Can strikes by resident doctors training to become consultants in Indian public-sector teaching hospitals be ethical? These hospitals were established for the medical care of the very poor in a country where health insurance and a national health service are nonexistent. In such a situation, the paralysis of tertiary healthcare centers by striking doctors runs contrary to the raison d'être of the profession. It also violates the first dictum of medicine: Primum,nonnocere. And although there is some discussion in the Western (...) literature on strikes by doctors, authorities in India are silent on the subject. (shrink)

As the introduction and lead article for a special issue of Theory, Culture & Society, ‘Neutral Life/Late Barthes’, this article offers an overview of the ‘new’ Barthes that emerges from the late writings and recent ‘Barthes Studies’. The account centres upon the posthumous publication of Barthes’ three key lecture courses delivered at the Collège de France, at the end of the 1970s, which reflect his preoccupation with the everyday, yet reveal a new degree of sophistication, both formal and conceptual. Presented (...) in their original note form, the lectures present perhaps the clearest affirmative project of Barthes’ entire career. The Neutral in particular is pivotal in understanding an ethics of the late works. While Barthes is perhaps most cited for his rumination on the temporality of the photograph, the lecture courses give rise to an ethics of space and distance, rather than of time and telos. Crucially, for Barthes, the Neutral is not neutrality; it is not divestment, but ‘an ardent, burning activity’. In establishing Barthes’ ethics of a Neutral Life, the articles closes – with reference to Derrida’s mourning of Barthes – with a reminder to read Barthes again, or rather a reminder of our current postponed reading of him. (shrink)

_Disaster Psychiatry: Intervening When Nightmares Come True_ captures the state of disaster psychiatry in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This emergent psychiatric specialty, which is increasingly separated from trauma and grief psychiatry on one hand and military psychiatry on the other, provides psychotherapeutic assistance to victims during, and in the weeks and months following, major disasters. As such, disaster psychiatrists must operate in the widely varying locales in which natural and man-made disasters occur, and they (...) must establish their role among the chaotic array of organizations involved in direct disaster response. Editors Anand Pandya and Craig Katz have captured the challenge and promise of disaster psychiatry through first-person narratives. We hear from psychiatrists who have encountered disasters at various stages of their career and in widely varying social, political, and personal contexts. Accounts of psychiatric involvement with adults and children during and after 9/11 have understandable pride of place in this collection. But they are balanced by richly informative narratives about other domestic and international disasters. Fraught with the drama attendant to the events they describe, these essays delineate the dizzying array of challenges that confront the disaster psychiatrist. They range from the intense emotional responses that are part of the aftermath of any disaster, to the need to legitimize a psychiatric presence within diverse cultural and medical contexts, to the subtle task of providing therapeutic boundaries at a time when all rules seem to be suspended. Special attention is given to the daunting task of working with children whose parents' are disaster victims. What emerges from these testimonies is compelling documentation of skilled and compassionate psychiatrists at the outer limits of their specialty, pursuing their calling into uncharted realms of therapeutic engagement. (shrink)

The study explored the role of moral identity in the civic engagement of youth through ethical ideology. A total of 217 individuals comprising of 104 girls and 113 boys completed three scales, namely, moral identity scale, ethics position questionnaire and civic engagement scale.The results showed that moral identity internalization significantly predicted civic engagement attitude and moral identity symbolization significantly predicted civic engagement behaviour. Furthermore, idealism partially mediated the relationship between moral identity and civic engagement.

The introduction of the notion of family resemblance represented a major shift in Wittgenstein’s thoughts on the meaning of words, moving away from a belief that words were well defined, to a view that words denoted less well defined categories of meaning. This paper presents the use of the notion of family resemblance in the area of machine learning as an example of the benefits that can accrue from adopting the kind of paradigm shift taken by Wittgenstein. The paper presents (...) a model capable of learning exemplars using the principle of family resemblance and adopting Bayesian networks for a representation of exemplars. An empirical evaluation is presented on three data sets and shows promising results that suggest that previous assumptions about the way we categories need reopening. (shrink)

In ‘Zones of Indeterminacy: Art, Body and Politics in Daoist Thought’, Peng Yu foregrounds the concept of Xu from Zhuangzi’s philosophical writings, and relates this to questions about the political body. Xu refers to a Daoist notion of ambiguity, though it remains unclear as to how to fully define the term. The article explores its meaning through reference to debates of the body, but also liubai painting, which refers to the idea of ‘leaving blankness’, associated with Chinese ink painting. For (...) Peng Yu, the notion of Xu can help us to consider a ‘politics of indeterminacy’ – a means of redefining the status of subject within power structures, or rather a radical re-articulation of how we refer to power relations in the first place. In this interview, with Sunil Manghani and Cheng-Chu Weng, Peng Yu outlines and elaborates upon the main themes of the article. (shrink)

The concept of governmentality has a textual and philosophical basis as well as being concerned with what might be called the practices of government. This article discusses and develops the governmentality argument with respect to the guru-led movements. It outlines the basics of Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, its analytical frame, the fact that governmentality moves beyond only the practices of the state and its nuances in a neoliberal frame of reference, drawing on Zygmunt Bauman and others. It then discusses (...) the governmentality of guru-led movements through: (1) the political acts and powers of the gurus; (2) the supplementary and complementary efforts to aid the state by the guru-led movements; (3) instances of resistance and taking on the state, and (4) the flipside of governmentality, which manifests as hegemony, Hindutva politics and Hindu nationalism. Through the governmentality argument, aspects of the surveillance, discipline, control, interactivity and competition of the guru-led movements emerge. What is discussed is a post-disciplinary model of governance which devolves power downwards from crumbling state institutions to new agencies of control, in this case, the gurus and their institutions. This devolution, however, is not without its tensions and the article also argues that guru governmentality betrays traces of hybridity and non-linearity. (shrink)

I have reviewed briefly persons who have influenced me during my years as a student of medicine and to date. I have been blessed in my teachers and owe everything I am to them. The chief lessons they taught me were integrity, sincerity, the need to keep learning and practice ethically keeping the welfare of the patient in mind all the time. Above all, they taught me to observe the Golden Rule**.

The importance of Levinas’ notions of sensibility and subjectivity are evident in the revision of phenomenological method by current phenomenologists such as Jean-Luc Marion and Michel Henry. The criticisms of key tenants of classical phenomenology, intentionality and reduction, are of a particular note. However, there are problems with Levinas’ characterization of subjectivity as essentially sensible. In “Totality and Infinity” and “Otherwise than Being”, Levinas criticizes and recasts a traditional notion of subjectivity, particularly the notion of the subject as the first (...) and foremost rational subject. The subject in Levinas’ works is characterized more by its sensibility and affectedness than by its capacity to reason or affect its world. Levinas ties rationality to economy and suggests an alternative notion of reason that leads to his analysis of the ethical relation as the face-to-face encounter. The ‘origin’ of the social relation is located not in our capacity to know but rather in a sensibility that is diametrically opposed to the reason understood as economy. I argue that the opposition in Levinas’ thought between reason and sensibility is problematic and essentially leads to a self-conflicted subject. In fact, it would seem that violence characterizes the subject’s self-relation and, thus, is also inscribed at the base of the social relation. Rather than overcoming a problematic tendency to dualistic thought in philosophy Levinas merely reverses traditional hierarchies of reason/emotion, subject/object and self/other. (shrink)

In this paper I have examined the Saibaba phenomenon which originated in India and now has a global influence. Through fieldwork, I build on the life and works of three faith teachers (gurus) who have contributed to the Sai movement to forward my thesis that sociality and hence tangible social service is an important means to gain legitimacy, social standing and as a response to late modernity. I begin by giving an overview of the Sai phenomena and its peculiarities in (...) terms of syncretism, bricolage and aspects of global proliferation. I then discuss how sociality is a strategy for this genre of faith movement and its implications. Finally I propose that sociality has become a metaphor of Sai sacrality. (shrink)

This article is based on field work with the Vivekananda Kendra in Kanyakumari, India. The Vivekananda Kendra is a Hindu spiritual organization founded in 1972, based on principles promoted by Swami Vivekananda. The organization’s members translate Vivekananda’s Vedanta and Yoga ideals into national reconstruction. The efforts of Eknath Ranade as the key transmitter of Vivekananda’s ideals, the way he effectively wove austerity, renunciation, and service to realize them, and the Kendra’s strategy of social service and its effects are discussed. In (...) particular, the Kendra’s social service is analyzed on the basis of its social consciousness, its views on social issues and gender, its Hindu nationalist stance, and its relationship with the establishment and the global political economy. This critical discourse highlights the Kendra’s emphasis on Vedantic socialism as opposed to traditional socialism. The lenses by which the Kendra views society are gendered and ethnonationalist. It deals with matters of justice, equity, and state relations from a benevolent patriarchal vantage point. (shrink)

Treatment of diseases of the brain by drugs or surgery necessitates an understanding of its structure and functions. The philosophical neurosurgeon soon encounters difficulties when localising the abstract concepts of mind and soul within the tangible 1300-gram organ containing 100 billion neurones. Hippocrates had focused attention on the brain as the seat of the mind. The tabula rasa postulated by Aristotle cannot be localised to a particular part of the brain with the confidence that we can localise spoken speech to (...) Broca's area or the movement of limbs to the contralateral motor cortex. Galen's localisation of imagination, reasoning, judgement and memory in the cerebral ventricles collapsed once it was evident that the functional units-neurones-lay in the parenchyma of the brain. Experiences gained from accidental injuries (Phineas Gage) or temporal lobe resection (William Beecher Scoville); studies on how we see and hear and more recent data from functional magnetic resonance studies have made us aware of the extensive network of neurones in the cerebral hemispheres that subserve the functions of the mind. The soul or atman, credited with the ability to enliven the body, was located by ancient anatomists and philosophers in the lungs or heart, in the pineal gland (Descartes), and generally in the brain. When the deeper parts of the brain came within the reach of neurosurgeons, the brainstem proved exceptionally delicate and vulnerable. The concept of brain death after irreversible damage to it has made all of us aware of 'the cocktail of brain soup and spark' in the brainstem so necessary for life. If there be a soul in each of us, surely, it is enshrined here. (shrink)

Medical practice is based on teaching, learning and examples set by seniors. Past and present practices are briefly analysed. Current trends do not justify optimism. The poor patient is likely to be sidelined as doctors reach out to the rich and powerful in this country and those bringing in American dollars from abroad. While corrective steps are possible, it is unlikely that they will be implemented.

By his own admission, Roland Barthes was seemingly remiss in not placing Georges Bataille within his account of ‘zero degree’ writing. This article draws inference from this fact, but specifically examines commonalities between Bataille’s heterology and Barthes’ late project on the Neutral. The article works through Barthes’ two key articles on Bataille, ‘The Metaphor of the Eye’ and ‘Outcomes of the Text’, and also considers Bataille’s statement on informe, a concept that can be said to resonate with Barthes’ use of (...) the Neutral. Neither term refers to specific ‘forms’, but rather an ‘operation’ of writing, as a means of undoing knowledge without its disavowal. An account is given of the commonalities of Bataille’s ‘general economy’ and what might be termed Barthes’ Neutral economy. Emphasis is placed upon their practice of writing as ethical responses in the ‘preparations’ of knowledge: to be judicious to what forms in and around knowledge, allowing as much for pauses as the possibilities of thought. (shrink)

This article examines the work of internet activist and artist Paolo Cirio, whose practice intersects with matters of copyright, privacy, transparency and corporate finance. His project Loophole for All, for example, exposes the practice of tax evasion in the Cayman Islands by counterfeiting Certificate of Incorporation documents. An important aspect of Cirio’s work is how he names himself in the process. Placed within our contemporary ‘data turn’, his work is framed critically in this article in terms of a ‘new structuralist’ (...) account of culture and society. The article attends to the view that power increasingly comes through the algorithm, but argues that we risk reifying so-called generative rules, which may simply be algorithms out of sight. Cirio’s art practice helps focus on what it means to make a critique of contemporary and ubiquitous algorithm structures. As part of this, the article considers how ‘anonymity’ underlies subversive art practices of the 20th century and contemporary protest groups, but that this anonymity arguably undermines attempts to effect change. (shrink)

This article shows how the construction of transnational migrant communities across international borders poses a challenge to the assumed "natural" isomorphism of space, nations, and cultures that typically exists in theories of cultural and cross-cultural psychology. One of the principal aims of this article is to add to the critical impulse that initially defined the vision of cultural psychology by analyzing how transnational diaspora communities have become new sites for the rethinking of core concepts such as culture, self, nation and (...) identity. By drawing on Gupta and Ferguson's work, I present three important ways through which cultural theorizing can be reconfigured in the present transnational context. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Quantum mechanics makes some very significant observations about nature. Unfortunately, these observations remain a mystery because they do not fit into and/or cannot be explained through classical mechanics. However, we can still explore the philosophical and practical implications of these observations. This article aims to explain philosophical and practical implications of one of the most important observations of quantum mechanics – uncertainty or the arbitrariness in the behavior of particles.

This article suggests that Tagore’s conception of cosmopolitan education can provide the basis for advancing matters of global social justice, when considering the problem posed by Nancy Fraser in her essay ‘Reframing Justice in a Globalizing World’: ‘How can we integrate struggles against maldistribution, misrecognition and misrepresentation within a post-Westphalian frame?’. To this end, the article briefly reflects on the perspective of cosmopolitanism, setting the scene for an exploration of Tagore’s distinctive cosmopolitan educational philosophy. The article develops the argument that (...) framing pedagogy centred on Tagore’s principles of cosmopolitan education to produce cosmopolitan-minded citizens can help bring about social, political, and economic change at local, national, and international level, in order to integrate the three-dimensional struggle for social justice outlined by Fraser. The article concludes by suggesting what can be done at the institutional and curriculum levels to help foster the cosmopolitan attitude. (shrink)

ABSTRACT At first glance, a military life and practising Buddhism may seem like two pursuits at odds. Buddhism sets the moral bar very high and nowhere in its teachings can one find any evidence in support of violence, whether in word, thought or deed. One could therefore argue that Buddhism and the military are two strange bedfellows, and some may find it difficult to conceive of serving in the military whilst adhering to the ethos, values and standards of Buddhism. This (...) article challenges this popular myth and resolves this apparent paradox between Buddhism and the military. By drawing on canonical Buddhist teachings as well as voices from the Sangha and Buddhist military practitioners, we demystify the ‘Buddhist soldier’ and clear common misconceptions regarding: the fundamental teachings of ahiṃsā, karma and skilful (kusala) action; Buddhist teachings being equated to pacifism; the duty of soldiers and the State to protect; soldiering as a ‘right livelihood’; and the karmic implications of military professions. Using international humanitarian law, the body of law regulating the conduct of war, as a natural reference point, we explore what guidance Buddhist teachings provide to soldiers and how they potentially can contribute towards reducing suffering in war, including through application in military training. Buddhism endorses the concept of maintaining disciplined, virtuous and skilled military forces to protect what is good. At all times one needs to aim at not causing suffering to others, but never at the expense of preventing even worse suffering. (shrink)

This commentary introduces a section of the journal titled ‘Notes on Structuralism’. It centres around two interviews. The first, from 1987, is with the structural anthropologist Mary Douglas (who speaks on various aspects of her work, including on Purity and Danger). The second is an interview with Roland Barthes, who, speaking in 1965, was at the height of his structuralist phase. The interview focuses upon the structural analysis of narrative and prefigures the well-known volume of Communications on the subject. The (...) interviews are supplemented with introductions and: a commentary on Barthes’ interview by Jonathan Culler, who contextualizes the development of Barthes’ thinking around narrative (as it leads to the publication of S/Z), The article concludes with reflections on structuralism with regards to contemporary practices of big data, AI and large language models. (shrink)

Documenting how the Japanese state responded to increasing social discontent during initiation of unpopular welfare reforms, this study examines the factors that hindered the political empowerment of civil society despite the timely introduction of participatory policymaking institutions. The Japanese government opted in the early 2000s to introduce a participatory method to initiate the unpopular pension reform. Deliberation councils were established to encourage open discussions among government policymakers and committee members, including citizen representatives. The final outcomes of the deliberations, however, were (...) mostly about parametric adjustments and did not adequately consider the urgent demand of the general public. The participatory measure did not significantly improve the public's trust in the pension programs, but it did justify the government's reform initiatives. The welfare bureaucracy that set the goal, defined the scope of the agenda, and steered the discussions toward technical issues structurally restricted the voices of the citizen members in the deliberation councils. The lack of citizen advocacy groups, which could otherwise have effectively supported the citizen members on the committee, contributed to the limited roles and influences of the citizens. It is argued that the traditional conservative corporatism of Japan was reinforced during this time period, despite the introduction of the idea of participatory governance. (shrink)

Lab VIEW is frameworks designing programming for applications that require test, estimation, and control with fast access to equipment and information experiences. Lab VIEW By National Instruments is very good graphical programming tool for Engineers. Lab VIEW can be interface may peripheral devices for getting data from surrounding, different type of sensors and other hardware. In this Paper we are showing interfacing of PLC to Lab VIEW software for our application.

Successfully creating polarizing narratives, several populist leaders have come to dominate the global political sphere in recent times. However, the coronavirus pandemic has raised serious questions over their ability to respond to its challenges effectively. Whether they will remain in power after the pandemic is an intriguing question. The key to understanding the dynamics of power among populist leaders lies in analyzing the tactics they employ for the appropriation of political power. In this context, reading Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great (...) (1587) can play an important role. This essay, therefore, argues that through a unique characterization of Tamburlaine the Great, Marlowe critiques Queen Elizabeth’s aggressive political maneuvers of improvisation, which enabled her to reinforce her divine claim over the throne of England. Yet striking historical and literary references suggest that Queen Elizabeth and Marlowe’s Tamburlaine attempted to achieve improvisation through similar means but in the end encountered the transience and limits of their temporal powers, while facing the biological realities of barrenness and heredity – a fact that should serve as a warning to the current populist leaders across the world. (shrink)

The article examines the nature of mobile phone text messaging, or `txting', in the context of a discourse of love. It draws links between the txt message and the much older, revered form of love messaging, Japanese tanka poetry. In cutting across both a historical and technological divide, it seeks to elucidate a more subtle understanding of how text messaging — from a literary perspective — plays its part in amorous exchange and argues how it has the capacity to enable (...) individuals to affirm their own private thoughts, feelings and anxieties. Taking a cue from Michel Foucault's late work, concerned with the philosophical precept of `care of the self', the article argues that these differing forms of exchange — as `tender' technologies of the self and inter-subjectivity — go beyond any one medium or age of media. Aspects of our relationships are worked out in the silent confines of being alone with text and, in the case today, with text messaging, making for the potential of a new poetics of time and space. While we cannot free ourselves from the lover's code or discourse, there is the potential for an affirmation of our part in its production, which prompts a question about how we might go on to research the currently missing archive of text messaging. (shrink)

This text was first published in Theory, Culture & Society, May 13, 2015. For a special issue of Body & Society on ‘Rhythm, Movement, Embodiment', Paola Crespi presents two previously untranslated texts, Rudolf Bode's ‘Rhythm and its Importance for Education' and Rudolf Laban's ‘Eurhythmy and Kakorhythmy'. In the following interview she uncovers further unpublished and untranslated sources and she discusses some of the main themes of these texts in relation to the more widely known text - Danse, théâtre et spectacle (...) vivant – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

The vital data about the electrical activities of the brain are carried by the electroencephalography signals. The recordings of the electrical activity of brain neurons in a rhythmic and spontaneous manner from the scalp surface are measured by EEG. One of the most important aspects in the field of neuroscience and neural engineering is EEG signal analysis, as it aids significantly in dealing with the commercial applications as well. To uncover the highly useful information for neural classification activities, EEG studies (...) incorporated with machine learning provide good results. In this study, a Fusion Hybrid Model with Singular Value Decomposition Based Estimation of Robust Parameters is proposed for efficient feature extraction of the biosignals and to understand the essential information it has for analyzing the brain functionality. The essential features in terms of parameter components are extracted using the developed hybrid model, and a specialized hybrid swarm technique called Hybrid Differential Particle Artificial Bee algorithm is proposed for feature selection. To make the EEG more practical and to be used in a plethora of applications, the robust classification of these signals is necessary thereby relying less on the trained professionals. Therefore, the classification is done initially using the proposed Zero Inflated Poisson Mixture Regression Model and then it is also classified with a deep learning methodology, and the results are compared with other standard machine learning techniques. This proposed flow of methodology is validated on a few standard Biosignal datasets, and finally, a good classification accuracy of 98.79% is obtained for epileptic dataset and 98.35% is obtained for schizophrenia dataset. (shrink)

The volume brings to life a number of the conference themes including corporate social responsibility, culture, academic integrity, vulnerability, health, military ethics, education, leadership, sustainability and philosophy and addresses concerns of many leading applied ethicists.

This article presents a novel control approach, hybrid neuro-fuzzy, for the load frequency control of a four-area interconnected power system. The advantage of this controller is that it can handle nonlinearities, and at the same time, it is faster than other existing controllers. The effectiveness of the proposed controller in increasing the damping of local and inter-area modes of oscillation is demonstrated in a four-area interconnected power system. Areas 1 and 2 consist of a thermal reheat power plant, whereas Areas (...) 3 and 4 consist of a hydropower plant. Performance evaluation is carried out by using fuzzy, artificial neural network, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system, and conventional proportional and integral control approaches. Four different models with different controllers are developed and simulated, and performance evaluations are carried out with said controllers. The result shows that the intelligent HNF controller has improved dynamic response and is at the same time faster than ANN, fuzzy, and conventional PI controllers. (shrink)

Blending classic wisdom with over 100 pop culture references, Singh whimsically switches the lens in this book from the traditional society teaching math to a new and bold math teaching society. With charming buoyancy and intimacy, he takes us on an emotional and surprising journey through the deepest goldmine of mathematics—our personal happiness.