Paradigm Change Research Articles

RECONCILIATION AND ISLAMISATION: A ROADMAP FOR AN ISLAMIC INTELLECTUAL REVIVAL

The Muslim world produced one of the greatest intellectual revolutions in history. Since the Colonial Period, the effort to bring about a global Islamic Revival has been a much sought after project for Muslim intellectuals worldwide. This paper studies the core principles that were instrumental in building the Islamic Intellectual Revolution (8th-18th Century CE). These core principles are identified as the centrality of the Qur’an in all intellectual discourse, a broad epistemological landscape and the unity of the sacred and secular sciences. This paper explores how returning to the same methodology can lead to an Islamic intellectual revival. The Qur’an identifies eight valid epistemic sources apart from itself while declaring itself as the Furqan (Criterion) to judge their validity. These include Sunnah, human intellect (‘Aql and Qiyas), Ijma’ (consensus), intuition (Basira), the physical universe, history, and certain knowledge from other civilisations. It is the duty of the scholars to work towards an integration of knowledge derived from these different sources and thus ‘Islamise’ them. This paper identifies the core reasons for the present intellectual crisis to as being rooted in an ignorance of the broad epistemological landscape of Islam. The Qur’an anticipates how a better understanding of the self and the cosmos will lead to a validation of the truth of the Qur’an in the future (41:53). Contemporary scientific discourse has uncovered important perspectives related to these two domains, presenting a good opportunity for Muslim intellectuals to study them in the light of Islamic thought. It is argued that science today needs a new philosophical paradigm as breakthroughs in physics and cosmology have made the current mechanistic and deterministic philosophy of science obsolete. This paper discusses how a new Islamic philosophy of science that rests on the Kalām and Sufi view of the universe and consciousness is one of the best contenders for this change in paradigm. Developments in Quantum Physics, Fine Tuned Cosmology, and the Hard Problem of Consciousness are taken as case studies to propose solutions from Islamic thought to conundrums related to them. Thus, a practical guide to the Islamisation of the fields of cosmology, physics, biology, and neuropsychology is proposed and it is argued that this approach will inevitably revitalise Muslim thought, reconcile physical sciences with it and thus has the potential to bring about an intellectual revival in the Ummah.

Industry influence on public health policy formulation in the UK: a complex systems approach.

Unhealthy commodity industries (UCIs) such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, ultra-processed food and beverage producers are known to influence policy-making to advance their interests, often to the detriment of public health goals. This study mapped the complex system underpinning UCI's influence on public health policy formulation in the UK and identified potential interventions to shift the system towards being able to better attain public health goals. We conducted a participatory systems mapping workshop with ten experts to build a causal loop diagram (CLD) and identify potential interventions to address UCI's influence on public health policy development. The resulting CLD depicts a highly interconnected and reinforcing system driving UCI's involvement in public health policy formulation across five thematic areas. Among the most connected elements were the 'dominance of market mechanisms', 'perception of partnership as good governance principle', 'industry involvement lending perceived legitimacy to the policy formulation process', 'industry is seen as part of the solution' and 'industry ties to policy-makers'. Participants identified a total of 22 interventions within this system. Analysis of the CLD and interventions identified the potential for two key paradigmatic changes in this complex system: de-normalizing the perception of unhealthy commodity industry actors as legitimate stakeholders in policy formulation; and prioritizing public health and wellbeing objectives over profit and economic gain. In order to shift the system towards better attaining public health goals, interventions should reinforce each other and be supportive of these two key paradigmatic shifts.

Mask2Anomaly: Mask Transformer for Universal Open-Set Segmentation.

Segmenting unknown or anomalous object instances is a critical task in autonomous driving applications, and it is approached traditionally as a per-pixel classification problem. However, reasoning individually about each pixel without considering their contextual semantics results in high uncertainty around the objects' boundaries and numerous false positives. We propose a paradigm change by shifting from a per-pixel classification to a mask classification. Our mask-based method, Mask2Anomaly, demonstrates the feasibility of integrating a mask-classification architecture to jointly address anomaly segmentation, open-set semantic segmentation, and open-set panoptic segmentation. Mask2Anomaly includes several technical novelties that are designed to improve the detection of anomalies/unknown objects: i) a global masked attention module to focus individually on the foreground and background regions; ii) a mask contrastive learning that maximizes the margin between an anomaly and known classes; iii) a mask refinement solution to reduce false positives; and iv) a novel approach to mine unknown instances based on the mask- architecture properties. By comprehensive qualitative and qualitative evaluation, we show Mask2Anomaly achieves new state-of-the-art results across the benchmarks of anomaly segmentation, open-set semantic segmentation, and open-set panoptic segmentation.

Urban energy efficiency: A path towards sustainable futures in the age of energy transition

As cities are faced with increasing resource and environmental problems, sustainable urban growth is progressively becoming dependent on enhancing Green Financial Performance (GFP). Although China's new energy transition program represents an exciting paradigm change in the field of green energy, there needs to be more analysis on its impact on environmentally responsive economic development. This study evaluates the GFP of 255 Chinese cities using the non-radial distance's role approach, using city level panel data from 2005 to 2021. Based on the analysis, the results are then utilized to give quasi-experimental observations about the impact of the New Energy Demonstration City (NEDC) policy on urban GFP. China's NEDC policy has been shown to enhance green economic growth in urban areas, with 2% greater GFP in demonstration cities. This approach promotes sustainability using eco-finance, technology, and industry, although its effects differ depending on geography and available resources. The results remain stable, even after extensive robustness testing. According to a heterogeneity study, GFP of the central and western region, along with non-resource cities are more strongly impacted by the NEDC policy. Analysis of the policy's underlying mechanisms reveals that progress in technical innovation, upgrading industries and development of green finance are the primary forces behind the policy's beneficial effects. The NEDC policy can strike a good balance between environmental and economic nexus, thereby becoming a model for sustainable urban development.

Can 3D-printed flow electrode gaskets replace CNC-milled graphite current collectors in flow capacitive deionization?

As billions of people suffer from water scarcity, finding sustainable water resources is imperative. Flow capacitive deionization (FCDI) is a highly promising desalination process that can produce clean water from saline streams such as brackish and seawater. Conventional FCDI systems employ Computerised Numerical Control (CNC)-milled graphite plates that serve as current collectors and flow electrode channels. However, they have drawbacks such as high manufacturing costs, waste generation, and the difficulty of producing complex geometries required for efficient flow electrode mixing. Here, we successfully demonstrate that 3D-printed flow electrode gaskets, made of non-conductive polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PET-G) or a carbon black-infused conductive polylactic acid (PLA), are viable alternatives to traditional graphite plates. In specific cases, the desalination and energy efficiency in FCDI cells with 3D-printed conductive gaskets were even 25 % and 10 % higher, respectively, compared to traditional CNC-milled current collectors. The transition to 3D printing offers notable benefits, such as the competence to fabricate complex designs that enhance internal mixing and charge percolation. This innovation represents a change of paradigm in the way FCDI cells should be designed and manufactured, using additive manufacturing, which represents an efficient, scalable, and cost-effective substitute for the conventional approach, contributing therefore for the advancement of FCDI desalination technology.

Change of paradigm in EU environmental law: is the climate crisis now “overriding” the biodiversity crisis?

Change of paradigm in EU environmental law: is the climate crisis now “overriding” the biodiversity crisis?

The Ripple Effect: How Chaos Theory can Transform Education

Background: The education atmosphere in a class could influence students’ attitude and their understanding and willingness to collaborate in a class. Chaos has a different meaning for different students and lecturers. Sometimes this same chaos could be the best possible paradigm or teaching strategy to influence students to have a deeper understanding of the work. The use of chaos theory in higher education could allow for a different way in which students view information and how they engage and collaborate in the class. Focus: In this research the use of chaos theory in Higher Education Institutions classrooms was researched to be able to answer the following research question: How do students and lecturers perceive the impact of chaos theory on fostering deeper learning and critical thinking in academic settings? Methodology: A qualitative research design was followed to determine how students experienced this approach of teaching, and the experience from the lectures who apply this theory and method of teaching in the class. A case study design was followed to discover how the method is implemented in class and students used an open-ended questionnaire to explain their experience. The lecturers involved also filled in an open-ended questionnaire to explain the difference between the normal teaching strategy they used in their classes in relation to the chaos theory. Purposive sampling was used to determine who will be part of the study. Only lecturers who were willing to test the results regarding the chaos theory were asked to take part in the study. Results and implications: A paradigm change could contribute to deeper learning. The way lecturers approach this theory in the classroom contributed to a new approach of lecturing to use in the classroom to ensure students gain deeper learning in a different way than before. Students experience the situation differently and from the case study it was clear that lectures and students explain that this method of discovering and exploring need to be develop more in classrooms and students need to get the opportunity to be exposed to this method of lecturing. In the light of this, a recommendation to lecturers will be to explore this method of instruction and allow students to discover information in a different method. Keywords: Chaos theory, Deeper Understanding, Teaching Strategies, Students Attitude & Education Atmosphere.

How Should we Teach Medicinal Chemistry in Higher Education to Prepare Students for a Future Career as Medicinal Chemists and Drug Designers? - A Teacher's Perspective.

In the recent two decades, the multidisciplinary field of medicinal chemistry has undergone several conceptual and technology-driven paradigm changes with significant impact on the skill set medicinal chemists need to acquire during their education. Considering the need for academic medicinal chemistry teaching, this article aims at identifying important skills, competences, and basic knowledge as general learning outcomes based on an analysis of the relevant stakeholders and concludes effective teaching strategies preparing students for a future career as medicinal chemists and drug designers.

Parafoveal N400 effects reveal that word skipping is associated with deeper lexical processing in the presence of context-driven expectations.

Readers are able to begin processing upcoming words before directly fixating them, and in some cases skip words altogether (i.e., never fixated). However, the exact mechanisms and recognition thresholds underlying skipping decisions are not entirely clear. In the current study, we test whether skipping decisions reflect instances of more extensive lexical processing by recording neural language processing (via electroencephalography; EEG) and eye movements simultaneously, and we split trials based on target word-skipping behavior. To test lexical processing of the words, we manipulated the orthographic and phonological relationship between upcoming preview words and a semantically correct (and in some cases, expected) target word using the gaze-contingent display change paradigm. We also manipulated the constraint of the sentences to investigate the extent to which the identification of sublexical features of words depends on a reader's expectations. We extracted fixation-related brain potentials (FRPs) during the fixation on the preceding word (i.e., in response to parafoveal viewing of the manipulated previews). We found that word skipping is associated with larger neural responses (i.e., N400 amplitudes) to semantically incongruous words that did not share a phonological representation with the correct word, and this effect was only observed in high-constraint sentences. These findings suggest that word skipping can be reflective of more extensive linguistic processing, but in the absence of expectations, word skipping may occur based on less fine-grained linguistic processing and be more reflective of identification of plausible or expected sublexical features rather than higher-level lexical processing (e.g., semantic access).

Abstract IA016: Vascular control of metastasis

Abstract The molecular analysis of tumor vessel interactions during tumor progression and metastasis has primarily focused on the study of tumor cell-derived angiogenic and lymphangiogenic signals with the purpose to exploit such factors as therapeutic targets. Angiogenic factors activate endothelial cells in nearby blood and lymphatic capillaries to sprout towards the tumor. Tumor angiogenesis thereby not only nourishes the growing tumor, but access to the blood and lymphatic vasculatures enables cells from the primary tumor to enter the circulation to eventually form metastases at distant sites. The complex cellular interactions between tumor cells and endothelial cells have in this context mostly been studied from a tumor cell-centric perspective, i.e., the tumor cells send signals to which endothelial cells merely respond. Yet, the past decade has witnessed a fundamental change of paradigm with the discovery that the vascular endothelium does not just respond to exogenous cytokines but exerts active ’angiocrine’ gatekeeper roles controlling their microenvironment in an instructive manner. We have applied the concepts of angiocrine signaling towards the study of tumor progression and metastasis. Employing novel surgical preclinical metastasis models that better mimic tumor progression and the response to therapy as it occurs in humans, we have molecularly dissected vascular endothelial cells in progressing primary tumors as well as in the pre-metastatic and metastatic niches. These experiments were on the one hand aimed at establishing the systems map of endothelial transcriptomic changes during tumor progression and metastasis and on the other hand to identify and validate novel therapeutic targets. This presentation will review recent advances in the field of tumor microenvironment research and present novel angiocrine signaling mechanisms as promising targets of future mechanism-driven anti-metastatic therapy. Citation Format: Hellmut G. Augustin. Vascular control of metastasis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: Tumor-body Interactions: The Roles of Micro- and Macroenvironment in Cancer; 2024 Nov 17-20; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(22_Suppl):Abstract nr IA016.

The Integrative Single-Case Design as a Biosemiotic-Systemic Research Tool in Psychoneuroimmunology.

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a field of research that deals with the interactions between psyche, nervous, endocrine, and immune systems. Investigating these complex PNI relationships under asecologically validas possible conditions ("life as it is lived") necessitates a paradigm change in research. This shift placesfactors such as "time" and "subjective meaning" of personal experiences at the center of the research methodology. For this purpose, the biosemiotic-systemic research design "Integrative Single-Case Study" was developed. Initial results from healthy individuals as well as patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), breast cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis(RA) support the validity of the research approach. Specifically, in connection with the occurrence ofemotionally meaningful everyday incidents, we repeatedlyobserved stress system reactions, which were(1) delayed over several days, (2) cyclically patterned, (3) anticipatory, and (4) opposing, depending on a)whether participants experienced emotionally positive or negative everyday incidents, b)whether they were healthy or ill, and c)which stress system parameter was investigated. In this chapter, the Integrative Single-Case Study design is introduced as a holistic research option, presented in detail in its methodology, and critically discussed in terms of its limitations.

Digital Risk Management: A Study of How Firms Mitigate Digital Risks and Threats

The banking industry has seen a sharp rise in the use of AI services over the last ten years, which has improved client satisfaction and efficiency. The machine learning (ML), one of artificial intelligence's primary building blocks, has caused a paradigm change in the banking services sector. Every new technology that is introduced carries with it new threats. Finding such hazards is only the first step; you also need to analyse, evaluate, treat, regulate, and keep an eye on them. Risk is characterised by three elements: the possibility of loss, the unpredictability of the result, and the necessity of making a decision. According to this concept, a risk management strategy should be divided into three stages to address risks: planning ahead, carrying out risk management tasks, and maintaining and enhancing risk management. The first two stages could appear self-evident. But it's critical to recognise that risk management is a continuous process that requires constant attention. Continuous risk management is intended to avert issues, enhance product quality, make better use of available resources, and foster teamwork.

A Methodical Review of Intranasal Delivery of Nanocarriers for the Treatment of Glioblastoma: An Emerging Therapeutic Option

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is responsible for about half of all primary malignant tumors in the central nervous system (CNS). Nanotechnology and nanocarrier-based drug delivery may prove to be an asset in the ongoing fight against the difficulties associated with treating GBM. Obstacles to effective drug delivery in GBM treatment include prolonged blood circulation, sufficient BBB transit, effective internalization, and controlled drug release within GBM cells. By virtue of the non-specific and non-targeted character of anti-tumor medicines, the efficiency of medication delivery to gliomas is still impoverished. Glioma diagnosis and therapy have undergone a paradigm change solely because of nanotechnology. The highly invasive nature of this malignant glioma makes surgical resection a challenging procedure, and the current approved standard of care—follow-up radiation therapy with concurrent temozolomide (TMZ)—will only prolong the lifespan of patients by a few months. Drug delivery nanosystems (DDNSs) have garnered attention in the treatment of cancer, particularly gastrointestinal cancer, according to recent studies. This is because DDNPs have proven to be effective substitutes for conventional formulations currently on the market, in addition to optimizing the delivery of drugs to neoplastic cells, ameliorating the profile of toxicity and unfavorable effects, and reducing the overall harmful effects of formulations that include antineoplastic agents. Specifically, nanocarriers have proven to have an exceptional ability to get over the difficulties to achieve drug accumulation in the brain without going through the system delivering by IN route. Pre-clinical research on polymeric nanocarriers for treating GBM is ongoing, with few drug delivery systems entering clinical trials. This study examines nanoparticle forms, and brain tumor statistics, and summaries the diagnosis and treatment of GBM utilizing nanotechnology.

DA SENZALA À ACADEMIA UNIVERSITÁRIA

This article will discuss the transition from "slave quarters" to "university academy", analyzing the persistent inequalities, prejudices and racism faced by black people in Brazil in the context of higher education. Despite the paradigmatic changes that have occurred over time, academia still reflects structures of exclusion and privilege, often masked by the idea of neutrality and meritocracy. The research seeks to demonstrate what it was like during slavery, how slave quarters worked, what they were like. What happened after slavery was abolished, what were the consequences after abolition. What were the measures adopted after the slave quarters doors were opened so that slaves could experience their freedoms? If the applications of affirmative actions are managing to fulfill their social function, if the government has adopted measures so that affirmative actions continue to be implemented in society. By exploring the historical roots of these inequalities, the study contextualizes contemporary challenges and proposes the need to reformulate educational policies to promote true inclusion and diversity in academic institutions, aligning with the principles and objectives of a free, fair and egalitarian society, as established by the Federal Constitution of 1988.

THE PROCESS OF ALIENATION OF COMMUNICATION IN CONSUMER SOCIETY: A LOOK AT THE CONSEQUENCES FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

The process of communication alienation in consumer society reveals a growing disconnect between individuals and the impact of their consumption habits on the environment. In this context, communication acts as an instrument that perpetuates consumerist values ​​and practices, often ignoring the environmental consequences. Advertising and media discourse promote an idealized view of consumption, where success and happiness are linked to the acquisition of goods and services. This phenomenon contributes to public alienation, discouraging reflection on the ecological impacts of everyday actions. The illusion of abundance and planned obsolescence reinforce the idea that natural resources are infinite, distancing consumers from sustainable practices. A critical analysis of this communication alienation allows us to understand how society is conditioned to consume without considering environmental damage, reinforcing the need for communication that promotes awareness and ecological responsibility. This study suggests that a change in the communication paradigm can reverse the situation of alienation and promote more conscious and sustainable consumption.

Comparative evaluation of methods for the prediction of protein–ligand binding sites

The accurate identification of protein–ligand binding sites is of critical importance in understanding and modulating protein function. Accordingly, ligand binding site prediction has remained a research focus for over three decades with over 50 methods developed and a change of paradigm from geometry-based to machine learning. In this work, we collate 13 ligand binding site predictors, spanning 30 years, focusing on the latest machine learning-based methods such as VN-EGNN, IF-SitePred, GrASP, PUResNet, and DeepPocket and compare them to the established P2Rank, PRANK and fpocket and earlier methods like PocketFinder, Ligsite and Surfnet. We benchmark the methods against the human subset of our new curated reference dataset, LIGYSIS. LIGYSIS is a comprehensive protein–ligand complex dataset comprising 30,000 proteins with bound ligands which aggregates biologically relevant unique protein–ligand interfaces across biological units of multiple structures from the same protein. LIGYSIS is an improvement for testing methods over earlier datasets like sc-PDB, PDBbind, binding MOAD, COACH420 and HOLO4K which either include 1:1 protein–ligand complexes or consider asymmetric units. Re-scoring of fpocket predictions by PRANK and DeepPocket display the highest recall (60%) whilst IF-SitePred presents the lowest recall (39%). We demonstrate the detrimental effect that redundant prediction of binding sites has on performance as well as the beneficial impact of stronger pocket scoring schemes, with improvements up to 14% in recall (IF-SitePred) and 30% in precision (Surfnet). Finally, we propose top-N+2 recall as the universal benchmark metric for ligand binding site prediction and urge authors to share not only the source code of their methods, but also of their benchmark.Scientific contributionsThis study conducts the largest benchmark of ligand binding site prediction methods to date, comparing 13 original methods and 15 variants using 10 informative metrics. The LIGYSIS dataset is introduced, which aggregates biologically relevant protein–ligand interfaces across multiple structures of the same protein. The study highlights the detrimental effect of redundant binding site prediction and demonstrates significant improvement in recall and precision through stronger scoring schemes. Finally, top-N+2 recall is proposed as a universal benchmark metric for ligand binding site prediction, with a recommendation for open-source sharing of both methods and benchmarks.

Modelling of dislocations pile-ups at crack tip. Application to silicon

ABSTRACT The mechanical analysis of plastic zones at crack tip has progressed very little since the publication of the founding BCS model, 60 years ago. This two-dimensional model, and those that followed, consider the plastic zone as a pile-up of dislocations of one sign only. They assume that the crack absorbs the part of the dislocation loop of the opposite sign. Here the real three-dimensional problem is addressed and we demonstrate that the crack front behaves as an obstacle. This change of paradigm requires the plastic zone to be modelled as a two-sign dislocation pile-up. The model fits well with experimental observations in bulk silicon. In addition, the presence of dislocations of opposite signs completely modifies the amplitude of crack shielding. The closer the dislocation is to the crack front, the more significant the effect. Therefore, the increase in toughness observed experimentally is linked to the part of the loop attached to the crack front, and not to the expanding part of the loop. This conclusion is in direct contradiction to that provided by previous models.

Designing Culturally Competent Clinical Decision Support Systems to Reduce Health Disparities in Underserved Populations

Income inequality is associated with poor health. Both the cost of medical care and the utilization of services vary. The high expense of health care pushes a significant portion of Indian households into poverty. The surroundings in which people live, grow, work, and interact with one another are known as social determinants, and they have a big influence on people's well-being which can be reduced by computerized clinical decision support systems. In today's healthcare, computerized clinical decision support systems, or CDSS, represent a paradigm change. Clinicians can use CDSS to support them in making complicated decisions. Rapid advancements have been made in CDSS since they were used in the 1980s. Due to the growing worldwide usage of advanced electronic medical records, they are frequently administered using computerized clinical processes and electronic medical records.

Paradigm change in architectural education

Reflections on the topic of paradigm shifts in architectural education. The dependence of various trends in obtaining the profession of an architect on philosophical, socio-political and mental factors. Understanding the coexistence of bio-techno-sociocentric trends in modern architectural education taking place against the backdrop of active digitalization.

Pre and Probiotics to Postbiotics: A Changing Paradigm

The relationship between microbiota and human health has long been stated by Hippocrates said, “Death sits in the bowls” in 400 B.C. With recent scientific advance ments, there is a growing understanding of the significance of microbiota in health and disease. The two-way communication between the host and the microbiota involves the production of various metabolites that play crucial roles in host energy metabolism, influence nervous system function and the gut- brain axis, immune maturation and homeostasis, maintenance of mucosal integrity, treatment of metabolic disorders, anti-obesity, cholesterol lowering, antioxidant, anticancer, antiproliferative and anti-inflammatory properties. Postbiotics are inanimate microorganisms or their compounds, including short-chain fatty acids, exopolysaccharides, vitamins, teichoic acids, bacteriocins, enzymes and peptides that provide health benefits to the host. Postbiotics can be stored under normal environmental conditions, have a prolonged shelf life, easy to transport, and handle and overcome the limitations of probiotic use. As a result, postbiotics have immense potential as a safe and effective means of promoting health and well-being.