Indigenous Cosmologies in Light of New Epistemological and Political Trends of the Global South

The essential difference between indigenous religions and world religions is in the understanding of the “man-Nature” relationship. While the former perceive man as an equal actor in the establishment of cosmic harmony, placing him alongside all other living and non-living beings of creation, the latter place him in the centre of the world. The Christian religious tradition on the one side, and the Cartesian ontological dualism and methodological empiricism on the other, have strongly influenced the development of Western scientific thought. Over the past decades, the social sciences and humanities have made a great step forward: contributing to new interpretations of global economic and social laws, as well as of the hybridisation of ethnic identities, and starting to cooperate more closely with empirical sciences. The problem arises when self-indulgent introspection disqualifies any other type of knowledge as “non-scientific,” “local,” “romantic,” imperfect. At the beginning of the 21st century, the indigenous cosmology entered the political discourse and ideology of numerous social movements of the Global South. Based on a comparative analysis of three concrete indigenous cosmological and religious models (man vs. Nature relationship), this article seeks to draw attention to the need for a pluralism of mental concepts and social practices.

Design and Analysis of Electronic Wearables for Taekwondo Sports

<div>Taekwondo is a combat sport that is based on striking and involves full body contact. Initially, it a referee-exclusive sport and that led to increased controversy on referee/judges’ accuracy, bias and fairness. To address these concerns, point scoring systems (PSS) were introduced in 2012 only consisting of a chest protector and in 2016 head protectors were added. Constant improvements have been made on these PSS and new impact classification algorithms and hardware were developed for a system made by 20/20 Armor. The work achieved 90% accuracy for illegal vs legal classification on the head protector and 94.4% accuracy between legal impacts to the chest protector. This work proved to be a great step forward since reliance is increasing on these PSS as they are now the “final decision” for impact detection in Taekwondo. Furthermore, our algorithms use edge computing that allow for real time application and at-home training.</div>

Design and Analysis of Electronic Wearables for Taekwondo Sports

<div>Taekwondo is a combat sport that is based on striking and involves full body contact. Initially, it a referee-exclusive sport and that led to increased controversy on referee/judges’ accuracy, bias and fairness. To address these concerns, point scoring systems (PSS) were introduced in 2012 only consisting of a chest protector and in 2016 head protectors were added. Constant improvements have been made on these PSS and new impact classification algorithms and hardware were developed for a system made by 20/20 Armor. The work achieved 90% accuracy for illegal vs legal classification on the head protector and 94.4% accuracy between legal impacts to the chest protector. This work proved to be a great step forward since reliance is increasing on these PSS as they are now the “final decision” for impact detection in Taekwondo. Furthermore, our algorithms use edge computing that allow for real time application and at-home training.</div>

A New Dawn for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Pancreatology

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming an essential tool in the medical field as well as in daily life. Recent developments in deep learning, a subfield of AI, have brought remarkable advances in image recognition, which facilitates improvement in the early detection of cancer by endoscopy, ultrasonography, and computed tomography. In addition, AI-assisted big data analysis represents a great step forward for precision medicine. This review provides an overview of AI technology, particularly for gastroenterology, hepatology, and pancreatology, to help clinicians utilize AI in the near future.

Background mechanisms of UHD working

Background In spite of strong opposition from the orthodox scientific circles, the UHD effects are gradually becoming a part of the accepted science, because of the quickly growing corpus of UHD effects evidence. While this process should continue, the next great step would be to disentangle UHD working mechanisms with the perspective to give us understanding and explanation of its rational, causal-consequential and objective background. Aims Based on the already known and confirmed UHD phenomena as well as some more developed proposed theories that try to explain them, the aim of the presentation is to explore, which of the theories could be the most appropriate for the development of the UHD science. It should lead to the one that would be acceptable by a majority of the concerned scientific community (physicists, physical-chemists, biologists, medical doctors, etc.). Methodology We contrast the established facts of UHD science with the most developed theories to find out, which theory could cover the phenomena in the most comprehensive way. The applied theories are as follows: the basic and the extended theory of coherent domains (Preparata – Giudice – Yinnon), hydrogen bonded clusters theory (Chaplin), nanomaterial theories (Rajendran, Chikramane), the theory of chains of water nano-pearls (Meessen). Results and discussion The results show that the advanced theory of coherent domains (Yinnon) together with the theory of chains of water nano-pearls (Meessen) are the most promising. They connect the basic UHD background mechanisms to the electromagnetic and electric fields and are supported with advanced and recent physicochemical research. Nevertheless, the theories are still in the stage of principal explanation and are mostly not yet capable of giving exact predictions. Therefore, the theory that would predict phenomena and would initiate a virtuous circle of scientific validation of UHD effects is still needed. Conclusion The most developed contemporary theories cover a plethora of UHD phenomena. However, they may still have some deficiencies regarding the explanation of the whole richness of the UHD phenomena.

Constitutional Status of FATA: Pre & Post Merger Comparison of Legal & Administrative System

FATA, located in northwestern Pakistan, was once a battlefield for nineteenth-century imperial domination. Soon after Pakistan's independence, various tribes admitted allegiance to the state. There was a separate political and administrative system in FATA; this system retained the traditional way of 'JIRGA' system in these areas, which were included in the 1973 constitution of Pakistan. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon, FATA became the front-line region in War on Terror, which greatly affected the area. The people of FATA faced exploitation of their rights in the past. The government of Pakistan in 2018 took a great step towards the development of FATA by its merger into KP, which was a great change in the status of the area, supported by different political parties.

Emerging safety risks from public facilities: a field study for ablution spaces in mosques

Purpose Muslims require an exclusive ablution space for preparing for daily prayers in mosques. Ablution floors seem to entail design challenges since they are often encountered in lubricated conditions from worshippers’ body cleaning manoeuvers. Accordingly, fall risks on saturated surfaces of ablution floors would be a major issue to Muslim worshippers. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the safety status of mosque ablution floors in terms of slip resistance properties and surface texture. Design/methodology/approach Fifteen mosques in Dubai and Sharjah cities of the UAE were randomly chosen to investigate the safety conditions of ablution spaces. In-situ slip-resistance properties and surface finishes of each ablution floor were measured under clean, wet, and soapy conditions at two different volumes of traffic areas: heavy- and non-traffic. Surface finishes of ablution floors were also measured and analysed. Findings Outcomes from this study evidently showed that the inspected ablution floors were not currently protected against falls, especially under wet and soapy environments. Surface analyses identified that the present ablution floors have extremely flat surfaces (? 2 µm in the Ra parameter) so they require significant improvements against fall risks. Originality/value Regardless of the magnitude of this issue, it is scarce to attain any published study on ablution floors’ fall incidence and avoidance plans in the scientific and technical literature. There are also no officially and publicly available data on fall incidents from ablution places in mosques. Findings from this study would be a great step forward to establish safer ablution floors for Muslim prayers.

5. The politics of arbitration against governments

This chapter focuses on the most politically charged type of arbitration: arbitration between an investor and a foreign government. Investment arbitration marks a great step forward for rule of law in international affairs. A government does not escape responsibility by saying that its own law or courts have declared a given abuse against an investor to be lawful. Investment treaties set out substantive protections, such as fair and equitable treatment, full protection and security, and a guarantee against discriminatory expropriation. They give investors legal rights independent of domestic rules that an unfriendly government might have manipulated at the investor’s cost. The chapter then considers the emerging critique of investment arbitration.

Asymmetric symmetry of Christology: The question of the number and unity of wills in Christ according to the 'Discussion with Pyrrhus'

The doctrine of will or wills in Christ was a great challenge for theology in the 7th century. Understanding the dogmas that were formulated in previous centuries, but also the future of theology, depended on the outcome of the disputes between monothelites and diotelites. This work seeks to present the overall complexity that Saint Maximus the Confessor faced when formulating the doctrine of the two wills in Christ, as shown in the book Discussions with Pyrrhus. The extremes of Monophysitism and Nestorianism, skillfully used by the Monothelites, were a constant threat but also an incentive for a great step forward that highlighted the person of Christ as a central place for understanding controversial theological issues. Christological asymmetric symmetry is the result of the above.