Over the years, the urban heat vulnerability has evolved as a pressing global concern for researchers and policymakers alike. Numerous studies have aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of urban heat vulnerability on public health and safety. However, the critical task of selecting the most fitting indicator for urban heat islands in public spaces is not emphasized in the existing studies, considering the diverse indices available. Beyond identification, studies that delve into the prioritization of these indices and the determination of (...) optimal variables along with their respective weights are scanty. The present study attempts to address these gaps in urban heat vulnerability research through the lens of natural solutions. The study employs a fuzzy analytical hierarchy approach to ascertain the weights of selected criteria, providing a nuanced understanding of the multifaceted factors influencing their applicability. Real-time impact estimation using the fuzzy technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solutions enhances the practicality of the findings. The results reveal a set of pivotal characteristics crucial for constructing a robust heat vulnerability index, facilitating the prioritization of selected criteria. The implementation of this hybrid methodology culminates in a streamlined, precise, and practical tool for evaluating heat vulnerability in hot urban public spaces. These findings contribute valuable insights to the academic discourse and offer a tangible resource for policymakers and practitioners. The proactive approach provides a roadmap for addressing impending challenges related to urban heat vulnerability, marking a positive step toward creating resilient and sustainable urban environments. (shrink)

Hind Swaraj by Mahatma Gandhi is arguably the greatest text to have emerged from the anti-colonial movement in India and the first to seriously challenge the cultural and civilizational premises of the colonizers' mentality. It is also the first text in India that falls within the broad tradition of modern political philosophy, advancing a complex cluster of theses with conceptual sensitivity, analytical precision, and sustained argument. This book critically engages with Hind Swaraj and explores the fascinating and subtle dialogue set (...) up by Gandhi between the characters of the reader and the editor. With essays from leading contemporary thinkers on Gandhi, the volume looks at themes such as Gandhi on epistemic servitude, decolonization and intercultural translation; his complex critique of modern civilization, his views on the empire; democracy, citizenship and violence; the normative structure of Gandhian thought; Gandhi and the political praxis of educational reconstruction and how to read this text. An important intervention in Gandhian studies, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers of peace studies, political philosophy, Indian philosophy, Indian political thought, political sociology, and South Asian studies. (shrink)

Since the turn of the 21st century, developing teachers' assessment literacy has been recognized as one of the key levers for improving instructional practice and student learning in light of the education reforms worldwide. A substantial body of literature is focused on teachers' assessment literacy or teachers' capacity in assessment, and teachers' continuing professional development in assessment. As we approach the third decade of the 21st century, developing teachers' assessment literacy needs to be more responsive to the need of both (...) preservice and inservice teachers who come from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. The authors concur that both preservice and inservice teachers in today's complex educational contexts require a deeper level of understanding of assessment. Additionally, teachers are highly encouraged to appreciate the history of educational assessment in different sociocultural and political contexts, as well as to know how to determine the merits of a range of assessment practices best suited for their lesson planning and classroom teaching. In this book, the authors discuss significant aspects of developing teachers' assessment literacy in different sociocultural and political contexts. Based on their respective educational backgrounds, academic experiences, and applied fields of study, each of the authors presents a critical response to the topic of assessment. Their accounts represent the complexity of the subject through a breadth and range of content and perspectives. By expanding the terms of reference regarding assessment, the authors have developed a book with a far richer panorama on assessment as a springboard for inquiry. (shrink)

The scope of social policy today is extensive. With the changing global scenario, there is a rediscovery of “social” in it. Indubitably, there is a gender perspective on social policy globally. The world Economic Forum states that there are only six countries in the world (Belgium, Denmark, France, Latvia, Luxembourg and Sweden) where women have equal work rights to men. It is noted that the situation in different countries varies when it comes to the working benefits of different genders whether (...) for native or expatriate workers in those places. Though there are rooms to enjoy attractive income and favourable working conditions such as job security, generous retirement plan, and other welfare benefits, there are still various factors that might lead to gender-based differences or gender discrimination in the unique labour market context of the GCC countries. The scenario is distinct in many Scandinavian nations like Sweden. Those countries are often considered the role model for gender equal work allowances. When it comes to India there is still disparity and difference in many areas despite the social security system the country offers in its policies. This paper aims at a descriptive and qualitative study on the causes, consequences and conclusion of the gender disparity in employee allowances in these nations. The study would imply a simple random method of interrogation to examine gender differences empirically within the labour market of the mentioned nations. The economic benefits of a gender-equal nation in the framing of social policy will be emphasized and focused on. (shrink)

The concept of marriage has undergone a transition presently when compared with the past. Norms, customs and traditions have also changed. Attitudes, choices and preferences of individuals contribute to these changes accompanied by education and modernization. Equality of women, social changes, and liberalized economy can be a few determinants contributing to the choices and preferences, yet fertility issues remain a nagging problem after marriage. The present trend highlights late marriages, and stress at home and works front for both genders, contributing (...) to instability in marriages. These being certain issues, on one hand, increase in divorce cases, maintenance and custody of children, single parenting is another set of challenges, on the other hand. Hence, marriages are also riskier and those who embark on this journey are the successful lot. This paper primarily aims to identify the perception of youth about marriage as terminologies such as “Live in relationships”, “Friends with benefits”, etc., are in vogue. Secondly, the objective of this paper is also to study if “mid-life crisis” in both the genders accompanied by emotional, physical and psychological issues can be the causal determinants for various issues in marriage. Thirdly, the paper aims to study the causal effects between marriage issues, family laws and the country’s economy as there is a direct nexus between the three forces using appropriate research methodology tools and techniques. (shrink)

Background As noise brings great error in the analysis of metallographic images, an adaptive weighted mean filtering method proposed to overcome the shortcomings of the standard mean filtering method. Methods The method used to detect the pulse noise points in the image, and then the modified mean method used to filter out the detected noise points. Patents on metallographic image processing have discussed for the development of the proposed methodology. Results It is shown that filter window can be filtered in (...) comparison with the conventional 3×3, 5×5 and 7×7 filt window to reduce noise detection and reduce the complexity of the weight calculation. Conclusion It can be concluded that this method can better protect the details of the image, has better filtering effect than the standard mean filtering, and its processing speed is faster than the median filtering of the large window, which has profound significance for the edge detection and processing of the metallographic image. (shrink)

This paper presents a method for the study of the influence of stability of a power transformer on the power system based on the vibration principle. Traditionally, the EMD and EEMD algorithms are employed to test the box vibration signal data of the power transformer under three working conditions. The proposed method utilizes a partial EMD screening along with MPEEMD method for the online monitoring of power transformer. A complete online monitoring system is designed by using the STM32 processor and (...) LabVIEW system. The proposed system is compared with EMD and EEMD algorithms in terms of the number of IMFs obtained by decomposition, maximum correlation coefficient, and mean square error. The inherent mode correlation, when compared with the mean square error of the reconstructed signal, shows that the reconstruction error of MPEEMD algorithm is 4.762×10−15 which is better than the traditional EMD algorithm. It is observed from the results that the proposed method outperforms both EMD and EEMD algorithms. (shrink)

Rho, a member of the Ras superfamily of small GTPases, has multiple biological roles: it regulates signal trasduction pathways linking extracellular growth factors to the assembly of actin stress fibres and focal adhesion complexes; it is required for G1 progression and activates the SRF transcription factor when quiescent fibroblasts are stimulated to grow; and it plays a role later in the cell cycle during cytokinesis. Two groups have recently succeeded in identifying downstream effectors of Rho that may mediate some of (...) these biological effects. One protein identified by both groups is protein kinase N (PKN), a serine/threonine kinase whose catalytic domain is closely related to that of protein kinase C(1,2). (shrink)

To study the development trend of embedded platforms in home appliances Internet of Things, an application of embedded Linux in the design of IoT gateway is designed. ARM microprocessor S3C2410, EM310 radio frequency module, and Ethernet DM9000A module are used to realize the home network information-processing platform. The platform utilizes existing network facilities, RF modules, and network interface modules to realize the interconnection of the home perception network through wireless or wired links. For experimental analysis, Ping the central server from (...) the IoT node B is set to twice: The first time ttl = 255 time = 1.9 ms, the second time: ttl = 255 time = 2.4 ms. After application verification, the system has the characteristics of low cost, small size, low power consumption, and vital ease of use. It can not only integrate the home Internet and the IoT gateway but also directly run application-layer communication protocols such as HTTP/mqtt between IoT nodes and Internet terminals. The design supports multi-hop communication and significantly increases the deployment range of IoT nodes without signal relay equipment, hence reducing the cost of IoT networking and the complexity of the network architecture. (shrink)

This book puts together the most important contemporary writings in the debate on secularism. It deals with conceptual, normative and explanatory issues in secularism and addresses urgent questions, including the relevance of secularism to non-Western societies and the question of minority rights.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 30.4 (2000) 3-13 [Access article in PDF] Benjamin's Arcades Project and the Postcolonial City Rajeev S. Patke [Tables]Walter Benjamin. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999. [AP] Post-this, post-that, post-the-other, yet in the endNot past a thing. —Seamus Heaney, "On His Work in the English Tongue" Preamble Among the several Benjamins to be conjured from The Arcades Project is the (...) one who invites a speculative discourse on the idea of the postcolonial city. We can imagine him first conceding, and then qualifying, three propositions about himself: he mitigates the force of the first—that he was Eurocentric—with the counterproposition that the cities he wrote about were formative of a discourse that can be transposed to other cities whose patterns of urban development were shaped by forces analogous to those he studied in the period of their inception. He then concedes that his work on the city remains problematic in several ways related to an uncertain temperament and method, but urges the recognition that his method came to resemble his object of study; the fortuitous correspondence reinforces the self-reflexive relation between modern cities and the discourse they generate. His third concession—that his use of Marxian ideas mixes them with elements of bourgeois thought—is marginalized by the recognition that he always took his Marx with such a difference that to confine him within such a debate would be to take him in the wrong spirit. He then proceeds to reiterate in the specific instance of the postcolonial a more familiar general claim made by many contemporary readers of the metropolitan experience, that the set of approaches he uncovered continue to remain valid wherever the project of modernity is at work. They help us address "[t]he split image of modernity, modernity's promises for social and individual emancipation, as well as modernity's failures" [Paetzold 216a]. Modern Benjamin would begin by reminding us that his "modern" and "modernity" refer primarily to the industrial transformation of society by technology, as part of the Enlightenment project of progress through the application of reason to nature and society. He would [End Page 3] qualify his sense of the project of "modernity" through the image of "[t]he world dominated by its phantasmagorias" [AP 26]. He would then shrug off the cloak of the Eurocentric by turning, for illustration, to the many Asian manifestations of the postcolonial. Here, he would make the twofold claim that the postcolonial experience brings out the disillusionment latent in the myth of progress, just as the postmodern brings out the phantasmal that is incipient in the myth of an evenly distributed access to capital and goods in the era of globalization. He would argue that the cities of contemporary Asia are the sites for a partial and uneven overlap between the postmodern and the postcolonial. This overlap, he would say, invites us to treat the idea of the city in a generic mode, without discounting the fact that the diversity separating the metropolitan centers in Asia makes little sense of an Asian city except as banal literalism. He would note that colonialism did not affect all of Asia, nor did it follow quite the same course from colony to colony, though the term retains some usefulness in accounting for the general factors that link different cities in Asia to what happened after colonialism. He would treat the postcolonial and the postmodern as three-tiered phenomena: each is a historical phase of world history, a predicament affecting collectivities, and an attitude or state of mind. The aptness of the notion of the postcolonial city, he points out, increases in direct proportion to the degree to which a city has acquired a distinctive identity through colonial administration or commerce, and decreases in direct proportion to the degree of discontinuity between the colonial and postcolonial phases of its history. He would add the corollary that any contemporary city in the developing world approximates to the postcolonial condition when its role in the network of power relations negotiates... (shrink)

The literature on methodological individualism is characterized by a widely held view that if the doctrine were stated with sufficient care it would be seen to be trivially true. Professor Bhargava questions this view. He begins by carefully disentangling the various formulations of the doctrine, identifies its most plausible version, and finally locates the principal assumption underlying it, namely that beliefs are attitudes individuated entirely in terms of what lies within the individual mind. Bhargava argues that once this individualist assumption (...) is challenged it is possible to rehabilitate a non-individualist methodology which permits a contextual study of beliefs and actions, and even a study of social context relatively independent of the beliefs and actions of individuals. (shrink)

Free-variable semantic tableaux are a well-established technique for first-order theorem proving where free variables act as a meta-linguistic device for tracking the eigenvariables used during proof search. We present the theoretical foundations to extend this technique to propositional modal logics, including non-trivial rigorous proofs of soundness and completeness, and also present various techniques that improve the efficiency of the basic naive method for such tableaux.

Walter Benjamin's Other History: Of Stones, Animals, Human Beings, and Angels. By Beatrice Hanssen (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1998), 218 pp. $35.00 cloth.

This book demonstrates the variety of ways in which the materiality of islands is intertwined in a symbiotic relationship with the capacity of the imagination to make islands the site and embodiment of a host of recurrent human desires, anxieties, and hopes.

This book demonstrates the variety of ways in which the materiality of islands is intertwined in a symbiotic relationship with the capacity of the imagination to make islands the site and embodiment of a host of recurrent human desires, anxieties, and hopes.

Whether poetry gives knowledge or not is a question that has been debated from a variety of perspectives, depending on how a society or a culture defines knowledge, and on the function it ascribes to poetry in relation to that definition. The civilizations of Asia and the Middle East have generally taken the line that poetry deals primarily with affects, emotions and feelings. The West has had a more complicated history of responses. One way of making sense of this history (...) is to map rival claims as split over the idea of scientific knowledge, where it affects notions of the poetic function. The mapping, through all its manifold branches, gives clear indications that claims to knowledge – both those made on behalf of poetry, and those denied to poetry – depend more on assumptions, predispositions and cultural conditioning than on rational argument or critical debate. The resulting variety also suggests that the cultural relativism that affects such debates is unlikely to arrive at resolutions except of the contingent kind. (shrink)

Written over the last two decades, these essays answers important questions on secularism. Some of the topics covered are the democratic vision of the new republic of India, the evolution and distinctiveness of India's linguistic federalism, India's secular constitution, the Muslim personal law, and the majority-minority syndrome.

Taiwan was affected by an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in early 2003. A questionnaire survey was conducted to determine (1) the perceptions of risk of SARS infection in nurses; (2) the proportion of nurses considering leaving their job; and (3) work as well as non-work factors related to nurses' consideration of leaving their job because of the SARS outbreak. Nearly three quarters (71.9%) of the participants believed they were 'at great risk of exposure to SARS', 49.9% felt'an (...) increase in workload', and 32.4% thought that people avoided them because of their job; 7.6% of the nurses not only considered that they should not care for SARS patients but were looking for another job or considering resignation. The main predictors of nurses' consideration of leaving their job were shorter tenure, increased work stress, perceived risk of fatality from SARS, and affected social relationships. The findings are important in view of potential impending threats of pandemics such as avian influenza. (shrink)

CSR in India is mandated through Section 135 of the Companies Act (2013), covering the practice and reporting of social responsibility projects. This paper examines India's CSR framework and reports findings on governance, planning, and implementation from a survey of and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Overall findings reveal several positive aspects and inform us of the challenges that companies and NGOs consider essential. First, an overwhelming majority of companies focused on three investment areas: health, education, and the environment. Second, 88% of (...) companies undertook long-term continuing projects, a positive signal from a social development perspective. Third, 68% reported that their CSR strategy was aligned with their core business strategy. Fourth, a significant majority of the companies have established the required structure for policy development, planning, and periodic monitoring from a governance perspective. Finally, findings on NGOs indicate several elements of preparedness; however, the retention of talented employees is a continual challenge. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractRecent waves of controversies surrounding genetic engineering have spilled into popular science in Twitter battles between reputable scientists and their followers. Here, a cautionary perspective on the possible blind spots and risks of CRISPR and related biotechnologies is presented, focusing in particular on the stochastic nature of cellular control processes.

Parrondo's paradox, in which losing strategies can be combined to produce winning outcomes, has received much attention in mathematics and the physical sciences; a plethora of exciting applications has also been found in biology at an astounding pace. In this review paper, the authors examine a large range of recent developments of Parrondo's paradox in biology, across ecology and evolution, genetics, social and behavioral systems, cellular processes, and disease. Intriguing connections between numerous works are identified and analyzed, culminating in an (...) emergent pattern of nested recurrent mechanics that appear to span the entire biological gamut, from the smallest of spatial and temporal scales to the largest—from the subcellular to the complete biosphere. In analyzing the macro perspective, the pivotal role that the paradox plays in the shaping of biological life becomes apparent, and its identity as a potential universal principle underlying biological diversity and persistence is uncovered. Directions for future research are also discussed in light of this new perspective. (shrink)

Committee decision making is examined in this study focusing on the role assigned to the committee members. In particular, we are concerned about the comparison between committee performance under specialization and non-specialization of the decision makers. Specialization (in the context of project or public policy selection) means that the decision of each committee member is based on a narrow area, which typically results in the acquirement and use of relatively high expertise in that area. When the committee members’ expertise is (...) already determined, specialization only means that the decision of each committee member is based solely on his/her relatively high expertise area. This form of specialization is potentially inferior relative to non-specialization under which the decision of each committee member is based on different areas, not just his/her relatively high expertise area. Given that the expertise of the committee members is already determined but unknown, our analysis focuses on non-specializing individuals whose decision is based on a decision rule that does not require information on the decision-making skills. Under these realistic assumptions, non-specialization is shown to be preferable over specialization, depending on the aggregation rule applied by the committee. The significance of our approach is not limited to the specific results that we obtain. Rather, it should be viewed as a first step toward a deeper examination of the role of individual decision makers in enhancing the performance of collective decision making. (shrink)

Two notions of reconciliation exist. The weak or thin conception is akin to ‘resignation’. It is sought by groups that have waged war against one another but have come to the realization that neither can win. Reconciliation in this sense results from an enforced lowering of expectations. In the stronger sense, reconciliation means a virtual cancellation of enmity or estrangement via a morally grounded forgiveness, achievable only when conflicting groups acknowledge collective responsibility for past injustice, and shed their deep prejudices (...) by a profound and painful transformation in their identities. It is because this process is not possible without a somewhat brutal confrontation with oneself and a painful recognition of one’s own moral degradation that reconciliation is difficult to achieve. (shrink)

In 1983, Valentini presented a syntactic proof of cut elimination for a sequent calculus GLSV for the provability logic GL where we have added the subscript V for “Valentini”. The sequents in GLSV were built from sets, as opposed to multisets, thus avoiding an explicit contraction rule. From a syntactic point of view, it is more satisfying and formal to explicitly identify the applications of the contraction rule that are ‘hidden’ in these set based proofs of cut elimination. There is (...) often an underly ing assumption that the move to a proof of cut elimination for sequents built from multisets is easy. Recently, however, it has been claimed that Valentini’s arguments to eliminate cut do not terminate when applied to a multiset formulation of GLSV with an explicit rule of contraction. The claim has led to much confusion and various authors have sought new proofs of cut elimination for GL in a multiset setting. Here we refute this claim by placing Valentini’s arguments in a formal setting and proving cut elimination for sequents built from multisets. The formal setting is particularly important for sequents built from multisets, in order to accurately account for the interplay between the weakening and contraction rules. Furthermore, Valentini’s original proof relies on a novel induction parameter called “width” which is computed ‘globally’. It is diffi cult to verify the correctness of his induction argument based on “width”. In our formulation however, verification of the induction argument is straight forward. Finally, the multiset setting also introduces a new complication in the the case of contractions above cut when the cut formula is boxed. We deal with this using a new transformation based on Valentini’s original arguments. Finally, we show that the algorithm purporting to show the non termi nation of Valentini’s arguments is not a faithful representation of the original arguments, but is instead a transformation already known to be insufficient. (shrink)

The relationship between ethical ideology and job stress appears to be complex. This study is based on a model presented by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39:175, 1980), showing two dimensions (idealism and relativism) that play an important role in ethical evaluation and behavior. Based on a survey of 561 employees of hotel industry in India, ethical ideologies were found to be negatively associated with job stress. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlations and multiple regressions. The result (...) showed that relativism is negatively correlated with job stress. Further, it has been established that idealism and relativism interacted in such a way that there is a negative relationship between idealism and job stress when relativism is low and positive relationship when relativism is high. The findings imply that ethical ideology adversely influences the job stress in the organization. (shrink)