Narasimham Committee Report - Some Further Ramifications and Suggestions

This paper while agreeing with the general thrust of the Narasimham Committee Report. Calls attention to some logical corollaries of the Report and analyses some possible fallout from implementing the Report. We agree with the view that control of banking system should be under an autonomous body supervised by the RBI. However at the level of individual banks, closer scrutiny of lending procedures may be called for than is envisaged in the Report. In a freely functioning capital market the potential of government bonds is enormous, but this necessitates restructuring of the government bond market. The government bonds may then also be used as suitable hedging mechanisms by introducing options and futures trading. We recommend freeing up the operation of pension and provident fund to enable at least partial investment of such funds in risky securities. In the corporate sector, we believe that the current 2:1 debt equity norm is too high and not sustainable in the long term. We envisage that high debt levels and higher interest rates, combined with higher business risk may result in greater incidence of corporate sickness. This may call for various schemes for retrenched workers and amendment to land laws for easy exit of companies. On account of interdependencies across different policies, any sequencing of their implementation may be highly problematic. We therefore suggest a near simultaneity in the implementation of various reforms in order to build up a momentum which would be irreversible if people are to have confidence that the reforms will endure, and if we are to retain our credibility with international financial institutions.

Modeling of secondary organic aerosol yields from laboratory chamber data

Laboratory chamber data serve as the basis for constraining models of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. Current models fall into three categories: empirical two-product (Odum), product-specific, and volatility basis set. The product-specific and volatility basis set models are applied here to represent laboratory data on the ozonolysis of α-pinene under dry, dark, and low-NOx conditions in the presence of ammonium sulfate seed aerosol. Using five major identified products, the model is fit to the chamber data. From the optimal fitting, SOA oxygen-to-carbon (O/C) and hydrogen-to-carbon (H/C) ratios are modeled. The discrepancy between measured H/C ratios and those based on the oxidation products used in the model fitting suggests the potential importance of particle-phase reactions. Data fitting is also carried out using the volatility basis set, wherein oxidation products are parsed into volatility bins. The product-specific model is most likely hindered by lack of explicit inclusion of particle-phase accretion compounds. While prospects for identification of the majority of SOA products for major volatile organic compounds (VOCs) classes remain promising, for the near future empirical product or volatility basis set models remain the approaches of choice

Changes in organic aerosol composition with aging inferred from aerosol mass spectra

Organic aerosols (OA) can be separated with factor analysis of aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) data into hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA) and oxygenated OA (OOA). We develop a new method to parameterize H:C of OOA in terms of f_(43)(ratio of m/z 43, mostly C_2H_3O^+, to total signal in the component mass spectrum). Such parameterization allows for the transformation of large database of ambient OOA components from the f_(44) (mostly CO^+_2, likely from acid groups) vs. f_(43) space ("triangle plot") (Ng et al., 2010) into the Van Krevelen diagram (H:C vs. O:C) (Van Krevelen, 1950). Heald et al. (2010) examined the evolution of total OA in the Van Krevelen diagram. In this work total OA is deconvolved into components that correspond to primary (HOA and others) and secondary (OOA) organic aerosols. By deconvolving total OA into different components, we remove physical mixing effects between secondary and primary aerosols which allows for examination of the evolution of OOA components alone in the Van Krevelen space. This provides a unique means of following ambient secondary OA evolution that is analogous to and can be compared with trends observed in chamber studies of secondary organic aerosol formation. The triangle plot in Ng et al. (2010) indicates that f_(44) of OOA components increases with photochemical age, suggesting the importance of acid formation in OOA evolution. Once they are transformed with the new parameterization, the triangle plot of the OOA components from all sites occupy an area in Van Krevelen space which follows a ΔH:C/ΔO:C slope of ~ −0.5. This slope suggests that ambient OOA aging results in net changes in chemical composition that are equivalent to the addition of both acid and alcohol/peroxide functional groups without fragmentation (i.e. C-C bond breakage), and/or the addition of acid groups with fragmentation. These results provide a framework for linking the bulk aerosol chemical composition evolution to molecular-level studies

The Future of Medicaid: State Legislator Views on Policy Waivers

A survey of state legislators revealed clear partisan differences in Medicaid reform priorities and policy preferences that states are pursuing in Section 1115 waiver applications. While there was some agreement across parties on broad goals for the Medicaid program, such as reducing health care spending and increasing affordability of health care, there was little consensus on specific policy changes needed to meet these goals

Placental abruption: a persisting killer

Background: Placental abruption, common disorder in obstetric practice, enigma too, is uniquely fraught with dangers to mother baby. Objectives of study were to study trends of placental abruption, risk factors, management strategies to learn more for reduction in morbidity-mortality of mother-baby, even with low resources, also get insight for future research.  Methods: Records of cases of placental abruption managed over 27 years (between 1985 to 2011) were divided into three yearly blocks, A to I and analysed. Details  including operative procedures like dilatation-curettage, Caesarean Section (CS) or Ante-Partum Haemorrhage (APH) in past, disorders like chronic hypertension, threatened abortion, pregnancy specific hypertension, diabetes, anaemia in index pregnancy, management done maternal-neonatal outcome were analysed using stata 6 software.Results: There were 66,459 births during analysis period with 667 cases of placental abruption, 1% births, increasing trends from, 0.73% between 1985-1987 to, 1.11% in 2009-2011. In these 667 cases of placental abruption, 211 (32.5%) perinatal deaths occurred. Ratio of perinatal deaths due to placental abruption to overall perinatal deaths increased from 2.12% (8 cases) between 1985-1987 (Block A) to 5.12% (37 cases) between 2009-2011 (Block I). Case fatality in cases of placental abruption has been fluctuating between 3 to 5% till 2004, contributing to around 12-15%, maternal mortality, with no fatality in last 7 years.Conclusions: Cases of placental abruption have been increasing with no obvious reason. In recent past maternal deaths could be prevented but perinatal deaths, have been persisting actually more in last decade

Glyoxal uptake on ammonium sulphate seed aerosol: reaction products and reversibility of uptake under dark and irradiated conditions

Chamber studies of glyoxal uptake onto ammonium sulphate aerosol were performed under dark and irradiated conditions to gain further insight into processes controlling glyoxal uptake onto ambient aerosol. Organic fragments from glyoxal dimers and trimers were observed within the aerosol under dark and irradiated conditions. Glyoxal monomers and oligomers were the dominant organic compounds formed under the conditions of this study; glyoxal oligomer formation and overall organic growth were found to be reversible under dark conditions. Analysis of high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectra provides evidence for irreversible formation of carbon-nitrogen (C-N) compounds in the aerosol. We have identified 1H-imidazole-2-carboxaldehyde as one C-N product. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time C-N compounds resulting from condensed phase reactions with ammonium sulphate seed have been detected in aerosol. Organosulphates were not detected under dark conditions. However, active photochemistry was found to occur within aerosol during irradiated experiments. Carboxylic acids and organic esters were identified within the aerosol. An organosulphate, which had been previously assigned as glyoxal sulphate in ambient samples and chamber studies of isoprene oxidation, was observed only in the irradiated experiments. Comparison with a laboratory synthesized standard and chemical considerations strongly suggest that this organosulphate is glycolic acid sulphate, an isomer of the previously proposed glyoxal sulphate. Our study shows that reversibility of glyoxal uptake should be taken into account in SOA models and also demonstrates the need for further investigation of C-N compound formation and photochemical processes, in particular organosulphate formation