Search Results (41)

This article proposes an expanded framework of Professional Noticing (PN) for Sustainability in Higher Education by integrating intermedial semiotics and ecopoetry as pedagogical tools aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Building on the PROMISE project, in which the author participated, the study conceptualises ‘noticing’ as an embodied, multimodal, and ethically inflected process of attending to human and more-than-human sign systems. The article introduces Intermedial Sustainability Noticing (ISN) as an extension of PN that foregrounds ecological awareness, intermedial perception, and cross-cultural interpretation. The study adopts a qualitative case study design based on the implementation of ISN within the Eurasia Foundation Cross-Cultural Partnerships hybrid course at Complutense University of Madrid. Participants included undergraduate students from diverse European and Asian institutions, who engaged in interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogues on sustainability through comparative literature and ecopoetry. In the course, students developed perceptual, interpretive, and ethical awareness of global challenges by emphasising ‘noticing’ and attentional depth while broadening understanding of ecological interdependence. Data were collected through reflective journals, written assignments, multimodal projects, and classroom discussions, and analysed using an interpretive, semiotically informed approach. Findings indicate that ISN fosters enhanced attentional depth, multimodal interpretive skills, and increased ecological awareness, particularly through structured engagement with ecopoetry. The work of Kathleen Jamie is presented here as exemplary of how literary texts can activate perceptual, interpretive, and responsive dimensions of noticing, enabling students to connect textual analysis with sustainability concerns. The article argues that ISN offers a transferable pedagogical model for embedding sustainability competencies within humanities curricula, contributing to Higher Education’s role in fostering ecological literacy, intercultural dialogue, and ethically grounded engagement with global challenges. Full article

This paper presents a lightweight semantic retrieval framework driven by an in-memory knowledge graph (IMKG) to overcome the limitations of traditional keyword matching and the prohibitive hardware costs of deep learning models in digitizing ancient Chinese literature. By extracting structured metadata from canonical texts, we construct a dense, bidirectional graph schema. Diverging from resource-intensive neural architectures, our system abandons heavyweight vector embeddings in favor of a highly optimized, template-based heuristic matching engine natively implemented in Java. This purely symbolic approach ensures deterministic execution, zero-dependency deployment, and seamless operation on standard CPU-only servers. To handle complex historical inquiries, the framework integrates a context-aware dialogue manager for multi-turn anaphora and ellipsis resolution, alongside a synergistic tiered caching mechanism. Extensive evaluations on a benchmark of 13,652 annotated queries demonstrate that the system achieves an exceptional intent recognition accuracy of 97.14%, robust context retention, and ultra-low response latency (≤17 ms). Ultimately, this architecture provides a sustainable, highly reproducible, and cost-effective paradigm for the semantic exploration of classical textual heritage, exceptionally suited for small-to-medium cultural institutions. Full article

This article investigates how women’s relative absence from medieval textual archives can be reconsidered through the study of visual and material culture. Focusing on Mongol and Yuan China and read in relation to The Travels of Marco Polo, it argues that women’s artistic production functioned as a form of embedded counter-archive that preserves traces of participation obscured in narrative sources. Drawing on Black feminist epistemology as a heuristic framework and employing critical fabulation and poetic inquiry as analytical methods, the study interprets silence as a meaningful historical trace rather than a void, and considers silence not as absence but as a structured condition of archival production. Four case studies—Guan Daosheng’s literati bamboo painting, the handscroll tradition associated with Lady Su Hui, imperial phoenix embroidery, and Silk Road textile fragments—demonstrate distinct modes through which women’s presence becomes materially legible: mediated visibility, formal containment, infrastructural anonymity, and circulatory displacement. These “quiet arts” reveal how women’s labour and creativity persisted within and alongside patriarchal inscriptional systems even when textual attribution receded. In dialogue with the shadow silhouettes of contemporary artist Kara Walker, the article further situates these premodern archives within a broader visual language of absence and recovery. Rather than reconstructing lost biographies, it proposes a transdisciplinary method—integrating art history, feminist theory, theology, and poetic inquiry—for reading material culture as a site where historical silence becomes structurally legible. It proposes a transdisciplinary approach that expands art historical methods for interpreting gender, authorship, and archival silence in medieval visual culture. Full article

This article advances a constructive theological account of Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HCAI) for Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) engaged in interreligious dialogue (IRD). Drawing on a practical–theological methodology, the study follows four interrelated steps—descriptive–empirical, interpretive, normative, and pragmatic—to examine how AI-enabled practices such as translation, textual analysis, and cross-scriptural synthesis are reshaping contemporary forms of dialogue among religious and non-religious communities. Through the empirical mapping of current AI applications, interdisciplinary interpretation informed by social and ethical analysis, and normative theological evaluation, the study identifies both the opportunities and risks of AI-mediated IRD. On this basis, it synthesizes three interdependent dimensions that structure the proposed framework: (1) Ethics, which clarifies the moral purpose and values guiding AI use; (2) Technology, which addresses mediation, governance, and power in AI systems; and (3) Humans, which centers institutional responsibility, agency, and sustainability within FBOs. From this synthesis, the article introduces an AI–IRD Integration Framework that translates theological and ethical reflection into practical guidance for responsible AI adoption. The study contributes an original interdisciplinary perspective that equips religious leaders, theologians, policymakers, and faith communities to engage AI not merely as a tool, but as a human-centered partner in fostering inclusive, sustainable, and ethically grounded dialogue in an era of AI–human coexistence. Full article

This article explores Albert the Great’s understanding of human cognition as a hierarchical, semiotic structure, made of light. It examines his response to the question “What is good for man?”, tracing his shift from a moral–theological to an anthropological and epistemological perspective in dialogue with Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, and Arabic sources. Through close textual analysis of his writings on the soul and intellect, the article reconstructs man’s hierarchical constitution and highlights the central role of signs and of the imagery of light and shadows in his understanding of cognition. It argues that, for Albert, each level of apprehension functions as a semiotic link that dynamically leads the human intellect from lower to higher degrees of comprehension, intentionally pointing toward the divine source of all being, understood as light. Albert’s conception of signs, intentionality, and intellectual illumination is shown to anticipate and go beyond later semiotic theories. Consequently, the article proposes that he should be regarded as a “proto-semiotic” thinker whose original anthropological synthesis, centered on epistemology and sign-theory, illuminates the intrinsic role of signs in human perfection and clarifies how words and images can express the cognitive relation between created and uncreated being. Full article

This paper proposes a comparative model of “bidirectional transcendence” in Confucian thought by reading the concept of jing (敬) against two kinds of human finitude: “no-more” of being and “not-yet” of being. Drawing on philological analysis of classical lexemes, close readings of Song–Ming Neo-Confucian texts, and a comparison with Western accounts of religious and philosophical transcendence, I show that jing generates two complementary responses. The first is an outward, historicizing form of transcendence—embodied in “revering Heaven and following ancestors” (jingtian fazu 敬天法祖)—which secures communal meaning and a this-worldly continuity of ethical life in the face of the “no-more.” The second is an inward, realm-oriented transcendence—articulated in “being serious in order to straighten one’s inner life” (jing yi zhi nei 敬以直內)—realized through self-cultivation (gongfu 工夫) and the integration of mind and the principle of Heaven, and oriented toward the “not-yet.” This bidirectional framework reconciles readings that cast Confucianism as either purely ethical or essentially religious, clarifies recurring comparative and translational pitfalls, and offers a concise, textually grounded basis for Sino–Western dialogue about varieties of transcendence and ultimate concern. Full article

The accurate and reliable evaluation of large language models (LLMs) in medical domains is critical for real-world clinical deployment, automated medical reasoning, and patient safety. However, the evaluation process is highly sensitive to prompt design, and prevalent reliance on fixed or randomly sampled prompt policies often fails to dynamically adapt to clinical context, question complexity, or evolving safety requirements. This article presents a novel reinforcement learning-based framework for multi-prompt selection, which dynamically optimizes prompt policy per input for medical LLM evaluation across the Medical Knowledge Question-Answering dataset (MKQA), the Medical Multiple-Choice Question dataset (MCQ), and the Doctor-Patient Dialogue dataset. We formulate prompt selection as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) and employ a deep Q-Network (DQN) agent to maximize a reward signal incorporating textual accuracy, domain terminology coverage, safety, and dialogue relevance. Experiments on three medical LLM benchmarks demonstrate consistent improvements in composite reward (e.g., a 6.66% increase in MKQA vs. Random Baseline, and a 2.41% increase in Dialogue vs. Fixed Baseline) when compared to baselines. This was accompanied by robust enhancements in Safety (e.g., achieving 1.0000 in MKQA, a 5.26% increase vs. Fixed Baseline; and a 5.03% increase in Dialogue vs. Fixed Baseline) and substantial gains in Medical Terminology Coverage (e.g., a 74.61% increase in MKQA vs. Fixed Baseline, and a 9.13% increase in MCQ vs. Fixed Baseline) when compared to baselines. While varying across tasks, an improvement in accuracy was observed in the MKQA task, and the framework effectively optimizes the multi-objective reward function, even when minor trade-offs in other metrics like Accuracy and Contextual Relevance were observed in some contexts. Our framework enables robust, context-aware, and adaptive evaluation, laying a foundation for safer and more reliable LLM application in healthcare. Full article

AI-powered tutors that interact with students in question-answering scenarios using large language models (LLMs) as foundational models for generating responses represent a potential scalable solution to the growing demand for one-to-one tutoring. In fields like mathematics, where students often face difficulties, sometimes leading to frustration, easy-to-use natural language interactions emerge as an alternative for enhancing engagement and providing personalized advice. Despite their promising potential, the challenges for LLM-based tutors in the math domain are twofold. First, the absence of genuine reasoning and generalization abilities in LLMs frequently results in mathematical errors, ranging from inaccurate calculations to flawed reasoning steps and even the appearance of contradictions. Second, the pedagogical capabilities of AI-powered tutors must be examined beyond simple question-answering scenarios since their effectiveness in math tutoring largely depends on their ability to guide students in building mathematical knowledge. In this paper, we present a study exploring the pedagogical aspects of LLM-based tutors through the analysis of their responses in math dialogues using feature extraction techniques applied to textual data. The use of natural language processing (NLP) techniques enables the quantification and characterization of several aspects of pedagogical strategies deployed in the answers, which the literature identifies as essential for engaging students and providing valuable guidance in mathematical problem-solving. The findings of this study have direct practical implications in the design of more effective math AI-powered tutors as they highlight the most salient characteristics of valuable responses and can thus inform the training of LLMs. Full article

Dies Buch gehört dem König (This Book Belongs to the King), written and published in 1843 by the German Romantic author Bettina von Arnim, is a quasi-open letter, presented as a series of fictional dialogues with traces of a novel. Dedicated to the newly crowned King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, the letter unfolds social grievances and aims to persuade Friedrich Wilhelm to act like a just king. Due to its delicate socio-critical impetus, the letter does so through strategies of obfuscation and by using a richly pictorial, seemingly naive and lavish way of speech rather than taking an openly reproachful stance. Crucially, von Arnim does not install herself as the letter’s speaker but instead fictionalizes the letter and presents Goethe’s mother, Catharina Elisabeth Goethe, as the letter’s primary voice (‘Frau Rat’). By using a well-respected figure of the ruling class as the letter’s main voice, von Arnim aimed at minimizing its scandalous potential. But even prior to publishing the letter, von Arnim had already managed to trick Friedrich Wilhelm and the Prussian censors herself: by fusing the book’s title and dedication, she paratextually outwitted both the censors and the King, whose permission she sought precisely to bypass Prussian censorship. This article shows how von Arnim managed to avoid a larger scandal both textually by implementing semi-fictional devices and paratextually by presenting the letter as an affirmation of Friedrich Wilhelm IV and his policies. Full article

Accurate classification of cognitive levels in instructional dialogues is essential for personalized education and intelligent teaching systems. However, most existing methods predominantly rely on static textual features and a shallow semantic analysis. They often overlook dynamic temporal interactions and struggle with class imbalance. To address these limitations, this study proposes a novel framework for cognitive-level classification. This framework integrates time entropy-enhanced dynamics with a dynamically weighted, heterogeneous ensemble strategy. Specifically, we reconstruct the original Multi-turn Classroom Dialogue (MCD) dataset by introducing time entropy to quantify teacher–student speaking balance and semantic richness features based on Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF), resulting in an enhanced MCD-temporal dataset. We then design a Dynamic Weighted Heterogeneous Ensemble (DWHE), which adjusts weights based on the class distribution. Our framework achieves a state-of-the-art macro-F1 score of 0.6236. This study validates the effectiveness of incorporating temporal dynamics and adaptive ensemble learning for robust cognitive level assessment, offering a more powerful tool for educational AI applications. Full article

This paper re-examines Daoist philosophy and practice through a feminist lens, arguing that Daoist cosmology articulates a dynamic ontology of gender grounded in cixiongtongti (雌雄同體, “the body of androgyny”). Drawing on classical and religious texts—including the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, Taishang Laojun Zhongjing, Santian Neijie Jing, and later alchemical writings—it demonstrates how Daoism envisions embodiment as a site of coexistence where masculine and feminine forces mutually generate and transform. Rather than privileging “feminine” values or reversing patriarchal hierarchies, Daoist yinyang metaphysics dissolves the binary itself, redefining equality as interdependence within difference. The study situates Daoism in dialogue with feminist and ecofeminist theories, acknowledging shared anti-dualist impulses while highlighting Daoism’s distinct cosmological grounding in the circulation of qi. Through analysis of textual metaphors and inner-alchemical practices such as male pregnancy and female transformation, the paper shows that Daoist cultivation performatively realizes male-female-co-existence (nannü gongsheng 男女共生) as both a philosophical and embodied principle. In doing so, it reveals Daoist thought as a vital resource for reimagining embodiment beyond essentialism—offering a non-hierarchical, pluralistic model of gender that integrates cosmology, corporeality, and spiritual practice. Full article

This study examines the deconstruction of the Targum to Song of Songs, focusing on how binary oppositions and traditional interpretive frameworks are both challenged and reconfigured. While the targumists aim to prevent a potentially ‘sinful reading’ of the text, their interventions paradoxically recreate the possibility of a reading that could be considered ‘sinful’. They break down the boundaries between the spiritual and the physical, and question the identity, number, and gender of the participants in the love relationship. In the Targum, the classical narrative structure is also deconstructed. Chronology and causality yield to traditional memory and consciousness, producing a repetitive, fragmented, mosaic-like pattern unlike conventional narratives. Moreover, a semantic layer already shaped by context and in dialogue with the meaning of the textual antecedent enters the interpretive horizon of tradition, reinforcing the prominence of ambiguity—similarly to the base poetic text. The targumic deconstruction illuminates the relativity of concepts and meanings and highlights the flexible interpretive possibilities inherent in tradition. It not only liberates the conceptions within the text but also frees the reader from constraints imposed by binary hierarchies of value. The conceptual liberation leads to the realization that God and the relationship with God cannot be approached or described in earthly terms. Full article

This article examines the Qurʾānic portrayal of Jesus (ʿĪsā al-Masīḥ) and the naṣārā in comparison with Samaritan and Nazarene/Ebionite profiles, situating them within the Arabicised debatespace of Late Antiquity and early Islam. Building on recent studies of Qurʾānic Christology and interconfessional exchange as well as Macdonald’s work on Samaritan theology and Thomas’s research on Christian–Muslim polemic, the study argues that overlaps in prophetology, law-centred piety, and divine transcendence reflect shared category availability rather than genealogical dependence. Methodologically, the analysis combines close readings of Qurʾānic passages (e.g., Q 4:171; 5:72–75; 4:157) with textual variants from the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), the Septuagint (LXX), and the Masoretic Text (MT), alongside patristic notices of Jewish–Christian groups. Evidence from Sinai Arabic MS 154, an early Christian apologetic treatise preserved at St Catherine’s Monastery, illustrates how Arabic-speaking Christians engaged Qurʾānic categories in staged dialogue. The findings clarify where conceptual overlaps (titles, law, divine unity) coexisted with decisive non-overlaps (worship, sonship, atonement), showing that the Qurʾān’s Christology participated in a common discursive field while maintaining distinct theological boundaries. On this basis, the article proposes a historically grounded “Bridge-First” model for Muslim–Christian dialogue, beginning with Qurʾān-affirmed titles for Jesus and advancing toward contested claims in sequence. Full article

This article explores the concept of textuality as embedded within contemporary architecture, understood as the capacity of buildings to generate meanings, narratives, and interpretations that transcend their physical and functional dimensions. An interdisciplinary approach is adopted, integrating architectural theory, semiotics, hermeneutics, and cultural studies, positioning architecture as a form of symbolic production deeply intertwined with current social and technological contexts. The primary aim is to demonstrate how certain paradigmatic buildings operate as open texts that engage in dialogue with their users, urban surroundings, and cultural frameworks. The methodology combines theoretical analysis with an in-depth study of three emblematic cases: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Seattle Public Library. The findings reveal that these buildings articulate multiple layers of meaning, fostering rich and participatory interpretive experiences that influence both the perception and construction of public space. The study concludes that contemporary architecture functions as a narrative and symbolic device that actively contributes to the shaping of collective imaginaries. The article also identifies the study’s limitations and proposes future research directions concerning architectural textuality within the context of emerging digital technologies. Full article

The work Xingli zhenquan tigang (Sing lii jen ciyan bithei hešen) was written in Chinese and Manchu by the French Jesuit Alexandre de la Charme (1695–1767) and published in Beijing in 1753. The first two sections of this paper provide an introduction to de la Charme’s work biography and to further textual and historical contexts, explore the peculiarities of the subsequent early German reception of the work almost 90 years later, and introduce the content from an overview perspective. The third section explores the most essential contents of Book 1 (of 3) of the Manchu version. The investigation is based on Hans Conon von der Gabelentz’s (1807–1874) German translation from 1840. Camouflaged as a Confucian educational dialogue, and by blurring his true identity in his publication, de la Charme criticizes Neo-Confucian positions from an implicitly Cartesian and hidden Christian perspective, tacitly blending Cartesian views with traditional Chinese concepts. In addition, he alludes to Manchu shamanic views in the same regard. De la Charme’s assimilating rhetoric “triangulation” of three different cultural and linguistic horizons of thought and spirituality proves that later Jesuit scholarship reached out into the inherent ethnic and spiritual diversity of the Qing intellectual and political elites. Hidden allusions to Descartes’s dualistic concepts of res cogitans and res extensa implicitly anticipate the beginnings of China’s intellectual modernization period one and a half centuries later. This work also provides an example of how the exchange of intellectual and religious elements persisted despite the Rites Controversy and demonstrates how the fading Jesuit mission influenced early German sinology. I believe that this previously underexplored work is significant in both systematic and historical respects. It is particularly relevant in the context of current comparative research fields, as well as transcultural and interreligious intellectual dialogue in East Asia and around the world. Full article