The impact of price policy on demand for alcohol in rural India

Whether raising the price of addictive goods can reduce its burden is widely debated in many countries, largely due to lack of appropriate data and robust methods. Three key concerns frequently raised in the literature are: unobserved heterogeneity; omitted variables; identification problem. Addressing these concerns, using robust instrument and employing unique individual-level panel data from Indian Punjab, this paper investigates two related propositions (i) will increase in alcohol price reduce its burden (ii) since greater incomes raise the costs of inebriation, will higher incomes affect consumption of alcohol negatively. Distinct from previous studies, the key variable of interest is the budget share of alcohol that allows studying the burden of alcohol consumption on drinker's and also on other family members. Results presented show that an increase in alcohol price is likely to be regressive, especially on the bottom quartile, with a rise in the budget share of alcohol given budget constraint. This outcome is robust to different econometric specifications. Preliminary explorations suggest that higher per capita income increases the odds of quitting drinking. Results reported have wider implications for the effective design of addiction related health policies

Gore tex medialization thyroplasty- A case series

Unilateral vocal fold paralysis classically presents with voice change, aspiration of ingested materials and cough. Medialization thyroplasty has become treatment of choice for un recovering vocal fold palsy. Still the ideal implant has not been defined in the surgical medialization of vocal folds. We present our experience of gore tex as the implant material.

Competition, Kinship or Reciprocity? Village Experiments in Alternative Modes of Exchange

In this paper, detailed data on transactions in a village commodity market are used to explain the puzzle of sluggish agricultural supply response. We show that existence of reciprocity among sellers exhibits multiple equilibria and creates trade diversion. Large volumes of the commodity are sold to a trader who does not offer the best price, but on whom sellers depend through transactions in other markets. An implication of this trader-idiosyncratic effect on supply is that policies that affect prices may result in different supply responses.Reciprocity, Kinship, Neighborhood effects, Trader idiosyncrasy, Equilibrium, Consumer/Household Economics,

HAIR DYE POISONING (An emerging emergency for airway surgeon- a case report)

Super-Vasmol, a cheap, freely-available hair dye isemerging as a major cause of suicidal poisoning in India. It contains potential toxins including paraphenylene diamine, resorcinol, sodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid and propylene glycol which can result in multiorgan dysfunction2 .This case report is an attempt to throw light on this emerging problem.

Modeling reaction-diffusion of molecules on surface and in volume spaces with the E-Cell System

The-Cell System is an advanced open-source simulation platform to model and analyze biochemical reaction networks. The present algorithm modules of the system assume that the reacting molecules are all homogeneously distributed in the reaction compartments, which is not the case in some cellular processes. The MinCDE system in Escherichia coli, for example, relies on intricately controlled reaction, diffusion and localization of Min proteins on the membrane and in the cytoplasm compartments to inhibit cell division at the poles of the rod-shaped cell. To model such processes, we have extended the E-Cell System to support reaction-diffusion and dynamic localization of molecules in volume and surface compartments. We evaluated our method by modeling the in vivo dynamics of MinD and MinE and comparing their simulated localization patterns to the observations in experiments and previous computational work. In both cases, our simulation results are in good agreement

Fracture zygoma and its management our experience

Zygoma is a very crucial component which maintains facial contour. Fractures involving zygoma isvery common, in fact it is the second most common facial bone to the fractured following facialtrauma (next only to nasal bones). Fractures involving maxilla not only creates cosmeticdeformities, it also causes disruption of ocular and mandibular functions too. This article attemptsto discuss in detail the etiopathogenesis and the various management options available. It alsoincludes our 3 years experience in treating these patients at Stanley Medical College Chennai.During the period of 3 years between 2010 - 2012 about 82 patients got treated in our institution forfaciomaxillary trauma.

Robustness of geography as an instrument to assess impact of climate change on agriculture

The empirical literature on climate change and agriculture does not adequately address the issue of potential endogeneity between climatic variables and agriculture which makes their estimates unreliable. This study is designed to investigate the relationships between climate change and agriculture and test the potential reverse causality and endogeneity of climatic variables to agriculture. This study introduces a geographical instrument, longitude and latitude, for temperature to assess the impact of climate change on agriculture by estimating regression using IV-2SLS method over annual panel data for 60 countries for the period 1999-2011. The Identification and F-statistic tests are used to choose and exclude the instrument. The inclusion of some control variables is supposed to reduce the omitted variable bias. The study finds a negative relationship between temperature and agriculture. Surprisingly the magnitude of the coefficient on temperature is mild, at least 20%, as compared to previous studies may be due to the use of the instrumental variable which is also supported by an alternative robust measure when estimated across different regions. The study provides strong implications for the policy makers to confront climate change that is an impending danger to agriculture. In designing effective policies and strategies policy makers should focus not only on crop production but also on other agricultural activities such as livestock production and fisheries, in addition to national and international socio-economic and geopolitical dynamics. This paper contributes to the growing literature in at least four aspects. First, empirical settings introduce an innovative geographical instrument, Second, it includes a wider set of control variables in the analysis. Third, improves over previous researches by using agriculture value addition and finally, the effects of temperature and precipitation on a single aggregate measure, agriculture value addition are separately investigated