Does information and communications technology affect economic growth? Empirical evidence from SAARC countries

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) on economic growth (gross domestic product) for member countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) using annual data for the period 1990–2014. The study has employed augmented Cobb–Douglas production function by incorporating ICT along with capital and labor. We have taken teledensity (number of fixed and mobile phones per 10,000 people) as the proxy of ICT. This study has included only four SAARC countries (Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan) due to data constraints. Our findings reveal a positive and statistically significant effect of ICT on economic growth using panel data techniques. However, the impact of ICT on economic growth is highest for India followed by Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan respectively. This study has crucial policy implications for SAARC countries as they have started giving due significance to the issues related to ICT these years.     

Electron‐Beam Manipulation of Silicon Impurities in Single‐Walled Carbon Nanotubes

The recent discovery that impurity atoms in crystals can be manipulated with focused electron irradiation has opened novel perspectives for top‐down atomic engineering. These achievements have been enabled by advances not only in electron optics and microscope stability but also in the preparation of suitable materials with impurity elements incorporated via ion and electron‐beam irradiation or chemical means. Here it is shown that silicon heteroatoms introduced via plasma irradiation into the lattice of single‐walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) can be manipulated using a focused 55–60 keV electron probe aimed at neighboring carbon sites. Moving the silicon atom mainly along the longitudinal axis of large 2.7 nm diameter tubes, more than 90 controlled lattice jumps are recorded and the relevant displacement cross sections are estimated. Molecular dynamics simulations show that even in 2 nm diameter SWCNTs, the threshold energies for out‐of‐plane dynamics are different than in graphene, and depend on the orientation of the silicon‐carbon bond with respect to the electron beam as well as the local bonding of the displaced carbon atom and its neighbors. Atomic‐level engineering of SWCNTs where the electron wave functions are more strictly confined than in 2D materials may enable the fabrication of tunable electronic resonators and other devices.     

GC–MS-based metabolomics approach reveals metabolic variations between probiotics incorporated cow and goat milk yoghurt

The work is aimed at elucidation of metabolite profile of probiotic yoghurts prepared from cow milk (CPY) and goat milk (GPY) using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry-based untargeted metabolomics approach. A total of 192 metabolites including 49 differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) were observed, wherein amino-acids, peptides and analogues constituted 41.93% of the metabolite sub-class. Acetic acid, glycine, Thr-Ala, octanoic acid, l -kynurenine and 2-amino adipic acid were among the top 15 DEMs. A significant relationship with seven key metabolic pathways including glycolysis, lysine degradation, purine metabolism, fatty acid biosynthesis, tryptophan metabolism, nicotinate and nicotinamide metabolism and glycine, serine and threonine metabolism has been established based on their impact values.