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Investigating <i>Dharma</i>: Religion, Literature, and the Training of Vigilant Readers in 10th-11th Century South Asia
Get PDFAt the turn of the first millennium, some Jaina thinkers raised an unprecedented question: why should one story be accepted over others? This question emerged within a social and religious environment in which various groups told and retold competing versions of popular narratives, such as the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. While certain groups privileged specific versions, they rarely articulated the criteria by which a story should be evaluated or accepted as authoritative. This dissertation examines how a body of Jaina narrative literature called the Investigation of Dharma confronts this question. Focusing on its two earliest extant versions—Hariṣeṇa’s Apabhramsha Dhammaparikkhā (988 CE) and Amitagati’s Sanskrit Dharmaparīkṣā (1014 CE)—I argue that the Investigation models a theory of adjudicating narrative credibility and, by extension, testimonial authority. Through a close analysis of these texts, I demonstrate how their authors used narrative literature to train audiences in evaluating the credibility of stories, thereby cultivating readers capable of discerning authoritative knowledge from falsehood. These works, I argue, engage a rich premodern South Asian literary milieu—one characterized by multiple coexisting versions of shared stories—in order to offer explicit models for evaluating the truthfulness of stories and the ethical stakes of accepting or rejecting them. Framed by the repeated appearance of two Vidyādhara protagonists—a Jaina layman and his friend—who engage in debate with Brahmins by presenting a series of implausible stories, the Investigation uses narrative form to stage epistemological dilemmas that mirror those faced by readers of purāṇic literature. These nested stories raise questions about what makes a story credible and what it means to evaluate a story’s claims. In this reading, the Investigation functions as a literary device for cultivating epistemic virtues in its audience by immersing them in staged scenarios that demand critical evaluation and judgment of the stories they encounter. Moreover, my dissertation demonstrates that Hariṣeṇa and Amitagati did not write in a vacuum. By situating the Investigation in conversation with a broader body of Jaina thinkers across languages and time, I reconstruct the ways its authors conceptualized their project in relation to their literary environment and intellectual interlocutors. Framed in this way, I suggest, the Investigation emerges as part of a wider Jaina discourse on reason and the evaluation of authority—one that opens further possibilities for the study of South Asian literature
Building on Fault Lines: Seismic Resilience and the Impact of 20th-Century Earthquakes and Housing Policy on 21st-Century Housing Affordability in San Francisco and Tokyo
Get PDFGiven the unpredictability of earthquakes, urban planning in seismically active regions must incorporate both immediate disaster mitigation and long-term resilience to protect populations and infrastructure. This project examines how major seismic events in 20th-century San Francisco and Tokyo catalyzed significant transformations in each city’s approach to urban planning and how the persistent threat of seismic destruction has continued to influence 21st-century planning policies, particularly in terms of affordability, resilience, and sustainability. To explore these topics, this thesis develops a comparative case study using qualitative and quantitative data such as historical documents, government data, modern building codes and interviews with housing experts. I argue the stark differences in 21st-century planning priorities, housing affordability, and urban development between San Francisco and Tokyo are rooted in their contrasting approaches to 20th-century post-earthquake recovery, regulatory structures, and public attitudes toward resilience. This thesis also situates earthquake preparedness within broader regulatory and cultural contexts, arguing that Tokyo’s centralized governance and national planning laws have enabled swift post-disaster adaptation, fostering a dynamic urban landscape through flexible zoning and high-density construction. In contrast, San Francisco’s decentralized approach, characterized by strict zoning laws, historic preservation priorities, and a protracted permitting process, has created bureaucratic barriers that constrain new development and exacerbate housing shortages. This study highlights how regulatory frameworks shape both resilience and long-term urban growth, and contributes to a broader understanding of how cities can balance disaster preparedness, affordability, and sustainable urbanism in an era of increasing seismic uncertainty
Mechanisms and Structure Reactivity Relationships in Nitrogen Deletion
No full textAnomeric amides are a unique class of molecules that can perform a variety of functions in synthesis. To empower future discovery of anomeric amide reagents and their reactions, it is imperative to understand the existing transformations as much as possible. This thesis is based in trying to uncover and distinguish differences in reactivity of anomeric amides and their reaction partners to enhance our understanding of how these reagents can be best manipulated and put safely into practice in synthetic chemistry. Chapter one reviews the applications of anomeric amide reagents, with a focus on modern developments within synthetic chemistry. Chapter two covers investigations of structure-reactivity relationships in N-(benzyloxy)-N-(pivaloyloxy)benzamides. These include kinetic reaction monitoring, linear free energy relationships, and DFT computed parameters to improve our knowledge of the structural features that influence the reactivity of these reagents within the context of secondary amine deletion. Chapter 3 looks instead at the impact of the amine’s structure on the reaction mechanism. The discovery and scope of primary amine deletion is briefly discussed, while the chapter’s focus is on the mechanistic experiments that were used to elucidate the radical-chain mechanism that accounts for the drastically different reactivity requirements observed for these substrates. Chapter 4 discusses optimization efforts and safety considerations in scaling a primary amine deletion, as these can be a useful transformation for transforming readily available amine feedstocks. The Appendix ventures away from nitrogen deletion and anomeric amides to share a story of a failed decarbonylation strategy that took on a new life within a tandem nitrene-internalization carbon-deletion reaction that transforms aryl azides into pyridines through removal of the ipso-carbon
Symmetry is the Key to the Design of Reticular Frameworks
Get PDFDe novo prediction of reticular framework structures is a challenging task for chemists and materials scientists. Herein, a computational workflow that predicts a list of possible reticular frameworks based on only the connectivity and symmetry of node and linker building blocks is presented. This list is ranked based on the occurrence of topologies in known structures, thus providing a manageable number of structures that can be optimized using density functional theory, and inform future experiments. This workflow is broadly applicable, correctly predicts known reticular materials, and furthermore identifies novel unknown phases for some systems. This workflow is available online at https://rationaldesign.pythonanywhere.com/
Seeking medical wisdom: Development of a physician-defined practical model of wise competence
Get PDFPurpose: Medical practice is complex, ambiguous and dynamic. It requires more than technical knowledge; it necessitates the application of wisdom. Unfortunately, integration of the wisdom construct into established U.S. medical competency frameworks has been difficult. This study explored this interdisciplinary problem by investigating how academic physicians define medical wisdom (MW) and discern barriers and facilitators to such integration. Method: Investigators conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 19 faculty physicians at 3 U.S. academic medical centres. They probed physicians' definitions of MW and perceived barriers and facilitators to the development of MW. Interview data were analysed using thematic analysis (TA). TA results and insights from non-medical models of wisdom and complex problem-solving supported the creation of a model of MW. Polarity mapping of the moral economies of medical wisdom and medical science was utilized to clarify the challenges and opportunities of integrating these two philosophically distinct paradigms. Results: TA of transcripts suggests physicians understand MW as consisting of interactions between 3 core components: adaptive capacity, values and technical knowledge. This finding and insights on their integration derived from non-medical models of wisdom supported the creation of a tripartite model of medical wisdom (TMMW) with features of complex adaptive systems (CAS). Polarity mapping of the moral economies of medical wisdom and medical science highlighted differences in assumptions, values and practices between the two paradigms. Barriers and facilitators identified through TA reinforced the relevance of these differences to difficulties in incorporating wisdom into established medical competency frameworks. Conclusions: Wise competence is the ability to integrate medical knowledge with clinical context and patient wishes to deliver patient-centered care. The TMMW offers a mental model of such integration with features of CAS and a critical role for metacognition. Introduction of MW models into established competency frameworks may benefit from explicit acknowledgement of each paradigm's underlying moral economies.</p
Trends in Home Health Care Among Traditional Medicare Beneficiaries With or Without Dementia
Get PDFImportance: A growing number of people with dementia are opting to live at home and receive care in the community rather than enter a nursing home. Adequately supporting their care at home can be challenging, and Medicare-funded home health care is one common source of care. Objective: To examine trends in the use of home-based care among traditional Medicare beneficiaries with dementia compared with those without dementia.Design, Setting, and Participants: A cross-sectional study of home health care use from January 1, 2010, to June 30, 2022, was conducted among 13 604 086 traditional Medicare beneficiaries aged 68 years or older who were receiving home health care during the study period. Statistical analysis took place from February 2024 to March 2025. Main Outcomes and Measures: Receipt of Medicare-funded home health care, as home health “spells” (the initial Medicare-certified home health episode and all subsequent recertifications were considered 1 home health spell for analysis). Results: Among the 13 604 086 traditional Medicare beneficiaries included in the study (mean [SD] age, 79.4 [7.7] years; 60.4% women), 27.7% had a diagnosis of dementia. Compared with beneficiaries using home health care without a diagnosis of dementia, those with a diagnosis of dementia were older (mean [SD] age, 82.2 [7.5] vs 78.4 [7.5] years), and a higher percentage were female (61.9% vs 59.9%) and dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid (17.0% vs 11.1%). There were 30 549 666 new home health spells during the study. Individuals with dementia more commonly used community-initiated home health care than postacute care (53.8% vs 46.2%). Among individuals with a diagnosis of dementia, the initiation of home health spells increased between 2010 and 2019 by 16.8% (from 35.4 to 40.2 spells per 1000 beneficiaries) for community-initiated care and by 21.4% (from 28.9 to 35.1 spells per 1000 beneficiaries) for postacute care. Between 2020 and 2022, home health care use decreased among individuals with dementia; community-initiated spells decreased from 40.2 to 33.6 spells per 1000 beneficiaries, and postacute spells decreased from 35.1 to 28.5 spells per 1000 beneficiaries. In comparison, home health use among individuals without a diagnosis of dementia was relatively low and gradually decreased over the study period: between 2010 and 2019, home health spells decreased by 20.1% (from 8.9 to 7.1 spells per 1000 beneficiaries) for community-initiated care and by 20.7% (from 12.8 to 10.1 spells per 1000 beneficiaries) for postacute care. Home health spells were longer for people with dementia compared with people without dementia (community-initiated care: median, 47 days [IQR, 27-80 days] to 52 days [IQR, 29-89 days] vs 44 days [IQR, 25-76 days] to 50 days [IQR, 27-91 days]; postacute care: median, 40 days [IQR, 23-59 days] to 43 days [IQR, 25-59 days] vs 32 days [IQR, 19-56 days] to 34 days [IQR, 20-56 days]) and increased after 2020 (community-initiated care: median, 55 days [IQR, 33-111 days] vs 53 days [IQR, 27-98 days]; postacute care: median, 48 days [IQR, 27-59 days] vs 42 days [IQR, 24-58 days]). Conclusions: This study suggests that home health use is high and has increased among people with dementia. Decreasing rates of home health use since 2020 in this high-need population suggest a need for ongoing monitoring of service use and outcomes for people with dementia.</sec
The Effects of Alternative Data on Misreporting
No full textNew data sources, such as transactional data from point-of-sale systems and store traffic data from satellite imagery, help reduce information asymmetry between managers and external stakeholders. I investigate whether these new sources of information influence managers' decisions to manipulate real activities and accounting reports, and whether this is driven by changes in investors' monitoring capabilities. To explore the impact of the adoption and use of alternative data by financial markets, I develop a novel measure based on employment data that captures sophisticated investors' investment in alternative data. My findings indicate that increased coverage of alternative data affects managerial behavior in treated firms, reducing the likelihood of real earnings management and leading to a shift toward some more aggressive accounting practices
Adherence to Personal Resolutions Across Time, Culture, and Goal Domains
Get PDFGoal setting is only somewhat more common than the failure to follow through on one’s goals. Recognizing the challenge of long-term behavior change, we asked what best predicts long-term goal adherence: extrinsic motivation (the extent to which goal pursuit is experienced as a means to an end) or intrinsic motivation (the extent to which the same goal pursuit is experienced as an end in itself). In a year-long longitudinal study, U.S. adults set extrinsic New Year’s resolutions, but intrinsic motivation predicted adherence to these goals more than extrinsic motivation (Study 1). These findings emerged among adults in China (Study 2) and when measuring goal adherence objectively using the number of steps U.S. adults walked over 2 weeks (Study 3). Understanding how intrinsic motivation affects long-term persistence critically informs interventions that promote goal pursuit. Indeed, increasing intrinsic (vs. extrinsic) motivation increased U.S. adults’ goal adherence (Study 4). Overall, intrinsic motivation both predicted and causally increased goal adherence
Quantum Subspace Verification for Error Correction Codes
No full textQuantum error correction is pivotal in advancing toward large-scale quantum computation, and efficient verification is crucial for ensuring the high fidelity of code states. Traditional methodologies, such as state tomography, direct fidelity estimation, and state verification, either fall short in measurement efficiency, especially for large-scale systems, or are restricted to some specific states. In this work, we introduce a general framework for quantum subspace verification, enabling efficient and measurement-noise-robust fidelity estimation between a given state and the target subspace with a specified confidence level. By integrating the proposed subspace verification with direct fidelity estimation, we develop a composite protocol that significantly improves the efficiency of verifying the fidelity of general magic logical states, as demonstrated by intuitive numerical results. This improvement stems from the use of subspace verification, which leverages the knowledge of code subspaces to significantly reduce measurement costs. Additionally, we detail the construction of verification operators for typical error correction codes, including general stabilizer codes and quantum low-density parity-check codes, enabling their efficient implementation using practical local measurements. Notably, for certain codes, such as the Calderbank-Shor-Steane codes and quantum low-density parity-check stabilizer codes, we reduce the number of required measurement settings and sample complexity to a constant level using graphical methods. Our approach facilitates efficient and feasible verification of error correction codes and generic magic logical states, advancing their practical implementations on quantum platforms