodes (APDs) are sensitive to operating temperature fluctuations and are also susceptible to radiation flux expected in satellite-based quantum experiments. We introduce a low power voltage adjusting mechanism to overcome the effects of in-orbit temperature fluctuations. We also present data on the performance of Si APDs after irradiation (gamma-ray and proton beam). Combined with an analysis of expected orbital irradiation, we propose that a Si APD in a 400 km equatorial orbit may operate beyond the lifetime of the satellite.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Optics Expres

Exploring the Boundary Conditions of Social Influence for Social Media Research

Along with the proliferation of social networking sites (SNS), people around the world have gained the ability to influence each other in terms of many aspects of lives may it be a political interest or a simple purchase decision. However, most of the SNS studies have employed social influence constructs that were established prior to the advent of SNS to understand the nature and impact of social influence. Even though the application of such theories for SNS has generated a wealth of knowledge, it is vital to acknowledge the necessity of a new perspective that is specific to the current context. Therefore, we conducted a review of 65 studies to explore which social influence constructs have been employed by previous SNS studies and introduced five boundary conditions that should be taken into consideration when employing social influence theory for future SNS studies

Quantifying Unseen Contributions to the Global Carbon Emission from Local Anthropogenic Environments: A Case Study in Balangoda Divisional Secretariat Division, Sri Lanka

Climate change is a profound challenge in the present world. Increase of population, consumption behaviors and land utilisation practices have been identified as the major drivers of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission. Household level carbon emission also contributes considerably to anthropogenic carbon emission. In Sri Lanka, research has been carried out to assess industrial level carbon emission while household level carbon emission still remains untouched. Therefore, the present study was focused on identification of the major drivers and spatial differences of carbon emissions in Balangoda Divisional Secretariat Division (DSD), Sri Lanka, selecting six local administrative divisions having low; Pallekanda and Massenna, moderate; Ellepola and Jahinkanda and high; Balangoda and Pettigala carbon emission potentials. Prevailing population distribution, household fuel and electricity consumption, land surface temperature and Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of the study area were considered in determining the high medium and low magnitudes in the distribution of carbon encouraging factors. A total of 251 households representing 10% of the total households were selected using stratified sampling method. Questionnaire survey covered the consumption of electricity, fuel, transportation and secondary expenses. Carbon footprint calculation and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) were performed to analyse the data. The results revealed that the highest emission ranges from 0.8 MTCO2e to 4.35 MTCO2e in Balangoda, Pettigala from 0.36 MTCO2e to 4.29 MTCO2e and the lowest from 0.27 MTCO2e-1.7 MTCO2e in Pallekanda and in Massenna divisions. Results of the PCA confirmed that Pettigala has the highest emission. Estate settlements in this area are small in size and 82% of the population has very low education levels, leading to use of environmentally unfriendly sources of energy in their daily activities. 98% of households in the area are line settlements located closer to each other and 45% of the households accommodate families of more than five members. The findings of this study are highly important as the regional level carbon emission behaviors can influence on the microclimatic condition of the area, leading to global level climate changes.Keywords: Climate change, Anthropogenic, Carbon footprin

The photon pair source that survived a rocket explosion

We report on the performance of a compact photon pair source that was recovered intact from a failed space launch. The source had been embedded in a nanosatellite and was designed to perform pathfinder experiments leading to global quantum communication networks using spacecraft. Despite the launch vehicle explosion soon after takeoff?, the nanosatellite was successfully retrieved from the accident site and the source within it was found to be fully operational. We describe the assembly technique for the rugged source. Post-recovery data is compared to baseline measurements collected before the launch attempt and no degradation in brightness or polarization correlation was observed. The survival of the source through an extreme environment provides strong evidence that it is possible to engineer rugged quantum optical systems