Integrative Approach to COVID-19: An Indian Facebook Recipe for Mental Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has given the world a big blow and has forced the entire world to develop a new thought process. To cope with the stress of lockdown, it was important for people to indulge in educational and health activities to save them from the threats being caused by the news and social media. A Facebook page named Yoga scholars Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) was created where three sessions were held per day for 225 days regularly. This activity resulted in people adopting an integrative approach towards alternative medicine. This also made possible a trial of Ashwagandha for COVID-19 treatment by the Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) ministry.

Concrete Abstract: Exploring Tactility in Abstract Animations from Early Avant-garde Films to Contemporary Artworks

After witnessing social chaos and the collapse of values at the beginning of the twentieth century, avant-garde artists insert new thought patterns and progressive aesthetic into the traditional perception of art. Being enthralled by the new film medium, former painters like Viking Eggeling, Walther Ruttman and Hans Richter start to experiment with light in two-dimensional film formats, they animate lines, stripes, basic shapes, play with the foreground and the background, and, most important of all, they construct a temporality within the visual order of the screen. Viking Eggeling’s Symphonie Diagonale (1921-24), Walther Ruttman’s Opus I (1921) and Hans Richter’s Rhythmus 21 (1921) show such temporality built in, which is caught by the idea of music as their titles suggest. These short abstract animation films attempt to discover the artistic possibilities of the new developing medium, film. Like the pioneer avant-garde abstract filmmakers, today’s artists still seek to stimulate a new perception for a possible embodiment that will activate the sense of touch in the audience. Tactility, enhanced by the material, opens up a new network of spatio-temporal relationships in the viewer's consciousness and subjecthood. This essay aims to bring a historical perspective to the abstract moving images of which the tactile or haptic experience is a defining characteristic. Through a selection of abstract animations, the materiality of the film image and the screening site will be elaborated upon according to the haptic features that are corporally embodied by the viewers. In the light of historical abstract animation, the aim is to dwell upon the dynamics of a continuous tendency to capture tactile instances to help bring forth the spatial resonances as well as visualize and reedify the rhythmic passing of time.

Culture, Religion, and Corruption/Prosperity (A), (B), (C), (1), (2)

This chapter characterises the relations between culture, religion, and corruption/prosperity. It advances the explanations of the prosperity–religion nexus from the perspective of cultural attributes (e.g. trust, individualism, familialism) by comparing Roman Catholic and Protestant theologies.Protestant denominations have mostly relinquished their founding principles, while “Rome never changes” as per the Italian saying. Despite the progress after Vatican II, Roman Catholicism has not markedly altered its beliefs and practices or its institutional founding principles (i.e. Canon Law) since medieval times. The political repercussions of an ecumenism in “Rome terms” are beyond its theological or religious implications.Liberation theology urged the Latin American Roman Church to break away from its imperialist origins and favouritism for landlords, industrialists, and power elites. However, liberation theology never became the mainstream or hegemonic Catholic theology in Latin America.Distinct Protestant theologies and organisational forms have led to distinct outcomes. New forms of Protestantism (i.e. Pentecostalism) placing less emphasis on education are less likely to have a positive social impact than previous (historical) Protestant versions. Some Protestant denominations still adhere to intertextual historicist biblical interpretation and hold the belief that the papacy continues to be “Satan’s synagogue” today.The heavily criticised Prosperity Gospel (PG) movement has syncretic roots in Pentecostalism, New Thought, and African American religion, and is composed mainly of the middle classes and blacks.While syncretism has been a natural process in all religions, Jews and historical Protestants have tended to be more anti-syncretic given their Scriptural base of beliefs. In turn, the importance of traditions, in Roman Catholicism for instance, has led to include more non-orthodox rituals in its practice.

urgensi postmodernisme terhadap problematika dewasa ini

The birth of a new understanding, namely postmodernism, one of which is Jean Francouis, is a continuation and criticism of modernism which aims to present an innovation or new thought and solution in his view of science, in terms of postmodernism, science should not be objective but subjective. And an interpretation of man himself, so that truth is relative, therefore postmodernism adds a treasury of knowledge that can be accepted for its existence.Abstrak : lahirnya suatu paham baru yaitu postmodernisme yang salah satu tokohnya adalah Jean Francouis merupakan kelanjutan dan kritik terhadap modernisme yang bertujuan untuk menghadirkan suatu inovasi atau pemikiran baru dan solusi dalam pandangannya terhadap ilmu pengetahuan, secara pemikiran postmodernisme ilmu pengetahuan seharusnya tidak bersifat objektif melainkan bersifat subjektif dan suatu interpretasi dari manusia itu sendiri,sehingga kebenaran bersifat relatif, maka daripada itu postmodernisme menambahkan pembendaharaan pengetahuan yang dapat diterima keberadaannya.

Superhydrophobic Copper Materials with Excellent Durability and Regeneration Based on Self-Similarity in Structure and Composition

The widespread application of artificial superhydrophobic material is hindered by the poor durability and regeneration of artificial superhydrophobicity. The problem is expected to be resolved by endowing the superhydrophobic material with self-similarity. Herein, Copper-based superhydrophobic material intensified by furfuryl alcohol resin (Cu/FAR) with long-term durability and high strength is developed, and the obtained Cu/FAR composite reveals excellent and durable superhydrophobicity. Moreover, it is a remarkable fact that the as-prepared superhydrophobic Cu/FAR exhibits outstanding durability and maintenance of superhydrophobicity grounded on the good self-similarity in micro-structure, chemical structure and composition both externally and internally. Consequently, the superhydrophobicity can be maintained or regenerated without difficulty even if superhydrophobic surface has been damaged or fouled accidentally. Therefore, the method provides a new thought to prepare superhydrophobic material with robust durability and outstanding maintenance.

Grasp Detection under Occlusions Using SIFT Features

Distinguishing target object under occlusions has become the forefront of research to cope with grasping study in general. In this paper, a novel framework which is able to be utilized for a parallel robotic gripper is proposed. There are two key steps for the proposed method in the process of grasping occluded object: generating template information and grasp detection using the matching algorithm. A neural network, trained by the RGB-D data from the Cornell Grasp Dataset, predicts multiple grasp rectangles on template images. A proposed matching algorithm is utilized to eliminate the influence caused by occluded parts on scene images and generates multiple grasp rectangles for objects under occlusions using the grasp information of matched template images. In order to improve the quality of matching result, the proposed matching algorithm improves the SIFT algorithm and combines it with the improved RANSAC algorithm. In this way, this paper obtains suitable grasp rectangles on scene images and offers a new thought about grasping detection under occlusions. The validation results show the effectiveness and efficiency of this approach.

Production, deformation and magnetorheological characteristics of the alginate/chitosan hydrogel magnetic microspheres

To improve dispersion stability and magnetorheological (MR) characteristics of carbonyl iron (CI) particles, we proposed novel hydrogel magnetic microspheres (MPs) dual-coated with alginate (AL) and chitosan (CTS) for the first time. The double-network structures formed by biological crosslinking and chelation reactions are capable to enhance its own structural stability and mechanical properties. The structural characterization, MR properties, and dispersion stability for different MPs were investigated. Additionally, the swelling behaviors were studied by swelling the dried MPs in the deionized water and sodium chloride solution, respectively. The results showed that the AL/CTS hydrogel core/shell MPs displayed the advantages of simple manufacturing, superior MR properties and deformability compared to pure micron-sized CI particles, indicating the improved dispersion stability of the MR fluids compared to that of the pure CI particles-based MR fluids. The introduction of double network structures with natural biopolymers will provide a new thought for the development of MR materials.

“The Blind Dread of Physical Pain”

This chapter puts Edith Wharton’s insistence on pain’s refining power and her disdain for her pain-averse contemporaries in dialogue with the eclectic New Thought movement, which persuaded many Americans that a positive mental outlook could minimize or even vanquish pain. Wharton openly disdained the national faith in self-improvement, attainable happiness, and avoidable pain espoused in the optimistic bestseller, Pollyanna, and by New Thinkers like Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Although she carefully distinguishes between “sterile” and potentially fruitful pain, Wharton depicts an instinctive aversion to pain of all kinds as an all-too-common American flaw, whose only upside was allowing the select few capable of an unusually sensitive appreciation of pain to stand out from the crowd. Rather than positioning these rare sensitive souls as potential models, her writings increasingly rely on them to bring the extent of US cultural and political debasement into sharper relief.

Weighted Decoding for the Competence Reliability Problem of ECOC Multiclass Classification

Error-Correcting Output Codes has become a well-known, established technique for multiclass classification due to its simplicity and efficiency. Each binary split contains different original classes. A noncompetent classifier emerges when it classifies an instance whose real class does not belong to the metasubclasses which is used to learn the classifier. How to reduce the error caused by the noncompetent classifiers under diversity big enough is urgent for ECOC classification. The weighted decoding strategy can be used to reduce the error caused by the noncompetence contradiction through relearning the weight coefficient matrix. To this end, a new weighted decoding strategy taking the classifier competence reliability into consideration is presented in this paper, which is suitable for any coding matrix. Support Vector Data Description is applied to compute the distance from an instance to the metasubclasses. The distance reflects the competence reliability and is fused as the weight in the base classifier combination. In so doing, the effect of the competent classifiers on classification is reinforced, while the bias induced by the noncompetent ones is decreased. Reflecting the competence reliability, the weights of classifiers for each instance change dynamically, which accords with the classification practice. The statistical simulations based on benchmark datasets indicate that our proposed algorithm outperforms other methods and provides new thought for solving the noncompetence problem.