In the present study, ordinary kriging and support vector machine have been used to develop three dimensional site characterization model of an alluvial site based on standard penetration test results. The SVM is a novel type of learning machine based on statistical learning theory, uses regression technique by introducing ε-insensitive loss function has been adopted. The knowledge of the semivariogram of the SPT values is used in the ordinary kriging method to predict the N values at any point in the (...) subsurface of the site where field measurements are not available. The comparison between the SVM and ordinary kriging model demonstrates that the SVM model is superior to ordinary kriging model in predicting N values in the site. (shrink)

An important question in epistemology is whether the KK principle is true, i.e., whether an agent who knows that p is also thereby in a position to know that she knows that p. We explain how a “transparency” account of self-knowledge, which maintains that we learn about our attitudes towards a proposition by reflecting not on ourselves but rather on that very proposition, supports an affirmative answer. In particular, we show that such an account allows us to reconcile a version (...) of the KK principle with an “externalist” or “reliabilist” conception of knowledge commonly thought to make that principle particularly problematic. (shrink)

With some exceptions, it appears that the non-incarcerated world spends little time, if any at all, thinking about how prisoners are treated, whether during detainment or incarceration, after release, or when being put to state-sanctioned death. Of course, in part this is understandable, as the processes of punishment for breaking the social contract have moved from being public spectacle (once serving as a display of the sovereign’s power and as simultaneous warning and entertainment for lookers-on) to a private and “strange (...) scientifico-juridical complex” (Foucault 1995, 19) with the veneer of “modernity” and “civility,” theoretically drawing a clear line between the horrors of the crimes committed and those of the punishment (Sarat 2014). But even in the 21st century, the distinction is fuzzy at best. Incarcerated populations around the globe continue to be at greater risk of infectious diseases than non-incarcerated persons in the same communities (see da Cruz and Rich 2014), prison .. (shrink)

In this essay, my aim is to explain Vātsyāyana’s solution to a problem that arises for his theory of liberation. For him and most Nyāya philosophers after him, liberation consists in the absolute cessation of pain. Since this requires freedom from embodied existence, it also results in the absolute cessation of pleasure. How, then, can agents like us be rationally motivated to seek liberation? Vātsyāyana’s solution depends on what I will call the Pain Principle, i.e., the principle that we should (...) treat all aspects of our embodied existence as pain. If we were to follow this advice, we would come to apply the label of pain to all aspects of our embodied existence, including pleasure. This would undermine our attachment to our own embodied existence. I show that this fits with Vātsyāyana’s general theory of motivation. According to this theory, by manipulating the labels using which we think about the world and ourselves, we can induce radical shifts in our patterns of motivation. (shrink)

This paper establishes a dialogue between the later works of Wittgenstein, those of Cavell and the novels of J. M. Coetzee concerning the problem of violence, authority and the authoritative voice. By drawing on J. M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians and Diary of a Bad Year, the paper discusses lessons and insights on the nature of violence and the ways in which it can be accepted as “normal.” The term “normalization” is used in order to show how violence and (...) cruelty can become a “form of life” that develops according to its own actors, cultural practices and legitimacies. (shrink)

This paper is about a tension between two theses. The first is Value of Evidence: roughly, the thesis that it is always rational for an agent to gather and use cost‐free evidence for making decisions. The second is Rationality of Imprecision: the thesis that an agent can be rationally required to adopt doxastic states that are imprecise, i.e., not representable by a single credence function. While others have noticed this tension, I offer a new diagnosis of it. I show that (...) it arises when an agent with an imprecise doxastic state engages in an unreflective inquiry, an inquiry where they revise their beliefs using an updating rule that doesn't satisfy a weak reflection principle. In such an unreflective inquiry, certain synchronic norms of instrumental rationality can make it instrumentally irrational for an agent to gather and use cost‐free evidence. I then go on to propose a diachronic norm of instrumental rationality that preserves Value of Evidence in unreflective inquiries. This, I suggest, may help us reconcile this thesis with Rationality of Imprecision. (shrink)

The search for definitions is ubiquitous in Sanskrit philosophy. In many texts across traditions, we find philosophers presenting their theories by laying down definitions of key theoretical categories, by testing those definitions, and by refuting competing definitions of the same theoretical categories. Call this the method of definitions. The aim of this essay is to explore a challenge that arises for this method: the paradox of definitions. It arises from the claim that the method of definitions is either (i) redundant (...) because it does not provide us any knowledge that we did not already possess, or (ii) impossible to successfully pursue because it leads to an infinite regress. Neither of these alternatives should be acceptable to the defender of this method. To focus our discussion, I will show how this challenge arose for—and was arguably resolved by—early Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thinkers active in the first millennium CE and at the very beginning of the second millennium. In response to the paradox of definitions, these Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thinkers claimed that the purpose of a definition is to remove either metaphysical ignorance about the distinction between theoretically significant kinds or kind-membership, or metalinguistic ignorance about the meaning or the application-conditions of theoretically significant terms. I will show how this discussion helps us to ward off certain misconceptions about the method of definitions in Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika. (shrink)

We read with interest Dominic Wilkinson’s article “Frailty Triage: Is Rationing Intensive Medical Treatment on the Grounds of Frailty Ethical?” on the utility of the Clinical Frailty Score in...

In this article, I cast doubt on an apparent truism, namely, that if evidence is available for gathering and use at a negligible cost, then it’s always instrumentally rational for us to gather that evidence and use it for making decisions. Call this ‘value of information’ (VOI). I show that VOI conflicts with two other plausible theses. The first is the view that an agent’s evidence can entail non-trivial propositions about the external world. The second is the view that epistemic (...) rationality requires us to update our credences by conditionalization. These two theses, given some plausible assumptions, make room for rationally biased inquiries where VOI fails. I go on to argue that this is bad news for defenders of VOI. (shrink)

Judith Butler's The Force of Nonviolence attempts a creative mapping of the forces of nonviolence. With leading thinkers of the world coming up with creative cartographies of violence, Butler's mapping of nonviolence doesn't stand as an exercise in altering or undermining such cartographies. While these thinkers work with what stands as a categorical understanding of violence while reconstructing it as a destructive force innate to every being in the world, Butler departs from reiterating such understandings. However, with her mapping, Butler (...) doesn't seek to problematize the orientation of such understandings either—an orientation that lies in explaining the incurable fascist leaning of humans. Rather, she releases... (shrink)

Intersexuality, particularly in the global South, remains an under‐researched field of study. In my in‐progress doctoral research project, I explore the cultural, social, and medical discourses that influence how key stakeholders such as healthcare providers make decisions about the sex and gender assignment of the intersex child in India. In this paper I interrogate some of these ideas around gender assignment of intersex people in India, paying particular attention to the context of son preference. I am interested in exploring how (...) decisions of gender assignment by medical professionals are guided by ideas of son preference. Focusing on four qualitative, semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews across two cities with medical doctors from different specializations, this paper is a preliminary attempt to examine some of the factors that guide medical professionals in making decisions about gender assignment of intersex children and explore the dynamics of the decision‐making process. Specifically, I explore the factors that inform doctors’ decision‐making and locate these decision‐making processes within the broader socio‐cultural context of India. (shrink)

Goddess traditions have much to contribute to reflections on the feminine in Imago Dei. Christian theologians and scholars have found goddess traditions in Hinduism as a source of enrichment for Christian theology. Using the Yogini Tantra, a seventeenth-century Tāntric text from India, I argue that the role of Kālï in the Tāntric Trinity and the conceptualization of Kālï-ness as explicated in Hindu Tantra helps us reconsider the role of the feminine in the Christian conception of the trinitarian Godhead and Imago (...) Dei. Kālï-ness offers the feminist scholar of theology a way of doing “thealogy.” Reflecting on the pneumatological dimension of the Tāntric trinitarian godhead and the role of Kālï as pneuma manifesting within and outside of the Godhead helps us reflect on the theological understandings of the Christian trinitarian godhead. I explore the kind of possibilities that such a comparison opens us up to in interreligious learning. (shrink)

On Buddhism, and on the life and philosophy of Gautama Buddha; includes contributed articles.

The Book In Inter-Disciplinary In Character But Basically He Has Viewed The Concept Of Dharma From A Theological-Ethical Perspective. It Is An Attempt To Do Indian/Asian Theology And Ethics.

Contributed research papers presented in UGC sponsored National Seminar on "God and the Universe: Religious and Scientific Approaches" organized by the Department of Sanskrit, Mugberia Gangadhar Mahavidyalaya, Purba Medinipur, West Bengal on 22nd and 23rd November, 2016.

N‐type inactivation of potassium channels is controlled by cytosolic loops that are intrinsically disordered. Recent experiments have shown that the mechanism of N‐type inactivation through disordered regions can be stereospecific and vary depending on the channel type. Variations in mechanism occur despite shared coarse grain features such as the length and amino acid compositions of the cytosolic disordered regions. We have adapted a phenomenological model designed to explain how specificity in molecular recognition is achieved through disordered regions. We propose that (...) the channel‐specific observations for N‐type inactivation represent distinct mechanistic choices for achieving function through conformational selection versus induced fit. It follows that the dominant mechanism for binding and specificity can be modulated through subtle changes in the amino acid sequences of disordered regions, which is interesting given that specificity in function is realized in the absence of autonomous folding. (shrink)