The Evolution of Cholesterol-Rich Membrane in Oxygen Adaption: The Respiratory System as a Model.

The increase in atmospheric oxygen levels imposed significant environmental pressure on primitive organisms concerning intracellular oxygen concentration management. Evidence suggests the rise of cholesterol, a key molecule for cellular membrane organization, as a cellular strategy to restrain free oxygen diffusion under the new environmental conditions. During evolution and the increase in organismal complexity, cholesterol played a pivotal role in the establishment of novel and more complex functions associated with lipid membranes. Of these, caveolae, cholesterol-rich membrane domains, are signaling hubs that regulate important in situ functions. Evolution resulted in complex respiratory systems and molecular response mechanisms that ensure responses to critical events such as hypoxia facilitated oxygen diffusion and transport in complex organisms. Caveolae have been structurally and functionally associated with respiratory systems and oxygen diffusion control through their relationship with molecular response systems like hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF), and particularly as a membrane-localized oxygen sensor, controlling oxygen diffusion balanced with cellular physiological requirements. This review will focus on membrane adaptations that contribute to regulating oxygen in living systems

More knowledge, more HIV risk? The curious case of migrant workers in Mumbai

Farah Seedat identifies determinants of HIV risk among migrant sub-groups in Mumbai and finds that more knowledge leads to greater vulnerability to infection. Seedat’s working paper is summarised here by LSE alumna Hemal Shah

South Africa’s politics of unemployment

LSE alumna Hemal Shah says that South Africans could use their democratic and demographic advantages to tackle their massive unemployment problem

Synchrophasor-based Fault Location Detection and Classification, in Power Systems, using Artificial Intelligence

With the introduction of sophisticated electronic gadgets which cannot sustain interruption in the provision of electricity, the need to supply uninterrupted and reliable power supply, to the consumers, has become a crucial factor in the present-day world. Therefore, it is customary to correctly identify fault locations in an electrical power network, in order to rectify faults and restore power supply in the minimum possible time. Many automated fault location detection algorithms have been proposed, however, prior art requires topological and physical information of the electrical power network. This thesis presents a new method of detecting fault locations, in transmission as well as distribution networks, using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms on the real-time synchrophasor measurements obtained from the network. The proposed method first generates a bus admittance matrix from the synchrophasor data and then uses a neural network to identify the faulty buses. It is independent of network-specific data of the electrical power network. The proposed algorithm is evaluated using actual outage data from a real transmission system of Southwest Power Pool, in the year 2015. The results of the system implemented in python shows that the proposed method can detect fault locations with 100% accuracy

“Developing countries should build capacity to have public debates” – Raghuram Rajan

Hemal Shah reports from Delhi on a workshop exploring whether there is an emerging democratic growth model in India, Brazil and South Africa, as an alternative to a Chinese-style growth model

Five reasons why new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could successfully rekindle US-India relations

At the end of September, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to make his first state visit to the United States. Hemal Shah argues that despite Modi’s 2005 visa ban and India’s rocky relationship with the US to date, it is possible to be cautiously optimistic about the future relations between the two democratic giants

Falling short: how bad economic choices threaten the US-India relationship and India’s rise

A study by authors at the American Enterprise Institute explains how a US-India strategic partnership built on weak economic foundations will likely flounder

Top 10 challenges for India in 2013

Hemal Shah asked LSE academics and Indian journalists, parliamentarians, policy analysts, and economists what challenges India should prepare to tackle in the new year. Here’s what they said

Five reasons why Modi could successfully rekindle US-India relations

At the end of September Modi is due to make his first state visit to America. Hemal Shah argues that despite Modi’s 2005 visa ban and India’s rocky relationship with the US to date, it is possible to be cautiously optimistic about the future relations between the two democratic giants