Literary renditions of cities have always gravitated towards the spatial imagination and its ethical counterpart outside the textual space. This paper explores the multicultural geography of the North Indian city Allahabad observed through Neelum Saran Gour’s postcolonial narratives Allahabad Aria and Invisible Ink, projecting the narrative alignment of spatial aesthetics and cultural ethics. Interrogating the spatial dimensions of a “narrative world” within narrative theory and its interdisciplinary crossover with cultural geography, the article seeks to examine Gour’s literary city not simply (...) as an objective homogeneous representation, but as a “kshetra” of spatio-cultural cosmos of lived traditions, memories, experiences and collective attitudes of its people, in the context of E. V. Ramakrishnan’s theoretical reflections. The article proposes new possibilities of adapting the Indian concept “kshetra” to spatial literary studies; its aim is also to suggest a new source of knowledge about the city of Allahabad through a community introspection of “doing culture” in the texts, bringing into view people’s shared experiences, beliefs, religious practices and traditions as offshoots of the postcolonial ethos. The article aims to re-contextualize the city’s longstanding multicultural ethics in the contemporary times of crisis, which may affect a shift in the city’s relevance: from regional concern to large-scale significance within ethnically diverse South Asian countries and beyond. (shrink)

Human civilization, in its continuous evolution, remoulded itself from a biological organism to a biological and technological mixed being. Intensely developed technologies help human beings to make their bodily existence more powerful. Through body enhancement technology, human beings transform themselves into a transhuman and then to a posthuman, in an evolutionary manner. Whereas transhumanism depicts cultural, social, and mainly technological movements, posthumanism is popularized as a philosophical interpretation. Posthuman researchers make a new form of life through the amalgamation of human (...) biology and mechanical technology and portrayed it by the name ‘cyborg’. However, through such inventions, there arise some questions regarding the morality of cyborgs and its effects in the domain of human moral life. The main question addressed towards the enhancement of technology is, ‘Do cyborgs downgrade human values?’. Thus, the article focuses on how posthumanism creates its place in the recent world among other philosophical views. It is crucially important to give proper attention to posthumanism now, not only because of its recent and ongoing rise as a political and cultural force but because of the major breakthroughs that posthumanism emphasizes. Morality always stands as a firm discussion in the field of philosophy. Technological enhancements in human life bring a lot of moral questions about human life and sociocultural activity. In doing so, this article tries to light up on some ethical issues regarding posthumanism and at the same time tries to show how and why posthumanism and its morality are different from the modern or humanist approach and its ethical concepts. (shrink)

The article proposes a framework utilizing the Person–Organization fit approach to facilitate spirituality in the workplace. The article argues that spirituality can be described on a continuum varying from low to high at both individual and organizational levels. The interaction of the two continuums is then used to suggest a model to facilitate workplace spirituality. Thus, the approach is to first consider the interaction of person and situation factors and then depending on the compatibility of these two factors, look for (...) specific ways to facilitate spirituality at work. Various suggestions and examples are included to illustrate the practical implementation of our recommendations. (shrink)

The paper presents an approach to encrypt the color images using bit-level permutation and alternate logistic map. The proposed method initially segregates the color image into red, green, and blue channels, transposes the segregated channels from the pixel-plane to bit-plane, and scrambles the bit-plane matrix using Arnold cat map (ACM). Finally, the red, blue, and green channels of the scrambled image are confused and diffused by applying alternate logistic map that uses a four-dimensional Lorenz system to generate a pseudorandom number (...) sequence for the three channels. The parameters of ACM are generated with the help of Logistic-Sine map and Logistic-Tent map. The intensity values of scrambled pixels are altered by Tent-Sine map. One-dimensional and two-dimensional logistic maps are used for alternate logistic map implementation. The performance and security parameters histogram, correlation distribution, correlation coefficient, entropy, number of pixel change rate, and unified averaged changed intensity are computed to show the potential of the proposed encryption technique. (shrink)

Any problem is a problem until a solution is designed and implemented. This paper reports on a workshop that highlights preliminary work done by the working group on Gamification in the scope of European Network for Academic Integrity, which aims to explore the possibility of developing and testing a gamified learning module on academic integrity values. In this paper, the group aims to look at proposing steps we are currently using to develop storyboards of scenarios for the first phase of (...) the project, which were presented at the 6th International Conference Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond 2020 held virtually in Dubai as a workshop. The study also presents updated findings and scenarios drawn from the workshop conducted and audience feedback, in the following sections that pave the way for the future stages of the gamification process. This serves as a guide to academics and researchers in academic integrity who may wish to study gamification and apply it to develop their own modules for their learning modules. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 4, Page 1053-1101, October 2022.

ABSTRACTHate crimes in the United States have drastically increased since 2015, particularly for the American Muslim population. There was a 17% hike in hate crimes against American Muslims in 2017...

The guiding inspiration of this book is the attraction and distance that mark the relation between anthropology and philosophy. This theme is explored through encounters between individual anthropologists and particular regions of philosophy. Several of the most basic concepts of the discipline—including notions of ethics, politics, temporality, self and other, and the nature of human life—are products of a dialogue, both implicit and explicit, between anthropology and philosophy. These philosophical undercurrents in anthropology also speak to the question of what it (...) is to experience our being in a world marked by radical difference and otherness. In The Ground Between, twelve leading anthropologists offer intimate reflections on the influence of particular philosophers on their way of seeing the world, and on what ethnography has taught them about philosophy. Ethnographies of the mundane and the everyday raise fundamental issues that the contributors grapple with in both their lives and their thinking. With directness and honesty, they relate particular philosophers to matters such as how to respond to the suffering of the other, how concepts arise in the give and take of everyday life, and how to be attuned to the world through the senses. Their essays challenge the idea that philosophy is solely the province of professional philosophers, and suggest that certain modalities of being in the world might be construed as ways of doing philosophy. Contributors. João Biehl, Steven C. Caton, Vincent Crapanzano, Veena Das, Didier Fassin, Michael M. J. Fischer, Ghassan Hage, Clara Han, Michael Jackson, Arthur Kleinman, Michael Puett, Bhrigupati Singh. (shrink)

In vitro fertilization (IVF) and surrogacy have enabled many to achieve their dreams of parenthood. With a turnover of $500 million, reproductive tourism in India has helped transform the country into a “global baby factory.” However, as the surrogacy industry grew, so did concerns of women’s exploitation, commodification of motherhood, and human rights violations. In an effort to prevent women from being exploited, the Indian government had taken successive administrative measures to regulate surrogacy. The Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 and Assisted (...) Reproductive Technologies Bill 2008 were introduced in the Parliament to regulate various aspects of surrogacy arrangements. Yet, it was not until 25 January 2022, that the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 went into effect. The Act does, however, leave certain important points unaddressed. The article claims that the legislation’s purposeful exclusion of the LGBTQ population and emphasis on “familial altruism” stinks of inequity and moral conservatism. It also delineates the mechanics of altruistic surrogacy by examining documents that illustrate how the connections between money and morality are framed via the framing of altruism. The article therefore demands that a comprehensive dialogue must be held considering the socio-economic realities of Indian society, or else India risks enacting yet another law that cannot be implemented or that society dislikes. (shrink)

Contract cheating is a growing menace that most academic institutions are grappling with globally. With governments now taking steps to help combat the industry and ban such services, it is also important to encourage students to stay away from such services through proactive strategies to raise awareness so that students stop using such services. This paper uses a case study approach to capture a time-series data from three years of a university campus’s efforts to raise awareness by celebrating the International (...) Centre for Academic Integrity ‘s International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating. This is in order to explore if such campaigns can be used as tools to increase student understanding of contract cheating as an academic misconduct issue and what roles students can play in raising awareness among other students on contract cheating. Proposing to look at contract cheating as a social issue, the paper positions the misconduct as such and explores how awareness campaigns can help address contract cheating. Over the three years, results show steep increase in awareness of contract cheating, a type of academic misconduct, and that students themselves have a positive influence on other students when raising awareness. An interesting finding of the study is that graduated students have had an impact by showing responsibility to younger students and by actively denouncing contract cheating companies and their approaches on social media; thus providing solid evidence that awareness campaigns can help increase awareness which is the first step towards building a culture of integrity in any campus. (shrink)

Contract cheating is a growing menace that most academic institutions are grappling with globally. With governments now taking steps to help combat the industry and ban such services, it is also important to encourage students to stay away from such services through proactive strategies to raise awareness so that students stop using such services. This paper uses a case study approach to capture a time-series data from three years of a university campus’s efforts to raise awareness by celebrating the International (...) Centre for Academic Integrity ‘s International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating. This is in order to explore if such campaigns can be used as tools to increase student understanding of contract cheating as an academic misconduct issue and what roles students can play in raising awareness among other students on contract cheating. Proposing to look at contract cheating as a social issue, the paper positions the misconduct as such and explores how awareness campaigns can help address contract cheating. Over the three years, results show steep increase in awareness of contract cheating, a type of academic misconduct, and that students themselves have a positive influence on other students when raising awareness. An interesting finding of the study is that graduated students have had an impact by showing responsibility to younger students and by actively denouncing contract cheating companies and their approaches on social media; thus providing solid evidence that awareness campaigns can help increase awareness which is the first step towards building a culture of integrity in any campus. (shrink)

Evidence suggests a limited contribution to the total research output in leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals by researchers from the developing world. Editorial bias, quality of scientific research produced and language barriers have been attributed as possible causes for this phenomenon. The aim of this study was to understand the prevalence of editorial board members based out of low and lower-middle income countries in leading journals in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. The top 21 journals in the field of (...) obstetrics and gynaecology were selected based on their impact factor, SCImago ranking and literature search. The composition of the editorial boards of these journals was studied based on World Bank Income Criteria to understand the representation status of researchers from low and lower-middle income countries. A total of 1315 board members make up the editorial composition of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. The majority of these editors belong to high-income countries (n = 1148; 87.3%). Low (n = 6; 0.45%) and lower-middle income (n = 55; 4.18%) countries make up for a very minuscule proportion of editorial board members. Only a meagre 9 out of 21 journals have editorial board members from these countries (42.85%). Low and low-middle countries have poor representation in the editorial boards of leading obstetrics and gynaecology journals. Poor representation in research from these countries has grave consequences for a large proportion of the global population and multidisciplinary collaborative efforts must be taken to rapidly change this statistic with immediate effect. (shrink)

We propose a stochastic modification of the Schrödinger–Newton equation which takes into account the effect of extrinsic spacetime fluctuations. We use this equation to demonstrate gravitationally induced decoherence of two gaussian wave-packets, and obtain a decoherence criterion similar to those obtained in the earlier literature in the context of effects of gravity on the Schrödinger equation.

Contract cheating is a growing menace that most academic institutions are grappling with globally. With governments now taking steps to help combat the industry and ban such services, it is also important to encourage students to stay away from such services through proactive strategies to raise awareness so that students stop using such services. This paper uses a case study approach to capture a time-series data from three years of a university campus’s efforts to raise awareness by celebrating the International (...) Centre for Academic Integrity (ICAI)‘s International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating. This is in order to explore if such campaigns can be used as tools to increase student understanding of contract cheating as an academic misconduct issue and what roles students can play in raising awareness among other students on contract cheating. Proposing to look at contract cheating as a social issue, the paper positions the misconduct as such and explores how awareness campaigns can help address contract cheating. Over the three years, results show steep increase in awareness of contract cheating, a type of academic misconduct, and that students themselves have a positive influence on other students when raising awareness. An interesting finding of the study is that graduated students have had an impact by showing responsibility to younger students and by actively denouncing contract cheating companies and their approaches on social media; thus providing solid evidence that awareness campaigns can help increase awareness which is the first step towards building a culture of integrity in any campus. (shrink)

The article critically examines the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act 2021, its development process spanning 15 years, and its potential shortcomings in addressing the needs of India’s 27 million infertile couples. By scrutinizing the recommendations presented in the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare’s 129th report, the critique argues that the Act may not effectively cater to the diverse reproductive rights of the population. The article claims that most of its suggestions are in opposition to redefining families and (...) accepting inclusive family structures other than heterosexual marriages. The study posits that the Act, with its inherent limitations, perpetuates the reinforcement of patriarchal family structures that medical science intends to disrupt. In order to foster inclusivity and comprehensibility, the article advocates for necessary amendments that align with the interest of the general populace. (shrink)

In evolutionary psychology predictions, women’s mate preferences shift between fertile and nonfertile times of the month to reflect ancestral fitness benefits. Our meta-analytic test involving 58 independent reports was largely nonsupportive. Specifically, fertile women did not especially desire sex in short-term relationships with men purported to be of high genetic quality. The few significant preference shifts appeared to be research artifacts. The effects declined over time in published work, were limited to studies that used broader, less precise definitions of the (...) fertile phase, and were found only in published research. (shrink)

Cognitive impairment, alterations in mood, emotion dysregulation are just a few of the consequences of depression. Despite depression being reported as the most common mental disorder worldwide, examining depression or risks of depression is still challenging. Emotional reactivity has been observed to predict the risk of depression, but the results have been mixed for negative emotional reactivity. To better understand the emotional response conflict, we asked our participants to describe their feeling in meaningful sentences alongside reporting their reactions to the (...) emotionally evocative words. We presented a word on the screen and asked participants to perform two tasks, rate their feeling after reading the word using the self-assessment manikin scale, and describe their feeling using the property generation task. The emotional content was analyzed using a novel machine-learning algorithm approach. We performed these two tasks in blocks and randomized their order across participants. Beck Depression Inventory was used to categorize participants into self-reported non-depressed and depressed groups. Compared to the ND, the D group reported reduced positive emotional reactivity when presented with extremely pleasant words regardless of their arousal levels. However, no significant difference was observed between the D and ND groups for negative emotional reactivity. In contrast, we observed increased sadness and inclination toward low negative context from descriptive content by the D compared to the ND group. The positive content analyses showed mixed results. The contrasting results between the emotional reactivity and emotional content analyses demand further examination between cohorts of self-reported depressive symptoms, no-symptoms, and MDD patients to better examine the risks of depression and help design early interventions. (shrink)

Contributed research papers on various aspects of Hindu philosophy, Sanskrit grammar and poetics.

Given a three-valued definition of validity, which choice of three-valued truth tables for the connectives can ensure that the resulting logic coincides exactly with classical logic? We give an answer to this question for the five monotonic consequence relations $st$, $ss$, $tt$, $ss\cap tt$, and $ts$, when the connectives are negation, conjunction, and disjunction. For $ts$ and $ss\cap tt$ the answer is trivial (no scheme works), and for $ss$ and $tt$ it is straightforward (they are the collapsible schemes, in which (...) the middle value acts like one of the classical values). For $st$, the schemes in question are the Boolean normal schemes that are either monotonic or collapsible. (shrink)

Editorial de apresentação da Logeion: Filosofia da Informação.

Large language models (LLMs) are not detailed models of human linguistic processing. They are, however, extremely successful at their primary task: Providing a model for language. For this reason LLMs are important in psycholinguistics: They are useful as a practical tool, as an illustrative comparative, and philosophically, as a basis for recasting the relationship between language and thought.

O artigo verificou se após um programa de alfabetização, pessoas adulto-idosas com doenças crônicas apresentaram capacidade cognitiva à autonomia e autoconfiança aos cuidados de saúde. De método qualitativo na transversalidade com a pesquisa-ação, realizado no interior da Bahia com um grupo de mulheres, idade entre 53 a 73 anos, de um núcleo interdisciplinar de cuidados à saúde, todas com déficit de autocuidado potencializado pelo analfabetismo. Os resultados demonstraram que no ciclo vital tardio, mães/avós encontraram na alfabetização o empoderamento da cidadania (...) a da autogestão dos cuidados de si próprios. A prática educacional então, se tornou uma estratégia-chave à potencialização do letramento ao cuidado humano das pessoas relacionado à promoção de sua saúde. Palavras-chave: Alfabetização, Empoderamento, Pessoa Idosa, Cuidado de si. (shrink)

Desinformação enquanto um fenômeno social criou uma nova desordem global, onde as novas condições de produção, circulação e consumo de informação fizeram das notícias falsas um importante instrumento geoestratégico que, associado às técnicas híbridas, coloca as ações das mídias comunicacionais em sintonia na geração de notícias falsas. Analisamos a maneira como os meios de comunicação disseminam informações tomando como base cinco filtros indicados por Chomsky e Herman (2003): Filtro 1: Importância, propriedade e orientação dos benefícios dos meios de comunicação; Filtro (...) 2: A publicidade como principal fonte de renda; Filtro 3: O fornecimento de notícias para a mídia; Filtro 4: As medidas corretivas como método para disciplinar a mídia; Filtro 5: Anticomunismo como mecanismo de controle. A análise realizada demonstra que, além de notícias falsas, as notícias reais são manipuladas e orientadas para polarizar ideologicamente, requerendo uma adaptação da sociedade na construção de marcos regulatórios, ao passo que as empresas (desenvolvedoras das redes sociais, por exemplo) e seus logaritmos não conseguem contrariar as redes globais da desinformação que atravessam países, continentes e línguas. (shrink)

Inicialmente, proponho a discussão sobre as justificativas que são fornecidas para o ensino de humanidades. Analiso, em seguida, algumas dessas justificativas a partir de suas raízes filosóficas que julgo remontarem a Aristóteles e a Hegel. Identifico na estratégia enciclopédica desse último, o tipo de argumento mais usual para legitimar o ensino de humanidades ainda hoje. Indico, na seqüência, os motivos pelos quais nenhuma dessas justificativas possui, nos nossos dias, poder de convencimento. Finalmente, utilizando o diagnóstico de Lyotard sobre o mundo (...) contemporâneo, indico uma maneira alternativa de tornar o ensino de humanidades necessário sem fazer referência ao humanismo. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss Otto Neurath’s philosophy in the context of Vienna Circle modernism. Following recent scholarship, the discussion considers as a starting point Neurath’s participation at the fourth International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM IV). However, the image of Neurath’s modernism that results from this perspective is incomplete because it tends to overlook the importance of scientific utopianism in Neurath’s thought. Scientific utopianism is a methodology proposed by Neurath for the social sciences in technological contexts, in which scientists (...) elaborate and develop plans (utopias) for the transformation of society, thus contributing to an informed societal debate. Decisions are nevertheless kept outside the domain of scientific activity. I claim that recognizing the centrality of scientific utopianism in Neurath’s philosophy is fundamental to understand Neurath’s modernism. This interpretation highlights the affinities of Neurath’s philosophy of the social sciences with the modern utopianism of H. G. Wells. Both authors consider that there can be no ultimate solution to social problems but that a plural and constant debate of proposals is fundamental for the improvement of society. Therefore, Neurath’s modernism connects his philosophy of science to the literary utopian tradition. (shrink)

Human life in contemporary society is extremely complex and there are various external factors that directly affect the realization in the individual ends. In this work I analyze the effects of the global market economy, manifested by a mode of production and distribution of goods and services in the form of a global network of economic relations, which involve people, transnational corporations and political and social institutions in moral sphere of people, affecting their choices and the realization of these choices. (...) Individual freedom can be understand as a freedom to realize our choices in the environment of a global economic market, but it is still problematic in the sense that the choices of goods and services available in this market do not reflect individual choices, but a set of preferences standardized according to the market itself. In this paper I will reflect about the individual freedom in economic globalization pointing from the debate between Pettit and Berlin that social freedom advocated by Republican Petit can be satisfactory for a start. (shrink)

The Yogic literatures are replete with examples of several unique mystical experiences in deeper states of meditation. These experiences have nevertheless remained largely untouched by the scientific community, possibly because of the extreme inexplicability of such states and the lack of sophistication in evaluating them. More amenable to scientific research, however, would seem to be the simpler states of awareness in meditation such as that of inner light perception. While a few studies have attempted to explore this state by objective (...) means, the subjective experience of this state remains largely unexplored. The present study originates from an interesting sub-theme identified in an earlier study focused on interpretative phenomenological analysis of the experience of inner light perception among Vihangam Yogis. The original study found that the Yogis were very confident in differentiating their experience of inner light perception from other similar experiences. It was thus decided to use IPA to explore the clarity of the differences perceived by the Vihangam Yogis between these experiences. The present study reveals that the meditators could clearly differentiate the state colloquially termed “inner light perception” from external light perception, imagination and dreams. The meditators gave detailed descriptions of their perception of the differences between these experiences, which suggests that the subjective state of inner light perception could be quite different from that of those experiences which the authors have termed differentials of inner light perception. The conclusion reached is that, in addition to further empirical study by means of the traditional modalities and measures, vigorous qualitative study of the subjective dimensions of the state of inner light perception is warranted, with this study indicating that IPA is especially effective in the latter regard. (shrink)