Words in a world of scaling-up:: Epistemic normativity and text as data

Cultural and literary studies have long been cognizant that apparatuses for knowledge production can render certain kinds of texts “illegible.” The relationships between knowledge, power and episteme that produce this occlusion have traditionally been explored and analyzed at the level of engagement with specific social and literary texts. This paper describes how a similar problem can arise in the context of the analysis of large-scale bodies of text. Our example is an analytical tool, intended for discovering trends and patterns in large text corpora. By describing what happens when the tool is applied to a large, heterogeneous and diverse textual corpus, we show how textual inscriptions that stand in a relationship of subalternity to structuring normativity of the text corpus could become invisible unless they already conform to the epistemic assumptions underlying those normativities. We conclude by discussing how my observations relate, by analogy and by allegory, to some issues of interest in discussions of world literature

Water sanitation: The need of the hour

Water is the portal on entry of many infections and hence, should be safe for drinking. There are several methods of water sanitation, such as filtration, boiling, and ultraviolet light. Hence, safe drinking water is very important for prevention of illnesses such as diarrhea and dysentery

A fragmentising interface to a large corpus of digitized text: (Post)humanism and non-consumptive reading via features

While the idea of distant reading does not rule out the possibility of close reading of the individual components of the corpus of digitized text that is being distant-read, this ceases to be the case when parts of the corpus are, for reasons relating to intellectual property, not accessible for consumption through downloading followed by close reading. Copyright restrictions on material in collections of digitized text such as the HathiTrust Digital Library (HTDL) necessitates providing facilities for non-consumptive reading, one of the approaches to which consists of providing users with features from the text in the form of small fragments of text, instead of the text itself. We argue that, contrary to expectation, the fragmentary quality of the features generated by the reading interface does not necessarily imply that the mode of reading enabled and mediated by these features points in an anti-humanist direction. We pose the fragmentariness of the features as paradigmatic of the fragmentation with which digital techniques tend, more generally, to trouble the humanities. We then generalize our argument to put our work on feature-based non-consumptive reading in dialogue with contemporary debates that are currently taking place in philosophy and in cultural theory and criticism about posthumanism and agency. While the locus of agency in such a non-consumptive practice of reading does not coincide with the customary figure of the singular human subject as reader, it is possible to accommodate this fragmentising practice within the terms of an ampler notion of agency imagined as dispersed across an entire technosocial ensemble. When grasped in this way, such a practice of reading may be considered posthumanist but not necessarily antihumanist.Ope

Neurocognitive Dysfunction in Head Injured Patients, Does It Reveal Various Outcomes in Both Sexes and Age-Groups?

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the main causes of death and disability in both sex, young and old age group population in different countries. This study aimed to estimate effects of sex, age group and intensity level of TBI in neurocognitive dysfunction.Methods: The study was done using the mini-mental state examination (MMSE) to estimate cognitive dysfunction that directed presence to the emergency department center with medical cares in the Zahedan city. Individuals were deliberated eligible if they were 18 years of age or older. This investigation covered 6-months.Results: The sample study estimated 85 patients, 73% males with 27% females. The mean age patients reported 32.5 years (range 18-66 year) and SD (12.924) with 95% CI. Two-way between groups analysis of variance test was used to assess the impacts of sex, age and level of TBI as measured by neurocognitive dysfunction. The interaction effect between sex, age group and level of TBI was statistically significant F (0, 85) = 3.96, P = 0.01 however, the effect size was medium (partial eta squared = 0.54).Conclusion: This study supported research hypothesis that sex, age group and severity level of TBI show greater effect in neurocognitive dysfunction. In addition, the greatest amount of improvement in disability was observed among the male youngest group of survivors. These results advocate TBI survivors, especially older patients, may be candidates for neuroprotective therapies after TBI

Effect of betel and lemon aqueous extracts on clinical isolates of Escherichia coli

Escherichia coli causes a plethora of human infections and can be difficult to treat due to biofilm formation and high degree of antibiotic resistance. Hence, natural inhibitory compounds are being studied against this pathogen. Our study evaluated the inhibitory role of paan leaf and lemon on this pathogen. Both paan leaf and lemon juice showed inhibition of growth and virulence factors at 4 g% concentration. This can show the road for further studies to characterize these inhibitory natural moieties

Dynamics and electrostatics define an allosteric druggable site within the receptor-binding domain of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein

The pathogenesis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus initiates through recognition of the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor of the host cells by the receptor-binding domain (RBD) located at the spikes of the virus. Here, using molecular dynamics simulations, we have demonstrated the allosteric crosstalk within the RBD in the apo- and the ACE2 receptor-bound states, revealing the contribution of the dynamics-based correlated motions and the electrostatic energy perturbations to this crosstalk. While allostery, based on correlated motions, dominates inherent distal communication in the apoRBD, the electrostatic energy perturbations determine favorable pairwise crosstalk within the RBD residues upon binding to ACE2. Interestingly, the allosteric path is composed of residues which are evolutionarily conserved within closely related coronaviruses, pointing toward the biological relevance of the communication and its potential as a target for drug development

Reading Dialectically: The Political Play of Form, Contingency, and Subjectivity in Rabindranath Tagore and C.L.R. James.

This dissertation undertakes a political reading of the writers Rabindranath Tagore and C.L.R. James, both of whom were public intellectuals who wrote in a variety of genres. James was a self-identified dialectical Marxist while Tagore did not evince any overt interest in dialectics or in political philosophy. However, both were part of a tradition of liberationist humanism which, although sometimes deemed antiquated from the point of view of the antifoundationalist discourse dominant after the poststructuralist moment, continue to be a critical intellectual resource. The dissertation aims to show that a rich and productive reading, not only of James but also of Tagore, is possible by reading them within the context of a dialectical framework. It argues for “dialectical moments” rather than a single overarching dialectic, as well as for dialectical movement without a determinate end-point, as preferred reading strategies. The particular post-Marxist reading of Tagore and James, informed by these strategies, that emerges from this dissertation, is proffered as indicative of a promising general approach that could provide a possibly new alternative paradigm of reading for postcolonial studies. The dissertation engages with James and Tagore both in the context of the work of political thinkers of an earlier era such as Georg Lukacs, Ernst Bloch, and Franz Fanon, as well as contemporary political thinkers such as Antonio Negri, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek, along the connecting thread of their approaches to dialectics. Using the interplay of necessity and contingency as a paradigmatic dialectical trope that acts as an organizing principle for this dissertation, questions of time, subjectivity and form are approached. The dissertation is oriented, in particular, to the genre of the play and dramatic form, and puts special emphasis on selections from the dramatic output of Tagore and James, which have so far received less critical attention compared to their other works. The dissertation concludes with a reflection on how the kind of reading undertaken in it is connected to open political questions that hover over the present-day world.Ph.D.Comparative LiteratureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78813/1/bhattach_1.pd