Despite impressive progress in video generation, existing models remain limited to surface-level plausibility, lacking a coherent and unified understanding of the world. Prior approaches typically incorporate only a single form of world-related knowledge or rely on rigid alignment strategies to introduce additional knowledge. However, aligning the single world knowledge is insufficient to constitute a world model that requires jointly modeling multiple heterogeneous dimensions (e.g., physical commonsense, 3D and temporal consistency). To address this limitation, we introduce \textbf{DreamWorld}, a unified framework that integrates complementary world knowledge into video generators via a \textbf{Joint World Modeling Paradigm}, jointly predicting video pixels and features from foundation models to capture temporal dynamics, spatial geometry, and semantic consistency. However, naively optimizing these heterogeneous objectives can lead to visual instability and temporal flickering. To mitigate this issue, we propose \textit{Consistent Constraint Annealing (CCA)} to progressively regulate world-level constraints during training, and \textit{Multi-Source Inner-Guidance} to enforce learned world priors at inference. Extensive evaluations show that DreamWorld improves world consistency, outperforming Wan2.1 by 2.26 points on VBench. Code will be made publicly available at \href{https://github.com/ABU121111/DreamWorld}{\textcolor{mypink}{\textbf{Github}}}.
World models (WMs) are intended to serve as internal simulators of the real world that enable agents to understand, anticipate, and act upon complex environments. Existing WM benchmarks remain narrowly focused on next-state prediction and visual fidelity, overlooking the richer simulation capabilities required for intelligent behavior. To address this gap, we introduce WR-Arena, a comprehensive benchmark for evaluating WMs along three fundamental dimensions of next world simulation: (i) Action Simulation Fidelity, the ability to interpret and follow semantically meaningful, multi-step instructions and generate diverse counterfactual rollouts; (ii) Long-horizon Forecast, the ability to sustain accurate, coherent, and physically plausible simulations across extended interactions; and (iii) Simulative Reasoning and Planning, the ability to support goal-directed reasoning by simulating, comparing, and selecting among alternative futures in both structured and open-ended environments. We build a task taxonomy and curate diverse datasets designed to probe these capabilities, moving beyond single-turn and perceptual evaluations. Through extensive experiments with state-of-the-art WMs, our results expose a substantial gap between current models and human-level hypothetical reasoning, and establish WR-Arena as both a diagnostic tool and a guideline for advancing next-generation world models capable of robust understanding, forecasting, and purposeful action. The code is available at https://github.com/MBZUAI-IFM/WR-Arena.
The liturgical and juridical regulation of papal funerals is coeval with the existence of the Church. The perspective that the funeral should also promote unity among Christians appeared early on. Later, it became a stage for political encounters. The Second Vatican Council’s understanding of society also permeated papal funerals. The juridical and liturgical regulations were inherently built upon a philosophy of encounter and dialogue, as they conveyed the Church’s social teaching and its commitment to those living on the peripheries of society, regardless of their religious affiliation. This was further supported by the homily at papal funerals, which discussed issues concerning the good of all humanity, based on the teachings of the respective Pope. The funeral rites of the post-conciliar Popes have eminently demonstrated that the burial ceremony serves as a vital bridge between different religions and countries with diverse political systems. That, contrary to Huntington’s central thesis, which is based on the clash of civilizations, the starting point can be dialogue, gestures, and the promotion of peace. The study employed a qualitative methodology, processing and confronting primary and secondary sources, from which conclusions were drawn.
This paper forwards the claim that our early human ancestors had protosacred experiences long before they had languages, architecture, or religions. A mountain may create feelings of awe while a grove in the forest may create feelings of serenity. In some circumstances (and very much dependent on the mental set of the individual), such protosacred experiences may create a sense of ultimacy that may be interpreted by the faithful as a religious experience in terms of their own beliefs. We chart an evolutionary account of the path of human ancestors from experiences of the protosacred to the diversity of religions, with a focus on the emergence of culturally varied architected sacred spaces designed to offer a religious group a sense of shared community and the sacred in the experience of their religion. We argue that the cultural evolution of languages was necessary for this transition. It made our species both <i>Homo quaerens</i> (the humans who ask questions) and <i>Homo narrans</i> (the humans who tell stories), able to ask existential questions and to offer answers that a group could accept. The answers took the form of narratives and scripts for ritual behaviors that could harmonize the community with the world around and beyond it. We suggest that both affordances and atmospheres relate to the aesthetics of space, stressing the atmospheric flow as the performance of various rituals proceeds. This paper offers examples from diverse religions or cosmologies and closes with suggestions for a range of empirical and experimental investigations to address the hypotheses raised herein.
Psychotheology is described as a careful study of how one's mental processes, emotive experiences, and behavioural patterns interact with Biblical truths. The psychotheological approach of Ruth 4:13-17, by focusing on Ruth’s status as a foreigner (the other-outsider), explores about the significance of transformation or movement. The transformation of Ruth as a foreign woman (the other) makes her become a significant figure in Israel (Betlehem). Based on a psychotheological analysis of Ruth’s alienation as a Moabite woman, this article seeks to analyze Israelite inconsistency in order to show hospitality towards “the other” in society. God has commanded the Israelites to embrace “the other” (foreigners). The methodology applied in this study was a qualitative one based on literature review. Therefore, the first stage was to analyze the psychological impact perspective on foreign women in Old Testament (OT) times generally through the story of Ruth (Ruth 4:13-17). The second stage was the hermeneutical process of Ruth 4:13-17 theologically. Through the integration between psychology and theology (psychotheological approach) this study uncovered that openness is the key to embrace “the other” (outsider) and/or “marginalized people”. God Himself always opens and welcomes people who seek refuge in Him. The story of Ruth teaches us all about love, loyalty, and the transformative power of faith in God. It also highpoints Ruth's steadfast commitment to Naomi, and her devotion to God. It also demonstrates for us the surprising ways God can work in unforeseen situations, even for those who are often perceived to be outsiders.
The purpose of this study was to identify the role of interfaith cooperation in Ukraine in strengthening social cohesion, preventing conflicts, and maintaining civil peace in times of war, religious diversity, and humanitarian crises. The study included an analysis of documents, public statements, and initiatives of the key institutions involved in interfaith cooperation at the national and regional levels, as well as a comparative analysis of relevant international practices. The findings of the study confirmed that interfaith cooperation in Ukraine has a clear multi-level structure: at the national level, it is coordinated by the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organisations (UCCRO), which forms the regulatory and moral framework for cooperation, ensuring a unified position of religious communities on issues of peace, human rights, support for internally displaced persons, and humanitarian aid. At the regional level, interfaith cooperation is implemented through a network of local councils and initiatives, including active councils in Lviv, Zakarpattia, Dnipro, and Odesa regions. They coordinate volunteer and educational projects, promote the integration of displaced persons, and the development of interethnic dialogue. The study also analysed the international practices of Northern Ireland, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia, which demonstrated sustainable models of cooperation between Christian denominations in the context of post conflict transformation. The data obtained revealed that interfaith dialogue in Ukraine not only strengthens the humanitarian resilience of society but also helps to build trust between communities. At the same time, a series of barriers were identified, including a lack of legal regulation, limited funding, and fragmented coordination at the local level. The findings of this study can be used to improve state policy in interfaith cooperation, develop innovative mechanisms to support peacekeeping initiatives, and adapt international practices to strengthen interreligious cooperation in Ukraine.
Today, we live in an era full of contradictions and surprises that do not last, nor do they settle into any permanent state. This is evident through the various developments that have produced a new economic, political, media, and cultural concept known as globalization. It is a term that has exhausted many, astonished some, and frightened weaker nations due to its magnitude and diverse manifestations. Globalization has made the world open to all and includes several concepts such as universality, globalism, and the new world order. Globalization, in its new form, originates from the United States, hence some call it "Americanization." Globalization has multiple facets, including the globalization of communication, information, media, economic exchanges, financial trade, cultures, religions, ideas, policies, systems, laws, scientific and technical standards, ecological interactions, and security and military strategies. We are in a flood of information that cannot be understood in a unilateral way.
Planning in modern LLM agents relies on the utilization of LLM as an internal world model, acquired during pretraining. However, existing agent designs fail to effectively assimilate new observations into dynamic updates of the world model. This reliance on the LLM's static internal world model is progressively prone to misalignment with the underlying true state of the world, leading to the generation of divergent and erroneous plans. We introduce a hierarchical agent architecture, CoEx, in which hierarchical state abstraction allows LLM planning to co-evolve with a dynamically updated model of the world. CoEx plans and interacts with the world by using LLM reasoning to orchestrate dynamic plans consisting of subgoals, and its learning mechanism continuously incorporates these subgoal experiences into a persistent world model in the form of a neurosymbolic belief state, comprising textual inferences and code-based symbolic memory. We evaluate our agent across a diverse set of agent scenarios involving rich environments and complex tasks including ALFWorld, PDDL, and Jericho. Our experiments show that CoEx outperforms existing agent paradigms in planning and exploration.
Generative world models are reshaping embodied AI, enabling agents to synthesize realistic 4D driving environments that look convincing but often fail physically or behaviorally. Despite rapid progress, the field still lacks a unified way to assess whether generated worlds preserve geometry, obey physics, or support reliable control. We introduce WorldLens, a full-spectrum benchmark evaluating how well a model builds, understands, and behaves within its generated world. It spans five aspects -- Generation, Reconstruction, Action-Following, Downstream Task, and Human Preference -- jointly covering visual realism, geometric consistency, physical plausibility, and functional reliability. Across these dimensions, no existing world model excels universally: those with strong textures often violate physics, while geometry-stable ones lack behavioral fidelity. To align objective metrics with human judgment, we further construct WorldLens-26K, a large-scale dataset of human-annotated videos with numerical scores and textual rationales, and develop WorldLens-Agent, an evaluation model distilled from these annotations to enable scalable, explainable scoring. Together, the benchmark, dataset, and agent form a unified ecosystem for measuring world fidelity -- standardizing how future models are judged not only by how real they look, but by how real they behave.
While text-to-image (T2I) models can synthesize high-quality images, their performance degrades significantly when prompted with novel or out-of-distribution (OOD) entities due to inherent knowledge cutoffs. We introduce World-To-Image, a novel framework that bridges this gap by empowering T2I generation with agent-driven world knowledge. We design an agent that dynamically searches the web to retrieve images for concepts unknown to the base model. This information is then used to perform multimodal prompt optimization, steering powerful generative backbones toward an accurate synthesis. Critically, our evaluation goes beyond traditional metrics, utilizing modern assessments like LLMGrader and ImageReward to measure true semantic fidelity. Our experiments show that World-To-Image substantially outperforms state-of-the-art methods in both semantic alignment and visual aesthetics, achieving +8.1% improvement in accuracy-to-prompt on our curated NICE benchmark. Our framework achieves these results with high efficiency in less than three iterations, paving the way for T2I systems that can better reflect the ever-changing real world. Our demo code is available here\footnote{https://github.com/mhson-kyle/World-To-Image}.
Marco Molinari, Leonardo Nevali, Saharsha Navani
et al.
Vision Language Action models (VLAs) trained with policy-based reinforcement learning (RL) encode complex behaviors without explicitly modeling environmental dynamics. However, it remains unclear whether VLAs implicitly learn world models, a hallmark of model-based RL. We propose an experimental methodology using embedding arithmetic on state representations to probe whether OpenVLA, the current state of the art in VLAs, contains latent knowledge of state transitions. Specifically, we measure the difference between embeddings of sequential environment states and test whether this transition vector is recoverable from intermediate model activations. Using linear and non linear probes trained on activations across layers, we find statistically significant predictive ability on state transitions exceeding baselines (embeddings), indicating that OpenVLA encodes an internal world model (as opposed to the probes learning the state transitions). We investigate the predictive ability of an earlier checkpoint of OpenVLA, and uncover hints that the world model emerges as training progresses. Finally, we outline a pipeline leveraging Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) to analyze OpenVLA's world model.
Shufan Li, Konstantinos Kallidromitis, Akash Gokul
et al.
World models have shown great utility in improving the task performance of embodied agents. While prior work largely focuses on pixel-space world models, these approaches face practical limitations in GUI settings, where predicting complex visual elements in future states is often difficult. In this work, we explore an alternative formulation of world modeling for GUI agents, where state transitions are described in natural language rather than predicting raw pixels. First, we introduce MobileWorldBench, a benchmark that evaluates the ability of vision-language models (VLMs) to function as world models for mobile GUI agents. Second, we release MobileWorld, a large-scale dataset consisting of 1.4M samples, that significantly improves the world modeling capabilities of VLMs. Finally, we propose a novel framework that integrates VLM world models into the planning framework of mobile agents, demonstrating that semantic world models can directly benefit mobile agents by improving task success rates. The code and dataset is available at https://github.com/jacklishufan/MobileWorld
Elmira Toilybekova, Madina Zhusupbekova, Sholpan Zhumagulova
et al.
Multinationalism and the presence of many different religious groups in the country can be causes of inter-ethnic and inter-confessional conflicts. A tool to help avoid them is the implementation of an effective legislative mechanism. The research aims to investigate the legal foundations of confessional relations in Kazakhstan, including constitutional norms, norms of laws and bylaws, and
the provisions of international acts in the sphere of relations between the state and religion. The system of methods of scientific knowledge of different levels – from the most general methods to special methods of legal science – was used to implement the goal. The study, the model of state-confessional relations of the Republic of Kazakhstan, its basic principles, as well as the existing legal
support of this model were analysed and conducted. The authors concluded that the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan regulating confessional relations partially corresponds to international normative legal instruments regulating freedom of religion. In addition, the study showed that the model of state-confessional relations in force in the Republic of Kazakhstan contributes to the
observance of citizens’ rights to freedom of religion, the prevention of inter-confessional conflicts among religious groups within the country, and the establishment of peace. The practical significance of the results makes it possible to assess the effectiveness of the current mechanism of legislative regulation of confessional relations and to identify the main problems and ways to resolve them.
The woman has a central role in any society. The main role of women could never be denied in ancient cultures. In ancient times, women did not get the status she has today, but religion has played a major role in the current situation and freedom of women. The main religions of the world; Christianity and Islam also speak about women, but there is some difference in the status of women in both. The Quran uplifts the status, but the Bible degrades the status. Such as Eve was found guilty of eating the fruit of the forbidden tree and women were also punished for the sin of Eve till the Day of Judgment. There are other discriminations like women are not given the right to be educated, widows are not allowed to remarry. She also does not have the right to get an inheritance from her parents. On the other hand, the Quran gives her the right of education, inheritance, equality, and pity.
With regard to the assertion of the nature of the world, primitive Buddhism advocates “all phenomena that arise from causes” and opposes the existence of “God” or “Creator”, who created everything in the universe, which is significantly different from monotheistic beliefs such as Brahmanism, Christianity, and Islam and is therefore often called “atheism”. This paper introduces the Buddhist cosmology of Mount Sumeru and the tri-sahasra mahā-sahasra lokadhātu under the perspective of comparative religions and the first human beings who came to this world from the ābhāsvara-deva as recorded in the Buddhist scriptures and explores the question of whether Buddhism is atheistic. It is believed that the key to the debate between Chinese and Western scholars on whether Buddhism is atheistic is the difference in understanding the concept of “God”. Buddhism does not deny the supernatural power of “ghosts and gods”, so its essence is still theism.
Müasir cəmiyyətin aktual mövzularından biri olan depressiv pozuntu bir çoxunun əziyyət çəkdiyi psixoloji xəstəlikdir. Məqaləni yazmaqda əsas məqsədimiz depressiyanın müalicəsində dinin roluna nəzər salmaq və xəstəliyi aradan qaldırmaq yollarını araşdırmaqdır. Mövzumuzun əsas obyekti isə yaş həddindən asılı olmayaraq, depressiyadan əziyyət çəkən şəxslərdir. Müasir zamanda bu psixoloji xəstəliyə tutulan insanların artım sayı müşahidə olunur. Yazımızda depressiyanın tarixinə nəzər salınmışdır. Həmçinin tarixi şəxslərin bu xəstəlik haqqında görüşlərinə də baxış keçirilmişdir. Məqalədə depressiya haqqında, həmçinin onun alt halları sayılan, ana olandan sonrakı dövrün durğunluğu, xəstəlik zamanı yaranan düşkünlük və onun digər təzahür formaları izah edilmişdir.
Qeyd edək ki, yazıda, eləcə də depressiv və bipolyar pozuntu halları haqqında da geniş məlumat verilib. Həmçinin tədqiqatımızda psixoloji halların xüsusiyyətləri, onun yaranma səbəbləri, xəstəliyin gedişatı və bir çox digər məqamlar da araşdırılmışdır. Bu psixoloji xəstəliklərin, eyni zamanda, müasir müalicə metodları da təhlil edilmişdir. Məqalədə müalicə üsulları kimi, klinik, terapevtik, fizioloji və başqa maraqdoğurucu metodlardan bəhs edilmişdir; məsələn: musiqi terapiyası, pastoral terapiya, maqnit dalğası terapiyası və s.
Din – insan həyatının ayrılmaz bir fenomenidir. Məqalədə dinin depressiyaya təsiri haqqında yazılara, araşdırmalara nəzər yetirilib. Depressiyanın müalicəsində din fenomeninin təsiri araşdırılıb, onun psixoloji-fizioloji metodlarla müalicə üsulları izah olunub. Elmi araşdırmalar göstərir ki, dindar şəxslərdə depressiv hallar daha az müşahidə olunur. Psixotrop maddələrə aludə olan şəxslərin müalicəsi zamanı din müsbət təsir göstərir. Din onlara mənəvi dayaq rolunu oynayır, insanı sağlam həyat sürməyə təşviq edir. Bu kimi amillər insan psixologiyasına müsbət iz buraxır.
Religion (General), Philosophy of religion. Psychology of religion. Religion in relation to other subjects
By using an econometric approach this paper looks at the evolution of the world wine industry in the period 1961-2005. A particular stylized fact is the appearance of nontraditional producing and exporting countries of wine from the beginning of the nineties. We show that the success of these new producing and exporting countries can be explained by the importance of the demand from non-producing countries with little or no tradition of wine consumption, relative to the world demand. This stylized fact is consistent with a testable implication of the switching cost literature and to the best of our knowledge this is the first time that this implication is tested.
World models envision potential future states based on various ego actions. They embed extensive knowledge about the driving environment, facilitating safe and scalable autonomous driving. Most existing methods primarily focus on either data generation or the pretraining paradigms of world models. Unlike the aforementioned prior works, we propose Drive-OccWorld, which adapts a vision-centric 4D forecasting world model to end-to-end planning for autonomous driving. Specifically, we first introduce a semantic and motion-conditional normalization in the memory module, which accumulates semantic and dynamic information from historical BEV embeddings. These BEV features are then conveyed to the world decoder for future occupancy and flow forecasting, considering both geometry and spatiotemporal modeling. Additionally, we propose injecting flexible action conditions, such as velocity, steering angle, trajectory, and commands, into the world model to enable controllable generation and facilitate a broader range of downstream applications. Furthermore, we explore integrating the generative capabilities of the 4D world model with end-to-end planning, enabling continuous forecasting of future states and the selection of optimal trajectories using an occupancy-based cost function. Comprehensive experiments conducted on the nuScenes, nuScenes-Occupancy, and Lyft-Level5 datasets illustrate that our method can generate plausible and controllable 4D occupancy, paving the way for advancements in driving world generation and end-to-end planning. Project page: https://drive-occworld.github.io/
Purpose: To better understand the global role of occupational therapists and explore facilitators and barriers impacting user access to high quality, affordable wheeled and seated mobility device (WSMD) provision worldwide. Methods: Mixed-method approach utilizing quantitative findings and qualitative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of a global online survey. Results: A total of 696 occupational therapists from 61 countries completed the survey. Almost 49% had 10 or more years of experience with the provision of WSMDs. WSMD provision had positive, significant associations with attainment of certification (0.000), higher service funding (0.000), higher country income (0.001), standardized training (0.003), continuous professional development (0.004), higher experience (0.004), higher user satisfaction (0.032), custom-made device provision (0.038), higher staff capacity (0.040), and more time working with users (0.050); negative, significant associations were identified with high cost of WSMDs (0.006) and pre-made device provision (0.019). SWOT analysis identified high country income, funding, experience, training, certification from global partners, variety of roles and practice settings, and interdisciplinary teamwork as strengths and opportunities for professional growth, while low country income, lack of time/staff capacity/standardization/support services, and poor access to proper devices were indicated as weaknesses and threats. Conclusion: Occupational therapists are skilled healthcare professionals and provide a variety of WSMD services. Efforts to build collaborative partnerships, enhance access to occupational therapists and funding options, improve service and standards for WMSD service delivery, and promote professional development will help to overcome challenges and facilitate WSMD provision globally. Promoting practices based on best available evidence for WSMD provision worldwide should be prioritized.
The article is devoted to the study of the funeral rite in modern Abkhazian society. For a long time, the ancestors of modern Abkhazians got acquainted with Christianity and Islam, and these world religions have left their mark on the ritual life of Abkhazian society. Despite their influence, it is important for modern Abkhazians to observe not so much religious norms as what they consider their traditional «Abkhazianism», demonstrating some local differences, to which special attention is paid in the article. The article reflects the role of relatives-mourners, whose lamentations during the funeral «make even a stone cry». The concern about the state of the soul of the deceased is also noted, which is manifested because the Abkhazians send belongings together with the deceased, which in their opinion will certainly be useful to him. Some things, it is believed, the deceased requests in a dream, and through them, the connection between the living and the deceased is maintained.
Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology, History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics