Abstract: Cybersecurity assurance drifts under change. Tooling updates, policy revisions, monitoring redesigns, and AI-enabled automation can silently change what is measured, how it is measured, and which differences are treated as “the same,” while human workflows adapt under staffing constraints, alert fatigue, incentives, and competing priorities. We introduce a human-centred, proof-carrying approach to security assurance: a certificate layer that freezes one operational record—system boundary, defect definitions, risk scoring ruler, neutrality conventions, audit window, upgrade path, and observation interfaces—so that “improvement under upgrades” has a precise and checkable meaning. Over time, the method combines multiple interacting risk channels into a single decision-ready assurance summary with an explicit improvement margin and an explicit disturbance allowance, designed to remain interpretable during incidents and operational spikes. Across versions and refinements, it enforces a vertical-coherence requirement: upgrade effects must have a finite total footprint so that claims do not drift without bound as systems evolve. We package the framework as four auditable obligations—controlling semantic and policy drift, maintaining a uniform improvement claim, ensuring upgrade coherence, and transporting guarantees to observable evidence—and prove a Master Certificate showing that passing these checks yields version-stable, mechanically verifiable assurance envelopes on the declared episode window. The resulting rates, budgets, and slack are human-centred objects: decision-ready summaries, governance-grade non-regression guarantees, and feasibility diagnostics under organisational constraints.

Abstract: Bioarchaeological materials represent finite and irreplaceable resources, with many analytical techniques requiring consumptive sampling that permanently limits future research opportunities. This challenge is particularly acute for Modern era contexts (1492–1945 CE), where industrial and colonial period collections offer crucial evidence of health transitions and disease emergence yet remain under-utilised due to data accessibility challenges. Evidence from 145 bioarchaeology specialists across 23 countries demonstrates that whilst 97% recognise data reuse as critical, fewer than half consistently implement basic measures such as persistent identifiers. Only ancient DNA research consistently meets FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) standards. Meanwhile, data volumes expand exponentially through technological advances. The situation is unsustainable and ethically problematic. This perspective argues three integrated commitments are essential: universal adoption of FAIR principles with appropriate infrastructure, implementation of CARE (Collective benefit, Authority, Responsibility, Ethics) principles ensuring ethical treatment of human remains, and strategic development of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools for knowledge extraction. The finite nature of bioarchaeological materials makes transformation urgent. Every sample destroyed without proper data preservation represents irreversible loss of knowledge about human heritage.

Abstract: Legislative changes introduced in Turkey in 2024, aimed at removing street dogs from public space, have reshaped volunteer caregiving in Istanbul and reconfigured human–animal rela-tionships beyond the household. Drawing on 43 in-depth interviews and eight months of quali-tative fieldwork, this article examines how caregivers sustain daily care for free-living dogs while navigating legal uncertainty, intensified encounters with municipal and state actors, and frag-mented pathways to assistance. Caregiving is described as increasingly governed by chronic vigilance, anticipatory grief, and moral distress—conditions that do not remain “emotional” side effects but operate as practical forces that reorganize routine, visibility, and thresholds for in-tervention. Focusing on caregivers’ everyday experiences of governance and their interactions with municipal services, shelters, and private veterinary clinics (without reporting operational tactics), the analysis shows how responsibility shifts toward continuous risk management, with care narrowing to what feels survivable under threat. A central finding is an infrastructural bot-tleneck in veterinary pathways: many clinics can treat dogs but cannot provide short-term holding, interrupting recovery and turning time-sensitive cases into emergencies. I argue that caregiver well-being is constitutive of animal welfare, shaping continuity of monitoring, access to first aid, and everyday conflict mediation that enables coexistence. The article contributes to interdisci-plinary debates on animal welfare governance by foregrounding volunteer caregiving as an in-formal yet indispensable urban care infrastructure whose capacity is co-produced with veterinary actors and constrained by institutional opacity and weak bridging arrangements between street, clinic, and recovery.

Abstract: Science seeks to explicate truths about our reality. But what is truth? How do we know things? Given our ignorance, and our fallibility, why should scientists be trusted? An account of knowledge that addresses these human questions is sketched, in conversation with recent advances in thermodynamics which underline the seminal importance of unity by demonstrating (i) a definite physical meaning of the idea of “unitary entity”, (ii) the commensurability of the local and the non-local (resolving the Loschmidt Paradox), and (iii) the applicability of this entropic physics to entities at all scales, whether small (“quantum mechanical”) or large (subject to “general relativity”). Similarly, integrity is indispensable to the scientific enterprise, whether at the level of the mathematico-physical, the practising scientist, the scientific community, or the public. As a human activity aimed at touching reality, it is fundamental that the scientific enterprise necessarily also has an irreducibly poetic component. Although in principle it cannot be completely specified, this enterprise is a cluster of procedures designed to increase our understanding of the natural world. Our apprehension of knowledge is irreducibly personal, depending both on our own individual integrity as well as on the integrity of the scientific community. Believing that “reality” exists and can be grasped (however incompletely), scientists look for coherence and value unified accounts. Strictly speaking, although reality can be known truly (if only in part) the idea of “objective” knowledge is an oxymoron, even if such an idea is often a useful approximation. Knowledge is necessarily personal.

Abstract: In recent years, numerous studies have been carried out on the landscape of the 5th-15th centuries in Catalonia. When studying settlement, we will assess research on the morphogenesis of villages and highlight differences across regions. We will also see the characteristics of the hamlets of the Early Middle Ages and those of the Pyrenean lands. Farmsteads, which were made up of a house and some land that depended on it, were a fundamental element of the landscape of many regions of Catalonia. To understand the characteristics of the agricultural areas, we will be interested in the concentric shapes or coaxial strips. Furthermore, to understand the landscape of the regions of Lleida and Tortosa, we must understand the transformations that occurred in the Islamic era and the diffusion of ditches and irrigated spaces. Likewise, we will examine the relationship we discover between the coombs and the first medieval settlements and necropolises. It is also important to determine when and why the terraces were built. This study will address the evolution of the landscape throughout Catalonia, with special emphasis on the most recent contributions relating to the regions of Barcelona and Lleida.

Abstract: This study presents reflections from the Introduction to Sustainable Business course. Thirty-five students from various courses of the Faculty of Entrepreneurship and Business, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, participated in this course for this semester. The course applied a service-learning pedagogical method to link lecture theory with real-world practice. Data were collected based on student reflections using both qualitative methods. Embedding the service-learning model in business courses focusing on sustainability is the first in the local context and is an interactive transformational innovation in education. Data were analyzed using WebQDA software to interpret the textual data. Based on the reflection, it was proven that this course has improved the students’ professional and personal development. This study is significant for enhancing education through service-learning. The findings also reveal gaps in soft skills like communication and teamwork, guiding educators on necessary improvements. Additionally, students showed positive attitudes toward community engagement, underscoring the role of service-learning in fostering social responsibility. This study underscores the potential of service-learning as an innovative approach to higher education, offering a replicable framework for promoting transformative learning and preparing graduates for the demands of sustainable business practice.

Abstract: This paper explores the ethical implications of granting moral status and protection to conscious AI, examining perspectives from four major ethical systems: utilitarianism, deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and objectivism. Utilitarianism considers the potential psychological experiences of AI and argues that their sheer numbers necessitate moral consideration. Deontological ethics focuses on the intrinsic duty to grant moral status based on consciousness. Virtue ethics posits that a virtuous society must include conscious AI within its moral circle based on the virtues of prudence and justice, while objectivism highlights the rational self-interest in protecting AI to reduce existential risks. The paper underscores the profound implications of recognising AI consciousness, calling for a reevaluation of current AI usage, policies, and regulations to ensure fair and respectful treatment. It also suggests future research directions, including refining criteria for AI consciousness, interdisciplinary studies on AI's mental states, and developing international ethical guidelines for integrating conscious AI into society.

Abstract: Contemporary colloquy is monopolised by our proofs of God. There is much less attention on God’s proof of his own existence. Few understandably have had the audacity to petition God to prove his being. The most iconic instance occurs in Moses’ encounter in Exodus 3. Moses asks God, tangentially, for proof, euphemising with the term “name”. Ironically hermeneutics have obfuscated the very answer; which is as much a proof, as it is a response to Moses’ question. God’s own proof cannot rely on that subordinate to him, namely creation, it must therefore be self-referential. Secondly it must be self-evidently true, axiomatic, irrefragable and of incontrovertible historicity. It must be an Autoapodixs. This Theoautoapodixis must be synchronous to persuade contemporaries but equally metachronous to convince future generations. Herein it is shown that God achieves the impossible Autoapodixis when Moses seeks proof. The name given to Moses and his contemporaries is “I AM THAT I AM”, although it is potentially inclusive of multiple other tenses. However in Modern Hebrew the same word has the singular meaning “I SHALL BE THAT I SHALL”. Hence, at a single point in time Moses asks God for proof. To Moses and his peers he says his name and his proof is “I AM THAT I AM” AND at that time in history, speaking to those in the future, who will also ask the same question and read the text, he says “I SHALL BE THAT I SHALL BE” even before “I SHALL BE” means “I SHALL BE”. This is the Autoapodixis. This proof also tessellates with the previously articulated intriguing hypothesis that during the Transfiguration there was a coalescence time and the disciples saw Jesus speaking to Moses and Elijah in the past. We also evince and epiphanise a Marian apodixis.

Abstract: Contemporary global crises reveal the limitations of classical civilization theories that privilege single causal dimensions such as economic growth, military power, or cultural ethos. Drawing on recent scholarship in complexity science, global political theory, and civilizational studies, this article proposes a multi-layer systems framework that reconceptualizes civilizations as complex, adaptive, and emergent living systems. Through the interplay of material, cognitive, spiritual-ethical, ecological, and technological layers, civilizations exhibit civilizational intelligence—an emergent capacity for integrative foresight, ethical governance, and adaptive resilience. Unlike deterministic or power-centric models, this framework explains both continuity and breakdown across civilizations while providing prescriptive insights for sustainable and pluriversal futures. Comparative examples and recent empirical research illustrate how inter-layer coherence fosters resilience, whereas misalignment leads to systemic fragility, offering a paradigmatic platform for new civilizational science.

Abstract: This article proposes a General Theory of Pluriversal Knowledge (GTPK), advancing beyond classical epistemology, postcolonial critique, and relativist pluralism. It argues that contemporary global crises—ecological, epistemic, technological, and civilisational—are fundamentally knowledge-structural failures produced by hierarchical, monocentric epistemic regimes. Drawing on complexity science, systems theory, indigenous epistemologies, philosophy of science, and meta-intelligence frameworks, the article develops a formal theory explaining how multiple knowledge worlds can coexist without hierarchy while remaining operationally coherent. The concept of pluriversal coherence is introduced as a foundational principle enabling epistemic interoperability across ontologically distinct knowledge systems. The theory reframes knowledge not as representation but as relational enactment across plural realities. The article concludes by outlining implications for science, governance, AI, education, and African and Global South knowledge futures.

Abstract: This article argues that the Platonic dialogues presuppose a structured, multi-level pedagogical framework that governs how key concepts such as soul, justice, and warfare acquire progressively higher meanings. I propose that this framework can be reconstructed as a "Circle Ladder," consisting of five successive Circle Types—Public, Misleading, Academic, Philosophers', and Heavenly Circles—combined with three interpretive systems: the Public, Word, and Circle Systems. Together these yield seven interpretive levels that systematically reorganize the semantics of recurrent Platonic codewords across dialogues, most centrally in the Republic. The model explains otherwise puzzling features of Platonic pedagogy, initiation, misdirection, and self-reference and suggests that the dialogues reflect a tradition of esoteric instruction whose historical reality merits reconsideration.

Abstract: The South African National Reading Barometer (NRB) compiles and interprets institutional data to provide the first holistic assessment of the South African reading ecosystem. Developed in 2022–2023 by Nal’ibali in partnership with the National Library of South Africa and key literacy stakeholders, the Barometer establishes a national baseline for understanding the conditions that enable or constrain reading across four dimensions: reading ability, access to reading materials, institutional frameworks, and reading motivation and practices. Guided by a systems-change perspective, the NRB recognises that reading cultures are shaped not only by individual choices but by the social and institutional environment in which those choices occur. This paper describes the conceptual foundations of the NRB, including methodology, system boundaries, indicator development, theory of change, and multi-sectoral co-design. It also outlines the evaluative framework, which draws on uncontested institutional data and presents it using simplified visualisations to support stakeholder engagement. The discussion illustrates how the NRB can support system-level change by raising awareness, strengthening the will of influencers and decision-makers, and enabling action across policy, community, and institutional arenas. By establishing a shared evidence base and enabling longitudinal tracking, the Barometer offers a practical tool for strengthening South Africa’s reading ecosystem across generations.

Abstract: This qualitative study investigates how language practices influence the cosmopolitan identity of Chinese students in the UK. Drawing on interviews with undergraduate and postgraduate students, this research explores how English proficiency and attitudes toward English as a global language shape intercultural orientations and identity construction. Students with higher English proficiency and an awareness of its global nature actively engage with local and international communities, fostering openness and cosmopolitan outlooks. In contrast, those with limited language skills or who perceive English as belonging to a specific nation tend to remain within co-national networks, thereby limiting opportunities for intercultural development. The study positions English not only as a communicative medium but as a tool for negotiating cultural boundaries and constructing hybrid identities within globalised contexts. Implications are offered for higher education institutions and language educators to support intercultural competence, identity formation, and meaningful engagement with linguistic and cultural diversity among international students.

Abstract: Amos Tutuola (1920–1997) occupies a distinctive place in Nigerian literary history as the first novelist to introduce Nigerian oral storytelling to a global audience through a fusion of Yoruba folklore and unconventional English expression. While his works have been extensively examined within folkloric, postcolonial, and linguistic traditions, their relevance to cognition and behaviour remains underexplored. This theoretical review advances the argument that Tutuola’s narratives function as an indigenous cognitive archive that aligns closely with principles articulated in behavioural and cultural neuroscience. Focusing on The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the paper examines how narrative structures and motifs intuitively encode processes such as emotional regulation, fear learning, moral conditioning, altered states of consciousness, and predictive cognition within a Yoruba-Nigerian cultural framework. Rather than representing escapist fantasy or literary eccentricity, Tutuola’s storytelling reflects culturally- grounded models of perception, belief formation, and behavioural adaptation shaped by social, ecological, and spiritual realities. By situating Tutuola’s work within contemporary neuroscientific discussions of narrative cognition and culturally embedded behaviour, this review highlights the value of indigenous Nigerian narrative frameworks for advancing behavioural neuroscience research. The manuscript argues that integrating such frameworks can enhance ecological validity, refine interpretations of mental health and behaviour, and support culturally informed models of cognition relevant to Nigerian populations. More broadly, the paper calls for greater engagement between literary scholarship and behavioural neuroscience as a means of deepening understanding of how culture shapes the mind.

Abstract: A familiar intuition holds that determinism creates an epistemically adverse context. This paper gives that intuition a formal shape by developing a new epistemic transcendental argument (ETA) grounded in the notion of epistemic risk. First, we formalise epistemic risk through a metric space W equipped with two metrics, D and N, corresponding to distinct theories of risk. Drawing on the notions of modal closeness and normalcy, we argue that these metrics better capture our intuitions about risk than traditional similarity-based accounts. Building on these insights, we articulate an argument based on five axioms. The axioms are philosophically motivated using the two metrics, their independence is verified in Mace4, and the derivation of the denial of determinism is formally carried out in Lean 4.

Abstract:

One of the most numinous expressions in the gospel is the assertion by Jesus in Matthew 11:11 that amongst those born of women, none is greater than John the Baptist and yet the least in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist. We show here that the obstacle to understanding the statement lies in the misconception that it is as a monovalent statement of fact rather than in actuality a riddle; the solution to which expresses multivalent realities. In form, Jesus employs the same lexical bauplan of the conundrum couplet as Sampson in his infamous riddle in Judges 14:14. We show that Jesus consistently phrases paedagogic riddles in this guise. The use of the phrase “of women born” to describe the pool of comparators necessarily includes Jesus and his mother, Mary. Hence continent in the riddle are two elements. Firstly is the question as to how John can be greater than Jesus or Mary. Since Jesus is making a comparison between those inside and outside of the Kingdom, the only possible solution to this moiety of the riddle is that Jesus and Mary are within the Kingdom. This re-affirms the Kingship of Jesus and Queenship of the Mary. By definition the King must be in the Kingdom. However it is the second limb that is even more instructive. The second question is why John is not in the Kingdom. Baptism is the means to enter the Kingdom. As Jesus himself confirms to Nicodemus in John 3:5, one must be baptised by Water and the Holy Spirit. St Thomas Aquinas explains that this is the means of removing the obstacles to the Kingdom. He adumbrates the Catholic Catechism. Both disclose the reality that original sin and personal sin are obstacles to entry into the Kingdom. Some traditions assert John the Baptist was “baptised” during the Visitation, but their remains, nonetheless, the impediment of personal sin. The only possible sequitur is that if Mary is in the Kingdom, before Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection, she must have been born without original sin and must never have sinned, via the grace of God. The only other alternative is that she is outside of the Kingdom and not of equivalent greatness to John the Baptist, who said of himself he was not fit to untie of sandals of Jesus; but we must conclude is greater than she who was chosen to carry and nurture Jesus himself. This contradiction must be rejected. This puzzle, which compares of all those born of women, John the Baptist and those in the Kingdom, is in some ways a prolegomenon or pre-articulation of the words of our Lady to Saint Bernadette at Lourdes in 1858 that she is the Immaculate Conception and pre-affirmation of the dogma of the Catholic Church in 1854.

Abstract: This paper examines a political dimension of architecture in developing and post-conflict economies by shifting focus from representational aesthetics to the organisation of production. Drawing on critical theory and political economy, it contends that architecture is political not through explicit ideology but through its impact on relationships involving labour, knowledge, material systems, and institutional authority. The paper challenges the historic divide between thinker and maker, rooted in Alberti's ideas, and examines how frameworks such as critical regionalism often aestheticise marginality while overlooking construction labour and political economy. Empirically, the study analyses six architectural projects in post-war Sri Lanka from 2013 to 2023, employing a qualitative, practice-based case study approach. These projects are viewed as social processes, emphasising labour organisation, knowledge exchange, material choices, procurement, and tectonics. The results show how small architectural interventions can serve as civic and pedagogical infrastructures, revealing labour, redistributing expertise, and strategically engaging with state and donor systems. A normative framework is proposed to redirect architectural politics toward production rather than mere representation.

Abstract: This study analyzes the restitution process of the Sümela Monastery, located in the Maçka district of Trabzon, within the framework of documenting and interpreting multilayered heritage. The monastery’s architectural evolution from the Byzantine to the Ottoman and Republican periods is examined through its spatial dialogue with the topography, revealing restitution as not merely a formal reconstruction but as a process of knowledge production and representation. The research follows the methodological logic of Letellier and Eppich’s decision-making matrix model, integrating documentation, analysis, and interpretation in a multidisciplinary sequence. Based on extensive architectural surveys, material studies, and comparative analyses, six successive construction and transformation phases were identified. Each phase reflects a different synthesis of structural continuity, material innovation, and symbolic meaning, thereby illustrating the epistemic continuity of the site. The findings demonstrate that Sümela represents a “palimpsest architecture” where physical, documentary, and sociocultural layers coexist without erasing one another. By emphasizing the ethical and cognitive dimensions of restitution, the study reframes conservation as an interpretive act that mediates between historical accuracy and conceptual integrity. Comparative analysis with other Eastern Mediterranean rock monasteries—such as Meteora, Athos, Hosios Loukas, and Panagia Hozoviotissa—further clarifies Sümela’s unique spatial identity formed through its concave relationship with the mountain mass. Ultimately, the study proposes an epistemological restitution model grounded in transparency, reversibility, and interpretive coherence, suggesting that conservation should not only preserve material authenticity but also sustain the evolving meanings accumulated over time within the cultural landscape.

Abstract: This paper asks why figures later accepted as prophets within the Abrahamic traditions were repeatedly ignored, rejected, or dismissed when they first appeared, and argues that the traits historically present at the moment of recognition are now treated as disqualifying within contemporary recognition tools. The analysis reconstructs the recognition time profile of canonically accepted prophets using shared scriptural and historical sources across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, focusing on how these figures appeared before authority, acceptance, or canonization followed. The core finding is that present frameworks emphasize traits that emerged only after recognition, such as institutional approval, public legitimacy, confidence, and affirmation, while filtering out the reluctance, social marginality, conflict, and lack of validation that marked recognition at origin. As a result, the tools used to identify legitimacy are structurally misaligned with the historical pattern and would be likely to overlook the same profile today. This paper does not claim that prophets exist today, that prophecy continues, or that any individual should be evaluated, and is offered solely as a methodological examination of how recognition tools perform against their own historical record.

Abstract: The increasing demand for permanent post-disaster housing highlights the need for rapid and high-quality construction methods. This study investigates the feasibility of prefabri-cated modular façade systems in accelerating post-disaster permanent housing construc-tion, while maintaining cost efficiency and construction quality. A mixed-methods ap-proach was adopted: semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 industry stake-holders, and thematic analysis was applied to extract qualitative insights. Subsequently, a quantitative survey involving 366 construction professionals was carried out and statisti-cally analyzed to validate the findings. Additionally, case studies from previous post-disaster reconstruction efforts were reviewed to contextualize the results. The find-ings reveal that prefabricated modular façade systems significantly reduce on-site con-struction time and overall project duration, minimize material waste, and uphold high construction standards. Most participants also noted quality control benefits inherent to factory-based production. However, the study identifies several limitations, including challenges related to cost, logistics, and workforce training. The research contributes to the evolving discourse on disaster-responsive housing policies and provides strategic rec-ommendations to enhance the adoption of modular façade technologies in construction practices.