Browsing by Author "Weerasooriya, T."

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Food consumption and wastage patterns in a student canteen - data from Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
(University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2021) Lakshani, U.; Liyanage, P.; Liyanage, B.; Sewwandi, B.; Weerasooriya, T.
Background - Food wastage has become one of the most concerning global issues. While one-third of the food produced for human consumption is wasted, one-ninth of the world population does not have enough to eat. Hence, the reduction of food wastage and proper waste management is of paramount importance for global sustainability. Objectives - To determine the amount of food consumed and wasted at the faculty canteen during lunchtime; to determine the students’ perceptions of food wastage and make recommendations to avoid food wastage. Method – – A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out from November 2019 to December 2019. Plate waste of the students who consumed lunch at the main canteen of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya was measured for six days to determine the percentage of food waste. A questionnaire was given to 200 students to obtain information regarding their reasons for food wastage and the knowledge of food waste management methods at the Faculty of Medicine. Results - Out of 420.48kg of food served during lunchtime of the six days observed, 110.87kg (26.4 %) was wasted. The mean food wastage per student was 139.5g. Among the reasons for food wastage, “poor smell/taste” and “lack of variation of the food” were the main reasons. The majority stated that they would waste less food if the presentation of the food were better. If the results were extrapolated to all state universities, the total waste is 15.96 tons at the cost of 1.368 million rupees per day. Conclusion - - Simple interventions such as making students aware of its economic impact and changing food serving methods may minimize waste.
Intelligent Sorting System for Curriculum Vitae using Natural Language Processing
(Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Weerasooriya, T.
Natural language Processing (NLP) has undergone tremendous development over the past few decades. The logic behind sentence analysis plays a vital role in NLP applications. The present study makes use of Stanford CoreNLP, an NLP tool that enables Parts-of-Speech (POS) tagging and NamedEntity Tagging to extract the essential information from a curriculum vitae (CV), followed by ranking the best candidates according to the information included in the CV. The system design is as follows: the proposed system initially categorizes the candidates according to the post applied. The second step checks for the basic qualifications required by the company. If the basic requirements are not met, the CV is rejected. The third step uses POS tagging to interpret and assign marks for each section in the CV. The extracurricular activities section is grammatically ambiguous as it contains achievements in sports, clubs and societies. The research was aimed at classifying the extracurricular activities using a mix of rule based parsers and the NamedEntity Tagger. Firstly, the sentence is passed through the rule based parser, which classifies it as a sport or a club activity (using a word match specific to each group). The category which has the highest match is given ¾ mark of the decision. The NamedEntity tagger searches the sentence for any sports or organizations, and the classification is given a ¼ point in the decision. The sentence is categorized into the relevant category depending on the highest score. During testing, in a CV which contained 28 extracurricular activities, the system classified 14 achievements in Sports and 14 achievements in Clubs and Societies. However, the correct classification should be 17 in Sports and 11 achievements in Clubs and Societies. The methodology would succeed in sorting ambiguous sentences, where a corpus based method would fail (i.e. “Compered at Kelani Hockey 6’s”. The keyword of the sentence is Hockey, but it is not an achievement in sports). Being an adaptable system using NLP, it could be customized to assign a weighted score for specific keywords depending on the requirement of the organization. The fourth step is to assign a total score to the CV. At the end of the cycle, the system would output the list of the top 50 CVs qualified for the post. This system was tested with a sample data set from the CV bank of the Career Fair 2015 (CF) of the University of Kelaniya. The manual CV sorting process of the CF required at least 2 minutes per CV and each CV was sorted individually. The system was less time consuming, more organized and efficient.
A Method to Sort Official Correspondence through Natural Language Processing
(Department of Linguistics, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Weerasooriya, T.; Perera, N.
Natural language Processing (NLP) is a new branch of study in Computational Linguistics and the field has undergone rapid development over the past few decades. Keyword extraction is a popular application of NLP. The present study makes use of Stanford Core NLP, an NLP tool that enables Parts-of-Speech (POS) tagging in order to extract the keywords from official correspondence. POS tagging identifies all the parts of speech in a sentence and categorises them into the relevant grammatical categories. Capitalising on the grammatical uniformity of formal written English, the system is able to identify all the noun phrases and verb phrases of a sentence. Hence, the subject and the predicate of the sentence are isolated. Document sorting with regard to official correspondence is done through the system by analysing the „object‟ line of an official letter or the „subject‟ line of an e-mail, and listing the noun phrases and verb phrases. The document is then sorted to the relevant department. In order to prevent slips in the system, the remaining words of the „object‟ / „subject‟ lines are filtered through a keyword corpus. This increases the accuracy of the keyword extraction process. The present system proved to be more efficient that selecting keywords through a filter, as the POS tagging sorts and presents keywords in an order where the respondents are able to grasp the main idea of the sentence. The subsidiary list of words extracted through the key word corpus adds to the accuracy of the system. The present study is only limited to official correspondence in English. It could be modified to be adapted to other languages.
Paperless automated railway ticketing system for Sri Lanka using the electronic national identity card
(Department of Zoology and Environmental Management, University of Kelaniya, Kelaniya, Sri Lanka., 2016) Weerasooriya, T.
Trains are a popular mode of public transport used by daily commuters in Sri Lanka. The paper based ticket is still commonly used for train travel in many countries, including Sri Lanka. For each trip, a commuter is required to purchase a paper ticket, which is 0.74 mm thick (equivalent to the thickness of 15 A4 sheets) and 1.04 g in weight. The average number of tickets issued per month from the Colombo Fort railway station is above 300,000. The production cost per ticket is Rs. 10. The ticket is collected soon after the commuter exits a station, which is then discarded. At present, some countries use a debit card exclusively for train travel as a paperless method. The aim of this research is to replace the existing paper based train ticketing system of Sri Lanka with an automated paperless ticketing system which enables a reduction of the annual paper waste generation and would be convenient for both the commuters and the staff of the Railway Department. From the beginning of 2016, it is proposed that the Electronic National Identity Card (e-NIC) to be used in Sri Lanka. The research presents an alternative system of paperless ticketing where the e-NIC is used to replace the traditional train ticket, thereby decreasing the amount of paper waste generated and increasing the efficiency of the purchase and the use of train tickets. In addition to eliminating the production cost of tickets, the proposed method enables the reduction of the time spent on ticket purchase, increase in convenience and decrease of security issues related to the train tickets. This would help to prevent ticket fraud. The system, which can be identified as a Green Computing Technique is developed using Java and MySQL database. This is proposed to be used in Sri Lanka, and can be implemented globally wherever the e-NIC is available.
Pre-defined competency level based instructional design model for learning Anatomy in an undergraduate medical curriculum
(South East Asia Regional Association for Medical Education (SEARAME), 2021) Abeykoon, I.; Fernando, L.; Fernando, A.; Weerasooriya, T.; Chandratilake, M.
ABSTRACT: The paper presents a competency based instructional design model to teach gross Anatomy in an undergraduate medical course. The main objectives of the presented instructional design model is to allow space for identification of finer demarcations for expected competencies while allowing the students to possess a broader understanding of the discussed areas under each competency level. Here the traditional semester will be split into three competency levels and within each competency level the entire region expected to be discussed will be presented. However, the first competency level will discuss the given area superficially with details being introduced during second and third competency levels. The center of focus as well as teaching learning modalities will also evolve with increasing competency levels making the presented instructional design model a more dynamic than a static approach. KEYWORDS: Medical education, Anatomy, Competency based education, Higher education, Educational model
Prolactin and male infertility
(Sri Lanka Medical Association, 2013) Hasan, R.; Weerasooriya, T.; Illeperuma, I.; Weerasinghe, W.S.; Withana, A.K.G.
INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: Male infertility due to endocrine disturbances is seen among 1% of couples seeking medical help for childlessness. Effects of prolactin on the male reproductive system are not fully understood. Objective was to determine prolactin level in healthy males with infertility. METHODS: A case control study recruited 297 males attending infertility clinics in a government or private institution over a period of 54 months. A detailed clinical assessment of reproductive health was carried out. All underwent a -basic seminal fluid analysis (BSA) and an endocrine profile consisting of FSH, LH, testosterone and prolactin (PRL) hormones carried out using the immulite random access chemiluminescent immunoassay method (normal range 2.5-17ng/ml). Age, weight and height matched volunteers comprised the control group. RESULTS: None of the cases had any anatomical, medical or surgical disorder which could account for the infertility. Among the controls, mean age was 33.2yrs ±5.2, BMI 21.04 kgm-2 ±1.39, BSA 34xl06± 7.87x106, number of children fathered 2 ±1, PRL 6.78ng/ml ±2.92. Twenty nine (9.76%) had abnormal PRL levels irrespective of serum testosterone level with a BSA sperm count < 20x106 and there were structural and functional abnormalities. Hyperprolactinaemic was seen in 28 and 26 had marked hypotestosteronaemia. FSH and LH were normal. CONCLUSIONS: Prolactin abnormalities affect the male reproductive system and semen parameters. Further studies should be carried out on PRL and male infertility
Sri Lankan English (SLE) over the years: Evolution of the SLE vocabulary over two generations of SLE speakers
(Faculty of Humanities, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Perera, N.; Weerasooriya, T.
Sri Lankan English (SLE) has unique phonological, morphological, lexical and syntactic features which have gradually developed since the introduction of English in Sri Lanka. Vocabulary is one of the first features to be developed in SLE. Although the SLE vocabulary has been studied and recorded by researchers such as Gunesekera and Meyler, its generational difference has not been researched into. The research question of the study was: ‘Can the generational change’ observable in the selected SLE vocabulary be termed an evolution?’ This was done through a qualitative, comparative analysis of selected SLE vocabulary used in the decade 1955 – 1965 and 2005 – 2015. The primary data was taken from the Ceylon Observer of 1955 – 1965 (36 words) and the Sunday Observer of the decade 2005 – 2015 (111 words). 19 words were used in a questionnaire survey among 60 participants of which 30 were of the ages 15 – 25 and 30 were between the ages 65- 75. The results of the survey were then analyzed in detail through 10 interviews. The survey and the interviews were conducted to prove / disprove the age-gradedness of the selected SLE vocabulary and to prove / disprove the apparent time hypothesis in relation to the selected SLE vocabulary. Most of the vocabulary used disproved age-gradedness as they had specific meanings in relation to the two generations. A lexical change in the vocabulary was also observed. The usage of these terms were generation specific, which supported that the selected SLE vocabulary is not age-graded. The interviews supported the apparent time hypotheses as the older generation showed that their vocabulary has not changed significantly over the years. From these observations, it could be concluded that the generational difference observable in the selected SLE vocabulary over 60 years could be termed an evolution.