Returns to education in India: Some recent evidence

This paper estimates returns to education in India using a nationally representative survey. We estimate the standard Mincerian wage equation separately for rural and urban sectors. To account for the possibility of sample selection bias, Heckman two-step procedure is used. The findings indicate that returns to education increase with the level of education and differ for rural and urban residents. Private rates of returns are higher for graduation level in both the sectors. In general, the disadvantaged social groups of the society tend to earn lower wages. We find family background is an important determinant affecting the earnings of individuals. Using quantile regression method, we show the effect of education is not the same across the wage distribution. Returns differ considerably within education groups across different points of the wage distribution. Returns to education are positive at all quantiles. The results show that the returns are lower at the bottom quantiles and are higher at the upper quantiles.Returns to Education; Wage Differential; Quantile Regression; India

FSRQ/BL Lac dichotomy as the magnetized advective accretion process around black holes: a unified classification of blazars

The $Fermi$ blazar observations show a strong correlation between $\gamma$-ray luminosities and spectral indices. BL Lac objects are less luminous with harder spectra than flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs). Interestingly FSRQs are evident to exhibit a Keplerian disc component along with a powerful jet. We compute the jet intrinsic luminosities by beaming corrections determined by different cooling mechanisms. Observed $\gamma$-ray luminosities and spectroscopic measurements of broad emission lines suggest a correlation of the accretion disc luminosity with jet intrinsic luminosity. Also, theoretical and observational inferences for these jetted sources indicate a signature of hot advective accretion flow and a dynamically dominant magnetic field at jet-footprint. Indeed it is difficult to imagine the powerful jet launching from a geometrically thin Keplerian disc. We propose a magnetized, advective disc-outflow symbiosis with explicit cooling to address a unified classification of blazars by controlling both the mass accretion rate and magnetic field strength. The large scale strong magnetic fields influence the accretion dynamics, remove angular momentum from the infalling matter, help in the formation of strong outflows/jets, and lead to synchrotron emissions simultaneously. We suggest that the BL Lacs are more optically thin and magnetically dominated than FSRQs at the jet-footprint to explain their intrinsic $\gamma$-ray luminosities.Comment: 8 pages including 4 figures; Accepted for publication in MNRA

An evidence-based review of edoxaban and its role in stroke prevention in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common arrhythmia in the elderly. It is responsible for significant morbidity and mortality from cardioembolic complications like stroke. As a result, atrial fibrillation patients are risk-stratified using the CHADS2 or CHA2DS2-VASc scoring systems. Those at intermediate-to-high risk have traditionally been treated with therapeutic anticoagulation with warfarin for stroke prevention. Although effective, warfarin use is fraught with multiple concerns, such as a narrow therapeutic window, drug-drug and drug-food interactions, and excessive bleeding. Novel oral anticoagulant agents have recently become available as viable alternatives for warfarin therapy. Direct thrombin inhibitor dabigatran and factor Xa inhibitors like rivaroxaban and apixaban have already been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for stroke prevention in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. Edoxaban is the latest oral direct factor Xa inhibitor studied in the largest novel oral anticoagulant trial so far: ENGAGE AF-TIMI 48. Treatment with a 30 mg or 60 mg daily dose of edoxaban was found to be noninferior to dose-adjusted warfarin in reducing the rate of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation, with a lower incidence of bleeding complications and cardiovascular deaths. Edoxaban was recently reviewed by an FDA advisory committee and recommended as a stroke-prophylaxis agent. Once approved, it promises to provide another useful alternative to warfarin therapy

Analyzing stock market movements using Twitter sentiment analysis

In this paper we investigate the complex relationship between tweet board literature (like bullishness, volume, agreement etc) with the financial market instruments (like volatility, trading volume and stock prices). We have analyzed sentiments for more than 4 million tweets between June 2010 to July 2011 for DJIA, NASDAQ-100 and 13 other big cap technological stocks. Our results show high correlation (up to 0.88 for returns) between stock prices and twitter sentiments. Further, using Granger's Causality Analysis, we have validated that the movement of stock prices and indices are greatly affected in the short term by Twitter discussions. Finally, we have implemented Expert Model Mining System (EMMS) to demonstrate that our forecasted returns give a high value of Rsquare (0.952) with low Maximum Absolute Percentage Error (MaxAPE) of 1.76% for Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)