Corruption, fiscal policy, and growth: A unified approach

Copyright @ 2011 Brunel UniversityIn this paper, we study the effects of bureaucratic corruption on fiscal policy and the subsequent impact on economic growth. Here corruption takes three forms: (i) it reduces the tax revenue raised from households, (ii) it inflates the volume of government spending, and (iii) it reduces the productivity of ‘effective’ government expenditure. The analysis distinguishes between the case where fiscal choices are determined exogenously to ensure a balanced budget and the case where the government optimally sets its policy instruments. Our policy experiments reveal the complexity of the channels through which corruption impacts upon growth, and the conditions under which the direction of the effect takes shape. The findings from our unified framework could rationalise the diverse (and sometimes, apparently conflicting) empirical evidence on the impact of corruption on economic growth offered in the literature

An Unusual Melanocytic Nevus of Conjunctiva : Balloon Cell Nevus

Melanocytic nevi are one of the most common benign tumors of the conjunctiva. The balloon cell nevus is a rare and unusual variant of nevus of melanocytic origin, in which more than 50% of the tumor is composed of large polygonal cells with small nucleus and a clear to vacuolated cytoplasm. We describe a case of balloon cell nevus in a 6-year-old child who presented with pigmented lesion of the right eye since birth. The melanocytic nature of these cells was confirmed by immunohistochemical study. Excision of the tumor results in cure. This report describes a rare balloon cell nevus of conjunctiva which to the best of our knowledge is not documented in Indian literature

The Response of Serum Cortisol and Leptin Levels to Academic Stress

Background: Medical students are subjected to various types of stress during the academic course and they react differently. This study is an attempt to establish a relationship between the coping abilities, serum cortisol and leptin levels in response to academic examination stress in first year medical students. Methods: Thirty four 1st year medical students between 18 to 21 yrs of age were randomly selected and their coping abilities were assessed using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory. Two fasting blood samples were drawn, one on the day of examination (Situation I) and the second after the completion of the examination (Situation II). Serum cortisol and leptin levels were estimated using a standardized RIA Kit and the levels obtained were correlated with the psychometric data. Results: The results showed increased levels of cortisol prior to examination in the poor adjusters in comparison to the good adjusters. The levels of cortisol decreased after examination in both good and poor adjusters with the poor adjusters showing higher levels. On the other hand, leptin levels increased in good adjusters in comparison with poor adjusters in Situation I and in Situation II the good adjusters showed a marginal decrease and poor adjusters maintained the same levels of leptin. Conclusion: Cortisol and leptin respond inversely to academic stress. Cortisol levels sharply decline from stressful to post-stressful situation indicating the wane of stress

Bounds for sums of random variables when the marginal distributions and the variance of the sum are given

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Congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation: case report

Congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation of the lung is a rare lesion that typically manifests as severe progressive respiratory distress in the neonate secondary to expansion of the affected lung. We present a neonate in whom this condition was diagnosed and managed at the Aga Khan University Hospital. In presenting this patient, we hope to highlight the radiological aspects of this condition which, with prompt recognition and management and in the absence of pulmonary hypoplasia, foetal hydrops or other congenital anomalies, has a favourable prognosis

Systemic Therapy in Endometrial Cancer: Recent Advances.

Endometrial cancer is a chemosensitive disease. Studies have established a clear benefit of chemotherapy in advanced stages and trials are ongoing to define its role in early stages as well. As more molecular pathways are being elucidated there is increasing role for targeted agents and future looks quite promising. We did an extensive search both online and offline for all the relevant articles including chemotherapy and targeted therapy for endometrial cancer

Child Well-being in the Pacific Rim

This study extends previous efforts to compare the well-being of children using multi-dimensional indicators derived from sample survey and administrative series to thirteen countries in the Pacific Rim. The framework for the analysis of child well-being is to organise 46 indicators into 21 components and organise the components into 6 domains: material situation, health, education, subjective well-being, living environment, as well as risk and safety. Overall, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan have the highest child well-being and Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines the lowest. However, there are substantial variations between the domains. Japan and Korea perform best on the material well-being of children and also do well on health and education but they have the lowest subjective well-being among their children by some margin. There is a relationship between child well-being and GDP per capita but children in China have higher well-being than you would expect given their GDP and children in Australia have lower well-being. The analysis is constrained by missing data particularly that the Health Behaviour of School-Aged Children Survey is not undertaken in any of these countries

Two-dimensional mapping of triaxial strain fields in a multiferroic BiFeO3 thin film using scanning x-ray microdiffraction

The dramatically enhanced polarizations and saturation magnetizations observed in the epitaxially constrained BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films with their pronounced grain-orientation dependence have attracted much attention and are attributed largely to the constrained in-plane strain. Thus, it is highly desirable to directly obtain information on the two-dimensional (2D) distribution of the in-plane strain and its correlation with the grain orientation of each corresponding microregion. Here the authors report a 2D quantitative mapping of the grain orientation and the local triaxial strain field in a 250 nm thick multiferroic BFO film using a synchrotron x-ray microdiffraction technique. This direct scanning measurement demonstrates that the deviatoric component of the in-plane strain tensor is between 5x10(-3) and 6x10(-3) and that the local triaxial strain is fairly well correlated with the grain orientation in that particular region. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.X1145Nsciescopu

Impact of Workload on Service Time and Patient Safety: An Econometric Analysis of Hospital Operations

Much of prior work in the area of service operations management has assumed service rates to be exogenous to the level of load on the system. Using operational data from patient transport services and cardiothoracic surgery—two vastly different health-care delivery services—we show that the processing speed of service workers is influenced by the system load. We find that workers accelerate the service rate as load increases. In particular, a 10% increase in load reduces length of stay by two days for cardiothoracic surgery patients, whereas a 20% increase in the load for patient transporters reduces the transport time by 30 seconds. Moreover, we show that such acceleration may not be sustainable. Long periods of increased load (overwork) have the effect of decreasing the service rate. In cardiothoracic surgery, an increase in overwork by 1% increases length of stay by six hours. Consistent with prior studies in the medical literature, we also find that overwork is associated with a reduction in quality of care in cardiothoracic surgery—an increase in overwork by 10% is associated with an increase in likelihood of mortality by 2%. We also find that load is associated with an early discharge of patients, which is in turn correlated with a small increase in mortality rate