Efficiency of Health Care Sector at Sub-State Level in India: A Case of Punjab

In recent years, WHO and other individual researchers have advocated estimation of health system performance through stochastic frontier models. It provides an idealized yardstick to evaluate economic performance of health system. So far attempts in India have remained focused at state level analysis. This paper attempts a sub-state level analysis for an affluent Indian state, namely Punjab, by using stochastic frontier technique. Our results provide pertinent insight into state health system and facilitate health facility planning at the sub-state level. Carried out in two stages of estimation, our results suggest that life expectancy in the Indian state could be enhanced considerably by correcting the factors that are adversely influencing the sub-state level health system efficiency. A higher budgetary allocation for health manpower is recommended by us to improve efficiency in poorly performing districts. This may be supported by policy initiatives outside the health system by empowering women through better education and work participatio

Amplitude Analyses of D Decay Dalitz Plots

We describe Dalitz plots arising in studies of $D$-meson decays, and what we have learned from them in recent years. After some mention of technique and history, we focus on decay of the $D^\pm$ and $D_s^\pm$ mesons to the $K^-K^+\pi^\pm$ final state, and on $D_s^\pm$ decay to $\pi^+\pi^-\pi^\pm$. Some mention of other Dalitz plots involving $D$-meson decays is also made.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of The 5th International Workshop on Charm Physics (Charm 2012

Improved algorithms and analysis for the laminar matroid secretary problem

In a matroid secretary problem, one is presented with a sequence of objects of various weights in a random order, and must choose irrevocably to accept or reject each item. There is a further constraint that the set of items selected must form an independent set of an associated matroid. Constant-competitive algorithms (algorithms whose expected solution weight is within a constant factor of the optimal) are known for many types of matroid secretary problems. We examine the laminar matroid and show an algorithm achieving provably 0.053 competitive ratio

Population Stabilization in India: A Sub-State level Analysis

The study aims at analyzing economic and policy factors impinging upon population stabilization measures at the district (sub-state level) in India. It reflects upon popularly debated notions, namely, that development is the best contraceptive or whether contraceptive is the best development. In order to reflect upon this notion, we hypothesize that the factors determining the success of population stabilization measures are likely to be different across rich and poor states. It is more likely that in a rich state economic development becomes a significant factor for population stabilization relative to a direct intervention by the state. By contrast, in a poorer state, direct intervention acquires main significance relative to supporting influence of economic development. To test the validity of our assumption, we have the district level data for the three categories of Indian states belonging to different income levels relative to overall average of the country. Thus we focus on the district level information of the three states, namely, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, which in terms of per capita income, belong to rich, middle income and poor category of states respectively. Our regressions using district level data for three states depict the significance of difference in influential variables across the categories. The results thus confirm our hypothesis that direct intervention acquires main significance at a lower level of per capita state income and economic development becomes a major influential factor at higher levels of per capita state income. The results also support our earlier results using state level data. In the light of these results, it could be emphasized that in the long run development is the best contraceptive. However, in the short run, a considerable achievement could be made by improving basic health and family planning services and by increasing the level of facilities including basic amenities, media and infrastructure development