Internationalization of Universities : Exploring ‘Job Satisfaction’ of International Academics in Japan

申請代表者： 人間科学部 2 年 Khanna Varunアドバイザー教員： 人間科学研究科 Yamamoto Beverley採択番号: 人-0

Introduction To Sanskrit (CLST 023) Syllabus

Introduction to Sanskrit (CLST 023) is designed to give students novice-mid to novice-high proficiency in Sanskrit according to the NCSSFL-ACTFL foreign language proficiency standards. It introduces students to the language of Sanskrit, approaching it as a spoken as well as a written language. The course will include a weekly spoken Sanskrit session followed by reading and writing. Throughout this course, students will be covering fundamental grammatical concepts in order to develop a working knowledge of the most common forms and constructions one is likely to encounter in readings of the language. The course will mainly use handouts and external audio/video resources throughout the year. There will be frequent discussions about topics surrounding the language of Sanskrit, such as related linguistic, historical, and anthropological concerns

A Modern Advaita-Vedāntin: Locating Swami Chinmayananda and His Understanding of Consciousness in the Context of Scripture and the Contemporary World

Questions of the nature of the Self and the purpose of life have been of interest to mankind for millennia, culminating in the study of Consciousness in various civilizations. Amidst the milieu of ancient and contemporary theories of Consciousness is the ancient Indian philosophy of advaita-vedānta, or the system of non-duality. This dissertation explores the nature of the Self as Consciousness according to the well-known 20th Century philosopher of advaita-vedānta and Hindu guru, Swami Chinmayananda (1916-1993), drawing upon the core texts of Vedānta, the Upaniṣads, and the works of the chief systematizer of Advaita philosophy and the head of Chinmayananda’s monastic order, Śaṅkara (788-820 CE), and locates Chinmayananda and his work within the contemporaneous and ongoing dialogue regarding Hinduism. Understanding that the Upaniṣads are cryptic in nature and that we need a lens through which we can study them, we begin by providing a biography and analysis of the life of Swami Chinmayananda, the lens we have chosen for this dissertation, in the first two chapters. The circumstances in which he was raised, particularly the struggle for India’s independence, would influence his interpretation and presentation of Advaita philosophy. We then analyze his interpretation itself in the third and fourth chapters in the form of an intellectual biography, by presenting the philosophy in its traditional sequence, comparing and contrasting Chinmayananda’s interpretation with his predecessors, especially Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) and Śaṅkara. In the fifth and final chapter we attempt to situate him in the ongoing hermeneutical process of Hinduism by assessing his particular position within three broad strands of research: Hinduism and science, Hinduism and modernity, and Hinduism and diaspora configurations. We conclude that there is something to be learned from the Upaniṣads about Consciousness that augments our contemporary understanding of it, and that the voice of Chinmayananda must not be lost within the dialogue regarding Consciousness, the Self, and Hinduism, for his work has helped to shape the discussion about Hinduism as it stands today

Learn The Sanskrit Alphabet

This assignment is to navigate through a webapp designed to teach students of Sanskrit everything they need to know about the Sanskrit alphabet. It is structured in such a way such that students will encounter each letter, its pronunciation, script, and special properties in turn. Students will also learn how to write the Devanāgarī script through a writing practice platform integrated into the webapp

Disaster Governance and Challenges in a Rural Nepali Community: Notes from Future Village NGO

More than two years after the 2015 earthquakes devastated Nepal, Katunge village in Dhading district, Nepal, remained as destroyed as it was right after the earthquake. While the villagers were rather hopeful about rebuilding their houses and lives during the immediate relief effort in which we engaged, one month after the earthquake, now only a few are confident that they will ever rebuild their homes. In this article, we describe the reconstruction progress, followed by a critique of why the reconstruction progress has been so slow. We conclude with reflections on reconstruction challenges interwoven into the context of our NGO experience. During our trips to the region, we have observed and experienced the difficulties people and organizations are facing in the reconstruction process. We interviewed government officials and NGOs that have been involved in reconstruction, which helped us to gain insight into broader perspectives on the community or family-level realities that hinder rebuilding and community revitalization. We conclude that by mobilizing earthquake victims, it is possible to rebuild houses and revitalize communities. Conversely, little progress can be expected in Nepal’s rebuilding as long as poor governance and poor coordination between major reconstruction actors prevails

Neglected posterior acetabular wall fracture managed with uncemented total hip arthroplasty with posterior wall reconstruction by femoral head autograft: a case report

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) poses several challenges as a treatment option for acetabular fracture especially in the setting of a neglected fracture. The potential technical challenges of THA include the altered anatomy and hip centre, acetabular bone deficit, difficulty in achieving long-term fixation of the acetabular shell and risk of nerve injury. In our case, a forty two years old, male labrourer presented with a five months old injury, which was previously managed only conservatively. Preoperative evaluation revealed displaced posterior wall acetabulum with superiorly migrated femur head with flattened contour. We managed the case with uncemented THA. The acetabular defect was addressed using the femoral head autograft which was secured with screws. On three months follow up, radiographical evalution showed good graft consolidation without any acetabular component migration and functionally a Harris hip score of 76. Thus, in case of neglected acetabular fractures, with high probability of post traumatic arthritis to develop, THA remains the preferred choice of management. Albeit challenging to perform, THA provides effective way to decrease pain, improve stability and increase functional outcomes

Breastfeeding counselling and support: is it adequate? a descriptive study from Rohtak, India

Background: Antenatal breastfeeding education and motivation along with postnatal encouragement and lactation support are likely to improve rates of early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding. This study was done to know whether antenatal and postnatal visits were utilized for promotion of optimum breastfeeding in addition to the routine obstetric services.Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional type of community based epidemiological study was conducted in rural and urban field practice area attached to Department of Community Medicine, Pt. B. D. Sharma PGIMS, Rohtak. A total of 500 mothers were studied. A pre-tested semi-structured interview schedule was used for interviewing the study subjects and house to house visits were carried out to collect the information.Results: Health functionaries were the source of information in 49.6% mothers in urban area as compared to only 29.2% in rural areas. Breastfeeding related information was better in the mothers counseled by health functionaries than not counseled group.Conclusions: Health functionaries should be instructed to inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding during antenatal as well as postnatal visits. Existing breastfeeding education and postnatal support is not adequate in the population studied and needs to be strengthened

CMKb: a web-based prototype for integrating Australian Aboriginal customary medicinal plant knowledge

Background: The customary medicinal plant knowledge possessed by the Australian Aboriginal people is a significant resource. Published information on it is scattered throughout the literature, in heterogeneous data formats, and is scattered among various Aboriginal communities across Australia, due to a multiplicity of languages. This ancient knowledge is at risk due to loss of biodiversity, cultural impact and the demise of many of its custodians. We have developed the Customary Medicinal Knowledgebase (CMKb), an integrated multidisciplinary resource, to document, conserve and disseminate this knowledge. Description: CMKb is an online relational database for collating, disseminating, visualising and analysing initially public domain data on customary medicinal plants. The database stores information related to taxonomy, phytochemistry, biogeography, biological activities of customary medicinal plant species as well as images of individual species. The database can be accessed at http://biolinfo.org/cmkb webcite. Known bioactive molecules are characterized within the chemoinformatics module of CMKb, with functions available for molecular editing and visualization. Conclusion: CMKb has been developed as a prototype data resource for documenting, integrating, disseminating, analysing multidisciplinary customary medicinal plant data from Australia and to facilitate user-defined complex querying. Each species in CMKb is linked to online resources such as the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), NCBI Taxonomy, Australia's SpeciesLinks-Integrated Botanical Information System (IBIS) and Google images. The bioactive compounds are linked to the PubChem database. Overall, CMKb serves as a single knowledgebase for holistic plant-derived therapeutics and can be used as an information resource for biodiversity conservation, to lead discovery and conservation of customary medicinal knowledge.8 page(s

CMKb: a web-based prototype for integrating Australian Aboriginal customary medicinal plant knowledge

Background: The customary medicinal plant knowledge possessed by the Australian Aboriginal people is a significant resource. Published information on it is scattered throughout the literature, in heterogeneous data formats, and is scattered among various Aboriginal communities across Australia, due to a multiplicity of languages. This ancient knowledge is at risk due to loss of biodiversity, cultural impact and the demise of many of its custodians. We have developed the Customary Medicinal Knowledgebase (CMKb), an integrated multidisciplinary resource, to document, conserve and disseminate this knowledge. Description: CMKb is an online relational database for collating, disseminating, visualising and analysing initially public domain data on customary medicinal plants. The database stores information related to taxonomy, phytochemistry, biogeography, biological activities of customary medicinal plant species as well as images of individual species. The database can be accessed at http://biolinfo.org/cmkb webcite. Known bioactive molecules are characterized within the chemoinformatics module of CMKb, with functions available for molecular editing and visualization. Conclusion: CMKb has been developed as a prototype data resource for documenting, integrating, disseminating, analysing multidisciplinary customary medicinal plant data from Australia and to facilitate user-defined complex querying. Each species in CMKb is linked to online resources such as the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS), NCBI Taxonomy, Australia's SpeciesLinks-Integrated Botanical Information System (IBIS) and Google images. The bioactive compounds are linked to the PubChem database. Overall, CMKb serves as a single knowledgebase for holistic plant-derived therapeutics and can be used as an information resource for biodiversity conservation, to lead discovery and conservation of customary medicinal knowledge.8 page(s

Diverse dynamics features of novel protein kinase C (PKC) isozymes determine the selectivity of a fluorinated balanol analogue for PKCε

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.Abstract Background (−)-Balanol is an ATP-mimicking inhibitor that non-selectively targets protein kinase C (PKC) isozymes and cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). While PKA constantly shows tumor promoting activities, PKC isozymes can ambiguously be tumor promoters or suppressors. In particular, PKCε is frequently implicated in tumorigenesis and a potential target for anticancer drugs. We recently reported that the C5(S)-fluorinated balanol analogue (balanoid 1c) had improved binding affinity and selectivity for PKCε but not to the other novel PKC isozymes, which share a highly similar ATP site. The underlying basis for this fluorine-based selectivity is not entirely comprehended and needs to be investigated further for the development of ATP mimic inhibitors specific for PKCε. Results Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations assisted by homology modelling and sequence analysis, we have studied the fluorine-based selectivity in the highly similar ATP sites of novel PKC (nPKC) isozymes. The study suggests that every nPKC isozyme has different dynamics behaviour in both apo and 1c-bound forms. Interestingly, the apo form of PKCε, where 1c binds strongly, shows the highest degree of flexibility which dramatically decreases after binding 1c. Conclusions For the first time to the best of our knowledge, we found that the origin of 1c selectivity for PKCε comes from the unique dynamics feature of each PKC isozyme. Fluorine conformational control in 1c can synergize with and lock down the dynamics of PKCε, which optimize binding interactions with the ATP site residues of the enzyme, particularly the invariant Lys437. This finding has implications for further rational design of balanol-based PKCε inhibitors for cancer drug development