Women Empowerment Through Microfinance: An Empirical Study on Ampara District of Sri Lanka

The prime objective of this study is to identify the association between microfinance and women empowerment by giving opportunity for self-employment, rural women and the impact of micro-credit, savings, skill training and education on women empowerment as well. This study focuses on women empowerment through micro finance under post-war development in Ampara District selecting five rural areas which are Uhana, Padiyathalawa, Weeragoda, Damana, and Ampara in Ampara District. The information has been gathered by primary data from the rural women in the above selected areas and 105 responded out of 50. From the results, it is concluded that the micro-finance has significant relationship and positively correlated (0.852) with empowerment at 0.01 significant levels and its impact is crucial as well. It is suggested that the micro- finance facilities are essential in empowering rural women and developing the women entrepreneurs under post-war development in Ampara District. Keywords: Micro-Finance, post-war development, women empowerment, Rural Developmen

Situating the Kegalle Rebels of 1971: The Narrative Disconnect Between Michael Ondaatje and Those Who Took His Family Gun

The article uses Michael Ondaatje’s representation of the Kegalle rebels of the 1971 insurgence to examine the question of historical disconnect in the writer which has resulted in his reduction of an era-defining political event to an amusing anecdote. This anecdote – to do with a group of young rebels who came to collect the Ondaatjes’ family gun in Running in the Family – has been widely quoted in literature on Ondaatje’s work, but without sufficient emphasis on what appears to be a historical alienation of the writer. The present discussion attempts to reconstruct the fate of the Kegalle rebels who disappear from Ondaatje’s field of vision after the gun was collected. Through the association of narratives written by former insurgents in Kegalle who retreated to Wilpattu after the uprising failed, I attempt to reconstruct their story to offer an overview of the history Ondaatje misses out on. By interpolating work such as Raja Proctor’s Waiting for Surabiel the article also draws on the role of historical awareness and political empathy in representing a politically-turbulent era. DOI: http://doi.org/10.31357/fhss/vjhss.v07i02.0

Electronic Structure Calculations of Monolayer–Protected Gold NanoClusters to Aid Spectroscopic Analysis

The underlying goal of this thesis dissertation is to simulate small monolayer protected clusters (MPCs) via quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics calculations to derive electronic, structural, and dynamical properties. First we specifically focus on monolayers consisting of thiolated oligopeptides and alkanethiols. We construct MPCs with a layer of oligopeptides consisting of α-aminoisobutyric acid units. We use Monte Carlo simulations to determine peptide arrangements and folding. We then perform NMR chemical shifts calculations and compare to experimental measurements to validate the predicted structure. The native -1 oxidation state can be oxidized into 0 and to +1 charge states. The neutral charge state is paramagnetic and behaves quite differently than the anion as manifested by the NMR spectra. The objective is to calculate NMR chemical shits, compare to experiment, and obtain insight into the electronic origin of these shifts. We also use DFT to simulate ENDOR spectra. Finally, we investigate the frontier molecular orbital arrangement in different charge states and determine the HOMO – LUMO energy gap and identify its fingerprint in the optical absorption spectra

Fluidic Valves for Variable-Configuration Gas Treatment

The paper surveys recent development in the highly specialized field of chemical engineering: vehicle exhaust gas aftertreatment, where variable configuration systems are currently introduced or considered. These respond to varying operating conditions by inserting into the gas treatment flowpath different reactors. The main practical problem are the valves for gas flow switching. Usual mechanical valves are costly, failure prone, heavy (especially the solenoid variants), and not robust enough to withstand the adverse conditions of high temperature, vibration, shocks and dripping water and mud at the usual locations under vehicle body. Fluidic no-moving-part valves, inexpensive and robust, are proposed as an attractive alternative. Especially in their novel axisymmetric layout, they may be very compact, in fact integral with reactor body. The qualitative change brought by the new approaches may provide an inspiration to other areas of chemical engineering

Prognostic significance of exercise-induced premature ventricular complexes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

BACKGROUND: Exercise-induced premature ventricular complexes (EI-PVCs) are common during exercise stress tests. Their optimal management and prognostic significance remain uncertain. AIM: To perform meta-analysis of observational studies on the prognostic significance of EI-PVCs. METHODS: A search was conducted on Medline and Embase. Inclusion criteria were observational studies comparing the prognosis of patients with and without EI-PVCs whilst exclusion criteria were studies without confounder adjustment and studies with zero endpoints. Composite endpoints included all-cause mortality, cardiac mortality and cardiovascular events. Relative risk of endpoints were analysed with random effects model. Meta-regression and sensitivity analysis were performed. RESULTS: Ten studies were included. In asymptomatic patients who had no clinical evidence of heart disease, EI-PVCs were associated with a pooled risk ratio of 1.82 (95% CI 1.44 to 2.30) of developing adverse cardiovascular events over 16 years. The corresponding pooled RR for patients with symptomatic heart disease was 1.36 (95% CI 1.18 to 1.57) over 5.4 years. Sensitivity analysis: only EI-PVCs on the recovery phase of an exercise test, not during exercise, had adverse prognostic significance. CONCLUSIONS: EI-PVCs are correlated with a higher risk of all cause death or cardiovascular events in the long term. This risk is elevated in asymptomatic patients without clinical heart disease and in patients with symptomatic heart disease. The fact that only EI-PVCs during recovery, and not during exercise, have poor prognostic value suggests that autonomic dysfunction may play a role in this association. Further studies are needed to see if autonomic manipulation by drugs or catheter-based methods can improve the poor prognosis associated with EI-PVCs

Differential charge radii: self-consistency and proton-neutron interaction effects

The analysis of self-consistency and proton-neutron interaction effects in the buildup of differential charge radii has been carried out in covariant density functional theoretical calculations without pairing interaction. Two configurations of the $^{218}$Pb nucleus, generated by the occupation of the neutron $1i_{11/2}$ and $2g_{9/2}$ subshells, are compared with the ground state configuration in $^{208}$Pb. The interaction of added neutron(s) and the protons forming the $Z=82$ proton core is responsible for a major contribution to the buildup of differential charge radii. It depends on the overlaps of proton and neutron wave functions and leads to a redistribution of single-particle density of occupied proton states which in turn modifies the charge radii. Self-consistency effects affecting the shape of proton potential, total proton densities and the energies of the single-particle proton states provide only secondary contribution to differential charge radii. The buildup of differential charge radii is a combination of single-particle and collective phenomena. The former is due to proton-neutron interaction, the impact of which is state dependent, and the latter reflects the fact that all occupied proton single-particle states contribute to this process. The neglect of either one of these aspects of the process by ignoring proton-neutron interaction and self-consistency effects as it is done in macroscopic+microscopic approach or by introducing the core as in spherical shell model introduces uncontrollable errors and restricts the applicability of such approaches to the description of differential charge radii.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Theory of transient spectroscopy of multiple quantum well structures

A theory of the transient spectroscopy of quantum well (QW) structures under a large applied bias is presented. An analytical model of the initial part of the transient current is proposed. The time constant of the transient current depends not only on the emission rate from the QWs, as is usually assumed, but also on the subsequent carrier transport across QWs. Numerical simulation was used to confirm the validity of the proposed model, and to study the transient current on a larger time scale. It is shown that the transient current is influenced by the nonuniform distribution of the electric field and related effects, which results in a step-like behavior of the current. A procedure of extraction of the QW emission time from the transient spectroscopy experiments is suggested.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Appl. Phy

Fluidic valve for reactor regeneration flow switching

An unusual and in many respects advantageous no-moving-part valve is described,developed for switching fluid flows in a through-flow reactor that requires a periodic regeneration by temporary replacement of the process fluid by another, regeneration fluid. The unusual feature of the valve is that it is axisymmetric, built integrally into the inlet part of the reactor body. The valve operation is based upon a monostable axisymmetric variant of the Coanda effect of jet attachment to a wall. The jet is annular and there are two attachment walls of conical shape. The outer hollow cone is dominant while the auxiliary inner convex cone is small, almost vestigial. Concentrating on the performance in a no-spillover regime, experimental data obtained in cold-air laboratory tests using a full-scale model are compared with numerical flowfield computations, using unusual non-dimensional presentation