Scientists, Engineers, Technocrats, Academicians, and Researchers have a vital role to play in the process of emergence of new theories, models, systems, and technologies. They also have a responsibility to harness these for common good and strive to prevent their possible ill effects in the era of rapid growth in technologies. ICM2ST-10 will play a significant role in generating awareness about the potential and the limitations of new technologies, concepts, theories, and trends. The chief objective of ICM2ST-10 is to bring (...) together experts from industries, academia, R&D institutions and other user communities on a common platform to discuss and share their expertise and experiences. (shrink)

Real life applications and case studies -- Commmunication and computing systems -- Mobile and ubiquitous computing -- Electrical and electronics systems -- Green computing and e-waste minimizations -- Image processing and applications -- Material science & technology -- Wired and wireless networks.

This book studies the history of intercultural human rights. It examines the foundational elements of human rights in the East and the West and provides a comparative analysis of the independent streams of thought originating from the two different geographic spaces. It traces the genesis of the idea of human rights back to ancient Indian and Greco-Roman texts, especially concepts such as the Rigvedic universal moral law, the Upanishadic narratives, the Romans' model of governance, the rule of law, and administration (...) of justice. It also looks at Cicero's concept of rights and duties which focuses on quality of compassion and fair play, and Seneca's expositions on mercy, empathy, justice and checks on the arbitrary exercise of power. An important contribution, this book fills a significant gap in the study of human rights. It will be useful for students and researchers of political science, ancient history, religion and civilizations, philosophy, history, human rights, governance, law, sociology, and South Asian studies. The book also caters to general readers interested in the history of human rights. (shrink)

In nearly ninety A-Z entries, Transcendence provides a multilayered look at the accelerating advances in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, genomics, information technology, nanotechnology, neuroscience, space exploration, synthetic biology, robotics, and virtual worlds that are making transhumanism a reality. Entries range from Cloning and Cyborg Feminism to Designer Babies and Memory-Editing Drugs. In addition, the book notes historical predecessors and personalities, both in mythology and history--ranging from Timothy Leary to Ray Kurzweil. It also introduces the culture around transhumanism, covering all the (...) geeky obsessions of the transhumanist movement"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In the face of environmental crises such as climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss—which all adversely impact on health—Gils-Schmidt and Salloch explore whether physicians can be justified in taking climate issues into account in clinical care.1 While their approach centres on the ‘climate-sensitive’ decisions, physicians can carry out on the micro-level of clinical decision-making, they encourage further discussions on how climate-related issues can be included across different levels of decision-making in healthcare. We propose a list of tasks and a model (...) to assist with navigating the range of factors and structural elements an environmentally sensitive ethics must address. Stephen Gardiner’s notion of a perfect moral storm is central to understanding these issues.2 Gardiner describes how a perfect moral storm occurs in the centre of three overlapping conditions for human action and policymaking in the face of climate change. This storm is driven by: (1) a lack of interest among current generations to meet global needs and accommodate the well-being of future generations, (2) a lack of ecological concerns for other parts of nature than humans and (3) weak ethical and political theories and institutions shaping policy decisions on issues with severe implications across borders and generations. Moreover, these conditions are embedded in the existing, complex world of ethically unjustified power imbalances and social injustice. The growing awareness of healthcare’s climate footprint has amplified and accelerated global, grassroots action to make healthcare more environmentally friendly. This includes incorporating environmental impacts into quality improvement methodologies, building communities of practice to explore how to make …. (shrink)

The catch 22 situation in psychiatry is that for precise diagnostic categories/criteria, we need precise investigative tests, and for precise investigative tests, we need precise diagnostic criteria/categories; and precision in both diagnostics and investigative tests is nonexistent at present. The effort to establish clarity often results in a fresh maze of evidence. In finding the way forward, it is tempting to abandon the scientific method, but that is not possible, since we deal with real human psychopathology, not just concepts to (...) speculate over. Search for clear-cut definitions/diagnostic criteria in psychiatry must be relentless. There is a greater need to be ruthless and blunt in this, rather than being accommodative of diverse opinions. Investigative tests - psychological, serum, CSF, or neuroimaging - are only corroborative at present; they need to become definitive. Medicalisation appears most prominent in psychiatry; so, diagnostic proliferation and fuzziness appear inevitable. And yet, the established diagnostic entities need to forward greater and conclusive precision. Also, the need for clarity and precision must outweigh pandering to and mollifying diverse interests, moreso in the upcoming revision of diagnostic manuals. This is specially because the DSM-5, being an Association manual, may need to accommodate powerful member lobbies; and ICD-11 may similarly need to cater to diverse country lobbies. Finding precise biological correlates of psychiatric phenomena, whether through neuroimaging, molecular neurobiology and/or neurogenomics, is the right way forward. It is in the 1.5-kg structure in the cranium that all secrets of psychiatric conditions lie. Social forces, behavioural modification, psychosocial restructuring, study of intrapsychic processes, and philosophical insights are not to be discounted, but they are supplementary to the primary goal - studying and deciphering those brain processes that result in psychiatric malfunction. Experimental breakthroughs, both in psychiatric aetiology and therapeutics, will come mainly from biology and its adjunct, psychopharmacology; while supplementary and complementary breakthroughs will come from the psychosocial, cognitive and behavioural approaches; the support base will come from phenomenology, epidemiology, nosology and diagnostics; while insights and leads can hopefully come from many fields, especially the psychosocial, the behavioural, the cognitive and the philosophical. Major energies must now be marshalled towards finding biomarkers and deciphering the precise phenotype-genotype-endophenotype axis of psychiatric disorders. Energies also need to be focussed on unravelling those critical processes in the brain that tip the scale towards psychiatric disorders. At how those critical processes are set into motion by forces de novo, in utero, in the genes and their expression, by the environment's psychopathological social forces - stress, peer pressure, poverty, deprivation, alienation, malnutrition, discrimination of various types (caste, gender, race, etc.), mass conflicts (war, terror attacks, etc.), disasters (natural and man-made), religious/ideological fascism - or social institutions like marriage, family, work place, political governance, etc. Ultimately, we must decipher how the brain goes into malfunction when such varied forces impinge on it, which precise cortical areas and neuronal cellular and molecular processes are involved in such malfunction and its manifestation, as also which of these are involved when malfunction ceases and health is restored, and the psychosocial processes and institutions which aid such health restoration, as also those which promote well-being and help in primary prevention. Emphasis on the brain and its intimate neurological and molecular mechanisms will not impinge on, or nullify, importance of the 'mind,' wherein subtle and gross brain functions in the form of behaviour, thought and emotions in all their ramifications will continue to be the focus of psychological, cognitive, sociological, psychopharmacological, behavioural and philosophical research. Progress in brain research must move in tandem with progress in 'mind' research. (shrink)

Brain, Mind and Consciousness are the research concerns of psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, cognitive neuroscientists and philosophers. All of them are working in different and important ways to understand the workings of the brain, the mysteries of the mind and to grasp that elusive concept called consciousness. Although they are all justified in forwarding their respective researches, it is also necessary to integrate these diverse appearing understandings and try and get a comprehensive perspective that is, hopefully, more than the sum of (...) their parts. There is also the need to understand what each one is doing, and by the other, to understand each other's basic and fundamental ideological and foundational underpinnings. This must be followed by a comprehensive and critical dialogue between the respective disciplines. Moreover, the concept of mind and consciousness in Indian thought needs careful delineation and critical/evidential enquiry to make it internationally relevant. The brain-mind dyad must be understood, with brain as the structural correlate of the mind, and mind as the functional correlate of the brain. To understand human experience, we need a triad of external environment, internal environment and a consciousness that makes sense of both. We need to evolve a consensus on the definition of consciousness, for which a working definition in the form of a Consciousness Tetrad of Default, Aware, Operational and Evolved Consciousness is presented. It is equally necessary to understand the connection between physical changes in the brain and mental operations, and thereby untangle and comprehend the lattice of mental operations. Interdisciplinary work and knowledge sharing, in an atmosphere of healthy give and take of ideas, and with a view to understand the significance of each other's work, and also to critically evaluate the present corpus of knowledge from these diverse appearing fields, and then carry forward from there in a spirit of cooperative but evidential and critical enquiry - this is the goal for this monograph, and the work to follow. (shrink)

Summary Liberals, from Mill to Rawls see personal autonomy as paramount in civil society. They see human dignity to consist essentially in personal autonomy, that is, ?in the ability of each person to determine for himself or herself a view of the good life? (Taylor, C. (1992) p. 27). Multiculturalism and ?The Politics of Recognition? p. 57 (Princeton, Princeton University Press). This emphasis on personal autonomy underlies much of liberal emphasis on freedom of conscience, justice, rights and fairness. Its core (...) thesis is that a just society seeks not to promote any particular view of the good life, but enables its citizens to pursue their own ends consistent with a similar liberty for all others. Yet, when some citizens in America attempted to pursue their own view of the good life, they came up against head?on conflict with the liberal state. These groups saw civic education with its emphasis on individual choice, on reflecting and weighing of alternative viewpoints and on personal autonomy, as threatening to their way of life and to their fundamental religious beliefs, and consequently they challenged the state in the courts. What ensued raised profound educational problems for educating children, parental rights, and the right of the State in a liberal democratic society, which are discussed in this paper. (shrink)

_The first part called the Preamble tackles: (a) the issues of silence and speech, and life and disease; (b) whether we need to know some or all of the truth, and how are exact science and philosophical reason related; (c) the phenomenon of Why, How, and What; (d) how are mind and brain related; (e) what is robust eclecticism, empirical/scientific enquiry, replicability/refutability, and the role of diagnosis and medical model in psychiatry; (f) bioethics and the four principles of beneficence, non-malfeasance, (...) autonomy, and justice; (g) the four concepts of disease, illness, sickness, and disorder; how confusion is confounded by these concepts but clarity is imperative if we want to make sense out of them; and how psychiatry is an interim medical discipline. The second part called The Issues deals with: (a) the concepts of nature and nurture; the biological and the psychosocial; and psychiatric disease and brain pathophysiology; (b) biology, Freud and the reinvention of psychiatry; (c) critics of psychiatry, mind-body problem and paradigm shifts in psychiatry; (d) the biological, the psychoanalytic, the psychosocial and the cognitive; (e) the issues of clarity, reductionism, and integration; (f) what are the fool-proof criteria, which are false leads, and what is the need for questioning assumptions in psychiatry. The third part is called Psychiatric Disorder, Psychiatric Ethics, and Psychiatry Connected Disciplines. It includes topics like (a) psychiatric disorder, mental health, and mental phenomena; (b) issues in psychiatric ethics; (c) social psychiatry, liaison psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, forensic psychiatry, and neuropsychiatry. The fourth part is called Antipsychiatry, Blunting Creativity, etc. It includes topics like (a) antipsychiatry revisited; (b) basic arguments of antipsychiatry, Szasz, etc.; (c) psychiatric classification and value judgment; (d) conformity, labeling, and blunting creativity. The fifth part is called The Role of Philosophy, Religion, and Spirituality in Psychiatry. It includes topics like (a) relevance of philosophy to psychiatry; (b) psychiatry, religion, spirituality, and culture; (c) ancient Indian concepts and contemporary psychiatry; (d) Indian holism and Western reductionism; (e) science, humanism, and the nomothetic-idiographic orientation. The last part, called Final Goal, talks of the need for a grand unified theory. The whole discussion is put in the form of refutable points._. (shrink)

_Hinduism, as an institution, offers very little to the poor and underprivileged within its fold. This is one of the prime reasons for voluntary conversion of Hindus from among its members. B.R. Ambedkar and A.R. Rahman provide poignant examples of how lack of education and health facilities for the underprivileged within its fold, respectively, led to their conversion. This can be countered by a movement to provide large-scale quality health [hospitals/PHCs] and educational [schools/colleges] facilities run by Hindu mission organisations spread (...) over the cities and districts of India. A four point-four phase programmme is presented here to outline how this can be achieved. Those who have the genuine interests of Hinduism at heart will have to set such an agenda before them rather than strident and violent affirmations of its glories. One can understand the reasons for such stridency, but it is time it got converted into constructive affirmative action to keep the flock._. (shrink)

The connections between death, contemplation and the contemplative life have been a recurrent theme in the canons of both western and eastern philosophical thought. This book examines the classical sources of this philosophical literature, in particular Plato's Phaedo and the Katha Upanishad and then proceeds to a sustained analysis and critical assessment of the sources and standpoints of a single thinker, Arthur Schopenhauer, whose work comprehensively pursues this problem. The book traces the pivotal issue of death through the whole range (...) of Schopenhauer's writings uncovering the deeper connotations of his crucial notion of the will-to-live. (shrink)

While liberals see personal autonomy as paramount in civil society and as intrinsic to human dignity and human rights, others, such as communitarians, see group rights as intrinsic to human development and human welfare. Thus, while generally liberals give no or very little place in their thinking to right-bearing groups or collective entities, others see communities as conditions for self-fulfilment and individual freedom. This paper explores these two positions and argues that a cultural, pluralist, democratic society will be characterised by (...) a diversity of controversial moral positions at a range of levels. The paper offers discussion as a method of reconciling controversial moral positions, in general and in classrooms, in particular. (shrink)

Bhakti is a remarkable feature and tendency of human existence having to do with one's devoted involvement with a person, object, deity, or a creative project. Bhakti and Philosophy aims to trace the larger meanings and roles of bhakti as it historically emerged in some of the well-known thought systems of India, such as Vedanta and Buddhism.