Abstract
Sri Lanka has no water scarcity within the country, and per capita, water availability is adequate to cater for the country's estimated peak population. Nevertheless, the frequent ...variability of spatial and temporal water availability and extreme events have built up a water scarcity in Sri Lanka, which has been observed during the last two to three decades. Therefore, effective and efficient water governance is most important in today's context, and regular review and amendment of policies, laws, and regulations are crucial to mitigate water scarcity. Although a few attempts were initiated, none of them succeeded. In this study, historical and present water governance mechanisms, including coordinating mechanisms and implementing water management agencies in Sri Lanka, were comprehensively reviewed. Further, the previously proposed water policies, their status and reasons for the failures of policies were discussed. Finally, the formulation of a novel institutional arrangement or altering the existing institutional arrangement with shared data and allocating non-shared responsibilities to each institution is suggested for better water governance in Sri Lanka.
S.S.K, Chandrasekara.; Uranchimeg, S.; Kwon, H-H., and Lee, S-O., 2018. Coastal Flood Disaster in Sri Lanka-May 2017: Exploring Distributional Changes in Rainfall and Their Impacts on Flood Risk. In: ...Shim, J.-S.; Chun, I., and Lim, H.S. (eds.), Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2018 (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 85, pp. 1476–1480. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Coastal communities, their livelihoods, and the coastal ecosystems of Sri Lanka are vulnerable to extreme rainfall events. In May 2017, the southern and southwestern coastal regions of Sri Lanka experienced devastating floods, which caused nearly 122 deaths. In light of this, exploring distributional changes in extreme rainfall series recorded across Sri Lanka are crucial to understand flood risk in the context of climate variability and change. This study was focused on investigating possible distributional changes in annual maximum daily rainfall (ADMR) over time for the affected coastal regions in Sri Lanka using a quantile regression approach in a Bayesian framework. A simplified nine–category distributional change scheme based on the empirical probability density functions of two years (i.e., the first year and the last year) was used to determine the distributional changes in ADMR. This study examined the trends of ADMRs for seven stations in coastal regions of Sri Lanka for the period of 1960 – 2015. Three categories in terms of distributional change in ADMR were identified for these regions. One station showed an upward trend in distributional change in ADMR, which could indicate high probability of extreme rainfall. The rest of the stations showed a downward trend in the quantiles, which could indicate low probability of extreme rainfall. Further discussion of the possible reasons for the occurrence of the coastal flood disaster in May 2017 in Sri Lanka is provided below.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NMLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
South Asian countries have been experiencing frequent drought incidents recently, and due to this reason, many scientific studies have been carried out to explore drought in South Asia. In this ...context, we review scientific studies related to drought in South Asia. The study initially identifies the importance of drought-related studies and discusses drought types for South Asian regions. The representative examples of drought events, severity, frequency, and duration in South Asian countries are identified. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) was mostly adopted in South Asian countries to quantify and monitor droughts. Nevertheless, the absence of drought quantification studies in Bhutan and the Maldives is of great concern. Future studies to generate a combined drought severity map for the South Asian region are required. Moreover, the drought prediction and projection in the regions is rarely studied. Furthermore, the teleconnection between drought and large-scale atmospheric circulations in the South Asia has not been discussed in detail in most of the scientific literature. Therefore, as a take-home message, there is an urgent need for scientific studies related to drought quantification for some regions in South Asia, prediction and projection of drought for an individual country (or as a region), and drought teleconnection to atmospheric circulation.
Climate change has pushed the natural limits of our environment, creating extreme weather events that are more frequent and more intense in certain locations around the globe. There is evidence of ...increasing trends in temperature extremes in most countries of South Asia, while in a few regions, temperature extremes have been decreasing. Heatwaves have intensified, which has contributed to accelerating drought and extreme flood events in most South Asian countries. Overall changes in rainfall and temperature have led to alterations in water availability in this region. With few exceptions, the general phenomenon in most South Asian countries is that rainfall intensity has increased, but with a reduced number of wet days. Studies that associate rainfall and temperature in the region of South Asia are scarce and rainfall extremes have been studied more extensively than temperature extremes. In fact, temperature trends are spatially less coherent than rainfall trends in most south Asian countries. It is more likely correlated for the teleconnection and South Asian climate for influencing the temperature and rainfall pattern, rather than any other factors. When it comes to trend estimations, statistical slope detection metrics, such as simple linear regression, have been commonly used to detect and quantify mean trends for countries in the regions of South Asia. However, application lacks in usage of robust nonparametric statistical tests to quantify temperature and rainfall extremes in many countries of South Asia. Statistical downscaling is recommended for better prediction accuracy as well as to find spatial coherence in trends.
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•Climate extremes in South Asia are barely studied, using general statistical methods•Evokes primary literature on climate trends, extremes, teleconnection, and projections•An immense need of statistical estimation to identify trends in extremes required•Eminent demand for data collection and analysis of climate extremes for hinterlands•Obligatory scope for future studies on teleconnection and projection of extremes
DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazil), a free radical-containing organic compound, is used widely to evaluate the antioxidant properties of plant constituents. Here, we report an efficient ...electroactive DPPH molecular system with excellent electrocatalytic sensor properties, which is clearly distinct from the traditional free radical-based quenching mechanism. This unusual molecular status was achieved by the electrochemical immobilization of graphene oxide (GO)-stabilized DPPH on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE). Potential cycling of the DPPH adsorbed-GCE/GO between − 1 and 1 V (Ag/AgCl) in a pH 7 solution revealed a stable and well-defined pair of redox peaks with a standard electrode potential,
E
0
′ = 0 ± 0.01 V (Ag/AgCl). Several electrochemical characterization studies as well as surface analysis of the GCE/GO@DPPH-modified electrode by transmission electron microscopy, Raman, and infrared spectroscopy collectively identified the imine/amine groups as the redox centers of the electroactive DPPH on GO. The use of different carbon-supports showed that only oxygen-functionalized GO and MWCNTs could provide major electroactivity for DPPH. This highlights the importance of a strong hydrogen-bonded network structure assisted by the concomitant
π
-
π
interactions between the organic moiety and oxygen function groups of carbon for the high electroactivity and stability of the GCE/GO@DPPH-NH/NH
2
-modified electrode. The developed electrode exhibited remarkable performance towards the electrocatalytic oxidation of NADH at 0 V (Ag/AgCl). The amperometric
i
-
t
sensing of NADH showed high sensitivity (488 nA μM
−1
cm
−2
) and an extended linear range (50 to 450 μM) with complete freedom from several common biochemical/chemical interferents, such as ascorbic acid, hydrazine, glucose, cysteine, citric acid, nitrate, and uric acid.
Scholars have emphasized that the simultaneous effects of global consumerism and traditional cultural foundations can create fragmented, complex identities for individuals. However, a theoretical ...explanation of how these nuanced and complex identity formations take place appears to be lacking. This study uses the theory of symbolic interaction to explore the influence of traditional and consumerist discourses on identity formation and probes in to their dynamics. Two groups, namely Traditional Middle Class 2 (TMC 2) and New Urban Middle Class (NUMC) representing different values within the Sri Lankan middle-class were used, where qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 29 individuals. Findings show that older TMC 2 forms identities predominantly rooted in tradition while the younger TMC 2 is more equally balanced in value internalization, but undergoes complex identity formation processes due to financial constraints. NUMC consumers in contrast, defy traditions while conforming more to consumerist discourses, and a subgroup in this broader category also appears to embrace religious values, further showing the fragmented nature of identity. Findings also show that value internalization changes based on one's geographical roots, education/career, and dependent children. The study contributes to knowledge by exploring varied nuances and complexities in the identity formations of consumers of non-Western societies.
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A unique gold(111) oriented nanoparticles trapped carbon nanofiber-chitosan modified electrocatalyst coated glassy carbon electrode(GCE/CNF-CHIT@Aunano) was prepared by an in-situ ...electrochemical procedure for efficient bifunctional electrocatalytic oxidation and reduction of formaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide in neutral pH solution. In the typical preparation, a microliter quantity of Au3+ solution was drop-casted on GCE/CNF-CHIT surface and potential cycled in pH 7 PBS. The GCE/CNF-CHIT@Aunano showed well-defined electrochemical response of gold nanoparticles of calculated electrochemically active surface area, 0.1347cm2, which is about 3–3000 times higher than that of the surface area of the respective unmodified electrodes such as polycrystalline Au (0.0407cm2), GCE/CNF@Aunano (0.0034cm2) and GCE@Aunano (0.0005cm2). Physicochemical characterizations such as FESEM, EDAX, TEM, XRD, Raman, FTIR and XPS spectroscopic techniques revealed stabilization of 10±5nm sized Au(111) phase oriented nanoparticles by the amino functional group of chitosan in the composite matrix. The detailed electrochemical characterization by cyclic voltammetry(CV), rotating disk electrode (RDE) and in-situ CV-electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance (EQCM; Mw=44±1gmol−1 species was identified) techniques showed direct oxidation of formaldehyde to formate as an intermediate (45gmol−1) without any CO poisoning, unlike the conventional Pt and Au based electrodes. Using a bipotentiostat, selective and simultaneous flow injection analyses of formaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide in a mixture at discreet applied potentials (Eapp=0.5V/0.15V and −0.15V vs Ag/AgCl) were demonstrated. The applicability of the GCE/CNF-CHIT@Aunano was tested by detecting formaldehyde and hydrogen peroxide in a commercial hair dye formulation with about 100% recovery values.
This study was conducted to determine the frequencies of non-metric tooth crown traits of Vedda of Sri Lanka and to investigate the affinities of these morphological variations with those of other ...world populations. Fifty dental plaster casts were observed. The Arizona State University dental anthropology system was adopted for classification of the 16 traits observed. We used 13 traits to compare the Vedda and other world populations. Using the frequencies of 13 traits, Smith Mean Measure of Divergence was calculated to determine inter-population distances. Affinities among the Vedda and other world populations were expressed in two dimensions of the principal coordinate analysis. Cusp number in mandibular second molar and hypocone absence in maxillary second molar had the highest frequency at 95.9% and 93.8%, respectively. Shovelling, double shovelling in the maxillary central incisor and deflecting wrinkle in the mandibular first molar had the lowest frequency at 0%. The principal coordinate analysis showed that Sino American and Western Eurasian populations were separated in negative and positive directions in the first principal coordinate axis. Vedda located with the Western Eurasian population groups. Sahul and Sunda Pacific populations located in the intermediate position between Sino American and Western Eurasian populations. The dental phenotype of Vedda has close affinities with those of early south Asian populations. They are far different from Sino American and Sunda pacific populations. Vedda shows closer affinities to Sahul Pacific and South African (Bantu) populations.
Cinnamomum
species have gained worldwide attention because of their economic benefits. Among them,
C
.
verum
(synonymous with
C
.
zeylanicum
Blume), commonly known as Ceylon Cinnamon or True Cinnamon ...is mainly produced in Sri Lanka. In addition, Sri Lanka is home to seven endemic wild cinnamon species,
C
.
capparu-coronde
,
C
.
citriodorum
,
C
.
dubium
,
C
.
litseifolium
,
C
.
ovalifolium
,
C
.
rivulorum
and
C
.
sinharajaense
. Proper identification and genetic characterization are fundamental for the conservation and commercialization of these species. While some species can be identified based on distinct morphological or chemical traits, others cannot be identified easily morphologically or chemically. The DNA barcoding using
rbc
L,
mat
K, and
trn
H
-psb
A regions could not also resolve the identification of
Cinnamomum
species in Sri Lanka. Therefore, we generated Illumina Hiseq data of about 20x coverage for each identified species and a
C
.
verum
sample (India) and assembled the chloroplast genome, nuclear ITS regions, and several mitochondrial genes, and conducted Skmer analysis. Chloroplast genomes of all eight species were assembled using a seed-based method.According to the Bayesian phylogenomic tree constructed with the complete chloroplast genomes, the
C
.
verum
(Sri Lanka) is sister to previously sequenced
C
.
verum
(NC_035236.1, KY635878.1),
C
.
dubium
and
C
.
rivulorum
. The
C
.
verum
sample from India is sister to
C
.
litseifolium
and
C
.
ovalifolium
. According to the ITS regions studied,
C
.
verum
(Sri Lanka) is sister to
C
.
verum
(NC_035236.1),
C
.
dubium
and
C
.
rivulorum
.
Cinnamomum verum
(India) shares an identical ITS region with
C
.
ovalifolium
,
C
.
litseifolium
,
C
.
citriodorum
, and
C
.
capparu-coronde
. According to the Skmer analysis
C
.
verum
(Sri Lanka) is sister to
C
.
dubium
and
C
.
rivulorum
, whereas C.
verum
(India) is sister to
C
.
ovalifolium
, and
C
.
litseifolium
. The chloroplast gene
ycf1
was identified as a chloroplast barcode for the identification of
Cinnamomum
species. We identified an 18 bp indel region in the
ycf1
gene, that could differentiate
C
.
verum
(India) and
C
.
verum
(Sri Lanka) samples tested.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
► PtPd and PtIr NPs-decorated multiwalled carbon nanotube nanocatalysts (PtM/MWCNTs) were prepared by a modified Watanabe method. ► PtPd/MWCNTs/GC electrode exhibited a low detection limit of 1.2μM. ...► PtPd/MWCNTs/GC electrode with a wide linear range of 2.5–125μM (R2=0.9996). ► A low working potential (0.25V (SCE)), high sensitivity (414.8μAmM−1cm−2) were achieved the PtPd/MWCNTs/GCE.
A new highly catalytic and intensely sensitive amperometric sensor based on PtM (where M=Pd, Ir) bimetallic nanoparticles (NPs) for the rapid and accurate estimation of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) by electrooxidation in physiological conditions is reported. PtPd and PtIr NPs-decorated multiwalled carbon nanotube nanocatalysts (PtM/MWCNTs) were prepared by a modified Watanabe method, and were characterized by XRD, TEM, ICP, and XAS. The sensors were constructed by immobilizing PtM/MWCNTs nanocatalysts in a Nafion film on a glassy carbon electrode. Both PtPd/MWCNTs and PtIr/MWCNTs assemblies catalyzed the electrochemical oxidation of H2O2. Cyclic voltammetry characterization measurements revealed that both the PtM (M=Pd, Ir)/MWCNTs/GCE possessed similar electrochemical surface areas (∼0.55cm2), and electron transfer rate constants (∼1.23×10−3cms−1); however, the PtPd sensor showed a better performance in H2O2 sensing than did the PtIr counterpart. Explanations were sought from XAS measurements to explain the reasons for differences in sensor activity. When applied to the electrochemical detection of H2O2, the PtPd/MWCNTs/GC electrode exhibited a low detection limit of 1.2μM with a wide linear range of 2.5–125μM (R2=0.9996). A low working potential (0V (SCE)), fast amperometric response (<5s), and high sensitivity (414.8μAmM−1cm−2) were achieved at the PtPd/MWCNTs/GC electrode. In addition, the PtPd/MWCNTs nanocatalyst sensor electrode also exhibited excellent reproducibility and stability. Along with these attractive features, the sensor electrode also displayed very high specificity to H2O2 with complete elimination of interference from UA, AA, AAP and glucose.
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