This article serves as an introduction to the special issue on Islam in the Republic of Ireland. The introduction gives a brief overview of previous studies on Islam and Muslims in Ireland and shows their links with the studies published in this issue. Second, it presents in a concise manner the historical development of Islam in Ireland with respect to the increasing numbers of Muslims. As Irelan

Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905) was one of the key thinkers and reformers of modern Islam who has influenced both liberal and fundamentalist Muslims today. 'Abdul-Baha (1844-1921) was the son of Baha'ullah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha'i Faith; a new religion which began as a messianic movement in Shii Islam, before it departed from Islam. Oliver Scharbrodt offers an innovative and radically ne

This article questions certain assumptions on the intellectual history of modern Islam and on one of the most influential modern reform movements, the Salafiyya. By looking at the Sufi origins of one of the main Salafi reformers, it relativizes the notion of an inherent anti-Sufism of this reform movement. The article examines how Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905), the famous Egyptian reformer, conver

Spurred by the degraded forest in the 2022 Chongli Winter Olympic Games area, the Chinese government initiated a national program for mountain forest rehabilitation. We developed a method to assess the quality of mountain forests using an index system composed of stand structure, site conditions, and landscape aesthetics at three criteria levels. The method involves index weights determined by the

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