Gravitational Dimensionality Reduction Using Newtonian Gravity and Einstein's General Relativity

Due to the effectiveness of using machine learning in physics, it has been widely received increased attention in the literature. However, the notion of applying physics in machine learning has not been given much awareness to. This work is a hybrid of physics and machine learning where concepts of physics are used in machine learning. We propose the supervised Gravitational Dimensionality Reduction (GDR) algorithm where the data points of every class are moved to each other for reduction of intra-class variances and better separation of classes. For every data point, the other points are considered to be gravitational particles, such as stars, where the point is attracted to the points of its class by gravity. The data points are first projected onto a spacetime manifold using principal component analysis. We propose two variants of GDR -- one with the Newtonian gravity and one with the Einstein's general relativity. The former uses Newtonian gravity in a straight line between points but the latter moves data points along the geodesics of spacetime manifold. For GDR with relativity gravitation, we use both Schwarzschild and Minkowski metric tensors to cover both general relativity and special relativity. Our simulations show the effectiveness of GDR in discrimination of classes

Idiopathic aplastic anemia: a rare case report in Jammu and Kashmir region, India

Idiopathic aplastic anemia is a pancytopenia disorder that is a rare but life threatening for both mother and fetus during pregnancy. Association of aplastic anemia with pregnancy is unclear but considered to be interrelated. Bone marrow transplantation is the most effective treatment for adult aplastic anemia but is inadvisable to perform during pregnancy because of the teratogenic effect of immunosuppressive agents or radiation therapy to the growing fetus. Supportive care, withdrawal from offending drugs and involving erythrocytes and platelets transfusion is a promising way to save the life. Here author present a case report of 36-year-old lady with idiopathy aplastic anemia. In this case medical investigation revealed severe anemia of unknown origin. The patient was treated with hematinics, blood transfusion and glucocorticoids. A healthy baby was delivered without evidence of hemolysis at her eight month and one week of pregnancy, the patient recovered and discharged with normal incidence. Being a rare case, it becomes a necessity to report such life-threatening disorder and management. Moreover, to our knowledge this is the first case reported of its kind from Jammu and Kashmir Division of India

Corruption and mental health:Evidence from Vietnam

While there is substantial corruption in developing countries, the costs imposed by corruption on individuals and households are little understood. This study examines the relationship between exposure to local corruption and mental health, as measured by depressive symptoms. We use two large data sets - one cross-sectional and one panel - collected across rural Vietnam. After controlling for individual and regional characteristics, we find strong and consistent evidence that day-to-day petty corruption is positively associated with psychological distress. Our results are robust to a variety of specification checks. Further, we find that the relationship between corruption and mental health is stronger for women, and that there are no heterogeneous effects by poverty status. Finally, using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, we provide suggestive evidence that a recent highly proled anti-corruption campaign had significant positive effects on mental health. Overall, our findings suggest that there may be substantial psychosocial and mental health benefits from efforts to reduce corruption and improve rural governance structures

Comparison of conventional pap smear with liquid based cytology, and assessment of the effectiveness and feasibility of liquid-based cytology over conventional pap smear in rural tertiary care centre

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women in India. So, detection of its premalignant lesions is of utmost importance, which can be easily done by screening methods. Screening programmes for cervical cancer using the conventional pap smear (CPS) technique have been in place since decades. However, CPS technique has many limitations. To overcome these limitations liquid-based cytology (LBC) was introduced in the mid 1990 as a better tool for processing cervical samples. The aim of present study is to compare CPS with LBC and to assess the diagnostic accuracy and cost effectiveness of LBC in rural tertiary care centre. Methods: The study was conducted over a period of 2 years at Rama medical college, Mandhana, Kanpur. All women presenting to gynaecological OPD with symptoms and signs suspicious of cervical malignancy were selected for paired samples of conventional pap and LBC. Colposcopy and biopsy were sought which correlated with cytologic findings.  Results: A maximum number of cases were in the reproductive age group, most common age of presentation being 40-49 years (27.3%) followed by 30-39 years (25.3%). A majority of patients were presented with a complaint of discharge per vagina 176 (58.7%), followed by pelvic pain 154 (51.3%). Only 4 patients were found to have unsatisfactory smear in LBC (1.33%) while 22 patients had unsatisfactory smear in conventional PAP (7.33%). LBC showed presence of endocervical cells in almost all patients 290 (97.97%). Candida bodies were not evident in LBC smears while the CPS showed presence candida bodies in 4 cases. Conclusions: Both the screening methods are very effective and sensitive in the detection of premalignant lesions with slight discordance of grade on histology. Thus, we conclude that cervical cytology is very effective in the detection of premalignant lesions with the sensitivity of almost 100%. In developing countries such as India, where finances pose a major problem, conventional method is as good as LBC

Fetal growth and its correlation with level of glycemic control in pregnancy with diabetes: an observational study in tertiary care centre of North India

Background: Diabetes in pregnancy is a known risk factor for macrosomia and intensive glycemic control is a well-known strategy to prevent this macrosomia. However, does this tight glycemic control is actually beneficial or is it one of the reasons for small for gestational age babies in these women? Is a clinical enigma. We planned this study to see effects of glycemic control on fetal weight and to answer if tight control is always better.Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology in a tertiary care centre (King George medical university) over a period of one year (June 2017-June 2018). All pregnant women with GDM and pre-gestational diabetes with singleton pregnancy were registered in the study after proper consent, followed up for glycemic control, fetal weight. Antepartum risk factors and complications of diabetes were also noted in these women.Results: Total 88 patients included in the study. Five with pre-gestational diabetes, 83 with GDM. Small for gestational age neonates were seen in 54.1% cases, large for gestational age were seen in 2 cases and rest of neonates were appropriate for gestational age. 89.4% had good glycemic control, 7% had over-zealous glycemic control and 3.5% had under-controlled sugars.Conclusions: The results in the study strongly supported the efficacy of good glycemic control in prevention of LGA/macrosomia. However, optimal glycemic control in third trimester does not guarantee appropriate weight of fetus as incidence of SGA/FGR neonates was fairly high (53.9%) even in good glycemic control group

Can Gender Differences in Distributional Preferences Explain Gender Gaps in Competition?

We design a lab experiment to specifically examine whether a preference for favorable inequality and behindness aversion, as well as egalitarian preferences, affect competitive choices differently among males and females. Using data on approximately 2,000 subjects, we find that selection into competitive environments is negatively related to egalitarian preferences, with smaller negative impacts of being egalitarian on females’ choice to compete. Further, behindness aversion and preference for favorable inequality affect willingness to compete in opposite ways. The willingness to compete is negatively affected by behindness aversion, while a preference for favorable inequality positively influences willingness to compete. Interestingly, when we disaggregate behavior along gender lines, we find that compared to behindness averse males, behindness averse females are more likely to enter the competitive environment. In contrast, there is no significant gender difference in the impact of preference for favorable inequality on competition. Our results suggest that the observed gender difference in competitiveness can stem from male-female differences in distributional preferences and selected personality traits developed during one’s lifetime

Inequality, institutions and cooperation

We examine the effects of randomly introduced economic inequality on voluntary co-operation and whether this relationship is influenced by the quality of local institutions, as proxied by corruption. We use representative data from a large-scale lab-in-the-field public goods experiment with over 1,300 participants across rural Vietnam. Our results show that inequality adversely affects aggregate contributions, and this is on account of high endowment individuals contributing a significantly smaller share than those with low endowments. This negative effect of inequality on cooperation is exacerbated in high corruption environments. We nd that corruption leads to more pessimistic beliefs about others' contributions in heterogeneous groups, and this is an important mechanism explaining our results. In doing so, we highlight the indirect costs of corruption that are understudied in the literature. These findings have implications for public policies aimed at resolving local collective action problems

Social Identity, Behavior, and Personality:Evidence from India

Hierarchies in social identities have been found to be integrally related to divergences in economic status. In India, caste is one such significant social identity where continued discriminatory practices towards the lower castes have resulted in poor outcomes for them. While there is considerable work on such divergence on many economic outcomes along caste lines, there is no work on behavioral preferences and personality traits that can also be adversely affected by such identity hierarchies, and that are important determinants of educational attainments and labor market performances. We combine rich data from incentivized tasks and surveys conducted among a large sample of university students in a Seemingly Unrelated Regression framework and find that the historically marginalized Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCSTs) and Other Backward Classes (OBCs) fare worse than the upper castes along several dimensions of economic behavior such as competitiveness and confidence and personality traits such as grit, locus of control, and conscientiousness. Further, we find that parental investments only have limited compensatory effects on these gaps. This suggests a need for redesigning the structure of affirmative action policies in India as well as targeting interventions with an aim to improving soft skills among the disadvantaged