Malnutrition among children is prevalent in almost all the states in India. This study assesses the extent and causes of malnutrition in two eastern Indian states with similar climates, namely West Bengal and Assam, using data from the National Family Health Survey 1998s educational status, working status of the mother, mother’s age at delivery of the children, source of drinking water, toilet facilities and standard of living of the household. Logistic regression was carried out separately for each of the three (...) indices on the explanatory variables for both the states. It was found that not all variables are equally important in determining whether a baby is underweight, or suffering from acute or chronic malnutrition. Also, the importance of variables is not the same in the two states. It was observed that the coefficients associated with the variables in determining weight-for-height are not significant compared with those for weight-for-age and height-for-age. (shrink)

This paper explores Gandhi’s attitude towards diversity of religions and examines as to how he attempted to bring inter-faith harmony. Religious diversity has been a topic of serious debate in the contemporary philosophical discourse on understanding religion. Religious pluralism is one of the approaches that deal with issues concerning the diversity of religions. It is believed that no single religion can make absolute claims about the nature of divine reality, its relation to man and the world. It stands in direct (...) opposition to exclusivism, inclusivism and also to fundamentalism by denying that any one religion is the sole possession of the whole truth. Different religions seem to put forward different and incompatible interpretations about the nature of ultimate reality, about the modes of divine activity, the nature and destiny of the human race. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) continues to gain attention atop the corporate agenda and is by now an important component of the dialogue between companies and their stakeholders. Nevertheless, there is still little guidance as to how companies can implement CSR activity in order to maximize returns to CSR investment. Theorists have identified many company-favoring outcomes of CSR; yet there is a dearth of research on the psychological mechanisms that drive stakeholder responses to CSR activity. Borrowing from the literatures on meansend (...) chains and relationship marketing, we propose a conceptual model that explains how CSR provides individual stakeholders with numerous benefits (functional, psychosocial, and values) and how the type and extent to which a stakeholder derives these benefits from CSR initiatives influences the quality of the relationship between the stakeholder and the company. The paper discusses the implications of these insights and highlights a number of areas for future research. (shrink)

The book develops the necessary background in probability theory underlying diverse treatments of stochastic processes and their wide-ranging applications. With this goal in mind, the pace is lively, yet thorough. Basic notions of independence and conditional expectation are introduced relatively early on in the text, while conditional expectation is illustrated in detail in the context of martingales, Markov property and strong Markov property. Weak convergence of probabilities on metric spaces and Brownian motion are two highlights. The historic role of size-biasing (...) is emphasized in the contexts of large deviations and in developments of Tauberian Theory. The authors assume a graduate level of maturity in mathematics, but otherwise the book will be suitable for students with varying levels of background in analysis and measure theory. In particular, theorems from analysis and measure theory used in the main text are provided in comprehensive appendices, along with their proofs, for ease of reference. Rabi Bhattacharya is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Arizona. Edward Waymire is Professor of Mathematics at Oregon State University. Both authors have co-authored numerous books, including the graduate textbook, Stochastic Processes with Applications. Advanced undergrads and graduate students, analysts. (shrink)

Study in the context of Hindu philosophy.

What factors drove the transformation of the cyanobacterial progenitor of plastids (e.g. chloroplasts) from endosymbiont to bona fide organelle? This question lies at the heart of organelle genesis because, whereas intracellular endosymbionts are widespread in both unicellular and multicellular eukaryotes (e.g. rhizobial bacteria, Chlorella cells in ciliates, Buchnera in aphids), only two canonical eukaryotic organelles of endosymbiotic origin are recognized, the plastids of algae and plants and the mitochondrion. Emerging data on (1) the discovery of non‐canonical plastid protein targeting, (2) (...) the recent origin of a cyanobacterial‐derived organelle in the filose amoeba Paulinella chromatophora, and (3) the extraordinarily reduced genomes of psyllid bacterial endosymbionts begin to blur the distinction between endosymbiont and organelle. Here we discuss the use of these terms in light of new data in order to highlight the unique aspects of plastids and mitochondria and underscore their central role in eukaryotic evolution. BioEssays 29:1239–1246, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Critical analysis of the fundamentals of Advaita Vedanta philosophy.

This paper examines the effects of employees’ sense that they work for a purpose-driven company on their workplace sustainability behaviors. Conceptualizing corporate purpose as an overarching, relevant, shared ethical vision of why a company exists and where it needs to go, we argue that it is particularly suited for driving employee sustainability behaviors, which are more ethically complex than the types of employee ethical behaviors typically examined by prior research. Through four studies, two involving the actual employees of construction companies, (...) we demonstrate that purpose drives the sustainability behaviors of employees by causing them to take psychological ownership of sustainability. In addition, we show that the sustainability-enhancing effect of purpose is stronger when employees perceive that they have higher autonomy in enacting their sustainability actions and for those employees for whom being moral is more central to their sense of self. (shrink)

While considerable attention has been given to the harm done to consumers by marketing, less attention has been given to the harm done by consumers as an indirect effect of marketing activities, particularly in regard to supply chains. The recent development of dramatically expanded global supply chains has resulted in social and environmental problems upstream that are attributable at least in part to downstream marketers and consumers. Marketers have responded mainly by using corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication to counter the (...) critique of CSR practice, but these claims of ethical corporate behavior often lack credibility and can result in a backlash against brands. The article argues that more adequate attention to the harmful upstream effects of downstream marketing and consumption decisions requires greater attention to stakeholder marketing and marketer efforts to help create responsible consumers. It concludes by identifying implications for further research in this important emergent area of marketing ethics. (shrink)

Of all the cognitive means recognized in Indian philosophical schools, perception is considered the primary. Gautama, the philosopher who authored Nyāyasūtra—the first aphoristic collection of the Nyāya tenets—defines perception as the principal cause of true perceptual cognition, that is, of a cognition generated out of sense-object contact, non-deviating, non-vacillating, and nonverbal. Of these, the adjective “nonverbal”—the translated version of the Sanskrit term “avyapadeśyam”—ignited a serious debate that was argued for about a millennium. This article tries to trace different interpretations of (...) the term in the classical Nyāya commentarial literature, especially in the writings of Vātsyāyana, Uddyotakara, Vācaspati Miśra, and Jayanta Bhaṭṭa. It also attempts to show briefly how the contributions of these philosophers in the debate were influenced by the prevalent Indian philosophical scenario. (shrink)

The task of rhetorical role labeling is to assign labels (such as Fact, Argument, Final Judgement, etc.) to sentences of a court case document. Rhetorical role labeling is an important problem in the field of Legal Analytics, since it can aid in various downstream tasks as well as enhances the readability of lengthy case documents. The task is challenging as case documents are highly various in structure and the rhetorical labels are often subjective. Previous works for automatic rhetorical role identification (...) (i) mainly used Conditional Random Fields over manually handcrafted features, and (ii) focused on certain law domains only (e.g., Immigration cases, Rent law), and a particular jurisdiction/country (e.g., US, Canada, India). In this work, we improve upon the prior works on rhetorical role identification by proposing novel Deep Learning models for automatically identifying rhetorical roles, which substantially outperform the prior methods. Additionally, we show the effectiveness of the proposed models over documents from five different law domains, and from two different jurisdictions—the Supreme Court of India and the Supreme Court of the UK. Through extensive experiments over different variations of the Deep Learning models, including Transformer models based on BERT and LegalBERT, we show the robustness of the methods for the task. We also perform an extensive inter-annotator study and analyse the agreement of the predictions of the proposed model with the annotations by domain experts. We find that some rhetorical labels are inherently hard/subjective and both law experts and neural models frequently get confused in predicting them correctly. (shrink)

This article describes how the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the higher education institutes in developing nations like India to relook at pedagogical approaches. Due to government imposing nationwide lockdown, higher educational institutes were quickly adopting to imbibe online learning medium. This research takes a qualitative thematic analytical approach to explore the facilitators and challenges to online learning from the perspectives of both learners and educators in higher education institutes. We have specifically explored the ethical and social concerns related to online (...) learning and the possible solution for the same. (shrink)

The photosynthetic organelle of algae and plants (the plastid) traces its origin to a primary endosymbiotic event in which a previously non‐photosynthetic protist engulfed and enslaved a cyanobacterium. This eukaryote then gave rise to the red, green and glaucophyte algae. However, many algal lineages, such as the chlorophyll c‐containing chromists, have a more complicated evolutionary history involving a secondary endosymbiotic event, in which a protist engulfed an existing eukaryotic alga (in this case, a red alga). Chromists such as diatoms and (...) kelps then rose to great importance in aquatic habitats. Another algal group, the dinoflagellates, has undergone tertiary (engulfment of a secondary plastid) and even quaternary endosymbioses. In this review, we examine algal diversity and show endosymbiosis to be a major force in algal evolution. This area of research has advanced rapidly and long‐standing issues such as the chromalveolate hypothesis and the extent of endosymbiotic gene transfer have recently been clarified. BioEssays 26:50–60, 2004. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Samkhya is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, system of classical Indian philosophy. This book traces its history from the third or fourth century B. C. up through the twentieth century. The Encyclopedia as a whole will present the substance of the various Indian systems of thought to philosophers unable to read the Sanskrit and having difficulty in finding their way about in the translations (where such exist). This volume includes a lengthy introduction by Gerald James Larson, which (...) discusses the history of Samkhya and its philosophical contours overall. The remainder of the book includes summaries in English of all extant Sanskrit texts of the system. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Bhattacharya, K.C. Swaraj in ideas.--Seal, B. The neo-romantic movement in literature.--Tagore, R. The religion of an artist.--Sri Aurobindo. The ideal spirit of poetry.

Commemoration volume for Kalidas Bhattacharya, 1911-1984, Indian philosopher; comprises articles on Indian philosophy.

Immunology researchers are beginning to explore the possibilities of reproducibility, reuse and secondary analyses of immunology data. Open-access datasets are being applied in the validation of the methods used in the original studies, leveraging studies for meta-analysis, or generating new hypotheses. To promote these goals, the ImmPort data repository was created for the broader research community to explore the wide spectrum of clinical and basic research data and associated findings. The ImmPort ecosystem consists of four components–Private Data, Shared Data, Data (...) Analysis, and Resources—for data archiving, dissemination, analyses, and reuse. To date, more than 300 studies have been made freely available through the ImmPort Shared Data portal , which allows research data to be repurposed to accelerate the translation of new insights into discoveries. (shrink)

In Humanity’s End: Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement, Nicholas Agar presents a novel argument against the prospect of radical life-extension. Agar’s argument hinges on the claim that extended lifespans will result in people’s lives being dominated by the fear of death. Here we examine this claim and the surrounding issues in Agar’s discussion. We argue, firstly, that Agar’s view rests on empirically dubious assumptions about human rationality and attitudes to risk, and secondly, that even if those assumptions are granted, (...) the fears that Agar adverts to are unlikely to dominate people’s lives if and when radical life-extension is made possible. Further, we claim that the structure of the decision-making process around life-extension is unlikely to be the way that it would have to be in order for Agar’s claims about fear of death to make sense. Finally, we argue that Agar is implicitly committed to a narrow conception of human value. In response, we suggest that the pursuit of life-extension can itself be seen as an expression of certain important aspects of our distinctively human nature. (shrink)

We hypothesize that as one of the most consequential events in evolution, primary endosymbiosis accelerates lineage divergence, a process we refer to as the endosymbiotic ratchet. Our proposal is supported by recent work on the photosynthetic amoeba, Paulinella, that underwent primary plastid endosymbiosis about 124 Mya. This amoeba model allows us to explore the early impacts of photosynthetic organelle (plastid) origin on the host lineage. The current data point to a central role for effective population size (Ne) in accelerating divergence (...) post‐endosymbiosis due to limits to dispersal and reproductive isolation that reduce Ne, leading to local adaptation. We posit that isolated populations exploit different strategies and behaviors and assort themselves in non‐overlapping niches to minimize competition during the early, rapid evolutionary phase of organelle integration. The endosymbiotic ratchet provides a general framework for interpreting post‐endosymbiosis lineage evolution that is driven by disruptive selection and demographic and population shifts. Also see the video abstract here: https://youtu.be/gYXrFM6Zz6Q. (shrink)

The Mahabharata, one of the major epics of India, is a sourcebook complete by itself as well as an open text constantly under construction. This volume looks at transactions between its modern discourses and ancient vocabulary. Located amid conversations between these two conceptual worlds, the volume grapples with the epic's problematisation of dharma or righteousness, and consequently, of the ideal person and the good life through a cluster of issues surrounding the concept of agency and action. Drawing on several interdisciplinary (...) approaches, the essays reflect on a range of issues in the Mahabharata, including those of duty, motivation, freedom, selfhood, choice, autonomy, and justice, both in the context of philosophical debates and their ethical and political ramifications for contemporary times. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers engaged with philosophy, literature, religion, history, politics, culture, gender, South Asian studies, and Indology. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in South Asian epics and the Mahabharata. (shrink)

Two words, pañcagupta and kuṇḍakīṭa, are found in modern Sanskrit lexicons such as the Śabdakalpadruma, the Vācaspatya, the Sanskrit-Wörterbuch, and A Sanskrit English Dictionary. They are said to signify the Cārvāka philosophy and an expert in the Cārvāka philosophy respectively. Both the words have been taken from some twelfth-century Sanskrit kośas but no example of actual use is available. Nor do they occur in any earlier Sanskrit kośa, such as the Amarakośa and the Halāyudhakośa. The inference is that the words (...) must have appeared in some late philosophical work that was critical of the materialist Cārvāka system of philosophy and the kośakāras found them in the same source. (shrink)

In spite of the fact that the mūla-text of the Cārvākasūtra is lost, we have some 30 fragments of the commentaries written by no fewer than four commentators, namely, Kambalāśvatara, Purandara, Aviddhakarṇa, and Udbhaṭa. The existence of other commentators too has been suggested, of whom only one name is mentioned: Bhāvivikta. Unfortunately no extract from his work is quoted anywhere. The position of the Cārvākas was nearer the Buddhists (who admitted both perception and inference) than any other philosophical system. But (...) in order to brand the Cārvākas as pramāṇaikavādins they were made to appear as one with Bhartṛhari. Even though the commentators of the Cārvākasūtra had some differences among themselves concerning the interpretation of some aphorisms, they seem to have been unanimous in regard to the number of pramāṇas to be admitted. It was perception and inference based on perception. Only in this sense they were pramāṇaikavādins. Unlike other systems of philosophy, the Cārvāka/Lokāyata did not accord equal value to perception and inference. Inference, they said, must be grounded on perception first, so it was of secondary kind (gauṇa). From the available evidence it is clear that the commentators were unanimous in one point, namely, primacy of perception which includes admittance of such laukika inference as is preceded and hence can be tested by repeated observations. In this respect both Aviddkarṇa and Udbhaṭa were in agreement with Purandara. Bhaṭṭodbhaṭa or Udbhaṭabhaṭṭa was known as a commentator who differed from the traditional Cārvākas and broke new grounds in explaining some of the aphorisms. His commentary is creative in its own way but at the same time unreliable in reconstructing the original Cārvāka position. Udbhaṭa seems to have digressed from the original, monist materialist position by taking a dualist position concerning the body-consciousness relation. Moreover, he seems to verge on the idealist side in his explication of an aphorism. In this sense he was a reformist or revisionist. Aviddhakarṇa, like Udbhaṭa, attempted to interpret the Cārvāka aphorisms from the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika point of view, perhaps without being converted to the Cārvāka. Since it is not possible at the present state of our knowledge to determine whether they were Cārvākas converted to Nyāya or Naiyāyikas converted to Lokāyata, the suggestion that they simply adopted the Cārvāka position while writing their commentaries without being converted to the Cārvāka, may be taken as a third alternative. In spite of the meagre material available, it is evident that (1) not unlike the other systems, there is a lack of uniformity in the commentary tradition of the Cārvākasūtra, (2) not all commentators were committed monistic materialists; at least one, namely, Udbhaṭa, was a dualist, and (3) in course of time Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika terminology, such as gamya, gamaka, etc., quite foreign to the traditional Cārvāka, has been introduced into the Cārvāka system. (shrink)

Research Methodology for Social Sciences provides guidelines for designing and conducting evidence-based research in social sciences and interdisciplinary studies using both qualitative and quantitative data. Blending the particularity of different sub-disciplines and interdisciplinary nature of social sciences, this volume: Provides insights on epistemological issues and deliberates on debates over qualitative research methods; Covers different aspects of qualitative research techniques and evidence-based research techniques including survey design, choice of sample, construction of indices, statistical inferences, and data analysis; Discusses concepts, techniques, and (...) tools at different stages of research beginning with design of field surveys to collect raw data and then to analyze the data using statistical and econometric methods; With illustrations, examples and a reader friendly approach, this volume will serve as a key reference material for compulsory research methodology courses at Doctoral levels across different disciplines like Economics, Sociology, Women's Studies, Education, Anthropology, Political Science, International Relations, Philosophy, History, Business Management and the like. This volume will also be indispensable for post-graduate courses dealing with quantitative techniques and data analysis. (shrink)

We show that within the class of ontological models due to Harrigan and Spekkens, those satisfying preparation-measurement reciprocity must allow indeterminism comparable to that in quantum theory. Our result implies that one can design quantum random number generator, for which it is impossible, even in principle, to construct a reciprocal deterministic model.

Contributed research papers; published under the auspices of the Special Assistance Programme in Philosophy (UGC), Dept. of Philosophy, University of North Bengal.

This paper discusses the utilization of pilots' physiological indications such as electroencephalographic signals, ocular parameters, and pilot performance-based quantitative metrics to estimate cognitive workload. The study aims to derive a non-invasive technique to estimate pilot's cognitive workload and study their correlation with standard physiological parameters. Initially, we conducted a set of user trials using well-established psychometric tests for evaluating the effectiveness of pupil and gaze-based ocular metrics for estimating cognitive workload at different levels of task difficulty and lighting conditions. Later, (...) we conducted user trials with the NALSim flight simulator using a business class Learjet aircraft model. We analyzed participants' ocular parameters, power levels of different EEG frequency bands, and flight parameters for estimating variations in cognitive workload. Results indicate that introduction of secondary task increases pilot's cognitive workload significantly. The beta frequency band of EEG, nearest neighborhood index specifying distribution of gaze fixation, L1 Norm of power spectral density of pupil diameter, and the duty cycle metric indicated variations in cognitive workload. (shrink)

The LBS National Academy of Administration, Government of India, had invited the authors to present before 30 officers of the Indian Administrative Service their views regarding the role of ethics in public administration as part of a five-day training programme on the subject. The participants' experience ranged from 12 to 31 years. The paper seeks to bring home to administrators that for carrying out the responsibilities that the Constitution of India has entrusted to the civil services there is no option (...) but to subscribe to a sound ethical framework of reference. (shrink)

The present work attempts to explicate the philosophical method of Wittgenstein, which he formulated in the Tractatus in order to determine the meanings of our linguistic expressions by analyzing the basic structure of the language. Wittgenstein attempts to show that traditional philosophical problems can be avoided entirely by application of an appropriate methodology. The analysis of language is one important tool of solving problems. The role of language as a central concerned of Analytic philosophers is the dimension most involved in (...) disputes about the methodology employed. My understanding about Wittgenstein’sconcept of language in his two philosophies is founded on the methods that he adopts. There are two different methods in Wittgenstein’s philosophy. On these methods, Wittgenstein developed his theories of meaning, i.e., picture and use theories and consequently resulted two philosophies. I intend here to study about the theory of meaning that Wittgenstein developed in his Tractatus. (shrink)

This paper is a comprehensive survey of the alarming deterioration in the morals, values and mental health of individuals and societies right across the globe. In fact this decline is really the true globalization of the day, not so much equitable distribution, meeting of minds and so on. The author explores numerous reports and writings of researchers, poets, thinkers, policy-makers, journalists and intellectuals, and uses all that to deliver a shattering knock to the complacent and smug modern citizen—Western or Eastern. (...) For remedies against the modern consumerist-materialist global epidemic, Bhattacharya falls back upon classical Eastern and Indian thought. This corpus offers timeless wisdom, the seers having accurately forecasted today's human predicament and having laid down the blueprint for sane living. (shrink)

Due to the highly visible nature of the disease, smallpox received a lot of attention from the colonial and independent Indian governments. An assessment of the changing official views about the impact of geographical and environmental factors on modes of variola causation and control presents insights into themes that are generally ignored in the existing historiography. Rather than being synchronised efforts, imposed top-down, provincial level officials in charge of running vaccination programmes were able to retain a great degree of autonomy (...) and shape the nature of local immunisation drive. As a result, vaccination work in the country was often disjointed, marked by official disagreements about the usefulness of certain strategies and technological inputs, with these trends being most noticeable in rural areas. Thus, this study seeks to highlight the importance of recognising — and studying — the fractured nature of medical and public health administration in the South Asian sub-continent. (shrink)