Increasingly, national governments across the globe are prioritizing investments in neuroscience. Currently, seven active or in-development national-level brain research initiatives exist, spanning four continents. Engaging with the underlying values and ethical concerns that drive brain research across cultural and continental divides is critical to future research. Culture influences what kinds of science are supported and where science can be conducted through ethical frameworks and evaluations of risk. Neuroscientists and philosophers alike have found themselves together encountering perennial questions; these questions are (...) engaged by the field of neuroethics, related to the nature of understanding the self and identity, the existence and meaning of free will, defining the role of reason in human behavior, and more. With this Perspective article, we aim to prioritize and advance to the foreground a list of neuroethics questions for neuroscientists operating in the context of these international brain initiatives. (shrink)

India is a major producer and exporter of hand-knotted carpets to the world since the beginning of the British rule over India. Majority of the hand-knotted carpets exported from India are produced in the Bhadohi-Mirzapur region, popularly called as the carpet belt of India. Given deplorable working conditions and very high prevalence of child labour in the cluster, in the mid-1990, four social labels were implemented to improve the labour standards, in addition to slew of labour laws implemented by the (...) state of India. The objective of this study is to explore the prevailing labour standards and effectiveness of social labels in improving labour standards in the hand-knotted carpet manufacturing cluster. This study found that even after the implementation of social labels and slew of labour laws, there had been barely any improvement in the working conditions of carpet workers. The workers continued to be adversely incorporated in the carpet commodity chain. However, realising that there is very little scope of social upgrading in this occupation, many carpet workers have shifted to other occupations. But this study found very few child workers in carpet manufactories in the cluster. (shrink)

The persons who adapt to changes as may be necessary in the course of their existence not only survive in the struggle for existence but also thrive and enjoy their lives in the best possible way under the given circumstances. For, life consists in various relationships, which are in constant movement and change.Therefore dealing with change or change-management has got pivotal importance in all walks of humans’ lives. In order to facilitate smooth change all big and small inheritances have to (...) be shed off. Adaptation to change involves some amount of give and take. Before stepping into new shoes one has to remove old ones. Sticking to good or bad things of the past in some cases spoils the present. One should, therefore, be in a position to come out of the situation of status quoor inertia. In some cases our ego does not allow us to change. It forces us to remain in the state that we have been enjoying hitherto. If we are untouched by sense of exuberance and live a life of simplicity, we can break the fetters of ego. The crux of the problem lies in affecting the change of attitude towards the present state of affairs and performance of corresponding duty. The persons should realize that change in power, position, strength etc. is inevitable. So,they should be mentally and physically prepared for it. This can be conveniently achieved by developing adaptability to and management of change. (shrink)

Volume 24, Issue 7, July 2024, Page 6-12.

Studies on Neurospora chromosome segment duplications (Dps) performed since the publication of Perkins's comprehensive review in 1997 form the focus of this article. We present a brief summary of Perkins's seminal work on chromosome rearrangements, specifically, the identification of insertional and quasiterminal translocations that can segregate Dp progeny when crossed with normal sequence strains (i.e., T × N). We describe the genome defense process called meiotic silencing by unpaired DNA that renders Dp‐heterozygous crosses (i.e., Dp × N) barren, which provides (...) a basis for identifying Dps, and discuss whether other processes also might contribute to the barren phenotype of Dp × N and Dp × Dp crosses. We then turn to studies suggesting that large Dps (i.e., >300 kbp) can allow smaller gene‐sized duplications to escape another genome defense process called repeat‐induced point mutation (RIP), possibly by titration of the RIP machinery. Finally, we assess whether in natural populations dominant RIP suppressor Dps provide an “RIP‐free” niche for evolution of new genes following the duplication of existing genes. (shrink)

On 24th March 2020, the first nationwide complete lockdown was announced by the Prime Minister of India for 21 days which was later extended to 31st May 2020. Consequently, thousands of migrant workers placed in big cities had no other option but to go back to their native villages. Their journeys back to villages- thousands of kilometres on bicycles or foot due to the non-availability of public transport amidst the travel ban- were driven by the compulsions of food and shelter. (...) In one of many heart-wrenching incidents, sixteen laborers were run over by a freight train while they were resting on the railway tracks. The images of the Roti on the railway track strewn across were beamed on the national news channels, as a telling commentary of the unimaginable hardships of these workers. Ironically, in the eyes of law, they were trespassers under the Indian Railways Act, 1989. The Indian Railway did not pay any compensation to the victims. Their act also violated the Indian Disaster Management Act, 2005 and Indian Penal Code, 1860- the law for the breach of lockdown guidelines and the law for disobedience of order by public servants respectively- for having decided to travel amidst a travel ban. The semiotics of law-making acts ‘criminal’ bereft of ‘moral culpability’ are seldom questioned on their supposed amoral foundations. Pandemic exhibited that social fissures not only condition the individual or community actions but also the actions of the State. Minorities especially Muslims were at the receiving end of State’s selective enforcement of lockdown laws in India. The various instances in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic expose the hollow claims of equality before the law and the equal protection of laws as a constitutional promise to every citizen. This article aims to unravel the ostensible and the actual moral exhibition of such Indian laws through the lens of several incidents during the nationwide lockdown in India. This paper would argue that this constructed positivist amorality needs to be deconstructed to unearth the power imbalance that it seeks to hide. (shrink)

The crystallization behaviour of Fe 70.8 Nb 3.7 Cu 1 Al 2.7 Mn 0.7 Si 13.5 B 7.6 alloy prepared in the form of amorphous ribbons by melt-spinning technique was studied using differential scanning calorimetry and the temperature variation in resistivity. An X-ray diffaction and transmission electron microscopy study showed the formation of f -Fe and/or Fe 3 nanoparticles after the first stage of crystallization. The activation energy for this nanophase formation was 68 kcal mol m 1 . The brittleness (...) of the alloy increased with the formation of nanoparticles after heat treatment. Superior soft magnetic properties were achieved when the material was heat treated at 790 K for 15 min. The particle size at the optimum heat treatment condition for superior soft magnetic properties was found to be 6.0 - 0.5 nm which was less compared than for the Fe-Nb-Cu-Si-B system. The observed coercivity value at the optimum heat treatment condition was found to be 0.32 A m m 1 . The presence of Al in the alloy reduced the particle size and the magnetic anisotropy energy of the system, which resulted in superior soft magnetic properties of the heat-treated materials. (shrink)

Academic research studies examining the ethical attitudes and behaviors of salespeople have produced several frameworks that explore the ethical decision-making processes to which salespeople adhere when faced with ethical dilemmas. Past literature enriches our understanding; however, a critical review of the relevant literature suggests that an emotional route to salesperson ethical decision-making has yet to be explored. Given the fact that individuals’ emotional capacities play an important role in decision-making when faced with an ethical dilemma, there is a need for (...) empirical research in this area. We address this issue by outlining and testing an emotion-based model to study the ethical attitudes and behaviors of salespeople in a relational selling context. Building on the cognitive-affective model proposed by Gaudine and Thorne (J Bus Ethics 31:175–187, 2001 ), we outline a framework that incorporates higher order prosocial emotions: capacity for concern and capacity for guilt. We include salesperson’s role clarity within the organization as a moderator to examine person–situation interaction. (shrink)

Atomic-scale computer simulation has been used to study the thermally activated atomic transport of self-interstitial atoms in the form of planar clusters in pure Cu and f -Fe. There is strong evidence that such clusters are commonly formed in metals during irradiation with high-energy particles and play an important role in accumulation and spatial distribution of surviving defects. An extensive study of the mobility of SIA clusters containing two to 331 interstitials has been carried out using the molecular dynamics simulation (...) technique for the temperature range from 180 to 1200 K. The results obtained show that clusters larger than three to four SIAs are one-dimensionally mobile in both Cu and Fe. Large clusters of more than 100 SIAs in Cu and 300 SIAs in Fe have significantly reduced mobility. The problem of describing one-dimensional motion in three-dimensional space is discussed. An attempt is made to describe the mobility of SIA clusters within the approximation of 1D diffusion. For clusters in both metals the effective migration energy of 1D diffusion as estimated via the jump frequency of the cluster centre of mass is found to be independent of the number of SIAs in the clusters, although the cluster jump frequency decreases with increasing cluster size. Mechanisms of 1D mobility of interstitial clusters are discussed. (shrink)

The present paper is an attempt to develop late Professor K. Satchidananda Murty’s quest to articulate Immanent and Transcendent in his philosophical journey from Upanishads to German idealism and Marxism. It is proposed to be achieved by explicating Murty’s understanding of the views of Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx on human condition and its transcendence or emancipation. For this purpose, I will discuss consciousness as the ultimate reality being transcendent and immanent in Vedanta as well as in German idealism. The (...) ambition and challenge of the present article is to pursue Murty’s cross-cultural perspective to the extent that the ideas of thinkers of very different traditions, especially culturally and intellectually distinct traditions, are contested on the fullness of thought concerning immanent and transcendent as is evident in comparing Sankara, Kant, and Hegel on consciousness in relation to Buddha and Marx on suffering and alienation. Whereas Murty refers to them, from cross-cultural perspective, with limited end to substantiate his position on the “realm between” derived from Upanishads and Vedanta infused with Buddhism, I wish to present, from the same perspective, some clarifications, annotations, and summations from German idealism and Marxism, which may be useful for expanding Murty’s preliminary acquaintance with them. I wish to argue that though there is antithetical nature of these perspectives, yet the distinctions between immanent and transcendent have been one of the fundamental conceptual linkages under different cultural background. (shrink)

In order to correct the deficiencies of intrusion detection technology, the entire computer and network security system are needed to be more perfect. This work proposes an improved k-means algorithm and an improved Apriori algorithm applied in data mining technology to detect network intrusion and security maintenance. The classical KDDCUP99 dataset has been utilized in this work for performing the experimentation with the improved algorithms. The algorithm’s detection rate and false alarm rate are compared with the experimental data before the (...) improvement. The outcomes of proposed algorithms are analyzed in terms of various simulation parameters like average time, false alarm rate, absolute error as well as accuracy value. The results show that the improved algorithm advances the detection efficiency and accuracy using the designed detection model. The improved and tested detection model is then applied to a new intrusion detection system. After intrusion detection experiments, the experimental results show that the proposed system improves detection accuracy and reduces the false alarm rate. A significant improvement of 90.57% can be seen in detecting new attack type intrusion detection using the proposed algorithm. (shrink)

Durban, a coastal city in KwaZulu-Natal (one of the nine provinces in South Africa) boasts the Durban Harbour. One hundred and sixty-two years ago, this harbour was referred to as the Port of Natal. Between the year’s of 1860 and 1911, 152 184 indentured Indian labourers entered the British owned Colony of Natal through this port. Even though indentureship was officially abolished in Natal on 21 July 1911, the hardships and challenges endured by Indian nationals in Natal continued. This article (...) shines a spotlight on the period 1895–1960 through the theoretical prism of indentureship by focusing on the reflective memories of the respondent, Mr J.S. Singh, a nonagenarian. Using oral history methodology, face-to-face interviews were held with the respondent. His reflective memories brought alive the reality of life experiences in Natal between 1895 and 1960. He shared the journey of his Indian born paternal grandmother, Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who constitutes the cohort that left their country of birth as Indian nationals but subsequently created the Indian diaspora in Natal, where their descendants now call South Africa their home. Contribution: The content of this article is not simply described but also briefly reflected upon and explored as certain issues may be of interest to new, emerging and established oral historians. Furthermore, audio and video recordings of the interviews, which clearly illustrate oral history as the methodology as applied in this research, are available for academic, education and research purposes. (shrink)

BackgroundDiagnostic ultrasound has long been a part of a physician’s armamentarium, but transcranial focused ultrasound (FUS) is an emerging treatment of neurological disorders. Consequently, the literature in this field is increasing at a rapid pace.ObjectiveThis analysis was aimed to identify the top-cited articles on FUS to discern their origin, spread, current trends highlighting future impact of this novel neurosurgical intervention.MethodsWe searched the Web of Science database on 28th May 2021 and identified the top 100 cited articles. These articles were analyzed (...) with various scientometric parameters like the authors, corresponding authors, country of corresponding author, journal of publication, year of publication. Citation based parameters including total citations, mean citations per article and mean citations, citation count, and the citation per year, citations per year and co-authors per document were studied as well in addition to Hirsch h-index, g-index, m-index, Bradford’s Law, Lotka’s law and Collaboration index.ResultsThe 100 top-cited articles were published between 1998 and 2019 in 45 different journals. The average citations per document and citations per document per year were 97.78 and 12.47, respectively. The most prolific authors were Hynynen K (Medical Biophysics—Toronto), Elias WJ (Neurosurgery—Virginia), Zadicario (InSightec). The Journal of Neurosurgery published the most top-cited articles (n = 11), and most articles originated from the United States, followed by Canada. Among individual institutions, the University of Toronto was the most productive.ConclusionFUS is an emerging treatment of neurological disorders. With its increasing application, the FUS literature is increasing rapidly. Eleven countries contributed to the top 100 cited articles, with the top 2 countries (the United States and Canada) contributing to more than half of these articles. (shrink)

The article chronicles diasporic cultural heritage in Natal during the period of indenture in an Indian community in colonial South Africa. Using the qualitative ethnographic research methodology the focus is on the period 1895–1960. This methodology was chosen as it is a qualitative method where observation and/or interaction has taken place in real-life environments. In this article, the Indian cultural heritage as experienced by Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who arrived in Port Natal in 1895 is chronicled through the reflective (...) memories of her South African-born eldest grandson, Mr J.S. Singh (b.1930). Further to this, her life in South Africa is explored as she lived in different worlds through various political systems and this life experience extended to include a cultural transformation. During 1960, the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the indentured Indians to the Colony of Natal was commemorated. Hence, this study considers the period 1895–1960. Moving across continents, the indentured Indians arrived in the Colony to work on the sugar plantations. Cultural heritage may be viewed as a sense of one’s subjective self-perception based on one’s language, ancestry, values, rituals, traditions and religion. During the political era of colonisation and indenture, the Indian nationals became displaced. This displacement created an intrinsic emotional threat. This emotional threat compromised their cultural heritage and consequently led to other forms of cultural transformation. During the oral history interviews, it emerged that the Indian nationals and their descendants in South Africa did not experience abject deculturalisation as they were able to practise aspects of their cultural heritage without the complete loss of their identity. This is one of the findings of the article. The findings indicate that complete deculturalisation did not take place even though cultural transformations resulted in the Indian diaspora in Natal. Contribution: With a unique focus on aspects of cultural heritage in the Indian diaspora, this article contributes to the knowledge of the social memory historiography with a spotlight on descendants of Indian indentured labourers in South Africa. The overarching contribution of this article focusses on the cultural transformation during the period under review. (shrink)

Here is a fine semipopular book about the ideas which have motivated the much-talked-about revolution in the theories of information, control and communication. Jagjit Singh is one of those rare science writers who knows how to present intricate technical concepts to the less-than-expert reader without compromising the original sense or significance. The book begins, appropriately enough, with a discussion of the concept of information, culminating in the technical definition which enables us to assign numerical values to its quantity. The (...) following chapters present the conceptual heart of the Shannon-Weaver theory, the theories of automatic computing machines and the intriguing neurological theories of Warren McCulloch and John Von Neumann. The chapter on Turing Machines does not pay enough attention to the purely mathematical applications of these devices for the present reviewer's taste. The closing chapters deal with mathematical theories of intelligence and the brain. The text is accompanied by many good drawings and appropriate mathematical demonstrations. A book of this quality could have been produced only by an author with absolute command of his topic.—H. P. K. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship of leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being with the work outcomes of intention to quit, job involvement and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), and whether workplace spirituality plays a role in mediating the associations of leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being with work outcomes. The study is cross-sectional and non-experimental. Data were obtained from 630 information technology (IT) employees from South India, adopting ‘power calculations’. The analysis was performed using SPSS version 20 for Windows (...) and LISREL version 8.72. Results reveal that leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being have a significant positive association with workplace spirituality, and this, in turn, has an impact on the work outcomes of intention to quit, job involvement and OBSE. Workplace spirituality can limit any negative associations of leadership effectiveness and psychological well-being with work outcomes. This research adds to the existing body of knowledge in the spirituality literature by drawing attention to the positive aspects of the interplay between spirituality, leadership transformation and well-being at work. The article concludes that building core values anchoring spirituality would lead to greater connectedness and healthier employee outcomes. (shrink)