Chemicals are embedded in nearly every aspect of modern society, yet their production poses substantial sustainability concerns. Achieving a sustainable chemical industry requires detailed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); however, current assessments face many unknowns due to limited, partly inconsistent, and untransparent data coverage since existing Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) databases account for only a tiny fraction of traded chemicals. Here, we introduce the Chemical RetrosYnthesiS for Transparent Assessment of Life-cycles (CRYSTAL) framework, which automatically generates consistent and transparent LCI data for organic chemicals based on their molecular structure using retrosynthesis and machine-learned gate-to-gate inventories. Using the predictive power of CRYSTAL, we create a consistent database for more than 70000 organic chemicals, comprising over 110000 transparent LCI datasets that quantify both feedstock and energy demands, together with associated auxiliary materials, biosphere flows, and waste flows. From this comprehensive database, we identify 50 key environmental hotspots driving high impacts of organic chemical production across multiple environmental categories and pivotal hub chemicals that are most critical for downstream chemical production. In providing this comprehensive data foundation, the CRYSTAL framework offers systematic guidance for targeted engineering and policy interventions. Its transparent, modular nature is designed to shift chemical LCA from a reliance on "unknown unknowns" to a collaboratively improvable mapping of "known unknowns".
People's identities change during life transitions, e.g., studying abroad. They bring everyday objects that embody memories and reflect their identities during such moves. To assist in these transitions, we ask how people's human identities could be influenced by their objects through an artificial agent. This paper presents an exploratory research-through-design study around how people undergoing life transitions experience conversing with their everyday objects through a chatbot. Drawing on a two-week field deployment and interviews with 12 participants, we contribute (1) a conceptualization of 'trans-embodiment' describing the asynchronous imagination of object and human identities on the chatbot, (2) empirical evidence of the resulting emotional and reflective experiences, and (3) three types of object identities for designing conversational agents that role-play objects. Our contributions sum up to triangulating human-agent-object identity as trans-embodiment in supporting life transitions.
Life trajectories of notable people convey essential messages for human dynamics research. These trajectories consist of (\textit{person, time, location, activity type}) tuples recording when and where a person was born, went to school, started a job, or fought in a war. However, current studies only cover limited activity types such as births and deaths, lacking large-scale fine-grained trajectories. Using a tool that extracts (\textit{person, time, location}) triples from Wikipedia, we formulate the problem of classifying these triples into 24 carefully-defined types using textual context as complementary information. The challenge is that triple entities are often scattered in noisy contexts. We use syntactic graphs to bring triple entities and relevant information closer, fusing them with text embeddings to classify life trajectory activities. Since Wikipedia text quality varies, we use LLMs to refine the text for more standardized syntactic graphs. Our framework achieves 84.5\% accuracy, surpassing baselines. We construct the largest fine-grained life trajectory dataset with 3.8 million labeled activities for 589,193 individuals spanning 3 centuries. In the end, we showcase how these trajectories can support grand narratives of human dynamics across time and space. Code/data are publicly available.
This article explores Paul’s missional strategy as a means of addressing the decline of the Reformed Churches in South African cities. Since 1994, there has been a scholarly outcry regarding the inward focus, decline and demise of established Church denominations – particularly within South African cities. Over 100 Reformed local congregations have merged, with some continuing to experience decline and even death within the Reformed Church in South Africa (RCSA) as in other mainline protestant churches like the Presbyterians, Congregational, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, et cetera. Scholars have identified an identity crisis and a lack of spiritual zeal in engaging with God’s mission in the world, especially in the multicultural context of South African cities. This raises the question: What strategies are necessary to revitalise the urban gospel witness revealed in the Bible? From the missio Dei perspective, this article evaluates Paul’s missional strategy based on Acts 17, using 10 ‘C’ acronyms: Christ-centred commission, City-centred compass, Courage-capacitated conviction, Companionship-cooperative contacts, Core-content communication, Convinced Christian converts, Cell-group and household churches, Conflict-causing critics, Context-concentrated challenge, and Comprehensive concluding charisma. The article concludes with a reflection on these insights.
Contribution: This article contributes by uncovering the city as a platform and opportunity granted by God to individual Christians and the church collectively, enabling them to apply their God-given biblical and missional strategies. These are essential not only for an introspective witness addressing historical amnesia and the loss of missional identity but also for an intensive and extensive witness to the polarised communities of South Africa and beyond.
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life
African Biblical Hermeneutics (ABH) is proliferating in and outside of Africa. ABH is concerned with making Bible interpretation Afrocentric rather than Eurocentric. ABH is not a monolith, however. There are various kinds of ABH approaches practiced by Africans. Many of the approaches that fall under ABH have a high view of Scripture while at the same time striving to be meaningful and sensitive to African contextual realities. Others are marked by the hermeneutics of suspicion, a low view of Scripture, and the trappings of the Enlightenment. I contend that these latter approaches of ABH have become both unfaithful to the text and irrelevant to the African
context. In this article, I contend that it is possible to be faithful to the Scriptures and relevant to the African context by gleaning from the author of
Hebrews. By exegeting Hebrews 1:1–2, 2:1–4, and 12:25, I argue that, by emulating the paradigm of the author of Hebrews, Christian Africans should read Scripture Christologically, with an eye on both African contextual realities and the authority of the Scriptures.
We consider systems whose lifetime is measured by the time of physical degradation of components, as well as the degree of power each component contributes to the system. The lifetimes of the components of the system are random variables. The power that each component contributes to the system is the product of a random variable and a time-decreasing stable function. The operational reliability of these systems is investigated and shown that it is determined by the joint lifetime functions of the order statistics and their concomitants. In addition to general formulas, examples are given using some known life distributions, and graphs of the operation life functions are shown.
This article reviews the doxological motivation of and for the church’s mission from a reformational perspective. The researcher learned that there is a human tendency to position oneself, or other beings or things, in the centre of God’s story and mission. Human religions and philosophy in ancient times claimed that behind the visible reality, there is an invisible world of either fate or ideals, which determined how people lived, and how they viewed and practised music. It is learned from missiological debates that the goal and the motive of the church’s missional music are often misunderstood and it led to a disarray, not only of the goal and motive of the church’s music, but also of the effective and efficient missional fellowship with God and with each other through music. With an overarching theme of formation (creation), deformation (humanity’s fall into sin) and reformation (redemption and hope), this article is set to discuss three aspects of doxological motivation of and for the church’s missional music, before the concluding remarks. In short, firstly the starting point: its formation; secondly, the critical point: its deformation (misdirection); thirdly, the ultimate point: its reformation and consummation.
Contribution: This article adds value (a voice) in finding ways and means for the effective and efficient missional worship of God through church music. In that regard, understanding the doxological motivation behind the church’s missional music and its relevance in the missional worship of God is important. This attempt not only helps in handling misconceptions regarding the human tendency to position themselves, other beings, or things in the centre of God’s story, worship and mission, but helps also in restoring the proper doxology at the centre of worshipping God through music.
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life
Joachim Schaeffer, Giacomo Galuppini, Jinwook Rhyu
et al.
Batteries are dynamic systems with complicated nonlinear aging, highly dependent on cell design, chemistry, manufacturing, and operational conditions. Prediction of battery cycle life and estimation of aging states is important to accelerate battery R&D, testing, and to further the understanding of how batteries degrade. Beyond testing, battery management systems rely on real-time models and onboard diagnostics and prognostics for safe operation. Estimating the state of health and remaining useful life of a battery is important to optimize performance and use resources optimally. This tutorial begins with an overview of first-principles, machine learning, and hybrid battery models. Then, a typical pipeline for the development of interpretable machine learning models is explained and showcased for cycle life prediction from laboratory testing data. We highlight the challenges of machine learning models, motivating the incorporation of physics in hybrid modeling approaches, which are needed to decipher the aging trajectory of batteries but require more data and further work on the physics of battery degradation. The tutorial closes with a discussion on generalization and further research directions.
The COVID-19 pandemic has raised important issues for the church. Churches have grappled with ministering to their congregants in light of the changes in physical gatherings over the past two years. While the digital mode of ministry has strengthened the church’s missional outreach, churches have struggled with two foundational questions: the nature and the mission of the church. This article engages the emerging research in digital ecclesiology from the lens of reformed ecclesiology –particularly using the ecclesiology of Berkhof and the Westminster Standards as interlocutors – and offers
prospects and challenges for the church’s ministry to digital natives in Africa. It argues that digital ecclesiology should not be perceived as a hindrance to the church or be blindly accepted. It should rather be critically engaged to delineate its prospects and challenges for the church’s ministry. More specifically, this article argues that the digital mode of ministry enriches the church’s missional calling as it reaches out to Africa’s digital natives; expands the understanding of church as organism and invisible, and creates specific challenges for the church’s ministry in terms of key concepts such as identity, authority, and community.
Christianity, Practical religion. The Christian life
Physics of Life research in the UK is proving to be transformative to scientific insight and translational impact, but challenges remain. Here I discuss its disruptive potential and the barriers to interdisciplinary research seen through the lens of the activities of one of its pioneers, Tom McLeish, FRS.
Transforming the construction sector is key to reaching net-zero, and many stakeholders expect its decarbonization through digitalization. But no quantified evidence has been brought to date. We propose the first environmental quantification of the impact of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the construction sector. Specifically, the direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by a monofunctional BIM to plan road maintenance, a Pavement Management System (PMS), are evaluated using field data from France. The related carbon footprints are calculated following a life cycle approach, using different sources of data, including ecoinvent v3.6, and the IPCC 2013 GWP 100a characterization factors. Three design-build-maintain pavement alternatives are compared: scenario 1 relates to a massive design and surface maintenance, scenario 2 to a progressive design and pre-planned structural maintenance, and scenario 3 to a progressive design and tailored structural maintenance supported by the PMS. First, results show negligible direct emissions due to the PMS existence: 0.02% of the life cycle emissions of scenario 3. Second, complementary sensitivity analyses show that using a PMS is climate-positive over the life cycle when pavement subgrade bearing capacity improves over time, and climate-neutral otherwise. The GHG emissions savings using BIM can reach up to 30% of the life cycle emissions compared to other scenarios, and 65% when restraining the scope to maintenance and rehabilitation and excluding original pavement construction. Third, the neutral effect of BIM in case of a deterioration of the bearing capacity of the subgrade may be explained by design practices and safety margins, that could be enhanced using BIM. Fourth, the decarbonization potential of a multifunctional BIM is discussed, and research perspectives are presented.
The influence of the translator’s loyalties and underlying translation philosophy on the translation choices, with reference to the Afr2020 Bible translation. When the reader looks a little deeper than the initial superficial ‘Revised’ Old Translation impression that reading the Afrikaans 2020 translation gives you, then one realizes that a great deal of effort had to be put into leading such a large group of diverse translators to understand the essence of a direct translation and to be able to apply it consistently. But it is precisely here that problems can arise. Due to the nature of skopus and the style of the Afrikaans 2020 translation, this direct translation can be categorised on the side of the more literal translations and it thus has a very high percentage of agreement with the 1953 Old Afrikaans translation. If the direct translation is not just another name or a revision of the so-called word-for-word translation, then what is this direct translation? Van der Merwe referring to this translation also touches on this issue when he says: ‘a ‘direct’ translation of the Bible is not new jargon for a word-for-word translation of the Bible. It is an attempt to ‘interpretively resemble’ in good idiomatic Afrikaans all the communicative clues of the source text in the contexts construed for the source text audience’. This underlying fundamental premise brings a lot of tension to the fore. Van der Merwe also confirms this (2014:294) by stating: ‘attempts to translate ancient texts directly (is) an almost impossible ideal (to) pursue’.
Contribution: This study evaluated the Afrikaans 2020 translation according to its own criteria, the translation brief and to its self-proclaimed nature as ‘direct’ translation in order to try to make an objective evaluation and assessment of this great work. This process also pointed out where the loyalties of the translators lie, and what the underlying translation philosophy is, and how difficult it is to make a distinction between the direct translation method and using archaic words and terms.
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life
For many African readers, Ephesians 5:22–24 indeed reinforces the patriarchal view of marriage in which the wife is subjugated under her husband’s rule. Hence, with specific focus on the Yoruba, this article examines Ephesians 5:22–33 with a view to assessing its relevance for Christian marital relationship in Nigeria. The target population is those Nigerian Christians who have the notion that Ephesians 5:22–24 entrenches the patriarchal view of marital relationship. The article employs the exegetical and descriptive methods. It finds that, in Ephesians 5:22–6:9, Paul borrows the pattern of the Greek household codes, but mitigates the absolute authority of the male head of the house. Instead, he likens the authority of the Christian husband over his wife to Christ’s headship over the church. As Christ gave himself up for the church, the Christian husband should place greater value on the well-being of his wife over his own well-being. Understood in this way, the passage is relevant to Nigerian Christians in several ways. In the Nigerian context, the command to wives to be submissive to their husbands means that the wife should submit to her husband as one who has authority over her. In exercising his authority, the Nigerian Christian should seek his wife’s pleasure and comfort over his own. Finally, the church should be involved in getting husbands to understand their authority in the manner of Christ’s sacrificial love.
Practical Theology, Practical religion. The Christian life
It is not currently possible to create a living organism ab initio due to the overwhelming complexity of biological systems. In fact, the origin of life mechanism, this being how biological organisms form from non-living matter, is unknown. In an attempt to better understand how abiogenesis can occur, some researchers have taken water out of their models and instead opted for more exotic approaches. These assumptions will have strong implications for astronomical observations and potential future space exploration. By breaking down water's properties to the physical, chemical and biological level, herewith it is demonstrated to be the most adequate medium for the formation of life.
Critical transitions are observed in many complex systems. This includes the onset of synchronization in a network of coupled oscillators or the emergence an epidemic state within a population. "Explosive" first-order transitions have caught particular attention in a variety of systems when classical models are generalized by incorporating additional effects. Here we give a mathematical argument that the emergence of such first-order transitions is not surprising but rather a universally expected effect: Varying a classical model along a generic two-parameter family must lead to a change of the criticality. To illustrate our framework, we give three explicit examples of the effect in distinct physical systems: a model of adaptive epidemic dynamics, for a generalization of the Kuramoto model, and for a percolation transition.
Theory and observation for the search for life on exoplanets via atmospheric "biosignature gases" is accelerating, motivated by the capabilities of the next generation of space- and ground-based telescopes. The most observationally accessible rocky planet atmospheres are those dominated by molecular hydrogen gas, because the low density of H$_2$-gas leads to an expansive atmosphere. The capability of life to withstand such exotic environments, however, has not been tested in this context. We demonstrate that single-celled microorganisms ($\textit{E. coli}$ and yeast) that normally do not inhabit H$_2$-dominated environments can survive and grow in a 100% H$_2$ atmosphere. We also describe the astonishing diversity of dozens of different gases produced by $\textit{E. coli}$, including many already proposed as potential biosignature gases (e.g., nitrous oxide, ammonia, methanethiol, dimethylsulfide, carbonyl sulfide, and isoprene). This work demonstrates the utility of lab experiments to better identify which kinds of alien environments can host some form of possibly detectable life.
We provide a framework for experimentation at https://mbuliga.github.io/quinegraphs/ic-vs-chem.html#icvschem with two artificial chemistries: directed interaction combinators (dirIC, defined in section 2) and chemlambda. We are interested if these chemistries allow for artificial life behaviour: replication, metabolism and death. The main conclusion of these experiments is that graph rewrites systems which allow conflicting rewrites are better than those which don't, as concerns their artificial life properties. This is in contradiction with the search for good graph rewrite systems for decentralized computing, where non-conflicting graph rewrite systems are historically preferred. This continues the artificial chemistry experiments with chemlambda, lambda calculus or interaction combinators, available from the entry page at https://chemlambda.github.io/index.html and described in arXiv:2003.14332.
Artykuł analizuje doktrynę o złu w filozofii chrześcijańskiego teologa Maksyma Wyznawcy. Problem rozwiązuje się w sferze eschatologicznych poglądów myśliciela, całkowicie niewystarczająco zbadanych w nauce. Autor, wykorzystując metodologię historyczną i filozoficzną, bada najbardziej wpływowe koncepcje zła w filozofii zarówno niechrześcijańskich, jak i chrześcijańskich poprzedników Maxima. Pożyczając od nich koncepcję braku bytu i osłabienia sił naturalnych w stosunku do zła, Maxim rozwinął także własne rozumienie tego tematu. Ujawnia się to w jego eschatologicznym nauczaniu, w którym celem ludzkiej egzystencji jest stan przebóstwienia i odwiecznie-ruchomy pokój. W tym stanie dezaktywuję się gnomiczna wola, odpowiedzialna za popełnienie zła. Przezwyciężając cykliczną metafizykę helleńską i stawiając doskonałość na końcu, nie na samym początku, Maxim odrzuca koncepcję wiecznego powrotu, metafizycznie wymawianą w neoplatońskiej triadzie „przebywanie - wychodzenie – powrót”. Doktryna o niezależnej inkarnacji Logosu także pokonuje helleński pogląd na konieczność zła i wieczność świata. Osobliwe zrozumienie przez Maksyma doktryny o przywracaniu i fundamentalnym wyczerpaniu i skończoności zła, pozostawia jednak pewne złe istoty w stanie nieuczestniczenia w dobrach. W podejściu do rozwiązania źródeł zła poprzez badanie eschatologii Maksyma Wyznawcy, autor daje nowe spojrzenie na uczenie czcigodnego ojca.