53 research outputs found
Empirical Evidence on the Relationship between Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Exploration in Asia
The issue of capital flows is considered to be the most accessible route for economic growth whereby investment is regarded as the
engine of growth. The worldwide changes have recognized the importance of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as one of the possible options to stimulate growth momentum. Against this backdrop this paper examines the short run and long run dynamics between economic
growth and foreign direct investment for selected Asian economies covering the period from 1975 to 2010. A neo-classical production
function is estimated to capture the short run dynamics followed by cointegration technique to capture the long run effect. This paper provides strong evidence regarding the existence of long run equilibrium
relationship between FDI and growth for majority of the countries followed by varied causality between foreign direct investment and economic growth. The policy recommendations may not be uniform for the entire Asian region due to their diversified industrialization experience
Cosmological Simulations of Galaxy Groups and Clusters-III: Constraining Quasar Feedback Models with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array
The thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect serves as a direct potential probe
of the energetic outflows from quasars that are responsible for heating the
intergalactic medium. In this work, we use the GIZMO meshless finite mass
hydrodynamic cosmological simulation SIMBA (Dave et al. 2019), which includes
different prescriptions for quasar feedback, to compute the SZ effect arising
from different feedback modes. From these theoretical simulations, we perform
mock observations of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in four bands
(320 GHz, 135 GHZ, 100 GHz and 42 GHz) to characterize the feasibility of
direct detection of the quasar SZ signal. Our results show that for all the
systems we get an enhancement of the SZ signal, when there is radiative
feedback, while the signal gets suppressed when the jet mode of feedback is
introduced in the simulations. Our mock ALMA maps reveal that, with the current
prescription of jet feedback, the signal goes below the detection threshold of
ALMA. We also find that the signal is higher for high redshift systems, making
it possible for ALMA and cross SZ-X-ray studies to disentangle the varying
modes of quasar feedback and their relative importance in the cosmological
context.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
Epigenetic Editing of Ascl1 Gene in Neural Stem Cells by Optogenetics
Enzymes involved in epigenetic processes such as methyltransferases or demethylases are becoming highly utilized for their persistent DNA or histone modifying efficacy. Herein, we have developed an optogenetic toolbox fused to the catalytic domain (CD) of DNA-methyltransferase3A (DNMT3A-CD) or Ten-Eleven Dioxygenase-1 (TET1-CD) for loci-specific alteration of the methylation state at the promoter of Ascl1 (Mash1), a candidate proneuron gene. Optogenetical protein pairs, CRY2 linked to DNMT3A-CD or TET1-CD and CIB1 fused to a Transcription Activator-Like Element (TALE) locating an Ascl1 promoter region, were designed for site specific epigenetic editing. A differentially methylated region at the Ascl1 promoter, isolated from murine dorsal root ganglion (hypermethylated) and striated cells (hypomethylated), was targeted with these optogenetic-epigenetic constructs. Optimized blue-light illumination triggered the co-localization of TALE constructs with DNMT3A-CD or TET1-CD fusion proteins at the targeted site of the Ascl1 promoter. We found that this spatiotemporal association of the fusion proteins selectively alters the methylation state and also regulates gene activity. This proof of concept developed herein holds immense promise for the ability to regulate gene activity via epigenetic modulation with spatiotemporal precision
DELINEATING REGIONAL DIFFERENTIATION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE IN NORTHEAST INDIA THROUGH AN EFFICIENT SYNTHETIC INDICATOR
The north-eastern region of India presents intra-regional disparity, which is
reflected in every aspect of development. The transport sector, especially railway
transportation, is one of the important aspects, and the development of railway
infrastructure seems to be very different in every region. The research question addressed
in this study was “Which factors, geo-physical or socio-economic, influenced the variation
in the level of railway development in Northeast India?” The aim of the study was to
delineate regional differentiation on railway development in Northeast India and to analyse
the reasons for different development patterns of railway lines among the north-eastern
states. The research was based on secondary data collected from multiple sources, and the
existing synthetic indicator was applied for the classification of eight states based on their
railway infrastructural status. An alternative approach called the alternative synthetic
indicator has been proposed and found to be more efficient than the existing synthetic
indicator. The degree of inequality among the northeastern states by considering railway
infrastructural variables was measured by plotting a Lorenz curve; the corresponding Gini
coefficient specifies the unequal distribution of railway infrastructure among all the
northeastern states. The causality of such unequal development has been analysed through
a correlation test by defining the composite dimension index. The analysis revealed that all
the externalities of regional inequality significantly influence the development of railway
lines in northeastern states. Environmental determinism plays a crucial role in railway
development in Northeast India, but political willingness is also crucial for creating an
actual state of differentiation and will play a special role in the future
Optogenetic regulation of site-specific subtelomeric DNA methylation
Telomere length homeostasis, critical for chromosomal integrity and genome stability, is controlled by intricate molecular regulatory machinery that includes epigenetic modifications. Here, we examine site-specific and spatiotemporal alteration of the subtelomeric methylation of CpG islands using optogenetic tools to understand the epigenetic regulatory mechanisms of telomere length maintenance. Human DNA methyltransferase3A (DNMT3A) were assembled selectively at chromosome ends by fusion to cryptochrome 2 protein (CRY2) and its interacting complement, the basic helix loop helix protein-1 (CIB1). CIB1 was fused to the telomere-associated protein telomere repeat binding factor-1 (TRF1), which localized the protein complex DNMT3A-CRY2 at telomeric regions upon excitation by blue-light monitored by single-molecule fluorescence analyses. Increased methylation was achieved selectively at subtelomeric CpG sites on the six examined chromosome ends specifically after blue-light activation, which resulted in progressive increase in telomere length over three generations of HeLa cell replications. The modular design of the fusion constructs presented here allows for the selective substitution of other chromatin modifying enzymes and for loci-specific targeting to regulate the epigenetic pathways at telomeres and other selected genomic regions of interest
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