An in-depth analysis of earlier work for sustainable development has revealed that well-intentioned and rigorous efforts globally towards achieving sustainability have at best achieved marginal results. The problem appears to be certain inherent contradictions within the contemporary paradigm of development. The article explores these unaddressed contradictions and argues that the present model of development is fundamentally incapable of resolving the prevalent problems of contemporary times. Hence, a strong need is felt to relook at sustainability more fundamentally and work towards a (...) paradigm shift. Such a shift in the paradigm of development would put emphasis on sustainable consumption—a shift from sense gratification to actual human happiness and from treating nature as a resource for consumption to appreciating the inherent balance based on interconnectedness in nature. (shrink)

In the higher education settings, the following questions are discussed and debated in modern times. Is ‘teaching’ a profession? Are university faculty members professionals? The paper attempts to answer these questions by adopting qualitative methodology that subsumes descriptive, evaluative, and interpretative approaches. While answering these questions, it discusses significance and usefulness of academic ethics in the university set up. It examines role of academic ethics to offer quality education to students. Further, it highlights university faculty members’ roles and responsibilities toward (...) students, colleagues, institution authorities, research works, and society at large. The paper submits that teaching in university settings is regarded as a profession, and university faculty members are regarded as professionals provided they perform their duties conforming to the teacher’s code of ethics. (shrink)

pt. 1. Philosophy of nature.--pt. 2. The philosophy of truth & falsehood.-- pt. 4. Study of & infra-human relationships.

Focusing on the sixteenth-century Oriya Lakshmi Purana by Balaram Das, this essay shows how distinctly “modern” values are being explored and elaborated in this religious poem. Das’s narrative develops the notion of a self-critical individuality that is distinct from—rather than merely embedded in—the dominant social structure and its patriarchal and caste-based value system. The LP provides a feminist and anticaste critique of patriarchal behavior and defends the value of the work done by women and others who are socially marginalized. This (...) literary-critical analysis is a contribution to contemporary scholarship on “alternative” or “precolonial” modernities, especially in the Indian context. (shrink)

Includes text of Patañjali's Yogasūtra in Sanskrit (Thai script).

Responsible conduct of research and ethical publishing practices are debatable issues in the higher education literature. The literature suggests that ‘authorship disputes’ are associated with multi-author paper publication and linked to ethical publishing practices. A few research studies argue authorship matters of a multi-author paper publication, but do not explain how to arrange author list meaningfully in a multi-author paper. How is a principal author of a multi-author paper to be decided? The literature also does not clarify whether language editor (...) could claim authorship for a research paper publication? The paper adopts qualitative methodology that subsumes descriptive, evaluative, and interpretative approaches to answer these questions. While answering these questions, the paper critically examines ‘authorship disputes’ and ‘types of authorship’ relating to research paper publication practices. At the end, the paper proposes a framework that would help to resolve authorship disputes over multi-author paper publication. (shrink)

This study focused on the effects of individual characteristics and exposure to ethics education on perceptions of the linkage between organizational ethical practices and business outcomes. Using a stratified sampling approach, 817 students were randomly selected from a population of approximately 1310 business students in an AACSB accredited college of business. Three hundred and twenty eight of the subjects were freshmen, 380 were seniors, and 109 were working managers and professionals enrolled in a night-time MBA program. Overall, the respondents included (...) 438 male students and 379 female students. Exposure to ethics in the curriculum had a significant impact on student perceptions of what should be the ideal linkages between organizational ethical practices and business outcomes. Gender based differences were found with female students having a higher expectation regarding what should be the “ethics practices and business outcomes” link. Exposure to ethics in the curriculum had a positive moderating influence on the gender-based effects on perceptions of ideal ethical climate. The interaction effect showed that exposure to ethical education may have a positive impact on males and allow them to catch up with females in their ethical sensitivities concerning the ideal linkage between organizational ethical behavior and business outcomes. Further, consistent with the literature, the study found that gender differences in ethical attitudes regarding the ideal ethical climate, while significant for undergraduates, appeared to narrow considerably for the working professionals who were part-time MBA students. (shrink)

Part I. Essays on practical Vedanta and veganism -- Part II. Essentials of practical Vedanta.

The concept of free will states that when more than one alternative is available to an individual, he/she chooses freely and voluntarily to render an action in any given context. A question arises, how do human beings choose to perform an action in a given context? What happens to an individual who compels him/her to choose an action out of many alternatives? The behaviorists state that free will guides individuals to choose an action voluntarily. Therefore, he/she is morally responsible for (...) his/her voluntary actions. This paper attempts to answer whether a person’s action is an outcome of his/her ‘moral luck’ or ‘designated cerebral cortex processes’? While answering this question the paper examines the relation between principle of causality and free will of a person. It analyses what causes free will. It elucidates use of free will for decision-making process(es), and the relation between human beings’ actions and their moral responsibility. This paper concludes that human beings are conscious of their free will. Free will decides their actions; therefore, they are morally responsible for their voluntary actions. This paper argues that free will is an emergent property of ‘immaterial soul’. (shrink)

Vedic Vision Of Consciousness And Reality Is An Attempt At A Systematic Presentation Of The Visions Of Vedic Seers Concerning Consciousness In Relationship To Reality. The Relevance Of This Attempt Has Got Enhanced Today Due To Latest Discoveries In Quantum Physics Tending To Accord Some Sort Of Substantiality To Consciousness. This Is The Position Vedic Seers Held Long Ago As Is Evident From The Vedanta. The Vedanta, However Has Ignored The Vedic Samhitas On Metaphusical Issues Including Consciousness. The Present Work (...) Has Come In Fulfillment Of This Lacuna In The Tradition Of Vedic Thought. It Has Been Shown Here Strictly On The Basis Of Textual Evidence How The Vedic Seers Were Involved In The Search For Consciousness In Its Purest Form Coinciding With Reality. The Coincidence Of The Modern Science In Its Latest Developments With The Vedic Viewpoint In This Regard, Suggests The Necessity Of A Paradigmatic Shift In The Human Thinking At This Juncture From Matter To Consciousness As The Most Fundamental Reality. These Issues Have Been Discussed Here From Various Viewpoints Including Scientific, Philosophical, Psychological, Theological And Epistemological. (shrink)

Critical and analytical study of the Sankaracarya's Avaita Vedanta school in Hindu philosophy.

X inactivation is the process that brings about the dosage equivalence of X‐linked genes in females to that of males. This complex process initiated at a very early stage of female embryonic development is orchestrated by long non‐coding RNAs transcribed in both sense and antisense orientation. Recent studies present contradicting evidence for the role of small RNAs and RNase III enzyme Dicer in the X inactivation process. In this review, I discuss these results in the overall perspective of X inactivation (...) and gene silencing. (shrink)

This book highlights a modern approach to the topic of engineering ethics and the current moral dilemmas facing practitioners in the field by focusing on key issues, theoretical foundations, and the best methods for promoting engineering ethics from the pre-practitioner to the managerial level.

This book focuses on logic and logical language. It examines different types of words, terms and propositions in detail. While discussing the nature of propositions, it illustrates the procedures used to determine the truth and falsity of a proposition, and the validity and invalidity of an argument. In addition, the book provides a clear exposition of the pure and mixed form of syllogism with suitable examples. The book encompasses sentential logic, predicate logic, symbolic logic, induction and set theory topics. The (...) book is designed to serve all those involved in teaching and learning courses on logic. It offers a valuable resource for students and researchers in philosophy, mathematics and computer science disciplines. Given its scope, it is an essential read for everyone interested in logic, language, formulation of the hypotheses for the scientific enquiries and research studies, and judging valid and invalid arguments in the natural language discourse. (shrink)

This paper proposes relative and absolute measures of deprivation using social satisfaction functions. The relative measure gives us the amount by which social satisfaction can be increased in proportional terms by redistributing incomes equally. We also demonstrate the existence of a relationship between summary indices of deprivation and social satisfaction.

The heuristic search processes like simple genetic algorithms help in achieving optimization but do not guarantee robustness so there is an immediate need of a machine learning technique that also promises robustness. Diploid genetic algorithms ensure consistent results and can therefore replace Simple genetic algorithms in applications such as test data generation and regression testing, where robustness is more important. However, there is a need to review the work that has been done so far in the field. It is also (...) important to analyse the applicability of the premise of the dominance techniques applied so far in order to implement the technique. The work presents a systematic review of diploid genetic algorithms, examines the premise of the dominance relation used in different works and discusses the future scope. The work also discusses the biological basis of evaluating dominance. The work is important as the future of machine learning relies on techniques that are robust as well as efficient. (shrink)

This study examined ethical attitudes and perceptions of 691 undergraduate seniors and freshmen in a college of business. Gender was found to be correlated to perceptions of "what the ethical climate should be" with female subjects showing significantly more favorable attitude towards ethical behaviors than males. Further, Seniors had a more cynical view of the current ethical climate than freshmen. Freshmen were significantly more likely than seniors to believe that good business ethics is positively related to successful business outcomes. Ethical (...) education was significantly correlated to both perceptions of "current ethical climate" as well as "what the ethical climate should be". Students who had been exposed to ethical issues in a course were more likely to believe both, that ethical behavior is, and should be, positively associated with successful business outcomes. (shrink)

Innovation of Yoga in vedic saṁhitās -- Elaboration of yogic thought and practices in Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads -- Continuation of the tradition in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata -- Deviation from the vedic tradition in Jainism and Buddhism -- Systematization of Yoga in Patañjali and Haṭha-yoga -- Yoga of Vedāntic ācāryas and yoga-vāsiṣṭha -- Bhakti-yoga of medieval saints -- Yogic sādhanā in Tantra, Śaivism and Sufism -- Revival of the spirit of Yoga in modern India -- Yogic capability in (...) the estimation of logic. (shrink)

The emergence of vibrant research communities of computer scientists in Kenya and Uganda has occurred in the context of neoliberal privatization, commercialization, and transnational capital flows from donors and corporations. We explore how this funding environment configures research culture and research practices, which are conceptualized as two main components of a research community. Data come from a three-year longitudinal study utilizing interview, ethnographic and survey data collected in Nairobi and Kampala. We document how administrators shape research culture by building academic (...) programs and training growing numbers of PhDs, and analyze how this is linked to complicated interactions between political economy, the epistemic nature of computer science and sociocultural factors like entrepreneurial leadership of key actors and distinctive cultures of innovation. In a donor-driven funding environment, research practice involves scientists constructing their own localized research priorities by adopting distinctive professional identities and creatively structuring projects. The neoliberal political economic context thus clearly influenced research communities, but did not debilitate computing research capacity nor leave researchers without any agency to carry out research programs. The cases illustrate how sites of knowledge production in Africa can gain some measure of research autonomy, some degree of global competency in a central arena of scientific and technological activity, and some expression of their regional cultural priorities and aspirations. Furthermore, the cases suggest that social analysts must balance structure with culture, place and agency in their approaches to understanding how funding and political economy shape scientific knowledge. (shrink)

On the concept of Karma with special reference to Bhagavadgītā, Hindu philosophical classic.

v. 1. Early Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika categoriology.

Specific inhibition of gene expression by antisense agents provides the basis for rational drug discovery based on molecular targets. Due to the specificity of Watson‐Crick base‐pair hybridization, antisense oligodeoxynucleotides have been used extensively in attempts to inhibit gene expression in both in vitro and in vivo models. Analogues modified from normal phosphodiester oligodeoxynucleotides have entered clinical trials against diseases including AIDS and cancer. Although the precise mechanism of action of these drugs has not been clarified, these oligodeoxynucleotides offer considerable promise (...) as novel molecular therapeutics. We review the recent attempts to harness the therapeutic potential of these oligodeoxynucleotides and appraise the near‐term prospects for antisense technology. (shrink)