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Negotiating Memories of Trauma in Kazuo Ishiguros A Pale View of Hills
Kazuo Ishiguros debut novel A Pale View of Hills (1982) resembles other twentieth-century novels in emerging out of what Anne Whitehead calls the three interrelated contexts of postmodernism, postcolonialism and a postwar legacy, which allows authors to set family stories in a broader, universal, and historical context (Whitehead 81). In the novel, Etsuko, a survivor of the Nagasaki bombing, recalls her traumatic experience of migrating to England following the fatal bombing on August 9, 1945. The novel focuses on the feelings of guilt and trauma associated with Etsukos escape from a difficult life in post-World War II Nagasaki to a more comfortable life in Britain to avoid raising her child in the aftermath of the atomic destruction. The public trauma and shock of the nuclear attack on Nagasaki form the backdrop for Etsukos personal narrative. Although the bomb does not injure the characters in the novel, the aftermath of this catastrophic event affects their lives profoundly. Kazuo Ishiguros A Pale View of Hills is a memory narrative of Etsuko, the protagonist, in conversations with her younger daughter Niki in England. The novel shows Etsuko recalling her past life in Japan in a desperate attempt to come to terms with her older daughter Keikos suicide. Her meditations take her back to her past in Japan, where she had developed a short friendship with Sachiko and her disturbed daughter Mariko. Etsukos dubious narration that exposes several parallels between her life and her friend Sachikos life indicates the possibility of Etsuko and Sachiko being the same person. The chapter discusses how the novels narrative strategies act as a coping mechanism for the displaced Etsuko, who endures the traumatic experience of migration. Etsukos indeterminate and ambiguous narration reflects the complexity and elusiveness of the act of migration, which disrupts her sense of identity and leaves her torn between her past and present self. The chapter shows how Etsukos confessions of her failing memory paradoxically make her seem more reliable. The chapter also discusses how Ishiguros novel, through Etsukos recollection of traumatic memories, calls attention to the emotional and psychological ramifications underlying the process of migration that not only makes migrants doubtful about their initial decision to migrate but also forces them to re-evaluate that decision constantly. Engaging with trauma and memory studies theorists such as Dominick LaCapra, Cathy Caruth, Maurice Halbwachs, Astrid Erll, Birgit Neumann, and Ansgar Nning, the chapter depicts how Etsukos discontinuous narrative, which permits her to redirect her trauma of Kiekos suicide to a self-constructed story, has a therapeutic impact on her psyche. Finally, the chapter argues that though the novel centers around an incident of historical significance, its modernity lies in its depiction of the trials of a life in exile and the psychological complexity induced by the act of abandoning ones homeland and starting a new life elsewhere. 2025 selection and editorial matter, Srirupa Chatterjee and Sharada Chigurupati; individual chapters, the contributors. -
Exploring Socio-Political Factors and Quality of Life Among LGBT Individuals in India
The quality of life of queer individuals in India is a result of a complex sociopolitical climate which is what this study aims to explore through qualitative methodology. Previous research has explored the social factors that impact the wellbeing of LGBT individuals in western countries, while the impact of politics on the wellbeing of marginalized groups is still largely unexplored. Through thematic analysis, this study found that family support and peer networks are the two most important social structures that determine the quality of life of LGBT emerging adults in India, whereas the impact of politics on wellbeing depends on the level of political awareness of the participants and their socio-political privilege in terms of caste, class and gender. However, there were significant differences in the relevant factors that affect the quality of life for cisgender and transgender participants which leaves room for further research. The findings indicate intra-community conflicts and changing dynamics within the community, and there needs to be extensive research on understanding the intersectionality of different identities within the community and their impact on the lives of queer individuals. 2024 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. -
Smart Sensory Approach for Soil Health Tracking based Precision Farming
Internet of Things (IoT) technology will have an impact on every area in the future as it will make everything intelligent, which will affect everyone's daily lives. It is a network composed of many devices that can configure themselves. The use of IoT in smart farming is transforming traditional agricultural practices by reducing crop loss, improving them, and making them more cost-effective for farmers. The study's goal is to propose a technological model for soil health monitoring that uses smart sensors and intelligent methods to communicate with farmers through a variety of channels. Farmers will benefit from the real-time farm data (temperature, humidity, soil moisture, UV index, and IR) that allows them to practice smart farming while increasing crop yields and conserving resources. 2023 IEEE. -
Series Preface
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Message from General Chair
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Conclusion
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Recent Trends in Computational Intelligence Enabled Research: Theoretical Foundations and Applications
The field of computational intelligence has grown tremendously over that past five years, thanks to evolving soft computing and artificial intelligent methodologies, tools and techniques for envisaging the essence of intelligence embedded in real life observations. Consequently, scientists have been able to explain and understand real life processes and practices which previously often remain unexplored by virtue of their underlying imprecision, uncertainties and redundancies, and the unavailability of appropriate methods for describing the incompleteness and vagueness of information represented. With the advent of the field of computational intelligence, researchers are now able to explore and unearth the intelligence, otherwise insurmountable, embedded in the systems under consideration. Computational Intelligence is now not limited to only specific computational fields, it has made inroads in signal processing, smart manufacturing, predictive control, robot navigation, smart cities, and sensor design to name a few. Recent Trends in Computational Intelligence Enabled Research: Theoretical Foundations and Applications explores the use of this computational paradigm across a wide range of applied domains which handle meaningful information. Chapters investigate a broad spectrum of the applications of computational intelligence across different platforms and disciplines, expanding our knowledge base of various research initiatives in this direction. This volume aims to bring together researchers, engineers, developers and practitioners from academia and industry working in all major areas and interdisciplinary areas of computational intelligence, communication systems, computer networks, and soft computing. 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. -
Multilevel Quantum Inspired Fractional Order Ant Colony Optimization for Automatic Clustering of Hyperspectral Images
Hyperspectral images contain a wide variety of information, varying from relatively large regions to smaller manmade buildings, roads and others. Automatic clustering of various regions in such images is a tedious task. A multilevel quantum inspired fractional order ant colony optimization algorithm is proposed in this paper for automatic clustering of hyperspectral images. Application of fractional order pheromone updation technique in the proposed algorithm produces more accurate results. Moreover, the quantum inspired version of the algorithm produces results faster than its classical counterpart. A new band fusion technique, applying principal component analysis and adaptive subspace decomposition, is successfully proposed for the pre-processing of hyperspectral images. Score Function is used as the fitness function and K-Harmonic Means is used to determine the clusters. The proposed algorithm is implemented on the Xuzhou HYSPEX dataset and compared with classical Ant Colony Optimization and fractional order Ant Colony Optimization algorithms. Furthermore, the performance of each method is validated by peak signal-to-noise ratio which clearly indicates better segmentation in the proposed algorithm. The Kruskal-Wallis test is also conducted along with box plot, which establishes that the proposed algorithm performs better when compared with other algorithms. 2020 IEEE. -
Message from the General Chairs
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Identification of emission-line stars in transition phase from pre-main sequence to main sequence
Pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars evolve into main-sequence (MS) phase over a period of time. Interestingly, we found a scarcity of studies in existing literature that examine and attempt to better understand the stars in PMS to MS transition phase. The purpose of this study is to detect such rare stars, which we named as 'transition phase' (TP) candidates-stars evolving from the PMS to the MS phase. We identified 98 TP candidates using photometric analysis of a sample of 2167 classical Be (CBe) and 225 Herbig Ae/Be (HAeBe) stars. This identification is done by analysing the near-and mid-infrared excess and their location in the optical colour-magnitude diagram. The age and mass of 58 of these TP candidates are determined to be between 0.1-5 Myr and 2-10.5 M?, respectively. The TP candidates are found to possess rotational velocity and colour excess values in between CBe and HAeBe stars, which is reconfirmed by generating a set of synthetic samples using the machine learning approach. 2021 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. -
Insights on the Optical and Infrared Nature of MAXI J0709-159: Implications for High-Mass X-ray Binaries
In our previous study (Bhattacharyya et al., 2022), HD 54786, the optical counterpart of the MAXI J0709-159 system, was identified to be an evolved star, departing from the main sequence, based on comparisons with non-X-ray binary systems. In this paper, using color-magnitude diagram (CMD) analysis for High-Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs) and statistical t-tests, we found evidence supporting HD 54786s potential membership in both Be/X-ray binaries (BeXRBs) and supergiant X-ray binaries (SgXBs) populations of HMXBs. Hence, our study points towards dual optical characteristics of HD 54786, as an X-ray binary star and also belonging to a distinct evolutionary phase from BeXRB towards SgXB. Our further analysis suggests that MAXI J0709-159, associated with HD 54786, exhibits low-level activity during the current epoch and possesses a limited amount of circumstellar material. Although similarities with the previously studied BeXRB system LSI +61? 235 (Coe et al., 1994) are noted, continued monitoring and data collection are essential to fully comprehend the complexities of MAXI J0709-159 and its evolutionary trajectory within the realm of HMXBs. 2024 Societe Royale des Sciences de Liege. All rights reserved. -
Decoding the X-Ray Flare from MAXI J0709-159 Using Optical Spectroscopy and Multiepoch Photometry
We present a follow-up study on the recent detection of two X-ray flaring events by MAXI/Gas Slit Camera observations in soft and hard X-rays from MAXI J0709-159 in the direction of HD 54786 (LY CMa), on 2022 January 25. The X-ray luminosity during the flare was around 1037 erg s-1 (MAXI), which got reduced to 1032 erg s-1 (NuSTAR) after the flare. We took low-resolution spectra of HD 54786 from the 2.01 m Himalayan Chandra Telescope and the 2.34 m Vainu Bappu Telescope (VBT) facilities in India, on 2022 February 1 and 2. In addition to H? emission, we found emission lines of He i in the optical spectrum of this star. By comparing our spectrum of the object with those from the literature we found that He i lines show variability. Using photometric studies we estimate that the star has an effective temperature of 20,000 K. Although HD 54786 is reported as a supergiant in previous studies, our analysis favors it to be evolving off the main sequence in the color-magnitude diagram. We could not detect any infrared excess, ruling out the possibility of IR emission from a dusty circumstellar disk. Our present study suggests that HD 54786 is a Be/X-ray binary system with a compact object companion, possibly a neutron star. 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. -
Intelligent Environmental Data Monitoring for Pollution Management: A volume in Intelligent Data-Centric Systems
Intelligent Environmental Data Monitoring for Pollution Management discusses evolving novel intelligent algorithms and their applications in the area of environmental data-centric systems guided by batch process-oriented data. Thus, the book ushers in a new era as far as environmental pollution management is concerned. It reviews the fundamental concepts of gathering, processing and analyzing data from batch processes, followed by a review of intelligent tools and techniques which can be used in this direction. In addition, it discusses novel intelligent algorithms for effective environmental pollution data management that are on par with standards laid down by the World Health Organization. To learn more about Elseviers Series, Intelligent Data-Centric Systems, please visit this link: https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals/book-series/intelligent-data-centric-systems-sensor-collected-intelligence. 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. -
Quantum machine learning
Quantum-enhanced machine learning refers to quantum algorithms that solve tasks in machine learning, thereby improving a classical machine learning method. Such algorithms typically require one to encode the given classical dataset into a quantum computer, so as to make it accessible for quantum information processing. After this, quantum information processing routines can be applied and the result of the quantum computation is read out by measuring the quantum system. While many proposals of quantum machine learning algorithms are still purely theoretical and require a full-scale universal quantum computer to be tested, others have been implemented on small-scale or special purpose quantum devices. New trends in Machine Learning based on Quantum Computing and Quantum Algorithms Examples on real life applications Illustrative diagrams and coding examples. 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. All rights reserved.