Funerals are a reflective practice to bid farewell to the departed soul. Different religions, cultural traditions, rituals, and social beliefs guide how funeral practices take place. Family and friends gather together to support each other in times of grief. However, during the coronavirus pandemic, the way funerals are taking place is affected by the country's rules and region to avoid the spread of infection. The present study explores the media portrayal of public sentiments over funerals. In particular, the present study (...) tried to identify linguistic dimensions associated with lexical components of social processes, affective processes, fear, and disgust. An exhaustive search of newspaper coverage of funeral and related articles was made for a specific corona period. After an initial screening for the details and language used, a total of 46 newspaper articles on funerals were finalized for the analysis. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to determine the association between linguistic dimensions of function words and words related to social and affective processes, as presented in the newspaper articles. Sentiment Analysis and Cognition Engine (SEANCE) was applied for the analysis of sentiment, social cognition, and social order. Bayesian correlation analysis and regression revealed positive and significant associations between function words and affective processes, between pronouns and social processes, and between negative adjectives and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Also, significant negative associations were found between polarity nouns and psychological processes of fear and disgust and between polarity verbs and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Bayes factor 10 provides strong evidence in favor of the study hypotheses. The media is influenced by the prevailing sentiments in society and reflects their perception of the current social order and beliefs. The findings provide a glimpse into the prevailing sentiment of society through the lens of media coverage. These understandings are expected to enhance our observations of how people express their feelings over the loss of their loved ones and help mental health professionals develop their therapeutic protocols to treat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-affected population. (shrink)

Festschrift volume to K. Ramakrishna Rao, Indian psychologist, philosopher and educationist; contributed articles.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia is a kind of fatal blood cancer with a high death rate caused by abnormal cells’ rapid growth in the human body. The usual method to detect AML is the manual microscopic examination of the blood sample, which is tedious and time-consuming and requires a skilled medical operator for accurate detection. In this work, we proposed an AlexNet-based classification model to detect Acute Myeloid Leukemia in microscopic blood images and compared its performance with LeNet-5-based model in Precision, (...) Recall, Accuracy, and Quadratic Loss. The experiments are conducted on a dataset of four thousand blood smear samples. The results show that AlexNet was able to identify 88.9% of images correctly with 87.4% precision and 98.58% accuracy, whereas LeNet-5 correctly identified 85.3% of images with 83.6% precision and 96.25% accuracy. (shrink)

This captivating new book, a milestone in Buddhist and comparative studies, is a compilation of seventeen essays celebrating the work and thought of Nolan Pliny Jacobson. A profoundly motivated interdisciplinary thinker, Jacobson sought to discover, clarify, and synthesize points of similarity among leading thinkers of different Oriental and Western cultures. For almost half a century, he articulated his vision of an emerging world civilization, one in which all people can feel and express their creative, constructive powers for the benefit of (...) others as well as for themselves. Jacobson believed that philosophy and the works of philosophers should be understood as a vital force enriching all civilizational experience. His own philosophic perspective was rooted in the conviction that novelty is the source of all experience and the center of a creativity that lives beyond words, arguments, and rational paradigms. Throughout his career, Jacobson explored Buddhist texts and personalities, spending much time in the Orient, particularly Myanmar and Japan. He also closely studied the works of numerous Western philosophers, including Whitehead, Dewey, Peirce, James, Hartshorne, and Wieman. Jacobson believed that American philosophy and Buddhism concurred in many ways, with the potential to form a powerful basis for the development of a world civilization. The essays in this volume are organized around Jacobson’s activities, publications, and interests. Authored by an impressive selection of scholars, the essays are grouped into four sections—"Historical Context," "Central Issues," "Practical Implications," and "The Japan Emphasis." Hajime Nakamura, Charles Hartshorne, Kenneth K. Inada, Seizo Oho, and numerous others discuss freedom, creativity, and Buddhism’s self-corrective nature, setting forth their reasons for sharing Jacobson’s ideas and visions. (shrink)

The purpose of this brief essay is twofold: (1) to clarify what it is to study anything scientifically and show that consciousness cannot, in principle, be studied scientifically, and (2) to examine the aim and methods of cosmology and show that cosmology cannot, in principle, be a science. The essay can be read by ignoring any and all references to Advaita Vedānta (non-dualistic Vedānta). My reason for referring to Advaita Vedānta is simply the fact that these two truths were long (...) ago discovered and taught by Advaita Vedānta, which is at once Jñāna-Yoga (The Way of Knowledge) and mysticism, unsurpassed and unsurpassable. (shrink)

Dr. Puligandla Deals With The Essentials Of Indian Philosophy, Emphasising Its Methods, Temper And Goals While Delving Into Specificities. Major Schools Of The Philosophic Tradition (Carvaka Materialism, Jainism, Buddhism, Yoga, Vedanta Among Them) Are Thoroughly Analysed.

This book discusses the profound philosophy and practical psychology behind yoga, beyond its popular body-culture aspect. It pays particular attention to the psychological principles involved and their implications for the consummate understanding of human nature. It explores the psychological aspects of yoga theory and practice and discusses the aphorisms in Patanjali's treatise on Yoga with necessary commentary in current psychological terminology to make them intelligible to students of psychology and other interested readers. Importantly, the author draws out the implications of (...) these aphorisms for future psychological study and research. The book discusses the author's concept of yoga of nonviolence which brings in Gandhian ideas into the framework of yoga. The author's own vast experience in creating interfaces of yoga research with practice also informs the discussions in this book. This authoritative and topical book by an eminent academic like Professor Ramakr ishna Rao is of interest to scholars and students of diverse disciplines, including but not limited to psychology, philosophy and wellbeing research. (shrink)

Conversations of the author, with his disciples, devotees, and visitors.

The normative foundations of the investor centered model of corporate governance, represented in mainstream economics by the nexus-of-contracts view of the firm, have come under attack, mainly by proponents of normative stakeholder theory. We argue that the nexusof- contracts view is static and limited due to its assumption of price-output certainty. We attempt a synthesis of the nexus-of-contracts and the Knightian views, which provides novel insights into the normative adequacy of the investor-centered firm. Implications for scholarship and management practice follow (...) from our discussion. (shrink)

Software piracy is a major global concern forbusinesses that generate their revenues throughsoftware products. Moral intensity regardingsoftware piracy has been argued to be relatedto the extent of software piracy. Anunderstanding of the development of moralintensity regarding software piracy inindividuals would aid businesses in developingand implementing policies that may help themreduce software piracy. In this research westudied the similarities and differences indevelopment of moral intensity regardingsoftware piracy among university students intwo different cultures, the U.S. and Thailand. In particular, we studied the (...) influence of theimmediate community of individuals, such asother students, faculty, and other universityemployees, on the development of moralintensity regarding software piracy of the twogroups of students. Results indicate that, ingeneral, there are significant differences inmoral intensity regarding software piracybetween students from the US and Thailand, andthat gender differences also exist. Though theeffect of the immediate community on theself-perception of moral intensity regardingsoftware piracy of students was significant,there appears to be very little significantdifferences in this effect between the studentsin the two different countries studied. Thefindings have implications for teachingbusiness ethics, and for developing andimplementing policies to curb global softwarepiracy. (shrink)