Political Competition, Welfare Outcomes and Expenditures on Human Development: The Experience of a Democracy

There is a growing literature on the effect of electoral competition and democratic participation on issues such as corruption and government policy. The theoretical and empirical literature suggests that electoral competition has a beneficial impact on policies. This paper studies the effects of political competition and democratic participation on welfare outcomes. We develop a model to assess the effects of electoral competition on human developmental outcomes and empirically test the key predictions using data on infant mortality rates (IMR) in India. The empirical results provide strong support for the theoretical conjectures, which suggest that high electoral competition and high citizen participation in elections can explain much of the variation in IMR across different states in a democratic country like India.human development, electoral competition

CardiGraphormer: Unveiling the Power of Self-Supervised Learning in Revolutionizing Drug Discovery

In the expansive realm of drug discovery, with approximately 15,000 known drugs and only around 4,200 approved, the combinatorial nature of the chemical space presents a formidable challenge. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful ally, traditional AI frameworks face significant hurdles. This manuscript introduces CardiGraphormer, a groundbreaking approach that synergizes self-supervised learning (SSL), Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), and Cardinality Preserving Attention to revolutionize drug discovery. CardiGraphormer, a novel combination of Graphormer and Cardinality Preserving Attention, leverages SSL to learn potent molecular representations and employs GNNs to extract molecular fingerprints, enhancing predictive performance and interpretability while reducing computation time. It excels in handling complex data like molecular structures and performs tasks associated with nodes, pairs of nodes, subgraphs, or entire graph structures. CardiGraphormer's potential applications in drug discovery and drug interactions are vast, from identifying new drug targets to predicting drug-to-drug interactions and enabling novel drug discovery. This innovative approach provides an AI-enhanced methodology in drug development, utilizing SSL combined with GNNs to overcome existing limitations and pave the way for a richer exploration of the vast combinatorial chemical space in drug discovery

Probing the Fermi surface and magnetotransport properties in MoAs2_{2}

Transition metal dipnictides (TMDs) have recently been identified as possible candidates to host topology protected electronic band structure. These materials belong to an isostructural family and show several exotic transport properties. Especially, the large values of magnetoresistance (MR) and carrier mobility have drawn significant attention from the perspective of technological applications. In this report, we have investigated the magnetotransport and Fermi surface properties of single crystalline MoAs$_{2}$, another member of this group of compounds. Field induced resistivity plateau and a large MR have been observed, which are comparable to several topological systems. Interestingly, in contrast to other isostructural materials, the carrier density in MoAs$_{2}$ is quite high and shows single-band dominated transport. The Fermi pockets, which have been identified from the quantum oscillation, are largest among the members of this group and have significant anisotropy with crystallographic direction. Our first-principles calculations reveal a substantial difference between the band structures of MoAs$_{2}$ and other TMDs. The calculated Fermi surface consists of one electron pocket and another 'open-orbit' hole pocket, which has not been observed in TMDs so far.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

On Higher-Order Fourier Analysis over Non-Prime Fields

The celebrated Weil bound for character sums says that for any low-degree polynomial P and any additive character chi, either chi(P) is a constant function or it is distributed close to uniform. The goal of higher-order Fourier analysis is to understand the connection between the algebraic and analytic properties of polynomials (and functions, generally) at a more detailed level. For instance, what is the tradeoff between the equidistribution of chi(P) and its "structure"? Previously, most of the work in this area was over fields of prime order. We extend the tools of higher-order Fourier analysis to analyze functions over general finite fields. Let K be a field extension of a prime finite field F_p. Our technical results are: 1. If P: K^n -> K is a polynomial of degree |K|^{-s} for some s > 0 and non-trivial additive character chi, then P is a function of O_{d, s}(1) many non-classical polynomials of weight degree < d. The definition of non-classical polynomials over non-prime fields is one of the contributions of this work. 2. Suppose K and F are of bounded order, and let H be an affine subspace of K^n. Then, if P: K^n -> K is a polynomial of degree d that is sufficiently regular, then (P(x): x in H) is distributed almost as uniformly as possible subject to constraints imposed by the degree of P. Such a theorem was previously known for H an affine subspace over a prime field. The tools of higher-order Fourier analysis have found use in different areas of computer science, including list decoding, algorithmic decomposition and testing. Using our new results, we revisit some of these areas. (i) For any fixed finite field K, we show that the list decoding radius of the generalized Reed Muller code over K equals the minimum distance of the code. (ii) For any fixed finite field K, we give a polynomial time algorithm to decide whether a given polynomial P: K^n -> K can be decomposed as a particular composition of lesser degree polynomials. (iii) For any fixed finite field K, we prove that all locally characterized affine-invariant properties of functions f: K^n -> K are testable with one-sided error

MECHANICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF ROTATING TRIANGLE SHAPED AUXETIC SKIN GRAFT SIMULANTS

The expansion of the skin grafts plays a key role in treating severe burn injuries. Split-thickness skin grafting, which is a well-known technique for stretching donor skin samples beyond its capacity, typically produces expansions which are insufficient to cover large burn areas. In this work, the expansion potential of skin grafts with novel rotating triangle (RT) shaped auxetic incision patterns were investigated extensively. A skin simulant was employed and a range of RT configurations, with internal angles varying from 0° to 135°, were tested through the development of skin graft simulants. Mechanical testing and digital image correlation (DIC) were used to characterize the Poisson’s effect, meshing ratios, and induced stresses of the skin graft simulants, up to 50% strains. The 0° model produced the highest negative Poisson’s effect and areal expansions. As the internal angle of the auxetic was increased, expansions were observed to decrease significantly. Beyond 60°, positive Poisson’s effect and contractions occurred with an increasing trend, and its peak at 105°. At 15° and 120°, the induced strains were observed to be significant, posing risks of skin rupture. Overall, the expansions were observed to be higher at lower strains. Such experimental findings on expansion potentials and estimations of mechanical properties with auxetic skin grafts simulants have not been reported to date, and would be indispensable for further research in skin graft expansion and severe burn injury treatment

Impact of Changing Stellar and Planetary Magnetic Fields on (Exo)planetary Environments and Atmospheric Mass Loss

The magnetic activity of a star -- which modulates the stellar wind outflow -- shapes the immediate environments of orbiting planets and induces atmospheric loss thereby impacting their habitability. We perform a detailed parameter space study using three dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations to understand the effect of changing stellar wind magnetic field and planetary magnetic field strengths on planetary magnetospheric topology and atmospheric losses. It is observed that the relative strengths of stellar and planetary magnetic fields play a significant role in determining the steady state magnetospheric configuration and atmospheric erosion. When the stellar field is strengthened or the planetary field is weakened, stellar magnetic field accumulation occurs at the day-side of the planet which forces the magnetopause to shift closer to its surface. The magnetotail opens up leading to the formation of Alfv\'{e}n wings in the night-side wake region. We demonstrate how reconnection processes and wind conditions lead to the bifurcation of the magnetotail current sheet. With increasing stellar wind magnetic field strength, the day-side reconnection point approaches the planet thereby enhancing mass loss. We establish an analytic equation which successfully captures the modeled mass-loss rate variations of planets with changing magnetic field strengths. Our results are relevant for understanding how the interplay of stellar and planetary magnetism influence (exo)planetary environments and their habitability in star-planet systems with differing relative magnetic field strengths, or in a single star-planet system over the course of their evolution with age.Comment: Submitte