LOCAL TOURISTS OF RUHUNA (YALA) NATIONAL PARK: ZONAL VISITATION, TRAVEL COST A~ID WILLINGNESS TO PAY

Ruhuna (Yala) National Park, a strict nature reserve which lies on the southern coast of SriLanka, covers 97,878 hectares ofland. The park comprises of secondary forest where manyspecies of mammals, avifauna, reptiles and birds .are living in substantial numbers. ThePark has achieved the international reputation. Evidently, all categories of some 100,000tourists, 70 percent of which are local tourists visit the Park annually. Tourism in asanctuary is both nature based and sustainable, and sustainability incorporatesenvironmental, socio-cultural and economic dimensions. There should be a control ofsupply-oriented management securing the environmental and economic benefits. Thepublic interest and enthusiasm in the Park could be used not only to market the product butalso to conserve the resources. Hence, the study attempted to analyze the local demand ofthe tourists for Ruhuna National Park with the view of improving Ruhuna National Park asan attractive tourist's destination.The local demand of the tourists for Ruhuna National Park is measured as zonal visitationrate, travel cost, and their willingness to pay. The highest visitation rate is recorded fromBadulla (5.6) while the lowest rate is recorded from Matale (2.1) The visitors from Matalehave the highest total travel cost (Rs. 732.50). Hambantota visitors spend Rs. 115.04 as thetotal travel cost. However, the multiple regression analysis shows that the visitation ratewith income, age, educational level and total travel cost excluding the visitors from Mataraand Hambantota districts, is highly correlated (r2 = 0.935). However, the age issignificantly correlated with visitation rate while total travel cost has a significant negativecorrelation with the visitation rate. According to the local visitors, the willingness to payper person per year is calculated as Rs. I l6.41.

FitFlame – Health and Fitness Coaching Application to Mitigate the Issues in the Current Applications

Online fitness coaches help people achieve a healthy lifestyle by offering customized solutions. The demand for professional coaching is expected to grow in the coming years. Nevertheless, no applications in the market address the problems in the coaching process. Today, coaches and clients had to use many third-party apps. The reason for this is that no single fitness coaching app offers communication and exercise-tracking features. Even though some apps meet some of these requirements, they are out of reach for most people's budgets. This paper aims to suggest a robust and full-fledged app to mitigate those issues. FitFlame is the name of the proposed app. Both coaches and clients can benefit from this app. Also, FitFlame is a fitness coaching system available on mobile and the web. It helps clients locate and contact coaches, subscribe to coaching plans, and track their progress. It does away with third-party programs and gives users a better experience

Autonomy of Nations and Indigenous Peoples and the Environmental Release of Genetically Engineered Animals with Gene Drives

This article contends that the environmental release of genetically engineered (GE) animals with heritable traits that are patented will present a challenge to the efforts of nations and indigenous peoples to engage in self‐determination. The environmental release of such animals has been proposed on the grounds that they could function as public health tools or as solutions to the problem of agricultural insect pests. This article brings into focus two political‐economic‐legal problems that would arise with the environmental release of such organisms. To address those challenges, it is proposed that nations considering the environmental release of GE animals must take into account the underlying circumstances and policy failures that motivate arguments for the use of the modified animals. Moreover, countries must recognize that the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights place on them an obligation to ensure that GE animals with patented heritable traits are not released without the substantive consent of the nations or indigenous peoples that could be affected

Assessment of bridge natural frequency as an indicator of scour using centrifuge modelling

Funder: Gates Cambridge Trust (GB)Abstract: One of the most prevalent causes of bridge failure around the world is “scour”—the gradual erosion of soil around a bridge foundation due to fast-flowing water. A reliable technique for monitoring scour would help bridge engineers take timely countermeasures to safeguard against failure. Although vibration-based techniques for monitoring structural damage have had limited success, primarily due to insufficient sensitivity, these have tended to focus on the detection of local damage. High natural frequency sensitivity has recently been reported for scour damage. Previous experiments to investigate this have been limited as a result of the cost of full-scale testing and the fact that scaled-down soil-structure models tested outside a centrifuge do not adequately simulate full-scale behaviour. This paper describes the development of what is believed to be the first-ever centrifuge-testing programme to establish the sensitivity of bridge natural frequency to scour. A 1/60 scale model of a two-span integral bridge with 15 m spans was tested at varying levels of scour. For the fundamental mode of vibration, these tests found up to a 40% variation in natural frequency for 30% loss of embedment. Models of three other types of foundation, which represent a shallow pad foundation, a deep pile bent and a deep monopile, were also tested in the centrifuge at different scour levels. The shallow foundation model showed lower frequency sensitivity to scour than the deep foundation models. Another important finding is that the frequency sensitivity to “global scour” is slightly higher than the sensitivity to “local scour”, for all foundation types. The level of frequency sensitivity (3.1–44% per scour depth equivalent to 30% of embedment of scour) detected in this experiment demonstrates the potential for using natural frequency as an indicator of both local and global scour of bridges, particularly those with deep foundations

Diagnosis of monogenic diabetes: 10-Year experience in a large multi-ethnic diabetes center.

Monogenic diabetes accounts for approximately 1-2% of all diabetes, and is difficult to distinguish from type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Molecular diagnosis is important, as the molecular subtype directs appropriate treatment. Patients are selected for testing according to clinical criteria, but up to 80% of monogenic diabetes in the UK has not been correctly diagnosed. We investigated outcomes of genetic testing in our center to compare methods of selecting patients, and consider avenues to increase diagnostic efficiency.This article is freely available online via Open Access. Click on the 'Additional Link' above to access the full-text via the publisher's site.Published (Open Access

ESTIMATION OF FARM LEVEL TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY AND ITS SOCIO-ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS IN VANILLA PRODUCTION IN KANDY DISTRICT, SRI LANKA

Vanilla is one of the economically important crops in Sri Lanka although it is mainly confined as a home garden crop grown in mid and low country wet zone. Farmer productivity is one of the most important concerns in vanilla cultivation. Thus, the productivity of Vanilla farmers can be raised by improvement in efficiency in the short run. As a result of the near absence of empirical information on farm-level technical efficiency in small scale Vanilla Production in the country generally and Kandy District in particular, a Stochastic Frontier function which incorporated inefficiency factors was estimated using a Maximum Likelihood technique to provide estimates of technical efficiency and its determinants using data obtained from 80 Vanilla farmers in Ganga Ihala Korale Divisional Secretariat division since it has one of the largest numbers of small-holder vanilla producers in the country. The results reveal that Vanilla farmers are not fully technically efficient and the mean technical efficiency estimated is 37.32%. Estimated results of the inefficiency model show that experience and educational level of the vanilla farmers significantly influence the farmers ‘efficiency positively whereas age of the farmers contributes to increase the inefficiency. The findings imply that policies that would encourage youth to engage in vanilla farming and improvement in human capital should be made and implemented.Keywords: Kandy District, Maximum Like hood estimation, Stochastic frontier model, Technical efficiency, Vanilla farmer

An annotated checklist of bryophytes of Europe, Macaronesia and Cyprus

Introduction. Following on from work on the European bryophyte Red List, the taxonomically and nomenclaturally updated spreadsheets used for that project have been expanded into a new checklist for the bryophytes of Europe. Methods. A steering group of ten European bryologists was convened, and over the course of a year, the spreadsheets were compared with previous European checklists, and all changes noted. Recent literature was searched extensively. A taxonomic system was agreed, and the advice and expertise of many European bryologists sought. Key results. A new European checklist of bryophytes, comprising hornworts, liverworts and mosses, is presented. Fifteen new combinations are proposed. Conclusions. This checklist provides a snapshot of the current European bryophyte flora in 2019. It will already be out-of-date on publication, and further research, particularly molecular work, can be expected to result in many more changes over the next few years.Peer reviewe

Chronic Respiratory Aeroallergen Exposure in Mice Induces Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in the Large Airways

Chronic allergic asthma is characterized by Th2-polarized inflammation and leads to airway remodeling and fibrosis but the mechanisms involved are not clear. To determine whether epithelial-mesenchymal transition contributes to airway remodeling in asthma, we induced allergic airway inflammation in mice by intranasal administration of house dust mite (HDM) extract for up to 15 consecutive weeks. We report that respiratory exposure to HDM led to significant airway inflammation and thickening of the smooth muscle layer in the wall of the large airways. Transforming growth factor beta-1 (TGF-β1) levels increased in mouse airways while epithelial cells lost expression of E-cadherin and occludin and gained expression of the mesenchymal proteins vimentin, alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and pro-collagen I. We also observed increased expression and nuclear translocation of Snail1, a transcriptional repressor of E-cadherin and a potent inducer of EMT, in the airway epithelial cells of HDM-exposed mice. Furthermore, fate-mapping studies revealed migration of airway epithelial cells into the sub-epithelial regions of the airway wall. These results show the contribution of EMT to airway remodeling in chronic asthma-like inflammation and suggest that Th2-polarized airway inflammation can trigger invasion of epithelial cells into the subepithelial regions of the airway wall where they contribute to fibrosis, demonstrating a previously unknown plasticity of the airway epithelium in allergic airway disease

Sequencing and functional annotation of avian pathogenic Escherichia coli serogroup O78 strains reveals the evolution of E. coli lineages pathogenic for poultry via distinct mechanisms

Avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) causes respiratory and systemic disease in poultry. Sequencing of a multilocus sequence type 95 (ST95) serogroup O1 strain previously indicated that APEC resembles E. coli causing extraintestinal human diseases. We sequenced the genomes of two strains of another dominant APEC lineage (ST23 serogroup O78 strains χ7122 and IMT2125) and compared them to each other and to the reannotated APEC O1 sequence. For comparison, we also sequenced a human enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) strain of the same ST23 serogroup O78 lineage. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the APEC O78 strains were more closely related to human ST23 ETEC than to APEC O1, indicating that separation of pathotypes on the basis of their extraintestinal or diarrheagenic nature is not supported by their phylogeny. The accessory genome of APEC ST23 strains exhibited limited conservation of APEC O1 genomic islands and a distinct repertoire of virulence-associated loci. In light of this diversity, we surveyed the phenotype of 2,185 signature-tagged transposon mutants of χ7122 following intra-air sac inoculation of turkeys. This procedure identified novel APEC ST23 genes that play strain- and tissue-specific roles during infection. For example, genes mediating group 4 capsule synthesis were required for the virulence of χ7122 and were conserved in IMT2125 but absent from APEC O1. Our data reveal the genetic diversity of E. coli strains adapted to cause the same avian disease and indicate that the core genome of the ST23 lineage serves as a chassis for the evolution of E. coli strains adapted to cause avian or human disease via acquisition of distinct virulence genes

Dengue Infection and Miscarriage: A Prospective Case Control Study

Dengue is the most prevalent mosquito-borne infection with two billion of the world's population at risk and 100 million infections every year. Dengue is increasingly important due to expansion in the vector's range, increased population density in endemic areas from urbanisation, social and environment change. Miscarriage and stillbirth is associated with dengue when the illness is severe. Dengue can also be transmitted directly from the ill mother through the placenta to the fetus in later pregnancy with variable effect to the fetus. However, dengue infection is asymptomatic to mild only in almost 90% of cases and up to 20% of pregnancies miscarry. Little is known if dengue infection in early pregnancy particularly when it is asymptomatic or mild has an effect on miscarriage. Our study explored the relationship between dengue and miscarriage by looking at recent infection rates amongst women who had miscarried and those whose pregnancies were healthy in an area were dengue is common. Our study finds a positive association between recent dengue infection and miscarriage. This finding may be important in explaining some of the miscarriages in areas where dengue is common. It is also relevant to newly pregnant women from non-dengue travelling to dengue endemic areas