Shivadhar Srinivasa Naipaul was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He was a descendant of Indian indentured laborers who had been transported to the sugarcane plantations of the Caribbean in the nineteenth century by British colonialists. Because of this, Naipaul brought many of the typical concerns of the doubly displaced colonial subject into his writings. Often thrust under the shadow of his older brother, V. S. Naipaul, he wrote about the intimidating burden of expectation that plagued him in his pursuit (...) of a writing career. He completed his education at Queen’s Royal College and St. Mary’s College, Trinidad, following which he won an “island scholarship” to study at the University College, Oxford. He later married Jenny Stuart and had a son named Tarun with her. (shrink)

Seepersad Naipaul was the son of Indian indentured laborers brought to Trinidad from the Gangetic plains of North India by the British colonial regime in the nineteenth century, following the formal abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. After receiving formal education till elementary school, he married into the powerful Capildeo clan and produced four children, including V. S. Naipaul and Shiva Naipaul. Seepersad Naipaul was the first Trinidadian Indian to work as a journalist at the British-owned Trinidad Guardian. His (...) literary ambitions led him to write a collection of short stories based on the Indian immigrant experience of rural Trinidad. The writing process stretched from 1943 to 1953, and the corpus went through additions and deletions. Although he had hoped to get his book published by a London press, he could only manage a self-publication in Trinidad in 1943. Eventually, the collection was published posthumously in London. Originally titled Gurudeva and Other Indian Tales, the later publication was renamed The Adventures of Gurudeva. (shrink)

Iranian scholar Ramin Jahanbegloo interviews one of the most well-known environment activists of our time, Vandana Shiva, and in the process, addresses issues ranging from nature and spiritualism, the Chipko Movement and the birth of Navdanya, 'earth democracy', and 'seed globalization' to the functioning of neoliberal paradigm in India, swadeshi and village governance, corruption in India, the future of Indian farmers, and the relevance of Gandhi in the twenty-first century.

Para ampliar la mirada sobre los ejes articuladores entre el feminismo y las propuestas de sustentabilidad planetaria, se presentan tres textos de Vandana Shiva, una de las figuras centrales en el mundo, en el ámbito del ecofeminismo. La autora expone nuevas formas de mirar y comprender conceptos como pobreza y democracia; denuncia el desarrollo como proyecto culturalmente tendencioso que destruye los estilos de vida sanos y sostenibles y crea pobreza material; y denuncia la violencia de la globalización corporativa.

From seed to table, the food chain is gendered. When seeds and food are in women’s hands, seeds reproduce and multiply freely, food is shared freely and respected. However, women’s seed and food economy has been discounted as “productive work.” Women’s seed and food knowledge has been discounted as knowledge. Globalization has led to the transfer of seed and food from women’s hands to corporate hands. Seed is now patented and genetically engineered. It is treated as the creation and “property” (...) of corporations like Monsanto. Renewable seed becomes nonrenewable. Sharing and saving seed becomes a crime. Diversity, nourished by centuries of women’s breeding, disappears, and with it the culture and natural evolution that is embodied in the diversity is lost forever. Food, too, is transformed in corporate hands. It is no longer our nourishment; it becomes a commodity. And as a commodity it can be manipulated and monopolized. If food grain makes more money as cattle feed than it does as food for human consumption, it becomes cattle feed. If food grain converted to biofuel to run automobiles is more profitable, it becomes ethanol and biodiesel. (shrink)

As drones are deployed in public spaces for tasks such as package delivery, drones will encounter the public as bystanders passing by. The distinctive character of bystanders is that they are not the package recipients, so they lack prior information about the drone. Clear communication of drone intentions is essential to reduce uncertainty and improve public safety and trust. Limited research, however, has examined how a drone’s communication strategies affect bystanders. This online questionnaire study investigated how a drone’s visual cues (...) affect bystanders' uncertainty about a drone’s intentions. Participants (N = 150) viewed software simulated scenarios of drones delivering packages either by landing or by cable drop, each with or without visual interfaces (on-board lights, on-board display, or ground projection). Participants rated the scenarios for uncertainty, convincingness, predictability, understandability, and trust, and provided qualitative feedback through textual comments. Results illustrate that explicit communication improves bystanders’ ability to predict drone actions and influence bystanders’ intentions. While lights posed challenges with visual clarity, displays were effective for conveying drone movements, and projections were most preferred for indicating landing locations and safety zones. We recommend adapting interfaces, particularly ground projection, to provide instructions to bystanders on how to act (e.g., whether or not to cross) during drone operations. Our study contributes to the introduction of safe and trustworthy drones in public spaces. (shrink)

Publication date: 22 December 2020 Source: International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences Vol. 89 Author: Shiva Hemmati This paper examines Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece Jane Eyre through Irigaray’s notion of feminine divine in order to argue how Charlotte Brontë’s main characters achieve their autonomous gendered identity by expressing their erotic desire. It discusses the resistance of Charlotte Brontë’s female protagonist, Jane Eyre, to the dichotomies of active subject/passive object, self/other, body/mind, passion/intellect, and the domination/submission through her ethical and intersubjective (...) relationship with Rochester, her counterpart, rather than being an object of his desire. It is argued how Jane challenges these dualities of patriarchal society and the logic of the same by expressing her erotic nature. Where the patriarchal society tries to confine women in the patriarchal culture, Brontë develops Jane within and against those confines and allows her to experience her female desire by exploring the internal and external nature. Jane’s liberation from the dualities can be read through the lens of Irigaray’s feminine divine which focuses on women’s autonomous gendered identity and creates a balance between their passion and reason. Charlotte Brontë indicates how women are able to achieve individuality, social standing, and subjective identity by expressing their female desire. (shrink)

BackgroundThe current paper follows up on the results of an exploratory quantitative analysis that compared the publication and citation records of men and women researchers affiliated with the Faculty of Computing and Engineering at Dublin City University (DCU) in Ireland. Quantitative analysis of publications between 2013 and 2018 showed that women researchers had fewer publications, received fewer citations per person, and participated less often in international collaborations. Given the significance of publications for pursuing an academic career, we used qualitative methods (...) to understand these differences and explore factors that, according to women researchers, have contributed to this disparity.MethodsSixteen women researchers from DCU’s Faculty of Computing and Engineering were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Once interviews were transcribed and anonymised, they were coded by both authors in two rounds using an inductive approach.ResultsInterviewed women believed that their opportunities for research engagement and research funding, collaborations, publications and promotions are negatively impacted by gender roles, implicit gender biases, their own high professional standards, family responsibilities, nationality and negative perceptions of their expertise and accomplishments.ConclusionsOur study has found that women in DCU’s Faculty of Computing and Engineering face challenges that, according to those interviewed, negatively affect their engagement in various research activities, and, therefore, have contributed to their lower publication record. We suggest that while affirmative programmes aiming to correct disparities are necessary, they are more likely to improve organisational culture if they are implemented in parallel with bottom-up initiatives that engage all parties, including men researchers and non-academic partners, to inform and sensitise them about the significance of gender equity. (shrink)

This research examines the impact of implicit religious beliefs on work ethic in specific cultural contexts. Based on three studies, the authors found that thoughts related to religion impact work ethic, but only when the culture embraces religious values at work and in public environments. In a comparative setting, Moroccan participants primed with religious thoughts displayed greater work ethic, whereas similarly primed French participants exhibited less work ethic (Study 1). For North African–French biculturals, religious stimuli interacted with cultural identity to (...) predict work ethic (Study 2) and activated religious beliefs and cultural identity had a significant effect on their level of effort (Study 3). Our research reveals that implicit religious beliefs can predict work ethic in a manner contingent on a cultural setting. In cultures where religious values are historically embraced and encouraged, work ethic constitutes a religious construct that enhances work ethic. Conversely, in secular cultures, religious cues inhibit work ethic. We believe that within a multi-cultural, multi-religion work force, it is important to take note of these influences. (shrink)

_Gale_ Academic OneFile includes Reversing globalization: what Gandhi can teach us by Vandana Shiva. Click to explore.

Could there be a balanced philosophical stance capable of accommodating the scientific facts pertaining to free will without compromising the ideal of human freedom and autonomy? A stance that can render intelligible the inferences emerging from the factual analysis of free will in terms of the phenomenon called ‘Readiness Potential’(RP), at the same time, existentially upholding the ideal of freedom? In the present paper, an attempt will be made to bring to light such an existential phenomenological perspective implicit in the (...) philosophy of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In the analysis, some of the most relevant scientific facts pertaining to RPs and the corresponding scientific inferences as to the conception of ‘free will’ will be taken into account with a view to see how in this phenomenological scheme they could all be intelligibly accommodated. Once this is achieved, a unique version of compatibilism inherent in Merleau-Ponty’s thought will also be traced. (shrink)

The neoclassical interpretation of quantum mechanics which re-introduces older conceptual models of gravity and electromagnetism transformed by modern advancements in the field is discussed as a natural outcome from the interchangeability of quantum mechanics and fluid dynamics in light of recent macro-level experiments which show behaviors previously believed to be confined to the quantum world. This superfluid model of mechanics and the known behaviors of superfluids is suggested as a possible substrate and system for the storage and processing of data. (...) Methods of data storage found in natural systems such as the brain are compared via extensive use of analogies to support the conjecture that a rational and mechanical basis for spirituality can be supported under the neoclassical interpretation because of the inherent persistent structure and interaction of the suggested pervasive medium. This model of information theory spiritualism is suggested as a basis for the unification of physics with more philosophical approaches in the study of metaphysics. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE. (shrink)

Research involving human subjects requires adherence to ethical guidelines that are dictated by funding agencies’ requirements and adjudicated by ethical review boards. Despite strict requirements, ethical standards are not always being met. Here, we present cases that exemplify positive and negative activities related to ethical research conduct, as well as factors that influence these activities, in order to demonstrate that current policies and procedures related to implementing ethical research are insufficient and need to be improved.Narrative analysis was carried out amongst (...) researchers from multi-disciplinary subject areas (STEM and non-STEM). The data was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted between 2021 to 2024. The study included graduate students (GS − n = 10), postdoctoral researchers (PDR − n = 10), and research supervisors (RS − n = 15). The interviews are based on participants’ experiences in conducting research and their interactions and experiences with peers and collaborators in this context.The results show that participants carrying out externally funded research are adhering to ethical standards and expectations of their funding bodies and associated governmental organisations. There is evidence for institutional representatives carrying out monthly audits on procedural updates and health and safety. However, claims of unethical and/or immoral behaviours or practices (such as selective reporting of data, hypothesising after the results are known (HARKing), duplicate publications) were reported by the participants. Participant consensus indicated that institutions have a responsibility to establish and implement policies and procedures to support ethical research practice. Recommendations are provided on how institutions can minimise questionable practices and misconduct in research. (shrink)

Academic integrity to uphold intellectual honesty and transparency has become the focus in higher education. Currently, the HE sectors worldwide have taken additional measures to minimise the likelihood of academic misconduct cases. Most of these interventions are student focussed, aiming to develop an integrity culture amongst students. A few studies have explored ways to deter plagiarism (or reduce the chances to plagiarise) by effective assessment strategies. It is an accepted argument that authentic assessment methods coupled with clear assessment briefs will (...) reduce academic misconduct. Despite the continuous monitoring and careful mentoring, there were some reported incidences of ambiguous assessment briefs contributing to student misconduct. It is still not clear whether the assessment and their briefs are effectively produced with clear instructions about what is expected from the students (a) regarding literature surveys, (b) using data from collaborative group work, (c) using internet resources.This chapter aims to revisit examples of ambiguous assessment briefs from different institutions worldwide and their role in contributing to plagiarism and academic misconduct cases. It will highlight reported cases of how the following assessment modalities: (a) restricted time constraint exams, (b) open book online tests, (c) take home assessment and (d) assessment briefs with contradictory instructions have provided chances for cheating and affected the performance of students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLDs). The chapter will elaborate examples of academic misconduct, especially plagiarism, resulting merely from ambiguous assessment briefs and inappropriately transformed online assessments. It will also discuss ways to reduce ambiguity in assessment briefs. (shrink)

Feminist theories on conflict-related sexual violence and Hannah Arendt’s analyses of administrative massacre and organized guilt, notably her report on Eichmann’s trial, posit that existing systems and institutions can act as preparatory measures, setting the stage for the potential occurrence of mass violence. This paper seeks to examine these two schools of thought concurrently, exploring their points of convergence and divergence in the analysis of mass-scale sexual and gender-based violence. Both perspectives move beyond a narrow focus on individual responsibility and (...) challenge the silo(ed) approach in studying mass violence. The findings of this study reveal that these two theories underscore the role of dominant rules and norms in a specific context, acting as conducive or preparatory factors that drive perpetrators of these crimes. These norms, embedded in institutions, can normalize violence against specific groups by endorsing discrimination. Making violence routine and “business as usual,” the system can enable individuals to commit heinous crimes. Therefore, in a climate of pervasive gender inequality and normalized violence against women, those responsible for mass-scale sexual violence may be individuals known for their typicality and ordinariness rather than profound wickedness. (shrink)

We have become a singularly confessing society…. [The confession] plays a part in justice, medicine, education, family relationships, and love relations, in the most ordinary affairs of everyday life, and in the most solemn rites: one confesses one's crimes, one's sins, one's thoughts and desires, one's illnesses and troubles; one goes about telling, with the greatest precision, whatever is most difficult to tell…. One confesses—or is forced to confess.This is an observation made decades before all the changes that information and (...) communication technology have brought about in our social and personal lives lately. With the impositions of the current pandemic scenario added, we have now literally become confessing... (shrink)

The formalism of mathematics has always inspired ontological theorization based on it. As is evident from his magnum opus Being and Event, Alain Badiou remains one of the most important contemporary contributors to this enterprise. His famous maxim—“mathematics is ontology” has its basis in the ingenuity that he has shown in capitalizing on Gödel’s and Cohen’s work in the field of set theory. Their work jointly establish the independence of the continuum hypothesis from the standard axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, (...) with Gödel’s result showing their consistency to the affirmative, while Cohen’s showing it to the negative. These results serve as the cornerstone of Badiou’s mathematical ontology. In it, drawing heavily on Cohen’s technically formidable method of forcing, Badiou makes the latter result the key to his defense of the possibility of a faithful tracing of the consequences in the ‘state’ of an ‘event’ by a ‘subject’. Whereas, Gödel’s result based on the assumption of constructability becomes the pivot for criticism of the general philosophical orientation that Badiou calls ‘constructivism’. Viewed from a position internal to mathematical formalism itself, and taking into account the twentieth century developments in the relevant field, Badiou’s stance seems to be neither appreciative of the actual course of such developments, nor just to the philosophical view point that was actually maintained by Gödel. In the present paper, this concern is intended to be substantiated through an exposition of certain facts pertaining to the said developments as well as to Gödel’s philosophical inclinations. (shrink)

Background: Patients’ rights arise from their expectations of the healthcare system, which are rooted in their needs. Visitation is seen as a necessary need for patients and families in intensive care units. Objectives: The authors attempted to design, implement, and evaluate a new visiting policy in the intensive care units. Research design: This study was an action research, including two qualitative and quantitative approaches. Participants and research context: The viewpoints of 51 participants (patients, families, doctors, nurses, and guards) on how (...) to change the limited visiting policy were explained through semi-structured interviews and focus groups. The new visiting policy (contractual visitation) was designed, implemented, and evaluated with the involvement of participants. Ethical considerations: The hospital ethics committee approval was gained and the informed consent was obtained from all the participants. Findings: The content of interviews was analyzed and classified into four categories: advantages and disadvantages of visiting policies, and barriers and facilitators of changing the limited visiting policy. After implementation of the new policy (contractual visitation), a significant difference observed in satisfaction status before and after the changes (p value < 0.001). Discussion: Nowadays, many countries’ clinical guidelines recommend flexible visiting policy, which is consistent with the results of this study. Conclusion: Changing the limited visiting policy was a necessary need for patients and families that established with the involvement of them and staff. (shrink)

The flow state – an experience of complete absorption in an activity – is linked with less self-referential processing and increased arousal. We used the heart-evoked potential, an index representing brain–heart interaction, as well as indices of peripheral physiology to assess the state of flow in individuals playing a video game. 22 gamers and 21 non-gamers played the video game Thumper for 25 min while their brain and cardiorespiratory signals were simultaneously recorded. The more participants were absorbed in the game, (...) the less they thought about time and the faster time passed subjectively. On the cortical level, the fronto-central HEP amplitude was significantly lower while playing the game compared to resting states before and after the game, reflecting less self-referential processing while playing. This HEP effect corresponded with lower activity during gameplay in brain regions contributing to interoceptive processing. The HEP amplitude predicted the level of absorption in the game. While the HEP amplitude was overall lower during the gaming session than during the resting states, within the gaming session the amplitude of HEP was positively associated with absorption. Since higher absorption was related to higher performance in the game, the higher HEP in more absorbed individuals reflects more efficient brain–heart interaction, which is necessary for efficient game play. On the physiological level, a higher level of flow was associated with increased overall sympathetic activity and less inhibited parasympathetic activity toward the end of the game. These results are building blocks for future neurophysiological assessments of flow. (shrink)

The field of enquiry into the phenomenon of language has long been dominated by the Computational-Representational (C-R) theories of language. This seems to be the most natural and plausible state of affairs, given the revolutionary impact that the advent of computers and the emergence of information technology have had in our lives lately. Noam Chomsky’s variant has been the most influential among such theories. However, there are certain conceptual issues pertaining to the very method, object and modality of the Chomskyan (...) project. In the present paper, I will try to locate these issues and contend that they arise from the peculiar conception of human embodiment involved in the propositions forming the Chomskyan scheme of language. They come to light only when engaged closely with from a phenomenological viewpoint. And this will be done in the first part. Once this is done, I will propose an alternative approach towards language, contained in the phenomenological insights on human embodiment and perception of the French phenomenologist Maurice Merleau Ponty. I will also hint at how befitting this alternative scheme is to the connectionist-neural network models of language, which are fast replacing the C–R models lately. (shrink)

The problem of alienation has come to the focus of philosophical discourse in terms of cogito’s loss of immediacy with the body and intimacy with the world, ever since Descartes—the founding father of modern thought—had his famous meditations. Putting the problem of alienation at the focus of philosophy, how should this human situation be reflected upon and the problem be addressed or dissolved at the least? One thing is clear that the method of enquiry cannot be purely intellectual wherein the (...) subject–object dichotomy has to be rigorously maintained. Rather, it has to turn intuitive at some stage, so that human subjective consciousness could be given its due place in the enquiry and the interplay of it with and the embeddedness of it in the material reality be revealed and accounted for as well. Only such an approach would address the problem at hand. But one cannot remain very optimistic about Western philosophy in this endeavor, due to the reasons to be elaborated in present paper. It is in this context that an enquiry into other philosophical systems becomes relevant. In the Eastern philosophical traditions, the issue at hand is addressed more creatively. Particularly in the Advaita Vedanta school of Indian Philosophy, the problem of alienation is tackled in an original way by elevating altogether the ‘being of man’ to a different level by way of an existential blending of his intellectual and intuitive capacities. Precisely in the Taittiriya Upanishad, man’s true nature is formulated in tune with nature, giving it a unique existential thrust. This conception once elaborated seems to be capable of productively addressing the issue at hand. An attempt will be made in the paper, at elucidating this view. (shrink)

Questions about the mind and those about politics have conventionally found separate treatments in the philosophical literature. This paper proposes that crucial assumptions about the nature of the human person in politics actually turn on a compatible account of mental content. The particular relation that I will focus on here would be one between a discourse-theoretic model of persons in political ontology and social externalism in philosophy of mind. For the former, I’ll concern myself largely with Philip Pettit’s presentation of (...) it and its expression in terms of intentional systems which, I’ll argue, renders itself to a version of social externalism that emerges out of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. An auxiliary consequence of this exercise is the diagnosis of a familiar problem that is associated with the notion of rule-following—I’ll argue that skepticism about rule-following is only tenable when one holds on to an internalist thesis about the individuation of mental content. This objection is dissolved once a theory of understanding is adopted which works with a distinctly externalist account of mental content. Finally, I will take stock of the implications of this exercise in terms of suggesting basic grounds for a philosophically interesting relationship between political ontology and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

We conducted three studies to examine how the recipients of negative workplace gossip judge the gossip sender’s morality and how they respond behaviorally. Study 1 provided experimental evidence that gossip recipients perceive senders as low in morality, with female recipients rating the sender’s morality more negatively than male recipients. In a follow-up experiment (Study 2), we further found that perceived low morality translates into behavioral responses in the form of career-related sanctions by the recipient on the gossip sender. A critical (...) incident study (Study 3) enhanced the external validity and extended the moderated mediation model by showing that gossip recipients also penalize senders with social exclusion. We discuss the implications for practice and research on negative workplace gossip, gender differences in attributions of morality, and gossip recipients’ behavioral responses. (shrink)

This article investigates ethical hazards associated with argumentative shifts following the emergence of combined non-inferiority and efficiency/revenue facilitation (NERF) endpoints, with particular attention to research on artificial intelligence (AI) in health and medicine. The study presented here adopts a Toulmin argumentative analysis approach to investigate the dominant persuasive logics of twenty-three health AI trials evaluating NERF endpoints. In so doing, the article demonstrates how the argumentative logics of NERF trial reports shifts away from health outcomes as the putative evidence base (...) for adopting novel interventions toward an argumentative model that prioritizes economic benefits over patient benefits. Ultimately, the article argues that new logic of NERF endpoints is consistent with and risks accelerating the harms to patient care that arise from increased financialization of the healthcare sector. If the use of NERF endpoints and attendant logics continue to grow unchecked, they could result in significant harms to patient health and well-being. (shrink)

The paper investigates how field experimentation of genetically modified crops became central to the French controversy on genetically modified organisms in recent years. Initially constructed in the 1980s as a cognitive endeavor to be preserved from lay interference, field trials of genetically modified crops were reconceived as “an intrusion in the social space,” which had to be negotiated with actors from that space. In order to analyze this transformation, the authors suggest that it is necessary to develop an interpretive framework (...) that combines theoretical perspectives from science and technology studies and the sociology of social problems, and emphasizes the importance of the way in which actors compete in a heterogeneous public space, to put forward alternative framings of problems. The authors present a detailed analysis of the interactions and conflicts between actors in diverse social arenas in order to better understand the dynamics of this sociotechnical controversy. (shrink)

The European Network for Academic Integrity’s (ENAI) Ethical Publishing and Dissemination working group has developed guidance targeting early career researchers (ECRs). Materials developed so far cover the responsibilities of different stakeholders in managing academic publishing and a checklist of characteristics that help to distinguish between reputable and disreputable journals and publishers.Although many types of guidance exist already in different forms, we found no guidance covering all the different publishing roles that is synchronised to provide a comprehensive complementary set. Therefore, we (...) set out to fill that gap.Despite many existing checklists, the number of disreputable publishers and journals continues to increase, reflecting strong global demand for these services. Other threats come from hijacked journals, paper mills and authorship for sale. Raising awareness in ECRs will improve their understanding about the threats they face and their rights, so they can exercise their responsibilities as an author and make informed decisions on where and how to publish.In July 2023, the draft guidance notes and checklist were presented at a conference workshop. Participants were asked for feedback to help to validate and improve these resources. This paper will describe the processes followed by working group members to develop and validate these resources, which are available on the working group’s website. (shrink)