From attire to assault: clothing, objectification, and de-humanization - a possible prelude to sexual violence?

In the context of objectification and violence, little attention has been paid to the perception neuroscience of how the human brain perceives bodies and objectifies them. Various studies point to how external cues such as appearance and attire could play a key role in encouraging objectification, dehumanization and the denial of agency. Reviewing new experimental findings across several areas of research, it seems that common threads run through issues of clothing, sexual objectification, body perception, dehumanization, and assault. Collating findings from several different lines of research, this article reviews additional evidence from cognitive and neural dynamics of person perception (body and face perception processes) that predict downstream social behavior. Specifically, new findings demonstrate cognitive processing of sexualized female bodies as object-like, a crucial aspect of dehumanized percept devoid of agency and personhood. Sexual violence is a consequence of a dehumanized perception of female bodies that aggressors acquire through their exposure and interpretation of objectified body images. Integrating these findings and identifying triggers for sexual violence may help develop remedial measures and inform law enforcement processes and policy makers alike

Issues and perspectives in meditation research: in search for a definition

Despite the growing interest in the neurobiological correlates of meditation, most research has omitted to take into account the underlying philosophical aspects of meditation and its wider implications. This, in turn, is reflected in issues surrounding definition, study design, and outcomes. Here, I highlight the often ignored but important aspect of definition in the existing scholarship on neuroscience and meditation practice. For a satisfactory account of a neuroscience of meditation, we must aim to retrieve an operational definition that is inclusive of a traditional ontological description as well as the modern neurocognitive account of the phenomena. Moving beyond examining the effects of meditation practice, to take a potential step forward in the direction to establish how meditation works, it becomes crucial to appraise the philosophical positions that underlie the phenomenology of meditation in the originating traditions. This endeavor may challenge our intuitions and concepts in either directions, but issues pertaining to definition, design, and validity of response measures are extremely important for the evolution of the field and will provide a much-needed context and framework for meditation based interventions

Synthetic dimensions in ultracold molecules: quantum strings and membranes

Synthetic dimensions alter one of the most fundamental properties in nature, the dimension of space. They allow, for example, a real three-dimensional system to act as effectively four-dimensional. Driven by such possibilities, synthetic dimensions have been engineered in ongoing experiments with ultracold matter. We show that rotational states of ultracold molecules can be used as synthetic dimensions extending to many - potentially hundreds of - synthetic lattice sites. Microwaves coupling rotational states drive fully controllable synthetic inter-site tunnelings, enabling, for example, topological band structures. Interactions leads to even richer behavior: when molecules are frozen in a real space lattice with uniform synthetic tunnelings, dipole interactions cause the molecules to aggregate to a narrow strip in the synthetic direction beyond a critical interaction strength, resulting in a quantum string or a membrane, with an emergent condensate that lives on this string or membrane. All these phases can be detected using measurements of rotational state populations.Comment: 5-page article + 4 figures + references; 7 pages + 4 figures in Supplemen

Study to Assess the Nutritional Status of Under Five Children in a Selected Sub Center of Bikaner, Rajasthan – India

oai:ojs2.researth.iars.info:article/1This is a study to assess nutritional status of children of age under five in a selected sub center of Bikaner, Rajasthan - India. The objective of the research is to: assess the nutritional status of under five children in terms of height and weight; compare the nutritional status of under five children with various standards; and compare the nutritional status of under five children with their demographic variables

TRANSMISSION-CONSTRAINED GENERATION EXPANSION PLANNING FOR A REAL-WORLD POWER INDUSTRY

Transmission-constrained generation expansion planning (TC-GEP) problem for new generating units significantly involves location, capacity and type of fuel. This problem can be solved by adding Optimal Power Flow (OPF) constraints. This study renders an application of the Self-adaptive Differential Evolution (SaDE) algorithm to the TC-GEP problem for multiple horizons, at least cost, for the power generating system of Tamil Nadu, India. TC-GEP problem has been solved for 6-year (till 2022) and 12-year (till 2028) planning horizon by considering the least cost and reliable supply. The problem is solved for six different scenarios on an Indian utility 62 bus test system, and the results are validated with Dynamic Programming (DP). The results of the TC-GEP problem for the year 2028 are compared with the solutions of the GEP problem without transmission constraint. Finally, a comparison is made between the proposed solution and the practically implemented expansion plan for the year 2017 by the Tamil Nadu electricity sector

Conventional and Catalytic Pyrolysis of Pinyon Juniper Biomass

Pinyon and juniper are invasive woody species which has occupied more than 47 million acres of land in Western United States. Pinyon juniper woodlands domination decreases the herbaceous vegetation, increase bare lands which in turn increases soil erosion and nutrition loss. Thus, The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has focused on harvesting these woody species to make room for herbaceous vegetation. The major application of harvested pinyon-juniper (PJ) is low value firewood. Thus, there is a need to develop new high value products from this woody biomass to reduce the cost of harvesting. In this study pyrolysis was carried out to investigate the feasibility of converting pinyon juniper biomass to value added products. The first part of the study was focused on biomass characterization, and effect of biomass type on product yields. The second part focuses on optimization of process parameters on product yields. The third part focuses on catalytic pyrolysis for improving the quality of bio-oil. In this study it has been shown that pinyon juniper biomass could be effectively used as biomass in fast pyrolysis and red mud, an industrial waste could be used as catalyst in catalytic pyrolysis to improve the quality of the bio-oil

Automatic Defect Detection System For Leadframe Inspection

Defect detection and classification are important for both product quality assurance and process improvement in the maimfacturing industry. Machine vision systems offer several beneficial. features such as consistency, accuracy and round the clock repeatability. This thesis presents the results of the development and implementation of such a machine vision system to automate the inspection of leadframes. Pengesanan dan mengklasifikasikan kecacatan adalah penting untuk memastikan kualiti produk dan meningkatkan kebolehan sesuatu proses dalam industri pembuatan. Sistem penglihatan mesin menawarkan beberapa kelebihan dalam perkara seperti konsisten, kejituan dan pemeriksaan berterusan. Disertasi ini mempersembahkan keputusan dalam membangun dan implementasi sistem penglihatan mesin untuk pemeriksaan secara bagi 'leadframe'

Study to assess the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge among the adolescent boys regarding ill effects of smoking in selected Government Schools of Moga, Punjab - India

Smoking prevention is an important issue and healthcare professionals, especially nurses, may have a major role in helping people to understand the consequences of smoking for their lives. A nurse is recognized as authority on health, she can educate individuals, groups and communities about ill effects of smoking. The investigator had witnessed during her posting in Vidhya Sagar Institute of Mental Health Amritsar, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) Delhi that the adolescents are more influenced by smoking due to images of romance, success, sophisticated popularity and adventure which advertising suggests they could achieve through the consumption of cigarettes