Browsing by Author "Withanage, N. S."

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    Identification of Perception and Adaptation to Climatic Change by the Tea (camellia sinensis) Small-holders in Rathnapura District
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2018) Weerasinghe, N. M.; Dharmadasa, A. P. I. S.; Withanage, N. S.; Senaratne, A.
    As all other agricultural crops, tea cultivation also cannot escape from the consequences of climate change. In Sri Lankan context, majority of tea production is by smallholders and thus tea smallholders' perception on climate change and possible adaptations to it are crucial for the future of the tea industry of Sri Lanka. Therefore, this study attempted to identify the major factors influencing the perception and the adaptation to climate change among tea smallholders over 5 tea inspector ranges in Rathnapura District. The simple random sampling technique was used for data collection. The interviews were conducted with 160 smallholders and those were analyzed using Two Step Heckman's probit model. First, whether smallholders perceiving the climate change and then responding to those changes through the adaptation were considered in the two steps of the model. The results revealed that, the majority of smallholders in Rathnapura District have perceived the changes in climate. Farmers' perception on climate change was significantly related to the gender, crop type (mono cropping), and education level, awareness of the weather forecast and frequency of usage of communication channels. These factors were positively affected to the perception and use of print media as communication channel has decreased the perception level of smallholders. According to their responses, factors affecting the level of adaptation to the climate change were yield, land extent, labor use and temperature change. Further, yield and temperature changes have positive impact on use of adaptation measures by smallholders. Also land extent and family labor involvement have negatively affected to adapt the climate change. According to the findings, by strengthening the awareness programs, weather forecast and extension services can uplift the perception of the climate change and the use of adaption measures by tea smallholders.
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    Performance of coconut kernel residue oil as a processing oil in carbon black filled natural rubber composites
    (Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka, 2015) Samarakoon, M. G. L.; Withanage, N. S.; Siriwaradena, S.
    Processing oil is aromatic or aliphatic hydrocarbon used in dry rubber compounding to obtain efficient dispersion of filler in rubber, lower the power consumption during mixing, provides lubrication between rubber molecules. Incorporation of processing oil improves the physical properties of natural and synthetic rubber such as elasticity, low temperature performance, and aid in the dispersion of pigments resulting in improvement of tensile strength and abrasion resistance and rather they decrease hardness, elongation at break, tensile strength, resilience. Mainly aromatic, paraffinic and naphthenic oils are used as processing oils in dry rubber compounding. According to the regulations of European Parliament, use of petroleum based processing oil rich in in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon has been banded since 2009 due to carcinogenic. Therefore, scientists are switching onto naturally occurring oils because of restriction on use of fossil fuel based processing oils. An effort was taken to evaluate the performance of the Coconut Kernel Residue Oil (CKRO) as a processing oil in Carbon Black (CB) filled natural rubber composites. Methodology Firstly, the CKRO was characterized with regards to fee fatty acid, moisture, ash and metal ions ). Then CKRO was incorporated in different treatment levels (0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 phr) as processing oil in carbon black (CB) filled natural rubber composites. Both curing and physico-mechanical properties including tensile strength, tear strength, elongation at break, abrasion volume loss, compression set, rebound resilience and harness of the vulcanizates containing different levels of CKRO were compared against the standard vulcanisate which was prepared by using 6 phr of aromatic oil used in the industry at present and all the tests were carried out according to the ISO standard test methods.