This paper outlines the demographic characteristics of the Baiga tribe, one of the most primitive of the aboriginal tribal groups of Central India. The Baiga population has grown steadily since the first anthropological study of the tribe in the 1930s. Age at menarche, age at marriage, breast-feeding, and time interval between marriage and first conception are natural. There are more females than males. Sub-tribe endogamy is common; consanguineous marriage is favoured (34% of marriages are between first cousins) and marital distance (...) is low (mean 7·1 km). Though the mean menarcheal age is high (15·2 years), mean age at first marriage is low (16·6 years), giving a long reproductive period. (shrink)

The study reports on the results of an empirical investigation of the education and recruitment processes used in HIV vaccine trials conducted in South Africa. Interviews were conducted with 21 key informants involved in HIV vaccine research in South Africa and three focus groups of community advisory board members. Data analysis identified seven major themes on the relationship between education and recruitment: the process of recruitment, the combined dual role of educators and recruiters, conflicts perceived by field staff, pressure to (...) achieve recruitment targets, problems in achieving comprehension, accountability and education as capacity building. The results raise ethical concerns about the adequacy of current informed consent processes in these settings. The study findings bear directly on current debates about issues of exploitation and the scope of moral responsibilities of researchers and funding agencies to assure that HIV clinical prevention research is conducted ethically. (shrink)

In this book, Christian Barry and Sanjay G. Reddy propose ways in which the international trading system can support poor countries in promoting the well-being of their peoples.

Sri Aurobindo: the future -- Sri Aurobindo's contribution to humanity -- Sri Aurobindo's realisations -- Spirit & significance of Indian culture -- Sri Aurobindo's revelations.

Comparative study of yoga philosophy of Vemana, Telugu poet and Vijñānabhairava, Hindu Tantric text.

In the data collection phase, the digital images are captured using sensors that often contaminated by noise (undesired random signal). In digital image processing task, enhancing the image quality and reducing the noise is a central process. Image denoising effectively preserves the image edges to a higher extend in the flat regions. Several adaptive filters (median filter, Gaussian filter, fuzzy filter, etc.) have been utilized to improve the smoothness of digital image, but these filters failed to preserve the image edges (...) while removing noise. In this paper, a modified fuzzy set filter has been proposed to eliminate noise for restoring the digital image. Usually in fuzzy set filter, sixteen fuzzy rules are generated to find the noisy pixels in the digital image. In modified fuzzy set filter, a set of twenty-four fuzzy rules are generated with additional four pixel locations for determining the noisy pixels in the digital image. The additional eight fuzzy rules ease the process of finding the image pixels,whether it required averaging or not. In this scenario, the input digital images were collected from the underwater photography fish dataset. The efficiency of the modified fuzzy set filter was evaluated by varying degrees of Gaussian noise (0.01, 0.03, and 0.1 levels of Gaussian noise). For performance evaluation, Structural Similarity (SSIM), Mean Structural Similarity (MSSIM), Mean Square Error (MSE), Normalized Mean Square Error (NMSE), Universal Image Quality Index (UIQI), Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR), and Visual Information Fidelity (VIF) were used. The experimental results showed that the modified fuzzy set filter improved PSNR value up to 2-3 dB, MSSIM up to 0.12-0.03, and NMSE value up to 0.38-0.1 compared to the traditional filtering techniques. (shrink)

In spite of the remarkable progress made in the burgeoning field of social neuroscience, the neural mechanisms that underlie social encounters are only beginning to be studied and could —paradoxically— be seen as representing the ‘dark matter’ of social neuroscience. Recent conceptual and empirical developments consistently indicate the need for investigations, which allow the study of real-time social encounters in a truly interactive manner. This suggestion is based on the premise that social cognition is fundamentally different when we are in (...) interaction with others rather than merely observing them. In this article, we outline the theoretical conception of a second-person approach to other minds and review evidence from neuroimaging, psychophysiological studies and related fields to argue for the development of a second-person neuroscience, which will help neuroscience to really go social; this may also be relevant for our understanding of psychiatric disorders construed as disorders of social cognition. (shrink)

The question of how multinational enterprises respond to local corporate social responsibility expectations remains salient, also in the context of many African governments’ attempts to define and regulate business responsibilities. What determines whether MNEs respond to such local, state-driven expectations as congruent with their global commitment to CSR? Adopting an institutional logics perspective, we argue that a higher global CSR commitment will lead to higher local responsiveness when regulatory distance is low, but it will lead to lower local responsiveness when (...) regulatory distance is high. We find support for our hypothesis using data on 93 MNEs’ responses to the South African state’s Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment policy. We thus contribute to the global–local CSR literature and show how MNEs’ local CSR responsiveness will be shaped by not only the local context but also their home country and firm-internal environments. (shrink)

The question of the relation between the collective and the individual has had a long but patchy history within both philosophy and psychology. In this chapter we consider some arguments that could be adopted for the primacy of the we, and examine their conceptual and empirical implications. We argue that the we needs to be seen as a developing and dynamic identity, not as something that exists fully fledged from the start. The concept of we thus needs more nuanced and (...) differentiated treatment than currently exists, distinguishing it from the idea of a ‘common ground’ and discerning multiple senses of ‘we-ness’. At an empirical level, beginning from the shared history of human evolution and prenatal existence, a simple sense of pre-reflective we-ness, we argue, emerges from second-person I-you engagement in earliest infancy. Developmentally, experientially and conceptually, engagement remains fundamental to the we throughout its many forms, characterized by reciprocal interaction and conditioned by the normative aspects of mutual addressing. (shrink)

Critical algorithm scholarship has demonstrated the difficulties of attributing accountability for the actions and effects of algorithmic systems. In this commentary, we argue that we cannot stop at denouncing the lack of accountability for algorithms and their effects but must engage the broader systems and distributed agencies that algorithmic systems exist within; including standards, regulations, technologies, and social relations. To this end, we explore accountability in “the Generated Detective,” an algorithmically generated comic. Taking up the mantle of detectives ourselves, we (...) investigate accountability in relation to this piece of experimental fiction. We problematize efforts to effect accountability through transparency by undertaking a simple operation: asking for permission to re-publish a set of the algorithmically selected and modified words and images which make the frames of the comic. Recounting this process, we demonstrate slippage between the “complication” of the algorithm and the obscurity of the legal and institutional structures in which it exists. (shrink)

Prior research suggests that Corporate Environmental Performance enables businesses to build strong corporate image and reputation, thus leading to improved firm financial performance. However, studies relating to the relationship between CEP and firm risk are scarce. This research intends to bridge the gap in the literature by examining whether CEP helps firms to reduce their financial risk. Results of the Ordinary Least Squares regression with fixed effects provide strong evidence that environmental performance is negatively associated with firm volatility and firm (...) downside risk. The results are robust after controlling for moderating effects such as financial, institutional and environmental management. (shrink)

As a neo-liberal economy, India has become one of the new health tourism destinations, with commercial gestational surrogacy as an expanding market. Yet the Indian Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill has been pending for five years, and the guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research are somewhat vague and contradictory, resulting in self-regulated practices of fertility clinics. This paper broadly looks at clinical ethics in reproduction in the practice of surrogacy and decision-making in various procedures. Through empirical research in (...) New Delhi, the capital of India, from December 2011 to November 2012, issues of decision-making on embryo transfer, fetal reduction, and mode of delivery were identified. Interviews were carried out with doctors in eighteen ART clinics, agents from four agencies, and fourteen surrogates. In aiming to fulfil the commissioning parents’ demands, doctors were willing to go to the greatest extent possible in their medical practice. Autonomy and decision-making regarding choice of the number of embryos to transfer and the mode of delivery lay neither with commissioning parents nor surrogate mothers but mostly with doctors. In order to ensure higher success rates, surrogates faced the risk of multiple pregnancy and fetal reduction with little information regarding the risks involved. In the globalized market of commercial surrogacy in India, and with clinics compromising on ethics, there is an urgent need for formulation of regulative law for the clinical practice and maintenance of principles of reproductive ethics in order to ensure that the interests of surrogate mothers are safeguarded. (shrink)

On spiritualism through studies in Aurobindo Ghose, 1872-1950, as a way for peace.

v. 1, pt. 1. Avatarhood and human evolution.