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

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

HIV reactivity trends in a tertiary care teaching hospital in Himachal Pradesh: a ten-year ICTC based retrospective analysis

Background: Despite being a low HIV prevalence nation, India has the third largest number of PLHAs in the world. The study aimed to explore the prevalence, pattern of socio-demographic and epidemiological distribution among HIV sero-positive patients in this part of Himachal Pradesh. Objective was to estimate the prevalence of HIV infection among the clients who had attended the ICTC for a period of ten years, i.e. from 2008 to 2017.Methods: A retrospective descriptive analysis of secondary data from the National AIDS control program from the year 2008 through 2017 was done.Results: Overall prevalence of HIV positivity amongst the clients attending the centre was observed to be 2.1%. Out of the total 55610 clients tested for HIV infection, 40.4% were male, 25.4% were female (excluding ANCs) and 34.2% were Ante-natal cases. Overall, seropositivity was higher among males (58%) than females (40%). However, amongst the groups, higher prevalence has been observed to be present in the females (3.3%) over males (3%) and Ante-natal cases (0.12%). Belonging to the female sex [OR 1.99 (95% CI: 1.77-2.24)] and male sex [OR 2.07 (95% CI: 1.84- 2.33)] had higher odds of having HIV sero-positivity than Ante-natal cases [OR 0.04 (95% CI: 0.02-0.05)]. Heterosexual route of transmission was the major route seen in 70.1%. Maximum HIV seropositivity was in the age group of 25 - 34 years (35.4%).Conclusions: The trends over the last 10 years show no steady pattern. Hence, there is a need for scaled up and sustained efforts focused on the males of reproductive age group for the prevention and control of HIV infection

Treatment options for resectable hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

BACKGROUND: There is uncertainty in the treatment options for resectable hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. METHODS: A systematic review of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) was performed. Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library), MEDLINE, EMBASE, Science Citation Index, and Conference Proceedings databases and trial registries were searched until November 2020 for randomized controlled trials performed on resectable hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. Two systematic review authors independently identified studies and extracted data. The primary outcomes evaluated were overall survival, disease-free survival, any recurrence, local recurrence, loco-regional recurrence, distal recurrence and laryngectomy-free survival. The secondary outcomes were response rates following neoadjuvant treatment and comparison of treatment-related toxicity. Assessment of risk of bias was performed for the selected studies using Cochrane's tool for assessing risk of bias. The studies were evaluated for the quality of evidence using GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations). Risk ratios (RR), rate ratios, and hazard ratios (HR) were calculated along with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). The Meta-analysis was performed using a random-effects model. RESULTS: Five RCTs met the inclusion criteria for this review. The risk of bias was unclear or high for the trials. Non-organ preservation(n = 140) versus organ preservation (n = 144) (two trials): no statistically significant difference could be identified for any of the primary outcomes. Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (n = 37) versus sequential chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy (n = 34) (one trial): no statistically significant difference was noted between the two treatment arms for overall survival, disease-free survival and loco-regional recurrence. Laryngectomy-free survival was found to be superior in concurrent chemoradiotherapy arm (HR:0.28, 95% CI 0.13, 0.57). Induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (n = 53) versus induction chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy (n = 60) (one trial): no statistically significant difference was noted between the treatment arms for overall survival, disease-free survival and laryngectomy-free survival. Preoperative radiotherapy (n = 24) versus postoperative radiotherapy (n = 23) (one trial): overall survival was found to be better in the postoperative radiotherapy arm (HR:2.44, 95% CI1.18, 5.03). No statistically significant difference was noted in terms of treatment-related toxicity. CONCLUSIONS: There are considerable uncertainties in the management of resectable hypopharyngeal cancer. TRAIL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO registration: CRD42019155613