ARS - 2012
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/170
Browse
Item Recent Trends in a Traditional Industry in Sri Lanka: A Case Study on Handloom Industry in Rathnapura District(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Rathnasekara, S.R.L.S.The handloom industry has a longstanding history in Sri Lanka. The handloom process which is enriched through various natural resources using average technology in the past, has been subjected to certain modern changes in recent times. The objective of this study is to identify the trends at the regional level with regard to the traditional industry of handlooms. Ayagama, Theppanawa and Moragala were selected as areas of investigation. Primary data were collected through questionnaires from a survey of 30 families under the purposive sampling method. Additional data were also gathered from literary sources. The conclusion arrived at through the study proves that there is a decline in the handloom industry due to a variety of reasons. The difficulties in accessing the necessary raw materials required for the industry and the variety of other opportunities available in making better living conditions from different levels of economic activities have led to the decline of this traditional craft as a viable industry.Item Using Melody Matching Model Based on a String Pattern Matching Mechanism of Frequency Contours(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Warnaweera, K.P.P.S.Music is a universal language. Music originated and evolved with developing demands of the human and the rapid discoveries in science and technology. Sharing music over World Wide Web is an upcoming trend among computer users. Simply, the music database owners are using the web to fulfill the needs of the people who are fed up of searching for their favorite music over different methods. Sometimes those music search engines provide enough facility to find the piece of music that the user wants but sometimes not. Because it is hard to implement a music search engine which can provide all types of searching techniques that users like to have, it makes it inconvenient for music lovers to search music by reminding metadata of a song such as song title, author name, lyrics, etc. Melody can be considered as the most captivating and memorable feature of a song because the human brain can easily capture the melody rather than remembering metadata of a song. Therefore, Query by Humming (QBH) refers to music information retrieval systems where short audio clips of singing or humming act as queries. Melody is considered as the most important feature in the queries and the songs. This system proposes a QBH system Using Melody Matching Model based on a string pattern matching mechanism of frequency contours, which is used to align the input pitch frequency contour with the original music pitch frequency contour.Item සාලිය කුමරුට සිහසුන අහිමිවුයේ සැඩොලියකට පෙම්බැඳි නිසාම ද?(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Kumari, T.R.A.D.Item An Empirical Analysis of Globalization and Economic Integration in the Nigerian Economy(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Ola, A.E.Trade openness and economic integration are believed to stimulate economic growth due to their influence in integrating world economies and generating better markets. This study examines the implication of globalization and economic integration in Nigeria. Data sourced from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other institutes were analyzed through the employment of multiple regression model of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). A unique long-run relationship between economic performances, foreign direct investment (FDI), Exchange Rate, Government fiscal status and trade openness for Nigeria were established. The analysis shows 80.3% of economic performance is explained by FDI and other explanatory variables. In addition, FDI, exchange rate and government fiscal status impact positively on the economy of Nigeria. However, the trade openness impacts negatively, indicating that Nigeria must be properly keyed into the process of globalization or be marginalized. The study therefore recommends amongst others, that the country should develop her infrastructural and institutional capacities to encourage investment and exports.Item Measuring the Impact of Web Extracting Techniques with Special Reference to News Publishing Industry(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Ranasinghe, K.; Saheer, M.M.Browsing for a certain topic in the internet will probably show up more than hundreds of results. The query is how efficiently do we use those findings? Going through all the findings will be a hideous challenge for any human being, but failure to read everything, may result in wrong interpretations. Presently there are millions of news websites available on the web. But each website might have its own style and totally rely on the personal attitudes of the site owner. This may lead to glossing over some of the important news/events happening around the world. The objective of this paper is to explore how to make use of the web data in an effective manner and produce a framework to support the web search. It is a common belief that by applying web extracting techniques one can enhance the web search and save the time of the user. Web extracting techniques are used to extract contents from various sources, combine them and reuse them in a productive way. The news publishing industry is chosen as the research area of the study.The research methodology was qualitative and basically influenced by online articles, books and journals written on web extraction and also, monitoring over fifty of popular news websites. The study suggests that using web extraction techniques in news publishing may help to gather all the news/events happening around the world and publish in one place. This will be cost effective and less time consuming. Moreover, Information Technology personnel are not required to handle the system. As part of the research, a news website has been created according to the suggested research framework, as a working prototype.Item ඉන්දියානු ඉතිහාසය ගොඩනැගීමේදී ශ්රී ලංකාවේ ශාස්ත්රීය මූලාශ්රවලින් ලැබෙන පිටිවහල : ක්රි.පූ. 6 වන සියවස සිට ක්රි.පූ. 4 වන සියවස දක්වා(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Manatunga, D.K.Item ස්ත්රී නිරුවත, සමාජ තහංචියක්ද නොඑසේනම් සමාජ ධූරාවලිය පිළිබඳ දර්ශකයක්ද? (මහනුවර යුගයට අයත් ප්රාථමික මූලාශ්රයයන් ඇසුරෙන් කරන ලද අධ්යයනයක්)(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Koggalage, D.T.Item A Framework for Application of Successful Online Education Systems in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Pathiratne, S.Initially industrialized for providing distance learning programs, online education systems in their existing practices are authoritative systems with proficiencies that match Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. By using them on an enterprise-level basis, numerous Higher Education Institutions are able to take advantage of their powerful functionalities and ERP-like integrative capabilities to put together academic and administrative systems (Twigg 2002). The objectives of this research are to: Classify concepts to quantify online education systems application success; recognize maximum suitable dependent variable as a substitution for online education systems and develop a framework of online education systems.This research is suggesting that it may no longer be significant to still appraise online education systems as only educational technologies in view of the current application environment where new methods of online education systems are currentlyIS’s of strategic significance in numerous Higher Education Institutes (Moul 2002). Online education systems should consequently be typical information systems, i.e. within the standards of information systems assessment research and no longer as educational technology or a novelty. The methodology of this study is mainly quantitative : A questionnaire described as a survey of endusers’ perceptions on e-education systems application was distributed to two groups of end-users comprising lecturers and students from three universities, University of Colombo, University of Vocational Technology (UNIVOTEC), and Sri Lankan partner institute of University of Greenwich (UK).Item අතීත ශ්රී ලංකාවේ විහාරාරාම දේපළ පාලනය පිළිබඳ අධ්යයනයක් (ප්රාථමික මූලාශ්රය ආශ්රයෙන්)(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Ranasimghe, R.M.G.K.Item Effect of Different Border Crops and Fertilizer Regimes on Capsicum Growth and Yield(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Ramesh, M.; Sivachandiran, S.A study was carried out to access the effect of different border crops and fertilizer regime on capsicum plant growth and yield at the Agricultural Research Station, Thirunelvely, in 2009. The experiment was carried in a split plot design with four replicates, consisting of 12 treatment combinations, four different border crops (maize, chrysanthemum, sunflower, finger millet) and three different fertilizer levels (recommended level of inorganic fertilizer with organic fertilizer, ½ recommended level of inorganic fertilizer with organic fertilizer, and only organic fertilizer). Capsicum was planted at recommended spacing. Other management practices were performed as per recommendation of the Department of Agriculture. Growth and yield parameters were recorded and analyzed at α = 0.05 using SAS statistical package. The results revealed that there were no significant differences among growth parameters in the border crop until 4th week after transplanting and thereafter significant differences were observed among growth parameters. Growth parameters significantly differed among the fertilizer treatments. Highest yield was recorded in maize bordered crops at recommended level of inorganic fertilizer with organic fertilizer and the lowest yield was recorded in finger millet bordered crops with organic fertilizer only. However, yield is not significantly different among recommended level of organic fertilizer and half recommended level of organic fertilizer. Lowest level of leaf curl complex incidence was observed under the finger millet bordered crops and the lowest level was observed in maize bordered crops. It can be concluded that capsicum can be cultivated with less incidence of leaf curl with half recommended inorganic fertilizer and maize as a border cropItem Making Nitrogen Enriched Biochar and its Effect on Crop Performance and Soil Properties(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Chandrasoma, H.E.L.J.M.; Weerasinghe, P.; Yapa, P.L.Nitrogen is an essential plant nutrient. Since it is a limiting nutrient in soil, nitrogen based fertilizers are extensively used in agriculture to enhance crop production. Biochar (BC) on the other hand, has a greater surface area and has the ability to retain nutrients. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of N enriched BC as a nitrogen input for tomato under greenhouse conditions. Treatments used were Soil (control), Soil + BC, Soil + 100% N in the form of Urea, Soil+ 100% N in the form of BC ( N enriched biochar), Soil + 75% N in BC, Soil + 50% N in BC and Soil + 25% N in BC. All the pots were equally treated with potassium and phosphorus. Coconut shell charcoal was enriched with N using urea for different rates. Rate of BC application was 5 T/ha. Soil and BC samples were analyzed for pH, Electrical conductivity (EC), organic carbon, available phosphorus and exchangeable potassium prior to the application of treatments. Plant height, fresh weight, dry weight, nitrogen uptake at harvesting and root dry weight were considered as crop parameters. Soil pH, EC, total nitrogen and available nitrogen were determined after harvesting. According to the results, Soil + 75% N treated BC showed the highest plant height and root dry weight. Soil (control) alone and BC + soil showed the lowest plant height, plant fresh and dry weights and nitrogen uptake. Nitrogen enriched BC at 75% N level gave comparable plant dry weight and N uptake with 100% inorganic N application. Root weight was more pronounced in BC with 75% N level and the application of inorganic fertilizer showed poor root weight compared to BC treated plants. Addition of BC raised soil pH and lowered EC. The study showed that the addition of N enriched BC at 75% n could produce comparable dry matter yield with standard NPK fertilizer application. BC addition improved the available N presence in soil at harvesting.Item Finite Difference Approximation for Valuation of Option Prices with Dividend Payments of the Underlying Assets(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Premarathna, L.P.N.D.; Karunathilaka, N.G.A.The development and the expansion of financial derivatives can be considered as the most significant events in finance during the past decade. The main purposes of the derivatives are hedging or providing risk reduction, arbitrage, and speculation. In the 1970s, Black, Scholes, and Merton developed the Black-Scholes partial differential equation considering the no-arbitrage principle for pricing financial derivatives. However, the efficient computation of prices and hedges for derivative products is a major concern for financial institutions since various assumptions and simplifications have to be made in order to obtain an analytical solution of the Black-Sholes equation. Hence, the resulting analytical solution does not reflect the reality. The remedy consists of discretization of the Black- Scholes equations using some numerical technique in order to obtain an approximate solution. Throughout this work, we present some Finite Difference Methods for solving the Black- Scholes model with dividend payments and discuss their convergence properties.Item Readiness for Conducting E-assessments for end-of-semester examination in Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Jayathilake, M.V.M.The use of ICT in assessment, marking and reporting is known as e-assessment. E-assessment provides a good solution when the number of students increase compared with the staff ratio. Eassessment fits with conventional objectives of assessment. Assessments measure the performance of the students compared with the learning objectives of the course. Assessment results are very important for students to identify their performance and show their grades to society and also, for lecturers to take the instructional decisions. Researchers believe that Information Technology offers a powerful tool to improve the assessment criteria. E-assessment is the one of effective tools used in many educational programs. Sri Lanka Institute of Advanced Technological Education (SLIATE) offers Higher National Diploma courses in many disciplines. At the end of each fifteen week semester SLIATE conducts examinations. Student enrollment is increasing each year. But the number of lecturers is not increasing. Therefore student staff ratio is high. This becomes a burning issue when evaluating answer scripts, because it needs a lot of human effort and time. Delays in issuing results is also another problem. Compared with conventional assessment methods, e-assessment provides many advantages such as less human effort for organizing and evaluating answer scripts, and issuing results quickly and at low cost. This study employed the qualitative research method. Conceptual framework for the study was developed based on the literature review and considered key factors are technology, attitudes and assessment methods. Data were gathered through the expert survey, interviews with key stakeholders and questionnaires. The findings are discussed in relation to literature. From analysis of the findings, the key issues affecting e-assessment systems are attitude of the stakeholders and technology infrastructure. Basic technology infrastructures are available but they are inadequate. Various assessment methods are used at the moment from the structured questions and multiple choice questions are easily converted to eassessment methods. Delay in issuing results is mainly based on the high number of answer script in some subjects.Item Current Situation of Information Literacy Pedagogy of Academic Libraries in Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Nawarathne, I.M.Information literacy is the ability of any national to locate, evaluate information, and analyse any problem of day to day life. It is scaffolding and intermingles with primary and higher education. According to the literature search, it is difficult to locate a unique format or curriculum in university level education and thus it is a dysfunctional situation. Information literacy programs have been discussed as the way of implementation to solve this problem. Many heated debates, conferences and seminars have been organized with the help of foreign experts to find a unique pedagogy and curriculum. As a result of development and deployment of Information Technology, information realm permeated the world. Every university has to take steps to include information literacy based credit- bearing courses in the curriculum with the purpose of making heuristic-reliant students in the university. The researchers observed available Information Literacy programs in all of the university libraries and found that they were unable to find a common structure relating to Information Literacy. Most of the university libraries have started this program under various names. It is also found that the curriculum and the assessment test varied from university to university. The researchers hope to apply their recommendations to the academic libraries to make a unique format and provide collaborative information to design literacy programs.Item Facial (Prosopic) Index in Purana Inhabitants at the Foot of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Chandimal, K.M.; Yasawardene, S.G.; Adikari, G.The physical dimensions of the human body depend on age, gender, race, geography, nutrition and many more factors. Cephalometry is an important branch of anthropometry which involves measurements of the head and face. The facial (prosopic) dimension is an important cephalometric parameter which is used to describe gender and racial differences. The Purana population in Sigiriya who face imminent threat of extinction, traces their ancestry to the times of the Sinhalese kings of the 5th century A.D. This study was carried out to describe facial morphological characteristics of Purana inhabitants living at Talkote, Diyakepilla, Pidurangala and Nagalaweva- Purana villages at the foot of Sigiriya. One hundred and seven (107) adult males and 208 adult female Purana inhabitants belonging to Purana pedigree were included in the study. The individual selection was based on verbal pedigree analysis, and pedigree was traced back to at least three generations and those who had craniofacial deformities were excluded from the study. The length and width of the face of the selected Purana inhabitants were measured by spreading caliper, and the facial index was calculated. In general, Purana female measurements were less compared to male. The face length ranged from 9.5cm to 13.5cm in males and 8.5cm to 12.8cm in females. The face width ranged from 10cm to 16cm in males and 10cm to 14cm in females. Among Purana inhabitants, a minimum facial index of 68 and a maximum of 100 was observed in both genders. The maximum facial index was 99 in males and 100 in females. The mean facial index of male inhabitants was 92 ± 5.1 while female was 90 ± 6.2. The results indicate that the dominant type of facial shape in Purana male and female is leptoprosopic, being 67% in male and 61% in female. Least common type was hypereuriprosopic in male (2%) and female (6%).The difference in mean morphology (facial index), facial length and facial width between the two genders was significant (P<0.05). The facial morphology of male and female Purana inhabitants being leptoprosopic differs from the reported facial morphology of Indian male as mesoprosopic and female as mesoprosopic (Vaishalia et al 2011). This study confirms the ethnic diversity of facial dimensions among different groups and races of human population and gender based variation.Item Investigating the Sociocultural Competence of Learners of English as a Second Language in Sri Lanka through Sri Lankan English Borrowings in the Classroom(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Fernando, D.The vocabulary of Sri Lankan English (SLE) is an extremely dynamic area of language, as revealed in written as well as in spoken texts, in formal and informal registers. In particular, borrowings from other languages are used widely in speech, and in written genres such as newspapers and creative writing. However, in the English language teaching classroom, anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a tendency to avoid the use of SLE borrowings by teachers and material writers. Such a negative attitude towards SLE borrowings can hinder the development of learners’ vocabulary as well as their sociocultural competence. Sociocultural competence as defined by Celce-Murcia et al (1995, 2007) is a significant learner competence which refers to the ability to use the target language in a socioculturally appropriate way. As the vast majority of English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in Sri Lanka need to use, and to display competence, within a SLE speaking community, neglecting the acquisition of SLE vocabulary can be seen as a hindrance to gaining proficiency in the language. Within this context, this study investigates the use of SLE borrowings in the classroom using qualitative and quantitative approaches. With its theoretical underpinnings located in studies in World Englishes and in the principles of English Language Teaching, this study aims to shed light on the extent of the usage, or non-usage, of SLE borrowings in English language teaching, as well as possible reasons for such practices in the ESL classroom in Sri Lanka.Item Providing Support for Visually impaired ESL Learners of Jaffna University(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Bakeerathan, M.The term “visually impaired” in this study refers to the learners, who are deprived of total and partial visual perception. Since the theme of the research symposium deals with the multi-faceted nature of research, the present study has been carried out to investigate the support that can be rendered to the visually impaired English as a Second Language (ESL) learners of the University of Jaffna. The ESL teachers claim that among the four language skills, reading and writing, along with enriching vocabulary are found to be the most challenging tasks for them to deal with. As the visually impaired learners are not treated separately, the learners face numerous problems in using printed teaching materials, taking notes from the lectures, producing handwritten work and assignments, identifying spelling, decoding the meanings of unknown words and reading graphic material like, graphs, charts, maps and tables. Since, it has been a longstanding issue of the teachers of English, the present study was designed to investigate how the teachers of English can provide support for the visually impaired learners in their language learning. The subjects of the study include twenty visually impaired students including both undergraduates and graduates who passed out from the University of Jaffna. Questionnaires were administered by the teachers of English and in-depth interviews were conducted among the participants in order to collect data for the study. The findings suggest a number of practical strategies that can provide support for the visually impaired learners of English. Apart from the usual practice of allowing the learners to use tape recorders in the lecture halls, the teachers can be guided to provide teaching materials incorporated with Braille, screen readers, microcapsule papers and thermoforms. The learners can also be guided to use laptops to take notes and do assignments. The administration can assist by recruiting technical assistants with a fair knowledge of Braille to assist the teachers and learners.Item MICE Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka and its Development(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Chinthaka, H.B.U.After eradicating terrorism, the country's growing tourism industry has presented a huge opportunity for Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE), which attract the high-end business travelers. As Sri Lanka is not new to MICE tourism, the country has huge potential to attract more numbers in the future. This segment of tourism is important to increase the overall number of tourist arrivals. MICE tourism has several components, and the country gets sufficient numbers for small meetings as well as incentive categories. However, we need to work in the area of international conferences to attract more numbers. The main objective of this research is to find out the possibilities of development of MICE tourism industry in Sri Lanka. Primary data were gathered by interviews while the secondary data were gathered by publications and internet websites. The Sri Lanka Exhibition and Convention Centre (SLECC) and BMICH are the main venues for exhibitions and conventions. The need for a spacious complex has risen due to the space crunch at the key venues. However, the major renovation which is currently taking place at BMICH will increase the capacity and strength of this brand of tourism. The infrastructure capacity and facilities should be boosted to derive more benefits from this sector. The country needs more large scale conference facilities, as the tourism industry continues to grow. Necessary lands and locations should be made available for the MICE sector to contribute to the industrial growth.Item කෝට්ටේ යුගයේ රාජත්වය(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Sudharmawathie, J.M.Item Study of Effluents from University Chemistry Laboratories and Development of Possible Methods to Recover Chromium from Laboratory Effluents(University of Kelaniya, 2012) Gamage, D.G.C.L.; de Silva, R.C.L.The laboratories of the Department of Chemistry at University of Kelaniya, like any other university chemistry laboratory, generate laboratory effluents daily as a result of their general course of activities. As most of the laboratories are teaching laboratories, the laboratory effluents contain many different types of chemicals (in bulk but known quantities) resulting from the experiments designed for the undergraduate students. These laboratory effluents are discarded through the university drain system without any pre-treatment as the Department does not have a proper disposal mechanism, contributing to environmental pollution. Therefore, paying attention to laboratory waste management strategies has become an important aspect of a healthy lifestyle. In this study, laboratory effluents of the Department of Chemistry, University of Kelaniya were characterized using the characterization parameters: pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and heavy metal ion concentrations which are used frequently. For this, laboratory effluent samples were collected from the laboratory classes conducted by the Department in the academic year 2009/2010. According to the results, the laboratory effluents had very acidic and basic pH values (ranging from pH 0.9-10), very high COD values (varying from 40-1600 mg O2/L), and high heavy metal ion concentrations (Cu-298.5 mg/L, Cr-933.6 mg/L, Pb-85.8 mg/L, Ni-3151.0 mg/L). These results suggest that treatment of the laboratory effluents is essential in order to minimize the level of pollutants discharged to the environment by the Department. This study also makes an effort to develop a simple and cost effective treatment method for the heavy metal chromium which is present in the laboratory effluents of the Department of Chemistry, University of Kelaniya, as a model study. Chromium is considered as a major toxic pollutant and it has many adverse effects on environment and human health. Chromium in waste effluents can be removed using the hydroxide precipitation method. By using this method, chromium present in the laboratory effluents was removed with a removal efficiency of 97% - 98%. Therefore, hydroxide precipitation method can be suggested to be used by the Department for removal of chromium from the laboratory effluents as it would be a simple and cost effective method with high efficiency. In order to recover removed chromium from the laboratory effluents, a further purification step was carried out. In this step, waste chromium was converted into barium chromate which can be reused. This purified form gave a satisfactory yield of 75% chromium content. As a suggestion to reduce the amount of chromium discarded as waste by the Department, the possibility of using low concentrated chemical solutions containing chromium for undergraduate experiments has also been proven in this study.