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In this chapter, I develop an ethnographic understanding of khidma (Arabic for serving), exploring the effect serving Ahl al-Bayt (Family of Prophet Mohammed) has on devotees with a particular focus on materiality. More specifically, I will trace the process of khidma through art and show how art is utilized in religious service, which highlights the centrality of materiality in contemporary Shii

This position paper examines new forms of painted artworks made by pious Shi`a female artists in Kuwait, which treat imagery and experience known as Karamah (sing.) and Karamat (pl.), commonly understood as ‘miracle'. I examine current anthropological considerations of ‘miracle' and I find that the most suitable translation of the Arabic word Karamah may be ‘marvel', rather than ‘miracle', althoug

This special issue on Art, Dreams and Miracles presents a series of contributions, drawing primarily from a panel at the 2018 conference of the Royal Anthropological Institute in London. Lying at the core of this issue are studies which treat the relationships between art, people and oneiric experiences (dreams and miracles, broadly, in this case). The contributions consider how dreams and miracle

Background: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development calls upon all nations to make critical investments in their health systems to deliver universal access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). Capacity development is listed among the strategies for achieving sustainable development goals. Although capacity development has been a major component of international development for

This study aimed to disentangle the influence of information status and referential form on the distribution of gestures in sustained discourse. Previous research shows that new/less accessible rather than old/more accessible information, expressed by rich rather than lean referential forms, is more likely to be accompanied by gestures. However, earlier studies have drawn on correlational results.

Climate change can substantially affect infrastructure performance and safety. In this article, the impact of climate change on fungal decay of wooden infrastructure in ground contact is investigated. For this purpose, projections of three different climate change scenarios are used to assess the impact of climate change on fungal decay rate of untreated clear wood elements in ground contact in Sw

Decarbonizing global steel production requires a fundamental transformation. A sectoral climate club, which goes beyond tariffs and involves deep transnational cooperation, can facilitate this transformation by addressing technical, economic and political uncertainties.Decarbonizing global steel production requires a fundamental transformation. A sectoral climate club, which goes beyond tariffs and involves deep transnational cooperation, can facilitate this transformation by addressing technical, economic and political uncertainties.

In many industrial applications the communication in a distributed control system is done over layered synchronous or asynchronous control buses. In this paper we consider the type of delays and control deterioration that can be obtained due to the communication delays. The main source of the delays considered in this paper is the sample-induced delays caused by the multirate sampling in the commu

This article covers a method to make the description of theforce-slip curve generated by the brush tire model more flexible. A calibration factor is applied to make the slope more or less convex. The main use is in car applications where road friction estimation is a major issue. If the real tire characteristic differs from the model there will be a bias in the estimation and a higher brake force

Pioneering studies performed over the past few decades demonstrate links between epigenetics and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), the metabolic disorder with the most rapidly increasing prevalence in the world. Importantly, these studies identified epigenetic modifications, including altered DNA methylation, in pancreatic islets, adipose tissue, skeletal muscle and the liver from individuals with

Energy metabolism dyshomeostasis is associated with multiple health problems. For example, abundant epidemiological data show that obesity and overweight increase the risk of cardiometabolic diseases and early mortality. Type 2 diabetes (T2D), characterized by chronically elevated blood glucose, is also associated with debilitating complications, high healthcare costs and mortality, with cardiovas

Leucine-rich repeats and immunoglobulin-like domains (LRIG) proteins have been implicated as regulators of growth factor signaling; however, the possible redundancy among mammalian LRIG1, LRIG2, and LRIG3 has hindered detailed elucidation of their physiological functions. Here, we show that Lrig-null mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) are deficient in adipogenesis and bone morphogenetic protein (B

T-cell lymphoma (TCL) is a rare group of malignancies and one of the important aims in this thesis has been to broaden the general knowledge of TCL with descriptive patient data. Main focus has been to examine prognosticfactors for overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), and to evaluate different treatment approaches and follow-up (FU) after treatment.The purpose of the first st

The intensifying effects of climate change are becoming one of the main threats to cultural heritage, posing risks of degradation or destruction. Climate change is bringing complexity and uncertainty to ensuring the resilience of cultural heritage, and among risk mitigation measures digitalisation is regarded as a promising tool. However, the infrastructure required for the digitalisation process

HYPOTHESIS: Self-assembling molecular structures responding to light stimulus are appealing for applications as sensing and drug delivery. Supramolecular nanotubes have a relevant potential in nanotechnology as they can be used to encapsulate different loads like drugs, biological macromolecules, and nanomaterials. In addition, they are suitable elements for novel supracolloidal materials. Structu

Although the overall mortality in cancer is steadily decreasing, major groups of patients still respond poorly to available treatments. The key clinical challenge addressed in the present thesis work relates to the inherent adaptive capacity of glioblastoma (GBM) tumors, resulting in treatment resistance and dismal prognosis. GBM represents the most common and lethal primary CNS tumor in adults. T

Stability problems associated with robot control with obstacle avoidance are analysed. Obstacle avoidance algorithms based on potential function are revised to accomplish stable re-design. A stability proof using Lyapunov theory and passivity theory is provided for the re-designed obstacle avoidance algorithm. The paper presents a modification of potential functions for obstacle avoidance aiming t

The impact of climate change on the deterioration of reinforced concrete elements have been frequently highlighted as worthy of investigation. This article addresses this important issue by presenting a time-variant reliability analysis to assess the effect of climate change on four limit states; the probabilities of corrosion initiation, crack initiation, severe cracking, and failure of a simply