Dharmakṣetra; Kurukṣetra; Karmaṇighora. Dharma field; Kuru field; Violent, gory combat. Reading the Bhagavadgītā in its Mahābhāratan combat context as a sacred source for understanding and preparing for the impact of nonphysical postcombat trauma

Rita Brock and Gabriella Lettini ask in Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War, “Is there an adequate psychological and spiritual preparation for the consequences of killing?” I use their question to bridge emerging combat trauma literature (ECTL) with the ancient Hindu sacred sources, the Bhagavadgītā (Bg) in the Mahābhārata (Mbha). In this thesis, I make two general contributions. First, I read the Bg in its epic Mhbn combat context seeking ancient insight into nonphysical combat trauma. Secondly, I provide a clear ontological, epistemological, and phenomenological voice to read ECTL critically. Thus, to borrow Anthony Thiselton’s metaphor, I “bridge the horizons” of both disciplines with the following hypothesis: In the Bg, Krṣṇa prepared Arjuna for killing by correcting (re-ordered) Arjuna from a state of guṇa-karma epistemological disorder to a state of combat readiness. Yet, Kṛṣṇa’s śādhi (“correction”) did not insulate Arjuna from the negative impact of “violent, gory combat” (karmaṇighora). Thus, the post-Gītā Arjuna struggled to remain combat ready and effective, true to his declaration, “I stand as one who no longer doubts. I will accomplish your command” (Bg 18.73). In Part 1, I critically read ECTL and the symbolic and political commentators of the Bg. In Part 2, I categorize the nonphysical combat trauma of karmaṇighora at Kuruksetra. Then, I examine the terms describing Arjuna’s dharma crisis. Next, I examine Kṛṣṇa’s restorative response in the following imperatives “see” (paśya), “patiently endure” (titikṣasva), “know” (viddhi), and √sthā (uttiṣṭha, “stand up,”), highlighting the revelation of Sthānu advancing before him in battle. Finally, I provide accounts of how karmaṇighora impacted Arjuna and other kṣatriyas over the 18-day war. I conclude by reflecting on two emerging inquiries: Does Kṛṣṇa’s śādhi adequately prepare Arjuna for killing at Kurukṣetra? Is there such a thing as a soul wound in the Bg in its Mhbn combat context

“China Manufacturing 2025” Challenges and Opportunities for Small and Medium Chinese Businesses

Rising labor costs and shifting consumer demands are causing Hangzhou manufacturers to reevaluate their current manufacturing practices. As part of China’s push for internalization of automation, Greentech Investments wants to invest in the development of Chinese manufacturing. We explored automation implementation methods and workforce changes using surveying, interviewing, and field studies of manufacturers to assess current transition obstacles. We found that unskilled labor shortages are limiting manufacturing growth and developed a guide for industry automation adoption to combat this deficiency

Unshifting the baseline: a framework for documenting historical population changes and assessing long-term anthropogenic impacts

Ecological baselines—reference states of species' distributions and abundances—are key to the scientific arguments underpinning many conservation and management interventions, as well as to the public support to such interventions. Yet societal as well as scientific perceptions of these baselines are often based on ecosystems that have been deeply transformed by human actions. Despite increased awareness about the pervasiveness and implications of this shifting baseline syndrome, ongoing global assessments of the state of biodiversity do not take into account the long-term, cumulative, anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity. Here, we propose a new framework for documenting such impacts, by classifying populations according to the extent to which they deviate from a baseline in the absence of human actions. We apply this framework to the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus) to illustrate how it can be used to assess populations with different geographies and timelines of known or suspected impacts. Through other examples, we discuss how the framework can be applied to populations for which there is a wide diversity of existing knowledge, by making the best use of the available ecological, historical and archaeological data. Combined across multiple populations, this framework provides a standard for assessing cumulative anthropogenic impacts on biodiversity

Designing an information system for updating land records in Bangladesh: action design ethnographic research (ADER)

Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Information Systems (IS) has developed through adapting, generating and applying diverse methodologies, methods, and techniques from reference disciplines. Further, Action Design Research (ADR) has recently developed as a broad research method that focuses on designing and redesigning IT and IS in organizational contexts. This paper reflects on applying ADR in a complex organizational context in a developing country. It shows that ADR requires additional lens for designing IS in such a complex organizational context. Through conducting ADR, it is seen that an ethnographic framework has potential complementarities for understanding complex contexts thereby enhancing the ADR processes. This paper argues that conducting ADR with an ethnographic approach enhances design of IS and organizational contexts. Finally, this paper aims presents a broader methodological framework, Action Design Ethnographic Research (ADER), for designing artefacts as well as IS. This is illustrated through the case of a land records updating service in Bangladesh

Static stretching of the hamstring muscle for injury prevention in football codes: a systematic review

Purpose: Hamstring injuries are common among football players. There is still disagreement regarding prevention. The aim of this review is to determine whether static stretching reduces hamstring injuries in football codes. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted on the online databases PubMed, PEDro, Cochrane, Web of Science, Bisp and Clinical Trial register. Study results were presented descriptively and the quality of the studies assessed were based on Cochrane’s ‘risk of bias’ tool. Results: The review identified 35 studies, including four analysis studies. These studies show deficiencies in the quality of study designs. Conclusion: The study protocols are varied in terms of the length of intervention and follow-up. No RCT studies are available, however, RCT studies should be conducted in the near future

Bridging flavour violation and leptogenesis in SU(3) family models

We reconsider basic, in the sense of minimal field content, Pati-Salam x SU(3) family models which make use of the Type I see-saw mechanism to reproduce the observed mixing and mass spectrum in the neutrino sector. The goal of this is to achieve the observed baryon asymmetry through the thermal decay of the lightest right-handed neutrino and at the same time to be consistent with the expected experimental lepton flavour violation sensitivity. This kind of models have been previously considered but it was not possible to achieve a compatibility among all of the ingredients mentioned above. We describe then how different SU(3) messengers, the heavy fields that decouple and produce the right form of the Yukawa couplings together with the scalars breaking the SU(3) symmetry, can lead to different Yukawa couplings. This in turn implies different consequences for flavour violation couplings and conditions for realizing the right amount of baryon asymmetry through the decay of the lightest right-handed neutrino. Also a highlight of the present work is a new fit of the Yukawa textures traditionally embedded in SU(3) family models.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, Some typos correcte