A PRAGMATIC SURVEY OF HINDI IMPERATIVES

International audienceThe paper deals with different types of Hindi imperatives and aims at providing a pragmatic framework that can account for various ways of expressing commands. Although the paper is a sort of descriptive survey of Hindi imperatives, it indirectly argues, in particular, that any formal semantic theory which intends to study the phenomenon will have to take into account many of those elements of meaning of non-declarative sentences which cannot be properly dealt with in any truth-conditional analysis. A truth-conditional analysis of imperatives remains incomplete in that it does not have the necessary tools to study all the elements of meaning of imperative utterances. While a declarative sentence can be studied giving a characterization in which a sentence S is said to be true if its truth-conditions are met, an imperative sentence, in pragmatic terms, has two directional fits: first, an imperative sentence S can be thought to be true if its command is carried out by the hearer, and secondly, an imperative sentence S can be thought to be true if the speaker really intends that the hearer carry out the action. Nevertheless, none of the cases is potentially truth-conditional. They tend to be non-truth-conditional in that they carry the speaker's various commands rather than some definite state of affairs to which truth-values can be attached. The difference in meanings of various types of Hindi imperatives has been studied here in the light of pragmatic theories of meaning that take into account the speaker's intended meaning in making an imperative utterance

Negative modality in Hindi

International audienceThe paper deals with different kinds of negative modality expressed through three negative markers in Hindi, namely, nahi, mat, and na. The paper rejects the idea of considering these markers in terms of the degree of the illocutionary strenght they are supposed to carry and proposes that they are employed by the speaker to express different kinds of epistemic and deontic negative modalities in Hindi. Hence they are not synonomous, Nahi is employed mainly to express negative epistemic necessity whereas mat is used exclusively to express negative deontic necessity. Na, on the other hand, is employed to express both the negative epistemic possibility as well as negative deontic possibility

Power distribution design for high-density packages

This thesis describes the design of a high-density power distribution system. Properties of impedances of power distribution systems are examined. Impedances are classified as self and trans-impedances. These properties are then used to save simulation time, which is a big factor for power distribution system design. Time domain models are extracted for the test cases. A novel 2D-3D technique of placing decoupling capacitors is demonstrated that is based on the effectiveness of the capacitor at that location. The power distribution system acts as a cavity resonator supporting discrete modes that vary with distance. Each capacitor is placed at the physical location where it has maximum impact on corresponding system modes. Targeting the modes at the ports where they are dominant using decoupling capacitors reduces trans-impedances. This technique is extended to the entire surface of the power distribution system using just a single set of simulations. This thesis presents a novel 2D-3D approach of designing high-density boards having chips with multiple power connections without having to go through lengthy tedious simulations

Animal Farm: A Critical Study in the Wake of Indian Politics

The society we live in has roughly two factions in terms of the economic status of the people i.e. Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. One is the dominant class while the other is the labouring class. The former is called the parasitical due to their dependence on the produce made available by the latter, the perennial suffering lot. The lowest economic class feels cheated and thugged only when their leader becomes a dictator and endorses capitalism for achieving his high political end. Lord Acton opines, ‘Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ A totalitarian, Joseph Stalin, who is portrayed in the novel as Napoleon, the pig and becomes the voice of the voiceless animals, emerges as the sole leader of the discontented working class, ultimately extends his supporting hands to capitalists against whom the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917. Thus the Revolution lost its sheen very soon. There is no dearth of Stalinism on this planet in the present socio-political phenomenon. The central idea of the novel rests on its concluding lines ‘The creature outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.’  The novel is a departure from the maxim ‘all animals are equal’ to the maxim ‘all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.’ The paper in question is a sincere attempt to critically analyze the dystopian novel ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) by George Orwell, a staunch opponent to pseudo-communalism, in the wake of the existing socio-political scenario of India in particular

Physical, Mechanical and Chemical Aging of Polyurea Nanocomposites

Two component polyurea systems, on one hand, are gaining popularity as corrosion and abrasion resistant coatings and linings while on the other hand there are a few polyurea compositions being used as barrier against blast and ballistic threats to protect nation\u27s critical infrastructure. Physical properties of polymer composites can be tailored with appropriate choice of type, size and amount of reinforcement. In general, nano-sized reinforcements provide better reinforcing over conventional reinforcements due to higher surface to volume ratio. In this dissertation, the first aim is to study effect of nanoreinforcement addition on the overall character (mechanical, chemical and microstructural) of different polyurea systems. Control tensile strength, dynamic mechanical and nanoindentation properties of these composites are used as parameters to rank the mechanical performance of these composites. Evaluation of synergistic effects of various environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, light, etc. on the performance of composite materials is the second challenge addressed in this research work. Selective composites are subject to hygrothermal cycling and ultraviolet (UV) radiation and stabilities studies for long durations. The severity of the effect of these exposures are measured in terms of the tensile strength of composites at predetermined time intervals. Change in the chemical makeup of these composites due to hygrothermal and UV exposures is studied using Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used to study the changes in polyurea microstructure due to addition of nanoreinforcements and subsequent aging. Long term mechanical performance of polyurea nanocomposites is evaluated using time temperature superposition (TTS) principle. Effects of different amounts of nano reinforcement on the elastic properties in polyurea nanocomposites are studied using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations

Sums of A Pair of Orthogonal Frames

Frames are more stable as compared to bases under the action of a bounded linear operator. Sums of different frames under the action of a bounded linear operator are studied with the help of analysis, synthesis and frame operators. A simple construction of frames from the existing ones under the action of such an operator is presented here. It is shown that a frame can be added to its alternate dual frames, yielding a new frame. It is also shown that the sum of a pair of orthogonal frames is a frame. This provides an easy construction of a frame where the frame bounds can be computed easily. Moreover, for a pair of orthogonal frames, the necessary and sufficient condition is presented for their alternate dual frames to be orthogonal. This allows for an easy construction of a large number of new frames

Essays on Insurance Regulation

Insurance industry is an important component of the US economy. In 2013, the industry sold policies worth $ 1.8 trillion and employed 2 million people. Most of the US population has exposure to different kinds of insurance like automobile, health, life etc. which makes the sector politically sensitive. The incentives that various stakeholders face will be critical for the sector. Hence, I use my dissertation as an opportunity to explore how the political and regulatory processes affect the policy outcomes. In the first chapter, I examine how two different selection systems for state insurance regulators, election and appointment, affect policy outcomes in a market with multiple competing firms. In the United States, in some states, insurance regulators are elected (by ballot) while in other states they are appointed (by the Governor). Traditional theory suggests that elected regulators are pro-consumers while appointed regulators are pro-industry. I collected data on premiums paid by an individual on an auto insurance policy across 48 states to show that elected regulators choose policies salient for most consumers (e.g. lower premiums) in contrast to appointed regulators (higher premiums). This impact is larger and statistically significant in the counties where a majority of state’s population is concentrated. This is because the marginal cost of reaching out to voters is much lower in areas with higher concentration of population. State level data confirms that premiums per capita written by auto insurance firms is much lower in states with elected regulators as compared to states with appointed regulators. Different states have given insurance regulators varying degrees of regulatory powers to fix premiums on automobile insurance premiums. The second chapter captures the response of the industry to arbitrary fixing of premiums on auto insurance policies. Elected regulators tend to prefer lower premiums on auto insurance policies as compared to appointed regulators. Since the premiums are regulated, insurance firms compete on the unregulated aspects of the market. Competition between firms ensure that the extra revenue earned by charging higher premiums (in states with appointed regulators) is used to other a better product (higher payments on claims filed by policyholders). Hence, an elected regulatoroffers a bundle of lower prices and inferior product. And an appointed regulator does not ensure pro-industry outcomes as there are no systematic differences in profits in states with elected or appointed regulators (as shown by previous research). The third chapter of the thesis examines the influence of interest groups on effective insurance premium tax rate. I focus on market concentration as a proxy for the ability of the firms in an industry to organize into an interest group to capture regulation. I find that states with a higher degree of market concentration in the insurance industry tend to have lower effective insurance premium tax rate. To establish causality, I use the coast to area ratio in the state as a source of exogenous variation in the market concentration. This is because exposure to the coast increases the probability of catastrophic events such as hurricanes which leads to the exit of several insurance firms. I find empirical evidence that a 1 percent increase in market concentration is associated with a 0.6 percent reduction in the effective insurance premium tax rate