Infidels.

Infidels is a short story collection dealing with a myriad of themes, most centrally of failed parenting, love, and yearning for the divine through spiritual brotherhood. The world the characters of Infidels inhabit is one of psychological wilderness. In the story, Squatting, for instance, a son watches helplessly as his father realizes that he cannot successfully raise his child as a homeless field squatter. Gnosis shows a physics professor experiencing cognitive breakdown as he struggles to rectify or even realize the pain he's causing his wife. In God Will Hear You, the half-Nepali, half-American protagonist only reveals to himself his love for his wife after driving her into a feigned state of catatonia. The collection culminates with Elohim, a story about an isolated young man's attempt to experience the divine after discovering companionship in two poorly recovering methamphetamine addicts. More than anything, however, Infidels explores beauty in the most putrid and dysfunctional landscapes of contemporary American life.--Abstract

Network-aware Evaluation Environment for Reputation Systems

Parties of reputation systems rate each other and use ratings to compute reputation scores that drive their interactions. When deciding which reputation model to deploy in a network environment, it is important to find the most suitable model and to determine its right initial configuration. This calls for an engineering approach for describing, implementing and evaluating reputation systems while taking into account specific aspects of both the reputation systems and the networked environment where they will run. We present a software tool (NEVER) for network-aware evaluation of reputation systems and their rapid prototyping through experiments performed according to user-specified parameters. To demonstrate effectiveness of NEVER, we analyse reputation models based on the beta distribution and the maximum likelihood estimation

Влияние национального локдауна на эпидемиологию травм во время первой волны COVID-19 в Индии

Background. The pattern of hospital admissions and medical care changed during the COVID pandemic. The aim of the study to describe the nature of patients attending the orthopedic emergency department of a level 1 trauma center in terms of number and proportion based on demographic characteristics and the nature of the injury before the lockdown, during the lockdown, and during the unlocking period of the nationwide lockdown for controlling the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Methods. We conducted a longitudinal study from 01.01.2020 to 31.12.2020. Patients attending the orthopedic emergency were grouped based on cause, type, and site of injury. The median number observed each day with IQR. The distribution of the same was compared between the prelockdown with lockdown period and the lockdown period with a phased unlocking period. Results. A total of 10513 patients were included. There was a statistically significant reduction in the proportion of patients needing inpatient care between the prelockdown phase and lockdown phase (p = 0.008). However, this was not seen between lockdown and postlockdown periods (p = 0.47). The proportion of road traffic accidents dropped from 26% to 15% during this time (p0.001). The proportion of contusions was reduced and that of soft tissue injuries increased (p0.001). The proportion of lower limb injuries decreased from the prelockdown phase to the lockdown phase, and that of spinal injury patients increased (p = 0.007). The proportion of patients with contusions increased and soft tissue injuries decreased during this period (p0.001). Lower limb injuries and road traffic accidents increased, and spinal injuries were reduced (p0.001). Conclusion. The lockdown for controlling the spread of the pandemic affected the demographic and epidemiological aspects of injuries attending the orthopedic emergency department of a level 1 trauma center in a developing country. There was a decrease in the proportion of females and children attending the ED during the lockdown. The number of road traffic accedents s decreased during the lockdown. The number of patients with contusions attending the trauma center during the lockdown decreased, but there was an increase in the number of patients with spine injuries. We suggest that improvement in triage facilities, wider use of telemedicine, and increasing the stock of PPEs are essential for tackling such situations in the future.Введение. Во время пандемии COVID-19 изменилась структура госпитализаций и оказания медицинской помощи. Цель проанализировать эпидемиологию и тип травм, полученных пациентами, обратившимися в травмоцентр 1-го уровня во время пандемии и локдауна в Индии. Материал и методы. Мы провели лонгитюдное исследование с 01.01.2020 по 31.12.2020 Пациенты, обратившиеся за неотложной травматологической помощью, были сгруппированы в зависимости от причины, типа и места повреждения. Среднее число ежедненых обращений было расчитано с помощью IQR (интерквартильного размаха). Было проведено сравнение распределений среднего числа наблюдений между периодами до и во время локдауна, а также во время локдауна и после его снятия. Результаты. Всего в исследование было включено 10 513 пациентов. Наблюдалось статистически значимое снижение доли пациентов, нуждающихся в госпитализации, между периодами до и во время локдауна (p = 0,008). Однако этого не наблюдалось между периодами локдауна и постлокдауна (p = 0,47). Доля дорожно-транспортных происшествий снизилась с 26% до 15% между периодами до и во время локдауна (p0,001). Доля ушибов уменьшилась, а мягкотканных повреждений увеличилась (p0,001). Доля травм нижних конечностей уменьшилась между периодами до и во время локдауна, а доля травм позвоночника увеличилась (p = 0,007). Заключение. Национальный локдаун повлиял на демографические и эпидемиологические показатели травм в травмоцентре 1-го уровня в Индии. Наблюдалось снижение доли женщин и детей, обратившихся в отделение неотложной помощи. Количество ДТП сократилось во время локдауна. Количество пациентов с ушибами, обратившихся в травматологический центр во время локдауна уменьшилось, а количество пациентов с травмами позвоночника увеличилось. Мы рекомендуем улучшить медицинскую сортировку, расширить использование телемедицины и увеличить запасы средств индивидуальной защиты для борьбы с подобными ситуациями в будущем

Interviewing in virtual environments: Towards understanding the impact of rapport-building behaviours and retrieval context on eyewitness memory.

Given the complexities of episodic memory and necessarily social nature of in-person face-to-face interviews, theoretical and evidence-based techniques for collecting episodic information from witnesses, victims, and survivors champion rapport-building. Rapport is believed to reduce some of the social demands of recalling an experienced event in an interview context, potentially increasing cognitive capacity for remembering. Cognitive and social benefits have also emerged in remote interview contexts with reduced anxiety and social pressure contributing to improved performance. Here, we investigated episodic memory in mock-eyewitness interviews conducted in virtual environments (VE) and in-person face-to-face (FtF), where rapport-building behaviours were either present or absent. Main effects revealed when rapport was present and where interviews were conducted in a VE participants recalled more correct event information, made fewer errors and were more accurate. Moreover, participants in the VE plus rapport-building present condition outperformed participants in all other conditions. Feedback indicated both rapport and environment were important for reducing the social demands of a recall interview, towards supporting effortful remembering. Our results add to the emerging literature on the utility of virtual environments as interview spaces and lend further support to the importance of prosocial behaviours in applied contexts. [Abstract copyright: © 2022. The Author(s).

A note on the capture of 'Giant Isopod', Bathynomus giganteus A. Milne Edwards, 1879 off Mangalore coast, India

Isopods are a large, diverse order with ten named suborders and approximately 10,000species.They are found in all seas and at all depths, in fresh and brackish waters, and on land. The Giant isopod Bathynomus giganteus A. Milne Edwards, 1879(Richardson1905)is the largest marine isopod species recorded in the world. It is reported to occur in a wide depth range from 170 to 2,140 m and grows up to 400 mm in length. Bathynomus giganteus was found for the fIrst time in 1878 off the coast of Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico and is reported to have distribution off Gulf of Mexico; Atlantic Ocean; Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea (Brusca et at. 1995)

Estuarine and Marine Decapods of Karnataka Inventory

The inventory of estuarine and marine decapods of Karnataka State of India has been prepared. This list has 42 species of shrimps/prawns, 112 species of brachyuran crabs, 14 species of hermit crabs and nine species of lobsters, collected from eight estuaries and coastal/ offshore waters of Karnataka State

एकीकृत चावल-चिंगट-पख मछली पालन द्वारा परंपरागत पोक्काली चावल खेती का पुनर्नवीकरण

Rejuvenation of the traditional Pokkali farming system through integrated paddy – shrimp – Fin fish farmin

Climate change impact on coastal fisheries and aquaculture in the SAARC

Observations in fisheries sciences related to climate change foresee a future with intensified climate change as a consequence of increased greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere because of human activities. The increase in GHGs has resulted in warming of climate systems or global warming. In last 100 years, ending in 2005, the average global air temperature near the earth’s surface has been estimated to increase at the rate of 0.74 ± 0.18°C (1.33 ± 0.32°F) (IPCC, 2007). In the latest IPCC report (IPCC, 2014), climate model projections indicated that the global surface temperature during the 21st century is likely to rise a further 0.3 to 1.7°C (0.5 to 3.1°F) for their lowest emissions scenario and 2.6 to 4.8°C (4.7 to 8.6°F) for the highest emissions scenario. In the past, 15 of the 16 warmest years have occurred since 2001 and rank among the 15 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature since 1850. Climate change and associated warming is increasingly being felt in many parts of the globe including India. Climate change is predicted to lead to adverse, irreversible impacts on the earth and the ecosystem as a whole. Although it is difficult to connect specific weather events to climate change, increases in global temperature has been predicted to cause broader changes, including glacial retreat, arctic shrinkage and worldwide sea level rise (Mohanty et al., 2010).The Chaliyar river is one of the west flowing rivers of Western Ghats. It has many tributaries such as Karimpuzha. Punnappuzha, Kuruvanpuzha, Tiruanchipuzha, Cherupuzha. etc. with a catchment area of 1535 sq. km. The total discharge of the river is 7775 Mm3, The river which was in a pristine condition before 4 to 5 decades has become highly degraded in the lower stretches by the effluents of Gwalior Rayons and in the upper stretches by various anthropogenic factors like deforestation, high siltation, dynamite fishing and use of copper sulphate for fishing. During the summer months, the water in the river is very low due to high run off during the wet months