A book on the notion of fundamental length, covering issues in the philosophy of math, metaphysics, and the history and the philosophy of modern physics, from classical electrodynamics to current theories of quantum gravity. Published (2014) in Cambridge University Press.

Pt. 1. The individual and his creator. The fear of God in our time -- Natural morality -- In-depth Torah study -- Levels of mitzvot -- The personal element in serving God -- Religious experience -- Naturalness in the worship of God -- The significance of Torah values -- Tension vs. tranquility in the worship of God -- Pt. 2. The individual and society. Fundamentals of prayer -- Derekh eretz, being a mensch -- "I dwell among my people" -- The (...) obligation to sanctify God's name -- Attending to the needs of the community -- The message beyond mere words -- How to relate to one who has lost his faith -- Pt. 3. The individual and his life. Humanity -- Dealing with crisis -- Adhering to values -- Independent decision-making. (shrink)

Brings together the most recent discoveries in quantum physics and provides a powerful argument for transforming not only the way we view nature, but also how we view our own personal reality. The book also challenges readers to give up their prejudices regarding material realism.

The present study was motivated by the hypothesis that inputs from internal states in obsessive–compulsive individuals are attenuated, which could be one source of the pervasive doubting and checking in OCD. Participants who were high or low in OC tendencies were asked to produce specific levels of muscle tension with and without biofeedback, and their accuracy in producing the required muscle tension levels was assessed. As predicted, high OC participants performed more poorly than low OC participants on this task when (...) biofeedback was not available. When biofeedback was provided, the difference between the groups was eliminated, and withdrawing the monitor again reversed this effect. Finally, when given the opportunity, high OC participants were more likely than low OC participants to request biofeedback. These results suggest that doubt in OCD may be grounded in a real and general deficiency in accessing internal states. (shrink)

This article deals with the question of which kinds of deceptions vitiate consent to sexual relations. More specifically, it addresses the question of which characteristics of the perpetrator (e.g. their identity, wealth, or marital status), of their relations with the victim (e.g. marriage, long-term intentions), or of the sexual act itself (e.g. protected) vitiate consent when deception is involved. In this proposal, we offer our view on how this question should be answered: the criminalisation of deceptive sex should be cautiously (...) extended to include deception regarding any characteristic of the deceiver or the relationship on which the deceived’s consent was conditional, where the deceiver was aware of this conditionality. To support our proposal, we examine the different definitions of “deceptive sex” and diverse legal approaches taken to its criminalisation in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel, and discuss their respective merits and shortcomings. Surprisingly, different jurisdictions take strikingly different stances on these matters. This diversity ranges from the narrow definition of traditional English law (and its more opaque contemporary version in England, Canada, and Israel) to the minimalist approach of the German system. To counter the risk of over-criminalisation inherent in our proposal, we also propose using an offence lighter than rape and criminalising only those deceivers who actively lied and whose actual knowledge of the victim’s hypothetical refusal can be proven beyond reasonable doubt. Overall, while our proposal would cautiously extend the criminalisation of deceptive sex to some types of cases that are currently not criminalised, it would also significantly limit the criminalisation of deceptive sex by enhancing the requirements regarding both the accused’s actus reus and their mens rea. (shrink)

I want to compliment the author on the obvious care and expertise with which he assembled this text. If I were to teach a yearlong graduate-level electromagnetism course, I would use this book.

This book introduces readers to the concept of the neutrosophic set which can deal with dynamic and complex decision-making problems. With the complexity of the socio-economic environment, today's decision-making is one of the most notable ventures, whose mission is to decide the best alternative under numerous known or unknown criteria. This book provides a large amount of theoretical and practical information about the latest research in the field, allowing readers to gain an extensive understanding of both the fundamentals and applications (...) of neutrosophic sets to solve different kinds of decision-making problems and mathematical programming such as medical diagnosis, pattern recognition, construction problems, technology selection etc. (shrink)

Whenever a litigant needs to prove that a certain result was caused in a specific way, what could be more compelling than citing the infinitesimal probability of that result emanating from an alternative natural cause? Contrary to this intuitive position, in the present article, I argue that the contention that a result was due to a certain cause should remain unaffected by statistical evidence of the extremely low probability of an alternative cause. The only scenario in which the low probability (...) of a natural cause would be relevant to the case at hand is if it were contrasted with another piece of statistical evidence: the frequency of the criminal activity among people who are similar to the accused. However, by connecting the use of probabilistic generalisations in legal fact-finding to the issue of free will, I hold that, in Criminal Law, contrasting frequencies in this manner is objectionable—as a matter of principle—regardless of how reliable the statistical analysis is. Consequently, if the low probability of a natural cause is probative only if contrasted with another piece of statistical evidence that is objectionable, then neither piece of evidence should be admitted in criminal trials. (shrink)

An individual’s accountability to oneself leads to self-regulatory behaviour. A field experiment afforded an opportunity to test this relation, given that external accountability conditions were absent. A single group pre-test/post-test design was used to test the hypothesis. A group of full-time resident management students, n ≈ 550, take four meals during the day in the institute mess. As a part of the experiment, food wastage in the form of leftovers on the plates of subjects was measured. As a pre-test, the (...) measurement occurred at two levels. Subjects could see how much they are adding to the total waste by looking at a weighing scale placed under a waste basket, and they could also see the total waste data for each of the four meals for the day and a day earlier displayed at a prominent place. After 105 days, the weighing scale under the basket was removed, and as a post-test measurement, the total waste data for the four meals were noted down for another 72 days. A manipulation test indicated that the experiment has had the desired effect of invoking self-accountability in subjects during the pre-test phase, and diluting it during the post-test phase. Time series analysis of pre-test and post-test data indicated that the wastage data decreased in the pre-test phase. However, the post-test waste data showed an increase over a period of time. The results indicate that accountability conditions like social norms invoke self-accountability cognition leading to self-regulatory behaviours in individuals. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 4 Seiten: 568-588.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Five Poems AMIT MAJMUDAR Observing Orpheus I hear the meaning turn back in his throat like Eurydice on the way up from the darkness. Music’s meaning is its making. As for me, I am one more animal in his entourage, learning a new thirst, finding a new south. None of us knew we had this instinct in us. If deserts hide wildflowers until first rain, bright ears are (...) blossoming out of our skulls. He doesn’t have much longer. I know this myth. A God douses the fire with a beehive. The Maenads smear their faces with a warpaint made of stoneground fireflies and pine sap. Hands—hands like his, that drew music through lyre strings into our forest like pieces of bread through a prison fence— are reaching for his body now, his lyre. Their weapons are hands, nothing but hands. They are infinite. They are enough. arion 27.1 spring/summer 2019 Her Metamorphoses First a beetle, body armor forged of chitin, exoskeleton he’ll never bruise, Undiscovered, unapologetically hermetic on her own Galapagos. Next a fruit bat, echolocating tangerines like a blind woman singing up at stars. Then a patio lizard, sunning herself for as long as she needs, A better place for keeping warm than bed with him. Next a sleek water moccasin, quick to make out another woman’s heat signature on his neck, Even quicker to strike. A caterpillar to poke holes in his lying roses And from that destruction to fashion two beautiful wings for herself. A buzzard, to clean up the roadside pile he left of her. A woman in full with no more soft blind pupa stages of her life cycle left, No more forms to force herself to fit for the sake of his pleasure, No more shapeshifts, no more slimming stripes, no more abdominal crunches: Just this body, just this last name, just this apartment, just this bowl of midnight cereal. Just her. 106 five poems Sisyphus Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent Till your boulder goes weightless and races ahead in descent. Force its dark door open inch by grim inch, Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent, Heels dug deep in hell’s steep hillside, teeth clenched. What gravity strips from you, gravity grants you again. Shove hard, shove, shove hard, eyes bloodshot, knees bent Till your body goes weightless and races ahead in ascent. Amit Majmudar 107 A Trinket for Persephone A deathwatch beetle burrows in the pale hall of your marrow, your underground, your tube of bone on which you’re riding home alone. This blackwinged locket with your soul emerges rattling from a hole, a rattle in your emptied throat, the diva’s final, graceless notes, a clicking echoed in the rafters, this bugbear insect coming after to scuttle across the marshy chest, sinkhole navel, and pubic nest out to the yard, below the porch untrackable by any torch until this bug with you inside has burrowed to the other side. It drops into the underworld, as if from some cocoon unfurled, to scale a queenly wrist and rest your brooch of black upon her breast. 108 five poems Four Ways of Looking at Argus 1. His Vigil These hundred eyes, these hundred balloons Tied to the boy-small wrist of my mind Are down to ninety-nine. I lost one to a bee sting late last June— I never thought of them as fragile Until that pinprick broke my vigil. I’m slowing down. I didn’t blink in time. I have no inkling why I keep This vigil—surely not to watch, Panoptic from this mountaintop, A heifer drifting off to sleep? I’m here, I must be here, to see A signal fire from the east That warns of Olympus under siege And Ares gory from a rout, Athena’s owl’s eyes gouged out, The naiads naked in a pen, The whole world given up to men. The Gods will need a monster then. 2. After Martial Hermes was in a fix: He needed lullabies To shutter Argus’s one hundred eyes And get the tethered heifer—coal-eyed Io—free Of Hera’s... (shrink)

This study examines unethical purchasing practices from the perspective of buyer–supplier relationships. Based on a review of the inter-organizational literature and qualitative data from in-depth interviews with purchase managers from diverse industries, a conceptual framework is proposed, and theoretical arguments leading to propositions are presented. Taking into consideration the presence or absence of an explicit or implicit company policy sanctioning ethically questionable activities, unethical purchasing practices are conceptualized as a three-tiered set. Three broad themes emerge from the analysis toward explaining (...) purchasing ethics from a buyer–seller perspective: Inter-organizational power issues, Inter-organizational relational issues, and Interpersonal relational issues. Theoretical and managerial implications of the conceptual framework are discussed. (shrink)

A recent advent has been seen in the usage of Internet of things (IoT) for autonomous devices for exchange of data. A large number of transformers are required to distribute the power over a wide area. To ensure the normal operation of transformer, live detection and fault diagnosis methods of power transformers are studied. This article presents an IoT-based approach for condition monitoring and controlling a large number of distribution transformers utilized in a power distribution network. In this article, the (...) vibration analysis method is used to carry out the research. The results show that the accuracy of the improved diagnosis algorithm is 99.01, 100, and 100% for normal, aging, and fault transformers. The system designed in this article can effectively monitor the healthy operation of power transformers in remote and real-time. The safety, stability, and reliability of transformer operation are improved. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 2, February 2022.

This article explores the way Levinas communicates his ethical message through the media at work in his work: speech, writing, and rare references to modern media. Levinas's ethical message concerns the import of the relation with the other, a relation that interrupts any attempt at its thematization, including Levinas's own philosophy. Levinas's text serves as an exemplary medium for this ethical message in conveying the teaching of ethics along with the interruption it advocates. The article then extends the logic of (...) the ethical message beyond the two key media present in Levinas's work—speech and writing—to speculate on whether the interruption it effects can be carried over to audiovisual media. Running throughout is the question of mediation, which takes the discussion outside the context of the face to face, where Levinas's thought is typically situated, to the context of the third and of justice. Levinas's thought may thus lead toward a radical ethics of media—radical in the sense that it posits the act of mediation itself as the root of such ethics. (shrink)

Following the lead of von Neumann and Wigner, Goswami has developed a paradox-free interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the idealistic notion that consciousness collapes the quantum wave function. This solution of quantum measurement theory sheds a considerable amount of light on the nature of consciousness. Quantum theory is applied to the mind-brain problem and a solution is proposed for the paradox of the causal potency of the conscious mind and of self-reference. Cognitive and neurophysiological data in support of the (...) present theory are also reviewed. (shrink)

Turning the attention to the temporal as well as the more familiar spatial dimensions of mobility, this volume focuses on the momentum for and temporal composition of mobility, the rate at which people enact or deploy their movements as well as the conditions under which these moves are being marshalled, represented and contested. This is an anthropological exploration of temporality as a form of action, a process of actively modulating or responding to how people are moving rather than the more (...) usual focus in mobility studies on where they are heading. (shrink)

Recent studies in psychiatry reveal an acceptance of trauma through the media. Traditionally restricted to immediate experience, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is now expanding to include mediated experience. How did this development come about? How does mediated trauma manifest itself? What are its consequences? This essay addresses these questions through three cases: (1) ‘trauma film paradigm’, an early 1960s research program that employed films to simulate traumatic effects; (2) the psychiatric study into the clinical effects of watching catastrophic events on (...) television, culminating with the September 11 attacks; (3) reports on drone operators who exhibit PTSD symptoms after flying combat missions away from the war zone. The recognition of mediated trauma marks a qualitative change in the understanding of media effects, rendering the impact literal and the consequences clinical. What informs recent speculations about the possibility of trauma through media is a conceptual link between visual media and contemporary conceptions of trauma. (shrink)

The authors use the theoretical notion of anomie to examine the impact of top management's control mechanisms on the environment of the marketing function. Based on a literature review and in-depth field interviews with marketing managers in diverse industries, a conceptual model is proposed that incorporates the two managerial control mechanisms, viz. output and process control, and relates their distinctive influence to anomie in the marketing function. Three contingency variables, i.e., resource scarcity, power, and ethics codification, are proposed to moderate (...) the relationship between control mechanisms and anomie. The authors also argue for the link between anomic environments and the propensity of unethical marketing practices to occur. Theoretical and managerial implications of the proposed conceptual model are discussed. (shrink)

It is shown that if quantum physics is interpreted according to the philosophy of monistic idealism--that consciousness is the ground of all being--then some of the important dualisms of philosophy can be integrated.

Although various factors have been studied for their influence on consumers’ ethical judgments, the role of incidental emotions has received relatively less attention. Recent research in consumer behavior has focused on studying the effect of specific incidental emotions on various aspects of consumer decision making. This paper investigates the effect of two negative, incidental emotional states of anger and fear on ethical judgment in a consumer context using a passive unethical behavior scenario. The paper presents two experimental studies. Study 1 (...) focuses on the interaction of moral intensity and incidental emotion state in predicting the ethical judgment while study 2 investigates the underlying causal mechanism behind the process, using a mediation analysis. The results reveal a significant interaction between moral intensity and incidental emotion. Specifically, individuals in the state of incidental fear exhibit higher levels of ethical judgment as the moral intensity increases as compared to individuals in the state of incidental anger. Further, perceived control is found to mediate the relationship between emotional state and ethical judgment under higher moral intensity condition. (shrink)

In the wake of the current financial crises triggered by risky mortgage-backed securities, the question of ethics and risk-taking is once again at the front and center for both practitioners and academics. Although risk-taking is considered an integral part of strategic decision-making, sometimes firms could be propelled to take risks driven by reasons other than calculated strategic choices. The authors argue that a firm's risk-taking propensity is impacted by its ethical climate (egoistic or benevolent) and its emphasis on output control (...) to manage its marketing function. The firm's long-term orientation is argued to moderate the control–risk propensity relationship. The authors also extend research on risk and performance and argue that the association of risk-taking propensity and firm performance is contingent on the ownership (publicly traded versus privately held) structure of the firm. Based on survey data from a sample of manufacturing industries in the United States, the results show significant impact of ethical climate and marketing output control on a firm's risk-taking propensity; also risk-taking propensity shows a stronger association with firm performance in privately held firms than in publicly traded firms. (shrink)

Assume that a person who is suspected of either murdering X or raping Y credibly and voluntarily confesses to have committed ‘a terrible crime’ but immediately after this utterance decides to remain silent. The remaining available evidence cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt the exact offence which he committed. Should such an accused be acquitted of both offences and evade the law or should a way be found to allow a conviction, although no specific offence can be proven beyond reasonable doubt? (...) Harel and Porat suggest that such an accused should be convicted of an unspecific offence. This paper reaches entirely different conclusions, according to which the prevailing insistence of most Criminal justice systems on offence specificity is justified. It is argued that offence specificity stems from the cognitive psychological difficulties associated with simulating the event in question if the accused is convicted of an unspecific offence. The reason is that fact-finders are unable to simulate the details of an unspecific offence while retaining a confidence level sufficiently high to satisfy the standard of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. The fact-finder faces a choice between a proven offence which is difficult to simulate and a group of unproven offences which are easy to simulate. These difficulties also give rise to a more solid expressivist justification for offence specificity than that conceded by Harel and Porat. Unspecific offences undermine the efficacy of condemnation because the message that corresponding convictions would broadcast to members of the public would be either blurred and ineffective or based on scenarios none of which was proven beyond reasonable doubt. This paper therefore offers two independent justifications for the prevailing insistence on offence specificity, both of which are based on the cognitive psychological difficulties of simulation, as found by the fact-finder and the public respectively. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the incisive counter-arguments against Gaṅgeśa’s defense of non-conceptual perception offered by the Dvaita Vedānta scholar Vyāsatīrtha in his Destructive Dance of Dialectic. The details of Vyāsatīrtha’s arguments have gone largely unnoticed by subsequent Navya Nyāya thinkers, as well as by contemporary scholars engaged in a debate over the role of non-conceptual perception in Nyāya epistemology. Vyāsatīrtha thoroughly undercuts the inductive evidence supporting Gaṅgeśa’s main inferential proof of non-conceptual perception, and shows that Gaṅgeśa has no basis for thinking (...) that non-conceptual perception has any necessary causal role in generating concept-laden perceptual awareness. He further raises a number of internal inconsistencies and undesirable consequences for Gaṅgeśa’s claim that non-conceptual states are introspectively invisible. His own causal theory of perception is more parsimonious than the Nyāya account, and is equally compatible with direct realism. I conclude by noting several striking parallels between Vyāsatīrtha’s views and the conceptualism of John McDowell, while also suggesting that Vyāsatīrtha's own conceptualism is not unduly constrained by some of McDowell’s limiting assumptions about concepts and perceptual contents. (shrink)

מנושאי הספר: האדם ויוצרו, האדם והחברה, האדם וחייו.

Purpose This research aims to study the coping experience of visually impaired bankers in India after they have received reasonable accommodation from their employers, that is, the work process or environment has been suitably modified to ensure a barrier-free environment for them. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 VI bankers working with public sector banks in India. A phenomenological approach was adopted during data analysis. Findings Despite the provision of reasonable accommodations, VI employees often find it difficult (...) to fulfill their job responsibilities. This is on account of extensive paperwork required for completion of their jobs and the partially accessible information systems available to them. As a result, these VI employees are found resorting to workarounds to carry out their jobs, with the nature of workarounds adopted varying with the type and extent of visual impairment. Furthermore, it is observed that VI employees require social support not only from their superiors and peers but also from their subordinates and customers to carry out their tasks. Research limitations/implications Data collection was done through snowball sampling which could have resulted in sampling bias. Due to confidentiality issues, observation of workarounds in practice by VI employees could not be carried out as part of the study. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature on integration of persons with disabilities by examining their coping experience after provision of reasonable accommodations. It emphasizes the role of workarounds, an under-studied area in PwD integration, as well as support of other stakeholders in the experience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.2 (2001) 71-84 [Access article in PDF] Freedom from Speech (or the Silent Demand) Amit Pinchevski Speak, you also, speak as the last, have your say. —Paul Celan, "Speak, You Also" The language of awaiting—perhaps it is silent, but it doesnot separate speaking and silence; it makes of silencealready a kind of speaking; already it says in silence thespeaking that silence is. For mortal silence does not (...) keep still. —Maurice Blanchot, The Writing of the DisasterWhereas ethical questions have challenged concepts of self, identity, and society, the concept of freedom of speech—and its place in recent discussions on pluralism and multiculturalism—has remained largely unproblematized. The challenge I wish to propose here does not touch directly on the positive right to speak, nor on the limitations impeding free speech, but rather on the other side of speaking, on the Other's side of this freedom. Does the concept of freedom of speech carry in itself and as such an ethical significance?Freedom of speech has been an important element in modern social philosophy, occupying the works of traditional liberalists such as John Stuart Mill, progressive thinkers like John Dewey and Walter Lippmann, as well as the critical pragmatist Jurgen Habermas, to name but a few. Such accounts regarded the freedom of speech as a social practice based on the stature of the speaking self, on its innate right to speak and to be heard. It is the right to a "podium"—a space and a time in the public sphere—and the right to declare a priori: "I have something to say important enough for others to hear." Hence, the first word of this speech is an assertion of importance, not only of the speech per se, but also the importance of the speaker: self-importance. Is this kind of speaker interested in something beyond his or her fully legitimate right and ability to perform as speaker? Is there any room for the silent Other? Moreover, doesn't the practice of freedom of speech tacitly presuppose that someone else is already relegated to listening, to the passive side of this action? If this is indeed true, such a way of communicating would be, to use Gemma Corradi Fiumara's thoughtful insight, a reduced-by-half notion of logos—an address by the one who knows how to speak but does not (need to) know how to listen [54-55]. A halved model of speaker and address would thereby constitute only half of an ethical discourse. The remaining half would lie where speech does not eclipse the Other's silence, where the Other's silence has its "say." How can [End Page 71] one speak and still hear the Other's call, whether silent or audible? And even more importantly, what is the Other's silence "saying"?It is my contention that free speech is never carried out in an "Otherless" sphere, that is, untainted by the Other's demand to be responded to. It follows that the moral veneration invested in the concept of free speech implies a certain heedlessness of otherness, and that radically free speech is self-absolved from its fundamental response-ability rather than rightfully free. A responsible speaker (or writer) may then be viewed as the one whose freedom to speak is exposed to the Other's demands, and for whom this freedom is his or her onus to respond to the Other's call. The witness speaks for someone who cannot speak for him- or herself; the witness's freedom of expression is subjected to the responsibility for Others. One remarkable witness was the writer Primo Levi, who devoted his life to responding to the living and to the dead: his greatest burden was his freedom to speak. Perhaps delaying or deferring the emergence of the speaking self might thereby allow the Other's call to emerge and summon witnessing. Beyond Speech Acknowledging the existence of Others in every address depends upon developing a sense of otherness, that is, sensitivity to the Other. It requires an awareness of the fundamental setting in which an... (shrink)

The neurophysiological evidence from the Miyashita group's experiments on monkeys as well as cognitive experience common to us all suggests that local neuronal spike rate distributions might persist in the absence of their eliciting stimulus. In Hebb's cell-assembly theory, learning dynamics stabilize such self-maintaining reverberations. Quasi-quantitive modeling of the experimental data on internal representations in association-cortex modules identifies the reverberations (delay spike activity) as the internal code (representation). This leads to cognitive and neurophysiological predictions, many following directly from the language (...) used to describe the activity in the experimental delay period, others from the details of how the model captures the properties of the internal representations. (shrink)

According to Kant’s dictum, morality leads inescapably to religion. Notably, this implies two unavoidable shifts: From ‘morality’ to the ‘religion of reason’ and from the ‘religion of reason’ to ‘positive religions’ (‘revelation’). I explain the grounds for each shift, focusing on the different kinds of necessity involved. I then analyze Fichte’s Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung (1792), which mainly addresses the second shift, discussed only briefly by Kant. As I show, whereas for Kant revelation is conditioned by a prior free (...) determination of the will, for Fichte it obtains a primordial status. I explain how Fichte’s approach fills in the Kantian gap between the concept of God, which seems to exclude the possibility of revelation, and the unavoidable human need to assume such an occurrence. (shrink)

In his essay on theodicy, Kant explicitly claims that while the disproportion between crime and punishment poses a theodicean challenge concerning God’s justice, the suffering of the righteous is compatible with God’s justice [Gerechtigkeit], goodness [Gütigkeit], and holiness [Heiligkeit]. In light of this, Kant’s reason for addressing the book of Job in this context is puzzling. However, the location of Job’s story in the text reveals that Job’s suffering is rendered relevant only concerning the relation between two of God’s moral (...) attributes: goodness as subordinated to holiness, i.e., God’s benevolence [Güte]. Implications concern the difference between ‘authentic’ and ‘doctrinal’ theodicy. (shrink)

In the agriculture development and growth, the efficient machinery and equipment plays an important role. Various research studies are involved in the implementation of the research and patents to aid the smart agriculture and authors and reviewers that machine leaning technologies are providing the best support for this growth. To explore machine learning technology and machine learning algorithms, the most of the applications are studied based on the swarm intelligence optimization. An optimized V3CFOA-RF model is built through V3CFOA. The algorithm (...) is tested in the data set collected concerning rice pests, later analyzed and compared in detail with other existing algorithms. The research result shows that the model and algorithm proposed are not only more accurate in recognition and prediction, but also solve the time lagging problem to a degree. The model and algorithm helped realize a higher accuracy in crop pest prediction, which ensures a more stable and higher output of rice. Thus they can be employed as an important decision-making instrument in the agricultural production sector. (shrink)

The field of Science and Technology Studies has long critiqued the idea that there is such a thing as a universal and singular ""Science"" that exists independently of human society, interpretation, and action. But surprisingly little attention has been paid to the colonial contexts in which the scientific endeavor has been practiced and on which scientific principles have been built. In this important book, Amit Prasad seeks to rectify this erasure, demonstrating that problematic idealized imaginaries of science, scientists, and (...) the scientific realm can be traced back to the birth of ""modern science"" during European colonialism. Such visions of science and technology have undergirded the imagination of the West (and thus its others), constructing hierarchies of technological innovation and scientific value, but also unexpectedly leaving society vulnerable to contemporary threats of misinformation and conspiracy theories, as has been strikingly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Far from being an indictment of STS, this rigorous book seeks to highlight such concerns to make STS engage more carefully with issues of colonialism and thus to enable readers to understand the rapidly changing global topography of science and technology today, and into the future. (shrink)

The popularity of concept of spirituality is increasing exponentially in the field of human resource management. Both academicians and practitioners are looking at spirituality to solve modern day human resource challenges. Spirituality at work is about search for meaning or higher purpose, connectedness and transcendence. The present research article addresses conceptual and empirical gap using the concept of workplace spirituality and empirically examines relationship between workplace spirituality and employee commitment, job satisfaction and work–life balance satisfaction. The article successfully augments literature (...) by suggesting one more dimension of Indian spiritual values. This is one of the pioneer studies that used necessary condition analysis to explore workplace spirituality. Workplace spirituality was reported as a necessary determinant of employee commitment, job satisfaction and work–life balance satisfaction. Relationship between these variables is further investigated through correlation matrix and regression analysis. (shrink)