Search Results (6)

This paper examines how Daoxuan 道宣, the Tang Dynasty Buddhist historian and founder of the Nanshan Vinaya School, meticulously constructed the saintly image of Sengya 僧崖—a monk renowned for his auto-cremation—in his Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (Xu gaoseng zhuan 續高僧傳). Drawing on a range of sources—including the now-lost Biography of the Bodhisattva Sengya and regional texts such as the Collection of Miscellaneous Records from the Shu Region—Daoxuan reconfigured Sengya’s narrative, presenting his auto-cremation as a profound religious sacrifice emblematic of transformative spiritual commitment. The analysis explores how Daoxuan navigated the doctrinal tensions between this extreme practice and the Vinaya precept of non-killing by emphasizing the practitioner’s mental state over the physical act. In doing so, he reframed self-immolation not as an aberration but as a legitimate, even exalted, path to liberation. This reinterpretation is situated within the broader context of Chinese Buddhist thought—particularly the ideas of the indestructibility of the spirit and the cosmological framework of “Heaven–Man Correspondence”—highlighting the interplay between religious symbolism, doctrinal adaptation, and lived practice. Crucially, this paper treats Daoxuan’s narrative not merely as biography, but as hagiography—a literary mode in which historical memory and religious narrative are inextricably entwined. By examining the rhetorical and ideological dimensions of this genre, this study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how religious hagiography functioned as a tool for shaping sainthood, authorizing extreme religious practices, and negotiating the spiritual and social landscapes of medieval China. Full article

Background and Objectives: Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is characterized by unpredictable skin and mucosal angioedema attacks. We aimed to find the frequency of sexual-activity-triggered attacks (STAs) and understand how the sexual life of HAE with C1-inhibitor deficiency (HAE-C1INH) patients is affected. Materials and Methods: Adult HAE-C1INH patients were included in this cross-sectional study, which started in March 2020. Demographic information, marriage properties, gender-specific sexual life characteristics, and the HAE-specific histories of the patients were collected. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Turkish version of the New Sexual Satisfaction Scale (NSSS) were applied to all participants. Results: Among 42 symptomatic HAE patients, 33 (78.57%) had genital attacks and 17 (42.5%) had STAs. Ten (58.8%) had genital pain, tenderness, or swelling, and five (29.4%) had isolated abdominal and groin pain. Eight (47.1%) patients with STAs experienced a HAE attack during their first time engaging in sexual intercourse. Anxiety/depression scales, NSSS scores, and distribution of other HAE attack localizations were similar in patients with and without STAs, and no gender differences were observed. Compared to the patients without STAs, the ratio of patients who stated that their sexual lives were negatively affected and that they lost their sexual desire was higher in patients with STAs. Conclusions: Genital or abdominal attacks triggered by sexual activity may be more common than thought. Sexual activity should also be questioned for evaluating attack triggers. There is a possibility of triggering an attack with the first and ongoing sexual intercourse, and patients should be informed to keep their attack treatment medications ready in advance. Full article

This article examines church–state relations in the early period of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by scrutinising the thoughts and the administration of Chao Tzu-chen—a prominent Chinese Christian leader—at Yenching University’s School of Religion and its successor organisation. This article largely relies on the archives of the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, delving into Chao’s psychological conflicts and the role of the Anglican churches in Chao’s plan for the separation of the School of Religion from the university. It argues that Chao Tzu-chen’s self-contradictions in his public versus private expressions after 1949 signify his disillusionment in fostering the convergence between Christianity and Communism, as demonstrated in his dilemma regarding church–state relations. Although Chao tried to adapt to the new political order by urging Chinese churches to offer practical and concrete social services, he continued his independent, critical theological reflections on the indigenisation of Christianity, as reflected in his private portrayal of the incompatibility between Christianity and Communism, and in his close connection with foreign churches in his fund-raising campaign. Moreover, apart from highlighting the importance of the Hong Kong Anglican church in financially supporting the Yenching School of Religion, this article seeks to contribute to academic research of Chinese higher education in the 1950s through examining how the Chinese Communist Party’s remolding of the School put an end to the emerging public sphere of a civil society. It reveals that this liberal Christian institute, which lost its control over curriculum design and the right to accept foreign funds, was quickly converted into a government-funded, socialist theological college in service of two masters: the Party and the Church. Full article

Background: Sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT), recently renamed cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS), is a set of behavioral symptoms that includes excessive daydreaming, mental confusion and fogginess, being lost in one’s thoughts, and slowed behavior and thinking. Symptoms of SCT show overlap with a broad range of other symptoms such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder inattention, anxiety, and depression, or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). To measure SCT, one of the optimal measures is the Child and Adolescent Behavior Inventory (CABI). Here, we report the psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the CABI Parent Version, including the CABI SCT scale and its subscales. Methods: The participants were the parents of 209 children and adolescents (53.9% girls; ages 8–19 years; M_age = 14.23, SD_age = 2.72). Parents completed the SCT, ADHD inattention (ADHD-IN), ADHD-hyperactivity/impulsivity (ADHD-HI), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), limited prosocial emotions (callous-unemotional (CU) traits), anxiety, depression, social impairment, and academic impairment scales of the Child and Adolescent Behavior Inventory (CABI). Parents also completed four dimensions of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ: emotional problems; conduct problems; peer problems; prosocial behavior), and five dimensions of the Kidscreen questionnaire (physical health; psychological well-being; autonomy and parental well-being; peers and social support; school environment). Results: SCT symptoms demonstrated strong discriminant validity from the ADHD-IN symptoms. SCT showed stronger first-order and unique associations than ADHD-IN with anxiety, depression, and ODD, whereas ADHD-IN showed stronger first-order and unique associations than SCT with ADHD-HI, CU, and social and academic impairment. Further, SCT showed stronger first-order and unique associations than ADHD-IN with more emotional problems, peer problems, and with lower prosocial behavior, as assessed with the SDQ. Higher scores for SCT were associated with lower psychological well-being, autonomy and parental relations, and lower peer and social support, as assessed with the Kidscreen. Higher ADHD-IN scores were associated with lower peer and social support, and a lower school environment. Conclusions: The Farsi version of the CABI–Parent Version has very good psychometric properties for assessing SCT and other dimensions of psychopathology/impairment and replicates the findings from similar studies with children and adolescents from South Korea, Spain, Turkey, and the United States. Accordingly, the present study provides further support of the transcultural validity of the sluggish cognitive tempo construct. Full article

Substantial developments have been established in the past few years for enhancing the performance of brain–computer interface (BCI) based on steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP). The past SSVEP-BCI studies utilized different target frequencies with flashing stimuli in many different applications. However, it is not easy to recognize user’s mental state changes when performing the SSVEP-BCI task. What we could observe was the increasing EEG power of the target frequency from the user’s visual area. BCI user’s cognitive state changes, especially in mental focus state or lost-in-thought state, will affect the BCI performance in sustained usage of SSVEP. Therefore, how to differentiate BCI users’ physiological state through exploring their neural activities changes while performing SSVEP is a key technology for enhancing the BCI performance. In this study, we designed a new BCI experiment which combined working memory task into the flashing targets of SSVEP task using 12 Hz or 30 Hz frequencies. Through exploring the EEG activity changes corresponding to the working memory and SSVEP task performance, we can recognize if the user’s cognitive state is in mental focus or lost-in-thought. Experiment results show that the delta (1–4 Hz), theta (4–7 Hz), and beta (13–30 Hz) EEG activities increased more in mental focus than in lost-in-thought state at the frontal lobe. In addition, the powers of the delta (1–4 Hz), alpha (8–12 Hz), and beta (13–30 Hz) bands increased more in mental focus in comparison with the lost-in-thought state at the occipital lobe. In addition, the average classification performance across subjects for the KNN and the Bayesian network classifiers were observed as 77% to 80%. These results show how mental state changes affect the performance of BCI users. In this work, we developed a new scenario to recognize the user’s cognitive state during performing BCI tasks. These findings can be used as the novel neural markers in future BCI developments. Full article

Most inorganic pigments generally consist of the colouring agents such as hematite (red) or glauconite (green) together with white pigments, including alumosilicates and calcium compounds. This usually leads to a wide colour range dependent on the exact percentage of the colouring agent in the solid mixture. Some inorganic pigments have been in use for thousands of years due to their easy availability and desirable attributes: ochres have been in use since prehistoric times to produce cave and rock paintings, and are still used to this day; terra verde (green earth) first made its appearance in decorations and frescos in the first century B.C. Whether these pigments are used in frescos, cave ornaments or paintings, shortcomings in their particular hue, transparency or fading character very often inspire research towards a better understanding of these physical characteristics. We present a study in which crystal engineering was applied in an attempt to tackle such problems. The solubility of Venetian red ochre and its solid state behaviour at higher temperatures were investigated and compared with similar studies on terra verde. Hot stage microscopy showed that, although the pigment retained its red colour upon heating, some crystallites lost transparency, indicating a phase change. The actual colouring agents hematite and goethite in Venetian red ochre are insoluble in most solvents and solvent mixtures. However, the solvent was found to have a significant effect on the undissolved pigment and other components. The pigment examined in this study was a mixture of microcrystalline powders with smaller quantities of larger crystallites thought to be gypsum. Multi-elemental analysis by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy showed the most abundant elements to be sulphur, calcium, iron, magnesium, silicon and aluminium. Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy indicated the presence of metal oxides, metal carbonates and alumosilicates. Powder X-ray diffraction experiments helped to identify and quantify the proportions of hematite and goethite in four different pigments. Full article