Determining Military Expenditures: Arms Races and Spill-Over Effects in Cross-Section and Panel Data

This paper considers the determinants of military spending, building on an emerging literature that estimates military expenditure demand functions in cross-section and panel data, incorporating ‘arms-race’ type effects. It updates Dunne and Perlo-Freeman (2003b) using the SIPRI military expenditure database for the period 1988-2003, finding broadly similar results. It also shows differences in results across panel methods, particularly the within and between estimates and illustrates the importance of recognising and modelling dynamic processes within panel data. Heterogeneity is also found to be an important issue and when countries are broken up into groups on the basis of per capita income there is no obvious systematic pattern in the results. This is seen to imply that the demand for military spending, even between two mutually hostile powers, may depend on the whole nature of the relationship between them (and other countries and events in the region), and not simply Richardsonian action-reaction patterns.Military Spending; Demand; Arms races; Spillovers; Panel data

Determining Military Expenditures: Arms Races and Spill-Over Effects in Cross-Section and Panel Data

This paper considers the determinants of military spending, building on an emerging literature that estimates military expenditure demand functions in cross-section and panel data, incorporating ‘arms-race’ type effects. It updates Dunne and Perlo-Freeman (2003b) using the SIPRI military expenditure database for the period 1988-2003, finding broadly similar results. It also shows differences in results across panel methods, particularly the within and between estimates and illustrates the importance of recognising and modelling dynamic processes within panel data. Heterogeneity is also found to be an important issue and when countries are broken up into groups on the basis of per capita income there is no obvious systematic pattern in the results. This is seen to imply that the demand for military spending, even between two mutually hostile powers, may depend on the whole nature of the relationship between them (and other countries and events in the region), and not simply Richardsonian action-reaction patterns.Military Spending; Demand; Arms races; Spillovers; Panel data

A Study on Research Methodology Training Programme as Perceived by the Post Graduate Social Science Students

The study was undertaken with the objectives of studying the end training programme effectiveness, to find out the overall assessment of the resource persons who handled various sessions and to understand the impact of the training programme after three months as post follow-up assessment. The researchers adopted descriptive research design for the present study. A Sample of 25 students (Post Graduate) was selected from four social science disciplines namely; Social Work, Commerce, Management Studies and History. The findings of the study revealed that a vast majority of the students(84%) expressed a high level of rating with regard to the training programme meeting their expectation, their comfort level in having their doubts clarified (82.4%), the quality of the training material provided (89.6%) and the support & logistics (86.4%) provided to them all throughout the training session. A very high level of rating was revealed by the students pertaining to the parameters on the duration (97.3%) & time given for each training session(97.3%), the food that was provided for the students who underwent  the training programme (93.6%)) and the hospitality rendered by supportive staff all throughout the training programme (93.6). It is found that a vast majority (92.8%) of the students were satisfied with the overall effectiveness of the training programme. The result of the overall assessment of the resource persons who handled various sessions revealed that they were effective (89.4%) in delivering their inputs. The Post follow-up that was collected from the students who attended the training programme after a period of three months revealed that a vast majority (85.6%) of the students acknowledged that they found the training programme to be of high value and satisfaction. Keywords: Research Methodology, Post follow u

Determining military expenditures: Arms races and spill-over effects in cross-section and panel data

This paper considers the determinants of military spending, building on an emerging literature that estimates military expenditure demand functions in cross-section and panel data, incorporating ‘arms-race’ type effects. It updates Dunne and Perlo-Freeman (2003b) using the SIPRI military expenditure database for the period 1988-2003, finding broadly similar results. It also shows differences in results across panel methods, particularly the within and between estimates and illustrates the importance of recognising and modelling dynamic processes within panel data.Heterogeneity is also found to be an important issue and when countries are broken up into groups on the basis of per capita income there is no obvious systematic pattern in the results. This is seen to imply that the demand for military spending, even between two mutually hostile powers,may depend on the whole nature of the relationship between them (and other countries and events in the region), and not simply Richardsonian action-reaction patterns

Evolving antibiotics against resistance : a potential platform for natural product development?

To avoid an antibiotic resistance crisis, we need to develop antibiotics at a pace that matches the rate of evolution of resistance. However, the complex functions performed by antibiotics—combining, e.g., penetration of membranes, counteraction of resistance mechanisms, and interaction with molecular targets— have proven hard to achieve with current methods for drug development, including target-based screening and rational design. Here, we argue that we can meet the evolution of resistance in the clinic with evolution of antibiotics in the laboratory. On the basis of the results of experimental evolution studies of microbes in general and antibiotic production in Actinobacteria in particular, we propose methodology for evolving antibiotics to circumvent mechanisms of resistance. This exploits the ability of evolution to find solutions to complex problems without a need for design. We review evolutionary theory critical to this approach and argue that it is feasible and has important advantages over current methods for antibiotic discovery

A power efficient delta-sigma ADC with series-bilinear switch capacitor voltage-controlled oscillator

In low-power VLSI design applications non-linearity and harmonics are a major dominant factor which affects the performance of the ADC. To avoid this, the new architecture of voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) was required to solve the non-linearity issues and harmonic distortion. In this work, a 12-bit, 200MS/s low power delta-sigma analog to digital converter (ADC) VCO based quantizer was designed using switched capacitor technique. The proposed technique uses frequency to current conversion technique as a linearization method to reduce the non-linearity issue. Simulation result show that the proposed 12-bit delta-sigma ADC consumes the power of 2.68 mW and a total area of 0.09 mm² in 90 nm CMOS process

Report: Telepaediatrics in Rural and Remote Australia and Canada

Rural and remote communities in Australia and Canada experience barriers to accessing healthcare services (1). These barriers are especially pronounced when attempting to access more specialized health care services, such as paediatric (2–4). Both countries have implemented programs that aim to bridge the gap between rural communities and specialized healthcare. One such service is telepaediatrics. Telepaediatrics, as part of telehealth, refers to any paediatric health-related service, network, or medical tool that transmits voice, data, images and information through telecommunication programs as part of providing health services (5–7). Telehealth services are ideal because they remove the need to relocate the rural patient to urban specialist sites (5–7). In a WHO survey (2010), 60% of member countries had telehealth services in place but only 30% of these programs were implemented as part of routin

Genomic evidence of pre-invasive clonal expansion, dispersal and progression in bronchial dysplasia

The term ‘field cancerization’ is used to describe an epithelial surface that has a propensity to develop cancerous lesions, and in the case of the aerodigestive tract this is often as a result of chronic exposure to carcinogens in cigarette smoke 1, 2. The clinical endpoint is the development of multiple tumours, either simultaneously or sequentially in the same epithelial surface. The mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear; one possible explanation is that the epithelium is colonized by a clonal population of cells that are at increased risk of progression to cancer. We now address this possibility in a short case series, using individual genomic events as molecular biomarkers of clonality. In squamous lung cancer the most common genomic aberration is 3q amplification. We use a digital PCR technique to assess the clonal relationships between multiple biopsies in a longitudinal bronchoscopic study, using amplicon boundaries as markers of clonality. We demonstrate that clonality can readily be defined by these analyses and confirm that field cancerization occurs at a pre-invasive stage and that pre-invasive lesions and subsequent cancers are clonally related. We show that while the amplicon boundaries can be shared between different biopsies, the degree of 3q amplification and the internal structure of the 3q amplicon varies from lesion to lesion. Finally, in this small cohort, the degree of 3q amplification corresponds to clinical progression. Copyright © 2011 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd