Anil Gupta asks one of the key questions in philosophy: what is the contribution of experience of knowledge? Gupta develops an account of experience that allows it to inform knowledge while respecting two constraints - the contribution of experience to knowledge must be both rational and substantial. He says that these constraints cannot be met if we make the assumption that experience only aquaints us with partial truth about the world. Instead he uses tools from philosophical logic, specifically the logic of interdependent concepts, to show that a natural account of experience is available using the interdependence of views and perceptual judgements. In essence he argues for a reformed empiricism that embraces experience as conditional.

Ingestion of food is a physiological process among heterotrophic organisms to obtain nutrients for survival. The consumption of soil, clay and chalk by humans is labeled as geophagia. Ancient resources and modern references deliver valuable information concerning geophagia and pica in humans. This book takes a consistent, interdisciplinary approach for reviewing this aberrant behavior, crafting its etiology, charting its health effects and identifying the universal traits among the affected population. It puts forward a brief conceptual framework to achieve universality in its definition, history, epidemiology and multiple hypotheses thus help in adopting measures to control this habit. Key Features: 1. Systematic and meticulous flow of information on geophagia. 2. Guides general practioners, physicians, pediatricians to curb this practice in their patients. 3. A unique and concise treatise covering descriptive and research based work over a crucial health issue of worldwide prevalence.

Biochemical parameters represent better, precise, and objective tools toward the assessment of the nutritional status of children in comparison to anthropometric, clinical, and dietary methods. They constitute laboratory tests to estimate the concentration of circulating nutrients in body fluids. Biochemical parameters are suggestive of acute or subclinical conditions when other methods of nutritional assessment fail to interpret the condition. These parameters exhibit substantial variability in their reproducibility. Moreover, these parameters are novel tools in the hands of clinicians for screening of the nutritional status of children. Key Features Covers the latest biochemical parameters for nutritional assessment Updated content is useful for clinicians, nutritionists, and general practitioners A unique and concise treatise covering descriptive and research-based work on a crucial health issue of worldwide prevalence About the Author Anil Gupta, PhD, is the Dean of Research at Desh Bhagat University and Professor and Head, Department of Physiology and Biochemistry at Desh Bhagat Dental College and Hospital, Mandi Gobindgarh, Punjab, India.

Biochemical parameters represent better, precise, and objective tools toward the assessment of the nutritional status of children in comparison to anthropometric, clinical, and dietary methods. They constitute laboratory tests to estimate the concentration of circulating nutrients in body fluids. Biochemical parameters are suggestive of acute or subclinical conditions when other methods of nutritional assessment fail to interpret the condition. These parameters exhibit substantial variability in their reproducibility. Moreover, these parameters are novel tools in the hands of clinicians for screening of the nutritional status of children. Key Features Covers the latest biochemical parameters for nutritional assessment Updated content is useful for clinicians, nutritionists, and general practitioners A unique and concise treatise covering descriptive and research-based work on a crucial health issue of worldwide prevalence About the Author Anil Gupta, PhD, is the Dean of Research at Desh Bhagat University and Professor and Head, Department of Physiology and Biochemistry at Desh Bhagat Dental College and Hospital, Mandi Gobindgarh, Punjab, India.

This volume serves to present to interested readers recent developments in microsimulation and public policy. It strings together: selected papers presented at the International Microsimulation Conference on Population Ageing and Health: Modelling Our Future held in Canberra, Australia in December 2003; and recent thinking in the field of microsimulation as reflected in special contributions by some of the leading experts in the field; description of 20 key models relating to fiscal and health human resource issues concerning sustainability of health systems around the globe. The focus of the conference was on practical uses of microsimulation in government policy although theoretical underpinnings also received considerable attention. The volume covers a diversity of subjects: health status; pharmacare and health expenditure issues; financing, caring and health delivery; health human resources; and data challenges. To provide an insight into actual models used around the world, the book also has a section devoted to the challenges associated with building of microsimulation models and their current use in the formulation of public policy. The book presents some innovative analysis on public policy issues contained in some of the conference papers along with the methodological advancements made in the microsimulation field. It contains invaluable information that aims to help shape the current and future public policy debates in this area. The authors are established leaders in the field, and it is international in scope.

Understanding Insulin and Insulin Resistance is written in a simple and clear language illustrated with diagrams that show the complex interplay of various factors in the initiation of insulin resistance. The design is systematic and meticulous, portraying topics in a flow from simple to complex. This resource is intended for a broad audience spanning across biochemistry, medicine, dentistry, academia, physicians, and research scholars. It extends the approach to biochemistry, physiology, metabolism of insulin along with the coverage of pathophysiology of insulin resistance, its effects on the body tissues, and its analysis on insulin resistance syndrome.

A distinguished philosopher offers a novel account of experience and reason, and develops our understanding of conscious experience and its relationship to thought: a new reformed empiricism. The role of experience in cognition is a central and ancient philosophical concern. How, theorists ask, can our private experiences guide us to knowledge of a mind-independent reality? Exploring topics in logic, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, Conscious Experience proposes a new answer to this age-old question, explaining how conscious experience contributes to the rationality and content of empirical beliefs. According to Anil Gupta, this contribution cannot be determined independently of an agent's conceptual scheme and prior beliefs, but that doesn't mean it is entirely mind-dependent. While the rational contribution of an experience is not propositional-it does not, for example, provide direct knowledge of the world-it does authorize certain transitions from prior views to new views. In short, the rational contribution of an experience yields a rule for revising views. Gupta shows that this account provides theoretical freedom: it allows the observer to radically reconceive the world in light of empirical findings. Simultaneously, it grants empirical reason significant power to constrain, forcing particular conceptions of self and world on the rational inquirer. These seemingly contrary virtues are reconciled through novel treatments of presentation, appearances, and ostensive definitions. Collectively, Gupta's arguments support an original theory: reformed empiricism. He abandons the idea that experience is a source of knowledge and justification. He also abandons the idea that concepts are derived from experience. But reformed empiricism preserves empiricism's central insight: experience is the supreme epistemic authority. In the resolution of factual disagreements, experience trumps all.

This volume reprints eight of Anil Gupta's essays, some with additional material. The essays bring a refreshing new perspective to central issues in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Gupta argues that logical interdependence is legitimate, and that it provides a key to understanding a variety of topics of interest to philosophers-including truth, rationality, and experience. The essays are highly accessible and provide a good introduction to ideas Gupta has been developing over the last three decades.

This book offers a novel account of the relationship of experience to knowledge. The account builds on the intuitive idea that our ordinary perceptual judgments are not autonomous, that an interdependence obtains between our view of the world and our perceptual judgments. Anil Gupta shows in this important study that this interdependence is the key to a satisfactory account of experience. He uses tools from logic and the philosophy of language to argue that his account of experience makes available an attractive and feasible empiricism.

The issues associated with population ageing are already assuming prominence in most OECD countries. Many governments are extremely concerned about the likely impact of population ageing upon future government outlays and economic growth. In Australia, for example, there have already been two major government reports that have attempted to quantify the likely implications for government spending of population ageing. These reports have concluded that there will either have to be cuts in current government programs, increases in taxes or some combination of these. The ageing population will also require more health human resources (doctors, nurses, pharmacists etc.), in an environment where the existing workforce itself is ageing. Economic growth is forecast to slow significantly in future decades due to population ageing, reducing governments ability to rely on a rapidly growing taxpaying labour force to finance the expected shortfalls. Against this backdrop, volumes 15 and 16 of the International Symposia in Economic Theory and Econometrics Series provide very timely and relevant research for policy makers and researchers across the world. The modelling approaches and research described in the volumes are at the international leading edge, providing insights into how different countries are facing the challenges associated with population ageing. Many countries have developed microsimulation and other models to help them evaluate the impacts of population ageing and of public policy change. Volume 15 concentrates upon the impacts of population ageing upon social security and taxation. For example, the chapters examine likely future pension outlays under current and possible alternative schemes; estimate the likely wealth of future retirees; forecast tax revenues out to 2026 and look at the impact of population ageing upon housing prices and tourism. This volume contains invaluable information that aims to help shape the current and future public policy debates in this area. The authors are established leaders in the field. It includes international in Scope.

Global warming and population growth have resulted in an increase in the intensity of natural and anthropogenic stressors. Investigating the complex nature of environmental problems requires the integration of different environmental processes across major components of the environment, including water, climate, ecology, air, and land. Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) not only includes analyzing and modeling environmental changes, but also supports planning alternatives that promote environmental monitoring and management. Disjointed and narrowly focused environmental management approaches have proved dissatisfactory. The adoption of integrated modelling approaches has sparked interests in the development of frameworks which may be used to investigate the processes of individual environmental component and the ways they interact with each other. Integrated modelling systems and frameworks are often the only way to take into account the important environmental processes and interactions, relevant spatial and temporal scales, and feedback mechanisms of complex systems for CEA. This book examines the ways in which interactions and relationships between environmental components are understood, paying special attention to climate, land, water quantity and quality, and both anthropogenic and natural stressors. It reviews modelling approaches for each component and reviews existing integrated modelling systems for CEA. Finally, it proposes an integrated modelling framework and provides perspectives on future research avenues for cumulative effects assessment.

Global warming and population growth have resulted in an increase in the intensity of natural and anthropogenic stressors. Investigating the complex nature of environmental problems requires the integration of different environmental processes across major components of the environment, including water, climate, ecology, air, and land. Cumulative effects assessment (CEA) not only includes analyzing and modeling environmental changes, but also supports planning alternatives that promote environmental monitoring and management.Disjointed and narrowly focused environmental management approaches have proved dissatisfactory. The adoption of integrated modelling approaches has sparked interests in the development of frameworks which may be used to investigate the processes of individual environmental component and the ways they interact with each other. Integrated modelling systems and frameworks are often the only way to take into account the important environmental processes and interactions, relevant spatial and temporal scales, and feedback mechanisms of complex systems for CEA. This book examines the ways in which interactions and relationships between environmental components are understood, paying special attention to climate, land, water quantity and quality, and both anthropogenic and natural stressors. It reviews modelling approaches for each component and reviews existing integrated modelling systems for CEA. Finally, it proposes an integrated modelling framework and provides perspectives on future research avenues for cumulative effects assessment.

Ingestion of food is a physiological process among heterotrophic organisms to obtain nutrients for survival. The consumption of soil, clay and chalk by humans is labeled as geophagia. Ancient resources and modern references deliver valuable information concerning geophagia and pica in humans. This book takes a consistent, interdisciplinary approach for reviewing this aberrant behavior, crafting its etiology, charting its health effects and identifying the universal traits among the affected population. It puts forward a brief conceptual framework to achieve universality in its definition, history, epidemiology and multiple hypotheses thus help in adopting measures to control this habit. Key Features: 1. Systematic and meticulous flow of information on geophagia. 2. Guides general practioners, physicians, pediatricians to curb this practice in their patients. 3. A unique and concise treatise covering descriptive and research based work over a crucial health issue of worldwide prevalence.

Human Caspases and Neuronal Apoptosis in Neurodegenerative Diseases elucidates elaborately the role of caspase enzymes implicated in the initiation of molecular events leading to neuronal apoptosis in the neurodegenerative disease. The book starts with introduction to neuropathology, neurogenetics, and epidemiology of neurodegenerative disease and illustrates the involvement of human caspases, neuronal apoptosis, apoptotic pathways, genetic polymorphisms, and several other factors and underlying mechanisms in the pathology of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease. An important focus in all chapters is the intricate mechanisms and interplay that occur during or leading to neuron death in neurodegenerative diseases, along with disease pathobiology.

When the seemingly perfect Tartuffe ingratiates himself with the wealthy Orgon and his mother Madame Pernelle, he is soon welcomed into their home and into their lives. His combination of charm, respectability and religious authority proves so irresistible that he is eventually promised the hand of Orgon's daughter in marriage. But the rest of Orgon's family have grave doubts - is there more to Tartuffe than meets the eye? When the threat of eviction for the family and imprisonment for Orgon become apparent, is it all too late to find out? This hilarious and irreverent whirlwind of lies, religious hypocrisy and family feuds features one of theatre's most perfect comedy creations, the beguiling Tartuffe.

In this rigorous investigation into the logic of truth Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap explain how the concept of truth works in both ordinary and pathological contexts. The latter include, for instance, contexts that generate Liar Paradox. Their central claim is that truth is a circular concept. In support of this claim they provide a widely applicable theory (the "revision theory") of circular concepts. Under the revision theory, when truth is seen as circular both its ordinary features and its pathological features fall into a simple understandable pattern. The Revision Theory of Truth is unique in placing truth in the context of a general theory of definitions. This theory makes sense of arbitrary systems of mutually interdependent concepts, of which circular concepts, such as truth, are but a special case.