Case of Studies Systems

This monograph explores the full context of sex-selective abortion (SSA) in India by examining the historical forces, political movements, government policies, and gender regimes that shape this reproductive practice. Using qualitative research methods within a feminist methodology, including in-depth interviews with service providers and professionals in New Delhi and a content analysis of Indian newspapers, the study engages the following areas of analysis: the social structures and determinants of SSA in India, the potential for women’s agency in SSA, and the representations of SSA and SSA-seeking women in the Indian media. This research expands the discourse and analysis of SSA by facilitating a nuanced and multilayered exploration of a profoundly contextual, personal, and gendered reproductive issue by grounding data and interpretation in the lived experiences of research participants with systems-wide knowledge of SSA. Further, the feminist theory-informed analysis moves away from normative victimhood frameworks. Lastly, the book contributes to the understudied area of media discourse analysis on the intersections of gender and SSA in national news coverage.

Based on the results of over 10 years of research and development by the authors, this book presents a broad cross section of dynamic programming (DP) techniques applied to the optimization of dynamical systems. The main goal of the research effort was to develop a robust path planning/trajectory optimization tool that did not require an initial guess. The goal was partially met with a combination of DP and homotopy algorithms. DP algorithms are presented here with a theoretical development, and their successful application to variety of practical engineering problems is emphasized.