India has one of the most heterogeneous societies in the world. It is a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. Constitutionally, it is also a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic. But in recent times, Hindu nationalism or Hindutva has been dominant in shaping Indian politics. Hindutva, a shorthand of Hindu nationalism, is actually a politico-ideological device that appears to be disassociated from the spiritual roots of Hinduism and, to many, it is very much alike to the rise of political Islam. (...) Although Hinduism is native to the Indian subcontinent, Hindutva as a political ideology is comparatively a recent phenomenon which creates a growing concern to the land since 1920s. India experienced the rise of Hindutva as a concrete political ideology in 1923 introduced by V. D. Savarkar as it starts to achieve its popularity since 1980s. Obviously it has many reasons. Hindutva is not a monolithic concept as it is generally perceived. Rather, its text, subtext and context had changed throughout the 20th century depending on the period and leadership. This article aims to analyze the trend of the development of Hindu Nationalism or Hindutva in India since its start in the 20th century through a historical lens. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#69-70; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2021 P 211-241. (shrink)

The question of capitalism’s relationship to issues of race, racism and processes of racialisation has become increasingly prominent in contemporary debates. This special issue of Historical Materialism on ‘Race and Capital’ seeks to intervene in these debates. In this Introduction, we situate the special issue within this wider political, historical and theoretical context. We begin by reconstructing some of the key tensions and fault lines within contemporary discussions of race and racism, particularly in relation to the Marxist tradition. Against those (...) who claim a primarily oppositional relationship between the Marxist tradition and anti-racist thinking, we chart a historical account of key moments in which Marxist movements and thinkers have attempted to articulate distinctively historical-materialist accounts of race and racism. We then situate the key themes of the special issue – and the various articles that compose the issue – against this background. (shrink)

Healthcare professionals such as nurses faced a tough time during the pandemic. Despite the personal and professional challenges, they contributed immensely during the pandemic. However, there were variations in nurses’ work engagement during the pandemic. One reason could be their personality, especially neuroticism. Neuroticism represents individuals’ proneness to distress in stressful situations, such as COVID-19. Hence, understanding how and in which conditions neuroticism influences work engagement is crucial. We used the Job Demand-Resource model to test the association between neuroticism and (...) work engagement. As neuroticism represents the stress-proneness of an individual, we further investigated if stress mediates the neuroticism-work engagement link. For the nurses, patient interaction is an integral part of their job. Based on the data collected from the nurses, we tested if contact with patients alleviates the adverse effect of neuroticism on work engagement. During COVID-19, there was an intense need for nursing support. Hence, avoiding duty when society is looking for support might induce a fear of stigmatization among the nurses. We examined if the perceived stigma of duty avoidance would affect the neuroticism-engagement relationship. Our results indicated that higher patient contact alleviated the adverse effect of neuroticism on work engagement. On the other hand, higher fear of stigma exacerbated the adverse effect of neuroticism on work engagement. We further checked the combined effect of beneficiary contact and fear of stigma on neuroticism-work engagement relationships. The findings highlighted the importance of societal factors and policymakers in enhancing nurses’ work engagement. (shrink)

Contributed papers presented at the Three Day National Seminar on 'Indian and Western Philosophy of Language' held at Varanasi from February 10-12th, 2011 by IGNCA in collaboration with Department of Vyākaraṇa, Sanskrit Vidya Dharmavijnana Sankaya, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

The present work is a beautific monograph over Kant’s philosophy. It begins with the proper analysis of nature and significance of content copernican revolution. The author has systematically formulated the epistemic and non-epistemic implications of Kant’s Philosophy the epistemic implications cover the philosophical issues and seminal significance: the notion of space and time, the nature and function of categories, distinction of phenomena and noumena, refutation of idealism and Kantain transcendental idealism, transcendental unity of pure apperception, nature function and limitations of (...) reason (vernuft) and few more. The non-epistemic implication encompass: metaphysical, ethical and aesthetic implications. In metaphysical implication the author clearly demonstrated the limit of reason as a theoretical reason can’t venture into the realm of metaphysical(noumenal) entities such as God, Soul and cosmos- leading to reputation of metaphysics. The ethical implication is directed towards ,analysing the nature and good will, holy will and autonomous will, and apart from that a critical treatment is offered to categorical imperative postulated and maxims of morality. The aesthetics implication tries to analyse the content notion of beauty, sublime and teleology of nature. It is on account of the conceptual clarity, linguistic beauty and systematic exposition of the subject matter that book will receive the enthusiastic response from the students and scholars of philosophy. -/- This book is also Peer reviewed in JICPR, Volume XIX, No. 2, April-June, 2002 by Prof. Laksminarayan Lenka, Department of Philosophy, North Eastern Hill University, Shillong. (shrink)

The aim of this article was to discuss the modeling and control method of quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle. In the process of modeling, mechanism modeling and experimental testing are combined, especially the motor and propeller are modeled in detail. Through the understanding of the body structure and flight principle of the quadrotor UAV, the Newton–Euler method is used to analyze the dynamics of the quadrotor UAV, and the mathematical model of the UAV is established under the small angle rotation. Process (...) identifier is used to control it. First, the attitude angle of the model is controlled by PID, and based on this, the speed in each direction is controlled by PID. Then, the PID control of the four rotor aircraft with the center of gravity offset is simulated by MATLAB. The results show that the pitch angle and roll angle can be controlled by 5 degrees together without center of gravity deviation, and the PID can effectively control the control quantity and achieve the desired effect in a short time. Classical BP algorithm, classical GA-BP algorithm, and improved GA-BP algorithm were trained, respectively, with a total of 150 sets of training data, training function uses Levenberg-Marquardt, and performance function uses mean squared error. In the background of the same noise, the improved GA-BP algorithm has the highest detection rate, classical GA-BP algorithm is the second, and classical BP algorithm is the worst. The simulation results show that the PID control law can effectively control the attitude angle and speed of the rotor UAV in the case of center of gravity deviation. (shrink)

NOTE FROM THE AUTHORS The context of our co-authored contribution to the ‘Aesthetic Relations’ conference-publication is a performance devised by Lucie in 2020 to which she invited Kiraṇ as a collaborator. Due to international travel restrictions however, our physical co-pres-ence in a studio and on stage remained suspended throughout that year. Our exchanges nevertheless continued in adaptive turns both before and after that performance. It is this condition of, at once, compromised yet consistent relation with each other that we refer (...) to as ‘suspension’. For us this suspension was at first admittedly a source of disruption, even anxiety of interrupting our artistic flow. Yet there came a point during the year when this swelling tension ruptured, and a strange ease set in. Nothing had changed on the surface (travel restrictions were only extended), yet something had shifted under our skins. While still physically across continents, our online presentation at the conference was a joint essay at articulating, both textually and performatively, the unassuming complexity of this thing that is suspension. By the time of this publication in 2022, we have somewhat broken this suspension by physically meeting in Switzerland in August 2021. As such we have decided not to edit the text that was performed at the conference back in January 2021, and only append it with this contextual note. Here we must add that the text in one of the sections to follow (which begins with “Please turn your head to your left..”) is intended as a score for action. Originally spoken in our voices, we now ask you to invite another person to read this section aloud to you at an unhurried pace, while you respond to the text’s suggestions. As for us, we continue our collabora-tive artistic research of working in and with suspension as artistic strategy through our ongoing exchanges and upcoming projects. (shrink)

It has become essential to create and apply new media in visual communication design due to social media existence. This study aims to investigate the role of innovative applications of new media in visual communication design in educational institutions. Traditional media design in visual communication lacks to disseminate information more effectively, which requires innovative change. Therefore, this study attempts to highlight the role of innovative application of new media in visual communication by considering visual expression design with information technology, flexible (...) layout, diversified modes of transmission, and interactivity of integration. For this purpose, this study adopted a quantitative research approach in which a cross-sectional research design is followed. A questionnaire survey is carried out to collect data from educational institutions in China. Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling is used for data analysis. Results of the study indicated that innovative applications of new media have central importance in visual communication. However, resistance to innovative change has a negative role in the relationship between innovative applications of new media and visual communication design. Results of the study highlighted that visual expression design with IT, flexible layout, diversified modes of transmission, and interactivity of integration have a positive effect on visual communication design. Therefore, among the educational intuitions of China, implementing innovative applications related to the new media can lead to visual communication design. The results of this study provided several insights for the practitioners to promote communication methods among educational institutions. (shrink)

The ontological model framework for an operational theory has generated much interest in recent years. The debate concerning reality of quantum states has been made more precise in this framework. With the introduction of generalized notion of contextuality in this framework, it has been shown that completely mixed state of a qubit is preparation contextual. Interestingly, this new idea of preparation contextuality has been used to demonstrate nonlocality of some \(\psi \) -epistemic models without any use of Bell’s inequality. In (...) particular, nonlocality of a non maximally \(\psi \) -epistemic model has been demonstrated from preparation contextuality of a maximally mixed qubit and Schrödinger’s steerability of the maximally entangled state of two qubits (Leifer and Maroney, Phys Rev Lett 110:120401, 2013). In this paper, we, show that any mixed state is preparation contextual. We, then, show that nonlocality of any bipartite pure entangled state, with Schmidt rank two, follows from preparation contextuality and steerability provided we impose certain condition on the epistemicity of the underlying ontological model. More interestingly, if the pure entangled state is of Schmidt rank greater than two, its nonlocality follows without any further condition on the epistemicity. Thus our result establishes a stronger connection between nonlocality and preparation contextuality by revealing nonlocality of any bipartite pure entangled states without any use of Bell-type inequality. (shrink)

Naturalists who conceive of knowledge as a natural kind are led to treat ‘knowledge’ as a natural kind term. ‘Knowledge,’ then, must behave semantically in the ways that seem to support a direct reference theory for other natural kind terms. A direct reference theory for ‘knowledge,’ however, appears to leave open too many possibilities about the identity of knowledge. Intuitively, states of belief count as knowledge only if they meet epistemic criteria, not merely if they bear a causal/historical relation to (...) the term. I will develop this objection and show that it is grounded in modal considerations central to Kripke’s work on reference. I will also argue that a more plausible externalist semantics for natural kind terms disarms the objection. (shrink)

We studied the dynamics of large networks of spiking neurons with conductance-based (nonlinear) synapses and compared them to net- works with current-based (linear) synapses. For systems with sparse and inhibition-dominated recurrent connectivity, weak external inputs in- duced asynchronous irregular firing at low rates. Membrane potentials fluctuated a few millivolts below threshold, and membrane conductances were increased by a factor 2 to 5 with respect to the resting state. This combination of parameters characterizes the ongoing spiking activity typ- ically recorded in (...) the cortex in vivo. Many aspects of the asynchronous irregular state in conductance-based networks could be sufficiently well characterized with a simple numerical mean field approach. In particular, it correctly predicted an intriguing property of conductance-based net- works that does not appear to be shared by current-based models: they exhibit states of low-rate asynchronous irregular activity that persist for some period of time even in the absence of external inputs and with- out cortical pacemakers. Simulations of larger networks (up to 350,000 neurons) demonstrated that the survival time of self-sustained activity increases exponentially with network size. (shrink)

Bokanmeldelse av Johan Schücks _Herman Friedländer. En svensk judisk historia_ (Stockholm: Medströms bokförlag, 2021).

Prof. G.C. Pande in his work ‘ Studies in the Origins of Buddhism ’ speaks of the theory of relation ( paccaya) while discussing the principle of dependent origination ( paṭiccasamuppāda ). Theory of relation ( paccaya) is a law explaining the existence of the dhammas , being related by some relations. It is further extension of the law of dependent origination ( paṭiccasamuppāda ). Things come to existence in our day-to-day life. The law of dependent origination explains that they (...) come into existence; depending upon some other factors. The theory of relation explains that such dependence on the other dhammas is possible due to some relations. In other words, Paṭiccasamuppāda explains the process of existence of conditioned things. The relation ( paccaya ) explains the relation existing between different phases coming into existence. Such relations are also explained in conditioned things only. (shrink)

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.

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 3, Page 297-319, July 2022.

Do psychopaths make moral judgments but lack motivation? Or are psychopaths’ judgments are not genuinely moral? Both sides of this debate seem to assume either externalist or internalist criteria for the presence of moral judgment. However, if moral judgment is a natural kind, we can arrive at a theory-neutral criterion for moral judgment. A leading naturalistic criterion suggests that psychopaths have an impaired capacity for moral judgment; the capacity is neither fully present nor fully absent. Psychopaths are therefore not counterexamples (...) to internalism. Nonetheless, internalism is empirically problematic because it is unable to explain psychopaths’ moral deficits. (shrink)

Humans are moral creatures. Among all life on Earth, we alone experience rich moral emotions, follow complex rules governing how we treat one another, and engage in moral dialogue. But how did human morality evolve? And can humans become morally evolved? -/- In A Better Ape, Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell draw on the latest research in the biological and social sciences to explain the key role that morality has played in human evolution. They explore the moral traits that (...) humans share with chimpanzees; how a more complex moral mind enabled Homo sapiens to arise and out-compete other human species; and the place of morality alongside historic revolutions in technology and social organization. Throughout the book, Kumar and Campbell argue that morality co-evolved with intelligence and complex sociality. Morality prevents societal collapse and enables complex knowledge. -/- After unearthing the ancient origins of human morality, Kumar and Campbell use evolutionary theory to deliver profound insights about how to advance moral progress and resist moral regress, such as reducing animal suffering on industrial farms; capitalizing on the recent revolution in gay rights to foster a nascent revolution in transgender rights; opposing intersectional inequality that impacts women and people of color in lower socioeconomic classes; and addressing major problems of global inequality, especially impending crises of injustice caused by anthropogenic climate change. Understanding how we evolved--and how we continue to evolve--can help us become a better ape. (shrink)