Health and the Political Agency of Women

We investigate whether politician gender influences policy outcomes in India. We focus upon antenatal and postnatal public health provision since the costs of poor services in this domain are disproportionately borne by women. Accounting for potential endogeneity of politician gender and the sample composition of births, we find that a one standard deviation increase in women's political representation results in a 1.5 percentage point reduction in neonatal mortality. Women politicians are more likely to build public health facilities and encourage antenatal care, institutional delivery and immunization. The results are topical given that a bill proposing quotas for women in state assemblies is currently pending in the Indian Parliament.political identity, gender, mortality, health, social preferences, India

The intricate Galaxy disk: velocity asymmetries in Gaia-TGAS

We use the Gaia-TGAS data to compare the transverse velocities in Galactic longitude (coming from proper motions and parallaxes) in the Milky Way disk for negative and positive longitudes as a function of distance. The transverse velocities are strongly asymmetric and deviate significantly from the expectations for an axisymmetric Galaxy. The value and sign of the asymmetry changes at spatial scales of several tens of degrees in Galactic longitude and about 0.5 kpc in distance. The asymmetry is statistically significant at 95% confidence level for 57% of the region probed, which extends up to ~1.2 kpc. A percentage of 24% of the region studied shows absolute differences at this confidence level larger than 5 km/s and 7% larger than 10 km/s. The asymmetry pattern shows mild variations in the vertical direction and with stellar type. A first qualitative comparison with spiral arm models indicates that the arms are unlikely to be the main source of the asymmetry. We briefly discuss alternative origins. This is the first time that global all-sky asymmetries are detected in the Milky Way kinematics, beyond the local neighbourhood, and with a purely astrometric sample.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A Letter

Preliminary Study on the Feasibility of Performing Quantitative Precipitation Estimation Using X-band Radar

IRCTR has built an experimental X-band Doppler po-larimetric weather radar system aimed at obtaining high temporal and spatial resolution measurements of precipitation, with particular interest in light rain and drizzle. In this paper a first analysis of the feasibility of obtaining accurate quantitative precipitation estimation from the radar data performed using a high density network of rain gauges is presented

A Low-Cost FPGA-Based Test and Diagnosis Architecture for SRAMs

The continues improvement of manufacturing technologies allows the realization of integrated circuits containing an ever increasing number of transistors. A major part of these devices is devoted to realize SRAM blocks. Test and diagnosis of SRAM circuits are therefore an important challenge for improving quality of next generation integrated circuits. This paper proposes a flexible platform for testing and diagnosis of SRAM circuits. The architecture is based on the use of a low cost FPGA based board allowing high diagnosability while keeping costs at a very low leve

Trust and trustworthiness under information asymmetry and ambiguity

We introduce uncertainty and ambiguity in the standard investment game. In the uncertainty treatment, investors are informed that the return of the investment is drawn from a publicly known distribution function. In the ambiguity treatment, investors are not informed about the distribution function. We find that both trust and trustworthiness are robust to the introduction of these changes

Information asymmetry and deception

Situations such as an entrepreneur overstating a project’s value, or a superior choosing to under or overstate the gains from a project to a subordinate are common and may result in acts of deception. In this paper we modify the standard investment game in the economics literature to study the nature of deception. In this game a trustor (investor) can send a given amount of money to a trustee (or investee). The amount received is multiplied by a certain amount, k, and the investee then decides on how to divide the total amount received. In our modified game the information on the multiplier, k, is known only to the investee and she can send a nonbinding message to the investor regarding its value. We find that 66% of the investees send false messages with both under and over, statement being observed. Investors are naive and almost half of them believe the message received. We find greater lying when the distribution of the multiplier is unknown by the investors than when they know the distribution. Further, messages make beliefs about the multiplier more pessimistic when the investors know the distribution of the multiplier, while the opposite is true when they do not know the distribution

Defective Behaviour of an 8T SRAM Cell with Open Defects

The defective behaviour of an 8T SRAM cell with open defects is analyzed. Full and resistive open defects have been considered in the electrical characterization of the defective cell. Due to the similarity between the classical 6T SRAM cell and the 8T cell, only defects affecting the read port transistors have been considered. In the work, it is shown how an open in a defective cell may influence the correct operation of a victim cell sharing the same read circuitry. Also, it is shown that the sequence of bits written on the defective cell prior to a read action can mask the presence of the defect. Different orders of critical resistance have been found depending on the location of the open defect. A 45nm technology has been used for the illustrative example presented in the wor

Stable non-uniform black strings below the critical dimension

The higher-dimensional vacuum Einstein equation admits translationally non-uniform black string solutions. It has been argued that infinitesimally non-uniform black strings should be unstable in 13 or fewer dimensions and otherwise stable. We construct numerically non-uniform black string solutions in 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 dimensions. Their stability is investigated using local Penrose inequalities. Weakly non-uniform solutions behave as expected. However, in 12 and 13 dimensions, strongly non-uniform solutions appear to be stable and can have greater horizon area than a uniform string of the same mass. In 14 and 15 dimensions all non-uniform black strings appear to be stable.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figures. V2: reference added, matches published versio

Non-abelian magnetic black strings versus black holes

We present $d+1-$dimensional pure magnetic Yang-Mills (YM) black strings (or $1-$branes) induced by the $d-$dimensional Einstein-Yang-Mills-Dilaton black holes. Born-Infeld version of the YM field makes our starting point which goes to the standard YM field through a limiting procedure. The lifting from black holes to black strings, (with less number of fields) is by adding an extra, compact coordinate. This amounts to the change of horizon topology from $S^{d-2}$ to a product structure. Our black string in $5-$dimensions is a rather special one, with uniform Hawking temperature and non-asymptotically flat structure. As the YM charge becomes large the string gets thinner to tend into a breaking point and transform into a $4-$% dimensional black hole.Comment: 5 pages no figure; Final version to appear in EPJ