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Counting Power: The Caste Census and the Four Faces of Exclusion in India
No full textIndia’s decision to reintroduce caste enumeration after nearly a century marks a pivotal moment in the country’s democratic journey. While often framed as a technical or administrative challenge, this paper argues that caste data collection is inherently political—shaped by power asymmetries that determine who is counted, how categories are constructed, and whose claims are rendered legible to the state. Drawing on Archon Fung’s “four faces of power” framework—constitutive, agenda-setting, deliberative, and operational—this paper critically examines how exclusion operates at every stage of India’s data architecture. Through case studies of the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), state-level surveys in Bihar and Karnataka, and judicial rulings on caste-based reservations, the paper reveals how dominant groups use technical ambiguity, institutional opacity, and selective data release to maintain structural advantage.
Complementing this power analysis with theories of data justice and intersectionality, the paper underscores how even when data is collected, it often erases or misrepresents multiply marginalized groups such as Dalit women, Denotified Tribes, and transgender persons. By combining normative critique with empirical analysis, the paper makes the case that caste enumeration is not a divisive act but a democratic necessity—one that can shift India from symbolic recognition to structural redress. The act of counting, this paper concludes, is not merely statistical; it is a form of political reckoning.Version of Recor
The Natural Perception Hypothesis: Sensory‑Feedback Loops Catalyze Speciation and Ecological Divergence
Get PDFThe Natural Perception Hypothesis (NPH) significantly advances evolutionary theory by proposing that intrinsic sensory polymorphisms alone can initiate evolutionary divergence and speciation, even in environmentally uniform habitats. Distinct from traditional models such as sensory drive and signal–receiver theories, which emphasize external environmental gradients or mating preferences, NPH suggests genetically determined sensory variations (e.g., mutations in opsin or olfactory receptor genes) independently create perceptual niches. These unique sensory niches actively shape organismal interactions with their surroundings, driving ecological and behavioral differentiation through assortative behaviors and promoting reproductive isolation.
NPH integrates three core evolutionary components: environment (E), sensory systems (Os), and interactive traits (Oi), through five interconnected evolutionary pathways: sensory drive, ecological selection, sensory bias, niche construction, and the interactive-trait selection (Oi → Os). Central to NPH are novel evolutionary motifs, such as sensory-driven niche construction (SD-NCT) loop and comprehensive perceptual-environmental meta loop. These motifs illustrate how sensory variation alone can establish and sustain evolutionary feedback mechanisms that impact both behaviors, ecological, and environmental conditions.
Empirical validation and theoretical models robustly support NPH predictions. Mathematical modeling and numerical simulations inspired by Lake Victoria cichlid adaptive radiation demonstrate that minor initial sensory differences can profoundly amplify ecological and behavioral divergence via reinforcing feedback loops. Empirical studies across diverse taxa, including Hawaiian Laupala crickets and Rhagoletis fruit flies, confirm speciation events driven solely by sensory divergence.
By establishing sensory perception as a dynamic evolutionary driver, NPH expands classical frameworks, enriching our understanding of speciation, biodiversity conservation, and adaptive radiation dynamics.Organismic and Evolutionary BiologyAuthor's Origina
Identifying Risk Factors for Vomiting during Diarrhea: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Trial of Zinc Supplementation
Get PDFObjectives
Supplemental zinc during acute diarrhea reduces illness duration but also increases vomiting. In a recent trial, we found that children receiving lower daily doses of zinc (5 mg or 10 mg vs. 20 mg) had lower rates of vomiting with comparable stool output and duration of diarrhea. We performed a secondary analysis to identify sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with vomiting in children with acute diarrhea.
Methods
We performed a secondary data analysis of 4500 children aged 6-59 months with an acute episode of diarrhea (< 72 hours before enrollment) in a randomized, double-blind controlled trial in India and Tanzania. To identify clinically important risk factors for overall, regimen-related and regimen-unrelated vomiting, we created log-binomials models with relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
Results
The trial enrolled 4500 children of whom 1203 (26.7%) had any vomiting. After adjusting for multiple demographic and clinical characteristics, presence of dehydration (RR 1.45, CI 1.10 – 1.92), being underweight (RR 1.22, CI 1.05 – 1.41), receipt of the rotavirus vaccine (RR 1.89, CI 1.69 – 2.12), and household wealth above the median (RR 1.17, CI 1.07 – 1.29) were factors associated with an increased risk of vomiting. Older age and lower zinc dosing were associated with a lower risk of vomiting.
Conclusions
Young, underweight or dehydrated children are more likely to have concurrent vomiting with zinc supplementation. Identification of these factors may allow providers to better monitor such children, thus reducing the chances of recurrent dehydration or inadequate dietary intake.Author's Origina
Critical quantum liquids, and the cuprate high temperature superconductors
No full textPhysicsAuthor's Origina
OwlGuard: A Cognitive Science-Backed Intervention to Address Challenges in Data Literacy
No full textThis thesis presents the novel artifact creation of OwlGuard, a browser extension designed to enhance user engagement with and comprehension of privacy policies, as well as a user study testing the effectiveness of OwlGuard. Using a mixed-methods approach with 12 participants aged 20-23, the study employed a within-subjects design to compare interactions with privacy policies both with and without the OwlGuard extension. Key findings include:
- OwlGuard likely reduces perceived complexity and increasing comprehensibility of privacy policies for certain websites, particularly those with lengthy or complex policies.
- Post-study results showed increased self-perceived data literacy and improved accessibility of privacy policies after using OwlGuard.
- Participants spent an average of 42.7 seconds on privacy policies (40.7 seconds specifically among experimental data), significantly longer than the 19 seconds reported in previous literature.
- Computer science majors demonstrated significantly longer reading durations (54.1 seconds on average) compared to those of non-CS majors (34.5 seconds on average).
- Qualitative feedback indicated that OwlGuard made privacy policies more approachable and understandable, especially for non-CS participants. Participants enjoyed the customization, fun "theme" elements, and adorable owl animation.
- The study supports both a user-centric and research-centric design approach by modeling so with the improvement of privacy policy engagement. The study also highlights several exciting areas for future research and refinement of the OwlGuard browser extension.
This thesis is motivated by a deep desire to improve status-quo data literacy in order to foster a more equitable society both online and offline.Computer Scienc
Thicken the Balcony - A new model for Hong Kong old residential buildings redevelopment
No full text" We never see the existing as a problem. We look with positive eyes because there is an opportunity of doing more with what we already have." -- Lacaton & Vassal.
Hong Kong, as an innovative city, has been actively promoting urban development. However, a large number of residential buildings from the last century have been left behind in the urban renewal, gradually become an obstacle to urban development. These buildings are often in disrepair, their spatial environments have not adapted to the needs of modern life, and it creates many legal and property rights issues. It also negatively affect residents’ quality of life, making residents expand their private platforms without the permission of the government.
The old buildings in Hong Kong is hard to dismantled, and the narrow space does not allow a large number of transformations. Based on the extension idea of Grand Parc Apartment renovation, this thesis think about ways to regenerate old buildings beyond the simple extending through addition. Thus, this thesis attempts to propose a new balcony system based on the original site building, that continues the overflow expansion requirements of more outdoor and living space by residents. On the one hand, it cut out new voids from the building, creating an improved living environment. Meanwhile, it extends the balconies and transformed the single-function exterior wall into a thicker, programmatic space that offers more living and communal activities. By doing so, a new model is created to provide different degrees and levels of community, privacy, and public connection to become a brand-new social structure and opportunity of housing type, transforming an old residential building into a new dynamic community pattern that advances together with the city.Department of Architectur
The Little Brown Bird
No full textIn The Brown Little Bird, the main character, a teacher, struggles to find meaning in his life after the disappearance of his wife and son. When he witnesses a sparrow take up residence in his classroom, build a nest, and birth hatchlings, the teacher’s paternal instincts are revived. But the mother sparrow disappears, and the teacher is sucked into another dimension trying to save them. Now, he must not only find a way to rescue the birds but find his way back home.
In Part 2, the narrative voice shifts to the teacher’s estranged son as he travels back and forth between worlds. In the Otherworld, the son has become a scarecrow, an enforcer who attempts to stop his father from taking a relic that disrupts the time continuum between both worlds, bringing about the impending doom of the Otherworld. The son’s journey to recover the relic on Earth lures his father back to the Otherworld.
During Part 3, the narrative will shift back to the teacher as he will have to return to the Otherworld. The teacher will begin a dangerous journey through an unknown and magical land to find his son and return the relic. But the teacher must find a way to not only save the Otherworld but his son as well.Extension Studie
Learning to See Agents with Deep Variational Inference
No full textUnsupervised agent discovery is the ability to identify and model intentional agents from raw perceptual data without explicit supervision. While neurocognitive theories propose different neural mechanisms for agent perception—including mirror neurons and the superior temporal sulcus (STS), we lack computational algorithms that can fully describe agent perception. Existing computational models of agent perception operate on simplified symbolic inputs rather than the raw perceptual data that biological systems process. We introduce a variational objective LVAD that formulates vision-based agent discovery as structured inference over latent actions. Based on LVAD, we implement a deep conditional slot-based variational autoencoder called VAD (Variational Agent Discovery) model. Our model learns internal agent representations directly from raw pixel-based observations, outperforming baselines on predictive tasks including agent action and goal inference in three video-game settings. VAD's internal representations generalize robustly to novel agents and environmental configurations, demonstrating up to 33% advantage in transfer scenarios. The VAD model exhibits predictive capabilities analogous to those observed in infant cognition studies, correctly predicting that agents will take efficient paths to goals when environmental constraints change. Analysis of learned representations reveals functional decomposition of visual scenes along agent-centric lines, with certain neural features exhibiting human mirror-neuron-like activation patterns across different agents performing the same actions. When incorporated as an auxiliary loss in multi-agent reinforcement learning, our VAD objective improves sample efficiency by 21.8% and final performance by 7.6%.Computer Scienc
Consumer Credit from Theory to Practice: Financial Responses to a Precarious Economy
No full textConsumer credit, and credit cards in particular, are one of the few financial resources in the United States that can be easily and quickly accessed to help households make ends meet. Significant attention has been given to the macro-level factors contributing to rising consumer debt since the 1970s; however, few comprehensive theories have been developed to explain the micro-level factors contributing to an individual’s or a household’s use and accumulation of debt, and the available micro-level theory is at times in tension with empirical evidence. This study examines the existing theories surrounding individual use and accumulation of debt to provide a thorough understanding of how individuals and households use credit card debt, and how reliance on credit card debt compares to other components of the household's balance sheet. I find, in contrast to what is often predicted in prior work, that households do not increase credit card debt following job loss and instead rely on other resources, such as borrowing from social networks, decreasing secured debts, and spending or selling assets. In response to less severe income reductions, such as a general negative income shock, households in fact decrease credit card debt, and typically only increase credit card debt following a substantial increase in income. Given how these results cast doubt on credit card debt arising from negative income shocks, I next turn to additional research from fields such as behavioral economics that highlight individual attributes – low financial literacy, high risk tolerance, present bias, and impatience – as predictive of credit card reliance. When testing the predictive power of these factors, I find that structural factors, primarily rising income, are substantially more predictive of credit card debt use and level relative to the behavioral attributes. Furthermore, the role of behavioral attributes may be overstated in analyses that focus on a single attribute, without controlling for other important factors at the individual level. To help interpret how structural factors, such as income, are the key determinants of credit card behaviors, I discuss how a debt-aversion framework that incorporates the social meaning of money may more naturally explain the observed phenomena.Social Polic