Prof. Upul Sonnadara
Department of Physics
Publications
Treasures of the Education System in Sri Lanka
The Sri Lankan education system has followed the classical recipe of development policy in two important respects. First, it has emphasized the importance of public financing and provision of basic education and secondary education to the entire population. This visionary emphasis, commencing in the 1930s and 1940s, was generations ahead of its time. Second, Sri Lanka limited public resources devoted to tertiary education, awarding emphasis to the basic and secondary cycles. The fruits of these policies have been reaped in subsequent generations, with basic education attainment, primary health outcomes and social development indicators close to levels observed in upper-middle income and developed countries.
Spatial interpolation of weekly rainfall depth in the Dry zone of Sri Lanka
Daily rainfall data recorded at 13 stations were analyzed to study the spatial patterns of rainfall in the dry zone of Sri Lanka. Principal component analysis was utilized to classify the dominant spatial regions. The first 2 eigenvectors accounted for 70.2% (the first eigenvector 54.8% and the second 15.4%) of the total variation, which clearly supports the commonly used major climatic division of Sri Lanka into wet and dry zones. Both the inverse distance weighting method and kriging successfully estimated weekly average rainfall in the North Central dry zone of Sri Lanka. For both methods, high correlation coefficients of 0.88 and 0.91 were observed for the southwest and northeast monsoon periods, respectively, with slightly lower values for intermonsoon periods. For inter-monsoon periods, the inverse distance weighting method produced better results than kriging. This work shows that the strength of the predictions depends on the rainfall seasons as well as the geometrical placement of the stations in the dry zone.
Attaining the Millennium Development Goals in Sri Lanka
This report focuses on the attainment of five major human development-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by sub-national units in Sri Lanka relating to poverty, under-five and infant mortality, child malnutrition, schooling enrollment and completion, and gender disparities in schooling.
Some Properties of Lightning Ground Flashes Observed in and around Sri Lanka, and their Seasonal Variations
Forecasting the Occurrence of Rainfall in Selected Weather Stations in the Wet and Dry Zones of Sri Lanka
Measurements of lightning peak currents in the first return stroke of negative cloud to ground flashes
Activity of cloud-to-ground lightning observed in Sri Lanka and in surrounding area of the Indian Ocean
Λ production and flow in Au+ Au collisions at 11.5 A GeV/c
Proton and pion production in Au+ Au collisions at 10.8 A GeV/c
Online trigger system to select particles generated in high multiplicity environments
Locating cloud-to-ground lightning flashes with simultaneous two-station measurements
Light fragment yields from central Au+ Au collisions at 11.5 A GeV/c
Directed flow of antiprotons in Au+ Au collisions at AGS
Two-proton correlations from 14.6 A GeV/c Si+ Pb and 11.5 A GeV/c Au+ Au central collisions
Recent results from E877 for Au+ Au collisions at AGS energy
Directed flow of light nuclei in Au+ Au collisions at 10.8 A GeV/c
Development of Client-Server based Network Centric Remote Data Acquisition Systems
Study of the performance of direction finding stations prior to the implementation of a Lightning Location System in Sri Lanka
Particle production and hydrodynamic flow: Recent results from E877 for Au+ Au colliaions at AGS energy
Two-pion correlations in Au+ Au collisions at 10.8 GeV/c per nucleon
Proton and pion production relative to the reaction plane in Au+ Au collisions at 11A GeV/c
Energy and charged particle flow in 10.8 A GeV/c Au+ Au collisions
Backward yields of pions, protons, and deuterons in relativistic 28Si+ Pb collisions at 14.6 A GeVc
Two-particle correlations in Au+Au collisions at AGS energy
Hadron yields and spectra in Au+Au collisions at the AGS
Flow studies at 10.8 GeV/nucleon
Flow in Ultrarelativistic Heavy Ion Collisions at the AGS
