Browsing by Author "Pallegedara, A."

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    Refurbishment of Under-utilized Scientific Equipment for Modern Teaching and Research: Case of a Bio-reactor Upgrade
    (4th International Research Symposium on Pure and Applied Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2019) Pallegedara, A.; Chandrakumara, O.
    We have found that large number of expensive scientific equipment purchased, received under foreign aids, national grants or any other public monetary funds are highly under-utilized in state universities especially those received before ten to thirty-five years. The apparent reasons found were; support and spares are not available to be replaced, venders or the manufacturer no longer available, lack of operational guides available, replacement for damaged parts cannot be found and due to their complexities refurbishments were failed etc. Therefore, we realize the value of saving billions of money to the nation if we could properly regain the operations of those equipment and enabling them with modern requirements for teaching and research in the universities and institutes. Hence we propose the refurbishment of a Bio-reactor (Fermenter); is the machine with enclosed and sterilized environment for making microorganism-controlled products. In the fermentation, fermenter controls critical functions of fermenting process such as temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO) and mixing speed or agitation. The reengineered legacy fermenter was manufactured in 1985 by B.E. Marubishi, Japan and it was out of operation since 25 years. The machine was built entirely with analog controls including signal conditioner. The EPROM in the machine has been exposed to ultraviolet light sources and programs would be erased. The pH and dissolved oxygen sensors are galvanic type. MSU control unit and signal conditioner have been connected with each other via legacy data buses. Refurbishment of the MSU unit and signal conditioner has been bypassed and sensors are connected with newly built electronic circuit with the in house developed software modules. The sensor signals are processed by two micro-controllers and send it to the central raspberry processor. The raspberry-Pi processes the inputs and sends back the signals to control the fermenter. The control signals are again processed by micro-controller and thus it changes the fermenter parameters according to received control signals. The proposed control interface is web-based and it can be accessed anywhere in the world. The IoT conversion could help the students to do their research and practical work in bioengineering conveniently. Scientific Fermenter is an expensive equipment and not easy to afford for a new one. By the proposed research and development project we were able to save around 30 million LKR of public money and also started the teaching of new courses and research projects. Trials and experiments were carried out under well-controlled standard calibrations and setup was aligned with original operational characteristics. Refurbished setup was verified with the set of results obtained compared with that of original electronics and control algorithm given in published data.
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    Socio-Economic Inequalities in Self-Reported Non-Communicable Health Diseases in Sri Lanka
    (19th Conference on Postgraduate Research, International Postgraduate Research Conference 2018, Faculty of Graduate Studies,University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Pallegedara, A.
    Non-communicable health diseases are growing health concern in Sri Lanka with transition from a low income country to a middle income country. Although mortality from infectious diseases has reduced significantly over the years owing to the expansion of public health care facilities, non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetics, cancers, asthma, and hypertension have emerged as the predominant cause of mortality. It is important to understand the socio-economic inequalities in non-communicable health diseases and their determinants in order to provide appropriate information for policy interventions. This study, therefore, explore socio-economic inequalities in self-reported chronic non-communicable health diseases in Sri Lanka. This study uses three waves of Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) data compiled by Sri Lanka Department of Census and Statistics in 2006/07, 2009/10 and 2012/13. HIES is nationwide household cross-sectional survey aimed to cover all 25 districts of Sri Lanka, several northern and eastern districts had been excluded from the surveys in 2006/07, 2009/10 due to the civil conflict which ended only in 2009. HIES collects detailed information on household income, expenditure as well as individual health and educational attributes. The survey respondents were asked if they suffer from non-communicable health diseases. Information from over 147,000 individuals, aged 20 years and over, are used for the analysis. Descriptive statistics, concentration indexes as well as factor decomposition technique are used to measure the inequalities in self-reported non-communicable health disease prevalence. Results from descriptive statistics and concentration indexes indicate that while heart diseases, hypertension and diabetics are more concentrated among the higher income people, asthma is more concentrated among lower income people. Factor decomposition analysis suggest that education level, age, rural-urban location is significantly contributed to inequalities in the self-reported non-communicable health diseases. Therefore, future health policy interventions should target to reduce inequalities in non-communicable health diseases among Sri Lankan adult population