432 research outputs found

    Merchants of Virtue

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    Merchants of Virtue explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in precolonial South Asia. Divya Cherian presents a fine-grained study of everyday life and local politics in the kingdom of Marwar in eighteenth-century western India to uncover how merchants enforced their caste ideals of vegetarianism and bodily austerity as universal markers of Hindu identity. Using legal strategies and alliances with elites, these merchants successfully remade the category of “Hindu,” setting it in contrast to “Untouchable” in a process that reconfigured Hinduism in caste terms. In a history pertinent to understanding India today, Cherian establishes the centrality of caste to the early-modern Hindu self and to its imagination of inadmissible others. “A refreshingly different perspective on the history of caste and untouchability in India, enlarging the field of scholarship from its focus on the colonial era by telling us how precolonial configurations of power in the locality shaped the everyday experience of caste.” — GOPAL GURU, coauthor of The Cracked Mirror and Experience, Caste, and the Everyday Social “This provocative and empirically rich study offers a plenitude of fascinating insights into aspects of western Indian history ca. 1800, from kingship and caste hierarchy to abortion and alcohol consumption. Particularly innovative is its focus on the critical role played by merchants in articulating social identities that became widespread in modern times.” — CYNTHIA TALBOT, author of The Last Hindu Emperor “A pathbreaking book that explodes essentialist views of the construction of Hindu and Muslim identities in precolonial India. Divya Cherian provocatively argues that the category of ‘Hindu’ was the primary locus for a system of radical othering that excluded Untouchables (and Muslims as Untouchables) through mechanisms of state, law, and everyday life.” — CHRISTIAN LEE NOVETZKE, Professor of South Asian and Religious Studies, University of Washingto

    Merchants of Virtue

    No full text
    Merchants of Virtue explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in precolonial South Asia. Divya Cherian presents a fine-grained study of everyday life and local politics in the kingdom of Marwar in eighteenth-century western India to uncover how merchants enforced their caste ideals of vegetarianism and bodily austerity as universal markers of Hindu identity. Using legal strategies and alliances with elites, these merchants successfully remade the category of “Hindu,” setting it in contrast to “Untouchable” in a process that reconfigured Hinduism in caste terms. In a history pertinent to understanding India today, Cherian establishes the centrality of caste to the early-modern Hindu self and to its imagination of inadmissible others. “A refreshingly different perspective on the history of caste and untouchability in India, enlarging the field of scholarship from its focus on the colonial era by telling us how precolonial configurations of power in the locality shaped the everyday experience of caste.” — GOPAL GURU, coauthor of The Cracked Mirror and Experience, Caste, and the Everyday Social “This provocative and empirically rich study offers a plenitude of fascinating insights into aspects of western Indian history ca. 1800, from kingship and caste hierarchy to abortion and alcohol consumption. Particularly innovative is its focus on the critical role played by merchants in articulating social identities that became widespread in modern times.” — CYNTHIA TALBOT, author of The Last Hindu Emperor “A pathbreaking book that explodes essentialist views of the construction of Hindu and Muslim identities in precolonial India. Divya Cherian provocatively argues that the category of ‘Hindu’ was the primary locus for a system of radical othering that excluded Untouchables (and Muslims as Untouchables) through mechanisms of state, law, and everyday life.” — CHRISTIAN LEE NOVETZKE, Professor of South Asian and Religious Studies, University of Washingto

    Improved collision detection in StarLogo Nova

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    Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2015.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (page 65).StarLogo Nova is blocks-based educational software that allows students to write and play their own 3D games online. It is the online version of StarLogo TNG. This thesis explores the problem of needing more accurate collision detection in StarLogo Nova while maintaining reasonable performance. Three new collision detection systems for StarLogo Nova are developed and evaluated. Compared to the spheres used to perform collision checks in the current system, the first new system, called the TightestFitCollider, introduces a variety of bounding spheres, bounding boxes, and bounding capsules as bounding structures that may fit the models in StarLogo Nova more closely. The second system, called the HierarchicalCollider, uses hierarchies of bounding boxes to perform even more precise collision detection than the TightestFitCollider. Finally, the third system combines the first two systems, so that the advantages of each can be used as appropriate. The three systems are evaluated for their accuracy and performance within the StarLogo Nova framework.by Divya Bajekal.M. Eng

    Antiepileptic drugs for the primary and secondary prevention of seizures after subarachnoid haemorrhage

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    Background: subarachnoid haemorrhage may result in seizures both acutely and in the longer term. The use of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in the primary and secondary prevention of seizures after subarachnoid haemorrhage is uncertain, and there is currently no consensus on treatment.Objectives: to assess the effects of AEDs for the primary and secondary prevention of seizures after subarachnoid haemorrhage.Search methods: we searched the Cochrane Epilepsy Group Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (2013, Issue 1) in The Cochrane Library, and MEDLINE (1946 to 12th March 2013). We checked the reference lists of articles retrieved from these searches.Selection criteria: we considered all randomised and quasi-randomised controlled trials in which patients were assigned to a treatment (one or more AEDs) or placebo.Data collection and analysis: two review authors (RM and JK) independently screened and assessed the methodological quality of the studies. If studies were included, one author extracted the data and the other checked it.Main results: no relevant studies were found.Authors' conclusions: there was no evidence to support or refute the use of antiepileptic drugs for the primary or secondary prevention of seizures related to subarachnoid haemorrhage. Well-designed randomised controlled trials are urgently needed to guide clinical practice

    GST M1-T1 null allele frequency patterns in geographically assorted human populations: a phylogenetic approach.

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    Genetic diversity in drug metabolism and disposition is mainly considered as the outcome of the inter-individual genetic variation in polymorphism of drug-xenobiotic metabolizing enzyme (XME). Among the XMEs, glutathione-S-transferases (GST) gene loci are an important candidate for the investigation of diversity in allele frequency, as the deletion mutations in GST M1 and T1 genotypes are associated with various cancers and genetic disorders of all major Population Affiliations (PAs). Therefore, the present population based phylogenetic study was focused to uncover the frequency distribution pattern in GST M1 and T1 null genotypes among 45 Geographically Assorted Human Populations (GAHPs). The frequency distribution pattern for GST M1 and T1 null alleles have been detected in this study using the data derived from literatures representing 44 populations affiliated to Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and the genome of PA from Gujarat, a region in western India. Allele frequency counting for Gujarat PA and scattered plot analysis for geographical distribution among the PAs were performed in SPSS-21. The GST M1 and GST T1 null allele frequencies patterns of the PAs were computed in Seqboot, Gendist program of Phylip software package (3.69 versions) and Unweighted Pair Group method with Arithmetic Mean in Mega-6 software. Allele frequencies from South African Xhosa tribe, East African Zimbabwe, East African Ethiopia, North African Egypt, Caucasian, South Asian Afghanistan and South Indian Andhra Pradesh have been identified as the probable seven patterns among the 45 GAHPs investigated in this study for GST M1-T1 null genotypes. The patternized null allele frequencies demonstrated in this study for the first time addresses the missing link in GST M1-T1 null allele frequencies among GAHPs

    Magnetic resonance imaging of the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO₂)

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    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2010.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 120-128).Oxygen consumption is an essential process of the functioning brain. The rate at which the brain consumes oxygen is known as the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO₂). CMRO₂ is intimately related to brain health and function, and will change in settings of disease and functional activation. Accurate CMRO₂ measurement will enable detailed investigation of neuropathology and facilitate our understanding of the brain's underlying functional architecture. Despite the importance of CMRO₂ in both clinical and basic neuroscience settings, a robust CMRO₂ mapping technique amenable to functional and clinical MRI has not been established. To address this issue, a novel method called QUantitative Imaging of eXtraction of Oxygen and TIssue Consumption, or QUIXOTIC, is introduced. The key innovation in QUIXOTIC is the use of velocity-selective spin labeling to isolate MR signal exclusively from post-capillary venular blood on a voxel-by-voxel basis. This isolated signal can be related to venular oxygen saturation, oxygen extraction fraction, and ultimately CMRO₂. This thesis first explores fundamental theory behind the QUIXOTIC technique, including design of a novel MRI pulse sequence, explanation of the principal sequence parameters, and results from initial human experiences. A human trial follows, in which QUIXOTIC is used to measure cortical gray matter CMRO₂ in ten healthy volunteers.(cont.) QUIXOTIC-measured CMRO₂ is found to be within the expected physiological range and is comparable to values reported by other techniques. QUIXOTIC is then applied to evaluate CMRO₂ response to carbon-dioxide-induced hypercapnia in awake humans. In this study, CMRO₂ is observed to decrease in response to mild hypercapnia. Finally, pilot studies that show feasibility of QUIXOTIC-based functional MRI (fMRI) and so-called "turbo" QUIXOTIC are presented and discussed.by Divya Sanam Bolar.Ph.D

    <i>GST M1-T1 null</i> allele frequency based genetic distance between 20 different continental region populations.

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    <p>The values represented in the table were computed between the population affiliations by Nei’s (1972) standard genetic distance (D<sub>ST</sub>) method and were used in phylogenetic tree of 20 different continental regions population affiliations for <i>GST M1-T1 null</i> allele frequency (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0118660#pone.0118660.g001" target="_blank">Fig. 1</a>). Abbreviations used were same as those in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0118660#pone.0118660.t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>.</p><p><i>GST M1-T1 null</i> allele frequency based genetic distance between 20 different continental region populations.</p

    European Narratives on Remote Working and Coworking During the COVID-19 Pandemic

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    This open access book offers a multidisciplinary and comprehensive perspective regarding the immediate and long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on coworking spaces in the European Region. The current pandemic has imposed several effects on work and spaces for work. Some are immediate effects and will last for a short time (such as the closing down of the space), some will last longer (namely, the reorganisation of the space to meet the physical distancing), and some will stay for a long time (remote working and hybrid working). Although the literature on coworking spaces and the effects of the pandemic is growing fast, empirical studies are yet limited. Within this context, this book seeks a twofold aim: (i) to contribute to the fast-growing literature on coworking space and their effects at different scales; (ii) to present a multidisciplinary perspective about the effects of the yet-lasting Corona-pandemic effects on the patterns of remote working and consequently on coworking spaces, as the most diffused form of new working spaces.History, Form & Aesthetic

    <i>GST M1-T1 null</i> allele frequency based genetic distance between 45 geographically assorted human populations (GAHPs).

    No full text
    <p>The values represented in the table were computed between the population affiliations by Nei’s (1972) standard genetic distance (DST) method and were used in phylogenetic tree of 45 geographically assorted human populations for <i>GST M1-T1 null</i> allele frequency (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0118660#pone.0118660.g002" target="_blank">Fig. 2</a>). Abbreviations used were same as those in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0118660#pone.0118660.t001" target="_blank">Table 1</a>.</p><p><i>GST M1-T1 null</i> allele frequency based genetic distance between 45 geographically assorted human populations (GAHPs).</p
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