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Onychomycosis is fungal infection of one or more of the nail units. However, because fungi cause only about half of all nail dystrophies, the use of appropriate diagnostic techniques is important to ensure correct diagnosis and treatment. Aim of the present study was to compare direct microscopy, culture and HPE-PAS for diagnosis of onychomycosis by evaluating their sensitivity and various other relevant statistical parameters. A prospective, hospital-based, cross-sectional study was conducted on 216 patients with a high degree of clinical suspicion of onychomycosis. Nail specimens were evaluated using three diagnostic methods, i.e. direct microscopy using 20% Potassium hydroxide (KOH) & 40% Di-methyl-suphoxide (DMSO), culture and histopathological examination using PAS stain (HPE-PAS). Of 216 patients direct microscopy was positive in 138 (63.9%), culture in 147 (68%) and HPE-PAS in 164 patients (76%). One hundred and seventy-nine patients fitted into the criteria set for confirmed diagnosis of onychomycosis. Using this as a denominator; direct microscopy, culture and HPE-PAS had sensitivities of 77.1%, 70% and 91.6% respectively. Also, HPE-PAS showed the highest sensitivity of 94.7% in 19 cases with prediagnostic antimycotic treatment compared to direct microscopy (42.1%) or culture (57.9%). HPE-PAS shows high sensitivity for diagnosis of onychomycosis and can be considered as a gold standard in the diagnosis of onychomycosis.

International comparison of fiscal efforts of developing countries was a fascinating area of public finance in the 1960s and 1970s. The famous studies in this area were Harley (1965); Lotz and Morss (1967); Raja (1971); Raja et al. (1975) and Roy (1979). Most of these studies used ordinary least square (OLS) technique to estimate the determinants of the total tax to GDP ratio and the most common exogenous variables used by these studies were share of agriculture sector, share of industrial sector, share of foreign trade and per capita income. Some studies used the level of monetisation, somes used the. level of education and other used the level of urbanisation as exogenous variables in the estimation of tax potential of different developing countries. The present study instead of exploring the determinants of tax to GDP ratio attempts to explore the determinants of buoyancy of the taxes i.e. the total taxes, direct taxes and indirect taxes. The buoyancy of a tax measures the total response of tax revenue to change in income. The scope of the study also includes the ranking of developing countries on the basis of actual to predicted values of these buoyancies. The study would have been more useful if the study could fmd the determinants of the elasticity of these taxes, but due to nonavailability of data on the discretionary measures for each tax this was not feasible. The paper is organised as follows, Section I describes the theoretical basis of the model, Section II gives methodology and data collection, Section III gives results of the model and Section IV summarises the main conclusions.

The issue of how developing countries can accelerate their economic growth is of crucial importance. The two primary alternative routes to development are inward-oriented growth strategies, which emphasises import-substitution industrialisation (ISI); and outward-oriented policies, which emphasises the economic benefits of participation in the world economy, that is, export-led growth (ELG). The late 1960s and 1970s witnessed a disillusionment with ISI in many developing countries, leading to a reduction in protectionist measures. The 1980s witnessed further intensification of liberalisation measures as many countries retreated from socialism, regulation and planning. The dis-advantages of ISI, the potential strength of ELG policies and the conditions necessary for successful transition from an inwardoriented regimes to an outward oriented have been extensively researched1 and beyond the scope of the present study. Moreover many of the rapidly growing newly industrialising countries (NICs) lend support to the idea that export promotion can be an effective development strategy. Naturally such a line of causation is consistent with macroeconomic theory, where exports are treated as injections into the economy [Kaldor (1967); Feder (1982); Romer (1989); Krueger (1990) and Marin (1992)]