International Symposium on ICT for Sustainable Development (ICTSD 2016)

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Rainfall-Runoff-Inundation (RRI) model for flood analysis in Attanagalu Oya basin, Sri Lanka
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Dikkumbura, H.K.U.S.; Weerasinghe, V.P.A.
Floods are one of the most critical forms of natural hazard in global and local context. In the case of large scale flooding, it is important to identify the flood inundation areas and map the areas that undergo flooding for future flood management plans. This study analyzed rainfall-runoff and inundation in the Attanagalu Oya basin with the Rainfall-Runoff-Inundation (RRI) model that simulates the rainfall-runoff and inundation processes simultaneously based on two-dimensional diffusion wave equations. The applicability of RRI model to simulate flood inundation areas over the Attanagalu Oya basin was also investigated. RRI model simulation was conducted with satellite-based topographical data and daily satellite-based rainfalls for the period of 15th to 18th May of 2010 which was the most recent destructive flood occurred in Sri Lanka.Water depths on slope, water depths on river and river discharges at a specific time step were obtained as output. The model performance was evaluated using satellite-based vector flood map in 2010 obtained from the Disaster Management Centre and river discharge data at Dunamale obtained from the Department of Irrigation, Sri Lanka. The simulation results showed 74.31 % accuracy in downstream flood inundation extent with vector flood map. The simulation under-predicted the flood inundation in upstream areas and tributaries due to the coarse resolution of digital elevation model. The relative error of river discharge data shows some underestimation of simulated flow discharges as it is -20.17 %. The model simulation was found to be capable of obtaining the peak flood inundation extent in downstream of basin due to its flat topography. RRI model can be used for the ungauged basins with no flow data available as its simplicity, requiring only rainfall input.
New trends of internet banking usage Gampaha District, Sri Lanka
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Fernando, K.C.L.
In today’s innovations of information communication technology, banks offer internet banking in wider range such as Online banking , Mobile banking, People pay, e-Statements, bill payments for customers to conveniently access bank services and facilities. The purpose of providing online banking to reduce physical distance between modern world customers and bank. In Sri Lanka commercial banks introduced online banking in 1998. But as a developing country they have faced many problems and taken risk when introducing online banking. This is because of the attitudes of the traditional customer base, lack of technology and skills, large scale of basic capital, competition of foreign banks registered in Sri Lanka, etc. This study was carried out to identify new trends of internet banking, factors that caused the increase in on-line banking and study customer opinion on internet banking. The study area was limited to Gampaha district. Random sampling was done to choose survey sample. Sample size included 150 participants. Primary and secondary data were collected during the survey. Time series data were used to identify trends of online banking. This study was done using a questionnaire and conducting personal interviews. According to data analysis, R-squared value is 0.997 and 0.000 is the sig value of the estimated model. The co-relation value is 0.997. Furthermore there are new trends to use online bill payments & money transfer facilities among Sri Lankan customers. Educational level, customer’s reliability on internet banking, gender, age, & convenient of online banking services, can be identify as a factors which are caused to increase the usage of internet banking. 80% of customers have positive opinion on internet banking. Using time series data, can be identify there is a slowly increasing growth of using internet banking on time in Sri Lanka.
ICT for Sustainable Development
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Wijeyarathne, P.G.
Socio-economic developments will not be sustainable without proper monitoring and controlling. Such development will lead to economic losses and waste of natural resources. Monitoring and controlling requires accurate information on time. Collection of timely information, processing them and distributing among various organizations are essential. Therefore Information and Communication technology (ICT) has a significant role to play in sustainable development. However, the limitation to access to information or “digital divide” is one of the problems to be solved. Collecting required information for decision making should be highly efficient. Data should be collected from people at grass root level and information should reach them quickly too. Data collection through government organizations only will not be sufficient enough. Crowd sourcing is emerging as a promising data collection method. However, accuracy of data collected through crowd sourcing will be a problem. According to the statistics provided by the Telephone Regulatory Commission (TRC) Sri Lanka, there were 718,168 fixed Internet subscribers in Sri Lanka while Mobile Broadband subscribers reached 3,484,079 by March 2016. It is nearly 5 times than the Fixed Internet subscribers. Therefore, mobile computing should be used to reach people in remote areas where fixed communication lines are not available. Internet of Things (IOT) is becoming popular as “the infrastructure of the information society”. IOT allows devices to communicate each other. According to International Telecommunications Union, IOT is a network of physical devices, vehicles and buildings embedded with electronics, software, sensors and actuators that allows them to collect and exchange data. These sensor networks can be used for monitoring and controlling purposes as well as for data collection. Complexity of these technologies should be removed before using them in real world applications where non technical people are engaged in. These technologies help us to collect massive amounts of data within a short period of time. Analyzing and mining these data is essential for decision making where conventional techniques may fail. Big data analysis is an emerging area of study where these issues are addressed. Accordingly, ICT with other necessary analytical tools is becoming a catalyst for sustainable development.
ICT for knowledge construction for undergraduate students in Sri Lankan universities
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Vasanthapriyan, S.; Thuseethan, S.
Interest on how undergraduate students organize and coordinate their work such as assignments, group studies, etc. in collaborative groups through research on ICT supported collaborative learning has increased in recent years. These innovative collaborative platforms encourage students to share ideas, experiences and thought with the others. Our study aimed to explore science faculty students from three universities about the use of web 2.0 for their collaborative learning activities. We collected sample size of 529 student’s opinions which is composed of 189, 175 and 165 from each university. Most of the undergraduate students ( 96.5%) are aware of Web 2.0 and almost using it in their daily life too. Further, 2.9% of the students from the sample do not know about the term Web 2.0 but they are also using it for such collaborative activities. Comparing to the first year students’ (over all 13.01%), special degree students from third (over all 35%) and fourth year (over all 45%) are using this environment for student learning. These results suggest that most of the students are using Web 2.0 tools for their collaborative activities. They mainly use ICT based collaborative environment for chatting and discussion, content creation, file sharing, enjoyment and entertainment of four categories to construct knowledge, share knowledge and improve their learning performances. They mainly face less technological infra structure support from universities (over all 91.29%) which costs students to purchase themselves data offers (76.45% of students from all three universities regularly buy 10GB or more per month) from mobile providers to use within their university residence facilities and in common rooms inside the university premises. These discovered hidden problems and obstacles should be seriously taken into consideration by the university administration to improve the collaborative study environment among students to keep students busy with their learning activities
Indorsing constructivist use of ICT among teacher trainees using a programing language
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Amarathunga, P.A.B.H.; Pathiratne, S.
In the frame of a training course for future edifiers, an ICT-enhanced project, predicated on a Logo learning environment and inspired from a constructivist inculcation philosophy, was undertaken aiming at familiarizing students with the utilization of computer as an implement that can trigger constructivist learning and availing them to adopt an exploratory and constructivist edifying practice. The training practice used in the training course fixated on the trainees’ self-activity and vigorous commitment in lab experimental activities. The mundane feature of the training activities was not the programming language but a constructivist essence of exploit and learning. Through such a process, it was expected that Teacher Trainees would gain individual experiences of investigative and constructivist erudition and would be able to inspire into their future students the same edifying spirit. Trainees were asked to give ordinant dictations to their turtle to draw customary polygons and a circle utilizing kineticism commands. They were emboldened, afore they give injunctive authorizations to the Logo turtle to draw a geometrical figure, to analyses the quandary and to cerebrate about the injunctive authorizations. Very often student work resulted in unexpected erroneous figures on the screen. So students had the opportunity to agnize their errors and to endeavor again. This process was reiterated an abundance of times until students reached the expected result. They were enheartened to endeavor several solutions and keep endeavoring until they prosper, to work with self-action and autonomy and determinately to be queried about the edifying value of those activities. The evaluation of the project was based on  Teacher Trainees´ achievement on the tasks as it was documented.  A 5-point Likert scale quantifying the degree to which students concurred or dissented with verbal expressions regarding the interest and the edifying usefulness of the cognition experience they had working on the tasks.  Answers and explications on open questions given in the form asking them to detect and mention any positive edifying issues they had discovered in that technique and to cerebrate of and report kindred methods for edifying their school subjects  Two case-studies: two edifier-students were enheartened to implement the same activities in their college lecture with their pupils and record consequences and understandings. The evaluation results denoted a positive impact on the students in terms of familiarization with the essence of the projected methodology and of understanding the prospective of ICT for constructivist erudition. The evidence emanating from the two course members, who used and assessed the methodology in a school class, provided inspiriting denotements that the students developed proficient of smearing the methodology they had learnt in authentic classroom settings.
Identification of varying standard of student based on Moodle Pattern Identification Business Intelligence Tool
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Jayakody, J.R.K.C.; Allagalla, W.H.P.
Learning Management Systems (LMS) takes place as an interaction in the internet environment, with different methods for retrieving class content, materials, subject related information, resources and student teacher interactions. Since the interaction details of the LMS such as Moodle is stored in its database as log files, those logs can be used to analyze and understand the weak and good students. Discussions, Forums, Assignments, wikis and the course are the main categories of the logs which are resided in the logs. This research was done to develop a Business intelligence (BI) tool to identify the able students and less able students log patterns with Moodle which is immensely helpful to identify the less able students very early and find remedies to improve their educational standard. Moodle dataset of MSc Business Management students of University of Moratuwa was used for the research. Store procedures were written in java to extract the xml format data to store the log details to mysql server. BI capabilities such as organizational memory, information integration, insight creation and visualization were covered. Sql server 2012 was used as the main database to develop the data warehouse . Dimensions were created to generate the necessary cubes. Apart from that sql server integration services were used to enhance the Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) process. Data cubes were analyzed with Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) queries. finally dashboards were built using power BI too. Power Pivot graph and the power table were used to present interactive details to the end users. Number of patterns was realized to identify the less able students. Based on assignment submission, number of time a user used the system, number of times pages and resources were accessed, new patterns were identified and presented to the users to get the decision which is immensely helpful to the academics and the students.
Mobile based agricultural information delivery system for Sri Lankan farmers
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Rathnayake, P.B.; Lokuliyana, L.
Increasing mobile technology and mobile technology-based service delivery system to the farmers enhances the availability information. Mobile based agricultural information delivery system for farmers will replaces the existing training and visit agricultural extension system. Requirement gathering process done through a survey, interviews and through some observations to examine farmers’ present sources of information, information needs and how and to what extent those needs can be addressed over the use of mobile technology. Rapid Application Development methodology has been used for the new system as the development methodology. Desktop application act as the system administrator application for the Entire solution. It enabled all the database CRUD functionalities and user handling functionalities. The system has developed in Microsoft visual studio .net environment using c sharp.net as the development language. MySQL is used as the relational database management system. The new system has more functionality to overcome the difficulties faced in the existing manual agricultural extension system. Information related to variety of seeds will be delivered through SMS. The Aim of this project is to develop a Mobile based information delivery system for farmers. Which will provide a better and improved agricultural extension system to overcome the conventional training and visit agriculture system’s difficulties.
Comparative evaluation of three environmental flow calculation methods at Ketawala anicut of Aththanagalu Oya, Sri Lanka
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Udayanga, N.W.B.A.L.; Najim, M.M.M.
Calculation of Environmental Flows (EFs), which are required for the sustenance of aquatic ecosystems in their original pristine state, often emerge as a prominent challenge to the sustainable management of water resources due to their complicity and difficulty of estimation. Being a tropical country that is heavily depended on its agriculture based economy, Sri Lanka often face the challenge of EF estimation during diverse irrigational and drinking water extractions. Lack of technology and expertise, and limitations in the long-term data have directly contributed for the wide utilization of rapid EF estimation methods. Therefore, the current study intends to evaluate the performance of such three widely practiced EF estimation methods, namely Tennant, IUCN and CEA methods for the EF estimation at Ketawala irrigational scheme. The Hydrologic Engineering Centre - Hydrologic Modelling System (HEC-HMS) version 3.5 model was calibrated and validated for the Aththanagalu Oya catchment and the daily river flow values for the past thirty five years (1981-2015) were generated at the pre-weir of the Ketawala anicut. The flow duration curve at the pre-weir of the Ketawala anicut was constructed (via the Gumbel approach) using the above simulated flow regime and the EFs that are applicable for the anicut were estimated via Tennant, IUCN and CEA methods in accordance with the standard methodologies. The Tennant method recommended an EF regime of 4.08 m3/s to be maintained at the post weir of the Ketawala anicut, while IUCN and CEA methods recommended EFs of 11.11 and 11.91 m3/s, respectively. Yet, EFs recommended by all these methods mostly remained higher than the average monthly flows in the dry season while considerably lower than the average monthly flows in the wet season at Ketawala, limiting the practical applicability of the estimated EFs. Furthermore, all these methods remained subjective and less responsive to the variations in the hydrological regime, while neglecting other major ecological components (biota and physic-chemical factors etc.) in an aquatic ecosystem. Hence, regardless of their wide applicably for EF estimation in Sri Lanka, the Tennant, IUCN and CEA methods failed to yield practically and environmentally acceptable EFs for the Ketawala anicut.
Detection of some technical and environmental parameters of forest road network based on ZEB1 LiDAR data
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Arseniou, G.; Hahn, M.
Forest road networks constitute critical infrastructure mandated to comply with established ecological and technical standards according to the principle of Silviculture which is the practice for controlling the composition, health, growth and sustainability of forest ecosystems. Traditional, survey-based methods used in determining road network adherence to standards, safety, and maintenance needs, are time consuming and costly, with shortcomings accentuated in the presence of steep terrain and dense vegetation. The primary purpose of this study is to develop an innovative and precise method based on ZEB1 LiDAR data for technical assessment of forest roads and environmental impacts during construction or maintenance in terms of sustainability. Many studies focus on the detection of forest roads using airborne LiDAR data. These studies usually aim to extract and map forest roads. The innovative aspect of this study is that the mobile handheld laser scanner ZEB 1 is used for collecting LiDAR data. ZEB1 laser scanner has not yet been used for forest road mapping but mainly for collecting data in order to derive biometrical characteristics of the forests. The main methodology aspects include: data preparation, classification of the point cloud between terrain and non-terrain points using the Multiscale Curvature Classification Algorithm, DTM generation from the study area, detection of forest roads on the DTM, environmental and technical assessment of forest roads according to standards that have been set according to each road class, and accuracy assessment of the technical parameter results which are based on ZEB1 data. The technical road parameters that are evaluated include roadway width, traverse and lengthwise inclination, while the intensity parameters that cause problems to the ecosystem, are the road surface area with construction problems and ditches network. The accuracy assessment of the results based on ZEB1 data is performed by comparing them to results based on Leica TS 15 data regarding the same road parameters using t-tests. The proposed methodology based on ZEB1 data for both technical and environmental road assessment is found to be precise and reliable solution especially for short forest road networks. There is no significant statistical difference regarding the detected parameters between ZEB1 and Leica TS 15 results. The main advantages of the implemented methodology are the following: less time is needed to collect dense datasets from the study area, only one person is needed to do field measurements, and there is no need for GPS.
Question paper analysis with Natural Language Processing
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Jayakody, J.R.K.C.; Perera, P.L.M.
“Art of Paper Setting” is very popular terminology when it is come to education examination process. As it is an “Art”, teachers should passionate enough to prepare a better question paper which will reflect the educational objectives. There are few steps involved in the process of paper setting and analysis of the paper is the most important element among those steps as it is only indicator of the alignment of questions with intended objectives. When it comes to the analysis process, human intelligence can analyze questions more easily. But implementing similar intelligent systems with computer intelligence is a real challenge. Therefore the purpose of this research is to build a computer intelligent system which can analyze and classify questions. When it is come to classification standards, Bloom’s Taxonomy is a world recognized cognitive skills classification standard. Therefore this standard was used as the guide for the questions categorization of question papers. In the analysis phase, natural language processing techniques were used to analyze the raw text. With these techniques, first the row texts were processed and then the meaningful features of the questions such as verb similarity stem pattern similarity and stem meaning similarity were extracted. Next with machine learning techniques, a model (the brain of the system) was trained by feeding extracted question features. For the model training, several classification algorithms such as Multinomial Naive Bayes Classifier, Bernoulli Naive Bayes Classifier, Logistic Regression Classifier, Stochastic Gradient Descent Classifier, C-Support Vector Classifier and Linear Support Vector Classifier were used. Accuracy levels of each and every classification algorithms were measured with changing the size of the training data set and the optimum algorithm was selected for model training. Finally the model was trained with the optimum algorithm and that model was used to classify the unseen questions. The ultimate model was fine tuned to gain 80% classification accuracy.
Mobile Phone as parenting device in Dhaka City
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Khan, H.K.; Quarmal, S.B.
The study was aimed at exploring the usage of mobile phone as a parenting device in Dhaka City and its impact. The study deals with both qualitative and quantitative data, hence, a triangulation strategy was chosen to gather the data, interpret the facts and analyze the results. The quantitative data was gathered through a structured questionnaire survey that included 100 respondents using random sampling method. For qualitative data gathering, eight parents were interviewed face-face using a semi-structured interview schedule contacting open ended questionnaire. Most of the respondents in the study were from middle income nuclear families of 3 to 5 members. Educational qualification of most of the respondents ranged between secondary and undergraduate level. The findings show that all the respondents perceived mobile phone as an inseparable part of life. It was also found that, the respondents overwhelmingly supported the idea of providing mobile phones to teens. The main reason given was “getting updates and providing directives while they are away”. However, many parents considered the other uses of mobile phone- entertainment, social networking and education. Regarding the central focus of the study, i.e., usage of mobile phone as a parenting device in Dhaka City, the researcher found that it can strengthen parental control, but simultaneously, it might as well have the opposite impact, i.e., weakening parental control. It depends on mutual trust and respect between the teens and their parents as the present study reveals that parents in Dhaka City mostly use the calling feature of the mobile phone; even though many parents use smartphones, and know about the apps those can explore the location of a person without acknowledging him/her, none of them uses such apps. On the other hand, parents cannot completely control the usage of mobile phones by their teens. They can talk to anyone or use Internet the way they want to without acknowledging their parents. They can fix time and place for meeting with friends over phone as well which keeps their friends unknown to their parents. However, considering Prensky’s (2001) argument that the teenagers of today’s generation are digital natives and parents are digital immigrants, it’s quite obvious that the ‘digital immigrants’ must cope up with the situation, and properly learn the usage of modern technologies if they want to use these for parenting. And, from the findings of this study, it is quite clear that the parents in Dhaka City are still far away from this.
Improving the available network infrastructure to implement the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) concept for the University of Vocational Technology
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Pathirana, H.P.A.I.
The Bring Your Own Device is a concept of consumerization to allow network users to be connected with network using their own personal devices to accomplish the regular tasks. This concept is very useful for the academic institutes, as majority of students are not able to be accommodated into the computer labs at the same time. The available network of University of Vocational Technology has limitations to support the BYOD concept due to the available network design.The staff has no flexible way of accessing the network, and the students are limited to use available wired network at the library and computer labs as per the VLAN based network design. To implement BYOD concept, the available network infrastructure should be improved. The primary data were collected in two forms. Firstly, the random 100 users of the network, representing staff, students and guests, experiences of using network collected through the questionnaire. Then, the available network was analysed using tools to collect quantitative data such as signal strength of distributed wireless network and bandwidth usage of wired network. The secondary data, security mechanisms, network topologies, and service distribution, were collected by evaluating the overall network designs to address the weaknesses to support for BYOD environment. The network implementation introduces into four different parts. One is for the student, second one is for the staff, third one is for the students and staff and the fourth one is for the demilitarize zone. It is required to implement access control list (ACL) based control for the users to access the wired network using their own device instead of available VLAN based wired network. The current wireless network access authentication mechanism is WEP which is not strong enough. The BYOD encourages users to access the wireless network from their mobile device. Introducing the WPA2 is recommended to authenticate users for the wireless network for such environment. Further, the seamless IP addresses assignment is required through the DHCP server in the authorization process. The additional rules are required to deploy at the firewall to address foreseeable risks introduce from personal devices. In a university, BYOD is increasingly becoming popular since it facilitates flexible way to work. Itintroduces environment to work independently from time and location. Further, it increases the productivity asuser hasitsown comfort zone to work. More importantly, it is required to implement user policies in addition to mature network to avoid risks.
A Framework for the implementation of Electronic Customer Relationship Management Information System (e-CRM) in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in Sri Lanka
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Pathiratne, S.; Amarathunga, P.A.B.H.
iterature has denoted that Electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM) can play a key role in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as an implement to efficaciously engender and maintain relationships with company’s clienteles. E-CRM is being espoused by corporations for the reason that it increments customer adhesion and customer retaining by amending customer gratification. This study proposes a framework for the implementation of Electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM) information systems in Sri Lanka. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were utilized. Primary data were accumulated from Small and Medium Enterprises located in 20 districts of Sri Lanka. A self-administered questionnaire was the main data amassment implement. Descriptive statistics were habituated to analyze data and refine the requisites for implementation of e-CRM information systems. The findings designate that for prosperous implementation of e-CRM information systems, there should be utilizer sensitization, training and infrastructure. There is withal desideratum for strategic level support and an e-CRM strategy to guide utilization. The most paramount features of e-CRM information systems were identified as the ability to ascertain customer privacy, presence of a Frequently Asked Questions implement, and high speed. The proposed framework was developed predicated on Thong (1999) Technology Organizational Environmental Management (TOEM), with refined requisites from primary data. The developed framework was validated utilizing a case study. The validation results from the case study to a more immensely colossal extent were in acquiescent with survey findings. On average 9 out of 12 respondents indicated Yes on all the items in table 10. In other words, they denoted that the framework was compatible, re-utilizable, simple to utilize, clear and reliable. Only 2 respondents indicated No. Similarly, 8 respondents in the case study indicated Yes on all items in table 11, denoting that the framework components were well expounded, interactive, facile to understand and use, interdependent on each other, used simple language and additionally that the steps in the framework were logically arranged. The framework presented in this study has highlighted key e-CRM features and factors pertinent and applicable to Sri Lankan SMEs. The framework was validated and the validation results denoted that the framework was applicable in e-CRM and meets design requisites. If well implemented, the framework can avail organizations ameliorate on their e-CRM implementation.
Optimized patient care-flow management-A process mining approach
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Nawarathna, N.M.N.K.; Jayasinghe, J.A.
All participants in the healthcare service have to face many difficulties due to the complexity of the healthcare processes and the lack of the resource especially in developing countries. Therefore optimization of patient healthcare processes (care-flow) is vital to provide better healthcare facilities. In this research we exercise a processes mining approach to a real world case in Sri-Jayawardhanapura Hospital. The main objective of this research is analyzing three different concerns of patient care-flows namely identifying frequently used care-flow, identifying bottlenecks and identifying delays of the care-flow. The research was carried out using the design science research methodology which encompasses seven guidelines. The objective of using process mining is to discover, monitor and improve the business processes by extracting knowledge from event logs. As the first step of the research method we collect the events logs which contain lab investigations and treatment processes of cardiology unit in Sri-Jayawardhanapura hospital. The sample of data contains about 42 treated patients between 2015 June to 2015 September period. Using academic version of DISCO software which provides integrated functionality for filtering and loading of event logs, the data was preprocess and analyzed. Identification of frequently used care-flow, bottlenecks and delays are the main findings of this research. The identified frequently used care-flow contains several laboratory investigations such as Hematology tests, Serology tests and Cardiothoracic Surgeries from the admission to discharge of a patient. By this analysis we identified two bottleneck points on cardiology treatment process. This output can be used for many business decisions in the hospital with different perspectives. As the limited space of the paper, the results which are visualized in pictures are not presented. As a control experiment we considered a case of gynecologic oncology patients care process in AMC hospital in Netherland. Using a sample of records of gynecological oncology patients treated during 2005 and 2006 which contains all diagnostic and treatment activities, they analyzed the healthcare process from three different perspectives: (1) the control flow perspective, (2) the organizational perspective and (3) the performance perspective. Even though performance perspective on healthcare process was one concern of them, the researchers didn’t discover the bottlenecks, delays and overflow processes. In our research we analyzed those aspects. Our research focuses on the applicability of process mining in the healthcare domain using DISCO software. The main outcomes of this research are derivation of frequently used care-flows, and delays and bottlenecks. The output can be used to generate new business rules and also policy makers can use the results to enhance the services in the hospital. As a future work this research can be extended to social perspective of the selected community.
Importance of ICT in building landslide resilient community: Contemporary status and future needs
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Vasanthakumary, S.; Nianthi, K.W.G.R.
Information and communication technology have now become an essential tool to build the community resilience towards landslide hazard. To face the landslide hazard with minimal impacts, community people should have better access to information and communication system. However, lack of accessibility of information and the inefficient communication system was found as important challenges in making the community resilience. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to assess the accessibility of communication facilities and information during the pre and post disaster phases of landslide hazard. This study was conducted in 8 Grama Niladari Divisions which are considered as a landslide prone areas of the Rattota Divisional Secretariat Division of Matale District. Questionnaire survey and interviews were accommodated to collect the necessary data and information. A sample of 270 households was selected based on the stratified random sampling method for the questionnaire survey. Since the study area consists of both estate and rural community, diverse patterns were identified. The study reveals that poor communication facilities in the study area have caused a number of problems to community people as well as officials during the emergency situation. Landslide relevant information and early warning messages were not reaching the entire community due to the inefficient communication system. In terms of mode of communication, telephone and direct instructions were found important methods with effective progress. Subsequently, both television and radio play quite an important role. It was found that only 2% of the respondents have the accessibility of internet facility. Though social media can play a crucial role in spreading out the information, it plays an unimportant in the study area as usage of social media was found to be low in the order. Apart from this “Word of mouth” was identified as a well-known method and it worked well in the past during an emergency situation to share the information with adjoining community people. It was found that, in terms of contact with the relevant officials, 53% of households possess the contact number of Grama Niladari for reporting purposes while only about 2% had the contact number of National Building Research Organization which is considered as most relevant institution in the landslide risk reduction process. Even though, institutional interventions seem to be quite good with a gradual increase of involvements, availability of information was found low in the order and still exists as a major challenge in making the better accessibility of information. Similarly, community people had a lack of knowledge of existing network associated with the landslide risk management in the study area. Therefore, this study suggests that better communication system and access to the right information should be ensured to the entire community to achieve better progress in the landslide risk reduction and making the landslide resilient community.
Feelings of healthcare staff towards ICT in the western region of Sri Lanka
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Dileep, A.H.; Wijayanayake, W.M.J.I.
Information and communication technology (ICT) has in general become a worldwide tool in various contexts, including healthcare sector. Healthcare staff are change agents in healthcare sector. They are key drivers who play a crucial role in ICT integration in healthcare. The aim of this study is to examine feelings of healthcare staff towards ICT in western region of Sri Lanka. A sample of 100 healthcare staff was assessed for their feelings towards ICT using a Likert type questionnaire (Strongly Disagree (SD), disagree (D), Neutral (N), Agree (A), Strongly Agree (SA)). There were 60 female (60%) and 40 were male (40%) participants. Their average number of years of computer use was 8.73 years (SD=5.722). There were large amount of negative responses (SD - 52%, D - 45%) for reverse scoring questions. The percentage of positive responses for positive scoring questions were SA – 27%, A – 34% and N – 6%. Therefore, healthcare staff in the western region of Sri Lanka have positive feelings towards ICT. They have good feeling to work with computerized environment. This study clearly depict that feelings of healthcare staff towards ICT are not reverse strengthening for integration of ICT to the State hospitals in western region of Sri Lanka.
Deforestation of Veppal & Marichchukkaddi forest reserves in Sri Lanka
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Fernando, G.M.T.S.; Kodippilige, N.P.; Prakashnie, M.P.
The unprecedented increase of human population makes the pressure on native forests and it has been caused to increase of deforestation in worldwide. Global warming is a one of the critical impacts that arise due to deforestation and it affects on all organisms. Thus majority of the world community has been paid a significant attention to protect the green cover of the earth to mitigate the impacts of global warming.This research is focused on recently reported biggest deforestation incident in Sri Lanka that Veppal and Marichchukkaddi deforestation happens North-West direction from the Wilpattu National Park. Total land extent of these forests is 16,437.74 hectares(ha) and these are the reserved forests that conserve under the Department of Forest Conservation (DFC). This research studied the legality of this deforestation, extent of deforestation, present situation and its impacts to the environment. This was done by using change detection analysis from years 1963 to 2016 of the Veppal and Marichchukkaddi forest reserves. The topographic map data and satellite imageries were used to derive the deforestation of the study area, and recent changes and impacts were observed by a field visit. Analysis was done using GIS and Remote Sensing techniques such as spatial analysis, image classifications and statistical analysis. Relevant gazettes and other legal documents were referred as secondary data to verify the legal situation. The results show an illegal deforestation in the study area from the mid of the year 2010 to 2015. Secondary information shows the granted legal permission in 2013 to clear the land of 250m beside the Puttalam-Kondaichchi Road (B379) between 23–29 kilometer posts. According to the analysis, the total extent of this permitted zone is 248 ha. However, the beginning of the year 2011 deforested land extent was 245.35 ha (1.49% of total forest area). Then in 2013 this deforested extent expanded to 470.78 ha (2.86%) and in 2015 this extent was the 556.79 ha (3.38%). At the field survey, it was observed that DFC has made their new forest boundary with a large loss and such settlements that are located in the middle of the forest will be a big threat to the existing forest cover as well as wild habitats in the forest. Outputs of this research are very important for the general public to be aware of illegal deforestation in the country, as well as for policy makers to know about the inadequacy of available conservation activities.
Continues monitoring of environmental radioactivity in the area polluted by the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident 2011 and disclosure of the data to public through the Internet
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Fuse, M.; Miura. S.; Ozawa, S.
The Internet has become a powerful communication media. In authors’ previous paper, it has been shown that the Internet can be a good risk communication tool in panic situations caused by natural disasters. The present paper deals with the role of the media in the recovering process from the disaster. It is five years since the earthquake of the magnitude 9.0 occurred at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean near the coast of Northern Japan. There occurred nuclear accidents triggered by the tsunami at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants (FNPP). They experienced wide range of radioactive contaminations. Many people had to evacuate from the polluted lands. Even today, about 100,000 people in the Fukushima Prefecture cannot come back to their home lands. The National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College (NITFC) is located at 40km south of the FNPP. About 100 students (10% of total students) had their home lands in the risky 30km region from the FNPP. Some staffs and students of NITFC have been monitoring the radioactivity of their environment since just after the accident and they continued to open their data to public through the Internet. This paper discusses influence of giving different source data to the public beside the official governmental data regarding the radioactivity of the environment.
Understanding and assertiveness of school teachers in Gampaha District towards teaching English grammar using multimedia Technology
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Amarathunga, P.A.B.H.; Pathiratne, S.
The proliferation of computers in our society, inculcative institutions and work places have been inundating. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools consider as an enhancement and advancement if not, a panacea to many challenges faced in everyday activities. Perhaps the utmost speculation of ICT is into inculcative institutions, eminently the schools. In the context of Regime of Sri Lanka, the Department of Education has boarded on a sequence of programmes to ascertain that more schools are equipped with ICT. School teachers play a pivotal role in ascertaining technology use in the English Language Classroom. Hence, there is a desideratum to investigate School Teachers’ Understanding levels and Assertiveness towards multimedia technology in edifying English Grammar. Objectives of the study are to ascertain the subsisting relationship between the Understanding and Assertiveness of English School Edifiers in utilizing Multimedia technology. And to ascertain the whether there is relationship between the Understanding and Assertiveness of utilizing multimedia technology predicated on their inculcation level. The study is a cross-sectional study utilizing a questionnaire as an instrument to acquire the participants ‘response. The investigators have culled 40 English School Edifiers working in Gampaha district for the investigation utilizing desultory sampling technique. Data analysis employing the Pearson Coefficient Correlation calculations matched both components and unearthed a positive correlation. Findings denote that paramount relationship subsists between the construal level and Assertiveness level of all English School teachers handling upper classes. Withal paramount relationship subsists between the Understanding level and Assertiveness level of graduate English Edifiers. The mean scores of Understanding level and Assertiveness level of Graduate English School Edifiers and Trained Edifiers show that Trained teachers are superior to graduate teachers. In conclusion albeit these School Edifiers are at a higher caliber in terms of Understanding of multimedia, their Assertiveness concerning the ICT in terms of the cognitive, affective and behavioral largely correlates but records a minor difference. Edifier's replications to the study withal denoted the cognizance among them of the desideratum to upgrade current Understanding in technology use in the classroom.
Learning tool on data structures and algorithms using Android
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Sajeetha, T.
Android is now the most used mobile operating system in the world. Learning by means of mobile phones is becoming a new approach towards education, and it is unique in its own way and offers learning opportunities anywhere and anytime. An effort is made to enhance the learning opportunity and attractive learning method. The learning tool for Data structure and Algorithm, DS Teacher, is designed to help the learners to get a clear picture about this subject area. This DS Teacher includes Data structures (eg: stack, queue, etc..) with animated examples, Algorithms and C++ program code. This tool helps the students to learn in an effective way. A study was undertaken to investigate the impact of such an environment enabled by android platform on the learning process among second year undergraduates of Eastern University, Sri Lanka. Questionnaire was given to seventy-five students to check the effectiveness of the system. Excel pie chart is used to analyze the effectiveness. Findings showed that the respondents were very receptive to the interactivity, accessibility, and convenience of the system. Overall, the mobile learning system DS Teacher can be utilized as an inexpensive tool but complements undergraduates’ learning process.