19,208 research outputs found
Conversations with authors: Saskya Jain
No full textA 2011 conversation with the author Saskya Jain about her life and the inspiration for her work
Rapid Mixing of the Down-Up Walk on Matchings of a Fixed Size
No full textLet G = (V,E) be a graph on n vertices and let m^*(G) denote the size of a maximum matching in G. We show that for any δ > 0 and for any 1 ≤ k ≤ (1-δ)m^*(G), the down-up walk on matchings of size k in G mixes in time polynomial in n. Previously, polynomial mixing was not known even for graphs with maximum degree Δ, and our result makes progress on a conjecture of Jain, Perkins, Sah, and Sawhney [STOC, 2022] that the down-up walk mixes in optimal time O_{Δ,δ}(nlog{n}).
In contrast with recent works analyzing mixing of down-up walks in various settings using the spectral independence framework, we bound the spectral gap by constructing and analyzing a suitable multi-commodity flow. In fact, we present constructions demonstrating the limitations of the spectral independence approach in our setting
Jain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives
No full textJain Rāmāyaṇa Narratives: Moral Vision and Literary Innovation traces how and why Jain authors at different points in history rewrote the story of Rāma and situates these texts within larger frameworks of South Asian religious history and literature. The book argues that the plot, characters, and the very history of Jain Rāma composition itself served as a continual font of inspiration for authors to create and express novel visions of moral personhood. In making this argument, the book examines three versions of the Rāma story composed by two authors, separated in time and space by over 800 years and thousands of miles. The first is Raviṣeṇa, who composed the Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa (“The Deeds of Padma”), and the second is Brahma Jinadāsa, author of both a Sanskrit Padmapurāṇa and a vernacular (bhāṣā) version of the story titled Rām Rās (“The Story of Rām”). While the three compositions narrate the same basic story and work to shape ethical subjects, they do so in different ways and with different visions of what a moral person actually is. A close comparative reading focused on the differences between these three texts reveals the diverse visions of moral personhood held by Jains in premodernity and demonstrates the innovative narrative strategies authors utilized in order to actualize those visions. The book is thus a valuable contribution to the fields of Jain studies and religion and literature in premodern South Asia
A Big Data Infrastructure in Support of Healthy and Independent Living: A Real Case Application
No full textThis chapter illustrates how the SMART BEAR project aims to integrate heterogeneous smart devices, including wearables and environmental sensors, to enable the continuous data collection from the everyday life of the elderly, which will be processed by an affordable, accountably secure, and privacy-preserving eHealth platform applying Machine Learning algorithms to deliver interventions such as personalized notifications and alerts to each patient, thus promoting their healthy and independent living
Future Trends of Virtual, Augmented Reality, and Games for Health
No full textSerious game is now a multi-billion dollar industry and is still growing steadily in many sectors. As a major subset of serious games, designing and developing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and serious games or adopting off-the-shelf games to support medical education, rehabilitation, or promote health has become a promising frontier in the healthcare sector since 2004, because games technology is inexpensive, widely available, fun and entertaining for people of all ages, with various health conditions and different sensory, motor, and cognitive capabilities. In this chapter, we provide the reader an overview of the book with a perspective of future trends of VR, AR simulation and serious games for healthcare
Śvetāmbara Jain Canonical Commentators Writing in Sanskrit
No full textJain commentaries in Sanskrit are vital for an understanding of the old Jain religious texts in Prakrit, the commentaries date from the 8th to 13th century. The major commentators are well-known in name but as yet there has not been any sustained research on their works. This article attempts to provide an initial reference point by listing (for the first time) all known published editions of Jain commentaries in Sanskrit on the Śvetāmbara canon by Śīlaṅka (9th century), Abhayadeva (10th century) and Malayagiri (10th –11th century)
THE JAIN CENTRE IN LEICESTER
No full textThis dissertation discusses the formative years of the Jain Centre, Leicester, from 1979 when Jain Samaj Leicester, the community body of the Jains in Leicester, bought a dilapidated former chapel and set about converting it into a centre for the community. Central in the plan was the religious dimension which was to unite four "sects" of Jainism under one roof, Svetambara, Digambara, Sthanakvasi and the devotees of Srimad Rajchandra. The prehistory of Jain Samaj is looked at briefly, from the first meetings in members' homes and the formal foundation of Jain Samaj Leicester in 1973. In the main body of the dissertation, in Chapter Three, the approach is largely historical, with the key events being singled out for detailed examination. The account is taken right up-to-date, to 2001. A final chapter analyses the factors which led to the success of this venture.
Chapter One provides essential introductory orientation on the Jains, both as a community and as followers of an ancient religion, relating this to the situation of the Jains in Leicester. In a second part of this chapter sources and methodology are outlined. Primary sources comprise
(a) Information from members of the Jain community,
(b) Participant observation by the author over a quarter of a century,
(c) A large collection of written material put together over the years and comprising letters, notices and much more from Jain Samaj and others, and runs of the newsletters and journal published by Jain Samaj, as well as news cuttings, particularly from the local press.
These three sources have been of roughly equal weight.
Secondary sources are the author's own collection of some 200 books and pamphlets on Jainism and the Jains, together with the resources of other libraries particularly that of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Chapter Two provides a description of the Jain Centre and examines some aspects of its functioning. Chapter Four is devoted to the temple, its architecture and iconography, and the religious life centred there.
Finally, in Chapter Five an analysis is made of some key aspects of the Centre's history, and a tentative forecast of the future is attempted
The Jain Prakrit Origin of the Vetāla
No full textIn the absence of any other plausible etymology, there is thus reason to believe that the Vaitālīya metre takes its name from the subject-matter of its most important attestation in Jain literature, i.e., the destruction (vidāraṇa) of Karma. It is precisely in Jain Prakrit that we find, coupled with vestiges of Magadhi -l- for -r-, an orthographic -t- replacing -d- and the other lost intervocalic stop consonants. Appropriately, the early canonical text Uttarajjhāyā 20, v. 44, presents the veyāla as a purely destructive demon, murderous if not exorcised (avipanna)
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