Domestic Market Integration

The paper looks into the level of integration of commodity markets in India, across centres and states using consumer price data. It measures the extent to which domestic markets for goods in India are integrated, and recommends policy options to facilitate integration. The paper addresses questions: Are domestic markets for goods integrated across states? Has market integration increased over time? What are the policy options to facilitate integration? The paper tests the methodology proposed by Bradford and Lawrence (2004) on the consumer prices of goods in major states across India. This is then repeated using consumer price data at two points in time (1994 and 2004), allowing an assessment of whether Indian markets have integrated over time. Market integration is also tested for individual commodities across markets. The annual consumer prices for commodities were compiled from the Labour Bureau series of average monthly consumer prices of commodities for Industrial workers across 70 constituent centres in 18 states and monthly data was compiled from the Indian Labour Journal, a monthly publication from Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour Government of India. Authors are thankful to Labour Bureau, Shimla for providing data on consumer prices at the disaggregated level. This study was commissioned by The World Bank as the background paper on market integration in The World Bank Development Policy Review: Inclusive Growth and Service Delivery: Building on India's Success. July 2006Market Integration, Consumer Prices, Primary Food, Manufactured Goods, India

Domestic Market Integration

The paper looks into the level of integration of commodity markets in India, across centres and states using consumer price data. It measures the extent to which domestic markets for goods in India are integrated, and recommends policy options to facilitate integration. The paper addresses questions : Are domestic markets for goods integrated across states? Has market integration increased over time? What are the policy options to facilitate integration? The paper tests the methodology proposed by Bradford and Lawrence (2004) on the consumer prices of goods in major states across India. This is then repeated using consumer price data at two points in time (1994 and 2004), allowing an assessment of whether Indian markets have integrated over time. Market integration is also tested for individual commodities across markets. The annual consumer prices for commodities were compiled from the Labour Bureau series of average monthly consumer prices of commodities for Industrial workers across 70 constituent centres in 18 states and monthly data was compiled from the Indian Labour Journal, a monthly publication from Labour Bureau, Ministry of Labour Government of India. Authors are thankful to Labour Bureau, Shimla for providing data on consumer prices at the disaggregated level.Market Integration, Consumer Prices, Primary Food, Manufactured Goods, India

Energy Intensity analysis of Indian manufacturing industries

Energy has been recognized as one of the key inputs for the economic growth and social development of a country. India being one of the largest and rapidly growing developing countries, there is an impending energy crisis which requires immediate measures to be adopted. In this situation the concept of Energy Intensity comes under special focus to ensure energy security in an environmentally sustainable way. Energy Intensity of Indian manufacturing industries is among the highest in the world and stands for enormous energy consumption. Hence, reducing the Energy Intensity of Indian manufacturing industries is one of the challenges. This study attempts to analyse the factors which influence the Energy Intensity of Indian manufacturing industries and how they can be improved to reduce the Energy Intensity. The paper considers five of the largest energy consuming manufacturing industrial sectors in India viz. Aluminium, Cement, Iron & Steel Industries, Textile Industries and Fertilizer Industries and conducts a detailed Energy Intensity analysis using the data from PROWESS database of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) for the period 2005-2014

Multi-Agents Implementation Frameworks - An Overview

Large scale deployment of Micro Grids besides the advanced metering, demand response, reliable communications infrastructure set up has been incorporated into the technological road map of the future smart power grid. To congregate the operation and control needs of distributed energy resources in Micro-Grids the Multi-Agent System (MAS) seem to have splendid features. MAS is an emerging sub-field of Distributed Artificial Intelligence that has the potential to manage the changing face of electric power grid by inculcating intelligent agents into Micro-Grids. To create agents and implement MAS a framework, a platform is obligatory where in the agents reside and operate from. There is a wide range of Multi-agent platforms available on the web like Aglet, Grasshopper, DESIRE, Jadex, ZEUS, JADE etc. Each agent platform has to be evaluated according to the some criteria that have been mentioned in this endeavor. A brief relative appraisal of an assortment of agent platforms has been provided. According to various noteworthy researches the most used platform in micro-grid applications is JADE. This paper presents an architectural and functional overview of the agent building toolkit JADE framework for Multi-Agent System implementation. DOI: 10.17762/ijritcc2321-8169.150210

Development of a latent IL-17 antagonist for targeted therapy of rheumatoid arthritis.

PhDCytokine based therapies can be targeted to the sites of active inflammation by modifying a given cytokine as a LAP-cytokine. IL-17A has been shown to directly contribute to pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). IL-17F, another member of the IL-17 cytokines family shares structural homology, receptor binding and biological properties with IL-17A but is 30-100 times less potent than IL-17A. (H161R) IL-17F mutant, a natural variant of IL-17F was shown to be protective against asthma in Japanese population. In vitro, IL-17F mutant competitively inhibited wild-type IL-17F and lacked the ability to activate downstream signaling pathways. I hypothesized that (H161R) IL-17F mutant is an additional inhibitor of IL-17A and if modified as LAP-IL-17F mutant, would be an effective targeted therapy for RA. (H161R) IL-17F mutant was created by substituting nucleotide A at position 485 in the wild type IL-17F by G. In vitro assays showed that the IL-17F mutant could bind to IL-17RC but lacked the ability to stimulate IL-6 secretion in HFFF2, 3T3 and HeLa cells and phosphorylate ERK1/2 in HeLa cells. IL-17F mutant also inhibited IL-17A induced secretion of IL-6 in all these cell lines. In order to assess in vivo therapeutic efficacy of LAP-IL-17F mutant in collagen induced arthritis mice, three mouse analogues of human IL-17F mutant were developed. Of these, (Q158R) IL-17F mutant displayed IL-17 agonistic properties, (H157R) IL-17F mutant could not be expressed in vitro and the truncated IL-17F mutant could not bind to mouse IL-17RC. Investigation of in vivo expression and pharmacokinetics of intravenous hydrodynamically delivered human full-length and LAP-IL-17 plasmid DNAs in naïve SCID and C57BL/6 mice showed that human IL-17 transgene expression was detectable in mouse serum at 48 hours post-delivery. The transgene expression however declined rapidly over the next two weeks. The local expression of transgene in C57BL/6 airpouch lavage fluid was less than 5% of its systemic levels. Taken together, the findings of the study warrant an investigation of in vivo therapeutic efficacy of human (H161F) IL-17F mutant in a suitable preclinical RA model, such as RA synovium/SCID mice.Barts and The London Charity; Arthritis Research U

Emerging trends of traumatic brain injury in Western Uttar Pradesh, India: diagnosis and rehabilitation

Background: To study the various advance technology for the diagnosis of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and find out Emerging trends occur in TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) patients.Methods: The present study was conducted with 500 patients, age between 02 year to 70 years mean age (36 Years) presenting to emergency department of Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences, Saifai, Etawah, with a history of acute head trauma from January 2016 to December 2018. All patients were examined using 64 slices MDCT and 1.5T MRI Scanner also.Results: Traumatic brain injury caused by various reasons like 62.1% road traffic accidents (RTA) and 25.1% fall from height (FFH) being and 11.83% Assault/hit by hard object and 0.88% are gunshot injury. Loss of consciousness was the most common complaint of the 59.1% TBI patients followed by 17.75% Vomiting and headache, 11.83% facial injury and 11.24% scalp injury. All TBI patients were diagnosed by MDCT 64 Slices Somatom Sensation Scanner who was observed 41.42% skull fractures, 29.28% extra dural hematoma, 27.21% sub dural hematoma, 23.96% sub archnoid haemorrhage, 13% intra cerebral hematoma, 30.17% brain contusions and 24.26% diffuse cerebral edema.Conclusions: Road traffic accidents remain the leading cause of trauma in our country. MRI and MDCT are well recognized method to know the extent and various types of hemorrhages and skull fractures in TBI patients. The present study data is indicated 62.1% majority of TBI patients are suffered by Road traffic accidents mainly young males with alcoholism

An Update on JE Vaccine Development and Use

Japanese encephalitis (JE) is an emerging and re- emerging arboviral infection of global significance. Its causative agent Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) is the leading cause of viral encephalitis in Asia, Southeast Asia and Pacific. Nearly 3 billion people living in JE endemic areas account for 10000- 15000 deaths annually. The disease has high fatality rate (~30%) and nearly 50% survivors develop permanent neuropsychiatric sequelae. There is no specific treatment for JE. Vaccination is the only effective strategy available for prevention and control of JE. The wider availability and inclusion of JE vaccination in the national immunization programme in many of the affected countries have resulted in better prospects for control of JE. This review is an update on vaccines currently available, their development, recommended immunization schedule for them as well as the upcoming challenges related with cross- protectivity against hetrologous genotypes

Histoplasmosis, heart failure, hemolysis and haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis

Histoplasmosis is an endemic mycosis with global distribution, primarily reported in immunocompromised individuals. A 29-year old immunocompetent male presented with fever, hepatosplenomegaly and pancytopenia. His peripheral blood showed features suggestive of intravascular hemolysis and echocardiography showed features suggestive of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Bone marrow showed yeast with morphology suggestive of Histoplasma capsulatum. Further investigations revealed hyperferritinemia, hypofibrinogenemia and increased triglycerides. With a diagnosis of progressive disseminated histoplasmosis with secondary Haemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, he was successfully treated with amphotericin B followed by itraconazole. We report this case to highlight the atypical and rare manifestations of histoplasmosis

Phylogenetic studies reveal existence of multiple lineages of a single genotype of DENV-1 (genotype III) in India during 1956–2007

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dengue virus type 1 (DENV-1) have been mostly circulating silently with dominant serotypes DENV-2 and DENV-3 in India. However recent times have marked an increase in DENV-1 circulation in yearly outbreaks. Many studies have not been carried out on this virus type, leaving a lacunae pertaining to the circulating genotypes, since its earliest report in India. In the present study, we sequenced CprM gene junction of 13 DENV-1 isolated from Delhi and Gwalior (North India) between 2001–2007 and one 1956 Vellore isolate as reference. For comparison, we retrieved 11 other Indian and 70 global reference sequences from NCBI database, making sure that Indian and global isolates from all decades are available for comparative analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The region was found to be AT rich with no insertion or deletion. Majority of the nucleotide substitutions were silent, except 3 non-conservative amino acid changes (I → T, A → T and L → S at amino acid positions 59,114 and 155 respectively) in the Indian DENV-1 sequences, sequenced in this study. Except two 1997–98 Delhi isolates, which group in genotype I; all other Indian isolates group in genotype III. All Indian genotype III DENV-1 exhibited diversity among them, giving rise to at least 4 distinct lineages (India 1–4) showing proximity to isolates from diverse geographic locations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The extensive phylogenetic analysis revealed consistent existence of multiple lineages of DENV-1 genotype III during the last 5 decades in India.</p