A Study of Dance Usage in Kusa Paba Movie

A dance technique used to supplement the acting can be identified in modern Sinhala films that have taken Indian historical stories as a source. The Sinhala film Kusa Paba, directed by Sunil Ariyaratne, is based on the Kusa Jãtaka in the book Pansiya Panas Jathaka Potha, and it is set in North Indian social culture. The research problem of this study is to investigate how the proposed social culture is revealed through the use of dance in the Kusa Paba film. The central assumption of this study is to identify the use of dance in this film and, secondarily, to recognize the proposed social culture. This study is based primarily on qualitative data and inductive reasoning. The data gathered through the methods of watching the film, library research, and interviews has been presented as a contextual analysis. For those dance scenes, costumes and composition, background decoration, and music styles were well used to represent North Indian culture. The study revealed that South Indian culture is highlighted through the use of dances such as Kudirai Attam, Kathakali and the constant use of basic postures, foot movements and hasta mudras in Bharata Nãtyam. The study concluded that other dance-related features are more indicative of the projected social culture than the dance style and motions employed in the Kusa Paba movie. Accordingly, the research recommends that these negative impacts can be reduced through proper source analysis and through an optimal interrelationship with the film squad to choreograph the cinema dance. DOI: http://doi.org/10.31357/fhss/vjhss.v08i02.0

Knowledge, attitude and practices related to leishmaniasis among healthcare workers in an endemic area in southern Sri Lanka

NA

Sensorial Quality and Physicochemical Properties of Newly Developed Ice-Cream, with Plant Originated Stabilizer; Modified Kithul (Caryota urens) Flour

Aims: Replacement of existing stabilizer in ice cream industry by using modified Kithul (Caryota urens) flour which helps to reduce usage of other ingredients which are used for improve the texture and creaminess of the product was examined. Kithul (Caryota urens) flour has better stabilizing ability than other flour and it can be used in product diversification in the food industry. The objective of this study was to use modified Kithul (Caryota urens) flour as a new plant origin stabilizer for the production of ice cream which can be easily applied for ice cream machines. Study Design: Three treatments were prepared as commercial stabilizer based (industrial mixture) as the control (A), and two samples with modified Kithul flour under two condition as without refrigerated (B) and 24 hours refrigerated (C) the modified Kithul flour with milk before preparing ice cream. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Biosystems Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture and Plantation Management, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, between June 2019 and January 2020. Methodology: Three samples were evaluated for its sensory properties and selected ice cream sample from the sensory evaluation (Treatment B) was evaluated for proximate composition and evaluated for physicochemical properties vs industrial ice cream as a control. Results: The comparison revealed that modified Kithul flour-based ice cream (Treatment B) was better in terms of low cost of production, high overrun and high overall acceptability in the sensory analysis vs industrial ice cream (Treatment A). Conclusion: According to the results of the evaluation of quality attributes, without refrigerated milk-modified Kithul flour mixture before making ice cream is better than the industrial ice cream due to their low cost of production, high overrun and high overall acceptability in sensory analysis

Sri Lankan Journal of Anaesthesiology 17(1) : 42 – 44 (2009) AUDIT AUDIT ON ORGANOPHOSPHATE POISONING REQUIRING INTENSIVE CARE UNIT ADMISSION

Organophosphates (OP) inhibits both cholinesterase and pseudo cholinesterase activities. The inhibition of acetyl cholinesterase causes accumulation of acetyl choline at synapses and over stimulation of muscarinic and cholinergic activities. The mortality rate is 3-25 % (2). Early diagnosis and appropriate treatment is life saving. The clinical course of OP is very severe and may require intensive care management. Materials and methods: A retrospective audit was performed of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admissions at General Hospital Nuwara Eliya for a period of six months from 01 st of October 2007 to 31 st of March 2008. 31 patients were included. The diagnosis was made from th

Linear and non-linear interdependence of EEG and HRV frequency bands in human sleep

The characterisation of functional interdependencies of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) stands an evergrowing interest to unveil electroencephalographic (EEG) and Heart Rate Variability (HRV) interactions. This paper presents a biosignal processing approach as a supportive computational resource in the estimation of sleep dynamics. The application of linear, non-linear methods and statistical tests upon 10 overnight polysomnographic (PSG) recordings, allowed the computation of wavelet coherence and phase locking values, in order to identify discerning features amongst the clinical healthy subjects. Our findings showed that neuronal oscillations θ, α and σ interact with cardiac power bands at mid-to-high rank of coherence and phase locking, particularly during NREM sleep stages

Comparison between human awake, meditation and drowsiness EEG activities based on directed transfer function and MVDR coherence methods

This study examined the electroencephalogram functional connectivity (coherence) and effective connectivity (flow of information) of selected brain regions during three different attentive states: awake, meditation and drowsiness. For the estimation of functional connectivity (coherence), Welch and minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) methods were compared. The MVDR coherence was found to be more suitable since it is both data and frequency dependent and enables higher spectral resolution, while Welch’s periodogram-based approach is both data and frequency independent. The directed transfer function (DTF) method was applied in order to estimate the effective connectivity or brain’s flow of information between different regions during each state. DTF enables to identify the main brain areas that initiate EEG activity and the spatial distribution of these activities with time. Analysis was conducted using the EEG data of 30 subjects (ten awake, ten drowsy and ten meditating) focusing on six main electrodes (F3, F4, C3, C4, P3, P4, O1 and O2). For each subject, EEG data were recorded during 5-min baseline and 15 min of a specific condition (awake, meditation or drowsiness). Statistical analysis included the Kruskal–Wallis (KW) nonparametric analysis of variance followed by post hoc tests with Bonferroni alpha correction. The results reveal that both states of drowsiness and meditation states lead to a marked difference in the brain’s flow of information (effective connectivity) as shown by DTF analyses. In specific, a significant increase in the flow of information in the delta frequency band was found only in the meditation condition and was further found to originate from frontal (F3, F4), parietal (P3, P4) and occipital (O1, O2) regions. Altogether, these results suggest that a change in attentiveness leads to significant changes in the spectral profile of the brain’s information flow as well as in its functional connectivity and that these changes can be captured using coherence and DTF analyses

Sleep Onset Detection with Multiple EEG Alpha-Band Features: Comparison Between Healthy, Insomniac and Schizophrenic Patients

In the past several studies have evaluated the human sleep onset (wake to sleep transition) using the electroencephalographic (EEG) measurements. This paper has evaluated the detection accuracy of sleep stages for multiple features based on the EEG alpha activity, during SO in healthy, insomniac and schizophrenic patients. The features include topographic features such as Directed Transfer Function, Full frequency DTF, Welch Coherence, Minimum Variance Distortionless Response Coherence and Partial Directed Coherence. Sleep stages Wake, NREM (Non-rapid Eye Movement) stages 1 and 2 were classified using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) classifier and evaluated using classification accuracy. The results suggest that using topographic set of features yield an agreement of 81.3 % with the whole database classification of human expert

Variance of Arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea) Starch Granule Morphology among Five Different Provinces in Sri Lanka

Arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea) is an underutilized tuber crop in Sri Lanka that produces a gluten-free, easily digestible starch. This research aimed to determine the variance of arrowroot starch granular morphology among the plants grown in five different provinces (Western, North-Western, Southern, Sabaragamuwa, Uva). Arrowroot starch granules were observed using the light microscope and scanning electron microscope. Oval, irregular globular and spherical shapes were the predominant granule shapes for arrowroot. The mean percentage of oval shaped granules ranged between 48.46 % - 59.34 %.          The length and width of the granules were not significantly different among the five provinces. The length of the starch granules ranged between 42.91 - 45.86 µm while the width ranged between 30.81 – 32.32 µm. Arrowroot flour samples from five different provinces in Sri Lanka were not significantly different with regard to the starch granular morphology and therefore, arrowroot flour can be utilized in the local food industry without concerning their geographical locations

Information flow and coherence of EEG during awake, meditation and drowsiness

A comparison of coupling (information flow) and coherence (connectedness) of the brain regions between human awake, meditation and drowsiness states was carried out in this study. The Directed Transfer Function (DTF) method was used to estimate the coupling or brain's flow of information between different regions during each condition. Welch and Minimum Variance Distortionless Response (MVDR) methods were utilised to estimate the coherence between brain areas. Analysis was conducted using the EEG data of 30 subjects (10 awake, 10 drowsiness and 10 meditating) with 6 EEG electrodes. The EEG data was recorded for each subject during 5 minutes baseline and 15 minutes of three specific conditions (awake, meditation or drowsiness). Statistical analysis was carried out which consisted of the Kruskal-Wallis (KW) non-parametric analysis of variance followed by post-hoc tests with Bonferroni alpha-correction. The results of this study revealed that a change in external awareness led to substantial differences in the spectral profile of the brain's information flow as well as it's connectedness