Government Deficit and Inflation in India

This study covering the period 1951-52 to 1999-2000 finds that government deficit has been an important cause for long-run inflationary trend in India. The estimates in the study, however, suggest that there is an optimal level of monetisation for a given level of government deficit and refutes the concern that monetisation of deficit is always inflationary. This is not to suggest in any way that there is more scope to finance government deficit through monetisation. With the increase in capital inflows on which there is a certain degree of lack of control and the consequent predominance of net foreign exchange assets in reserve money, there is a need for greater fiscal restraint as well as monetary-fiscal coordination

Brain status modeling with non-negative projective dictionary learning

Accurate prediction of individuals’ brain age is critical to establish a baseline for normal brain development. This study proposes to model brain development with a novel non-negative projective dictionary learning (NPDL) approach, which learns a discriminative representation of multi-modal neuroimaging data for predicting brain age. Our approach encodes the variability of subjects in different age groups using separate dictionaries, projecting features into a low-dimensional manifold such that information is preserved only for the corresponding age group. The proposed framework improves upon previous discriminative dictionary learning methods by inc

Brain Structural Networks Associated with Intelligence and Visuomotor Ability

Increasing evidence indicates that multiple structures in the brain are associated with intelligence and cognitive function at the network level. The association between the grey matter (GM) structural network and intelligence and cognition is not well understood. We applied a multivariate approach to identify the pattern of GM and link the structural network to intelligence and cognitive functions. Structural magnetic resonance imaging was acquired from 92 healthy individuals. Source-based morphometry analysis was applied to the imaging data to extract GM structural covariance. We assessed the intelligence, verbal fluency, processing speed, and executive functioning of the participants and further investigated the correlations of the GM structural networks with intelligence and cognitive functions. Six GM structural networks were identified. The cerebello-parietal component and the frontal component were significantly associated with intelligence. The parietal and frontal regions were each distinctively associated with intelligence by maintaining structural networks with the cerebellum and the temporal region, respectively. The cerebellar component was associated with visuomotor ability. Our results support the parieto-frontal integration theory of intelligence by demonstrating how each core region for intelligence works in concert with other regions. In addition, we revealed how the cerebellum is associated with intelligence and cognitive functions

Developmental changes in organization of structural brain networks

Recent findings from developmental neuroimaging studies suggest that the enhancement of cognitive processes during development may be the result of a fine-tuning of the structural and functional organization of brain with maturation. However, the details regarding the developmental trajectory of large-scale structural brain networks are not yet understood. Here, we used graph theory to examine developmental changes in the organization of structural brain networks in 203 normally growing children and adolescents. Structural brain networks were constructed using interregional correlations in cortical thickness for 4 age groups (early childhood: 4.8-8.4 year; late childhood: 8.5-11.3 year; early adolescence: 11.4-14.7 year; late adolescence: 14.8-18.3 year). Late childhood showed prominent changes in topological properties, specifically a significant reduction in local efficiency, modularity, and increased global efficiency, suggesting a shift of topological organization toward a more random configuration. An increase in number and span of distribution of connector hubs was found in this age group. Finally, inter-regional connectivity analysis and graph-theoretic measures indicated early maturation of primary sensorimotor regions and protracted development of higher order association and paralimbic regions. Our finding reveals a time window of plasticity occurring during late childhood which may accommodate crucial changes during puberty and the new developmental tasks that an adolescent faces