K. Gupta

COVID-19 is one of the most serious diseases caused by the SARS coronavirus. This is a fatal disease, and it becomes difficult to save the life of the infected person because it progresses very rapidly and starts in the lungs and causing damage to the entire body. With the help of advanced machine learning techniques, this disease can be detected early and with very little probability of error. In this paper, we have developed two deep transfer learning models, VGG 16 and MobileNetv2, to detect COVID-19. Both models were applied to datasets based on human lung CT scan images, and their performance was evaluated. To analyze and compare their performance, we have used several performance met- rics such as Prevalence, Null Error Rate, False DR, Negative PV, False OR, LR ratio (+), LR ratio (-), CSI, Accuracy, FM Index, BM, Diagnostic Ratio, MK and Critical Success Index, that have not been used in previous papers.

In this paper, we examine the relationship between the environmental practices and implied cost of equity. Using a comprehensive sample of 23,301 firm–year observations from 43 countries, we find that an improvement in environmental practices leads to reduction of the implied cost of equity. Further, the results are stronger in countries where country-level governance is weak. Our results indicate that most of the benefits come from the reduction of emission and unnecessary wastage of resources. Our results remain robust to alternative specifications and endogeneity concerns.

Economic migration is a significant and growing development around the world but has produced unequal outcomes and experiences for marginalized groups. To theoretically explain such inequalities, we argue that integration experiences of immigrants in the host country differ based on the privilege that their demographic category bestows on them (or not). We elucidate our arguments by unpacking the concept of ‘privilege’ to theorize two key sources of privilege—_locational_ and _historical_—and explain them using the global economic divide (Global North vs. Global South) and local social divides (race and caste). We propose that locational and historical privilege manifest as various types of capital that immigrants carry into their host countries. We juxtapose these two sources of privilege and its levels (low vs. high) to develop a typology of immigrants—_Marginalized, Peripheral, Assimilated,_ and _Wanted—_that captures differences in migrants’ integration experiences. By shining a light on the systematic differences between immigrants based on privilege, our research brings additional nuance to the scholarship on immigrant workers and inclusive organizations; and broadens avenues to make human resource practices more ethical by taking these differences into account.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the framework adopted by the global community to encourage taking actions on the multiple challenges facing the world today to ensure environmental protection, health and well-being, and economic prosperity. This framework provides a detailed list of indicators that are interconnected and cover a holistic view on sustainable development. The goals were defined by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 and expected to be achieved by 2030. Since the release of this agenda, the research community has begun to intensify work in these areas, yet these efforts seem to be relatively limited. This is especially true about the employment of data and artificial intelligence (AI), which are not widely engaged in SDG-related topics. The AI-based research on SDGs and further developments depends heavily on the availability and accessibility of related real-world data collected by the community. However, there is no central, structured, and holistic database of datasets and metadata associated with the SDGs, which prevents large-scale collaboration on these topics. In this paper, we present the SDG Data Catalog, a global open-source database indexing SDG-related datasets, associated metadata, and research networks. We describe the construction of this catalog, which relies on state-of-the-art natural language processing models with human supervision. The catalog breaks down data silos and helps sustainability researchers navigate the data sea to initiate effective collaborations.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic there was widespread concern that healthcare systems would be overwhelmed, and specifically, that there would be insufficient critical care capacity in terms of beds, ventilators or staff to care for patients. In the UK, this was avoided by a threefold approach involving widespread, rapid expansion of critical care capacity, reduction of healthcare demand from non-COVID-19 sources by temporarily pausing much of normal healthcare delivery, and by governmental and societal responses that reduced demand through national lockdown. Despite high-level documents designed to help manage limited critical care capacity, none provided sufficient operational direction to enable use at the bedside in situations requiring triage. We present and describe the development of a structured process for fair allocation of critical care resources in the setting of insufficient capacity. The document combines a wide variety of factors known to impact on outcome from critical illness, integrated with broad-based clinical judgement to enable structured, explicit, transparent decision-making founded on robust ethical principles. It aims to improve communication and allocate resources fairly, while avoiding triage decisions based on a single disease, comorbidity, patient age or degree of frailty. It is designed to support and document decision-making. The document has not been needed to date, nor adopted as hospital policy. However, as the pandemic evolves, the resumption of necessary non-COVID-19 healthcare and economic activity mean capacity issues and the potential need for triage may yet return. The document is presented as a starting point for stakeholder feedback and discussion.

A lively debate has emerged regarding the ethics of using biomedical technologies to alter feelings of love. Earp and Savulescu et al. generally argue that biotechnologies can be ethically used to enhance or diminish feelings they call “love,” a term they use to describe feelings of lust, attraction and attachment in adult romantic relationships. McGee’s intervention in this debate, as I understand it, is to argue that not all of the feelings categorized as “love” by Earp and Savulescu et al. should actually be considered “love properly so called.” According to McGee, these “not...

In this paper, we examine the relationship between the environmental practices and implied cost of equity. Using a comprehensive sample of 23,301 firm–year observations from 43 countries, we find that an improvement in environmental practices leads to reduction of the implied cost of equity. Further, the results are stronger in countries where country-level governance is weak. Our results indicate that most of the benefits come from the reduction of emission and unnecessary wastage of resources. Our results remain robust to alternative specifications and endogeneity concerns.

Antibiotic resistance poses an urgent public health risk. High rates of ABR have been noted in all regions of the globe by the World Health Organization. ABR develops when bacteria are exposed to antibiotics either during treatments in humans or animals or through environmental sources contaminated with antibiotic residues. Spread beyond those administered antibiotics occurs through direct contact with the infected or colonized person or animal, through contact or ingestion of retail meat or agricultural products contaminated with ABR organisms, or through the environment. ABR bacteria spread from individuals to populations and across countries.

Regulation of microtubule (MT) dynamics is essential for many cellular processes, but the machinery that controls MT dynamics remains poorly understood. MT plus‐end tracking proteins (+TIPs) are a set of MT‐associated proteins that dynamically track growing MT ends and are uniquely positioned to govern MT dynamics. +TIPs associate with each other in a complex array of inter‐ and intra‐molecular interactions known as the “+TIP network.” Why do so many +TIPs bind to other +TIPs? Typical answers include the ideas that these interactions localize proteins where they are needed, deliver proteins to the cortex, and/or create regulatory pathways. We propose an additional and more mechanistic hypothesis: that +TIPs bind each other to create a superstructure that promotes MT assembly by constraining the structural fluctuations of the MT tip, thus acting as a polymerization chaperone.

The Nobel Prize winner, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) - 'the Indian Goethe', as Albert Schweitzer called him - was not only the foremost poet and playwright of modern India, but one of its most profound and influential thinkers. Kalyan Sen Gupta's book is the first comprehensive introduction to Tagore's philosophical, socio-political and religious thinking. Drawing on Rabindranath's poetry as well as his essays, and against the background theme of his deep sensitivity to the holistic character of human life and the natural world, Sen Gupta explores the wide range of Tagore's thought. His idea of spirituality, his reflections on the significance of death, his educational innovations and his relationship to his great contemporary, Gandhi, are among the topics that Sen Gupta discusses - as are Tagore's views on marriage, his distinctive understanding of Hinduism, and his prescient concerns for the natural environment. The author does not disguise the tensions to be found in Tagore's writings, but endorses the great poet's own conviction that these are tensions resolvable at the level of a creative life, if not at that of abstract thought.

We can trace two components in Searle’s overall theory of intentionality: his internalist account of intentional states and his invocation of ‘the Background’. There is a tension between these two components analogous to the tension that exists between Husserl’s and Heidegger’s views on intentionality. Searle, however, does not think that his talk of non-intentional background skills and capacities opposes Heidegger’s and Husserl’s internalist approaches. He attempts to make this point particularly in terms of the brain-in-a-vat thought experiment. This attempt, I argue, is not a promising one, which must lead us to question Searle’s labelling of himself as an internalist

Recently, scientific and popular press articles have begun to represent sex as a health-promoting activity. A number of scientific studies have identified possible health benefits of sexual activity, including increased lifespan and decreased risk of certain types of cancers. These scientific findings have been widely reported on in the popular press. This "sex for health" discourse claims that sexual activity leads to quantifiable physical and mental health benefits in areas not directly related to sexuality. Analyzing this discourse provides an opportunity to better understand both broader health promotion discourses and current norms and anxieties about sexuality. In this article, I place this "sex for health" discourse within the context of broader health promotion discourses and within the context of a number of historical and contemporary discourses connecting health and sexuality. I argue that although the "sex for health" discourse may serve to de-stigmatize sexual activity for some, it may also increase pressure on others to be sexually active and may further pathologize sexual "dysfunction." In addition, these representations often serve to further privilege a normative form of sexual behavior - coitus in the context of a monogamous heterosexual partnership - at the expense of non-normative sexual desires, identities, and practices