Public Provision and Protection of Natural Resources: Groundwater Irrigation in Rural India

This paper examines the trade-off between resource intensive development and preservation of natural resources in the context of groundwater. Use of public schemes that expand groundwater irrigation to mitigate poverty is challenged as being unsustainable, especially when water tables around the world are rapidly depleting. This paper evaluates the effects one such scheme on groundwater use in northern India with the intent to determine if these schemes accelerate water depletion. On the contrary, I find that the program decreased total use of groundwater. I propose a mechanism that explains these findings, and test it using village-level longitudinal census data on wells and aquifer depth. The model predicts that public provision has a heterogeneous impact on the aquifers and it leads to sustainable use, when the fixed costs for private well provision are high. Consistent with the predictions, I find that there is a significant jump in the water-saving effects of the scheme at the water table depth at which the fixed costs of water provision rise substantially due to the technological limitations of surface pumps.

Do Public Colleges in Developing Countries Provide Better Education than Private ones? Evidence from General Education Sector in India

College educational outcomes of students graduating from public colleges in many developing countries are better than those graduating from private colleges. This is attributed to better quality of education provided. However, public colleges are subsidized suggesting that the observed gap might reflect pre-determined differences among students sorting into public colleges. We evaluate the impact of public colleges using a unique dataset that links admission records to college educational outcomes in India. We exploit the features of admission rules in a Regression-Discontinuity-Design, and find that the public colleges have no added value in the neighborhood of the admission cutoff scores. Controlling for entry scores, we find no differences between the exit exam outcomes of students graduating from public and private colleges..

Do Public Colleges in Developing Countries Provide Better Education than Private ones? Evidence from General Education Sector in India

Public college graduates in many developing countries outperform graduates of private ones on the college exit exams. This has often been attributed to the cutting edge education provided in public colleges. However, public colleges are highly subsidized, suggesting that the private-public education outcome gap might reflect the pre-determined quality of the students who sort into public colleges rather than the causal impact of the public tertiary education on students' outcomes. We evaluate the impact of public colleges using a newly assembled unique data set that links admission data with the educational outcomes on a set of common exit exams in India. Admission to general education public colleges is strictly based on the results of the Senior Secondary School examinations. We exploit this feature in a Regression Discontinuity Design, and find that the public colleges have no added value in the neighborhood of the admission cut off scores.private education, public education, India

Optical properties of black silicon - an analysis

Silicon is the preeminent solar cell material of the day because it is the first semiconductor that was learned to commercialize and continues to be the principal semiconducting material used in photovoltaic technology for the manufacture of solar cells. Silicon, an indirect band gap semiconducting material, has a reflectance of about 30% in the visible range of wavelengths. Standard Silicon solar cells are not entirely useful in the infrared spectrum region. In order to enhance the performance of Silicon solar cells, reflectance losses must be minimized and absorption must be maximized. In the solar cell industry, anti-reflection (AR) coating is used to suppress reflection losses. AR coatings are limited in use because they only reduce the reflectance for a narrow range of wavelengths and incident angle since their functionality is based on a quarter-wavelength coating. Surface texturing is a technique, by which the reflectivity is reduced. Black Silicon is a material with surface roughness in the micron scale. Black Silicon, when used instead of Crystalline Silicon, offers the possibility to increase the absorption of light in the visible and infrared range of wavelengths. Black Silicon has a very low reflectivity in the visible range of wavelengths. It exhibits high absorptance in the visible and infrared region. The main objective of this thesis is to study the various fabrication techniques used to form Black Silicon, present a comparative study of structural differences and analyze its optical properties by simulation and compare them with the simulated and experimental optical properties of Black Silicon and Crystalline Silicon

The Relation between ESP and GE and their Effect on Designing the Courses among Teachers of English in Departments of Constantine 1 University

The focus of this research is on the role of ESP practitioner who plays different roles such as being a researcher, an evaluator and so on. Also, this research casts light on the differences between presenting a course for EFL learners and presenting it for other learners of other disciplines. Doing so, ten teachers (five of ESP and five of both ESP and GE) from three departments and two universities have been selected and given an interview after observing the way they deliver their courses in the classroom. Results showed that ESP teachers in the English Department use the same methods for both the teaching of ESP and GE especially because most of them do not have authentic materials and mainly because they teach ESP at the English Department. In other departments, some ESP teachers play the five roles of the ESP practitioner, others do not. This study is based on the point of view of an ESP practitioner, an ELT teacher and an applied linguistics and methodology specialist researcher, in order to highlight the differences between GE and ESP, and to analyse the role of ESP teachers in some Algerian universities

Regulation Of Nuclear Localization Of The Sole Sumo-Conjugating Enzyme, Ubc9

The covalent and reversible conjugation of small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) proteins to hundreds of different cellular proteins is catalyzed by a cascade of enzymes including an E1-activating enzyme (SAE1/SAE2), an E2-conjugating enzyme (Ubc9) and multiple E3 ligases. As the only E2 enzyme for SUMO-conjugation, Ubc9 localizes mainly in the nucleus and plays an essential role in regulation of many cellular processes including cell cycle progression through mitosis, cell migration, genome stability, stress response, transcription, and nuclear transport in eukaryotic cells. It is hypothesized that the nuclear localization of Ubc9 is required for efficient sumoylation inside the nucleus because both the sole SUMO E1 enzyme and SUMO-conjugates are mainly in the nucleus. However, we still have a poor understanding of how Ubc9 is accumulated in the nucleus. Although the nuclear import receptor Importin 13 (Imp13) can mediate the nuclear import of Ubc9 using in vitro nuclear import assays, little is known about how Ubc9 nuclear localization is regulated in vivo. Here, we hypothesize that Imp13 is the major nuclear import receptor for Ubc9 and thus required for efficient global sumoylation in vivo. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that knockdown of Imp13 by RNA interference (RNAi) causes a decrease of global sumoylation and also an increased cytoplasmic distribution of Ubc9. Furthermore, the Ubc9 mutant (R17E) with a defect in Imp13-interaction showed a significant increase of cytoplasmic distribution when compared to Ubc9 wild-type (WT). Moreover, overexpression of Imp13 greatly enhanced the nuclear localization of Ubc9-WT but not Ubc9-R17E mutant, whereas overexpression of Imp13 mutant (D426R) with a defect in Ubc9 binding could not promote the nuclear accumulation of Ubc9-WT. Lastly, we demonstrated that the Ubc9 mutants (R17E, R13A and H20D) with a defect in SUMO-binding have an elevated cytoplasmic distribution when compared to Ubc9-WT, suggesting that the non-covalent interaction between Ubc9 and SUMO is also important for Ubc9 nuclear accumulation. Hence, our results support a model that both Imp13-mediated nuclear import and the SUMO-binding activity of Ubc9 are critical for Ubc9 nuclear localization and efficient global sumoylation in mammalian cells

The socio-cultural determinants of fertility and the population policy of India

The Pasi share with most of the lower caste rural people the problem of rapidly growing population. Population policy of the Indian- Government has failed to initiate fertility decline under present conditions of Pasi existence. The people have not responded to the programme primarily because birth control contradicts the vital interest of the Pasi population. The Pasi favour large families because they are essential for economic survival. Their subsistence economy is based on man-power and every farmer knows that if he is to survive he must rely upon his family for the necessary labour force. The fact that the family is the basic unit of work has important fertility implications. Since it is the source of economic and physical security in the village, children, especially sons, are vital to the Pasi people. Therefore institutional and organizational characteristics such as extended family structure, male dominant authority-pattern, early entry into marriage and home-based role for women, encourage high fertility. The necessary conditions for the acceptance of the population programme do not exist in the Pasi community. A great majority of the people do not favour a small family. Although a Family Planning and Welfare Clinic is attached to each village, only a small minority of the Pasi women have any knowledge of modern means of contraception. The structural and organizational characteristics of the Pasi are such that the values and knowledge about family planning cannot be realized and expedited by the young couples. The locus of authority even in decision-making regarding fertility matters resides not with the young couple but with the older members of the family. The study confirms that socio-economic change is the basis for an effective solution of population problems and points out that factors promoting socio-economic development also encourage the successful implementation of family planning

Design and analysis of movable boundary allocation protocol

The increasing digital communications traffic will require very high speed networks. The use of high communication speed increases the ratio between end to end propagation delay and the packet transmission time. This increase causes rapid performance deterioration and restricts the utilization of the high system bandwidth in broadcast channel based systems. Using several parallel channels in place of a single channel improves this ratio. For a given system bandwidth the total system capacity is increased by bandwidth division and parallel communication. FTDMA protocols have been suggested for the parallel channel network and these protocols are suitable for different loads. In this thesis, the movable boundary allocation protocol has been suggested for the parallel communication architecture. This protocol is suitable for varying loads and yields a better throughput versus delay characteristics. The analysis demonstrates the potential for improvement in the system capacity and the average message delay when compared to conventional single channel system