The Absolute of Advaita and the Spirit of Hegel: Situating Vedānta on the Horizons of British Idealisms

$\textit{Purpose}$ A significant volume of philosophical literature produced by Indian academic philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century can be placed under the rubric of ‘Śaṁkara and X’, where X is Hegel, or a German or a British philosopher who had commented on, elaborated or critiqued the Hegelian system. We will explore in this essay the philosophical significance of Hegel-influenced systems as an intellectual conduit for these Indo-European conceptual encounters, and highlight how for some Indian philosophers the British variations on Hegelian systems were both a point of entry into debates over ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ in contemporary European philosophy and an occasion for defending Advaita against the charge of propounding a doctrine of world illusionism. $\textit{Methodology}$ Our study of the philosophical enquiries of A.C. Mukerji, P.T. Raju, and S.N.L. Shrivastava indicates that they developed distinctive styles of engaging with Hegelian idealisms as they reconfigured certain aspects of the classical Advaita of Śaṁkara through contemporary vocabulary. $\textit{Result and Conclusion}$ These appropriations of Hegelian idioms can be placed under three overlapping styles: (a) Mukerji was partly involved in locating Advaita in an intermediate conceptual space between, on the one hand, Kantian agnosticism and, on the other hand, Hegelian absolutism; (b) Raju and Shrivastava presented Advaitic thought as the fulfilment of certain insights of Hegel and F.H. Bradley; and (c) the interrogations of Hegel’s ‘idealism’ provided several Indian academic philosophers with a hermeneutic opportunity to revisit the vexed question of whether the ‘idealism’ of Śaṁkara reduces the phenomenal world, structured by $\textit{māyā}$, to a bundle of ideas

Utility of Atrial and Ventricular Cycle Length Variability in Determining the Mechanism of Paroxysmal Supraventricular Tachycardia

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72411/1/j.1540-8167.2007.00860.x.pd

IGVBrowser–a genomic variation resource from diverse Indian populations

The Indian Genome Variation Consortium (IGVC) project, an initiative of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, has been the first large-scale comprehensive study of the Indian population. One of the major aims of the project is to study and catalog the variations in nearly thousand candidate genes related to diseases and drug response for predictive marker discovery, founder identification and also to address questions related to ethnic diversity, migrations, extent and relatedness with other world population. The Phase I of the project aimed at providing a set of reference populations that would represent the entire genetic spectrum of India in terms of language, ethnicity and geography and Phase II in providing variation data on candidate genes and genome wide neutral markers on these reference set of populations. We report here development of the IGVBrowser that provides allele and genotype frequency data generated in the IGVC project. The database harbors 4229 SNPs from more than 900 candidate genes in contrasting Indian populations. Analysis shows that most of the markers are from genic regions. Further, a large fraction of genes are implicated in cardiovascular, metabolic, cancer and immune system-related diseases. Thus, the IGVC data provide a basal level variation data in Indian population to study genetic diseases and pharmacology. Additionally, it also houses data on ∼50 000 (Affy 50 K array) genome wide neutral markers in these reference populations. In IGVBrowser one can analyze and compare genomic variations in Indian population with those reported in HapMap along with annotation information from various primary data sources

IGVBrowser–a genomic variation resource from diverse Indian populations

The Indian Genome Variation Consortium (IGVC) project, an initiative of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, has been the first large-scale comprehensive study of the Indian population. One of the major aims of the project is to study and catalog the variations in nearly thousand candidate genes related to diseases and drug response for predictive marker discovery, founder identification and also to address questions related to ethnic diversity, migrations, extent and relatedness with other world population. The Phase I of the project aimed at providing a set of reference populations that would represent the entire genetic spectrum of India in terms of language, ethnicity and geography and Phase II in providing variation data on candidate genes and genome wide neutral markers on these reference set of populations. We report here development of the IGVBrowser that provides allele and genotype frequency data generated in the IGVC project. The database harbors 4229 SNPs from more than 900 candidate genes in contrasting Indian populations. Analysis shows that most of the markers are from genic regions. Further, a large fraction of genes are implicated in cardiovascular, metabolic, cancer and immune system-related diseases. Thus, the IGVC data provide a basal level variation data in Indian population to study genetic diseases and pharmacology. Additionally, it also houses data on ∼50 000 (Affy 50 K array) genome wide neutral markers in these reference populations. In IGVBrowser one can analyze and compare genomic variations in Indian population with those reported in HapMap along with annotation information from various primary data sources

The state of things: state history and theory reconfigured

This article looks at the relationship between logistical power and the assemblages of sites that constitute modern states. Rather than treating states as centralizing institutions and singular sites of power, we treat them as multi-sited. They gain power by using logistical methods of problem solving, using infrastructures to enforce and depersonalize relations of domination and limit the autonomy of elites. But states necessarily solve diverse problems by different means in multiple locations. So, educating children is not continuous with governing colonies even though both are necessary to nineteenth-century states. For this reason, states use logistical means of coordination to link sites, and they make the power of the state seem unitary even though the exercise of state power is not

How does Inflation Depend Upon the Nature of Fluids Filling Up the Universe in Brane World Scenario

By constructing different parameters which are able to give us the information about our universe during inflation,(specially at the start and the end of the inflationary universe) a brief idea of brane world inflation is given in this work. What will be the size of the universe at the end of inflation,i.e.,how many times will it grow than today's size is been speculated and analysed thereafter. Different kinds of fluids are taken to be the matter inside the brane. It is observed that in the case of highly positive pressure grower gas like polytropic,the size of the universe at the end of inflation is comparitively smaller. Whereas for negative pressure creators (like chaplygin gas) this size is much bigger. Except thse two cases, inflation has been studied for barotropic fluid and linear redshift parametrization $\omega(z) = \omega_{0} + \omega_{1} z$ too. For them the size of the universe after inflation is much more high. We also have seen that this size does not depend upon the potential energy at the end of the inflation. On the contrary, there is a high impact of the initial potential energy upon the size of inflation.Comment: 20 page

Association between footwear use and neglected tropical diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND The control of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has primarily focused on preventive chemotherapy and case management. Less attention has been placed on the role of ensuring access to adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene and personal preventive measures in reducing exposure to infection. Our aim was to assess whether footwear use was associated with a lower risk of selected NTDs. METHODOLOGY We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the association between footwear use and infection or disease for those NTDs for which the route of transmission or occurrence may be through the feet. We included Buruli ulcer, cutaneous larva migrans (CLM), leptospirosis, mycetoma, myiasis, podoconiosis, snakebite, tungiasis, and soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections, particularly hookworm infection and strongyloidiasis. We searched Medline, Embase, Cochrane, Web of Science, CINAHL Plus, and Popline databases, contacted experts, and hand-searched reference lists for eligible studies. The search was conducted in English without language, publication status, or date restrictions up to January 2014. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they reported a measure of the association between footwear use and the risk of each NTD. Publication bias was assessed using funnel plots. Descriptive study characteristics and methodological quality of the included studies were summarized. For each study outcome, both outcome and exposure data were abstracted and crude and adjusted effect estimates presented. Individual and summary odds ratio (OR) estimates and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated as a measure of intervention effect, using random effects meta-analyses. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Among the 427 studies screened, 53 met our inclusion criteria. Footwear use was significantly associated with a lower odds of infection of Buruli ulcer (OR=0.15; 95% CI: 0.08-0.29), CLM (OR=0.24; 95% CI: 0.06-0.96), tungiasis (OR=0.42; 95% CI: 0.26-0.70), hookworm infection (OR=0.48; 95% CI: 0.37-0.61), any STH infection (OR=0.57; 95% CI: 0.39-0.84), strongyloidiasis (OR=0.56; 95% CI: 0.38-0.83), and leptospirosis (OR=0.59; 95% CI: 0.37-0.94). No significant association between footwear use and podoconiosis (OR=0.63; 95% CI: 0.38-1.05) was found and no data were available for mycetoma, myiasis, and snakebite. The main limitations were evidence of heterogeneity and poor study quality inherent to the observational studies included. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Our results show that footwear use was associated with a lower odds of several different NTDs. Access to footwear should be prioritized alongside existing NTD interventions to ensure a lasting reduction of multiple NTDs and to accelerate their control and elimination. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews CRD42012003338

A profile of hospital-admitted paediatric burns patients in South Africa

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Injuries and deaths from burns are a serious, yet preventable health problem globally. This paper describes burns in a cohort of children admitted to the Red Cross Children's Hospital, in Cape Town, South Africa.</p> <p>This six month retrospective case note review looked at a sample of consecutively admitted patients from the 1 ^stApril 2007 to the 30 ^thSeptember 2007. Information was collected using a project-specific data capture sheet. Descriptive statistics (percentages, medians, means and standard deviations) were calculated, and data was compared between age groups. Spearman's correlation co-efficient was employed to look at the association between the total body surface area and the length of stay in hospital.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>During the study period, 294 children were admitted (f= 115 (39.1%), m= 179 (60.9%)). Hot liquids caused 83.0% of the burns and 36.0% of these occurred in children aged two years or younger. Children over the age of five were equally susceptible to hot liquid burns, but the mechanism differed from that which caused burns in the younger child.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In South Africa, most hospitalised burnt children came from informal settlements where home safety is a low priority. Black babies and toddlers are most at risk for sustaining severe burns when their environment is disorganized with respect to safety. Burns injuries can be prevented by improving the home environment and socio-economic living conditions through the health, social welfare, education and housing departments.</p