92 research outputs found
Representation of Minorities in Research: A View from the Community
No full textAUTHOR AFFILIATION: Sudarshan Pyakurel, Arogya Institute and Bhutanese Nepali Community of Central Ohio, United States, [email protected] media can be accessed here:
http://streaming.osu.edu/knowledgebank/PREA/PREA_Session13C_Pyakurel_20190326.mp
Lessons from International Experience
No full textIn the aftermath of the global financial
crisis, policymakers around the world are focusing once
again on government debt sustainability. In China,
subnational government debt is an important part of total
government debt, and therefore deserves the attention that
policymakers have paid to the topic. Subnational debt has
played an important role in financing China’s impressive
infrastructure that is the envy of the world. And
subnational debt was instrumental in the economic stimulus
that China so effectively staged after the global financial
crisis, through which China maintained high levels of
economic activity. This e-book starts with a summary and
presentation of the Chinese perspective on this subject of
subnational debt in session one. Session two introduced some
international cases which are highly relevant to the current
situation in China. Session three brought these
international case studies and experts’ perspectives
together to arrive at syntheses that narrowed down key
issues which China needs to consider going forward in
subnational debt management and restructuring. The
roundtable discussion among international and Chinese
experts on the way forward for China in session four
provided an illuminating discussion of this issue. The
author hope that this will inform specific policies that
will be formulated to help local governments in China manage
their subnational debts
Factors that affect short-term commercial bank lending to developing countries
No full textDeveloping countries rely on short-term trade credits for imports of several essential consumer goods, including medicines and basic food supplies. The credits also facilitate export-related transactions. The mechanisms commercial banks use to provide trade credits to developing countries are complex and costly. Even a temporary break in the flow of short-term credit can seriously hurt a country's business. But since short-term trade credits can be structured so that they involve a few risks to a bank and at the same time are very costly to the debtor, they are generally the last forms of credit to be cut and the first to be reestablished in debt-distressed developing countries. To gauge the likelihood of continued short-term trade related financial flows to developing countries, the authors examined the factors that affect short-term commercial bank loans. They studied relevant data over time for seven countries for which data were available: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt,India, Kenya, Mexico, and Turkey. They found that : a) countries with greater growth prospects get more short-term credit; b) short-term credits are usually meant to finance countries with significant trade deficits; c) higher levels of external indebtedness are generally coupled with higher levels of short-term indebtedness to commercial banks; and d) country-specific factors affect the volume of short-term lending to a country.Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Strategic Debt Management,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring
Modeling, system analysis and control of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell
No full textThis thesis presents a control technique for a 9th-order linearized Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell model. This work starts with giving a brief introduction about the construction and working of PEM fuel cell. Then, various fuel cell subsystems and their corresponding non-linear dynamical equations are presented. These equations are simulated to obtain steady state operating points of the model which is further used in Jacobian linearization. The linearized model consists of nine states as opposed to the eight states of the linearized model available in the literature. A pole placement controller is designed for the linearized model to obtain desired transient performance. This work concludes with inspiring the readers about some future works that can be carried out on this model.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Sudarshan Kola
Effects of Sudarshan Kriya Yoga on sleep: a systematic review
No full textIntroduction: Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) is a sequence of four breathing techniques used to calm the body and mind. Each breath component plays a role in producing a state of peace and is followed by rest and meditation to enhance one’s focus and feeling of connectedness. Recently, SKY has been evaluated as a possible adjunct treatment for some mental health disorders and for its role in promoting lifestyle changes, with a number of studies attempting to identify the impact of SKY techniques on sleep. In this study, we sought to assess the current literature regarding the effectiveness of SKY and its effects on sleep and sleep quality.
Methods: The review procedure followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). Articles of interest were identified using PubMed, Cochrane Review, and expert recommendation. The search terms used were SKY, Sudarshan Kriya, sleep, breathing, and meditation. A total of 760 articles were initially identified in PubMed, no articles were identified in the Cochrane Library, and 1 was identified through expert recommendation. Of these, 720 were eliminated through article title review. The remaining 41 publications underwent independent review by each author. Inclusion criteria required that the article use SKY as an intervention with sleep as a measured outcome. Articles that assessed populations with diagnosed psychiatric disorders were excluded. Following independent review, 9 articles were agreed upon by all authors for inclusion, data extraction, and analysis.
Results: Among the 9 publications analyzed, 3 were prospective cohort studies, 2 were randomized controlled trials, 2 were open trial single-armed pre-post studies, and 2 were cross-sectional studies. Sleep was assessed by 4 studies using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), 1 using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), 3 using their own study-specific survey, and 1 using polysomnography. Prospective cohort studies found that SKY improved sleep quality when compared to baseline sleep assessments (p=0.0001) and when practice of SKY was more frequent (p=0.001). Pre-post studies also concluded that SKY enhanced sleep quality when compared to baseline sleep assessments (p\u3c0.001). A study using polysomnography found that middle-aged SKY practitioners had significantly decreased REM latency and increased slow-wave sleep (p\u3c0.05) compared to an age-matched control group. Randomized controlled trials demonstrated decreased sleep disturbance in SKY groups, which were non-significant after Bonferroni correction. Cross-sectional studies determined that daily SKY was protective of poor sleep quality (OR 0.52, 95% CI: 0.28-0.94) and was associated with greater odds of having a healthier lifestyle (OR: 2.59, 95% CI: 1.50-4.46), which included adequate sleep as a factor.
Discussion: Current studies suggest SKY may provide benefits to those with inadequate sleep by decreasing sleep disturbance, improving sleep duration, and increasing slow-wave sleep while decreasing time to REM onset. Further investigation with randomized controlled trials utilizing research-driven questionnaires may strengthen the current evidence of sleep improvement following SKY
Rent - seeking trade policy : a time series approach
No full textUsing a time-series approach, the author analyzes the relationship between the extent of rent-seeking trade policy and both political and economic variables. For rent-seeking trade policy, the indicator he uses is the number of foreign-trade regulations passed each year for the benefit of a single firm or industry. The author uses data from Uruguay for 1925-83. Uruguay, which experienced an impressive economic decline, is an outstanding example of a rent-seeking society. After being a wealthy economy in midcentury, it suffered almost complete stagnation, which led to social and policital disintegration by the end of the 1960s. Three decades of restrictive regulations on foreign trade had created a nearly closed economy by the end of the 1960s. It was worth analyzing whether policymakers'great receptiveness to demands for protection could account for Uruguay's decline. Over the period 1925-83, the author finds almost 4,000 laws, decrees, and administrative resolutions that create, maintain, or modify a foreign-trade regulation for the benefit of a single firm or industry. About half of them explicitly identify the petitioner - usually a firm or guild. Since the size of the Uruguayan economy changed over the period studied, the author scales the annual number of regulations by output or exports to measure the extent of rent-seeking trade policy. The author shows that the extent of rent-seeking trade policy increased with discretionary policies and under dictatorship. (In the period studied, there were two stages of democracy - until 1932 and from 1943-72 - and two stages of dictatorship.) He also shows that rent-seeking trade restrictions increased under import-substitution strategies and, more unexpectedly, under active export promotion. This suggests that discretionary power leads to wasteful distribution, whether it is used to support inward- or outward-oriented policies. Finally, the author analyzes the correlation between innovations in the trade policy indicator and innovations in the growth rates of output and exports, with a lag of up to 20 years. Surprisingly, he finds a positive correlation with output growth rates after two or three years. But the correlation becomes negative some years later, particularly in the case of exports. The short-run positive impact on growth rates, together with the surprisingly long time lag before the negative impact, may account for policymakers'receptiveness to demands for protection.Trade Policy,Achieving Shared Growth,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies
The life and work of P. A. M. Dirac
No full textA brief biography of Dirac (1902--1984), the author gives a chronological paper-by-paper survey of Dirac's main contributions
Informetrics on M. N. Srinivas
No full textM. N. Srinivas, the well known sociologist is widely recognised as architect of modern Indian sociology and social anthropology. His publications have been analysed by year, domain, authorship pattern, channels of communication used. Keywords, etc. The results indicate that the papers published by him are of a nature that qualify him to be a 'role model' for the younger generations to emulate.
By the end of 1995, Srinivas had to his credit 144 papers which, included 33 broad papers in sociology and anthropology; 18 papers in social change; 28 papers in village studies; 12 papers on religion; 17 papers on caste and 36 papers of general popular interest. The periods 1958-61 and 1974-77, when Srinivas was 38-41 and 58-61 years old. were his most productive periods with highest publication activity
Towards high resolution Particle Image Velocimetry: Estimating turbulence statistics from the ensemble correlation
No full textThe research in resolving the smaller scales of turbulence has gained significant attention in recent years, owing to the advancements in the measurement techniques. High resolution experimental studies are required to investigate high Reynolds number flows where the scales of turbulence are very small. This is of particular importance in addressing the theoretical issues in studying high Reynolds number wall turbulence which finds applications in transport, energy, and aerospace industries. Hot-Wire Anemometry (HWA) is often employed to reach very high spatial resolution. Early research in Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), a qualitative flow visualization technique, was not able to achieve a higher resolution as comparable with that of HWA. However, recent developments in PIV allow high resolution measurements, using information on the time averaged ensemble correlation. The ensemble correlation can be used to reduce the size of the interrogation windows employed in a PIV analysis, without compromising for the particle image density in an interrogation window. This is achieved by using a large number of image pairs. In this thesis, ensemble correlation is used to study the turbulence in two specific cases: a turbulent jet and high Reynolds number pipe flow. The ensemble correlation, though being a time averaged quantity, contains information on the velocity Joint Probability Distribution Functions (JPDFs) which can be used to estimate the turbulence statistics. This information can be retrieved from the shape of the ensemble correlation. It is assumed that the ensemble correlation is the convolution of the auto-correlation and the velocity JPDFs. The velocity JPDFs are retrieved by estimating the second moments of the ensemble correlation by fitting a Gaussian profile, and further using a correction for auto-correlation. The second moments can be used to estimate the Reynolds stresses in the flow. The proposed method is validated by implementing it to study the turbulent jet. For this purpose, 9000 image pairs are acquired. The results show that the retrieved moments predict the Reynolds stresses accurately. Further, high Reynolds number pipe flow experiments are performed in the Alpha Loop facility at Deltares. The bulk Reynolds number is varied from 0.3 to 0.6 million, acquiring 20,000 image pairs per measurement series. Also, the pressure drop is measured across the pipe along with the PIV measurements to estimate the roughness of the pipe. The results from the PIV measurements show that the mean velocity profile follows a similar trend as observed in the literature. A small bias is observed between the mean velocity obtained from the ensemble correlation and that obtained by averaging the instantaneous velocity vectors, in regions of high velocity gradients. The Reynolds shear stress estimated from the shape of the ensemble correlation is underestimated. However, the streamwise turbulent fluctuations estimated follow a trend, similar to that observed in the literature.TKI project ‘Turbulent pipe flow at high Reynolds number’, DeltaresMechanical Engineerin
Synthesis, structural and optical properties of (ALa)(FeMn)O6 (A = Ba and Sr) double perovskites
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