Design of a Tree Ring Structure Analysis System to Estimate the Accurate Age of Tree Species in Sri Lanka

Determination of an age in a particular tree species can be considered as a vital factor in forest management.In this research we have introduced a novel scheme to determine the accurate age of the tree species in Sri Lanka.This is initially developed for the tree species called‘Hora’(Dipterocarpus zeylanicus)in wet zone of Sri Lanka.Here the core samples are extracted and further analyzed by means of the different image processing techniques such as Gaussian kernel blurring,use of Sobel filters,double threshold analysis,Hough line tran sformation and etc.The operations such as rescaling,slicing and measuring are also used in line with image processing techniques to achieve the desired results.Ultimately a Graphical user interface(GUI)is developed to cater for the user requirements in a user friendly environment.It has been found that the average growth ring identification accuracy of the proposed system is 93%and the overall average accuracy of detecting the age is 81%.Ultimately the proposed system will provide an insight and contributes to the forestry related activities and researches in Sri Lanka.

Genetic variation of sand flies(Diptera:Psychodidae)in Gampaha and Kurunegala districts of Sri Lanka:Complementing the morphological identification

Objective:To identity the variation of sand flies in the Gampaha and Kurunegala districts of Sri Lanka and to assess DNA barcoding as a complementing method for morphological identification.Methods:A total of 38441 sand flies were collected from selected localities in Gampaha and Kurunegala districts using standard entomological techniques from May 2017 to December 2018.Specimens were identified using morphological features and compared with mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase subunitⅠgene-based DNA barcoding as an alternative tool.Results:Morphological and molecular identification confirmed the presence of four species under two genera(Phlebotomus and Sergentomyia).Phlebotomus argentipes was the predominant species,followed by Sergentomyia(S.)punjabensis,S.babu insularis,and an unidentified Sergentomyia sp.Phlebotomus argentipes showed a clear genetic differentiation from other species.S.babu insularis and S.punjabensis showed a higher genetic affinity to each other than the unidentified species.The unidentified Sergentomyia species is morphologically similar to S.zeylanica,but differs only in clavate gonostyle.Conclusions:DNA barcoding is an effective technique for the identification of sand flies.Further studies using molecular techniques will improve the knowledge of the cryptic diversity of Sri Lankan sand fly fauna.Establishing a reliable and standardized identification system for sand fly species in Sri Lanka is recommended.

Design of a Vibration Sensor Based Train Arrival Detection System to Prevent Elephant-Train Accidents in Sri Lanka

At present,Sri Lanka is home to about 5,000-6,000 wild elephants roaming over close to 70%of the country’s land.Despite this blessing,around 150 elephants die each year due to many reasons.The main reasons for the altercations between humans and elephants are the drastic increase in the human population,human encroachment upon elephant territory for agriculture and settlements and unplanned development and transportation efforts.Elephants are long lived herbivores,and their survival depends upon regular migration over large distances to search for food,water,and social and reproductive partners.According to the Sri Lanka railways the average number of elephants that get killed due to elephant-railway accidents is about 9 per year.As a solution for this problem,we have proposed a novel system to pass a signal to indicate the train arrival.The proposed system detects the vibration of the locomotives and after detecting the vibration,alarm system will generate a high frequency signal within the frequency range,where the elephants are sensitive.The proposed system is a low cost device and this can be placed anywhere at any time.Moreover,this project aims to protect elephants from being harmed which usually happen due to various human activities.

A Real-time EMF Measuring System for Mobile Communication Towers in Sri Lanka

Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka is the governing body which is responsible for the frequency allocation and monitoring the unauthorized Electromagnetic frequency(EMF)signal transmitting violations.However,in Sri Lanka,currently there is not any proper mechanism to monitor the radiation hazard level and its impact to the people living in the vicinity of mobile communication towers.There are approximately 7000 mobile transmitting towers in Sri Lanka to date and the used frequency range lies between 900 MHz to 3 GHz for mobile communication.Over the last few decades,many of the health hazard conditions were reported due to the radiation of those harmful EMFs.To cater this problem,a portable real time EMF signal strength measuring system with a radiation hazard level indicator was developed to monitor the EMF level and its impact.The proposed system operates with three intermediate frequency bands(i.e.900 MHz,1800 MHz and 2400 MHz)and it’s capable of measuring the power density and the radiation hazard level at that particular point which is being measured.Moreover,the corresponding radiation hazard level is indicated with reference to the standard power density levels published by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection(ICNIRP^(*)).The system works with the overall accuracy of 88%in terms of identifying the power densities and its corresponding radiation hazard levels.

Early Identification and Visualization of Parkinsonian Gaits and their Stages Using Convolution Neural Networks and Finite Element Techniques

Parkinson’s Disease(PD)is a neurodegenerative disease which shows a deficiency in dopaminehormone in the brain.It is a common irreversible impairment among elderly people.Identifying this disease in its preliminary stage is important to improve the efficacy of the treatment process.Disordered gait is one of the key indications of early symptoms of PD.Therefore,the present paper introduces a novel approach to identify pa rkinsonian gait using raw vertical spatiotemporal ground reaction force.A convolution neural network(CNN)is implemented to identify the features in the parkinsonian gaits and their progressive stages.Moreover,the var iations of the gait pressures were visually recreated using ANSYS finite element software package.The CNN model has shown a 97%accuracy of recognizing parkinsonian gait and their different stages,and ANSYS model is implemented to visualize the pressure variation of the foot during a bottom-up approach.

Diabetes Self-Care Activities and Glycaemic Control among Adults with Type 2 Diabetes in Sri Lanka: A Cross-Sectional Study

The prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and its complications continue to rise across the globe including Sri Lanka. Diabetes Self-care activities (DSCA) are promising behaviors to reduce complications and to achieve good glycaemic control. There is a lack of data regarding DSCA and its association with glycaemic control among adults with T2DM in Sri Lanka. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among purposively selected adults with T2DM (n = 300) in a teaching hospital, Sri Lanka to determine the association between DSCA and glycaemic control. Apre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire which includes socio-demographic, diabetes-related information and Summary of Diabetes Self-care activities questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test. General diet (Healthy eating plan) (OR = 3.04, 95% CI = 1.04 - 8.88, p = 0.034), Physical activities (OR = 2.26, 95% CI = 1.29 - 3.97, p = 0.004), Medication adherence (OR = 2.87, 95% CI = 1.24 - 6.64, p = 0.011) were significantly associated with HbA1c. Medication adherence was significantly associated with poor fasting blood sugar (FBS) (OR = 1.90, 95% CI = 1.07 - 3.37, p = 0.028). The findings highlight the need for health professionals to implement health education programs on diabetes self-care activities for adults with T2DM to enhance their adherence to DSCA, as well as to maintain glycemic control.

Case Study: Finding Better Solutions for Municipal Solid Waste Management in a Semi Local Authority in Sri Lanka

This case study investigates better and sustainable waste management for a given area in Sri Lanka. A questionnaire and field surveys were performed in a small local authority adjacent to Colombo, the capital city. Composting for organic waste and incineration for non-compostable waste were found to be important treatment methods for solid-waste management. The reduction of solid waste is a critical process for sustainable management. Currently, people in the area do not have much interest in waste recycling to decrease the cost of solid-waste management. It was therefore concluded that raising people’s awareness would play an important role in the reduction of solid waste. A suitable waste-management plan needs to be made for each community and area. The situation and conditions of every area is different, therefore each community needs to make an effort to find its own better and sustainable solid-waste management process.

Identification of Extracts Responsible for the Effect of Tick Reppeling Activity of Turmeric

Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) is one of the essential condiments all over the world. Turmeric is an important medicine in the eastern medical systems and its therapeutic properties have been well recorded. Curcumin, commonly called diferuloyl methane (hydrophobic polyphenol), was studied extensively for its biological properties. Sri Lankan turmeric records relatively higher percentage (up to 9%) of curcumin. The bioactive compounds with insecticidal or pesticidal activity were studied from the Sri Lankan turmeric as there is an increasing demand for natural products to control ticks and fleas in dogs against the chemicals that induce some secondary effects. Fifty grams (50 g) of dried coarsely ground turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) was subjected to sequential extractions with four different solvents in ascending order of polarity using Soxhlet apparatus. The treatments consisted of solvent-fractionated turmeric extracts from hexane, dichloromethane (CH2Cl2), ethyl acetate (EtOAc) and Methanol (CH3OH) dissolved in the water to 100 ppm. The test carried out using a modified olfactometer and the degree of repellency of common tick species Rhipicephalus sanguineus was recorded. The hexane extract from dried turmeric powder showed the highest repellence of 80% whereas other fractions showed lesser repellence. Further studies in the direction of purification, dose dependent repellency and persistency.

Investigating the Impact of Familiarity and Product Conditions on The Ease of Use of a Product

Ease of use is one of the main criteria that customers consider when making a purchase decision.To provide a pleasant experience to the customers,offering products or services consisting of advanced features and functions is no longer enough,due to the existing competition in the global market.In reality,the ease of use of any product is influenced by the conditions of the product and the familiarity of the user.This study examines the influence of the familiarity and the product conditions on the ease of use of a product.This only explains how the conditions of the product and the familiarity of the user,influence on the ease of use of a product when the usage hours of a product increases.A case study would be conducted to validate the results.The results of this study indicate that in the case where both the product conditions and the familiarity has been varied,the ease of use of the product has been increased from 0.229 to 0.380 gradually within the 10 weeks period.Through these results valuable guidance could be obtained by the manufacturers to identify how the ease of use level of a product deviates from the standard level when the usage hours of the product would increase.

Time Series Forecasting: Analysis of LSTM Neural Networks to Predict Exchange Rates of Currencies

The global financial and economic market is now made up of several structures that are powerful and complex.In the last few decades,a few techniques and theories have been implemented that have revolutionized the understanding of those systems to forecast financial markets based on time series analysis.However still,none has been shown to function successfully consistently.In this project,a special form of Neural Network Modeling called LSTM to forecast the foreign exchange rate of currencies.In several different forecasting applications,this method of modelling has become popular as it can be defined complex non-linear relationships between variables and the outcome it wishes to predict.In compare to the stock market,exchange rates tend to be more relevant due to the availability of macroeconomic data that can be used to train the network to learn the impact of particular variables on the rate to be predicted.The information was collected using Quandl,an economic and financial platform that offers quantitative indicators for a wide variety of countries.Model is compared with three different metrics by exponential moving average and an autoregressive integrated moving average.then compare and validate the ability of the model to reliably predict future values and compare which of the models predicted the most correctly.

Reliability Indices Evaluation of LV Distribution System and Inclusion of Protective Devices for Reliability Improvement

This paper analyzes the reliability of low voltage(LV)distribution system of the Sri Lankan power system.Performance of LV distribution systems where mainly domestic consumers depend on the individual components of the system.Failure rates of elements of the system are calculated based on the historical data of the LV distribution system in a semi-urban area.Load point reliability indices are calculated using the analytical method.Consumer-oriented reliability parameters and energy not served,and its cost are determined.As a method of improvement of reliability,inclusion of fuses to the lateral feeders of the main feeder is proposed.Load point reliability indices,consumer-oriented reliability indices,and energy not served are calculated for the distribution system with fuses in lateral feeders.The results are compared with the reliability indices of the present system and analyzed.

Computational Study of Cymatics with Experimental Analysis

Cymatics is a visual representation of sound and vibrations,on surfaces of plates,diaphragms,and membranes in the forms of auditory-images.The surfaces that are exposed to these vibrations are sprinkled with fine particles that accumulate at nodes,to create visualizations of specific geometry unique to the particular frequency.This paper discusses the designing of an experimental platform,dedicated towards observing the behavior of cymatics,through analysis of such visualizations(Chladni patterns).This is further investigated by performing a numerical modelling using finite element simulation.Two millimeter thickness Aluminum(Al)plates of three shapes consisting of surfaces with equal areas were used for both experimental and finite element analysis(FEA).FEA was performed using ANSYS simulation software and patterns were derived for different vibrational frequencies.The results demonstrated that the 60%of the experimental imagery conforms with the visualization generated by ANSYS software.Additionally,the lowest average frequency differences with respect to the simulation results an average deviation for similar images was found to be 9.2%and 2.8 mm for the triangular shape plate,validating that the shape of the plate plays a paramount role in cymatics analysis.An image processing technique was used to determine the deviation between the images created by experimental platform and FEA for all the three shapes.The results demonstrate that Chladni patterns are best represented by a triangular shaped plate.

Failure Analysis of a Crank Hinge in a Guillotine Machine

Guillotine machines are used to cut bulk quantities of paper,often thousands at a time.More the number of papers to be cut at once,more load is required to cut.This machine undergoes a frequent failure of one of its hinges,which prevents the operation of the machine.A combination of torsional forces and bending mo-ments are acting on the hinge when operating.Torsional stresses induced due to the friction between the con-tacting surfaces of the crank rod and the hinge.The bending moment induced due to the alternating motion and the load acted upon the cutting mechanism.The crank transforms the rotational movement into a translational motion of the blade,which results in the formation of a cyclic load in the form of a sinusoidal with a mean value not equal to zero.This leads to fail the hinge in the mode of fatigue.Naked eye observations of the fracture surface reviled a clear failure initiation point and striation marks of crack propagation and a sudden fracture re-gion which evident a fatigue failure due to cyclic loading.To redesign the failed hinged to avoid such failure,it is essential to,(i)define and evaluate the stresses developed by the combined loading condition(ii)understand the nature of the cyclic stress induced.The force acting on the hinge was calculated by the law of conservation of momentum created by the blades'inertia and its'supportive structure.It was understood that the mean stress value of the cyclic load is not equal to zero,the modified Goodman diagram is used.Computational simulations are conducted using Finite Element Analysis(FEA)on the ANSYS fatigue tool.By applying the fatigue analysis theories and conducting FEA for stress analysis,the reason for the failure is revealed and then necessary pre-cautions could be taken to prevent such failures in the future.

Design and Development of a Vision-based Hydraulic Operated Mending Machine for Repairing 3W Forks

Three wheelers(3 Ws)are widely used in low and middle-income countries,particularly in Asia Pacific region as a comparatively cheap method to passenger transportation and goods delivery.The frequent use of 3 Ws in day-to-day activities have caused a large number of accidents causing injuries to their passengers.Less research has been carried out to identify the reasons behind 3 W accidents.The survey carried out prior to this research has identified that the stability control and speed control are the two key factors which the 3 W accidents attributed to.3 W fork is the main mechanical element that controls the balance and the stability of the vehicle.A damaged 3 W fork(a physical damage or a slight deformation)unbalances the 3 W and had been identified as one of the reasons for large number of accidents.Therefore,correctly reforming the damaged fork is of paramount importance,when concerning the safety of the 3 Ws.Traditionally,both heat-treating and cold-working techniques are used in the mending processes.Not only this manual-labor repairing process weakens the strength of the fork,but also the profile produced is inaccurate.This paper discusses a hydraulic operated fork mending machine with an image processing technique to reform the damaged forks in 3 Ws.An image comparator-based imaging technique is used for this machine vision-based visually guided fork repairing process.Three cameras have been used to capture the images from three perpendicular directions.A contour sketch of the original fork(before the deformation occurs)has been compared against the faulty fork,to assist the worker to carry out the repairing process.The preliminary experimentations have shown that the proposed technique can improve the repositioning of the camber angle by repairing the damaged fork.

Automated Embroidery Retrofit for Sewing Machines

Machine embroidery is a multi-step process with many variables that govern the quality of the final product.In Sri Lanka a few large-scale factories use machine embroidery process.They import heavy and very expensive machines from the other countries in the world.The main disadvantage of these machines is,they are not suitable for production of small order quantities due to high cost.Also,these machines and the required software for the designing and operating process are comparatively expensive.Small scale apparel factories and domestic industrialists cannot afford the high cost of hardware and software.Besides,it requires persons with high skills for design,operation and maintenance.There are a few domestic type automated embroidery machines,but those are exorbitant.The present study aims to design and fabricate retrofit for ordinary sewing machine that is capable of performing given embroidery pattern.The retrofit comprises of an frame which can be moved in X and Y directions by three controlling motors.The design of the embroidery is converted to a G-code using GBRL software and then the microcontroller governs the movement of the frame to produce the embroidery.The retrofit designed and developed performed embroidery function and the quality of the output was checked and it was found to be satisfactory as far as first conceptual model is concerned.Further development work is required to improve user requirements and technical requirements including the increase of speed of operation which may be done with synchronization of the three motors.

Effects of Crosswind on an Automobile Under Dynamic Conditions

This paper presents results of a series of experiments carried out on models of a car and a truck in a wind tunnel to observe the pressure coefficient variation when the truck was overtaken by the car.However,conventional wind tunnels are not equipped to measure the yaw moment and side force created due to pressure difference created as a result of the interaction of two vehicles and the cross wind.An additional attachment for the wind tunnel was designed and built to measure the yawing moment and the side force experienced by the car when the cross wind is applied.The attachment consists of a"top plate"which is independent from the wind tunnel frame and free to rotate.The car model is fixed to the"top plate"the top plate is connected to the base plate via a load measuring shaft which is connected to load cells that enable to measure the yaw moment.The pressure coefficient variation was measured by a series of pressure tapings provided by the circumference of the car.The two models were tested independently in the wind tunnel for their pressure coefficient variation.It was found that the pressure coefficient around the car varies substantially when it is overtaking the truck.It was also observed that when the cross wind is applied the yawing moment and the side force on the car increases with the air speed.The attachment was calibrated prior to the investigation and have been able to obtain consistent results.To relate the observations to real world conditions,further investigations are necessary.

Developing herbicide resistant Sri-lankan rice(Oryza sativa L.)varieties:An application of Self Organizing Map

Application of high concentrations of post-emergent broad spectrum systemic herbicide,glyphosate is prevalently used to control rice weeds in Asian countries including Sri Lanka.Off target movements of glyphosate adversely affect growth of the rice plant reducing the yield.Inducing herbicide resistance(HR)in cultivated rice is a novel approach to enhance selectivity and crop safety.Studies on induced HR in Sri Lankan rice varieties are limited and studies are required to include HR rice in a cropping program.Ethyl Methyl Sulfonate(EMS),a chemical mutagen is used for functional mutations.The present study is an attempt of raising HR rice lines through conventional breeding methods.A suitable glyphosate concentration was determined by a preliminary study using five rice varieties(Bg300,Bg352,At362,Bg379-2 and H4)and varying glyphosate concentrations(0.25 g/l,0.5 g/l,1 g/l,2 g/l and 3 g/l).Resistance percentage
50%was arbitrary considered as resistant varieties.Complete Randomized Design with three replicates was used in the experiment.Agromorphological characters were recorded for the survived plants.Twelve varieties(Bg359,At362,Bw364,Ld365,Bg366,Bg369,Bg379-2,Bg403,Bg454“Pachcha perumal”,“Kalu heenati”and“Kurulu thuda”)showed natural resistance to glyphosate and fourteen varieties have increased resistance after mutagenesis by EMS(S0-First generation).HR resistance percentage of S1(Second generation)plants was similar to S0 plants indicating HR was transferred to new generation.Conventional statistics was supplemented with Self-Organizing Maps(SOM)to visualize variation of agro-morphological characters under treatment.The result proved that EMS application is an effective method in breeding new rice germplasm with HR and SOM is an important tool for visualizing the multi-dimensional dataset in lower dimensions.

Long Term Salinity Stress Reveals Variety Specific Differences in Root Oxidative Stress Response

Salinity stress induces oxidative stress caused by reactive oxygen species （ROS）： superoxide radicals, hydrogen peroxide （H2O2） and hydroxyl radicals. Activities of both enzymatic and non-enzymatic components of the antioxidant system and related growth parameters were studied in the roots of the salt tolerant rice variety FL478 and the sensitive variety IR29 in response to long term stress （12 d）induced by 50 mmol/L NaCI. The comparative study showed that FL478 maintained higher relative growth rate and lower Na＋/K＋ in the roots than IR29 due to a higher membrane stability index that effectively exclude Na＋. Lower TBARS （thiobarbituric acid reactive substance） content in FL478 roots indicated that its membrane was relatively unaffected by ROS despite high H2O2 content recorded under the salinity stress. Relatively higher superoxide dismutase activity along with a parallel increase in transcript level of superoxide dismutase （Os07g46990） in FL478 indicated that this protein might make a vital contribution to salt stress tolerance. Although the content of ascorbic acid remained unchanged in FL478, the activity of ascorbic peroxidases （APOXs） was reduced comparably in the both varieties. Transcriptomic data showed that a larger number of peroxidase genes were upregulated in FL478 compared to IR29 and several of which might provide engineering targets to improve rice salt tolerance.

A New Paradigm for Waste Classification Based on YOLOv5

Classification of garbage is of paramount importance prior to process them to categorise physically and this process helps to manage wastes by maintaining pollution free environment.Many systems that have capability segregate garbage are on the rise,but efficient and accurate segmentation with recognition mechanisms draw the attention of researchers.A computer vision approach for classifying garbage into respective recyclable categories could be one of the effective and economical ways of processing waste.This project mainly focused on capturing real-time images of a single piece of garbage and classifying it into three divisions:paper,or metal,or biodegradable(food)waste.Each garbage class contains around 2000 images obtained from an open-source dataset and images collected from Google and personally collected custom images.The developed intelligent models provide the effectiveness of the machine and deep learning in classification with structural and non-structural data.The model used was a Convolutional Neural Network(CNN)named YOLOv5.The project showcased vision based approach capable of maintaining an accuracy of 61%.The CNN was not trained to its maximum capacity due to the difficulty of finding optimal hyperparameters,as most of the images were gathered from Google Images.

A Deep Neural Network Model for Upper Limb Swing Pattern to Control an Active Bionic Leg

Leg amputations are common in accidents and diseases.The present active bionic legs use Electromyography(EMG)signals in lower limbs(just before the location of the amputation)to generate active control signals.The active control with EMGs greatly limits the potential of using these bionic legs because most accidents and diseases cause severe damages to tissues/muscles which originates EMG signals.As an alternative,the present research attempted to use an upper limb swing pattern to control an active bionic leg.A deep neural network(DNN)model is implemented to recognize the patterns in upper limb swing,and it is used to translate these signals into active control input of a bionic leg.The proposed approach can generate a full gait cycle within 1082 milliseconds,and it is comparable to the normal(a person without any disability)1070 milliseconds gait cycle.