XLRI, in association with a few Tata Group companies, established the XLRI-JRD Tata Foundation in Business Ethics in 1991 to mark their long-standing commitment and contribution to business ethics in India. The foundation seeks to address this by publicly affirming the urgent need for ethics in business and the need to bring about a conducive culture in which it can thrive.

Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices.

Endothelial cells, when cultured on gelled basement membrane matrix exert forces of tension through which they deform the matrix and at the same time they aggregate into clusters. The cells eventually form a network of cord-like structures connecting cell aggregates. In this network, almost all of the matrix has been pulled underneath the cell cords and cell clusters. This phenomenon has been proposed as a possible model for the growth and development of planar vascular systems in vitro. Our hypothesis is (...) that the matrix is reorganized and the cellular networks form as a result of traction forces exerted by the cells on the matrix and the latter's elasticity. We construct and analyze a mathematical model based on this hypothesis and examine conditions necessary for the formation of the pattern. We show cell migration is not necessary for pattern formation and that isotropic, strain-stimulated traction is sufficient to form the observed patterns. (shrink)

Professor R. J. Getty has drawn attention to a tenth- or early eleventh-century manuscript of Statius’ Thebaid, hitherto examined only in Book I, namely Turonensis . Dr. Klotz, in his Teubner edition of 1908, gave citations from Book I, and wrote , ‘dolendum est sane de hoc codice primum tantum librum innotuisse, sed cum Roffensis libri maxime affinis accuratiorem notitiam haberemus, collatione quamvis -aegre careri posse nobis visum est.’ I have collated both T and Roffensis in full, and find firstly (...) that the citations of r by Klotz are far from accurate, especially in the last six books, and secondly that while it is indeed true thatT and r are very closely related, T is a much better representative than r of their common source. (shrink)

A combination of social forces has thrown marriage into question in westernised societies at the end of the millennium. This uncertainty creates space for new ways of thinking about marriage. In this context, we examine the idea of marriage as friendship. We trace its genealogy in the work of Mary Wollstonecraft, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor and then subject it to critical scrutiny using some of Michel de Montaigne’s ideas. We ask how applicable the ideal of higher friendship is (...) to marriage and what might be gained and lost by a synthesis of marriage and friendship. Grounding the discussion in historical sources is valuable because the topic is so little explored in the contemporary philosophical literature. This approach also allows any enduring value in these historical texts to be elicited. (shrink)

Of the unusual grammatical constructions which Statius employs for the sake of variety and novel effect, among the most remarkable is his use of the ablative case. There are striking instances at Th. 8. 157, Th. 10. 309, Ach. 1. 219, Ach. 2. 129; and W. C. Summers was led to say: ‘We see some traces in Valerius of the lax use of this case which became almost a disease with Statius, who employs it for almost any kind of idea.’ (...) There are three passages in Statius which have been misinterpreted or emended through the failure to recognize a use of the ablative to which he was especially prone—the local ablative where the poetic dative of ‘motion towards’ would seem more normal. I shall first list examples of this use in Statius where there is little or no doubt about interpretation or reading, and in the light of this accumulated evidence consider the three passages which are disputed. (shrink)