Re-imagining Embodiment and the Self in People with Traumatic Spinal Cord Injuries: A Narrative Approach

Traumatic spinal cord injuries from accidents cause physical and social suffering, pain and loss. After an initial period of physical and psychological trauma, the individual begins to cope and successfully crosses over. Crossing over as a term used in the spinal cord injury register refers to positive adaptation—physical, psychological and social. This paper is based on a qualitative narrative study of the lived experiences of individuals negotiating spinal cord injuries in the Indian context wherein the disability is no longer the location of inability, tragedy, pain, and loss, but one of creative possibilities. As individuals re-imagine embodiment and self, a space of infinite possibilities opens, thereby creatively re-engaging the embodied self and taking on new role identities

Electrical and magneto transport in 2D semiconducting MXene Ti2CO2

The Hall scattering factor is formulated using Rode's iterative approach to solving the Boltzmann transport equation in such a way that it may be easily computed within the scope of ab-inito calculations. Using this method in conjunction with density functional theory based calculations, we demonstrate that the Hall scattering factor in electron-doped Ti2CO2 varies greatly with temperature and concentration, ranging from 0.2 to around 1.3 for weak magnetic fields. The electrical transport was modelled primarily using three scattering mechanisms: piezoelectric scattering, acoustic scattering, and polar optical phonons. Even though the mobility in this material is primarily limited by acoustic phonons, piezoelectric scattering also plays an important role which was not highlighted earlier

Policy Against Sexual Harassment at the Workplace: Guidelines for National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (SHW) has remained one of the central concerns of the women’s movement in India since the early-’80s. Before 1997, women experiencing SHW had to lodge a complaint under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code that deals with the ‘criminal assault of women to outrage women’s modesty’, and Section 509 that punishes individual/individuals for using a ‘word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman’. These sections left the interpretation of ‘outraging women’s modesty’ to the discretion of the police officer/s. In 1997, the Supreme Court passed a landmark judgment in the Vishakha case laying down guidelines to be followed by establishments in dealing with complaints about sexual harassment. THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT THE WORKPLACE (PREVENTION, PROHIBITION AND REDRESSAL) ACT was passed in April 2013

A study of subjectivity and selfhood in the context of subjects with physical disabilities: A theoretical approach

The present thesis A Study of Subjectivity and Selfhood in the Context of Subjects with Physical Disabilities: A Theoretical Approach focuses on the self and subjectivity in people with disabilities in a relational context in Indian society. Moving beyond the mainstream logico-positivist psychological approaches, the study involves an exploration of selfhood and its various aspects like self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy, authenticity and identity grounded in the context of individual lives. The focus is on the subjective and psychological experiences of disability where people with disabilities are forced to contend with unfair, oppressive and exclusive physical and psychological environments. Using concepts like ableism/disablism, the study brings out the impact of these ideologies on the self and identity of people with disabilities. The study also brings out strong, positive selves and the resilient process of selfhood as individuals move through trying and difficult life situations. A key aspect and contribution of this study is the conceptualization of “adapting self” in disability as people adapt and evolve with their bodies, physical and psychological environments. The study uses the narrative as a primary mode in exploring selfhood and subjectivity drawing out connections between narrative, memory and emotion in narrative recalls of experiences. The act of personal narration and sharing stories with the researcher as audience is a social act. The study can be said to be co-constructed both by the researcher and the researched. The researcher acknowledges her own subjectivity in interpretation and analysis. The study is interdisciplinary and grounded within psychology and disability studies as it remaps psychology to disability studies by drawing on psychological theories and concepts in the study of disability. The study is mainly qualitative in its research approaches as it draws on critical psychological methods like social constructionism, narrative analysis and phenomenological psychology. However, the study significantly includes an empirical component in data collection through a public response survey to arrive at an understanding of implicit biases, prejudices and stereotypical attitudes towards disability. The empirical component correlates to the lived experiences of people with disabilities as individuals constantly deal with overt and covert prejudicial attitudes and stereotypes in their daily lives. Self and subjectivity as psychological concepts allowed a significant opening for the researcher to enter the psychological worlds of people with disabilities and gain a rich understanding of the travails and tribulations of selves undergoing traumatic experiences both at the level of the physical body, psychological and sociocultural environments. The insights from this study are significant in understand the self as a process continually in the making as individuals cue off from their social settings. The self in the context of disability goes through significant changes as individuals deal with self-acceptance, self-affirmation and ultimately learn to cope and exercise a certain degree of agency, autonomy and choice within the given constraints. The study indicates that the self i

Farmers’ Perception on Innovations in Technology Dissemination (ITD) Methods

Innovations in Technology Dissemination (ITD) is a part of Agricultural extension system, concerned with transmitting information and knowledge of important agricultural technology from research to farmer. The present study was conducted in Kannur district of Kerala to identify the perception of farmers on ITD methods implemented by different agricultural institutions in Kannur district with special reference to Kannur Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK). Thirty farmers each from four selected grama panchayats (Ezhome, Kankol- Alapadamba, Kadannapalli- Panapuzha and Mayyil) of Kannur were identified using simple random sampling and a total of one hundred and twenty respondents were included in the study. A well-structured interview schedule was used for collecting the data from the respondents. The data were tabulated and inferences were drawn after appropriate statistical analysis. Majority of the farmers had medium level of perception on ITD methods followed by low level.    

The effects of various irrigating solutions on intra-radicular dentinal surface: An SEM analysis

AIM: The action of irrigant solutions on intra- radicular dentinal surface were evaluated in an in vitro setting using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) and it was observed that sodium hypochlorite and MTAD produced the cleanest surface and that none of the irrigants were able to produce an ideal preparation of the dentinal surface when used individually. The primary objective of endodontic therapy is to achieve a clean, optimal environment in root canals to avoid unsuccessful treatment outcomes. The complexities of the root canal system necessitate the use of irrigating solutions which act on radicular dentin surface, modifying it. The action of irrigants can be beneficial, and yet at the same time, as they modify the surface structure of dentin, they can have an adverse impact on the properties of dentin. The present study was undertaken to assess the effect of various irrigants on the dentinal surface using an SEM. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-five roots were randomly divided into nine groups (n=5) and prepared by sectioning at the level of cemento-enamel junction (CEJ) and 10 mm from the CEJ and split longitudinally. The dentin surface was prepared and the cemental surfaces were coated with double layer of varnish. The irrigants tested were normal saline, de-ionized water, 17% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), 5% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl), 5% NaOCl with ultrasonic agitation, 3% hydrogen peroxide, 2% chlorhexidine (CHX), MTAD, and MTAD with ultrasonic agitation. The prepared samples were placed in the irrigant solution for 3 min, subsequently dehydrated, sputter coated, and observed under SEM. The images were subsequently analyzed for dentinal surface changes. RESULTS: 17% EDTA and MTAD produced the cleanest dentinal surface. Ultrasonic agitation enhanced the effect of irrigants. 5% NaOCl and 3% hydrogen peroxide were efficient at removal of organic debris, but were unable to remove the smear layer. De-ionized water, normal saline, and 2% chlorhexidine were not effective at removing the debris or the smear layer. CONCLUSION: None of the irrigants individually were able to achieve conditions of an ideal dentinal surface preparation

Digitally Archiving the Heritage of Hampi

The Indian Digital Heritage (IDH) Knowledge Bank is a collaborative digital cultural heritage archival project conceptualized and implemented by two interdisciplinary cultural institutions in Bangalore which have been funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government Of India, for the tasks of collecting, archiving and curating the multimodal content gathered by twenty-seven technology and cultural project teams. A work in progress, this archive is being compiled and developed by an interdisciplinary digital humanities team at International Institute for Art, Culture and Democracy (IIACD) comprising of open-source technologists, communication designers and an art historian. The content being archived includes texts (of varying vintage), audio recordings, still and moving images (2D), 3D point cloud images, mesh and volume models (3D) and multimedia content from the IDH-Hampi projects. There are also technologies and demonstrations of the technologies that are archived as the output of the IDH-Hampi project. In this chapter, we discuss the archival (in this context, we use the term ‘archival’ to indicate the process of collecting and curating cultural content generated by the project) of the multimodal content with the open-source (GNU GPL) archival content management system Omeka (https://omeka.org/) developed and maintained at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, George Mason University. We discuss the test archive and creation of the Knowledge Bank website with Omeka and its tools and plugins, which enable a unified ontology for the IDH project. Computer Scientists have borrowed the concept on ‘Ontology’ from philosophers and use it to encode knowledge of a domain. The ontology is constructed by listing the entities and concepts in the domain and then ascribing meaning to them by adding properties and relations to them. Once these information maps are created, it is possible to build inference engines that can deduce new facts using logical deductions. More advanced artificial intelligence methodologies can use an ontology to recognize concepts and generate recommendations. Also, as demonstrated by the IIT Delhi project on ‘Girija Kalyana’ (a chapter in this volume), the ontology can be used to navigate the content of the knowledge bank using semantically directed (meaningful or ‘intellectual’) paths. The chapter concludes by arriving at a robust ontological scheme to allow for richer and advanced interlinked searches with/between complex semantic text, objects and relationships