The concept of time in Buddhism

The present thesis is an attempt to expound the philosophical study of time in India. Its main purpose is to give a clear picture of the Buddhist notion of time as discussed in its different schools: the Pali tradition, Vaibhasikas (or the Sarvastivadins), Sautrantikas and the Madhyamikas. It also deals with the three major non-Buddhist systems: Nyaya-Vaisesika, Samkhya-Yoga and Jainism. The first chapter deals with the substantive reality of time in Nyaya-Vaisesika, which is a realistic and pluralistic system. It accepts time (mahakala) as an instrumental cause, eternal, absolute, independent, unique, infinite and all-pervading. According to this system, finite time (khandakala), such as second, minute, hour, day, past, present or future, has no independent status, and is only an imposed property of eternal time (kalopadhi). In the second chapter, Samkhya-Yoga gives a tremendous shock to absolute time of the Nyaya-Vaisesika. Whereas Samkhya identifies time with change, actions or events, Yoga ascribes reality to moment (ksana), but denies its aggregates as absolute time. In the third chapter, Jainism maintains that time is real and a substance, but it does not possess corporeality, though it has existence. It propounds the semi-realistic and atomistic theory of time. The fourth chapter makes an analysis of the concept of time in Pali Buddhism dispersed through a vast number of Pali texts. The fifth chapter deals with the important controversy on time between the Vaibhasikas (or the Sarvastivadins) and the Sautrantikas. The sixth and final chapter provides a Madhyamika critique of time. It is to be noted that in the entire Buddhist tradition time has never been considered as a reality, though we do find in it some interesting passages on the three time-epochs, the past, present and future, which are often taken as the modes of existence. But they too are in no sense real as such. The first appendix gives some different lists of computations of time maintained by different texts. This is in addition to the lists given by Nyaya-Vaisesika and Jainism. The second appendix is a new critical edition of the Prasannapada, chapter XIX, which demonstrates the Madhyamika critique of time

Free Convection Flow of Oldroyd Liquid Past A Hot Vertical Porous Plate

The problem of flow of an elaatico-viscous liquid past a hot vertical porous flat plate has been considered by taking into account the effect of free convection when a body force 'g' acts in a direction opposite to that in which flow takes place. Numerical calculations have been made to study the effect of free convection and elasticity of the fluid on the fluid velocity. The fluid velocity and the skin-friction both increase with the Grashof number. The skin-friction is not affected by the elastic elements. The fluid velocity increases with the relaxation time but decreases with the increase in retardation time

Impact of climate change on human livelihood and agricultural growth in Himalayan Country Nepal

Present-day concerns continue to grow about the adverse impacts on human life of climate change, which includes issues such as increased food insecurities. Climate change has many impacts on the overall ecosystem, directly and indirectly, however its impact on agriculture can be understood to be more direct as it is particularly vulnerable to these changes. Concern about climate change in Nepal may be particularly acute as the result of the observed early symptom of rapidly increasing average temperatures. Partly as a result of these temperature changes, Nepal has recently become a rice importer, where it was an exporter previously. Nepal now faces a food deficit in more than 27 districts in the hill and high hill areas. Productivity and quality of food production is also in question in Nepal as both of them are in deterioration. In reaction to these challenges, farmers are employing excess chemical fertilizer and pesticides, which has led to widespread soil contamination in particular and increasing pollution in general. Amid this emerging crisis, the proposed paper, seeks to examine empirically over time the relationship between climatic variables such as temperature and precipitation and agricultural gross domestic product (AGDP), while controlling for the use of agriculture inputs (chemical fertilizer, pesticides, improved seeds, irrigation etc). In a paired qualitative analysis, the research will highlight the current trends of human habitat displacement and corresponding efforts at rehabilitation

Using MACBETH method for supplier selection in manufacturing environment

Supplier selection is always found to be a complex decision-making problem in manufacturing environment. The presence of several independent and conflicting evaluation criteria, either qualitative or quantitative, makes the supplier selection problem a candidate to be solved by multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. Even several MCDM methods have already been proposed for solving the supplier selection problems, the need for an efficient method that can deal with qualitative judgments related to supplier selection still persists. In this paper, the applicability and usefulness of measuring attractiveness by a categorical-based evaluation technique (MACBETH) is demonstrated to act as a decision support tool while solving two real time supplier selection problems having qualitative performance measures. The ability of MACBETH method to quantify the qualitative performance measures helps to provide a numerical judgment scale for ranking the alternative suppliers and selecting the best one. The results obtained from MACBETH method exactly corroborate with those derived by the past researchers employing different mathematical approaches

Incorporating Agile with MDA Case Study: Online Polling System

Nowadays agile software development is used in greater extend but for small organizations only, whereas MDA is suitable for large organizations but yet not standardized. In this paper the pros and cons of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and Extreme programming have been discussed. As both of them have some limitations and cannot be used in both large scale and small scale organizations a new architecture has been proposed. In this model it is tried to opt the advantages and important values to overcome the limitations of both the software development procedures. In support to the proposed architecture the implementation of it on Online Polling System has been discussed and all the phases of software development have been explained.Comment: 14 pages,1 Figure,1 Tabl

A Quality Function Deployment-Based Model for Cutting Fluid Selection

Cutting fluid is applied for numerous reasons while machining a workpiece, like increasing tool life, minimizing workpiece thermal deformation, enhancing surface finish, flushing away chips from cutting surface, and so on. Hence, choosing a proper cutting fluid for a specific machining application becomes important for enhanced efficiency and effectiveness of a manufacturing process. Cutting fluid selection is a complex procedure as the decision depends on many complicated interactions, including work material’s machinability, rigorousness of operation, cutting tool material, metallurgical, chemical, and human compatibility, reliability and stability of fluid, and cost. In this paper, a decision making model is developed based on quality function deployment technique with a view to respond to the complex character of cutting fluid selection problem and facilitate judicious selection of cutting fluid from a comprehensive list of available alternatives. In the first example, HD-CUTSOL is recognized as the most suitable cutting fluid for drilling holes in titanium alloy with tungsten carbide tool and in the second example, for performing honing operation on stainless steel alloy with cubic boron nitride tool, CF5 emerges out as the best honing fluid. Implementation of this model would result in cost reduction through decreased manpower requirement, enhanced workforce efficiency, and efficient information exploitation