A Creative Discourse: Abortion

My humble attempt at making up a discourse on abortion. This work is modelled after Ted Chiang's `Liking What You See: A Documentary.'

Father: My wife faced a lot of complications during her pregnancy. According to the doctors, she could be saved if we were allowed to abort the foetus. Now I have lost the love of my life and my son has lost his mother. Abortion should be allowed in extreme circumstances.

Mother: My husband and I wanted to have a child. However I was unable to conceive. Both of us are old now. Whenever we see a family with small children, we get overwhelmed with feelings of sadness and depravity. Abortion should be banned. Children bring happiness to the family.

Feminist: A mother carries the child for nine months in her belly. A pregnancy can have major effects on her life such as career break and post-natal depression. The woman decides what to do with her body. Not even the father of the child has a say in this matter.

Pragmatist: We should treat this subject realistically and not judge on the basis of petty emotions and feelings. Both the parents should consciously make a decision to raise a child. In the event of an unintended pregnancy, abortion is a  practical choice. No human should be an accident.

Idealist: We read in the news about incidents of abortion, especially female foeticide. This weakens sex ratio and aggravates gender disparity in the society. A perfect society cannot condone abortion. We as a society should strive for equality in all matters of life.

Ethicist: Is abortion ethical? I would suggest we look at the issue on a case-by-case basis. For instance, consider rape. How can we allow pregnancy resulting from rape? It is ethical  to abort such a pregnancy and thus save the child from a lifetime of ridicule and shame.

Euphemist: The question is whether I support premature termination of pregnancy or not.  I think we should look at the big picture. Downsizing the population in this fashion, although might have some immediate adverse effects, will result in long-term benefits to the community.

Statistician: Our land is yet to reach the replacement level of 2.1 on population growth. So, statistically speaking, it is in the best interests of the land to allow abortion. This will slow down our population grown and thus reduce the strain on our resources.

Evolutionist: Do plants or animals commit abortion? No! Then why should human beings kill the (potentially useful) members of their own specifies. Homo sapiens are digging their own grave by supporting abortion  (remember natural selection.) If we interfere with the nature, it will react violently.

Teenager:  Yesterday I saw a video on abortion in my FB feed. Everybody in the comments supported abortion. It seems those who opposed were downvoted to oblivion. The hashtag #YayAbortion is trending on Twitter since Friday. Most of the Insta celebs have released videos supporting the cause.

Minister: Every child is a gift of the Supreme Being. Abortion is nothing but an act of disobedience. The scripture is very precise and clear in this matter. Obey the Supreme Being and you will be rewarded in abundance. A true believer cannot support this heinous act.

Pacifist: Abortion is nothing but cold-blooded murder. Violence of any sort cannot be justified. The sad side of abortion is that the parents themselves give consent to the killing of their child.

Fundamentalist: Our sect is in existential crisis. Our sect cannot afford to abort any child. On the other hand, I recommend every family to have at least three children to ensure our survival. In that case, in a few decades time, we will be the majority in this land.

Activist: We have organized a public meeting in the town square tomorrow evening to protest government's lack of enthusiasm to ensure immediate action on the case. We invite everyone to join the protest and show your valuable support to the cause. Remember, justice delayed is justice denied.

Politician: The opposition is trying to cash in on this case for political mileage. They have bought the media as well. There were 31,427 incidents of abortion in this land during their term.  Those who failed to control abortion while in power now shamelessly question the current government. How long can they keep up with this shenanigan. The public cannot be taken for granted.

Conspiracy_Theorist: This is clearly a conspiracy to instil chaos in this land. To some extend, they have succeeded in creating a division among the people with this issue. We should instead direct our vision, time and energy on more pressing issues such as rising unemployment and uniform civil code.

Veteran: Nothing is gonna change. We have witnessed similar events in the past as well. The media wants to attract our attention and when something new comes up, they are gonna let go of this issue. The current hullabaloo on abortion will soon give way to something new.

Boomer: Youngsters these days engage in premarital sex and adultery. During our days, we made sure never to get intimate with anyone from the other sex outside of marriage. Marriage is a covenant between two individuals based on trust and love.

Millennial:  Our society has historically put severe restrictions on exercising personal freedom, particularly for women. Times have changed. I don't want anyone else to tell me what to do with my life. The decision whether to abort my pregnancy or not is solely the responsibility of me and my husband. Live and let live. #YOLO

Stranger: Adopting a child is too easy in this land. That is why abortion is so rampant here. In order to combat abortion, we should make it hard for couples to adopt a child.

Revolutionist: Our land is now undergoing a social revolution. The rate of abortion has increased in the recent years. However most of them are done illegally or by quacks, which puts the mother's life at risk. Abortion should be legalized so that it can be done lawfully under the supervision of a medical doctor.

Liberal: Abortion should be incentivized. Abortion should be permitted except in extreme circumstances. Infringement on our freedom and rights should be condemned at all costs.

Moderate: I do not have a strong opinion on this matter. I thought about this issue for 24 hours straight but I could not come to a judgement. Both permitting abortion and prohibiting abortion have their pros and cons. We have to strike the right balance.

Conservative: Abortion should be penalized. Abortion should be prohibited except in extreme circumstances. Infringement on our culture and tradition should be condemned at all costs.

Reactionary: Our forefathers would not have cared to even discuss such an immoral act, let alone support abortion. The rate of abortion has increased in the recent years. This clearly indicates the deterioration of  moral principles and ethics in our society. Abortion should be criminalize.

My Glossary

Meetings

conference; plenary session; keynote address; panel discussion; birds-of-a-feather

committee; sub-committee; standing committee; ad-hoc committee; executive committee; steering committee; 

take minutes; have the floor; hold the floor; open the floor (for questions) ; move a motion; second a motion; call to order;

general body; agenda; quorum; minutes; floor leader; whip; chairperson; ex-officio member; observer;

5-second rule

ratify; vote; adjourn; veto

DevOps

development (development, unit test), test (system test), stage (mirror production envt, load testing), production (go live)

hotfix, bug fix (patch)

continuous integration, continuous deployment (CI/CD)

rollout release

Academia: Stay Clear of Predators

Today I was searching for a scientific article ("Entity Linking with a Knowledge Base: Issues, Techniques, and Solutions") on Google scholar and the results caught me by surprise. There were only two results. The article  I was searching for has been published in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, which is a reputed journal. This one was the first hit, and the right one. 

However the second hit was an article with the same title but published in a predatory journal. This bogus article is rife with grammatical errors. From a cursory scan of the paper, the content seems to be ruthlessly lifted from the original TKDE paper. The rogue authors did not even bother to 'copy-paste' the footnotes correctly. This is outright plagiarism --- unethical and punishable. I am ashamed of the fact that the authors of this paper are also from India. It is well-known that low-tier and middle-tier colleges in India publish in such journals either due to ignorance or to cheat, a quick and dirty way to increase your publication count. That the second author is himself a PhD indicates that the the act was not one out of ignorance but a deliberate act of fraud.

The predatory journal is called International Journal of Advanced Technology and Innovative Research. The name of  any reputed journal or conference is very specific about the targeted special interest group, e.g. Association of Computational Linguistics or Knowledge Capture. Predatory journals are too vague about their areas of interest. So this is a simple heuristic to identify predatory journals. Reputed journals always publish articles after thorough peer-review process. In addition, reputed journals do not solicit any fees to publish articles. 

This behavior also demonstrates the pathetic state of scientific research in the country. A majority of academics are unaware of the value of ethics in scientific research. Since only a certain elite can even comprehend or question the nuances of the research conducted on a topic, it is very easy to keep everyone in the dark on the details of a research project. Predatory journals can thrive in such an atmosphere. This practice penalizes honest academics and incentivizes rogue academics.

To the ignorant academic: you  may use these two websites to decide for yourself before you decide to send your manuscript to a journal for 'peer-review':

1. https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/

2. https://beallslist.net/

Stay clear of predatory journals. Uphold the virtues of science, research methodology and communication.

Review: The IIT System

(NOTE: Originally written in December 2018)
(Edit 1: May 2020, grammar correction; Edit 2: September 2020, minor edit)  

The IIT system is very successful in India. Some of the positive aspects about IITs are given below:

1. IIT-JEE is a very competitive exam. It tests the candidate’s understanding of concepts instead of one's memory. So it avoids rote-learning or cramming, which are heavily promoted in the Indian school system.
2. The exams conducted in IITs also test the student's understanding of concepts. In addition, the projects, assignments and tutorials together make sure there is ample opportunity for students to learn from each other. The TAs assist in teaching by taking classes, grading assignments and conducting tutorial sessions.
3. There are ample facilities in IITs for pursuing extra-curricular activities: sports facilities, sports fests, tech fests, department fests, cultural fests, PG-sports, clubs, colloquiums, and so on. Everybody is welcome to join these events.
   
4. The professors know what they are teaching. Compared to low-tier institutes, every member of the faculty holds a PhD degree. The system is flexible enough to allow professors to decide the course syllabus.
   

However, as an IIT professor rightly mentioned, IIT is a mirage. Although the IITs are premier technical institutes in the country, the system is plagued with many issues. I list some of the issues (in no particular order) I have noticed from my first-hand experience while pursuing post-graduate studies at one of the older IITs:

1. There is an undue craze to get into IITs. This results in students who are pressurized into clearing IIT-JEE by parents, peers and the society. The art of learning gets reduced to just an exercise with the aim of passing an extremely competitive national-level exam. These students would never enjoy the art of learning.
2. IIT coaching centres only create students who are good at clearing IIT-JEE. The students lack any social skills or social awareness. Students who get into IITs are naturally exhausted after years of preparation for JEE and join IIT without any energy to realize their interests or follow their passion.
3. IIT is a brand. That’s how everyone in India considers IIT. The downside of the brand value is that students are made to believe that just getting into any IIT secures their life for ever. However this is far from the truth. Students have to work really hard to earn a degree at IIT. Learning is a life-long journey. IIT aspirants want to make sure that once they manage to secure the IIT tag, they can latch on to it for the rest of their lives. IITs should be rebranded as technical institutes and research centres.
4. The classes at IIT are not very inspiring. Except for a few courses, most of the courses are offered just because faculty members are required to offer at least one course every semester. The professors do not care how individuals perform and leave menial tasks such as invigilation and grading to their teaching assistants.
5. Since IITs follow relative grading, there is tremendous competition among the students in a class. This impedes learning because students are not motivated to discuss with each other and thereby learn from each other.
6. The system of awarding marks for attendance is not very effective. The students are forced to attend lectures even though they might not be interested in doing so. For instance, MOOCs from world-class universities such as Stanford can be a substitute for lectures. IITs should make sure that learning and creativity is encouraged, and unhealthy competition is discouraged.
7. The placement season at IITs is highly overrated. Not everybody at IIT get 1 crore job offers. Only a bunch of students, from computer science or electrical engineering, get such heavy packages. This creates a bad impression about IITs on the society. This impedes creativity of students and forces students to participate in various extra-curricular activities just for the sake of ensuring their placement in an MNC with a high-paying job.
8. The competitive nature of Indians is clearly visible within the walls of IIT. The IIT system provides ample platforms pitching students against each other - courses, technical fests, sports fests, cultural fests and placements to name a few. There is no shortage of talent in IITs. However the current state of affairs is not conducive enough to assist students to sharpen their skills and talents. Only a handful successfully manage to navigate the labyrinthine system.
9. The academic pressure in IITs ensures students face the same amount of pressure they were made to feel during the JEE preparation phase. Every year a few students succumb to the pressure  and thus reports of student suicide at IITs is not newsworthy anymore. A common pattern seen in IITs is that the first two months in every semester is pleasant for the students and then the students become a lot busier in the final two months. The students are finally unable to do anything else other than prepare for end-semester exams, finish assignments and projects.
10. The research scholars are paid scholarship for TA duties. However this is not monitored well. There have been occasions when research scholars had to work more than what is stipulated by the institute (8 hours per week).
11. The research culture at IIT is mediocre. Many PhD (and MS) students do not receive effective and efficient supervision. As a result, the research scholars face immense pressure due to the requirements of having to publish in high-quality journals or at conferences in spite of the deplorable research atmosphere. PhD students have to clear comprehensive evaluation, the purpose of which has always eluded me. Rather than copying the American system, IITs should develop their own style of teaching and research that meets the demands of the country. In this manner, IITs should be a role model for lower-tier institutes such as NITs or IIITs.
12. The work culture at IIT is pathetic. Many scholars are night-owls and the labs are operational 24x7 with sufficient facilities for overnight stay such as recliner. A few food stalls are open throughout the night rendering it easy for night-owls for grab a munch during their `working (waking?) hours.'
13. The number of research scholars who finish the PhD program successfully needs monitoring. For instance, in the lab where I worked for three years, only one scholar defended his thesis, while I personally know at least seven scholars struggling with their research, a handful of which are currently not in a position to even dream of their thesis defense. If IITs are aspiring to be world-class then there should constant monitoring of the status of research conducted by the scholars.
14. The food at mess is horrible. The quality of food degrades continuously. Moreover, hostellers are forced to pay for food for the whole semester in advance. The system should be made more flexible. For instance, hostelers should have to option to cook food on their own in hostels itself. A common kitchen can be set up in every hostel, on every floor to be more efficient, so that those who do not want to eat from mess have the freedom to do so.

Let me conclude by saying that my stint at IIT was the most rewarding and exciting phase of my life. I learnt a lot during those three years. However I understand that the system has many flaws and so it is important to identify the areas that warrant improvement. This article is a small such effort from my side. There is no dearth of talent in the IITs. I believe the system will soon catch up with other elite technical universities around the world.

Metaphor and Metonymy, Jeannette Littlemore

Metaphor in everyday communication - Jeannette Littlemore

Why do metaphors work?

In the case of both metaphor and metonymy, we talk one thing in terms of another. However there is a difference between the two. Metaphor is an exchange of properties, while metonymy is an exchange of entities. Consider the following two sentences: (1) Kevin is bit of a monster (=scary, aggressive), (2) The White House (=government) announced new tax reforms. The first one is an example for metaphor, whereas the second one is an example for metonymy. 

Littlemore studies metaphor and metonymy in the following contexts:

1. cross-cultural communication; how metaphor and metonymy are used differently in different languages and cultures (emotions=heart/liver (Malaysia)); language learners (L2 speakers)
2. discourse communities
1. nursery - loose nappy(=for upset stomach0
2. sports - put him under Reese(=Reese’s coaching)
3. hospitals - room 121(=patient in the room 121)
4. military - 12 o’clock for direction, 
5. business - hedge funds, ring fencing, angel investor, unicorn, …
6. math and music education - high notes, low notes, thick notes, thin notes, ...
3. how people talk about their traumatic experience, difficult moments of life (sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, miscarriage, rape, accident, violence, loss of dear ones, depression, isolation, )
4. sexual health  - The objective was to use metaphor and wordplay to raise awareness on sexual health in indirect and humorous ways. e.g. going to touch wood; visit her spaghetti garden, exploring their botanical gardens, ...
5. advertising and branding -  Jaguar Cars (as sleek and fast as jaguars), Rolls Royce Phantom (as strong and powerful as the superman character Phantom), The Beast (as scary as a beast), 
6. gestures - they are useful in establishing cohesion in conversation by L1 speakers; to find the right words (esp. by L2 speakers); some are metaphorical and some are metonymic (roof gesture for house) and some are pragmatic; sign language; 
7. non-verbal communication -  metaphor and metonymy are common in verbal as well as non-verbal communication
1. the pair of glasses on the table for the teacher: metonymy because the teacher wears the glasses
2. handbag for Thatcher: metonymy because Thatcher used to have a handbag at public appearances
3. sickle for the working class: metonymy because farmers use sickle in harvesting crops; no transfer of properties
4. suit for the executive class: metonymy because corporate wear suits to meetings; no transfer of properties
5. thumbs up for good luck, V for victory: metonymy because it’s a convention
8. human-computer interaction - @MetaphorMagnet publishes metaphorical expressions generated by bots; how good are the metaphors (novelty, alliteration, Keats heursitic…)
9. embodied metaphor - metaphors that trigger physical, mental and emotional responses; interaction between metaphorical and the physical (e.g. importance ~ weight, similar ~ close); metaphoric associations such as LOVE is JOURNEY; e.g. I have had a rough day; I am trying to climb Mount Everest in flipflops.

Languages of the World

 Languages can be differentiated based on various aspects:

• Families - The languages having a common ancestor are grouped into language families.
  
  • Indo-Aryan (Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya, Haryanvi...)
  • Dravidian (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Konkani, Tulu…)
  • Germanic (German, Dutch, English, Scots, Dutch…)
  • Slavic (Russian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Polish...)
  • Celtic (Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic…)
  • Romance (Italian, French, Spanish…)
  • Sino-Tibetan (Chinese Mandarin, Chinese Cantonese, Tibetan, Burmese…)

•  Scripts - Different languages follow different scripts.

• Devanagari (Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati…)
• Latin (English, Spanish, German...)
• Arabic (Arabic, Persian, Urdu…)
• Cyrillic (Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian…)

•  Inflection

• Analytic - few inflections e.g. English
• Isolation -  close to no inflections e.g. Mandarin
• Synthetic - many inflections
• Agglutinative - a single inflection conveys only a single grammatical category e.g. Finnish; English (goes → third person, am → first person), Malayalam
• Polysynthetic
• Fusional - a single inflection conveys multiple grammatical categories e.g. Italian future tense

Some Linguistics

Linguistics is the science of language. Language is the method of human communication, either spoken or written. Most of the languages around the world have more similarities among each other than dissimilarities. This leads to the concept of a universal grammar, which is the basis of all languages.

• Linguistics - study of language e.g. universal grammar, syntax, semantics
• Computational Linguistics (or NLP or Corpus Linguistics) - study of language through computational means with the help of machine-readable corpora; natural language processing e.g. automatic question-answering, text summary generator
• Cognitive Linguistics (CL, in short) - study of relation between language and cognitive processes e.g. child language acquisition
• Diachronic (or Historical) Linguistics - study of changes in language over time e.g. semantic drift
• Philology - study of language in historical texts
• Etymology - the study of origin of words
• Onomasiology - the branch of linguistics concerned with  the question “how to express the idea X as a word?”
• Semasiology - the branch of linguistics concerned with the question “what does the word X mean?”
• Sociolinguistics - study of language in respect to various social factors such as gender bias, social status, patterns of migration, influence of colonialism

 

Sociolinguistics - How do social factors affect language?

• Multilingual society
  
  • Code switching - switching from one language to another e.g Malayalam with wife, Marathi with shopkeeper, English with boss, Hindi with friends
• Code mixing - mix multiple languages e.g. Manglish, Hinglish
• Language shift - shift from language to another over a long period of time e.g. the common language shifted from Hindi to English in India

•  Based on variety of language:
• Accent - variation in pronunciation e.g. Malayalam accents (Trivandrum accent, Palakkad accent, Kochi accent, Thrissur accent, Kasargod accent)
• Dialect - variation in pronunciation and vocabulary e.g. Hindi dialects (Bundeli, Awadhi, Kannauji), English dialects (British, Australian, African-American, American, Indian)

• Based on use of language in a multilingual society: I think a language can have many dialects but only some of them are considered the standard and other become vernacular.
  
  • Standard - codified version of a language e.g. Standard English
  • Vernacular - languages that are not official, non-standard version of a language e.g. African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)
  • Lingua franca - e.g. English due to globalization, French by nobility, Latin by Catholic Church

• Based on official requirements:
  
  • National language - e.g India (Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Haryanvi, Punjabi, Oriya, Bengali)
  • Official language - e.g. India (Hindi, English)

slang (informal), jargon (domain), pidgin (multilingual group), creole (second generation speakers), taboo (private)

Software Licensing

Types of Licences

1. Proprietary e.g. Microsoft Windowss
2. Copyleft (FOSS) - GNU General Public License, CC BY-SA e.g. Linux kernel, GCC
   2.a GNU LGPL e.g.
3. Permissive (FOSS) - BSD License, MIT License, Apache License, CC BY e.g. Apache Web Server
4. Public domain - WTFPL, CC0

If the conditions specified by the license are not met, then it results in copyright infringement.

Open source software vs. Free software

Free software focuses on the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve a software. Think of free speech and not free beer. Their enemy is proprietary software released by companies such as Microsoft and Apple.

Open source focuses on the effective collaborative of software development. Remember the Cathedral vs. Bazaar analogy.

The underlying idea between the two terms is different. A neutral term is FOSS or FLOSS. e.g. Linux kernel.

FOSS Licenses

Two types of FOSS licenses are copyleft (more restrictive) and permissive (less restrictive). Copyleft vs. Permissive

A copyleft license ensures that anyone who receives the binary version of the software is entitled to the source version (including any source modifications that went into any binaries they received), and that person, in turn, is also required to pass down the four freedoms to anyone else that they pass said binaries/code on to.

A non-copyleft FOSS license could allow one person to receive the four freedoms as part of obtaining a copy of the code, but then that person can choose whether they want to give the four freedoms (or any individual one of the freedoms) to someone else that they give the software to.

It's important to keep in mind that non-copyleft licenses can transform from being free/open source software to non-free, non-open source software licenses, because the enforcement of the preservation of the freedoms is not in place.

GNU GPL vs. GNU LGPL

GNU project has two licenses for its libraries. The important difference between the two is that using the Lesser GPL permits use of the library in proprietary programs; using the ordinary GPL for a library makes it available only for free programs.

So when is LGPL useful? LGPL is useful especially when the library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other libraries. With LPGL, such free library's get more users.

So when should LGPL not be used? However if the library's features are not readily available elsewhere, then LGPL should not be used because it goes against the principles of free software. GPL should be used in this case because it leads to the development of more free software, and encourages free software movement.

Writing Scientific Articles

Steps in Paper Writing 

1. Pre-writing (content dump) - 70%
2. Writing - 10%
3. Revision (rewriting, formatting) - 20%

STYLE - The following tips are helpful to maintain a good style of writing.

1. Cut the clutter
1. Remove clunky words/phrases - important, as it is well know that, and it should be emphasized that
2. Remove hedge words - e.g. very and appreciable
3. Remove unnecessary jargons and acronyms. 
4. Remove repetitive words/phrases. 
5. Eliminate negatives. 
6. Omit needless prepositions - e.g. that
7. Use adverbs sparingly - e.g. really, basically, and generally
8. Shorten long words and phrases - e.g. due to the fact that to because
2. Use the active voice
3. Write with verbs - Use strong verbs. Don't turn verbs into nouns. Don't bury the main verb

Good Style, John Kirkman - A writer should aim for accuracy, clarity, readability and the right tone in scientific and technical writing.

1. Sentences - Sentences should be reasonably short and not too complex. In order to rearrange sentences, use compound sentence structures and complex sentence structures. 
2. Vocabulary 
1. In general, prefer short words to long words, ordinary words to grand words, familiar words to unfamiliar words, non-technical words to technical words and concrete words to abstract words.
2. Use jargons only if they are genuinely necessary.
3. Avoid fashionable words such as functionality, enhance (improve/increase?), parameter (value/variable?), peripheral, viable or inhibit (stop/reduce?) because they have become unreliable units of information exchange. 
3. Phrases 
1. Avoid roundabout phrasings that uses abstraction or nominalization. Avoid abstraction by being as being as specific as possible. Avoid nominalization, thereby getting rid of colorless verbs such as achieve, perform, accomplish, carry out, conduct, observe 
2. Avoid unusual phrasings that use words such as having and being
3. Avoid excessive use of adjectives as premodifiers. Usually, one or two adjectives, especially number adjectives and color adjectives, come before the noun, and other modifiers come after it. 
4. Avoid excessive use of nouns as premodifiers. Premodifying nouns are less explicit than postmodifying prepositional constructions. Confusion may also arise when nouns are used as premodifiers along with prepositions, transitive verbs, and to be and to become. The trick is to introduce the agent as soon as possible. 
4. Verbs 
1. Tense - Use past tense to state what the objectives were, what equipments were used and what procedures were used. Use present tense to state ‘eternal truths’ and in discussions of data or results. 
2. Voice - Use a proper mixture of active and passive voice. Use active voice as far as possible. Use passive voice only when the agent is unimportant, when the agent is not known, when we do not want to state who the agent is and while stating a generally-held belief. Improper use of passive voice can lead to distortion in meaning, roundabout phrasing and ambiguity. Active writing does not have to be personal. It may be desirable to ensure objectivity in scientific and technical writing, but not at the cost of clarity. Avoid it...that constructions. 
5. Punctuation
1. Use right punctuation at the right places. Punctuations are an integral part of written communication.
2. Add comma after discourse markers such as however, well, since, ... 
6. Tone - Avoid cheap attempts at producing user-friendly text that may come across to the reader as overly-patronizing. A comfortable, conversational user-friendly tone is best produced by use of simple vocabulary in direct address to the user.

How to Write a Great Scientific Paper (MSR Cambridge)

1. Don’t wait, just start writing - forces us to be clear and focused; open the way to initiate dialogue with others; a way to develop ideas, instead of an output medium 
2. Identify your key idea - a paper is an idea-conveying mechanism; the paper should have exactly one clear, sharp idea; “the main idea of this paper is...”, “in this section we present the main contributions of the paper.”  
3. Tell a story
1. narrative flow: (1) here is a problem, (2) it is an interesting problem, (3) it is an unsolved problem, (4) here is my idea, (5) my idea works, (6) here’s how my idea compares to other people’s approaches
2. structure: (1) title, (2) abstract, (3) introduction, (4) the problem, (5) my idea, (6) the details, (7) related work, (8) conclusions and future works 
4. Nail your contributions to the mast - first page of the paper is very important; describe the problem and state your contributions; use an example; idea vs. contribution; 
5. Related work - put it at the end of the paper; explain your idea first, along with details and then compare to existing work; acknowledge weaknesses in your approach; be generous to the competition; 
6. Put your readers first - use examples, figures well
7. Listen to your readers - internal review; experts and non-experts; use the guinea pigs carefully; “just put one mark where you get lost and then we’ll talk about it”;  

PARAGRAPHING

The three important elements of successful academic writing are punctuation, paragraphing and style. This post deals with structuring paragraphs.

Body Paragraph - The three important elements of successful paragraphs are shown below:

1. Unity - All sentences should focus on one main idea of the paragraph. Start the paragraph with the topic sentence. The topic sentence should contain the topic and the controlling idea. Ask the question words to come up with the controlling idea. If the paragraph is too long, then it is good to have a concluding sentence.
2. Coherence - All sentences should be clearly related to each other. Repeat key words. Use synonyms. Use pronouns. Use  transition words 
3. Development - All sentences should develop the one main idea. Use details and explanation. Use examples and evidence. Use references

TEE Rule - Topic Sentence, Explanation, Examples/Evidence

Introductory Paragraph - State the topic of assignment and comment on its importance. State the main argument. How you intend to answer the question?
Concluding Paragraph - Summarize the main points. State the main conclusion. Has the question been answered?

References

1. The Elements of Style 
2. Writing in the Sciences 
3. Writing Structured Paragraphs 

മലയാളഭാഷാ വ്യാകരണം || Malayalam Grammar Basics

Malayalam is a Dravidian language, spoken predominantly by about 38M inhabitants of Kerala in India, and the Malayalee diaspora around the world. The word order is subject-object-verb. Malayalam has  heavily been influenced by other languages such as Sanskrit (ref. Manipravalam) and Tamil. Malayalam is classified as an agglutinative (synthetic) language due to the predominant use of inflections to indicate grammatical relationships. Malayalam has its own script and the modern alphabet consists of more than 50 characters. The script evolved from Vattezhuthu (an ancient Tamil script) and Grantha script (used to write Sanskrit). Malayalam and Tigalari (of Tulu) are sister scripts.

The major linguistic elements in Malayalam are the following:

സന്ധി - സന്ധി defines the joining of letters . There are many ways to perform സന്ധി in Malayalam: (1) അദേശസന്ധി (മരം+കൾ=മരങ്ങൾ), (2) ലോപസന്ധി  (വനം+മേഖല =വനമേഖല), (3)ആഗമസന്ധി (ദയ+ഉള്ള=ദയ+യ്+ഉള്ള), (4) ദ്വിത്വസന്ധി (അര+പട്ട=അരപ്പട്ട), ... 

സമാസം - സമാസം deals with the joining of words. ഉദാ: തീ തുപ്പുന്ന വണ്ടി = തീവണ്ടി, അച്ഛൻ + അമ്മ = അച്ഛനമ്മമാർ. An example for word composition in English is: attendant during flight = flight attendant 

അലങ്കാരം - അലങ്കാരം deals with figures of speech ഉദാ: ഉപമ, ശ്ലേഷം. It is of two types: (1) ശബ്ദാലങ്കാരം, (2) അർത്ഥാലങ്കാരം 

വൃത്തം - വൃത്തം  deals with prosody. 

Nouns - Nouns are inflected for case and number. Nouns are not inflected for gender in Malayalam. The cases in  Malayalam are as follows:

1. Nominative (രാമൻ) - Nominative case always denote the subject of the sentence.
2. Accusative (രാമനെ)  - Accusative noun denotes the object of the sentence. In sentences where there is a nominative, accusative and dative noun, the nominative will be the subject, the accusative the direct object and the dative, the indirect object.
3. Sociative (രാമനോട്) - Sociative case is grammatically similar to accusative case, but semantically different. The  sociative nouns do not function in the role of experiencer but only as recipients.
4. Dative (രാമന്, മേരിക്ക്) - In sentences where there is no nominative noun, the dative functions as the subject. In sentences involving both nominative and dative nouns, the latter functions as the indirect object.
5. Instrumental (രാമനാൽ, വടികൊണ്ട്, വടിയിട്ട്)
6. Genitive (മേരിയുടെ, രാമന്റെ)
7. Locative (മുറിയിലേക്ക്, മുറിയിൽ, തണലത്തു, വെള്ളത്തിലൂടെ) - Locative case provides temporal and spatial meanings.
8. Vocative (രാമാ, രാധേ)

	Subject	Object
Nominative (e.g. രാമൻ_NOM)	+	-
Dative (സീതയെ_DAT)	+	+
Accusative (e.g. പുസ്തകം_ACC)	-	+
Sociative (e.g. രാമനോട്)	-	+

Examples: (1) Alice loves Bob. രാമൻ_NOM സീതയെ_DAT ഇഷ്ടപ്പെടുന്നു. (2) Alice gave the book to Bob. രാജു_NOM രാധയ്ക്ക്_DAT ആ പുസ്തകം_ACC കൊടുത്തു. 

Verbs - Morphology of verbs in Malayalam is complex due to the rich agglutination. Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood and voice. There is no inflection for gender, person or number.

Past	ചെയ്തു (simple) ചെയ്തുകൊണ്ടിരുന്നു (continuous) ചെയ്യാറുണ്ടായിരുന്നു, ചെയ്തിരുന്നു (habitual) ചെയ്തിരുന്നു, ചെയ്തുകഴിഞ്ഞിരുന്നു (pluperfect)
resent	ചെയുന്നു (simple) ചെയ്തുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്നു (continuous) ചെയ്യാറുണ്ട് (habitual) ചെയ്തിരിക്കുന്നു, ചെയ്തിട്ടുണ്ട്  (perfect)
Future	ചെയ്യും (simple) ചെയ്തുകൊണ്ടിരിക്കും (continuous) ചെയ്തിരിക്കും, ചെയ്തുകാണും (perfect)
Mood (1) Indicative - ചെയുന്നു, ചെയ്തു, ... (2) Imperative - ചെയ്യണം, ചെയ്യ്, ...   (3) Interrogative - ചെയ്തോ, ചെയ്യാമോ, ചെയ്യുമോ, ... (4) Subjunctive - ചെയ്യുമായിരുന്നു, ചെയ്തേനെ, ചെയ്തിരുന്നെങ്കിൽ, … (5) Promissive - ചെയ്യും, ചെയ്തിരിക്കും (6) Possibility - ചെയ്യുമായിരിക്കും   (7) Ability - ചെയ്യാം (8) Obligation - ചെയ്യണം
Voice (1) Active - ചെയ്തു (2) Passive - ചെയ്യപ്പെട്ടു
(1) കേവലരൂപം - ചെയ്യുന്നു (2) പ്രയോജകരൂപം - ചെയ്യിക്കുന്നു

മലയാളം അക്ഷരമാല
സ്വരം, അനുസ്വാരം, വിസർഗം
വ്യഞ്ജനം, മധ്യമം
ചില്ല്
അനുനാസിക (ങ്ങ, ഞ, ന, ണ, മ) 

 

Further Reading

1. Malayalam-English Dictionary, Hermann Gundert, 1872
2. മലയാളഭാഷാവ്യാകരണം, Hermann Gundert, 1851
3. കേരളപാണിനീയം, AR Raja Raja Varma, 1896
4. The Essentials of Malayalam Grammar, L Garthwaite, 1903
5. ശബ്ദശോധിനി, AR Raja Raja Varma, 1918 (2nd ed. of കേരളപാണിനീയം)
6. Asher, R.E and Kumari, T.C. (1997) Malayalam, Routledge, London and New York.
7. A Grammar of Malayalam, PhD Thesis, RSS Nair, 2012
8. Malayalam Proverbs, Pilo Paul, 1902

General Election 2019: Some useful links

Performance of Incumbent MPs
 
National Election Watch

PRS Legislative Research 

Communication, Internal Seminar, HITS

Yesterday I attended a seminar led by our current science journalist Kerstin Hoppenhaus at HITS. It was remarkable because it made me think how communication works and why trustworthy journalism is important.

Journalists curate news in such a way that is interesting and digestible to the users. A piece of news can have a certain amount of bias, which might creep in consciously or unconsciously. Some of the tricks of the trade to seduce the users are (1) telling a story, (2) engaging the user, and (3) using techniques such as dramatic pause, captivating background score or a protagonist.

The format of delivery can be literary, auditory or visual. Different formats pose different challenges. For instance, consider the 360-degree video format in which the director can no longer direct the user through the intended narrative because of the shift in control from the director to the user. 

We then discussed how the Internet has disrupted the media industry. With the Internet, quick communication is possible. However a major challenge here is fake news. As a reader, how can you trust a piece of news that you see over the Internet? Some of the parameters are reputation of the news source, valid verifiable references, accuracy of the news content, and style of presentation.

Finally we discussed whether simplification of news pays off or not. Simplification improves the extend to which the news penetrates the audience. However over-simplification might have to let go off some necessary details.

Mentalese, The Language Instinct, Steven Pinker

This post is a summary of the chapter "Mentalese" from the book "The Language Instinct" written by the eminent linguist Steven Pinker. This chapter deals with the question - Do we think in language? What is the language of thought?

According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, language shapes our model of the world. For example, forms of addressing the listener are different in many languages depending on age or relation. The demands made by the language might influence the speakers to regard the listener with respect. In languages such as Hindi or Tamil, formalness is frequently employed in day-to-day communication. This is in contrast to other languages such as Malayalam, in which formalness is not commonly employed, in spite of the presence of formal and informal forms of address.

Pinker challenges this hypothesis in various ways. First, it is difficult to test this hypothesis because of the circular nature of the existing experiments. A subject can only be evaluated based on what he/she speaks. Second, the 'fact' that the Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow is nothing but an urban legend. According to one survey, the actual number is less than ten. So the Eskimos regard snow similar to the way others do, contrary to what the hypothesis can be taken to mean. Third, there are many beings that cannot speak but possess the faculty of thought: deaf people, babies, animals (, plants?). Fourth, many a time, even though we have a thought in our mind, we struggle to express it clearly. This can be due to two reasons: (1) lack of command over languages, or (2) lack of devices in language to convey our thoughts. Writers exploit the available linguistic machines such as figures of speech, idioms, proverbs and rhythm to express complex ideas through words in the form of prose and verse. In addition, when a sentence is translated from one language to another, it is highly likely for the subtlety of the original meaning to be lost in translation due to the lack of exact matching words. Fifth, it is possible for us to transform (e.g. rotate or zoom in) an image in our minds without speaking about the process loudly. All of the above suggest that English or any other spoken language is not the language of thought.

Pinker claims the language of thought (a.k.a. Mentalese) to be on a level that is different from spoken languages. All thinking creatures use this language to think. Since only human beings possess the ability to talk, there is a program, similar to a compiler for programming languages, in the human brains that converts the high-level Mentalese to the low-level English. This language is built over fundamental concepts of human thought such as time, space, causality and human intention (ref. Immanual Kant).