Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is likely to have long-term mental health effects on individuals who have recovered from COVID-19. Rightly, there is a global response for recognition and planning on how to deal with mental health problems for everyone impacted by the global pandemic. This does not just include COVID-19 patients but the general public and health care workers as well. There is also a need to understand the role of the virus itself in the pathophysiology of mental health disorders (...) and longer-term mental health sequelae. Emerging evidence suggests that COVID-19 patients develop neurological symptoms such as headache, altered consciousness, and paraesthesia. Brain tissue oedema and partial neurodegeneration have also been observed in an autopsy. In addition, there are reports that the virus has the potential to cause nervous system damage. Together, these findings point to a possible role of the virus in the development of acute psychiatric symptoms and long-term neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID-19. The brain pathologies associated with COVID-19 infection is likely to have a long-term impact on cognitive processes. Evidence from other viral respiratory infections, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), suggests a potential development of psychiatric disorders, long-term neuropsychiatric disorders, and cognitive problems. In this paper, we will review and evaluate the available evidence of acute and possible long-term neuropsychiatric manifestations of COVID-19. We will discuss possible pathophysiological mechanisms and the implications this will have on preparing a long-term strategy to monitor and manage such patients. (shrink)

'Katihar to Kennedy' is an extraordinary journey of a man from dusty alleys of Katihar to the gleaming pathways of Kennedy. It is an autobiographical account of a small-town boy who starts his journey from a tiny town of Bihar, in one of India’s economically backward districts and is able to reach the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The journey also depicts the inner conflicts of a man and his continuous efforts to overcome all the difficulties in his path (...) while fighting with his inner shortcomings. The book is about the lessons he learned – from failures as well as from moments of triumph. These are learned while engaging intimately with harsh socio-economic realities, and contrasts he experienced while moving between cities, institutions, and job roles. It is also a book of honest confrontation, of a person’s own ego and pride. (shrink)

Prior work shows that the possibility of action to an object facilitates attentional deployment. We sought to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying this modulation of attention by examining ERPs to target objects that were either congruently or incongruently gripped for their use in the presence of a congruently or incongruently gripped distractor. Participants responded to the presence or absence of a target object matching a preceding action word with a distractor object presented in the opposite location. Participants were faster in (...) responding to congruently gripped targets compared to incongruently gripped targets. There was a reduced N2pc potential when the target was congruently gripped, and the distractor was incongruently gripped compared to the conditions where targets were incongruently gripped or when the distractor, as well as target, was congruently gripped. The N2pc results indicate that target selection is easier when action information is congruent with an object’s use. (shrink)

The article focuses on the issue of patterns of religious engagement among Indian Hindus during last decade. It tries to look at both the issue of private religion practiced in the form of offering puja at home and public religion seen in terms of participation in Katha, Satsang, Bhajan-Kirtan etc. by Indian Hindus. Sizeable numbers of Indian Hindus offer puja every day; sizeable numbers of them are also engaged in public religious activities. This is more prevalent among the urban, educated, (...) upper-caste, upper-class Hindus compared to their counterpart. Along with factors, which influence religious practices, is gender. Hindu women are more religious compared to the Hindu men. Similarly, upper-caste Hindus practice religious activities more regularly compared to other Hindus. There is hardly any change in patterns of engagement in religious activities among Hindus over the last five years. The levels of engagement in religious activities also have an impact on voting behavior. The higher the engagement in religious activities, the greater is the support for the BJP and vice versa. Between the 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha elections, there had been a decline in the vote share of BJP due to its declining popularity amongst all the Hindu voters, but the decline in the support for the BJP is much sharper amongst highly religious Hindus compared to those who are not so religious. Along with other factors, this may be one of the important factors that led to the defeat of BJP in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. The article draws evidence from the National Election Study 2004 and 2009 conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies during these two elections. (shrink)

This article examines the cross-level causal relationship between macro-political settings and micro-political attitudes in eleven Asian societies using the 2006 AsiaBarometer Survey (China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan) and the 2006 South Asian Survey (Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). After extracting the four underlying dimensions of political attitudes from the broadly comparable questions used in the two surveys, the study first detects national differences in terms of (1) citizens' attitudes toward political activities other than voting, (...) (2) their commitment to a democratic system, (3) their political frustration, and (4) their confidence in their ability to govern themselves. Then, regression analysis examines the possibility that the micro-level variations in each of the four dimensions of political attitudes are related to the abundant macro-level variations found in these Asian countries. The results show that although the country-level predictors for citizens' attitudes toward direct political actions are common to both regions (ethno-linguistic fractionalization and the degree of institutionalization of preference articulation), factors influencing the variations in other dimensions are different. Specifically, the effects of political competitiveness and inclusiveness are more salient in South Asia than in East Asia. (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)

Neurofilaments and microtubules are important components of the neuronal cytoskeleton. In axons or dendrites, these filaments are aligned in parallel arrays, and separated from one another by nonrandom distances. This distinctive organization has been attributed to cross bridges formed by NF side arms or microtubule‐associated proteins. We recently proposed a polymer‐brush‐based mechanism for regulating interactions between neurofilaments and between microtubules. In this model, the side arms of neurofilaments and the projection domains of microtubule‐associated proteins are highly unstructured and exert long‐range (...) repulsive forces that are largely entropic in origin; these forces then act to organize the cytoskeleton in axons and dendrites. Here, we review the biochemical, biophysical, genetic and cell biological data for the polymer‐brush and cross‐bridging models. We explore how the data traditionally used to support cross bridging may be reconciled with a polymer‐brush mechanism and compare the implications of recent experimental insights into axonal transport and physiology for each model. BioEssays 26:1017–1025, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The present work is a collection of research papers associated with divergent themes of philosophy. Philosophy is rightly considered to be a selfconscious reflective activity. To philosophize is to reflect upon our lived experiences and naturally it is to be a systematic reflection. It is an attempt to discuss the classical Indianepistemological issues of Pramāņyavāda, Pramāņa Samplava and Pramāņa Vyavasthä on the one hand and recent trends of Indian philosophy on the other. The series of research papers try to explore (...) the different dimensions and intricacies of Kantian and Husserlian philosophy. It encompassesa wide horizon right from the multifarious concept of justice, the project of modernity, the methodological approach towards comparative religion, recent debate on Purusārtha to the vexed issues of applied ethics related with environmental ethics, professional ethics, human cloning and euthanasia. The author has presented his work with conceptual clarity, lucid expression, systematic presentation and critical exposition of the subject matter. It is undoubtedly a valuable contribution which will evoke an enthusiastic response from the scholars and students of philosophy. (shrink)

With the advent of logical positivism metaphysics has faced a challenge of sheer survival. This book brings forth, for the first time, an Indian defence of metaphysics against the onslaught of the positivist movement. The way Strawson, Davidson, Putnam and others have tried to encounter the anti-metaphysical move cannot be treated as a genuine defence of metaphysics. It is by analyzing the nature, meaning, purposeand relevance of metaphysics from Indian perspective that the contemporary Indian philosophers have explored a greater possibility (...) of defending metaphysics. For a consolidated,systematic and critical presentation of this uppermost philosophical issue, this volume contains the writings of T.R.V. Murti, K.D. Bhattacharya, Yashdeva Shalya, Y. Masih, G.C. Pandey, A.K Chatterjee, D.N. Dwivedi and other contemporary eminent Indian scholars. -/- This work is Peer Reviewed in Darshanik Traimasika, Year 54, volume IV, October- December 2009 by Prof. R.P. Pandey, Philosophy Department, Raipur University. 2. Peer Reviewed in JICPR, Volume XXVII, No. 2, April- June 2011 by Prof. Bijoy Barua, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT, Delhi. (shrink)

Critique of Justice is a collection of reflective essays on ditferent dimensions of justice written by eminent scholars of Philosophy and allied disciplines who are astively engaged in the academic pursuit and promoting the cause of philosophy The book is conceived from the standpoint of multi-perspectival approach to the multifarious concept of justice which is regarded as the highest value in any civilized society On the one hand from traditional metaphysical point of view justice consists of the eternal and immutable (...) principles hat are transcendent, objective and absolute, where as from modern positivistic and empirical approachjustice is ahuman construct relative to time and space. Justice is, therefore, regarded as complex and dynamic concept which is multi-dimensional. It synthesizes other values like rights, liberty equality and property. In this well researched book there are 40 scholarly articles covering a wide range from Plato's concept of justice to Nozick's concept of justice in the Western Philosophy and from Vedic concept of justice to Amartya Sen's view ofjustice in Indian perspective. (shrink)

The present work, "Indian Philosophers of the Recent Past" , reflects and deliberates over recent Indian scholarship in philosophy. It is to get the present and future generations of philosopher-scholars acquainted with the rich Indian philosophical heritage. This is going to deepen our insights into the nature of philosophical consciousness and into the act of philosophizing. It makes an attempt to analyse the philosophies of outstanding philosophers such as K.C. Bhattacharyya, S. Radhakrishnan, R.D. Ranade, A.C. Mukerji, T.R.V. Murti, N.K. Devraja, (...) J.L. Mehta, J.N. Mohanty, Daya Krishna and S.L. Pandey. The post-Independent Indian philosophy is said to have unique tendencies and trends; some of them can be easily identified as existentialist and phenomenological, idealistic, realistic, humanistic, linguistic and analytico-philosophical comparative philosophy and Indian defence of metaphysics. The volume is unique in its conceptual clarity, lucid expression, systematic presentation and critical exposition of the subject matter. It is undoubtedly a valuable contribution for the seekers of Indian philosophical system which should evoke keen interest among scholars and students of philosophy. (shrink)

The present work is an attempt to critically analyse different philosophical concepts and theories associated with Husserlian phenomenology Western philosophy has witnessed series of revolutions beginning from Socratic-Platonic tradition to Cartesian and Kantian revolution. The conceptual revolution does not terminate over here rather it is more prominently manifested in Husserl's philosophy. The originality of the author lies in interpreting Husserl's phenomenology as second Copernican revolution Phenomenology is an attempt to locate the principle of objectivity in the element of subjectivity. It (...) developed as a reaction to the trends of naturalism and historicism. It is further analysed how Cartesian, Humean and Kantian philosophy have provided intellectual stimulus to fertile Husserlian mind to develop grand phenomenology which has revolutionary impact over subsequent philosophies like existential phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction. The brilliant attempt is made to compare Husserl's account of 'eide' with 'denizens' of Quantum mechanism leading to the conclusion that the holistic view of Husserl and Quantum physics maintains the correlativity of 'subject' and 'object'. The author has presented his work with conceptual clarity, lucid expression, systematic presentation and critical exposition of the subject matter in such a manner that the ponderous writing of Husserl with the assistance of this book can be easily assimilated by student community but academic standard is not at all compromised as he has consulted numerous journals, original texts, standard commentaries and recent arrivals on Husserl to make it authentic and relevant. It is a valuable and powerful contribution to contemporary thought which will evoke an enthusiastic response from the scholars and students of Philosophy. -/- Content of the Book includes -/- Chapter-l Introduction, Chapter-II Nature of Kant's Copernican Revolution, Chapter-III Nature of Husserl's Second Copernican Revolution, Chapter-IV The Central Themes of Phenomenology, Chapter-V Transcendental Idealism of Kant and Husserl, Chapter-VI A Concluding Postscript, -/- This work is Peer reviewed in JICPR, volume XXIII, No. 3, July- September, 2006 by Prof. Archana Barua, Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, IIT, Guwhati. 2. Peer reviewed again in JICPR, Volume XXV, No. 4, October-December, 2008 by Prof. S. Paneerselvam, Department of Philosophy, Madras University. (shrink)

This book is 1st ever Hindi translation of Kant's German work “Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein philosophischer Entwurf”, translated into English by M. Cambell Smith, Lewis White Beck etc. with the title “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch”. It is a small but significant political treatise that attempts to analyse the causes of war and fundamental conditions of peace. Apart from that political philosophy and different theories associated with international relations and perpetual peace as a moral and political ideal have been brought (...) under philosophical discussion whose relevance in the present political scenario is self-evident. For Kant, Perpetual Peace is an ideal as well as a concrete thought and his firm conviction that such an ideal can be realised, moral rejuvenation is the pre-condition of attaining perpetual peace. The need is to have transparent and faithful relations among different countries, correct interpretation of treaties and goodwill to be ensured at the level of implementation. The another condition for moral rejuvenation is to have a republican form of the constitution. Here we find linguistic beauty, clarity, systematic presentation and deep-rooted philosophical insights. This is undoubtedly valuable work for teachers and scholars and can be of great interest to the general reader too. (shrink)

"Darshanika Cintan ke Vividha Āyāma" (Diverse dimensions of philosophical thinking), is a compilation book of various research articles in which the discursive diversity of philosophy is reflected. On the one hand, it pursues the basic problems of philosophy, such as the relevance of philosophy, the nature and justification of metaphysics, the metaphysical analysis of the nature of value, etc., while on the other hand, it Is involved in the analysis and testing of the concept of life-world, globalization and multiculturalism, environmental (...) ethics and applied ethics etc. Proper analysis and evaluation of the most important problems of Indian epistemology, for example, the idea of syntax (Vākyārtha Vicāra), Prāmanyavāda , and the issue of evidential implication (Pramānatarabhāva), has been heuristically presented. Some lively topics of contemporary Indian philosophy like Logical conclusion of Manvendra Nath Roy's materialism, Kant's influence on contemporary Indian philosophy, Post-independence Indian philosophical thinking, and the future form of Indian philosophy are included. There is a unique combination of linguistic beauty and clarity, systematic presentation, critical attitude and philosophical insight in the writings of the author duo. This is undoubtedly a valuable work which deserves to be welcomed by teachers, scholars and students of philosophy. (shrink)