Fast tracking approach to cancer early detection in Sri Lanka

The National Strategic Plan (2020-2024) of the National Cancer Control Programme, Sri Lanka directed the establishment of island wide Cancer Early Detection Centers (CEDC) in all provincial hospitals, aiming to avoid some of the delays for diagnosis of cancer patients in all age groups in Sri Lanka. These one-stop centers provide cancer diagnosis to detect, confirm and refer without long a referral pathway to a treatment center. The services provided these centers are consult a doctor to discuss cancer related issues, identify and education on risk factors and obtain guidance on the need to screen and prevent common and preventable cancers including individual counseling for risk factor reduction and post diagnosis. Further, it facilitates screening for Breast Cancer which includes clinical-breast examination, ultrasound scanning and mammography depending on the clinical assessment. The clinical oral examination for all high-risk target groups and educated on self-mouth examination. Screening for cervical cancer for necessary women via pap test and the HPV DNA test is carried out depending on the clinical assessment. These centers provide fast track method for early detection of cancers

Soil moisture stress effects on soybean vegetative, physiological, and reproductive growth and post-harvest seed physiology, quality, and chemical composition

With the increasing scarcity of water resources, soil moisture stress is the single most threat to global soybean production causing extensive yield losses. The objectives of this study were to investigate soil moisture stress effects on all aspects of soybean growth and development processes and to develop functional algorithms that could be used for field management decisions and in soybean crop modeling. To fulfill these objectives, six experiments were conducted; one in vitro osmotic stress study on seed germination, four studies by imposing five soil moisture treatments, 100, 80, 60, 40, and 20% of daily evapotranspiration of the control at different growth stages using sunlit plant growth chambers, and one transgenerational study on seed germination at different osmotic levels and offspring growth at three irrigation treatments (100, 66, and 33% based on field capacity) for plants grown at different soil moisture levels. Two cultivars from maturity group V, Asgrow AG5332 and Progeny P5333RY, with different growth habits were used in all these studies. Midday leaf water potential, plant height, mainstem nodes, gas-exchange traits, canopy reflectance, and several yield components including pod weight, seed yield, and seed quality were measured. Soil moisture stress decreased biomass, net photosynthesis, yield, individual seed weight, maximum seed germination, protein, fatty acids, sucrose, N, and P and increased oil, stachyose, Fe, Mg, Zn, Cu, and B contents. Overall, Asgrow AG5332 was more tolerant to drought stress than Progeny P5333RY. Soil moisture stress induced changes in seed quality that were correlated with seed germination and seedling vigor in the F1 generation. These data can be used to build a model-based decision support system capable of predicting yield under field conditions

Optimum Power Output Control of a Wind Turbine Rotor

© 2016 S. Wijewardana et al. An active and optimum controller is applied to regulate the power output from a wind turbine rotor. The controller is synthesized in two steps. The first step defines the equilibrium operation point and ensures that the desired equilibrium point is stable. The stability of the equilibrium point is guaranteed by a control law that is synthesized by applying the methodology of model predictive control (MPC). The method of controlling the turbine involves pitching the turbine blades. In the second step the blade pitch angle demand is defined. This involves minimizing the mean square error between the actual and desired power coefficient. The actual power coefficient of the wind turbine rotor is evaluated assuming that the blade is capable of stalling, using blade element momentum theory. This ensures that the power output of the rotor can be reduced to any desired value which is generally not possible unless a nonlinear stall model is introduced to evaluate the blade profile coefficients of lift and drag. The relatively simple and systematic nonlinear modelling and MPC controller synthesis approach adopted in this paper clearly highlights the main features on the controller that is capable of regulating the power output of the wind turbine rotor

Rapid influx and death of plasmacytoid dendritic cells in lymph nodes mediate depletion in acute simian immunodeficiency virus infection

Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC) are essential innate immune system cells that are lost from the circulation in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected individuals associated with CD4+ T cell decline and disease progression. pDC depletion is thought to be caused by migration to tissues or cell death, although few studies have addressed this directly. We used precise methods of enumeration and in vivo labeling with 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine to track recently divided pDC in blood and tissue compartments of monkeys with acute pathogenic simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection. We show that pDC are lost from blood and peripheral lymph nodes within 14 days of infection, despite a normal frequency of pDC in bone marrow. Paradoxically, pDC loss masked a highly dynamic response characterized by rapid pDC mobilization into blood and a 10- to 20-fold increase in recruitment to lymph nodes relative to uninfected animals. Within lymph nodes, pDC had increased levels of apoptosis and necrosis, were uniformly activated, and were infected at frequencies similar to CD4+ T cells. Nevertheless, remaining pDC had essentially normal functional responses to stimulation through Toll-like receptor 7, with half of lymph node pDC producing both TNF-α and IFN-α. These findings reveal that cell migration and death both contribute to pDC depletion in acute SIV infection. We propose that the rapid recruitment of pDC to inflamed lymph nodes in lentivirus infection has a pathologic consequence, bringing cells into close contact with virus, virus-infected cells, and pro-apoptotic factors leading to pDC death. © 2009 Brown et al

Mathematical Modelling and Control of Renewable Energy Systems and Battery Storage Systems

PhD, 262ppIntermittent nature of renewable energy sources like the wind and solar energy poses new challenges to harness and supply uninterrupted power for consumer usage. Though, converting energy from these sources to useful forms of energy like electricity seems to be promising, still, significant innovations are needed in design and construction of wind turbines and PV arrays with BS systems. The main focus of this research project is mathematical modelling and control of wind turbines, solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays and battery storage (BS) systems. After careful literature review on renewable energy systems, new developments and existing modelling and controlling methods have been analysed. Wind turbine (WT) generator speed control, turbine blade pitch angle control (pitching), harnessing maximum power from the wind turbines have been investigated and presented in detail. Mathematical modelling of PV arrays and how to extract maximum power from PV systems have been analysed in detail. Application of model predictive control (MPC) to regulate the output power of the wind turbine and generator speed control with variable wind speeds have been proposed by formulating a linear model from a nonlinear mathematical model of a WT. Battery chemistry and nonlinear behaviour of battery parameters have been analysed to present a new equivalent electrical circuit model. Converting the captured solar energy into useful forms, and storing it for future use when the Sun itself is obscured is implemented by using battery storage systems presenting a new simulation model. Temperature effect on battery cells and dynamic battery pack modelling have been described with an accurate state of charge estimation method. The concise description on power converters is also addressed with special reference to state-space models. Bi-directional AC/DC converter, which could work in either rectifier or inverter modes is described with a cost effective proportional integral derivative (PID/State-feedback) controller

Lysimeter study to identify GPR response under different contaminant level in groundwater

Potentials of groundwater contamination due to different pollutant loads can be assessed using different technologies available through quality detection, mapping extend of the contaminant plume and migration of the plume. Real field situation is very complex and application of some techniques might be a challenging task especially with respect to data interpretation. Creating of controlled condition which represents the real field situation is very much important to understand the field situation and applicability of such techniques. Among the available geophysical methods, ground penetrating radar (GPR) technique is suitable for studying the subsurface features. A lysimeter (4.0 m x 1.0 m x 1.5 m (L x W x D)) study was conducted at the Meewathura farm of the Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Peradeniya to verify the applicability of the GPR technique in detecting contamination level in groundwater. The lysimeter was filled with sand as a media and two iron bars (with a diameter of 5 cm) were placed at 1.0 m and 3.0 m length intervals at 0.2 m above from bottom of the lysimeter. GPR reflection surveys were carried out on lysimeter at different level of contamination. GPR wave response was studied under each situation and analyzed the reflected waves from bottom of the lysimeter and iron bars. 2D GPR wave simulations were carried out using GPRMAX2D for the same lysimeter conditions. For this purpose, a contamination plume with different EC values (to obtain different contaminant levels) in groundwater was introduced to the model domain. Both modeling result and lysimeter study were revealed that the energy of reflected wave attenuated and disappear the reflected event with increasing contaminant level (increasing EC)