With the increasing prevalence of Internet usage, Internet-Delivered Psychological Treatment (IDPT) has become a valuable tool to develop improved treatments of mental disorders. IDPT becomes complicated and labor intensive because of overlapping emotion in mental health. To create a usable learning application for IDPT requires diverse labeled datasets containing an adequate set of linguistic properties to extract word representations and segmentations of emotions. In medical applications, it is challenging to successfully refine such datasets since emotion-aware labeling is time consuming. Other (...) known issues include vocabulary sizes per class, data source, method of creation, and baseline for the human performance level. This paper focuses on the application of personalized mental health interventions using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and attention-based in-depth entropy active learning. The objective of this research is to increase the trainable instances using a semantic clustering mechanism. For this purpose, we propose a method based on synonym expansion by semantic vectors. Semantic vectors based on semantic information derived from the context in which it appears are clustered. The resulting similarity metrics help to select the subset of unlabeled text by using semantic information. The proposed method separates unlabeled text and includes it in the next active learning mechanism cycle. Our method updates model training by using the new training points. The cycle continues until it reaches an optimal solution, and it converts all the unlabeled text into the training set. Our in-depth experimental results show that the synonym expansion semantic vectors help enhance training accuracy while not harming the results. The bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture with an attention mechanism achieved 0.85 Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC curve) on the blind test set. The learned embedding is then used to visualize the activated word's contribution to each symptom and find the psychiatrist's qualitative agreement. Our method improves the detection rate of depression symptoms from online forum text using the unlabeled forum texts. (shrink)

Evidence suggests a limited contribution to the total research output in leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals by researchers from the developing world. Editorial bias, quality of scientific research produced and language barriers have been attributed as possible causes for this phenomenon. The aim of this study was to understand the prevalence of editorial board members based out of low and lower-middle income countries in leading journals in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. The top 21 journals in the field of (...) obstetrics and gynaecology were selected based on their impact factor, SCImago ranking and literature search. The composition of the editorial boards of these journals was studied based on World Bank Income Criteria to understand the representation status of researchers from low and lower-middle income countries. A total of 1315 board members make up the editorial composition of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. The majority of these editors belong to high-income countries (n = 1148; 87.3%). Low (n = 6; 0.45%) and lower-middle income (n = 55; 4.18%) countries make up for a very minuscule proportion of editorial board members. Only a meagre 9 out of 21 journals have editorial board members from these countries (42.85%). Low and low-middle countries have poor representation in the editorial boards of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. Poor representation in research from these countries has grave consequences for a large proportion of the global population and multidisciplinary collaborative efforts must be taken to rapidly change this statistic with immediate effect. (shrink)

The relationship between ethical ideology and job stress appears to be complex. This study is based on a model presented by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39:175, 1980), showing two dimensions (idealism and relativism) that play an important role in ethical evaluation and behavior. Based on a survey of 561 employees of hotel industry in India, ethical ideologies were found to be negatively associated with job stress. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlations and multiple regressions. The result (...) showed that relativism is negatively correlated with job stress. Further, it has been established that idealism and relativism interacted in such a way that there is a negative relationship between idealism and job stress when relativism is low and positive relationship when relativism is high. The findings imply that ethical ideology adversely influences the job stress in the organization. (shrink)

There has been in recent decades very substantial work done on the concept of a nation, nationality and nationalism. In spite of the world coming together on many fronts—particularly, economy and a multicultural habitat formations especially in Europe and North America—these ideas remain politically volatile. In modern times, the idea of a nation has become powerfully associated with the idea of the state and the two notions are frequently used almost interchangeably. If among the emotional ties that form the basis (...) of the idea of a nation, we add a strong sense of belonging to a specific culture with its own history, traditions and the sharing of ethical and aesthetic values—it may quite naturally lead to the idea of one-nation, one-state and one culture. Such indeed has been a trend in the European concept of the idea of a nation of the 18th, 19th and partly of the twentieth century. However, same cannot be said about Indian nation. If we closely look at the growth of Indian nationalism in the backdrop of anti-colonial movement and formation of Indian state after gaining independence, we find lack of unanimity among thinkers. This paper explores the growth of Indian Nationalism and formation of Indian Nation through the eyes of one of the most seminal contemporary Indian thinkers Sri Aurobindo. (shrink)

This article featuring India constitutes one of five articles in a collection of essays on local capacity-building in research ethics by graduates from the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics MHSc in Bioethics, International Stream program funded by the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences. Research ethics is a growing area of work and interest in India. Ethics review remains the weakest component in the mechanism of good clinical practice, and there is a severe dearth (...) of professionals trained in ethics who can provide leadership. Although the Indian Good Clinical Practice Guidelines, the Indian Medical Council Act, and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act require that the Indian Council of Medical Research’s ethical guidelines be followed as a mandatory requirement for physicians who conduct research, there is a pervasive lack of awareness of basic requirements guiding the ethical conduct of research. There is a great need to strengthen India’s research ethics capacity and regulatory framework for research. (shrink)

. Software testing is a very important phase in the development of software. Testing includes the generation of test cases which, if done manually, is time consuming. To automate this process and generate optimal test cases, several meta-heuristic techniques have been developed. These approaches include genetic algorithm, cuckoo search, tabu search, intelligent water drop, etc. This paper presents an effective approach for test data generation using the cuckoo search and tabu search algorithms. It combines the cuckoo algorithm's strength of converging (...) to the solution in minimal time along with the tabu mechanism of backtracking from local optima by Lévy flight. The experimental results show that the algorithm is effective in generating test cases optimally and its performance is better than various earlier proposed approaches. (shrink)

In this paper a new technique of dual image watermarking is proposed for protection of ownership rights which utilizes salient properties of homomorphic transform (HT), discrete wavelet transform (DWT), singular value decomposition (SVD) and Arnold transform (AT). In embedding algorithm host image is splitted into reflectance and illumination components using HT, DWT is further applied to the reflectance component resulting in frequency subbands (HL and LH) which are transformed by SVD. Two image watermarks are selected for embedding process whereas security (...) of proposed algorithm is strengthen by performing scrambling of second watermark through AT. Both watermarks are transformed with DWT and SVD. Singular values (SVs) of both transformed watermark are embedded into SVs of host image. Simulation results clearly signifies for high robustness and imperceptibility of proposed algorithm as it is examined under various attacks. Superiority of proposed technique is illustrated by comparing it with other reported methods. (shrink)

... Achievement motivation in Gita 99-125 characteristics of achievement- oriented individual 100-103 its significance for Indian management 108-109 Aquinas ...

COVID-19 forced lockdown in India, leading to the loss of job, crisis of food, and other financial catastrophes that led to the exodus migration of internal migrant workers, operating in the private sector, back to their homes. Unavailability of transport facilities led to an inflicted need to walk back to homes barefooted without lack of any other crucial resources on the way. The woeful state of internal migrant workers walking back, with all their stuff on their back, holding their children, (...) was trending on social media worldwide. Their problem continued even after reaching home, including misbehavior of villagers, indifferent mannerism of family members toward them, inability to fulfill family responsibility, and financial crisis, which led to stress, fear, and trauma for these internal migrant workers. The present paper aimed to assess the idiosyncratic stressors of internal migrant workers throughout the pandemic era and their responses toward those problems, which helped them cope with it. In-depth semistructured telephonic interviews were conducted with 25 internal migrant workers who were working in different cities in India before lockdown. The analyses revealed that multiple stressors include financial crisis, unavailability of food, inability to continue education, inability to pay house rent, lack of support from neighbors and family, and other psychological stressors that affected them. However, they also tried multiple strategies to deal with the problems, including a cognitive appraisal of the problem and making oneself psychologically competent to deal with the situation. Social support of family and friends played a vital role in enhancing hardiness and increasing the level of happiness at scarce times. At the same time, some of them could not deal with stressors and opted for psychiatric help to manage the physical symptoms of stress. (shrink)

Religion of the Rabaris of the Rajasthan, India; a study.

This study provides a bibliometric analysis of the DESIDOC journal of library and information technology during 2012–2022. Research data for this study has been exported from the SCOPUS database. A total of 638 articles published during the study period were analyzed to determine the most cited articles, most prolific author, growth of publication, occurrence of keywords, citation pattern, and authorship pattern. To visualize the occurrence of keywords and the co-citation of the author network, Vosviewer software was used. This study also (...) reveals that bibliometric, scientometrics, e-resource, and citation analysis are the most prolific research areas. (shrink)

Most of the theories of rights propounded by philosophers, right from the beginning till the twentieth century, conceive rights either as a claim against the state or an obligation upon the state. Certainly such a conception has had something to do with the prevailing social, political and economic systems of the time concerned. Social, political and economic systems also had a particular relationship amongst them. Change in individual and social perspectives, values, priorities and beliefs has affected the philosophy of right. (...) From the ages of Locke and Hobbes when natural right was taken in obvious terms to the times of communitarians like Michael Sandel and thinkers like Ronald Dworkin the term “Right” has earned many dimensions. Progress and changing arrangements of systems complicates the status of a philosophical theory of rights propounded at a particular time, in the sense that its losses its teeth in any new found milieu. This paper evaluates the notion of abstract universalism of individual rights in the light of Gandhian notion of duty. (shrink)

Gluten ataxia is a rare immune-mediated neurological disorder caused by the ingestion of gluten. The diagnosis is not straightforward as antibodies are present in only up to 38% of patients, but often at lower titers. The symptoms of ataxia may be mild at the onset but lead to permanent damage if remain untreated. It is characterized by damage to the cerebellum however, the pathophysiology of the disease is not clearly understood. The present study investigated the neurochemical profile of vermis and (...) right cerebellum and structural changes in various brain regions of patients with gluten ataxia and compared it with healthy controls. Volumetric 3-D T1 and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in the three planes of the whole brain and single-voxel 1H- magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the vermis and right cerebellum were acquired on 3 T human MR scanner. The metabolite concentrations were estimated using LC Model while brain volumes were estimated using the online tool volBrain pipeline and CERES and corrected for partial volumes. The levels of neuro-metabolites were found to be significantly lower in vermis, while N-acetyl aspartate + N-acetyl aspartate glutamate and glycerophosphocholine + phosphocholine was lower in cerebellum regions in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. A significant reduction in the white matter of ; reduction in the volumes of cerebellum lobe and thalamus while lateral ventricles were increased in the patients with gluten ataxia compared to healthy controls. The reduced neuronal metabolites along with structural changes in the brain suggested neuronal degeneration in the patients with gluten ataxia. Our preliminary findings may be useful in understanding the gluten-induced cerebral damage and indicated that MRI and MRS may serve as a non-invasive useful tool in the early diagnosis, thereby enabling better management of these patients. (shrink)

The archaeological record is very limited and its analysis has been contentious. Hence, molecular biologists have shifted their attention to molecular dating techniques. Recently on April 2013, the prestigious Cell Press Journal Current Biology published an article (Fu et al. 2013) entitled “A Revised Timescale for Human Evolution Based on Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes”. This paper has twenty authors and they are researchers from the world’s top institutes like Max Planck Institute, Harvard, etc. Respected authors of this paper have emphatically accepted (...) that the fossil record is inadequate and unreliable. These statements clearly substantiate that now biologists are agreeing that fossil records do not provide any significant evidence at all for conventional evolution theory. Despite the well-recorded fact of the continual grand propaganda of Darwinism based on fossil evidence for more than 150 years, in recent times biologists are surprisingly coming up with such statements, based on their confidence that evolution can be explained purely by the genealogical/genomic record provided by modern molecular biology. Still many respected journals (for example the article in Nature, Retallack, 2013) continue to publish articles on fossil evidence to support Darwinian evolution. These incoherently diverse claims prove that Darwinists are struggling with unscientific ideological approaches to explain biodiversity. Darwinian evolutionary theory is not only the basis of modern biology, but also acts as the guiding principle of science and intellectual reasoning for modern civilization. Hence, a scientific understanding of the breakdown of the Darwinian theory of objective evolution is very important for overcoming the traditional scientific temper of mechanistic intellectualism that characterizes this ideology. In my article “21st Century Biology Refutes Darwinian Abiology” (published in two parts in November and December 2012 issues of The Harmonizer: www.mahaprabhu.net/satsanga/harmonizer) it was noted that several recent findings challenge the credibility that random mutations and natural selection can provide a valid basis for justifying the naturalistic evolution of species. The present article summarizes the problems associated with the fossil record and dating techniques, and its implication on the neo-Darwinian mechanistic misconception of biological life as mere molecular chemistry or abiology. An alternative approach based on the Vedāntic view for explaining biodiversity in the light of 21st century biology is also discussed in the end of the article. (shrink)

I provide a critical commentary regarding the attitude of the logician and the philosopher towards the physicist and physics. The commentary is intended to showcase how a general change in attitude towards making scientific inquiries can be beneficial for science as a whole. However, such a change can come at the cost of looking beyond the categories of the disciplines of logic, philosophy and physics. It is through self-inquiry that such a change is possible, along with the realization of the (...) essence of the middle that is otherwise excluded by choice. The logician, who generally holds a reverential attitude towards the physicist, can then actively contribute to the betterment of physics by improving the language through which the physicist expresses his experience. The philosopher, who otherwise chooses to follow the advancement of physics and gets stuck in the trap of sophistication of language, can then be of guidance to the physicist on intellectual grounds by having the physicist’s experience himself. In course of this commentary, I provide a glimpse of how a truthful conversion of verbal statements to physico-mathematical expressions unravels the hitherto unrealized connection between Heisenberg uncertainty relation and Cauchy’s definition of derivative that is used in physics. The commentary can be an essential reading if the reader is willing to look beyond the categories of logic, philosophy and physics by being ‘nobody’. (shrink)

Physical dimensions like “mass”, “length”, “charge”, represented by the symbols [M], [L], [Q], are not numbers, but used as numbers to perform dimensional analysis in particular, and to write the equations of physics in general, by the physicist. The law of excluded middle falls short of explaining the contradictory meanings of the same symbols. The statements like “m tends to 0”, “r tends to 0”, “q tends to 0”, used by the physicist, are inconsistent on dimensional grounds because “m”, “r”, (...) “q” represent quantities with physical dimensions of [M], [L], [Q] respectively and “0” represents just a number—devoid of physical dimension. Consequently, due to the involvement of the statement “q tends to 0'', where q is the test charge” in the definition of electric field leads to either circular reasoning or a contradiction regarding the experimental verification of the smallest charge in the Millikan–Fletcher oil drop experiment. Considering such issues as problematic, by choice, I make an inquiry regarding the basic language in terms of which physics is written, with an aim of exploring how truthfully the verbal statements can be converted to the corresponding physico-mathematical expressions, where “physico-mathematical” signifies the involvement of physical dimensions. Such investigation necessitates an explanation by demonstration of “self inquiry”, “middle way”, “dependent origination”, “emptiness/relational existence”, which are certain terms that signify the basic tenets of Buddhism. In light of such demonstration I explain my view of “definition”; the relations among quantity, physical dimension and number; meaninglessness of “zero quantity” and the associated logico-linguistic fallacy; difference between unit and unity. Considering the importance of the notion of electric field in physics, I present a critical analysis of the definitions of electric field due to Maxwell and Jackson, along with the physico-mathematical conversions of the verbal statements. The analysis of Jackson’s definition points towards an expression of the electric field as an infinite series due to the associated “limiting process” of the test charge. However, it brings out the necessity of a postulate regarding the existence of charges, which nevertheless follows from the definition of quantity. Consequently, I explain the notion of undecidable charges that act as the middle way to resolve the contradiction regarding the Millikan–Fletcher oil drop experiment. In passing, I provide a logico-linguistic analysis, in physico-mathematical terms, of two verbal statements of Maxwell in relation to his definition of electric field, which suggests Maxwell’s conception of dependent origination of distance and charge ) and that of emptiness in the context of relative vacuum. This work is an appeal for the dissociation of the categorical disciplines of logic and physics and on the large, a fruitful merger of Eastern philosophy and Western science. Nevertheless, it remains open to how the reader relates to this work, which is the essence of emptiness. (shrink)

Verse work on Yoga; presenting the viewpoint of Nātha sect in Hinduism.

The reluctant revolutionary -- The patent slave -- The golden Dane -- The quantum atom -- When Einstein met Bohr -- The prince of duality -- Spin doctors -- The quantum magician -- A late erotic outburst -- Uncertainty in Copenhagen -- Solvay 1927 -- Einstein forgets relativity -- Quantum reality -- For whom Bell's theorem tolls -- The quantum demon.

Observational discrepancies in galactic rotation curves and cluster dispersion data have been interpreted to imply the existence of dark matter. Numerous efforts at its detection, however, have failed to turn up any positive result. As a dynamical theory is always operative on the assumed mass distribution to predict kinematic observations, some scientists see the discrepancy as telling against General Relativity. Among the many theories that seek to modify gravity, those that are built on Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), or yield MOND (...) behaviour at appropriate scales, achieve remarkable empirical success without assuming dark matter. The continued non-detection of dark matter and the empirical success of MOND supports the claim that the current evidential and theoretical context underdetermines General Relativity. In this article, I clarify the kind of underdetermination that can be said to threaten General Relativity. Specifically, I argue that the present evidential and theoretical context increase the possibility of an unconceived alternative to GR which would be just as well supported by the available evidence. (shrink)

The capacity to generate recursive sequences is a marker of rich, algorithmic cognition, and perhaps unique to humans. Yet, the precise processes driving recursive sequence generation remain mysterious. We investigated three potential cognitive mechanisms underlying recursive pattern processing: hierarchical reasoning, ordinal reasoning, and associative chaining. We developed a Bayesian mixture model to quantify the extent to which these three cognitive mechanisms contribute to adult humans’ performance in a sequence generation task. We further tested whether recursive rule discovery depends upon relational (...) information, either perceptual or semantic. We found that the presence of relational information facilitates hierarchical reasoning and drives the generation of recursive sequences across novel depths of center embedding. In the absence of relational information, the use of ordinal reasoning predominates. Our results suggest that hierarchical reasoning is an important cognitive mechanism underlying recursive pattern processing and can be deployed across embedding depths and relational domains. (shrink)

Recent advances in genomic and imaging techniques have revealed the complex manner of organizing billions of base pairs of DNA necessary for maintaining their functionality and ensuring the proper expression of genetic information. The SMC proteins and cohesin complex primarily contribute to forming higher‐order chromatin structures, such as chromosomal territories, compartments, topologically associating domains (TADs) and chromatin loops anchored by CCCTC‐binding factor (CTCF) protein or other genome organizers. Cohesin plays a fundamental role in chromatin organization, gene expression and regulation. This (...) review aims to describe the current understanding of the dynamic nature of the cohesin‐DNA complex and its dependence on cohesin for genome maintenance. We discuss the current 3C technique and numerous bioinformatics pipelines used to comprehend structural genomics and epigenetics focusing on the analysis of Cohesin‐centred interactions. We also incorporate our present comprehension of Loop Extrusion (LE) and insights from stochastic modelling. (shrink)

Dennett (_Synthese,_ _53_(2), 159–180, 1982, 1991, _Journal of Consciousness Studies,_ _10_(9–10), 19–30, 2003, _Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences,_ _6_, 247–270, 2007 ) proposes and defends a method called _heterophenomenology_. Heterophenomenology is a method to study consciousness _from a third-person objective point of view_ as opposed to a first-person subjective point of view or (auto)-phenomenology. The method of heterophenomenology serves a necessary role in Dennett’s schema of bridging the gap between the manifest and the scientific image of the world. In this (...) paper, I attempt to present a limited critique of the method of heterophenomenology. The objection raised in this paper is limited to one of the steps involved in the method, i.e., the interpretation of the heterophenomenological text as analogous to novelist fiction. I attempt to show that the assumptions made by Dennett about the interpretation of fiction are contradictory in nature and therefore the same cannot be applied to the interpretation of a heterophenomenological text. The assumptions fail in justifying the interpretation of fiction itself and hence exporting them by analogy to interpret a heterophenomenological text is a mistake. (shrink)

In one of his earliest dialogues, the Soliloquia, Augustine identifies the liberal arts (disciplinae) with truth (veritas), and employs this somewhat puzzling identification as a premise in his infamous proof of the immortality of the soul (Sol. 2.24). In this paper, I examine Augustine’s argument for this peculiar identification. Augustine maintains both (1) that the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are true, and (2) that the liberal art of dialectic (disciplina disputandi) is the “truth through which all disciplines are (...) true” (Sol. 2.21). I argue that Augustine identifies the liberal arts with truth because (1) the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are learned, and (2) dialectic’s structure is essential to the liberal arts. I further suggest that the subject matter of each liberal art reflects a distinct segment of intelligible reality, that is, the realm of the intelligible Forms. (shrink)

Epistemologies and research methods are not free of metaphysics. This is to say that they are both, supported by (or presumed by), and support (or presume) fundamental ontologies. A discussion of the epistemological foundations of "multimethod" research in the social sciences—in as much as such research claims to unearth "causal" relations—therefore cannot avoid the ontological presuppositions or implications of such a discussion. But though there isn’t necessarily a perfect correspondence between ontology, epistemology, and methodology, they do constrain each other. As (...) such it is possible to make methodological choices that are at odds with one’s (implicit) ontology or argue from an ontology that is inconsistent one’s choice of methods.Yet lack of recognition of this fact has hampered methodological discussions in political science, especially with respect to the discussion on the merits of multimethod research. The ontology implicitly accepted in such discussions is "reductionist" and "regularist," that is, one that respectively defines causes in terms of noncausal relations and states of affair and affirms that such noncausal relations are regularities in nature. This article will argue that any attempt to fit "multimethod" research (where "multimethod" signifies some combination of inferential statistics and case studies) within this narrow ontology is destined to fail since such a metaphysics logically cannot accord case studies a necessary or sufficient role in the in the establishment of causal relations. However, there are metaphysical positions within the ambit of an empiricist philosophy of science that can accommodate multiple methods without contradiction. The article discusses two such ontologies and suggests ways in which they might allow the establishment of a coherent epistemological foundation for multimethod research, however, within a decidedly empiricist philosophy of science. (shrink)

Hierarchical cognitive mechanisms underlie sophisticated behaviors, including language, music, mathematics, tool-use, and theory of mind. The origins of hierarchical logical reasoning have long been, and continue to be, an important puzzle for cognitive science. Prior approaches to hierarchical logical reasoning have often failed to distinguish between observable hierarchical behavior and unobservable hierarchical cognitive mechanisms. Furthermore, past research has been largely methodologically restricted to passive recognition tasks as compared to active generation tasks that are stronger tests of hierarchical rules. We argue (...) that it is necessary to implement learning studies in humans, non-human species, and machines that are analyzed with formal models comparing the contribution of different cognitive mechanisms implicated in the generation of hierarchical behavior. These studies are critical to advance theories in the domains of recursion, rule-learning, symbolic reasoning, and the potentially uniquely human cognitive origins of hierarchical logical reasoning. (shrink)

Durán et al argue in ‘Who is afraid of black box algorithms? On the epistemological and ethical basis of trust in medical AI’1 that traditionally proposed solutions to make black box machine learning models in medicine less opaque and more transparent are, though necessary, ultimately not sufficient to establish their overall trustworthiness. This is because transparency procedures currently employed, such as the use of an interpretable predictor,2 cannot fully overcome the opacity of such models. Computational reliabilism, an alternate approach to (...) adjudicating trustworthiness that goes beyond transparency solutions, is argued to be a more promising approach. CR can bring the benefits of traditional process reliabilism in epistemology to bear on this problem of model trustworthiness. Durán et al ’s explicitly reliabilist epistemology to assess the trustworthiness of black box models is a timely addition to current transparency-focused approaches in the literature. Their delineation of the epistemic from the ethical also serves the debate by clarifying the nature of the different problems. However, their overall account underestimates the epistemic value of certain transparency-enabling approaches by conflating different types of opacity and also oversimplifies transparency-advocating arguments in the literature. First, it is unclear why Durán et al consider transparency approaches as insufficient to overcome epistemic opacity, if heiraccount of opacity is the traditional one from the machine learning literature: opacity stemming from the mismatch between mathematical optimisation in high dimensionality that is characteristic of machine learning and the demands of human-scale reasoning and styles of semantic interpretation.3 …. (shrink)

Einsteinian gravity, of which Newtonian gravity is a part, is fraught with the problem of singularity that has been established as a theorem by Hawking and Penrose. The _hypothesis_ that founds the basis of both Einsteinian and Newtonian theories of gravity is that bodies with unequal magnitudes of masses fall with the same acceleration under the gravity of a source object. Since, the Einstein’s equations is one of the assumptions that underlies the proof of the singularity theorem, therefore, the above (...) hypothesis is implicitly one of the founding pillars of the same. In this work, I demonstrate how one can possibly write a non-singular theory of gravity which manifests that the above mentioned hypothesis is only valid in an approximate sense in the “large distance” scenario. To mention a specific instance, under the gravity of the earth, a 5 kg and a 500 kg fall with accelerations which differ by approximately \(113.148\times 10^{-32}\) meter/sec \(^2\) and the more massive object falls with less acceleration. Further, I demonstrate why the concept of gravitational field is not definable in the “small distance” regime which automatically justifies why the Einstein’s and Newton’s theories fail to provide any “small distance” analysis. In course of writing down this theory, I demonstrate why the continuum hypothesis as spelled out by Goedel, is undecidable. The theory has several aspects which provide the following realizations: (i) Descartes’ self-skepticism concerning exact representation of numbers by drawing lines (ii) Born’s wish of taking into account “natural uncertainty in all observations” while describing “a physical situation” by means of “real numbers” (iii) Klein’s vision of having “a fusion of arithmetic and geometry” where “a point is replaced by a small spot” (iv) Goedel’s assertion about “non-standard analysis, in some version” being “the analysis of the future”. (shrink)

In organizational scholarship, the infusion of spirituality into corporate culture has emerged as a transformative force that significantly influences employee well-being, work engagement, and operational efficiency, ushering in a new era of workplace harmony. However, amidst this evolution, the Indian banking industry remains relatively unchartered. This study embarks on a pioneering journey, exploring the intricate interplay between workplace spirituality and spiritual fulfillment within this dynamic sector and discerning differences between public and private sector employees. The workplace Spirituality and the Spiritual (...) Fulfillment questionnaire were administered to obtain the complete information from 342 respondents from Delhi and Delhi (NCR). Data analyses were performed using SPSS 26.0. Multiple regression analysis uncovers a significant impact of spirituality-driven culture on employees’ sense of spiritual fulfillment. The findings demonstrate that Indian banking institutions harbor the seeds of spiritual workplaces. The study heralds a spiritual awakening within the banking sector by offering fresh perspectives that have the potential to redefine conventional paradigms in academia and the industry. The authors believe replicating the findings might realize the positive outcomes of a more spiritual workplace throughout the whole network and hierarchy of the banking sector. (shrink)

Reasons and Recognition brings together fourteen new papers on an array of topics from the many areas to which Scanlon has made path-breaking contributions, ...

SummaryExamining waiting time to birth among newlywed couples is likely to provide insights into the desire for spacing births among newlywed husbands and wives. Data from the Indian National Family Health Survey of 2005–06 are used to examine the desired waiting time to birth among newlywed couples. The dependent variable is spousal concordance on desired waiting times. Overall 65% of couples have concordant desired waiting times. Among discordant couples, wives were more likely to want to wait longer than their husbands. (...) Couples from richer wealth quintiles were more likely than couples from the poorest quintile to have concordant desired waiting times. Muslims were less likely than Hindus to have concordant desires. There is a need for spacing contraceptive methods among newlyweds in India. This may have implications for the Indian Family Planning Programme, which to date has largely focused on sterilization. Programmes need to include newlywed husbands to promote use of spacing methods. (shrink)

This paper examines John Rawls' renowned theory of justice, which outlines two principles of justice and their respective significance. It explores how Rawls' notion of equality aligns with the philosophical concept of equity, emphasizing that his call for citizen equality inherently incorporates fairness. Additionally, the paper discusses the application of Rawls' "Difference Principle" to India's reservation policy. Rawls' principles, which aim to support the worst-off in society, are reflected in India's system of reservations for marginalized groups, including backward classes and (...) differently-abled individuals, to promote equitable opportunities. However, the paper cautions that excessive reservations could limit opportunities for more privileged groups. Ultimately, it is argued that Rawls' concept of social justice has contributed to the promotion of social justice in India. (shrink)

What did science make possible for colonial rule? How was science in turn marked by the knowledge and practices of those under colonial rule? Here I approach these questions via the social history of Madras Observatory. Constructed in 1791 by the East India Company, the observatory was to provide local time to mariners and served as a clearinghouse for the company’s survey and revenue administration. The astronomical work of Madras’ Brahmin assistants relied upon their knowledge of jyotiśāstra [Sanskrit astronomy/astrology], and (...) can be seen as a specialized form of the kind of South Indian scribal labor and knowledge that also staffed the company’s tax offices. If at Greenwich the division of labor meant observatory work bore resemblances to the factory and the accounts office, in Madras, astronomy and accounting drew on similar labor forms because they were part of the same enterprise. But the company did not just adapt preexisting forms of labor, it also attempted to produce its own at a school built near the observatory to train “half-caste” orphans as apprentice surveyors and assistant computers. The school, staffed by the Brahmins, drew upon knowledge and pedagogical practice associated with the tinnai, the schools in which upper-caste children learned to read, write, and calculate. For a time, the observatory’s social order was literally “half-caste.” The paper also considers how the relationship between caste, status, and instrument was reflected in the visual and material culture of the observatory, such as in Indian-language inscriptions on its central pillar. For company astronomers, the measurement of time meant reworking the relationships among the Indian past, the colonial present, and an imperial posterity. Science under colonial rule spanned multiple temporal and social registers because it was the result of negotiations between the demands of political economy and the knowledge and practices of colonized others. (shrink)

Advances in AI research have brought increasingly sophisticated capabilities to AI systems and heightened the societal consequences of their use. Researchers and industry professionals have responded by contemplating responsible principles and practices for AI system design. At the same time, defense institutions are contemplating ethical guidelines and requirements for the development and use of AI for warfare. However, varying ethical and procedural approaches to technological development, research emphasis on offensive uses of AI, and lack of appropriate venues for multistakeholder dialogue (...) have led to differing operationalization of responsible AI principles and practices among civilian and defense entities. We argue that the disconnect between civilian and defense responsible development and use practices leads to underutilization of responsible AI research and hinders the implementation of responsible AI principles in both communities. We propose a research roadmap and recommendations for dialogue to increase exchange of responsible AI development and use practices for AI systems between civilian and defense communities. We argue that generating more opportunities for exchange will stimulate global progress in the implementation of responsible AI principles. (shrink)

The present paper investigates investor decision-making from a psychological standpoint and explores the role of consciousness and mindfulness on investors’ analytical ability and investment efficacy. A comprehensive survey instrument including sub-scales of different behavioural constructs is administered to 222 individual investors. We find evidence supporting the positive influence of cognitive capability on investment efficacy. The findings also suggest that mindfulness reliably mediates consciousness to cause an effect on cognitive capability. Higher cognitive capability will manifest in the form of detailed analysis (...) and interpretation of available information and improve stock selection, asset allocation, and market timing, thus increasing investment efficacy. A mindful investor can mitigate negative stimuli, emotional turmoil, dilemmas and distress in stock trading in a far more superior way to mediate consciousness for higher cognitive capability. The implications of the study indicate that consciousness and mindfulness-based interventions may facilitate making the investors stronger to manage difficult times and perform a careful rational assessment to eventually become successful investors. (shrink)

Can humans get arbitrarily capable reinforcement learning agents to do their bidding? Or will sufficiently capable RL agents always find ways to bypass their intended objectives by shortcutting their reward signal? This question impacts how far RL can be scaled, and whether alternative paradigms must be developed in order to build safe artificial general intelligence. In this paper, we study when an RL agent has an instrumental goal to tamper with its reward process, and describe design principles that prevent instrumental (...) goals for two different types of reward tampering. Combined, the design principles can prevent reward tampering from being an instrumental goal. The analysis benefits from causal influence diagrams to provide intuitive yet precise formalizations. (shrink)