In 1900 the publication of the book, Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud raised very seminal and fascinating questions in the disciplines of psychology and psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud’s intellectual contributions and the discovery of unconscious had given a big jolt to all the classical approaches, shook the disciplinary foundations of psychology and placed ‘psychoanalysis’ as an alternative model for understanding mental world. Psychologists across the world showed keen interest in uncovering the mysteries of dreams and dreaming. But the institutional dominance (...) of Behaviorism and its standards of research didn’t allow them to cross the boundaries of conventional psychology. Behavioristic psychologists raised important questions on the methodology adopted by Sigmund Freud and leveled criticism against his unverifiable explanations. Behaviorism branded his theories as absolute subjectivist and unscientific. Hence, most of the psychologists were silent and systematically marginalized dream research and banished the discourses on dreams in the institutions of higher learning and research. The nineteenth century saw the emergence of the first dream studies, which were primarily concerned with dream phenomenology. Nevertheless, the pace of methodical dream research was held considerably by the emergence of distinct psychological movements at the start of the 20th century: behaviorism, classical psychoanalysis, and gestalt psychology, placed greater stress on the significance and meaning of dreams, as well as what they symbolized in the lives of individuals. Also a few of them questioned the reality of dreams and other similar mental experiences. Consequently, every movement undermined the greater sample sizes and more methodical research on dreams in its own unique manner. While presenting the views of Sigmund Freud, John Watson, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Fritz Perls this paper makes an attempt to show how classical schools of psychology slowed down the flow of systematic dream studies with large samples. (shrink)

Hindu and Buddhist philosophy in Jaina canonical literature; a study.

Historically, the problem of discovery or the problem of the genesis of scientific ideas has been taken seriously by the historians, psychologists, sociologists and philosophers who analyzed the creative thinking and formation of ideas and attempted to provide a meaningful account of them. In fact, the philosophical concern with scientific discovery is as old as science and philosophy of science themselves. However, almost throughout the first half of 20th century, philosophical reflection on the phenomenon of scientific discovery remained in a (...) state of suspended animation. This is because the dominant trend in philosophy of science in this period outlawed it. The dominant view in philosophy of science maintained that the phenomenon of scientific discovery is philosophically irrelevant, and an adequate philosophical understanding of science should confine itself to the way in which scientific theories are justified; it was assumed that the process of justification is a neat, spick-and-span phenomenon eminently suited to be described in terms which are, logically speaking, cut and dry. The process of justification or evaluation according to this orthodox view constitutes the essence of science. Obviously, justification was demarcated from discovery. Justification, because of its supposed epistemic transparency, became the exclusive focus of philosophical attention to the detriment of discovery. The invidious distinction between discovery of scientific ideas and justification of finished ideas of science remained the catchword for a long time. This paper is an attempt to critically examine the nihilistic attitude of the dominant philosophies of science and to arrive at a philosophical theory of scientific discovery. (shrink)

Children have difficulty comprehending novel verbs in the double object dative as compared to the prepositional dative. We explored this pattern with 3 and 4 year olds. In Experiment 1, we replicated the documented difficulty with the double object frame, even though we provided more contextual support. In Experiment 2, we tested a novel hypothesis that children would comprehend novel verbs in, and generalize them to, the double object frame if they were first familiarized to the verbs in the prepositional (...) frame. They did, suggesting that part of their difficulty with the double object frame is due to uncertainty about a new verb's semantic/syntactic properties, information that the easy-to-comprehend prepositional frame provides. The benefits of training were short-lived, however; children again struggled after a 2-h delay. The results are discussed in the context of mechanisms underlying verb acquisition. (shrink)

Contributed articles presented at National Seminar on "Jain and Buddhist Traditions in Sanskrit" organised by Department of Sanskrit, University of Patna, Patna on 16-17 April 2000.

On rationalism and superstition in Orissa culled from real incidents.

Across languages, children map words to meaning with great efficiency, despite a seemingly unconstrained space of potential mappings. The literature on how children do this is primarily limited to spoken language. This leaves a gap in our understanding of sign language acquisition, because several of the hypothesized mechanisms that children use are visual (e.g., visual attention to the referent), and sign languages are perceived in the visual modality. Here, we used the Human Simulation Paradigm in American Sign Language (ASL) to (...) determine potential cues to word learning. Sign‐naïve adult participants viewed video clips of parent–child interactions in ASL, and at a designated point, had to guess what ASL sign the parent produced. Across two studies, we demonstrate that referential clarity in ASL interactions is characterized by access to information about word class and referent presence (for verbs), similarly to spoken language. Unlike spoken language, iconicity is a cue to word meaning in ASL, although this is not always a fruitful cue. We also present evidence that verbs are highlighted well in the input, relative to spoken English. The results shed light on both similarities and differences in the information that learners may have access to in acquiring signed versus spoken languages. (shrink)

Critical study of Advaita Vedanta philosophy from the Vallabhācārya, 1479-1531? and Śaṅkarācārya's view point.

This volume presents the state of the art of recent research on the acquisition of semantics. Covering topics ranging from infants' initial acquisition of word meaning to the more sophisticated mapping between structure and meaning in the syntax-semantics interface, and the relation between logical content and inferences on language meaning (semantics and pragmatics), the papers in this volume introduce the reader to the variety of ways in which children come to realize that semantic content is encoded in word meaning (for (...) example, in the event semantics of the verbal domain or the scope of logical operators), and at the level of the sentence, which requires the composition of semantic meaning. The authors represent some of the most established and promising researchers in this domain, demonstrating collective expertise in a range of methodologies and topics relevant to the acquisition of semantics. This volume will serve as a valuable resource for students and faculty, and junior and seasoned researchers alike. (shrink)

Analytical study on the concept of reincarnation in Indic philosophy.

Research ethics committees (RECs) have played a crucial role in expediting the review of research protocols amidst the COVID‐19 pandemic. To improve their performance and identify areas of enhancement, a multicentric study was conducted in India by the Forum for Ethical Review Committees in the Asian and Western Pacific Region (FERCAP). The study aimed to evaluate the preparedness of Indian RECs during the COVID‐19 outbreak while conducting protocol reviews and comprehend the challenges they encountered. After obtaining ethics committee approval, a (...) cross‐sectional observational study was conducted using two validated questionnaires, one for REC member secretaries/chairpersons and another for REC members. The questionnaires consisted of 13 multiple‐choice questions, 10 yes or no questions, and 2 open‐ended questions each. The study was distributed to multiple RECs. A total of 109/200 participants, including 13 REC member secretaries, 12 chairpersons and 84 REC members from a total of 34 REC's, consented to participate in the study. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, 23/25 (92%) of the RECs conducted online meetings. The most common challenges faced by RECs included risk‐benefit analysis (12/25 RECs), review of informed consent (12/25 RECs), and protocols involving vulnerable populations (10/25 RECs). 65% of the REC members reported the need for ethics review training, and 66/84 REC members agreed or strongly agreed that RECs require training in COVID‐19 protocol review. Additionally, 62/84 REC members agreed or strongly agreed that central/joint RECs should review multicenter COVID‐19 protocols. RECs in India encountered difficulties while reviewing risk‐benefit analyses, informed consent documents (ICDs), and COVID‐19 protocols and they suggested providing training on these topics. (shrink)

"Loss of Innocence explores the sunny, innocent mood of post-War America and the budding skepticism that began to creep into the minds of an overly-credulous public in the 1950s. Taking the quiz show scandals of the 1950s and the U-2 spy incident of 1960 as examples, the book argues that these two events shook the public and began to erode their blind faith in government and institutions, creating a credibility gap that haunts us to this day"--.

Background: Ethical frameworks for organ donation following circulatory death (DCD) were established >20 years ago. However, considerable variation exists among these, indicating consensus has not been reached on all issues. Additionally, advances such as cardiac DCD transplants and normothermic regional perfusion (NRP) may have reignited old debates.Methods: We reviewed the English-language literature addressing ethical issues in DCD from 1993 to 2022, examining changes in frequency with which ethical principles and their sub-themes identified within each, were addressed.Results: Non-maleficence was the most (...) frequently addressed principle (192 of 199 articles), as well as the most varied, with 9 subthemes (versus 2-4 within each of the other bioethical principles).Conclusions: There were several changes in the terminology used to refer to DCD over time, and substantial interest in cardiac DCD and NRP in recent publications, arising in 11 and 19 of the 30 publications from 2018 to 2022. (shrink)

Caregivers’ language input supports children’s language development, and it is often tuned to the child’s current level of skill. Evidence suggests that parental input is tuned to accommodate children’s expressive language levels, but accommodation to receptive language abilities is less understood. In particular, little is known about parental sensitivity to children’s abilities to process language in real time. Compared to nonspectrum children, children on the spectrum are slower to process language. In this study, we ask: Do parents of autistic children (...) and those of nonspectrum children tune their language input to accommodate children’s different language processing abilities? Children with and without a diagnosis of autism and their parents viewed a display of six images, one of which was the target. The parent labeled the target to direct the child’s attention to it. We first examined children’s language processing abilities by assessing their latencies to shift gaze to the labeled referent; from this, we found slower latencies in the autistic group than in the nonspectrum group, in line with previous findings. We then examined features of parents’ language and found that parents in both groups produced similar language, suggesting that parents may not adjust their language input according to children’s speed of language processing. This finding suggests that capturing parental sensitivity to children’s receptive language, and specifically language processing, may enrich our models of individual differences in language input, and future work should investigate if supporting caregivers in tuning their language use according to children’s language processing can improve children’s language outcomes. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the determinants for early discontinuation among IUCD users in a rural district of northern India. Multivariate analysis indicated several significant predictors of early discontinuation of IUCD use. The risk of discontinuation increased more than two times in the presence of factors such as more than usual amount of menstrual flow before insertion and intermenstrual bleeding after insertion. Similarly, residence or alternatively those coming from villages without health centres were nearly two times more (...) likely to discontinue. Menstrual disturbance increased the risk nearly three-fold. If only those women who report normal menstrual cycles had IUCDs inserted, it is very likely that the high discontinuation rate due to menstrual disturbance could be reduced. Knowledge about the IUCD and its effectiveness decreased the risk of early discontinuation but was not a statistically significant factor in multivariate analysis. Validation of the developed model was done by using the bootstrapping method and the model was found to be 18% noisy. These findings may help family planning providers in counselling and practice. (shrink)

Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

Compendium of Advaita school in Hindu philosophy with Naiṣkarmyasiddhicandrikā by Jñānottama Miśra and Sandhyā-Sudhā Hindi commentaries.

Selection from discourses on Jaina ethics.

Study of the philosophy of Yogavāsiṣṭharāmāyaṇa, work on Vedanta philosophy.