Abstract: This article analyses the Korean Netflix documentary series In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal (2023) and its sequel I Am a Survivor (2025) as sites where religious authority, heresy, trauma, and victimhood are publicly renegotiated in contemporary South Korea. Focusing on the case of the Christian Gospel Mission (JMS) led by Jeong Myeong-seok whose seventeen-year prison sentence was confirmed by the South Korean Supreme Court in January 2025, this article argues that the two series enact what it terms mediatised religious unmasking: a documentary mode that performs explicitly theological functions, asking questions of legitimate authority, naming heresy, legitimating survivor testimony, and relocating sacred agency from the charismatic leader to the victim and witness. Drawing on the theoretical framework of digital religious authority, this article situates the series within the broader transformation of religious authority in the digital age whilst attending to the distinctive institutional and regulatory context of South Korean OTT documentary production. Close attention is paid to the formal and aesthetic dimensions of the two series. The article concludes that OTT documentary now functions as a critical domain for the public negotiation of religious authority, posing new challenges for religion-media studies and for the study of new religious movements.

Abstract: This study examines women’s textile knowledge in Portugal as a fundamental element of cultural heritage, situating it within domestic, social, and industrial contexts, with a particular focus on Guimarães. Drawing on a multidisciplinary approach grounded in historical and documentary evidence, it analyses how female expertise in spinning, weaving, embroidery, and lacemaking contributed to the evolution of textile practices from the fifteenth century to the present day. The findings indicate that this knowledge was pivotal to the transformation of domestic textile activities into an emerging industrial sector, shaping both production methods and cultural identity. The study concludes that recognising the historical importance of women’s textile labour is essential for understanding the development of the Portuguese industry. Furthermore, this research emphasises the urgency of preserving, transmitting, and legitimising the intangible cultural heritage inextricably linked to women’s textile mastery. It argues that integrating this legacy into contemporary creative and industrial practices can foster cultural sustainability and unlock new possibilities for future innovation, ensuring that this ancestral expertise remains a living pillar of regional identity.

Abstract: Heritage management has traditionally been shaped by what Laurajane Smith termed the “authorized heritage discourse” wherein a narrow group of professionals determines values and meanings on behalf of broader communities. This article argues that a more inclusive, socially responsible model of heritage management is both possible and necessary. Drawing on three convergent intellectual traditions: heritage interpretation as formulated by Freeman Tilden and subsequently deepened through hermeneutic philosophy; eco-museums and the new museology born from the Santiago Round Table of 1972; and the human-rights-based framework for cultural heritage enshrined in the Council of Europe’s Faro Convention of 2005 the article proposes “heritage literacy” as the conceptual synthesis that bridges these streams. Heritage literacy denotes a form of socially responsible heritage management that empowers citizens to understand the processes through which heritage is constructed, to participate actively in its interpretation, and to direct their own development through it. The article demonstrates that heritage literacy operates simultaneously as knowledge/wisdom management and as a democratic practice, and argues that it should be recognized as an essential dimension of (cultural) human rights. By tracing the theoretical genealogy of each contributing tradition and synthesizing them into a unified framework, this article offers both a conceptual contribution to critical heritage studies and a practical orientation for heritage professionals and policymakers seeking to move beyond top-down models of heritage governance.

Abstract: This article critically examines the conceptual, historical, and epistemological foundations of bioethics as a transdisciplinary field that emerges in response to the ethical tensions produced by technoscientific development. Through an analytical and interpretative approach, the paper revisits the historical events that shaped modern bioethics, and the contemporary challenges that arise from the expansion of biomedical and technological interventions. The analysis highlights the persistent dilemmas involving autonomy, paternalism, vulnerability, and intercultural asymmetries. It also addresses the ethical impact of technoscience on the reconfiguration of life, death, and human nature. The article argues pluralistic and adaptive bioethics capable of sustaining epistemic vigilance and guiding decision-making processes in diverse and complex sociocultural contexts.

Abstract: This paper develops a systematic philosophical dialogue between Kantian autonomy and Buddhist ethics in relation to freedom, moral agency, and moral cultivation. And in place of a hierarchic or reductionist juxtaposition, it is rather a question of how each tradition articulates the ethical normativity it adheres to in relation to specific philosophical problems. Kantian moral reasoning connects freedom with rational self-legislation and conceives moral obligation through universal law as articulated in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. Buddhist ethics, by contrast, understands freedom as liberation from ignorance and craving, emphasizes causal continuity, compassion and moral cultivation, and it does so without postulating an enduring self. Drawing on recent contributions in Buddhist moral philosophy particularly that of Damien Keown, Charles Goodman and Jay L. Garfield, the article argues that the two perspectives offer kairotic rather than chronological perspectives on moral agency. Kantian universal respect and autonomy are at odds with Buddhist ethics which discloses the emerging and relational character of ethical existence. The conclusion is that the concept of moral freedom is better conceptualized when understood through the combined view of rational normativity and moral cultivation.

Abstract:

This study uses Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) forecasting models and regression analysis to explore the impact of three government funding mechanisms on financial sustainability in Singapore’s arts and heritage sector. Based on data obtained from the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth (MCCY) for FY (FY refers to “Financial Year”, which is generally from 1 April to 31st March of the following year) 2022-2024, we modelled three funding scenarios: direct organisational grants (Scenario A), citizen-directed cultural vouchers (Scenario B), and a hybrid model combining both approaches (Scenario C). The results showed that while direct funding provides the most significant immediate capacity increase, a hybrid model provides a better balance between organisational stability and demand, thereby offering a more sustainable pathway for sector development. Our study makes a methodological contribution by illustrating the application of ARIMA forecasting to cultural policy evaluation, and compared the outcome of supply-side and demand-side interventions in the cultural sector.

Abstract: This article explores how memory emerges through material environments and em-bodied practices in historic wooden neighbourhoods. Drawing on research from the WoodiSH project (Wooden Cities: Memory, Sustainability and Craft in Historic Neigh-bourhoods), the study examines how knowledge and cultural memory become embed-ded in-built environments through everyday practices of dwelling, repair, and craft. The article proposes the concept of terroir as a conceptual framework for understand-ing historic environments as place-bound ecologies of memory. Originally associated with viticulture, terroir is here expanded to describe how relationships between land-scape, materials, craft traditions, and human practices shape the character and memory of place. By combining this concept with theoretical perspectives from mate-rial culture studies, phenomenology, and 4E cognition (embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended cognition), the article argues that memory is not located solely in human minds but distributed across people, materials, tools, and environments. The discussion further draws on Tim Ingold’s concepts of meshwork and wayfaring to show how knowledge about built heritage emerges through movement, engagement, and practical interaction with material environments. Historic wooden neighbour-hoods in Trondheim, Vilnius, and Pori are approached as living archives in which traces of use, repair, and everyday life accumulate in buildings and landscapes. The article concludes by suggesting that heritage environments should be understood not only as objects of preservation but also as pedagogical and cognitive landscapes. Through attentive engagement with materials, surfaces, and practices, researchers, craftspeople, and residents participate in ongoing dialogues with the past. Memory, in this perspective, is not simply remembered—it is encountered, inhabited, and sus-tained through material practice.

Abstract: From the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, both Great Britain and the United States implemented large-scale child-emigration schemes aimed at relocating so-called «surplus» children—impoverished but considered «of good stock»—from major urban centres to rural households overseas or in the American interior. These programmes emerged from a shared diagnosis: industrial and agricultural economies in metropolitan areas were allegedly unable to absorb growing populations of poor children, who were framed as both a social burden and a latent threat to urban order. Emigration was thus promoted as a form of social reform—an intervention that would simultaneously relieve urban poverty and overcrowding while promising the children a healthier, morally improving environment on the farm.Central to this policy logic was the belief that agricultural labour and rural domesticity would function as vehicles of knowledge acquisition, moral rehabilitation, and civic formation. By learning farm work and rural norms, the children were expected to develop the dispositions necessary for productive adulthood and responsible citizenship, thereby securing redemption from an otherwise bleak urban future. Yet the historical record complicates this narrative of benevolent rescue. Although some children undoubtedly escaped severe deprivation, many migrant youths struggled to adapt to rural life, faced abuse, exploitation or isolation, and carried the consequences of these ruptures into adulthood. Rather than straightforward instruments of uplift, these schemes often reproduced existing inequalities under the guise of paternalistic reform.

Abstract: Southern Chinese lion dance (nanshi) in Bangkok moves between temple ritual, community representation, school training, and judged competition, yet these domains are rarely analyzed together. Focusing on recent institutional transformation within one influential Teochew-centred ecology, this article examines how ritual governance, competition, and heritage-making have become mutually reinforcing. The study combines multi-sited historical ethnography in Bangkok and Guangdong (2022-2023) with documentary traces from the 2000s-2020s, including temple and association commemorative publications, municipal school records, Thai cultural and competition reporting, heritage registers, and transnational rule texts. It finds that huiguan and temples stabilize calendars, patronage, and authority, while judged competition introduces auditable norms of time, safety, team composition, and difficulty. These regimes do not simply displace ritual; they reorganize it. Certificates, trophies, lion heads, photographs, and anniversary volumes turn performance credentials into community archives that narrate continuity, merit, and public legitimacy. Rather than a linear shift from ritual to sport, the Bangkok case shows how codification, temple-linked patronage, and heritage discourse jointly reshape a diasporic ritual practice.

Abstract: In the contemporary landscape, natural language processing (NLP) stands as a vital force, empowering computers to comprehend and engage with human languages, thereby enhancing the realm of human-computer interaction (HCI) through the utilisation of large language models (LLMs) and multilingual pre-trained language models (mPLMs). The widespread adoption of these LLMs on a global scale is obvious. However, a critical observation reveals a significant gap in their capacity to effectively recognize some low-resource African languages, a concern observed by numerous researchers. This paper endeavours to contribute to the discourse by conducting a comprehensive metadata analysis of existing African language models. Through this investigation, the aim is to outline the importance, strengths, and weaknesses inherent in these models. By shedding light on these aspects, the paper seeks to not only underscore the current limitations but also to provide valuable insights and recommendations for future research endeavours in the domain of language recognition, particularly focusing on African languages. In doing so, the paper aspires to catalyse advancements that promote inclusivity and a more nuanced understanding of linguistic diversity within the realm of natural language processing. Multilingual Testing shall be used on Cheetah to evaluate the model's proficiency strength in multiple languages, including those that are less widely spoken such as Margi and Ibibio as well as identify any language-specific weaknesses or limitations of the LLMs, especially in recognizing and understanding languages like Margi spoken in the North-East geo-political zone of Nigeria and Ibibio spoken in the South-South geo-political zone of Nigeria.

Abstract: While skeletal imagery appears across various ancient Andean traditions, the Wari Empire (c. 600–1000 CE) developed a uniquely standardized and widespread skull motif—the uma tullu—distributed throughout its former territory. Through an analysis of 63 artifacts spanning ceramic, textile, and metal media, this study identifies key diagnostic markers of the motif: the representation of the metopic suture and the application of red pigment. By cross-referencing these stylistic features with bioarchaeological data, the research posits that the uma tullu served as a central communicative device. In the absence of a formal script, this motif encoded imperial values and ancestral cult practices, facilitating ideological expansion and state identity. Ultimately, this work demonstrates how standardized iconography functioned as a system of graphic communication and ideological cohesion in the Middle Horizon Andes.

Abstract: This article addresses the “Hard Problem” of consciousness not as an immutable ontological barrier of nature, but as an iatrogenic separation—a methodological artifact induced by the reductive third-person perspective (3P). By systematically and intentionally removing the subject from the world-description to achieve a veneer of objectivity, modern physicalism creates a restrictive “substance grammar” that subsequently struggles to locate the qualitative dimension of experience within its own datasets. Using Hans Holbein the Younger’s painting The Ambassadors (1533) as a primary epistemic model, we analyze the anamorphic “blot” as a representation of the Real that eludes frontal, mathematical domestication. We argue that the resolution of this parallax requires more than a simple shift in focus; it demands a “step to the side”—a transition from static representation to the processual performance of enactive inference. Integrating Karl Friston’s Free Energy Principle (FEP) and the Neurophenomenological Enactive System Schema (NESS), we define meaning not as an intrinsic property of objects, but as a temporal alignment and an energetic achievement of a system striving for coherence under the constant pressure of existential concern (Sorge). The paper concludes by proposing a “processual perspectivism” and the figure of the Sovereign Witness, suggesting that the Hard Problem is dissolved when subjectivity is understood as the active, embodied performance of the world-relation.

Abstract: This article reconceptualizes Cold War intelligence reports as a form of “involuntary ethnography.” Drawing on declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR) from 1947 to 1955, it examines how intelligence gathering practices generated detailed accounts of everyday life under socialism. Produced for strategic and military purposes, these reports nonetheless contain systematic observations of housing conditions, food consumption, clothing, social behavior, and political attitudes. Situating these materials within debates on knowledge production and state surveillance, the article argues that intelligence reports functioned as a hybrid form of social knowledge, positioned between bureaucratic observation and ethnographic description. Focusing on Tartu and wider Estonia, it demonstrates how intelligence archives can be used to reconstruct lived experience under conditions of scarcity, repression, and militarization — among them a divided city in which the open intellectual space of the university and the sealed military space of the Raadi airfield yielded radically different kinds of social knowledge. By foregrounding intelligence as a mode of social observation, the article contributes to Cold War historiography and proposes a new analytical category: intelligence ethnography.

Abstract: Heritage Science generates vast quantities of heterogeneous data; however, the absence of a shared semantic framework frequently results in fragmented knowledge and compromised reproducibility. This paper introduces CRMhs, an ontology developed as a formal extension of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM), designed to harmonise the documentation of scientific investigations within the cultural heritage domain. By defining specialised classes for scientific activities, study objects and analytical datasets, the model ensures a robust chain of provenance from initial physical sampling to final interpretative outcomes. The efficacy of CRMhs is demonstrated through its ability to successfully align diverse datasets, ranging from materials-based enquiries to environmental measurements, into a coherent and navigable knowledge graph. This approach not only facilitates seamless data interoperability but also establishes the essential semantic foundation for the advancement of Reactive Heritage Digital Twins. The model bridges the gap between raw scientific evidence and art-historical and archaeological interpretation, fostering a more integrated and sustainable approach to the preservation of cultural heritage.

Abstract: This paper examines the pedagogical and material implications of wax carving in vocational jewellery education through arts practice-led research incorporating arts-based inquiry. The finger ring operates as both material object and conceptual lens, enabling an exploration of sustainability, temporality, and meaning in craft practice. Industry-standard synthetic carving wax—primarily composed of polyethylene—perpetuates environmentally and bodily harmful material cultures when taught as normative technique. Drawing upon six months of studio experimentation, drawing, and reflective practice, Author 1 interrogated what are considered as “ordinary” material use in her practice as a jeweller and jewellery teacher, with Author 2 who is also an artist/educator/researcher working with metals and sustainable practices. Natural alternatives, including beeswax-resin blends and cheese were explored for alternative mould-making. These experiments generated idiosyncratic cast outcomes and expanded creative and pedagogical possibilities. The inquiry reveals a dynamic interrelationship between making, drawing, and teaching, positioning the educator of crafts and metal art as an alchemic mediator who transforms material practice and knowledge transmission. The paper argues for jewellery and sculpture pedagogy that is rooted in practices, fosters material curiosity, ecological responsibility, and reflective engagement, aligning vocational craft and art education with broader sustainability imperatives.

Abstract: The digital transformation of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector requires human capital trained in collaborative methodologies. In Peru, the BIM Peru Plan establishes the mandatory nature of this methodology by 2030, posing a critical challenge for academia. This research analyzes and evaluates the proposal for curricular integration of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) methodology at the levels of technical, university and postgraduate higher education in Peru, in accordance with the regulatory framework in force to 2025. A qualitative research design of documentary and descriptive nature was used. A categorical content analysis of the national regulations was carried out, mainly R.D. No. 004-2025-EF/63.01, using as dimensions of analysis the fundamentals, modeling and management of information under the standards of the ISO 19650 standard. A didactic progression structured in three levels was identified: technical (operational/production), university (coordination/collaboration) and postgraduate (strategic management/direction). The transition from a software tool-based approach to one focused on information requirements management is highlighted. Curricular alignment with international standards (ISO 19650) is robust; however, a gap persists between the regulations and the installed capacity in universities. It is concluded that curricular standardization is a driver for interoperability in the public sector, recommending the implementation of interdisciplinary laboratories to mitigate disciplinary isolation.

Abstract: This paper addresses a growing mismatch between how contemporary artifacts appear and how they persist. Many artifacts are still encountered and classified as discrete objects, even though their continuity is increasingly sustained through updates, recalibration, layered dependencies, retained states, and repeated return into later operation. Under these conditions, an object-based account of identity no longer explains enough. The paper argues that some artifacts are better understood as regimes, using the term in a restrained sense to name organized operative orders that remain continuous across structured change. The argument first shows why surface continuity and public sameness no longer settle the question of artifact identity. It then develops a middle-level account of persistence in terms of organized continuity, basic structural requirements, sufficient internal coherence, traceable continuity over time, the retention of prior states, and the way earlier configurations continue to shape later operation. This makes it possible to distinguish continued identity from gradual transformation, mounting pressure toward replacement, and the emergence of a successor artifact. The final step argues that once continuity organizes exposure, behavior, and conditions of use across time, it cannot be treated as normatively neutral. Governability must therefore be understood as internal to the continuing order of the artifact itself. The result is a framework for judging when one artifact still persists through organized change and when a different judgment of identity has become necessary.

Abstract: The question of how meaning arises from communication, cognition, and experience remains unresolved across philosophy and cognitive science. Existing theories variously attribute meaning to intention, linguistic structure, interpretation, or subjective valuation, yet fail to integrate these dimensions into a unified framework.The Awareness-Based Meaning System (ABMS) proposes a process-based model in which meaning is not transmitted as an intrinsic property of messages but emerges through a valuation-dependent reconstruction within awareness. In this framework, messaging originates at the source as either Appearance-Based Messaging (ABM), grounded in shared conventions, or Intention-Based Messaging (IBM), which embeds generative depth through intention. At the recipient, messaging undergoes interpretive processing (IP), producing informational intelligence, followed by valuation processing (VP), which assigns relevance and transforms information into emotionally charged intelligence. Meaning arises only when this valuation-integrated content is incorporated into awareness as Recognition-Based Meaning (RBM).ABMS introduces a critical distinction between generative depth and realized meaning, and predicts a fundamental asymmetry between intention-based messaging and experienced meaning, contrasted with relative symmetry in convention-based messaging. This framework unifies and extends existing theories by specifying how intention, interpretation, valuation, and awareness interact to produce meaningful experience.Furthermore, ABMS generates empirically testable predictions, including the necessity of valuation for meaning formation and the dissociation between interpretive depth and meaningful experience. By formalizing the transformation from messaging to meaning, ABMS provides a coherent theoretical and experimental foundation for investigating meaning as an awareness-dependent and valuation-driven process.

Abstract: The study assesses the effectiveness of various stature estimation methods that utilise biases such as sex and race. Based on the literature gathered, the plausibility that stature estimation methods that use regression equations in their computation may just be a result of mathematical coincidence. In order to evaluate the need for group-biased methods, the research devised its own set of regression equations for the sampled population and compared it against region-biased, sex-biased, and height-categorisation approaches. The sample population was taken entirely from Delhi, India and the English dataset used by Mays (2016). The sampling included all long bone measurements of the humerus, radius, ulna, femur, tibia, and fibula, along with the sex and ancestry of the participants. The findings revealed that the general regression model provided the lowest mean standard error estimate (SEE), initially suggesting that a non-biased approach to stature estimation may be more effective. However, upon analysis, it was found that the general model resulted in a fairly consistent overestimation of stature, although no particular trend of how this was occurring was noticeable. Along with this, the height-categorisation method, though mathematically very interesting, produced the highest mean SEE, indicating that the trends seen in stature estimation methods are not a result of mathematical coincidences. Looking at the group-specific models, a consistent performance was noticed in the statistical assessment and in the literature review. With a few caveats of certain bone measurements outperforming others, the group-specific models provide confirmation that the stature of any population has clear trends and can be quantified for estimation purposes. In the field of forensic anthropology, the complexity of accuracy, efficiency, and inclusivity is in constant discussion. Traditional race and sex biases being applied to modern contexts is challenging, especially with the rise of violence towards marginalised groups. Additionally, given the increase in cultural and genetic diversity of populations now, there needs to be immediate reconsideration of the terminology and sampling utilised in these long-standing methodologies. Future research should focus on developing more inclusive and adaptable stature estimation models.

Abstract: Previous studies examining the link between urban health and land use have predominantly relied on qualitative or descriptive approaches, lacking comprehensive quantitative frameworks capable of systematically identifying influential factors and prioritizing interventions. This research introduces a multi-method analytical framework incorporating MAXQDA, Factor Analysis, and Importance–Performance Map Analysis (IPMA). In the first phase, MAXQDA was used to conduct qualitative content analysis and identify urban health indicators most influenced by land use. These indicators were assessed through a structured questionnaire comprising 41 items, distributed among residents of three neighborhood units within Phase 2 of Parand New Town, with a minimum residency requirement of five years to ensure data reliability. Factor Analysis was employed to reduce the broader set of indicators into a smaller number of latent constructs, each reflecting a distinct dimension and forming the basis for the composite Urban Health Index. Subsequently, IPMA was applied to evaluate the importance and performance of each indicator within individual neighborhoods, enabling the identification of local intervention priorities. The findings show a substantial influence of the land use system on urban health. The second neighborhood unit, characterized by superior accessibility and a broader range of land uses, achieved the highest score of 3.062. This analytical framework offers urban planners a replicable and practical tool for identifying and prioritizing interventions that promote health-oriented and sustainable urban development.