Search Results (2,326)

This paper examines how the current state of affective computing is limited by its reliance on theories that treat emotions as static, isolated states, and argues that the holistic and process-oriented theory of mind from Yogācāra Buddhism offers a more sophisticated alternative, viewing emotion as an experience deeply integrated with cognition, volition, and somatic awareness. As a case study, this paper proposes a framework for sentiment analysis inspired by Yogācāra principles, based upon the Chinese Buddhist text Mahāyāna Treatise on the Hundred Dharmas Illuminating the Gate. This multi-aspect annotation system analyzes emotional expressions across five key dimensions corresponding to Yogācāra’s “ever-present” Mental Factors. By mapping emotions in this compositional manner, the framework provides a more granular and context-rich understanding of human sentiment than current methods allow. This paper thus serves as a call to diversify AI’s theoretical foundations, demonstrating through this Yogācāra case study how engagement with insights from different traditions can resist the top-down “theoretical monopoly” of Western psychological models, which flattens the rich diversity of human affective experience into a single, dominant paradigm. Full article

Mitochondrial Lon peptidase 1 (LONP1) is an ATP-dependent AAA⁺ (ATPases associated with diverse cellular activities) protease that has emerged as a key regulator of mitochondrial proteostasis, with functions extending beyond protein quality control. In addition to degrading misfolded and oxidized proteins, LONP1 coordinates mitochondrial DNA maintenance, metabolic remodeling, and stress-responsive signaling. Recent structural and functional advances have expanded the biological significance of LONP1 beyond protein quality control, highlighting its roles in mitochondrial metabolism, genome maintenance, and stress responses. LONP1 dysregulation is increasingly implicated in cancer, metabolic disorders, neurodegeneration, and aging, where it exerts context-dependent effects on cell survival and disease progression. In cancer, LONP1 supports metabolic plasticity, redox adaptation, and therapeutic resistance, whereas in degenerative conditions, its decline contributes to mitochondrial dysfunction and tissue damage. Here, we synthesize recent insights into the structure, mechanisms, and biological functions of LONP1 and discuss their implications for human disease. We further discuss emerging therapeutic strategies and key challenges for targeting LONP1 in human disease. Full article

This paper shifts the research perspective from “Buddhist monasteries” to “monastic Buddhism,” using Nālandā Mahāvihāra as a micro-level case to illuminate the broader support mechanism of Indian Buddhist monasteries, with particular focus on the concept of “non-exhaustible endowment”. Drawing on epigraphic evidence, Vinaya texts, and Chinese pilgrims’ records, it finds that major donors supported monasteries through religious rituals, land grants, and cash investments, primarily in the form of landed property and gold and silver currency, which were designated as non-exhaustible endowments. Monasteries then engaged in agriculture, handicrafts, building industry, commerce, and lending, transforming static assets into a non-exhaustible cycle of capital that benefited both monastics and laity. Systems such as Yizhi (robe funds) and Gongfu zhi Zhuang (robe-providing estates) reveal mature financial services that not only liberated monks from economic constraints but also stimulated the cotton textile trade between India and China. The wealth possessed by monasteries was not static but perpetually engaged in a dynamic cycle of capital. Major Buddhist monasteries thus emerged as regional economic engines, which became the core value for continuous royal patronage, as well as the key incentive for their violent destruction by Turkic Muslims. However, the transformation of the religious landscape and economic network in late medieval Bihār was not a simplistic process. Faced with a changing political and religious environment over time, Sufi saints, Jain followers, Shaiva ascetics and other religious communities, each grounded in their own faiths, landholdings, commercial networks and educational systems, gradually displaced, restructured and undermined the Buddhist monastery-centered endowment mechanism, causing Buddhism to progressively lose its regional dominance as an institutionalized religion. Full article

In Indian religious traditions, pātāla denotes a seven-layered subterranean realm beneath the earth, a composite space that combines cosmological stability with mythic expressiveness. It serves as the dwelling of nāgas and asuras and connects with the human world through rivers and caves. Although Buddhist literature retains narratives about these beings and their splendid abodes, it never accepted pātāla as an independent cosmological unit. This article examines Pāli, Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit Buddhist sources in comparison with Hindu epic and Purāṇic literature and analyzes the translation of pātāla in Chinese versions. It argues that Buddhism engaged in selective restructuring by de-emphasizing pātāla’s cosmological hierarchy and subordinating it to the Mount Sumeru framework, while transforming it in esoteric ritual literature into a liminal field of practice accessible through mantra, mudrā, and specific practices. Utilizing Arnold van Gennep’s liminality theory, the study shows that these spaces serve as an intermediary ritual field in Buddhist practice. Through ritual separation, liminal experience, and reintegration, practitioners acquire extended lifespan and merit that support the Mahāyāna goal of perfecting the two accumulations and attaining Buddhahood. The findings suggest that religious concepts cross traditions through disassembly, detachment, and functional reconfiguration rather than wholesale transplantation. Full article

Background and Objectives: The therapeutic management of Fournier’s gangrene involves the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and adequate surgical debridement; however, the overall mortality rate remains high globally. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may serve as an adjunct treatment modality for reducing mortality in patients with Fournier’s gangrene, but its efficacy remains debatable. Consequently, this meta-analysis assessed the effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on mortality in patients with Fournier’s gangrene. Materials and Methods: To assess the effect of hyperbaric oxygen therapy on patients with Fournier’s gangrene, various databases were meticulously searched by focusing on the study population, intervention, control, and mortality outcomes. Results: Fourteen studies, enrolling a total of 793 patients, including 356 in the hyperbaric oxygen therapy cohort and 437 in the nonhyperbaric oxygen therapy cohort, were included in this meta-analysis. Compared with the mortality rate of 27.45% in the control cohort, the rate in the hyperbaric oxygen therapy cohort was 9.55%. This difference between patients with Fournier’s gangrene who underwent conventional therapy with hyperbaric oxygen therapy and those receiving only conventional therapy was significant (RR = 0.33; 95% CI 0.23–0.48; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy may serve as an adjunct intervention to mitigate the increased risk of mortality among patients with Fournier’s gangrene. Methodologically rigorous randomized controlled trials must be conducted to determine the appropriate dosage and therapeutic efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen therapy in these patients and identify specific patient cohorts poised to obtain a benefit from this treatment. Full article

Background/Objectives: Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) often present with peripheral arterial stiffness (PAS), which is associated with an increased cardiovascular risk. This study assessed the association between circulating osteoprotegerin (OPG), a known mediator of vascular calcification, and PAS, measured as brachial–ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV), in patients with CKD. Methods: This cross-sectional investigation engaged 200 individuals with non-dialysis CKD. Serum OPG concentrations were measured using a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Participants were classified as having PAS when either left or right baPWV was greater than 18.0 m/s; those with baPWV values of 18.0 m/s or lower were assigned to the control group. Results: Eighty-six patients (43.0%) had PAS. In comparison to controls, PAS patients were older (p < 0.001) and had higher proportions of diabetes mellitus (p = 0.023) and hypertension (p = 0.010); systolic blood pressure was higher (p < 0.001), urine protein-to-creatinine ratio was elevated (p = 0.004), and serum OPG was markedly greater (p < 0.001), whereas estimated glomerular filtration rate was lower (p = 0.003). After full adjustment, OPG levels, in addition to older age and diabetes mellitus, demonstrated an independent association with PAS (odds ratio: 1.008; 95% confidence interval: 1.002–1.015; p = 0.010). The OPG level was positively associated with bilateral baPWV by Spearman’s correlation analysis (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Circulating OPG level showed an independent association with PAS and baPWV in CKD patients not yet on dialysis. Hence, OPG can be a potential marker of vascular risk in this patient population. Full article

Fine-paste earthenware held symbolic significance in Hindu and Buddhist rituals and domestic use in Southeast Asia. Despite the influx of Chinese glazed ceramics from the ninth century onward, these locally produced vessels continued to circulate widely until the fourteenth century along maritime trade routes extending from northern Sumatra and Java to the southern Philippines and the Thai–Malay Peninsula. Integrated petrographic, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) analyses were employed to compare fine-paste earthenware from the Kok Moh production center in Songkhla Province, Thailand, and the Kota Cina consumption site in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. Petrographic observations indicate broadly similar mineralogical compositions in samples from both sites, consistent with the use of kaolin-rich clay materials. FESEM reveals that Kok Moh samples exhibit relatively dense and homogeneous microstructures with more continuous matrices, whereas Kota Cina specimens display coarser textures, more distinct mineral inclusions, and less consolidated matrices. EDS elemental mapping further demonstrates a more uniform distribution of major elements in the Kok Moh samples. Although both groups share broadly similar silica–alumina compositions, the observed microstructural differences suggest variations in clay preparation and firing practices rather than major differences in raw material selection. Comparison with published data from Nakhon Si Thammarat supports an association with kaolin-rich clay resources in southern Thailand. In contrast, the examined ceramics differ from fine-paste wares reported from northeastern Thailand, Myanmar, and India. These findings suggest that maritime Southeast Asian fine-paste ware developed as a localized technological tradition shaped by regional resources, production practices, and maritime exchange networks. Full article

The veneration of the Southern and Northern Dippers stands at the heart of the Daoist tradition of astral worship, and the compilation of the Nanbei dou jing (Scriptures of the Southern and Northern Dippers) during the Northern Song dynasty marks a defining moment in the codification of this belief system. Over the course of their transmission, however, the texts accumulated errors while their exegetical tradition fell into increasing neglect. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns of the Qing dynasty, local literati in Yunnan employed the practice of spirit-writing to compose the Beidou jing chanwei and the Nandou jing chanwei in succession, with the twin aims of reconstructing the canonical texts and reviving their interpretive tradition. This article examines these two commentaries along three axes—textual character, philological value, and religious thought—and argues that they are at once liturgical handbooks of the Dongjing Association and the most significant Qing-dynasty annotations of the Nanbei dou jing known to date. Philologically, they preserve variant readings of considerable value for the reconstruction of the textual history of both scriptures. Doctrinally, the commentators fused Daoist astral worship with Buddhist karmic cosmology, Confucian ritual cultivation, and the discourse of inner alchemy, yielding a form of three-teachings syncretism distinctively shaped by its regional context. Through these rare sources, this article seeks to open new perspectives on Daoist textual production, inter-religious exchange, and ritual practice in Qing-dynasty Yunnan. Full article

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) remains a leading cause of premature mortality and global disease burden, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying its progression are still incompletely understood. Accumulating evidence highlights circadian disruption as an underappreciated driver of CKD that warrants systematic re-examination. The kidney harbors an autonomous circadian oscillator, principally regulated by the CLOCK:BMAL1 transcription factor complex, which coordinates glomerular filtration, tubular electrolyte handling, blood pressure rhythmicity, inflammatory tone, and cellular repair. In CKD, retained uremic toxins, sustained oxidative stress, and persistent NF-κB activation collectively suppress this clock machinery, generating a self-reinforcing cycle of renal injury and circadian dysregulation. CKD is also accompanied by progressive attenuation of nocturnal melatonin secretion, weakening a central hormonal cue for peripheral clock entrainment and cytoprotection. Melatonin acts both as a chronobiotic and as a pleiotropic cytoprotective molecule. Through MT1/MT2 receptors, the nuclear receptor RORα, and receptor-independent antioxidant pathways, it may enhance Nrf2/HO-1 signaling, restrain NF-κB and NLRP3 inflammasome activity, suppress TGF-β1/Smad2/3-mediated fibrogenesis, preserve mitochondrial integrity, and engage SIRT1-linked clock regulation. Current clinical studies suggest that nightly melatonin supplementation can improve sleep quality and selected oxidative or circadian surrogate endpoints in hemodialysis patients; however, whether melatonin slows CKD progression or preserves renal function remains unproven. This review synthesizes the molecular interface between circadian dysregulation and CKD progression and articulates a rationale for adequately powered clinical trials evaluating melatonin as a candidate chronotherapeutic adjunct rather than an established renoprotective therapy. Full article

The Miaofa lianhua jing 妙法蓮華經 is one of the most important scriptures of early Mahāyāna Buddhism, renowned as the “King of Sūtras”. It was extremely widely transmitted around the Tang Dynasty. More than 7000 scrolls of the Miaofa lianhua jing are preserved among the Dunhuang documents. However, many of these numerous manuscripts were split into two parts, or even divided into multiple fragments and scraps, which severely damaged their integrity. Therefore, it is necessary to join them together. After joining, the textual content of the scrolls can be restored, which facilitates in-depth research on Buddhist documents. This paper elaborates on the great significance of textual restoration of Dunhuang fragments of the Miaofa lianhua jing for Buddhist philology from four aspects: identifying the ten-scroll edition omitted in successive printed editions of the Chinese Buddhist Canon; promoting the collation and research of small unidentified Buddhist manuscript fragments; determining the authenticity of scroll fragments of unknown origin; and examining details concerning the circulation and restoration of Dunhuang Buddhist texts. Full article

Contemporary English speakers often make a distinction between things that are artificial and those that are deemed natural. On the one hand are places, things, and situations that humans have altered, and on the other those that are free (or relatively free) of human influence. This concept of “nature” is an important, if problematic, one: it influences much of the modern environmental movement, where nature often has positive connotations while the artificial is valued negatively. In this paper I will be focusing on an idea found in Tibetan anti-meat literature: that there is a moral difference between eating the meat of animals that “die as a result of their karma” and animals that are slaughtered. This idea, I argue, parallels the distinction between the natural and artificial found in many English language discussions about the environment. As such, my suggestion is that this idea could, with some development, help support dialogue over environmental issues between Western and Buddhist philosophers and communities. Full article

The Contemplation of the Dharmadhātu (Fajie guan 法界觀) is frequently criticized for lacking practical value due to its “theoretical” character—specifically, the absence of concrete methods for regulating the body (tiaoshen 調身) and regulating the breath (tiaoxi 調息), while containing only abstract discussions on regulating the mind (tiaoxin 調心). However, this absence does not negate its practical value. In essence, it belongs to dhyāna contemplation (changuan 禪觀), where methods for regulating the body and breath are widely shared; therefore, their omission is inconsequential. Nevertheless, this effectively establishes a threshold: practitioners must either be capable of regulating the body and breath or possess the capacity to acquire such resources from other sources. Given that it emerged and flourished in Sui–Tang (隋唐) Chang’an (長安)—a milieu characterized by eminent monks and abundant Buddhist resources—this threshold was easy to cross. Thereafter, it was continuously transmitted; however, this threshold restricted practitioners primarily to the elite. Ultimately, the Qing (清) Master Xufa 續法 (1641–1728) provided the required supplements, completing its practical framework. Full article

This article examines how B. R. Ambedkar’s 1956 Buddhist conversion is re-narrativized in Mahar Dalit life writing as a foundational religious event that simultaneously embodies rupture and continuity. Drawing on three Marathi Dalit texts, Akkarmashi, Baluta and The Prisons We Broke, all examined in their published English translations, and situated within the theological framework of Ambedkar’s Buddha and His Dhamma, the study argues that Dalit authors transform the conversion event into a sacred narrative structure organized around suffering, awakening, and liberation. Rather than representing a simple rejection of religion, these narratives reconfigure the religious imagination by producing a form of counter-sacrality that both contests and reconstitutes the sacred: the suffering of the caste order is retrospectively sanctified as the necessary prehistory of collective rebirth, while the 1956 conversion is preserved as a permanently reactivatable origin point for ongoing religious and political life. The study proposes Dalit sacred time as a distinct analytical model of subaltern religious temporality, characterized by three features. By foregrounding a non-Western, intercultural case, the article engages directly with questions of continuity and contestation in the relationship between literature and religion, showing how literary texts can generate new forms of religious meaning beyond established traditions. Full article

Background/Objectives: Migraine is associated with neurogenic inflammation, trigeminovascular activation, oxidative stress, and systemic metabolic changes. However, circulating antioxidant-related biomarkers in older adults with migraine remain insufficiently characterized. We examined whether self-reported migraine history was associated with serum uric acid (UA), albumin, and total protein levels in the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA), including exploratory analyses in migraine-discordant twin pairs. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis used the first in-person testing wave of SATSA. Participants aged ≥50 years with complete migraine status and biomarker data were included. Serum UA was the primary outcome; albumin and total protein were secondary outcomes. Group differences were assessed using t-tests, Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, or chi-square tests, as appropriate. Linear regression models were adjusted for age, sex, and body mass index. Paired analyses were conducted in 13 migraine-discordant twin pairs. Results: Among 411 participants, 23 reported a migraine history. Participants with migraine had lower serum UA (4.39 vs. 5.15 mg/dL, p = 0.011), albumin (4.40 vs. 4.55 g/dL, p = 0.019), and total protein (7.16 vs. 7.43 g/dL, p = 0.008). These associations remained significant after adjustment. In discordant twin pairs, UA was lower in twins with migraine than in co-twins without migraine (4.34 vs. 4.72 mg/dL, p = 0.050), whereas albumin and total protein differences were not significant. Conclusions: Self-reported migraine history in older adults was associated with lower circulating UA, albumin, and total protein levels. These exploratory, cross-sectional findings should be interpreted as associative rather than causal and require confirmation in longitudinal studies. Full article

In the Anthropocene, the environmental crisis necessitates a radical repositioning of the human-nature relationship. This paper examines the sijo poetry in Musan Cho Oh-hyun’s For Nirvana through an interdisciplinary framework bridging Zen philosophy with material ecocriticism. The study elucidates how Musan deconstructs anthropocentric exceptionalism by restoring agency to the non-human world. Textual analysis reveals three arguments. First, elemental forces like wind and waves are subjectified as primordial teachers through mujō-seppō (non-sentient beings preaching the Dharma), dismantling sovereign human scriptural authority. Second, visceral encounters with animals and insects critique logocentric domination, proposing “epistemological silence” and “radical humility” as alternative eco-politics. Finally, bodily decay and trans-corporeal porosity are reframed as generative pathways toward a radical “ecological Nirvana”—a physical matrix of cyclical renewal. By synthesizing Jane Bennett’s vital materialism with Dōgen’s Zen vision of “walking mountains”, this study deploys a Zen materialism lens that enriches Western theory with the Buddhist soteriology of compassion (karuna). Ultimately, Musan reconfigures Nirvana not as an escapist transcendence, but as a profound somatic descent into the material mesh, where ultimate spiritual realization lies in the ego’s total dissolution into the “walking, talking minerals” of a sacred, suffering ecosystem. Full article