Niranjan Ramakrishnan examines the surprising extent to which Gandhi's writings still provide insight into current global tensions and the assumptions that drive them. This book explores how ideas Gandhi expressed over a century ago can be applied today to issues from terrorism to the environment, globalization to the 'Clash of Civilizations.' In particular it looks at Gandhi's emphasis on the small, the local, and the human – an emphasis that today begins to appear practical, attractive, and even inescapable. (...) Written in an accessible style invoking examples from everyday happenings familiar to all, this concise volume reintroduces Gandhi to today's audiences in relevant terms. (shrink)

This paper focuses on flows to emerging capital markets (ECMs) and examines the importance of corporate transparency and public governance in attracting portfolio flows to ECMs. This paper's empirical investigation centers on the hypothesis that ceteris paribus, ECMs with better quality accounting standards and good governance attract higher levels of portfolio equity and bond flows. To assess the incremental impact of each of these factors, a pooled time series, cross‐sectional model was econometrically tested for 17 ECMS over the 1998–2002 time (...) period. Our empirical analysis demonstrates a positive association between public governance, corporate transparency, and portfolio flows after controlling for other macroeconomic factors. The results suggest that good public governance and high accounting quality are important determinants of portfolio flows to ECMs. Finally, the paper establishes that while portfolio equity flows are significantly attracted to ECMs with strong democratic institutions, there is no significant association between portfolio bond flows and the presence of democratic institutions. (shrink)

Gearbox is one of the vital components in aircraft engines. If any small damage to gearbox, it can cause the breakdown of aircraft engine. Thus it is significant to study fault diagnosis in gearbox system. In this paper, two deep learning models (Long short term memory (LSTM) and Bi-directional long short term memory (BLSTM)) are proposed to classify the condition of gearbox into good or bad. These models are applied on aircraft gearbox vibration data in both time and frequency domain. (...) A publicly available aircraft gearbox vibration dataset is used to evaluate the performance of proposed models. The results proved that accuracy achieved by LSTM and BLSTM are highly reliable and applicable in health monitoring of aircraft gearbox system in time domain as compared to frequency domain. Also, to show the superiority of proposed models for aircraft gearbox fault diagnosis, performance is compared with classical machine learning models. (shrink)

Study on Naiṣkarmyasiddhi of Sureśvarācārya, compendium of Advaita philosophy.

As disparities and data science researchers, we write in response to Char and colleagues paper on “Identifying Ethical Considerations for Machine Learning Healthcare Applications.” While the...

HIV/aids can now be considered a pandemic as it affects all parts of the world. As attentive as scholars have been to the biomedical and epidemiological aspects of the disease, they have been slower to try to understand it as a disease of transnational significations or meanings. This article looks to the ways that the conceptual categories of HIV/aids came to India in the biomedical literature, the approaches that the media in the United States and India took in contending with (...) these meanings, and how these categories travel globally in dominant and negotiated realms of discourse. Throughout this analysis, attention is paid to ways that high-risk groupings obscure alternative approaches based on understandings of the dynamics of poverty, history, gender, and culture. Finally, this article argues that critical approaches to science and medicine are essential to help produce a more complex science. (shrink)

Research on values is extensive. Values and value systems are concepts that have interested researchers across domains such as psychology, sociology, and anthropology. However, antecedents of values have not received sufficient attention. In this study, we develop and assess a personal value system from the ancient texts of India. The texts describe a system of existential beliefs and values or prescriptive beliefs. Existential beliefs are concerned with the nature of reality. Prescriptive beliefs or values follow from these existential beliefs, and (...) behavior is influenced by values. The content of existential beliefs and the implied values or prescriptive beliefs are extracted from the texts and a conceptual model of the belief system is developed. Scales are constructed and administered to a sample of subjects. Responses from the survey are analyzed using a structural equation modeling framework. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to assess the scales and establish their adequacy. The nomological net of existential beliefs and values is empirically assessed, and construct validity is examined. Results support the belief system described in the texts. (shrink)

The role of various organizational pressures in influencing performance of firms has been an interesting research topic in a variety of fields and has received the attention of researchers working in the field of environmental strategy. Although there are previous studies that have looked at the influence of various pressures in influencing firms’ environmental strategies, our study provides a more holistic analysis considering a variety of such pressures in a single framework. We discuss a research study to analyze how pressures (...) from internal and external stakeholders of a firm, economic pressures, environmental regulations, and pressures of environmental compliance have affected environmental performance of firms using data collected from manufacturing firms in the United Kingdom. We have found that internal stakeholders provide the greatest impact in shaping environmental performance of firms, closely followed by economic pressures, environmental regulations, and external stakeholders in that order. Fears of penalties due to environmental compliance have the least impact, although this pressure also has a positive and significant impact on environmental performance. (shrink)

The aim of this short article is to introduce a topical text called the Daśaślokī of Ᾱdi Śaṃkara, widely known as Śaṃkara and its only available commentary the Siddhāntabindu by Madhusūdana Sarasvatī. While these two classics delineate in a nutshell the basic tenets of Advaita Vedānta philosophy and are placed with great significance in the tradition, very little work on them, particularly those based on textual study, has been done in modern scholarship. Thus, the article, without going into much detail (...) of the content of these two works and the commentaries available, gives, in brief, their introduction, in order to revisit them. (shrink)

The Vedānta philosophy has its roots in scriptural sources, specifically, in three canonical texts, viz. the Brahmasūtra-s by Bādarāyaṇa, which is called nyāya-prasthāna or tarka-prasthāna; the Upaniṣad-s, which are called the śruti-prasthāna; and the Bhagavadgītā, which is regarded as the smṛti-prasthāna. Thus, like the first two constituents of this trio, the third one has a tangible legacy of commentarial tradition; as almost all well-known advocates of the Vedānta schools have commented on these three sourcebooks. In this paper, an attempt has (...) been made to give a brief sketch of such commentarial tradition of the Bhagavadgītā, starting with its commentary by Śaṃkara to the other major commentaries available up to the 15th–16th centuries. While each of these commentaries finds support in the text for their respective philosophical doctrines, an impartial evaluation, with support of modern scholars, shows that none of the commentaries can claim to represent faithfully the true intent of the text, and that the true import of it can only be had if the text is judged from its literary and historical point of view. (shrink)

Derek Parfit, who died in 2017, is widely believed to have been the best moral philosopher in well over a century. The twenty new essays in this book were written in his honour and have all been inspired by his work - in particular, his work in an area of moral philosophy known as 'population ethics', which is concerned with moral issues raised by causing people to exist. Until Parfit began writing about these issues in the 1970s, there was almost (...) no discussion of them in the entire history of philosophy. But his monumental book 'Reasons and Persons' (1984) revealed that population ethics abounds in deep and intractable problems and paradoxes that not only challenge all the major moral theories but also threaten to undermine many important common-sense moral beliefs. (shrink)

Many targets of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway are regulated by TCF transcription factors, which play important roles in animal development, stem cell biology, and oncogenesis. TCFs can regulate Wnt targets through a “transcriptional switch,” repressing gene expression in unstimulated cells and promoting transcription upon Wnt signaling. However, it is not clear whether this switch mechanism is a general feature of Wnt gene regulation or limited to a subset of Wnt targets. Co-repressors of the TLE family are known to contribute to (...) the repression of Wnt targets in the absence of signaling, but how they are inactivated or displaced by Wnt signaling is poorly understood. In this mini-review, we discuss several recent reports that address the prevalence and molecular mechanisms of the Wnt transcription switch, including the finding of Wnt-dependent ubiquitination/inactivation of TLEs. Together, these findings highlight the growing complexity of the regulation of gene expression by the Wnt pathway. Wnt targets are regulated by a “switch” where TLE co-repressors are displaced from TCFs by β-catenin, leading to activation of transcription. Recent reports challenge this view and suggest that additional processes, including exchange of specific TCF proteins and Wnt-dependent ubiquitination of TLEs, play important roles in the Wnt transcriptional switch. (shrink)

This volume, an important contribution to dialogic and Bakhtin studies, shows the natural fit between Bakhtin’s ideas and the pluralistic culture of India to a global academic audience. It is premised on the fact that long before principles of dialogism took shape in the Western world, these ideas, though not labelled as such, were an integral part of intellectual histories in India. Bakhtin’s ideas and intellectual traditions of India stand under the same banner of plurality, open-endedness and diversity of languages (...) and social speech types and, therefore, the affinity between the thinker and the culture seems natural. Rather than being a mechanical import of Bakhtin’s ideas, it is an occasion to reclaim, reactivate and reenergize inherent dialogicality in the Indian cultural, historical and philosophical histories. Bakhtin is not an incidental figure, for he offers precise analytical tools to make sense of the incredibly complex differences at every level in the cultural life of India. Indian heterodoxy lends well to a Bakhtinian reading and analysis and the papers herein attest to this. The papers range from how ideas from Indo-European philology reached Bakhtin through a circuitous route, to responses to Bakhtin’s thought on the carnival from the philosophical perspectives of Abhinavagupta, to a Bakhtinian reading of literary texts from India. The volume also includes an essay on ‘translation as dialogue’ – an issue central to multilingual cultures – and on inherent dialogicality in the long intellectual traditions in India. (shrink)

We show, for various classes of totally ordered structures, including o‐minimal and weakly o‐minimal structures, that every definable partial order on a subset of extends definably in to a total order. This extends the result proved in for and o‐minimal.

To understand the variations in the financial characteristics, we examine the dynamical behaviors by considering the chaotic financial model with external force. First, the dynamical characteristics are analyzed by introducing the external driven force in the price index with commodity demand. We discover that the presence of an external force causes the alternate occurrence of oscillatory and steady states as a function of time. Interestingly, we find the existence of bifurcation delay during the transition from oscillatory to steady state or (...) vice versa. Bifurcation delay is a phenomenon in which the bifurcation does not occur at the actual bifurcation point but rather at a later time, which is referred to as bifurcation delay. To confirm the delay in bifurcation, we estimate the actual bifurcation point and compare it to the observed bifurcation transition. Furthermore, to understand the variations in the bifurcation delay, we estimate the delay time between each consecutive cycle and find random fluctuations in the BD. Following that, the BD is virtualized via a transformed phase portrait. In addition, we show decreasing the value of average BD while increasing the frequency of external forcing. Second, the presence of BD is explored by incorporating external forces into the investment demand with unit investment cost. We discover the existence of a similar phenomenon with a constant bifurcation delay. (shrink)

A proper elementary extension of a model is called small if it realizes no new types over any finite set in the base model. We answer a question of Marker, and show that it is possible to have an o-minimal structure with a maximal small extension. Our construction yields such a structure for any cardinality. We show that in some cases, notably when the base structure is countable, the maximal small extension has maximal possible cardinality.

Dynamical analysis, chaos suppression and electronic implementation of the synchronous reluctance motor without external inputs are investigated in this paper. The different dynamical behaviors found in the SynRM without external inputs are illustrated in the two parameters largest Lyapunov exponent diagrams, one parameter bifurcation diagram, and phase portraits. The three single controllers are designed to suppress the chaotic behaviors found in SynRM without external inputs. The three proposed single controllers are simple and easy to implement. Numerical simulation results show that (...) the three proposed single controllers are effective. Finally, the dynamical behaviors found in the SynRM without external inputs and the physical feasibility of the three proposed single controllers are validated through circuit implementation on OrCAD-PSpice software. (shrink)

We prove that a function definable with parameters in an o-minimal structure is bounded away from ∞ as its argument goes to ∞ by a function definable without parameters, and that this new function can be chosen independently of the parameters in the original function. This generalizes a result in [1]. Moreover, this remains true if the argument is taken to approach any element of the structure , and the function has limit any element of the structure.

The nature of the relationship between environmental performance and firm performance of corporations is a long standing and contentious issue in the literature. This study is intended to advance this debate by arguing for the existence of curvilinear relationship and empirically testing the same using survey data on UK manufacturing firms. FP is captured in terms of growth in sales and market share. Our results show evidence for a quadratic relationship—as firms improve their EP, they seem to achieve much higher (...) levels of FP. These results are consistent with the resource-based view of a firm; as firms engage in EP activities, they are able to gain inimitable knowledge that helps in further learning to further improve performance. Based on our results, we suggest that new studies focus on strategies to extend the period of increasing returns and maximizing the benefits of the positive association between EP and FP. (shrink)

The Homeobox (Hox) genes essentially define body regions in all animals including humans – responsible for determining two arms, two legs, one nose and so on. This gene is shared by all living beings – from the snail to the elephant to humans – and it can now be manipulated into transforming certain parts of the body into others. We have observed such transformations, such as that of an amputated antenna into a limb, as far back as 1901, termed neomorphosis (...) (Morgan 1901), and it has only recently re-emerged as an area of scientific study. Spontaneous transformations and induced regenerations are fascinating research topics that are fast becoming a reality; some scientists are postulating that it may be possible that the hox gene could be central to limb regeneration in the future. This article will present the Hox Zodiac project, which attempts to introduce this subject and push the ideas further into speculation of mutation (i.e. humans and animals) into creatures that may resemble the mythical beings we know as fiction. The starting point of this wheel of life is the Chinese zodiac, consisting of twelve animals that are associated with humans. In the process of development, it became interesting to note that half of the animals on the wheel are those used in the lab – rat, pig, monkey, dog, sheep and rabbit. The ox, tiger, horse, snake and rooster are considered mythical and the dragon could easily fall into the category of a genetically modified creature that is to re-emerge in the future. Since medical and scientific testing on humans is strictly forbidden, scientists have virtually shifted to animals for all such studies. Thus, everything that is used on our bodies and minds is directly related to the animal kingdom. The pig heart and rat mind are symbols for the paradox of science that uses animals in ways that are at once disconnected while subconsciously connecting us more than ever by using research results in medical and food products we consume. Although the controversy of using animals in labs is widely known and often violently opposed, the artist in the lab questions how this research impacts our collective consciousness, especially with the growing trend of brain-computer interfaces and particularly synthetic telepathy. This relationship of the human to the metaphorical meaning of the animal kingdom brought to mind Jung’s research on metaphors, symbolism and archetypes, which became central to the Hox Zodiac. (shrink)

This paper explores the ways in which foster children and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) intersect as social and medical categories. Through the method of interpretive biography based on the official case file, this paper shows how the experiences of violence and ADHD become linked in the child's life through the emotion of anger. In this way, it is possible to see how the power dynamics of the medical, educational and welfare systems lock the diagnosis with its embedded meanings into (...) the child's life. It is also possible to see how counter forces like a caring foster family can challenge medical and welfare authorities. (shrink)

We prove that in an arbitrary o-minimal structure, every interpretable group is definably isomorphic to a definable one. We also prove that every definable group lives in a cartesian product of one-dimensional definable group-intervals. We discuss the general open question of elimination of imaginaries in an o-minimal structure.

This paper explores the “triangulation approach” in social science research methods. Triangulation is an emerging method specifically in qualitative and multi-method studies. Researchers in the social sciences have increased their use of the triangulation approach recently due to the merits of this approach, especially to conduct in-depth studies through multiple inquiries. Simultaneously, this method has criticism and misconceptions among social researchers in terms of what it is, how it can be used, and the credibility of the findings when used. Therefore, (...) this paper analyses in depth what triangulation is, the types of triangulations and how they can be applied in the social sciences. The study basically adopted systematic literature review and used 30 articles published in scientific journals. The paper critically reviewed journal articles related to triangulation, revealed how different types of triangulation methods have been applied in the social sciences and highlighted the merits and cautions of applying this method. The paper theoretically contributes to understanding the phenomenon of the triangulation approach and how it connects with qualitative and multi-method studies. In addition, it revealed that the following data collection techniques from multiple sources can be exploited: in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, literature, documents, and surveys on the triangulation method to improve the credibility and reliability of the research. Furthermore, the study empirically contributes to social science researchers applying this approach with proper understanding. (shrink)

IntroductionIn highly developed countries, as many as 16 percent of children are physically abused each year. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the most common injury in non-accidental trauma (NAT) and is responsible for 80 percent of fatal NAT cases, with most deaths occurring in children younger than three years old. Cases of abusers who refuse withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment (LSMT) to avoid criminal charges have previously been reported. Therefore, we hypothesized that NAT is associated with a lower risk for (...) withdrawal LSMT in pediatric TBI.MethodsThe pediatric Trauma Quality Improvement Program database was analyzed (2014 to 2016) for patients aged 16 and younger with TBI and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) of 8 and lower on admission. Patients with a head Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) of 2 or less or who died within 48 hours were excluded. A multivariable logistic regression model was used for analysis.ResultsOf 2,209 TBI patients, 92 (4.2 percent) had withdrawal of LSMT. Compared to those without withdrawal of LMST, those with LMST had statistically similar median age (three years of age versus seven years, p = 0.07) and a higher rate of NAT (33.7 percent versus 13.5 percent, p < 0.001). The most common specified perpetrator was a father/stepfather/ male partner (70 percent). After adjusting for covariates, factors associated with higher risk for withdrawal of LSMT included age of less than three years (OR 2.38, CI 1.34-4.23, p < 0.05) and NAT (OR 1.86, CI 1.02-3.41, p < 0.05).ConclusionNAT is associated with increased risk for withdrawal of LSMT in pediatric TBI. Age of less than three years is similarly associated with a higher risk for withdrawal of LSMT. Future research in this population is needed to determine what other factors predict withdrawal of LSMT and what resources, such as social workers and/or ethics consults, are utilized. (shrink)