Evolution, present status and issues concerning small tank systems in Sri Lanka [Small tanks in Sri Lanka: evolution, present status and issues]

Tank irrigationHydrologyWater qualityIrrigation managementWater managementWater distributionWatershedsIrrigation designMaintenanceFarming systemsGovernmental interrelationsSmall scale systemsVillagesHistory

Modelling and Forecasting the Unit Cost of Electricity Generated by Fossil Fuel Power Plants in Sri Lanka

The national grid system which is evolved to deliver electricity must be always kept in balance so that it must have a sufficient production to meet the demand of electricity while minimizing the generation cost. This study presents a statistical time series model for forecasting the Unit Cost (UC) of generation of electricity in fossil fuel power plants by using two approaches namely Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and time series regression. This is conducted as a case study in a Diesel/Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) power plant in Sri Lanka which consists of two sub stations. ARIMA (1,1,0) and ARIMA (2,1,2) were selected as the best models with the lowest Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) under the ARIMA model approach while two dynamic regression models with coefficient of determination (R2) value 0.55 were selected under time series regression approach for Station 1 and Station 2 respectively. The regression model was identified as the best forecasting method for two stations with the minimum Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The forecasts of the future generation cost of electricity are extensively helpful for the national grid system for financial and capacity planning, fuel management and operational planning

Merkel cell carcinoma masquerading as cellulitis: A case report and review of the literature

© 2018 Multimed Inc. Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is an uncommon malignancy of the skin arising from cells located in the deeper layers of the epidermis called Merkel cells. This malignancy rarely presents as a metastatic disease, and the field is therefore deficient in regards to management. We report the case of a 49-year-old woman who presented with a presumptive diagnosis of osteomyelitis of the left fifth digit that was resistant to treatment with antibiotics; she underwent debridement of the digit that revealed MCC and was later to have metastatic disease to her lungs, liver, and musculoskeletal system. The management of MCC, although simple in the early stage of the disease, can become challenging when it is more advanced. Multiple new modalities for its treatment have emerged over the last few years, and more recently, clinical trials are being conducted for the use of immunotherapy agents in the treatment of this malignancy

Correlation of microsynteny conservation and disease gene distribution in mammalian genomes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>With the completion of the whole genome sequence for many organisms, investigations into genomic structure have revealed that gene distribution is variable, and that genes with similar function or expression are located within clusters. This clustering suggests that there are evolutionary constraints that determine genome architecture. However, as most of the evidence for constraints on genome evolution comes from studies on yeast, it is unclear how much of this prior work can be extrapolated to mammalian genomes. Therefore, in this work we wished to examine the constraints on regions of the mammalian genome containing conserved gene clusters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We first identified regions of the mouse genome with microsynteny conservation by comparing gene arrangement in the mouse genome to the human, rat, and dog genomes. We then asked if any particular gene types were found preferentially in conserved regions. We found a significant correlation between conserved microsynteny and the density of mouse orthologs of human disease genes, suggesting that disease genes are clustered in genomic regions of increased microsynteny conservation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The correlation between microsynteny conservation and disease gene locations indicates that regions of the mouse genome with microsynteny conservation may contain undiscovered human disease genes. This study not only demonstrates that gene function constrains mammalian genome organization, but also identifies regions of the mouse genome that can be experimentally examined to produce mouse models of human disease.</p

Irrigation and drainage in the new millennium

Presented at the 2000 USCID international conference, Challenges facing irrigation and drainage in the new millennium on June 20-24 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references.Climate potential in respect to onset, magnitude and risk associated with rainfall for crop production in the Nilwala basin, Southern Sri Lanka was assessed using the daily rainfall of 12 stations scattered in different locations for more than 35 consecutive years (1950-1995). The program CROPWAT was used to assess the irrigation need. It was revealed that rainfall of the basin increases from south to north with increasing elevation and altitude. Within a 70-km distance in the south north gradient, rainfall elevates from 1656 mm at Kekanadura to 4216 mm at Kudawa. The net irrigation requirement of Yala rice in different locations varied from 1012 mm to 1246 mm. It was established that the irrigation need in the Nilwala upper catchment is below 40 % of the total water requirement, but in downstream areas it constitutes above 70% of the total water demand. Therefore both the Yala and Maha seasons in Nilwala downstream areas appeared to be unsuitable for rice cultivation without supplementary irrigation. From April 10th onward until May 20th is the best period for establishment of perennial crops at upper catchment areas. Optimum dates for crop establishment at the mid and lower part of the catchment falls on the 14th meteorological week. It is important to note that delaying crop establishment in Yala by 2 or 3 weeks from the optimum date would result in a considerable increase of irrigation need even in the upper catchment areas; it is not advisable to delay the establishment of Maha rice until October when rice varieties off our month duration are cultivated

An Overlapping Case of Lupus Nephritis and IgG4-Related Kidney Disease

We report a case of a 71-year-old Filipino female who was admitted to the hospital for abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea of 8 days duration. The patient was found to have marked acute kidney injury (AKI), which required hemodialysis in the next 3 days. Extensive workup revealed hematuria, subnephrotic range proteinuria, elevated anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) and elevated total immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels, with normal IgG4 and anti-dsDNA levels. On kidney biopsy, mild membranous glomerulonephritis was found, along with autoimmune tubulointerstitial nephritis (TIN) with a full-house pattern of immune deposits. These findings were suggestive of lupus interstitial nephritis. However, IgG4+ plasma cells were detected in the interstitium by immunostaining, favoring a diagnosis of IgG4-related kidney disease (IgG4-RKD). Our case highlights the difficulty in differentiating lupus nephritis (LN) from IgG4-RKD in some patients, raising the suspicion that these two entities can co-exist

Predicting the effects of deep brain stimulation using a reduced coupled oscillator model

This is the final version. Available on open access from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this recordData Availability: The data analysed in this manuscript is available from MRC BNDU Data Sharing platform at: https://data.mrc.ox.ac.uk/data-set/tremor-data-measured-essential-tremor-patients-subjected-phase-locked-deep-brain DOI: 10.5287/bodleian:xq24eN2KmDeep brain stimulation (DBS) is known to be an effective treatment for a variety of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor (ET). At present, it involves administering a train of pulses with constant frequency via electrodes implanted into the brain. New ‘closed-loop’ approaches involve delivering stimulation according to the ongoing symptoms or brain activity and have the potential to provide improvements in terms of efficiency, efficacy and reduction of side effects. The success of closed-loop DBS depends on being able to devise a stimulation strategy that minimizes oscillations in neural activity associated with symptoms of motor disorders. A useful stepping stone towards this is to construct a mathematical model, which can describe how the brain oscillations should change when stimulation is applied at a particular state of the system. Our work focuses on the use of coupled oscillators to represent neurons in areas generating pathological oscillations. Using a reduced form of the Kuramoto model, we analyse how a patient should respond to stimulation when neural oscillations have a given phase and amplitude, provided a number of conditions are satisfied. For such patients, we predict that the best stimulation strategy should be phase specific but also that stimulation should have a greater effect if applied when the amplitude of brain oscillations is lower. We compare this surprising prediction with data obtained from ET patients. In light of our predictions, we also propose a new hybrid strategy which effectively combines two of the closed-loop strategies found in the literature, namely phase-locked and adaptive DBS