Headteachers in the community schools are responsible for academic and administrative activities. They are considered role models for integrity practices. However, the situation is different on some occasions. For instance, political interest plays more important roles than qualifications, training, work experience, etc., in school affairs. In this context, a qualitative study was carried out in the purposefully selected two schools – an urban and a rural – to explore the elements that influence school integrity practices. Data collected from the schools (...) were analyzed and interpreted. The findings show that nepotism, unhealthy party politics, and impunity influence the school integrity practices in Nepal. (shrink)

Most of the existing classification techniques concentrate on learning the datasets as a single similar unit, in spite of so many differentiating attributes and complexities involved. However, traditional classification techniques are required to analyze the datasets prior to learning, and if not doing so, they loss their performance in terms of accuracy and AUC. To this end, many of the machine learning problems can be very easily solved just by carefully observing human learning and training nature and then mimicking the (...) same in the machine learning. In response to these issues, we present a comprehensive suite of experiments carefully designed to provide conclusive, reliable, and significant results to the problem of efficient learning. This paper proposes a novel, simple, and effective machine learning paradigm that explicitly exploits this important similar-to-different (S2D) human learning strategy and implements it based on two algorithms (C4.5 and CART) efficiently. The framework not only analyzes the data sets prior to implementation, but also carefully allows classifier to have a systematic study so as to mimic the human training technique designed for efficient learning. Experimental results show that the method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of learning capability and breaks through the gap between human and machine learning. In fact, the proposed similar-to-different (S2D) strategy may also be useful in efficient learning of real-world complex and high-dimensional data sets, especially which are very typical to learn with traditional classifiers. (shrink)

Precise and timely diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is important to control its progression among subjects. Currently, a neuroimaging technique called dopaminergic imaging that uses single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with 123I-Ioflupane is popular among clinicians for detecting Parkinson’s disease in early stages. Unlike other studies, which consider only low-level features like gray matter, white matter, or cerebrospinal fluid, this study explores the non-linear relation between different biomarkers (SPECT + biological) using deep learning and multivariate logistic regression. Striatal binding ratios (...) are obtained using 123I-Ioflupane SPECT scans from four brain regions which are further integrated with five biological biomarkers to increase the diagnostic accuracy. Experimental results indicate that this investigated approach can differentiate subjects with 100% accuracy. The obtained results outperform the ones reported in the literature. Furthermore, logistic regression model has been developed for estimating the Parkinson’s disease onset probability. Such models may aid clinicians in diagnosing this disease. (shrink)

This paper argues that existing food security and food sovereignty approaches are inadequate to fully understand contradictory human development, nutrition, and productivity trends in Nepalese small-scale agriculture. In an attempt to bridge this gap, we developed a new food wellbeing approach that combines insights from food security, food sovereignty, and social wellbeing perspectives. We used the approach to frame 65 semi-structured interviews in a cluster of villages in Kaski district in the mid-hills of Nepal on various aspects of food security, (...) agriculture, off-farm livelihood opportunities, and women’s wellbeing. Our results indicate that context-specific subjective and social relational factors highlighted by the food wellbeing approach are key to understanding a paradox of increased food security, yet decreasing sustainability of small-scale agriculture. Increased levels of male out-migration and opportunities for local off-farm work have increased local capacity to purchase food. The positive consequences for food security are indicated by evidence that households with non-farm income sources had better food sufficiency, absorption capacity, nutritional quality, and stability of food supply. These off-farm employment opportunities have also led to the greater involvement of low caste groups and women in small-scale agriculture. This has been empowering for both groups and led to an increase in wellbeing, particularly for those women who have become de facto heads of household. Yet, small landholdings, persistent patterns of unequal and absentee land ownership, sharecropping, women’s overwork, and the aspirations of low caste farmers and women away from agriculture are simultaneously driving the erosion of local small-scale agricultural productivity and ecological sustainability. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 46-49.

What I require is a convening of my culture's criteria, in order to confront them with my words and life as I pursue them and as I may pursue them; and at the same time to confront my words and life as I pursue them with the life my culture's words may imagine for me: to confront the culture with itself, along the lines it meets in me. Stanley Cavell.

Prior research on the impact of mandatory quotas in one dimension of diversity, on other dimensions, shows contradictory results. We seek to resolve this puzzle by relying on theory in social psychology on homophily and recategorization processes in hiring. In the context of a law mandating a gender quota on Indian boards, we predict and find that boards respond to the law by hiring new women directors who are similar to existing directors in terms of caste and community dimensions. We (...) find that this homophily effect is impactful to the extent that even high-status women directors cannot overcome it. At the aggregate level, these organizational-level practices result in caste and community inequalities remaining intact despite the introduction of 1309 new women directors. We contribute to research on inequality, board of directors, and affirmative action. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in more than 524 million cases and 6 million deaths worldwide. Various drug interventions targeting multiple stages of COVID-19 pathogenesis can significantly reduce infection-related mortality. The current within-host mathematical modeling study addresses the optimal drug regimen and efficacy of combination therapies in the treatment of COVID-19. The drugs/interventions considered include Arbidol, Remdesivir, Interferon and Lopinavir/ritonavir. It is concluded that these drugs, when administered singly or in combination, reduce the number of infected cells and viral load. (...) Four scenarios dealing with the administration of a single drug, two drugs, three drugs and all four are discussed. In all these scenarios, the optimal drug regimen is proposed based on two methods. In the first method, these medical interventions are modeled as control interventions and a corresponding objective function and optimal control problem are formulated. In this framework, the optimal drug regimen is derived. Later, using the comparative effectiveness method, the optimal drug regimen is derived based on the basic reproduction number and viral load. The average number of infected cells and viral load decreased the most when all four drugs were used together. On the other hand, the average number of susceptible cells decreased the most when Arbidol was administered alone. The basic reproduction number and viral load decreased the most when all four interventions were used together, confirming the previously obtained finding of the optimal control problem. The results of this study can help physicians make decisions about the treatment of the life-threatening COVID-19 infection. (shrink)

Gender equality continues to be important because it strengthens society. One of the efforts to promote gender equality in Indonesia is gender equality education. For Catholics in Indonesia, the existence of the 2013 Curriculum Ethics and Catholic Education (PAK Kurtilas) had a strategic role in mainstreaming gender equality education. This research used library sources to research these textbooks with adequate ethical and multicultural analysis. Here, information was conveyed through a qualitative approach through annotations and descriptive data on the texts studied. (...) According to this study, the curriculum offers instructional materials on the value of gender equality in intercultural education, which used the critical discourse analysis (CDA) technique. The textbook analysis also recommended using gender-responsive learning approaches and methods so that students could comprehensively understand the material on gender equality.Contribution: This article uses a textual analysis with a religious socio-ethical viewpoint. This study could help to solve social problems through theological education. (shrink)

Colonialism and Its Legacy brings together essays by leading scholars in both the fields of political theory and the history of political thought about European colonialism and its legacies, and postcolonial social and political theory. The essays explore the ways in which European colonial projects structured and shaped much of modern political theory, how concepts from political philosophy affected and were realized in colonial and imperial practice, and how we can understand the intellectual and social world left behind by a (...) half-millennium of European empires. (shrink)

Comparing the Bhagavad Gītā and the Buddhist essay “Prajñā is Not-knowing” (Panruo Wuzhi 般若無知) yields interesting insights. The texts have similar dialogical structures and discuss complex philosophical matters. Rhetorically, both texts weave together quotations and allusions from other texts, make liberal use of paradox, and have decidedly spiritual intentions. Their differences, though, remain striking. They emerge from distinct circumstances and their original languages (Sanskrit, Chinese) differ markedly. Stylistically, “Prajñā” is more intellectual and less devotional, espousing a distinctly “this worldly” ideal; (...) by contrast, the Gītā is more dramatic. While espousing “this worldly” ideals, the Gītā is more inclusive and thus more accessible to a broad audience; on the contrary, “Prajñā” has a subtler effect, its “dark” qualities appealing to a more select group. Therefore, while these texts are not “the same,” reading across their convergences and divergences can lead to a deeper understanding of mysticism and cross-cultural spirituality. (shrink)

The author analyses the change in the Tamil Śaiva bhakti concept of corporeality showing that understanding the body of a bhakta as the main obstacle to connecting with the body of Śiva based on the attitude of rejecting one's corporeality has much in common with Buddhist and Jain ideas about the body. Therefore, the main task of the bhakta was to liberate from his body, its elimination or transformation (remelting the physical body as an impure body, as an (...) obstacle body on the way to union with God). They solved this task in various ways, including various practices of ecstatic behaviour and self-harm. The concept of kaya siddhi put forward by Tirumūlar is the idea of a perfect body, potentially immortal and homologous to the body of Śiva. He also formulated and developed sophisticated techniques for using the physical body of a sādhaka as the primary tool for achieving liberation based on yoga techniques and working with the mind of an adept. The result achieved was presented in the description of Tirumūlar's own mystical experience. As a result, he achieved the state of the super material body of yoga-deha, the ideal of which is the manifest body of Śiva as Naṭarāja. The new iconography of Naṭarāja formed in the visionary insights of bhaktas, who described their darśans in their hymns. Then it became the basis for forming a new iconology of Naṭarāja and the cult of images of the bhaktas themselves embodied in the intensive temple construction of the Chola Empire. In combination with new ritual practices, the Tamil philosophy of Śaivism had formed as a tripartite religious and philosophical canon of Śaiva Siddhānta. This canon included the poetic canon of Śaiva bhakti (Paṉṉiru Tirumuṟai), the agamic temple ritual, and 14 philosophical treatises of Śaiva Siddhānta (Meikaṇṭar Shastras). (shrink)

Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. All are examples where humanitarian intervention has been called into action. This timely and important new volume explores the legal and moral issues which emerge when a state uses military force in order to protect innocent people from violence perpetrated or permitted by the government of that state. Humanitarian intervention can be seen as a moral duty to protect but it is also subject to misuse as a front for imperialism without regard to international law. (...) In Humanitarian Intervention, the contributors explore the many questions surrounding the issue. Is humanitarian intervention permitted by international law? If not, is it nevertheless morally permissible or morally required? Realistically, might not the main consequence of the humanitarian intervention principle be that powerful states will coerce weak ones for purposes of their own? The current debate is updated by two innovations in particular, the first being the shift of emphasis from the permissibility of intervening to the responsibility to intervene, and the second an emerging conviction that the response to humanitarian crises needs to be collective, coordinated, and preemptive. The authors shed light on the timely debate of when and how to intervene and when, if ever, not to. Contributors: Carla Bagnoli, Joseph Boyle, Anthony Coates, Thomas Franck, Brian D. Lepard, Catherine Lu, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Terry Nardin, Thomas Pogge, Melissa S. Williams, and Kok-Chor Tan. (shrink)

This book explores the key motif of the religious Other in devotional (bhakti) literatures and practices from across the Indian subcontinent. The primary aim of this book is to reconsider and challenge inherited notions of the bhakta's or devotee's Other and unmask processes of representation that involve adoption, appropriation, and rejection of different social and religious agents. The book considers the ways in which bhakti might be conceived as having an inter-regional impact--as a force, discourse, network, mythology, ethic--while critically (...) engaging with extant scholarly narratives about what bhakti is and tracing when and how those narratives have been used. The sheer diversity of South Asia's devotional traditions renders them an especially rich resource for examining social and religious fault lines, thereby furthering scholarly understanding of how communalism and sectarianism originate and develop on local or regional levels, with wider geographic implications. Bringing together studies from a subcontinent-wide variety of linguistic, geographical, and historical frames for the first time, this book will be an important contribution to the literature on bhakti, and it will be of interest to scholars of South Asian Religion and Asian Religion. (shrink)

Over the past decade cultural theory has seen a number of 'turns' - the materialist turn, the animal turn, the affective turn - that address the human as an affective, embodied, and ultimately vulnerable animal embedded in dense webs of more-than-human relations, in short as a posthuman phenomenon. Care philosophy shares this focus on embodiment and vulnerability in its insistence on interdependence as the defining condition of human life, making it well positioned for a posthuman turn. To this end, Curious (...) Kin in Fictions of Posthuman Care draws together contemporary narrative fictions that challenge humanist conceptions of care in their imaginative depiction of more-than-human affective bonds, arguing for an expansion care philosophy's central figure: the embodied, embedded, and encumbered 'human'.Fictional narratives of care between humans and robots, bioengineered creatures, clones, nonhuman animals, aliens or inanimate things, highlight the limits of humanist ethical models' capacity to register and accommodate posthuman relational intimacies, while gesturing towards a model of care able to accommodate networked interdependencies that extend beyond the human realm. Texts by Margaret Atwood, Louise Erdrich, Louisa Hall, Eva Hornung, Kazuo Ishiguro, Bhanu Kapil, and Jesmyn Ward, along with films and television programmes like Robot and Frank, Under the Skin, and Real Humans, depict a range of scenarios in which more-than-human care relations not only supersede human-human relationships, but suggest new human/animal/machine ways of being that offer novel insights into the possible presents and futures of posthuman care. Curious Kin in Fictions of Posthuman Care reveals how these fictions do their own theorizing, imagining the politics, ethics and aesthetics of specific, contextualized scenarios of posthuman contact and companionship.Interweaving posthuman theory, care philosophy and contemporary fiction, Curious Kin in Fictions of Posthuman Care offers generative visions of care that make room for the incredible range of affects, energies, behaviours, attachments and dependencies that produce and sustain life in more-than-human worlds. (shrink)