Institutions and Performance of Regulated Firms: Evidence from Electric Utilities in the Indian States

It is commonly accepted that institutions influence economic development of countries. But, can we also trace the effect of institutional endowment to specific sectors and regions of a country? There is a significant gap in knowledge and evidence of this issue in the literature. This paper examines this effect in the Indian electricity distribution sector and explores the influence of state-level institutional quality and economic factors on the performance of network utilities in India. Since the 1990s, India has adopted reform steps to improve the efficiency of its electricity sector. However, there remain performance differences among the utilities. We examine the performance of 52 electricity distribution utilities in 24 Indian states for the period from 2006-07 to 2011-12. The findings confirm that the quality of institutions and state-wide economic development affect the performance of the electricity distribution utilities in different states. Additionally, we simulate the cost savings from utilities� performance improvements linked with institutional enhancements. The results indicate the need to strengthen the institutions, for example through regulatory agencies reform to improve the performance of the sector

A stochastic frontier analysis approach for estimating energy demand and efficiency in the transport sector of Latin America and the Caribbean

In this paper, a stochastic frontier analysis approach is applied to estimate energy demand functions in the transport sector. This approach allows us to obtain energy efficiency measures at country level that are a robust alternative to the energy intensity indicators commonly used for international comparisons. A transitive multilateral price index is constructed for aggregating the diverse energy components employed in the sector. Due to the likely unobserved heterogeneity among countries, the use of a random parameters model is proposed to accommodate these differences and to obtain different income and price elasticities per country. The estimated model is compared with alternative approaches of addressing this issue such as latent class, true fixed effects or true random effects models. This study is the first to use a random parameters stochastic frontier approach in the estimation of energy demand functions. The proposed procedure is applied to Latin America and the Caribbean, where the transport sector represents a large share of total energy consumption

Foreword to APPG Policy Report: The Missing Link: HIV and mental health

Cite as: APPG on HIV and Aids (2020) APPG Policy Report: The Missing Link: HIV and mental health

Personalized cancer medicine and the future of pathology

In February 2011, a group of pathologists from different departments in Europe met in Zurich, Switzerland, to discuss opportunities and challenges for pathology in the era of personalized medicine. The major topics of the meeting were assessment of the role of pathology in personalized medicine, its future profile among other biomedical disciplines with an interest in personalized medicine as well as the evolution of companion diagnostics. The relevance of novel technologies for genome analysis in clinical practice was discussed. The participants recognize that there should be more initiatives taken by the pathology community in companion diagnostics and in the emerging field of next-generation sequencing and whole genome analysis. The common view of the participants was that the pathology community has to be mobilized for stronger engagement in the future of personalized medicine. Pathologists should be aware of the challenges and the analytical opportunities of the new technologies. Challenges of clinical trial design as well as insurance and reimbursement questions were addressed. The pathology community has the responsibility to lead medical colleagues into embracing this new area of genomic medicine. Without this effort, the discipline of pathology risks losing its key position in molecular tissue diagnostic

A meteorite-dropping superbolide from the catastrophically disrupted comet C1919Q2 Metcalf: a pathway for meteorites from Jupiter family comets

2 pages, 1 figure.-- Contributed to: 40th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (The Woodlands, Texas ,Mar 23-27, 2009).It is widely accepted that cometary nuclei are composed of a mix of volatile ices and meteoritic materials. In a series of seminal papers F. L. Whipple tried to explain how the irregular internal structure of each nuclei would be able to explain the nongravitational forces, and how the continuous sublimation of the ice species would lead to explain the origin of meteoroid streams. Not essential progress was made until that the approach of a cruise of international spacecrafts to comet 1P/Halley allowed to achieve the first direct view of a cometary nucleus.Peer reviewe

Relationship between anthropometric parameters, physiological responses, routes and competition results in formula windsurfing

Formula windsurfing is faster than the Olympic version, due to anumber of unique differences. This study was designed to identify the importance of anthropometric and cardiac factors on the final result of the European Formula Windsurf Championships (2007). We selected 45 competitors (30 amateurs and 15 professionals) of 30±9.77 years of age, a height of 182.6±0.06 cm, a weight of 81.67±7.35 kg and a BMIof 24.7±2.1 kg. They were divided into three groups (PG: 15; TG: 45and GPSG: 12). We followed the recommendations of Carter and Marfell-Jones for the anthropometric measurements. The route, speed, distance and heart rate were recorded using an FRWD W600 GPS (Global Positioning System) unit. The anthropometric measurements indicate a professional profile with 2.3±0.4 endomorphy 5±0.8 mesomorphy and 2.4±0.6 ectomorphy. Arm span and fat mass show a significant (p≤0.02) and very significant (p≤0.005) correlation with the final classification. The average speed was 11.84±2.38 km·h–1, the heart rate varied from 128 to 180 b·min–1 and the average was 127.62±13.73 b·min–1. The distances covered (12784.77±5522.19 m) and the times used for the races (2049.3±989.68 s) were very variable. This will assist not only in initial selection for the sport, but also in the design of training programmes which further develop that morphology, where possible, in the pursuit of improved performance

A meteorite-dropping superbolide from the catastrophycally disrupted comet C1919Q2 metcalf : a pathway for meteorites from jupiter family comets

It is widely accepted that cometary nu- clei are composed of a mix of volatile ices and meteor- itic materials. In a series of seminal papers F. L. Whipple tried to explain how the irregular internal structure of each nuclei would be able to explain the nongravitational forces, and how the continuous sub- limation of the ice species would lead to explain the origin of meteoroid streams [1,2,3]. Not essential pro- gress was made until that the approach of a cruise of international spacecrafts to comet 1P/Halley allowed to achieve the first direct view of a cometary nucleus [4]. At that time several models were built to explain the main features observed in 1P/Halley nucleus under the main concept that cometary nuclei were born from the accretion of weakly bounded ice-rich cometesimals [5, 6]. A similar view was extracted from the 81P/Wild 2 fragile aggregates recovered by Stardust mission [7]. Obviously, particles recollected in the coma of a comet are biased towards those fragile aggregates that are lifted off from ice-rich regions by the sublimated gas drag. Many cometary meteoroid streams crossing the Earth were formed in this way, but not all. Catastro- phic disruption of cometary nuclei is also a regular mechanism of producing meteoroid streams [8, 9, 10]. Interestingly, this mechanism is able to produce large boulders as observed e.g. during the disruption of comet C/1999 S4 LINEAR [11]. It was believed that the large fragments released by these break-up events will proceed to faint in the coma due to suffer a cas- cade fragmentation. Obviously remote observations are not able to decipher if the final product of these events are mm- or m-sized meteoroids. In a recent pa- per [12] we identified a meter-sized meteoroid that was probably produced during the disintegration of comet C1919Q2 Metcalf. It produced a very bright fireball, with a maximum brightness of magn. –18 that was observed over much of Spain as well as parts of Portugal, and France on July 11, 2008 at 21:17:39 UTC. Fortuitously, it flew over many of the instru- ments operated by the SPanish Meteor and Fireball Network (SPMN) so that accurate measurements of its properties were recorded. Here we summarize both these observations and the deductions made from them regarding the nature and origin of the body that gave rise to this fireball