Research Publications Authored by SLIIT Staff
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This collection includes all SLIIT staff publications presented at external conferences and published in external journals. The materials are organized by faculty to facilitate easy retrieval.
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Publication Open Access Identification of the Poor in Sri Lanka: Development of Composite Indicator and Regional Poverty Lines(researchgate.net, 2006-03) Siddhisena, p; Jayathilaka, RThe identification of the poor and the definition of poverty is rather complex since poverty dimensions are multifaceted. Poverty is not just an inadequacy of income to meet basic needs or the inability to spend. It is largely associated with numerous demographic, socio-economic, cultural, environmental, health and psychological factors. The aim of this study is therefore to compute a composite indicator of multidimensional poverty and regional poverty lines to identify the severity of poverty and regional disparities of poverty. The study was based on the two data sets and the main objectives of the study are: Identification of the poor by using a broader definition of poverty; Measurement of regional differences on poverty using the poverty indices and constructed poverty lines; and Development of a Composite Indicator of Multidimensional Poverty to identify poverty by severity and also to examine regional disparities of poverty.Publication Open Access FTA Negotiations in Asia-Pacific Region: An Empirical Study on the Determinants FTA among the Bilateral Trading Partners(researchgate.net, 2009-11) Jayathilaka, R; Keembiyahetti, NHistorically, Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have been, and will continue to be, an important gateway for improving world trade, given that the world trading system is substantially hampered by man-made barriers. This paper examines into the deterministic key factors and their relative importance for FTA negotiations among the bilateral trading partners using a Probit Model based on 9,178 nonzero trading pairs having 705 active and operational bilateral FTAs. Based on the estimated model, the study projects the future potentiality of FTA negotiations in the Asia-Pacific region. The study works on eleven hypotheses regarding the dependency of FTA on the economic and non-economic characteristics of the bilateral trading partners and the findings support 9 out of the 11 hypotheses. The likelihood of forming an FTA between a pair of countries is higher: (1) the closer in distance the two trading partners are; (2) less remote a natural pair is relative to other countries; (3) economically larger the trading partners are; (4) more similar the trading partners are in economic size; (5) larger the differences in relative factor intensity are; (6) greater is the political stability; (7) more discontinued than connected by a common border; (8) for countries having higher import tariffs in the past; and (9) larger the number of FTAs the neighborhood countries have already signed up. These factors have economically important and statistically significant effects on the probability to form an FTA. However, this study rejected the null favouring alternative that (10) sharing a common language or having colonial relationships has no influence on negotiating for an FTA. Furthermore, our findings rejected (11) the null that countries having a higher degree of export/import intensity tend to form FTAs leading to the conclusion that the past trade or existing level of trade is not a good motivation to form FTAs. Based on the estimated model the study shows that the Asia-Pacific region is well beyond the South Asian region in terms of FTA potentiality, but the European region shows more potentiality than Asia-Pacific and any other region in the world.Publication Embargo Integrating industrial technologies, tools and practices to the IT curriculum: an innovative course with .NET and java platforms(acm.org, 2005-10-20) Athauda, R; Kodagoda, N; Wickramaratne, J; Sumathipala, P; Rupasinghe, L; Edirisighe, A; Gamage, A; De Silva, DExposure to state-of-art industry technologies, tools and practices by students provide CS/IT graduates highly desirable skills and marketability. A key expectation of the industry from their new cadre is a speedy integration into the business environment resulting in productive work. This usually requires having a sound technological background, a maturity to assess the environment and adapt quickly, and highly-developed soft skills to be productive in a team environment. Incorporating such experience and skills into a CS/IT curriculum is challenging and is still in its infancy stages. We undertook such as an endeavor in integrating .NET into the IT curriculum. Microsoft's .NET platform is becoming increasingly popular in the industry. Incorporating .NET into the undergraduate IT curriculum provides a plethora of skills and increases the employability of our graduates. We integrated .NET without a major revision to the existing curriculum by introducing an optional course in the final year (senior-level) of the IT undergraduate program. In addition to the .NET platform, the course covered the Java platform, which is similar in architecture to .NET. The course emulated an industry-based environment with real-world based assignments, focused on deliverables, used state-of-art IDEs and documentation, and pair programming to create a highly productive environment. The “soft skills” were integrated into the course with a project that implemented a virtual marketplace. Students in groups played different entities in the virtual marketplace and communicated with each other via Web Services. The project provided a virtual business environment and exposure to teamwork, collaboration, competition, negotiating, and creativity skills. Our first offering of the course in semester 1, 2005, attracted 128 students. The course created a highly productive environment throughout the semester. Students completed 7 assignments and the project within the 14-week semester. The initial results are encouraging and provide many insights to CS/IT departments planning to incorporate such courses.Publication Embargo Eigenface based automatic facial feature tagging(IEEE, 2008-12-12) Wijeratne, S; Jayawardena, S; Jayasooriya, S; Lokupathirage, D; Patternot, M; Kodagoda, NThere are several approaches to search databases of faces. However such methods still require a significant use of humans to interpret an eyewitness account and so forth. In many cases these searches are done using visual building tools as creating a graphical face model. A system that can easily interface with general users should directly search a person by description given verbally or textually. This would reduce costs in the search process. Facial feature characteristics identification would act as a stepping stone in cataloguing large face databases automatically thus providing the possibility of a description based face search by text. This paper presents the possibility of utilizing eigenface approach to recognize different characteristics of a facial feature and assigning descriptive words such as "Large", "Small" to each feature. After training the system, it would automatically attempt to match a pattern in the training set that best describes the input image and output a tag associated with it. This effectively allows an image of a person's face to be tagged by his or her feature characteristics. While utilizing the standard set steps as defined in the eigenface algorithm, slight modifications are done in the algorithm that matches input images with ones in the training set. The training set defined has a very huge impact for the final outcome, and due to the subjective nature of the training, future research would be done on this regard. The investigation showed that the method works fine with well defined features such as eyes but fails for features such as foreheads due to the lack of significant differences or characteristics between such features. Hence it is seen that while eigenface can be used for the categorization of well defined features, it is unable by itself to create a system that can cover all features of a face.Publication Embargo Voizlock-human voice authentication system using hidden markov model(IEEE, 2008-12-12) Maduranga, R. G; Jayamaha, M; Senadheera, M. R. R; Gamage, T. N. C; Weerasekara, K. D. P. B; Dissanayaka, G. A; Kodagoda, NSpeaker authentication is the process of automatically recognizing who is speaking on the basis of individual information included in speech waves. Many principles are used in the area of voice recognition. This paper provides a method of storing the voiceprints of individuals uniquely, based on the Hidden Markov Model. HMM has been used in the speech recognition area for a long period of time, but VoizLock project explores a way of using HMM for voice authentication which is different from speech recognition. This voiceprint will then be used for voice authentication, using text-independent speaker recognition methods in which the system does not rely on a specific text being spoken, but solely on the voice of the speaker. This paper also provides details about certain misconceptions with regard to voice authentication that exist in the society. This paper explains more about the user training phase detailing how the voice print of an individual is stored in the system by extracting certain values of the waveform using HMM. Apart from the training phase this analyses the results obtained from the testing done covering different scenarios pertaining to voice authentication.Publication Embargo Internal structure and semantic web link structure based ontology ranking(IEEE, 2008-12-12) Rajapaksha, S. K; Kodagoda, NThe semantic Web is an extension of the World Wide Web with new technologies and standards that enable interpretation and processing of data and useful information for extraction by a computer. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends XML, XML schema, RDF, RDF schema and Web Ontology Language (OWL) as standards and tools for the implementation of the semantic Web. Ontologies work as the main component in knowledge representation for the semantic Web. It is a data model that represents a set of concepts and the relationships between those concepts within a domain. Building an ontology starting from scratch is not an easy task since it makes heavy demands on time in addition to expert knowledge related to the domain. However, we can use the existing ontologies to develop semantic Web applications. But, there are a large number of ontologies available and the ontology search engine will generate a bulk of results with different ontologies for search queries. Therefore, ranking of ontologies is needed to find the most appropriate and relevant ontologies. We consider the ranking techniques and algorithms attached to the semantic Web: (i) Swoogle Ranking (ii) Ontokhoj Ranking (iii) OntoQA Ranking (iv) AKTiveRank (v) OntoSearch Ranking (vi) content-based ontology ranking (vii) SemSearch Ranking (viii) ReConRank. Our effort considers most popularly used ranking techniques and algorithms attached to the semantic Web. We analyze the above ontology ranking techniques with algorithms and then mainly categorize into two groups. One group is based on the semantic Web link structure and the other one is based on internal structure of the ontology. We identify that some features are not addressed in ranking of ontologies selected by the above ranking techniques and algorithms. Therefore, we propose a ranking method that considers both internal structure and semantic Web link structure of ontologies to improve the ranking of ontologies. We finally evaluate the proposed ranking method. According to the results with evaluation, we allocate more weighting for internal structure and low weighting for semantic Web link structure to get the best ranking results.Publication Open Access Postharvest ripening and respiration of chili(University Of Ruhuna, 2004) Chaturani, G. D. G; Wilson, S; Perera, S. V. T; Hettiarachchi, M. PEffect o f exogenous ethylene application on postharvest ripening and respiratory pattern o f chilli (Capsicum annum Var.MI-2) harvested at different stages o f maturity was examined. Chillies harvested at mature green and colour break stages were used fo r the ripening study. Pods were allowed to ripen at ambient conditions (32 ± 2 °C and 37% RH) with 0, 100, 200, 300, and 400ppm ethylene concentrations. Observations were made on colour development and weight o f red ripe pods during storage period. Ethylene treatment had no significant effect on colour development o f chilli harvested at both stages o f maturity. Fruits harvested at different stages o f maturity ranging from light green to fu ll red were usedfor the respiration study at 12.2 °C and 83 % RH in a closed system. Respiration rates o f chilli from light green to fu ll red stage ranged between 12.7-24.2 mgCO/kg/h. The rate o f respiration was low at light green stage and increased with maturity reaching a peak (24.2 mgCO/kg/h) at colour break stage. Respiration rate decreased with fru it ripening and increased with development o f full red colour. The internal ethylene concentration o f pods was ranged between 3.2-4.3 ppm. However, there was no ethylene peak observed with the maturity.Publication Open Access Visibility of pharyngeal structures as a predictor of difficult intubation(Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1987-10) Charters, P; Perera, S. V. T; Horton, W. AVisibility of pharyngeal structures as a predictor of difficult intubation Page 1 Correspondence 1115 Visibility of pharyngeal structures as a predictor of difficult intubation We would like to comment on the study by Samsoon and Young (Anuesihesh 1987; 42: 487-90) since we also have experience with the test which forms the basis of their report. Mallampati’s test scores the visibility of pharyngcal structures (faucial pillars, soft palate and uvula) in an attempt to predict difficult tracheal intubation. Three of us used this test as part of a pre-operative asscssmcnt in a study about tracheal intubation. Sainsoon and Young did not make it clear in their paper hut thcy did not make the assessment in the way described by Mallampati. We also chosc to examine our patients with ‘the head in the neutral position’ and the observer sitting ‘opposite at eye level’. We graded paticiits class 1 to 3 as originally described because Mallampati …Publication Open Access Visibility of pharyngeal structures as a predictor of difficult intubation(Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1987-10) Charters, P; Perera, S. V. T; Horton, W. AVisibility of pharyngeal structures as a predictor of difficult intubation Page 1 Correspondence 1115 Visibility of pharyngeal structures as a predictor of difficult intubation We would like to comment on the study by Samsoon and Young (Anuesihesh 1987; 42: 487-90) since we also have experience with the test which forms the basis of their report. Mallampati’s test scores the visibility of pharyngcal structures (faucial pillars, soft palate and uvula) in an attempt to predict difficult tracheal intubation. Three of us used this test as part of a pre-operative asscssmcnt in a study about tracheal intubation. Sainsoon and Young did not make it clear in their paper hut thcy did not make the assessment in the way described by Mallampati. We also chosc to examine our patients with ‘the head in the neutral position’ and the observer sitting ‘opposite at eye level’. We graded paticiits class 1 to 3 as originally described because MallampatiPublication Open Access Analysis of Risks and Bottlenecks of a Poly Bag Manufacturing Factory -A Case Study(UNIVERSITY OF MORATUWA, 2008) Gopura, R. A. R. C; Jayawardene, T. S. SThe material prices of poly bags skyrocket to new heights and forecasters see no end to this trend. Also legal restrictions are imposed on some types of polythene products. In this situation, any entrepreneur engaging in the poly bag manufacturing process faces significant challenges. Therefore, a case study of an analysis of risks and bottlenecks of a poly bag manufacturing factory was carried out for the purpose of modeling and simulation of a poly bag manufacturing factory to improve the productivity to face the underlying challenges. This paper presents the analysis methods, and the results of the analysis are also discussed.