How does the composition of public spending matter?

Public spending has effects which are complex to trace and difficult to quantify. But the composition of public expenditure has become the key instrument by which development agencies seek to promote economic development. In recent years, the development assistance to heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) hasbeen made conditional on increased expenditure on categories that are thought to be"pro-poor". This paper responds to the growing concern being expressed about the conceptual foundations and the empirical basis for the belief that poverty can be reduced through targeted public spending. While it is widely accepted that growth and redistribution are important sources of reduction in absolute poverty, a review of the literature confirms the lack of an appropriate theoretical framework for assessing the impact of public spending on growth as well as poverty. There is a need to combine principles of both public economics and growth theory to develop appropriate theoretical guidance for public expenditure policy. This paper identifies a number of approaches that are beginning to address this gap. Building on these approaches, it proposes a framework that has its foundation in a broadly articulated development strategy and its economic goals such as growth, equity, and poverty reduction. It recommends the use of public economics principles to clarify the roles of the private and public sectors and to recognize the complementarity of spending, taxation, and regulatory instruments available to affect public policy. With regard to the impact of any given type of public spending, policy recommendations must be tailored to countries and be based on empirical analysis that takes account of the lags and leads in their effects on equity and growth and ultimately on poverty. The paper sketches out such a framework as the first step in what will have to be a longer-term research agenda to provide theoretically and empirically robust and verifiable guidance to public spending policy.Poverty Assessment,Achieving Shared Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Economics&Finance,Governance Indicators

India-Vietnam Relations: Prospects and Challenges

Introduction The India-Vietnam relationship is one of the most significant bilateral relationships in Asia, besides the India-Japan partnership. Over the years, in particular since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two on 7 January 1972, this bilateral tie has assumed robustness in a number of areas, ranging from politico-strategic, defence to economic areas as well as culture, education, training, entrepreneurship development, etc. There have been continual exchanges of visits of top leaders between the two countries on a regular basis, further cementing the mutual ties and seeking newer means to explore the new vistas so that both can maximize mutual gains. It would not be wrong to say that no other country within the ASEAN grouping has received the kind of importance and undivided attention that Vietnam is getting from India. This is the reason that makes India-Vietnam relations something very special. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.340592

Seasonal variabilities of low-latitude mesospheric winds

International audienceObservations of mesospheric winds over a period of four years with the partial reflection radar at Tirunelveli (8.7°N, 77.8°E), India, are presented in this study. The emphasis is on describing seasonal variabilities in mean zonal and meridional winds in the altitude region 70?98 km. The meridional winds exhibit overall transequatorial flow associated with differential heating in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. At lower altitudes (70?80 km) the mean zonal winds reveal easterly flow during summer and westerly flow during winter, as expected from a circulation driven by solar forcing. In the higher altitude regime (80?98 km) and at all altitudes during equinox periods, the mean zonal flow is subjected to the semi-annual oscillation (SAO). The interannual variability detected in the occurrence of SAO over Tirunelveli has also been observed in the data sets obtained from the recent UARS satellite mission. Harmonic analysis results over a period of two years indicate the presence of long-period oscillations in the mean zonal wind at specific harmonic periods near 240, 150 and 120 days. Results presented in this study are discussed in the context of current understanding of equatorial wave propagation

A report on diversity and distribution of four non-indigenous red algae (Rhodophyceae) along the Tamil Nadu coast, Southeast coast of India

108-116The present study was revealed that four Indian invasive seaweeds such as Acanthophora spicefera, Gracilaria salicornia, Kappaphycus alvarezii and Polysiphonia brodiei were recorded along the Tamil Nadu coast with 55 study sites from Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar regions, Southeast coast of India. Maximum abundance of A. spicefera, G. salicornia, K. alvarezii and P. brodiei were recorded in Hare Island, Thondi coast, Thonithurai coast and Chinna muttam coast respectively. Highest species dominance (0.3) was recorded for G. salicornia during monsoon season and lowest dominance (0.05) was recorded for A. spicefera during post monsoon season. Species richness (D’) varied from 0.69-0.94 with minimum recorded was G. salicornia during monsoon season. Similarly, maximum species richness (D’) was recorded for A. spicefera during post monsoon season. Species diversity (H’) was ranged between 1.70 to 3.19 with the minimum was recorded for G.salicornia during monsoon season whereas maximum was recorded for P. brodiei during post monsoon season. The dendrogram results showed that three major clusters based on the abundance of species in the study sites. Further, the results revealed that Cluster 1 occupied by more species abundance at more stations and followed by Cluster 2 and Cluster 3

Combined effect of retinoic acid and vascular endothelial growth factor on compensatory lung growth following unilateral pneumonectomy in rats

Background: The most common complication of complete or partial pneumonectomy is insufficient oxygenation due to loss of respiratory unit leading to reduced quality of life. Retinoic acid and vascular endothelial growth factors are two important signaling molecules essential during normal lung development and together they could enhance the compensatory lung growth and function following pneumonectomy.Methods: Unilateral pneumonectomy of left lung was performed in male wistar albino rats. Retinoic acid (RA) (0.5 mg/kg), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) 5µg/day and vehicle were administered intraperitoneally for 10 days. Lung weight, lung volume, arterial blood gases (ABG), protein and DNA estimations were performed on the contralateral lung.Results: Rats treated with RA alone and combination of RA and VEGF increased the weight and volume of the compensatory lung as compared to control. Protein and DNA concentrations were also increased in the contralateral lung in rats treated with RA alone and RA with VEGF as compared to control. In arterial blood gas analysis, rats treated with combination of RA and VEGF shows an increase in partial pressure of oxygen and oxygen saturation as compared to control, whereas rats treated with RA alone did not significantly improve the oxygen saturation.Conclusions: Combination of VEGF with RA had accelerated compensatory lung growth in pneumonectomized rats probably by increasing type II pneumocyte proliferation and new blood vessels formation in the lung. There is significant increase in arterial blood gases compared to retinoic acid group possibly by the formation of new blood vessels by VEGF which is essential for improving oxygenation of blood and to improve quality of life

The Role of Quantum Cryptography under Distributed Protocols for Secured Communication in Ad Hoc Networks

Most of the cryptographic methods employed so far has been using symmetric and asymmetric cryptography, and had involved cryptographic keys extensively. Usually it is observed that many of the cryptographic algorithms are infeasible as the key distribution system is feeble. As an emerging approach Ad Hoc networks is subjected to Quantum cryptography concept or quantum key distribution in distributed environment and has drawn a good attention as an appropriate solution to the Key Distribution issue. QKD extends unconditional secured inter-communication by means of quantum mechanics. The paper focuses on quantum theory as a substitute to conventional key distribution protocols and a comprehensive narration is offered illustrating implementations of quantum key distribution protocols. This paper depicts quantum key distribution protocols (QKDP) to preserve safety in large and Ad hoc networks, guiding towards novel direction. It is aimed to narrate the efficiency of communication in terms of effort, security, suitability and confidentiality by the use of QKDPs

Mathematical diversity of parts for a continuous distribution

The current paper is part of a series exploring how to link diversity measures (e.g., Gini-Simpson index, Shannon entropy, Hill numbers) to a distribution’s original shape and to compare parts of a distribution, in terms of diversity, with the whole. This linkage is crucial to understanding the exact relationship between the density of an original probability distribution, denoted by p(x), and the diversity D in non-uniform distributions, both within parts of a distribution and the whole. Empirically, our results are an important advance since we can compare various parts of a distribution, noting that systems found in contemporary data often have unequal distributions that possess multiple diversity types and have unknown and changing frequencies at different scales (e.g. income, economic complexity ratings, rankings, etc.). To date, we have proven our results for discrete distributions. Our focus here is continuous distributions. In both instances, we do so by linking case-based entropy, a diversity approach we developed, to a probability distribution’s shape for continuous distributions. This allows us to demonstrate that the original probability distribution g 1, the case-based entropy curve g 2, and the slope of diversity g 3 (c (a, x) versus the c(a, x)*lnA(a, x) curve) are one-to-one (or injective). Put simply, a change in the probability distribution, g 1, leads to variations in the curves for g 2 and g 3. Consequently, any alteration in the permutation of the initial probability distribution, which results in a different form, will distinctly define the graphs g 2 and g3 . By demonstrating the injective property of our method for continuous distributions, we introduce a unique technique to gauge the level of uniformity as indicated by D/c. Furthermore, we present a distinct method to calculate D/c for different forms of the original continuous distribution, enabling comparison of various distributions and their components

Actuator and sensor placement in linear advection PDE with building system application

AbstractWe study the problem of actuator and sensor placement in a linear advection partial differential equation (PDE). The problem is motivated by its application to actuator and sensor placement in building systems for the control and detection of a scalar quantity such as temperature and contaminants. We propose a gramian based approach to the problem of actuator and sensor placement. The special structure of the advection PDE is exploited to provide an explicit formula for the controllability and observability gramian in the form of a multiplication operator. The explicit formula for the gramian, as a function of actuator and sensor location, is used to provide test criteria for the suitability of a given sensor and actuator location. Furthermore, the solution obtained using gramian based criteria is interpreted in terms of the flow of the advective vector field. In particular, the almost everywhere stability property of the advective vector field is shown to play a crucial role in deciding the location of actuators and sensors. Simulation results are performed to support the main results of this paper

CUTANEOUS ADVERSE DRUG REACTIONS IN GENERAL PRACTICE - AN ANALYSIS

Aim: To study the pattern of cutaneous adverse drug reactions presenting to general practitioners in a semi urban area.  Methodology and Results: This study was conducted among general practitioners of Villupuram, a semi urban area in Tamilnadu State. During the study, a total of 60 CADRs were reported. Data were collected using standard CDSCO ADR form. The majority of CADRs were observed in the age group of 20-40 years. According to WHO causality assessment, 48 were probable and 12 were possible. The severity assessment using modified hartwig and seigel revealed 18 mild, 41 moderate and one severe CADRs. The common drug groups implicated are antibiotics followed by NSAIDS and anticonvulsants. Maculopapular rash was the most common presentation of CADRs.Conclusion: Among the various types of CADRs seen in this study, Maculopapular rash was the most common followed by fixed drug eruption. studies antimicrobials were the most common causative agent followed by NSAIDs and anti- convulsants. This study on CADRs gains importance as the pattern of drug use is changing periodically and everyday many new drugs enter the market