An anthology of writings on the Ganga: Goddess and River in History, Culture and Society

The Ganga along with the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, the Yangtze, and the Danube is one of the great rivers of our planet. Perceiving the Ganga from three levels material, spiritual, and divine this anthology reflects on the dialogue and tension between the modern and the traditional, the historic and the mythical, the epic and the everyday, the factual and the fictitious. From Robert P. Goldman's translations from the Ramayana, J.A.B. van Buitenen's translations from the Mahabharata, and translations by Shakuntala Varma and A.K. Ramanujan to Jawaharlal Nehru's 'Will and Testament', the classic Padma River Boatman by Manik Bandopadhyaya, and the screenplay of Ram Teri Ganga Maili to writings of Raja Rao, Vikram Seth, and Amitav Ghosh-the book brings together various perspectives on the river, demonstrating the wide-ranging views, interests, experiences, practices, and emotions generated from the encounter between people, both individuals and groups, and the Ganga. Divided into five parts The Epic and Numinous, Historical Perspectives, Contemporary Travel Writing, Fiction, and Recent Scholarship the anthology offers an insight into the broader organization, quality, character, and diversity of Indian culture and society

A Statistical Model on Variations in State Gasoline Taxes

State gasoline and diesel fuel taxes are the most important sources of state transportation funding for highway maintenance and repairs. Thirty-six states levy a fixed-rate tax that has been in place for extended periods of time while others impose a variable tax rate. The primary objective of this study is to develop a multivariable econometric model to explain factors associated with variations in state gasoline taxes across 48 states. Three years of panel data, 2008, 2009, and 2010, were used to estimate the model, which controls for economic, climatic, and demographic factors at the state level. Three of the hypothesized variables were statistically significant. All of the hypothesized variables had the expected sign, with the exception of Income Per Capita. Results indicate that as the average temperature in the state declined one degree, the gasoline tax increased by $0.00451 per gallon. As per capita income increased, the gasoline tax decreased by$0.00000310 per gallon. As energy-related carbon dioxide emissions increased, the gas tax increased by $0.000000162 per gallon. The results of this analysis will have significant policy implications for revenue generation, highway maintenance, and transportation infrastructure

c ○ World Scientific Publishing Company COMPUTATIONAL MODELING OF TISSUE SELF-ASSEMBLY

As a theoretical framework for understanding the self-assembly of living cells into tissues, Steinberg proposed the differential adhesion hypothesis (DAH) according to which a specific cell type possesses a specific adhesion apparatus that combined with cell motility leads to cell assemblies of various cell types in the lowest adhesive energy state. Experimental and theoretical efforts of four decades turned the DAH into a fundamental principle of developmental biology that has been validated both in vitro and in vivo. Based on computational models of cell sorting, we have developed a DAH-based lattice model for tissues in interaction with their environment and simulated biological selfassembly using the Monte Carlo method. The present brief review highlights results on specific morphogenetic processes with relevance to tissue engineering applications. Our own work is presented on the background of several decades of theoretical efforts aimed to model morphogenesis in living tissues. Simulations of systems involving about 10 5 cells have been performed on high-end personal computers with CPU times of the order of days. Studied processes include cell sorting, cell sheet formation, and the development 121