Hasil untuk "Practical religion. The Christian life"

Advait Sarkar, Christian Poelitz, Viktor Kewenig

Generative AI tools often answer questions using source documents, e.g., through retrieval augmented generation. Current groundedness and hallucination evaluations largely frame the relationship between an answer and its sources as binary (the answer is either supported or unsupported). However, this obscures both the syntactic moves (e.g., direct quotation vs. paraphrase) and the interpretive moves (e.g., induction vs. deduction) performed when models reformulate evidence into an answer. This limits both benchmarking and user-facing provenance interfaces. We propose the development of a reader-centred taxonomy of grounding as a set of support relations between generated statements and source documents. We explain how this might be synthesised from prior research in linguistics and philosophy of language, and evaluated through a benchmark and human annotation protocol. Such a framework would enable interfaces that communicate not just whether a claim is grounded, but how.

Niraj Gohil, Nawshad Haque, Amgad Elgowainy et al.

Life cycle analysis (LCA) has emerged as a vital tool for assessing the environmental impacts of products, processes, and systems throughout their entire lifecycle. It provides a systematic approach to quantifying resource consumption, emissions, and waste, enabling industries, researchers, and policymakers to identify hotspots for sustainability improvements. By providing a comprehensive assessment of systems, from raw material extraction to end-of-life disposal, LCA facilitates the development of environmentally sound strategies, thereby contributing significantly to sustainable engineering and informed decision-making. Despite its strengths and ubiquitous use, life cycle analysis has not been reconciled with the broader literature in model-based systems engineering and analysis, thus hindering its integration into the design of complex systems more generally. This lack of reconciliation poses a significant problem, as it hinders the seamless integration of environmental sustainability into the design and optimization of complex systems. Without alignment between life cycle analysis (LCA) and model-based systems engineering (MBSE), sustainability remains an isolated consideration rather than an inherent part of the system's architecture and design. The original contribution of this paper is twofold. First, the paper reconciles process-based life cycle analysis with the broader literature and vocabulary of model-based systems engineering and hetero-functional graph theory. It ultimately proves that model-based systems engineering and hetero-functional graph theory are a formal generalization of process-based life cycle analysis. Secondly, the paper demonstrates how model-based systems engineering and hetero-functional graph theory may be used to enhance the spatio-temporal resolution of process-based life cycle analysis in a manner that aligns with system design objectives.

Valentin Romanov, Steven A Niederer

Developing effective prompts demands significant cognitive investment to generate reliable, high-quality responses from Large Language Models (LLMs). By deploying case-specific prompt engineering techniques that streamline frequently performed life sciences workflows, researchers could achieve substantial efficiency gains that far exceed the initial time investment required to master these techniques. The Prompt Report published in 2025 outlined 58 different text-based prompt engineering techniques, highlighting the numerous ways prompts could be constructed. To provide actionable guidelines and reduce the friction of navigating these various approaches, we distil this report to focus on 6 core techniques: zero-shot, few-shot approaches, thought generation, ensembling, self-criticism, and decomposition. We breakdown the significance of each approach and ground it in use cases relevant to life sciences, from literature summarization and data extraction to editorial tasks. We provide detailed recommendations for how prompts should and shouldn't be structured, addressing common pitfalls including multi-turn conversation degradation, hallucinations, and distinctions between reasoning and non-reasoning models. We examine context window limitations, agentic tools like Claude Code, while analyzing the effectiveness of Deep Research tools across OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and Perplexity platforms, discussing current limitations. We demonstrate how prompt engineering can augment rather than replace existing established individual practices around data processing and document editing. Our aim is to provide actionable guidance on core prompt engineering principles, and to facilitate the transition from opportunistic prompting to an effective, low-friction systematic practice that contributes to higher quality research.

Mahdi Saki, Justin Lipman

Dairy farmers should decide to keep or cull a cow based on an objective assessment of her likely performance in the herd. For this purpose, farmers need to identify more resilient cows, which can cope better with farm conditions and complete more lactations. This decision-making process is inherently complex, with significant environmental and economic implications. In this study, we develop an AI-driven model to predict cow longevity using historical multivariate time-series data recorded from birth. Leveraging advanced AI techniques, specifically Multi-Head Attention Transformers, we analysed approximately 780,000 records from 19,000 unique cows across 7 farms in Australia. The results demonstrate that our model achieves an overall determination coefficient of 83% in predicting herd life across the studied farms, highlighting its potential for practical application in dairy herd management.

Peng Liu, Yili Hong, Luis A. Escobar et al.

Fatigue data arise in many research and applied areas and there have been statistical methods developed to model and analyze such data. The distributions of fatigue life and fatigue strength are often of interest to engineers designing products that might fail due to fatigue from cyclic-stress loading. Based on a specified statistical model and the maximum likelihood method, the cumulative distribution function (cdf) and quantile function (qf) can be estimated for the fatigue-life and fatigue-strength distributions. Likelihood-based confidence bands then can be obtained for the cdf and qf. This paper provides equivalence results for confidence bands for fatigue-life and fatigue-strength models. These results are useful for data analysis and computing implementation. We show (a) the equivalence of the confidence bands for the fatigue-life cdf and the fatigue-life qf, (b) the equivalence of confidence bands for the fatigue-strength cdf and the fatigue-strength qf, and (c) the equivalence of confidence bands for the fatigue-life qf and the fatigue-strength qf. Then we illustrate the usefulness of those equivalence results with two examples using experimental fatigue data.

Hannah Wakeling

The ISIS-II Neutron and Muon source is the proposed next generation of, and successor to, the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom. Anticipated to start construction in 2031, the ISIS-II project presents a unique opportunity to incorporate environmental sustainability practices from its inception. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) will examine the environmental impacts associated with each of the ISIS-II design options across the stages of the ISIS-II lifecycle, encompassing construction, operation, and eventual decommissioning. This proactive approach will assess all potential areas of environmental impact and seek to identify strategies for minimizing and mitigating negative impacts, wherever feasible. This paper will provide insights into the process and first results of the LCA of the entirety of the ISIS-II project.

Jinwook Rhyu, Joachim Schaeffer, Michael L. Li et al.

Optimization of the formation step in lithium-ion battery manufacturing is challenging due to limited physical understanding of solid electrolyte interphase formation and the long testing time (~100 days) for cells to reach the end of life. We propose a systematic feature design framework that requires minimal domain knowledge for accurate cycle life prediction during formation. Two simple Q(V) features designed from our framework, extracted from formation data without any additional diagnostic cycles, achieved a median of 9.20% error for cycle life prediction, outperforming thousands of autoML models using pre-defined features. We attribute the strong performance of our designed features to their physical origins - the voltage ranges identified by our framework capture the effects of formation temperature and microscopic particle resistance heterogeneity. By designing highly interpretable features, our approach can accelerate formation research, leveraging the interplay between data-driven feature design and mechanistic understanding.

Daniel Fleming, James Keenan, SJ, Hans Zollner, SJ

There is a certain urgency about this volume, which is not often reflected in works of theology or theological ethics. The sheer scale of the undermining of human dignity through sexual abuse that has occurred within the Church asks questions of these disciplines and scholars within them: to what extent have we been blind to these issues? Why have our efforts in theology and theological ethics been so slow to wrestle with this crisis? How are theology and theological ethics implicated in the crisis? And how might the disciplines be constructive in responding? In this volume, we encounter a diverse range of scholars from all around the world wrestling with these and other questions.

Serkan Çetin, Ulvi Murat Kılavuz

İslâm düşüncesinde farklı alanlarda disiplinlerin/ilimlerin teşekkülüne müteakip disiplinlerin/ilimlerin kendilerine özgü kavramları ve terminolojileri de oluşmaya başlamış ve daha sonraki süreçte bu kavramsallaştırmaya katkı sunacak müstakil tanım (ḥudûd) risâleleri telif edilerek her disiplindeki/ilimdeki kavramın anlam ve kullanım çerçevesi daha da netleştirilmiştir. Temel olarak kullanılan kavramın ıstılahî anlamının belirlenmesi ve böylece takip edilen kelâmî temayülün desteklenmesi adına, kelâm ilmi özelinde de bu türe ait eserler kaleme alınmıştır. Kelâm ilmi özelinde bu alana en büyük katkıyı ise şüphesiz Mu‘tezilî kelâmcılar vermiştir. Nitekim başta Kādî Abdülcebbâr (ö. 415/1025) olmak üzere öğrencileri Ebû Reşîd en-Nîsâbûrî (ö. 420/1029’dan sonra) ve İbn Şervîn (V./XI. yüzyılın ilk yarısı) gibi isimler tarafından kelâmî kavramları ihtiva eden özgün risâleler telif edilmiştir. Zeydî kelâmcı ve fakih Ebü’l-Kāsım el-Büstî’nin (ö. 420/1029 civarı) henüz bir nüshasına ulaşılamayan Tehẕîbü’l-ḥudûd’u da bahsedilen eserlerle eş zamanlıdır. Bu gelenek, İmâmî-Mu‘tezilî çizgide Ebû Ca‘fer et-Tûsî’nin (ö. 460/1067), kurgusu ve yer yer yaptığı açıklamalar itibariyle mûcez bir kelâm eseri hüviyeti de taşıyan el-Muḳaddime fi’l-medḫal ilâ ṣınâʿati ʿilmi’l-kelâm’ı ve Şerîf el-Murtazâ’ya (ö. 436/1044) nispet edilen el-Ḥudûd ve’l-ḥaḳāʾiḳ isimli eserde yansımasını bulmuştur. Ebû Ca‘fer el-Mukrî en-Nîsâbûrî’nin (ö. VI./XII. yy.’ın ortaları [?]) el-Ḥudûd’u ise bu gelenek içerisindeki en hacimli örnek olarak göze çarpmaktadır. Mu‘tezilî gelenek içerisinde mevcut eserler arasında ilki olması açısından bu türe ait en önemli eser, yakın zamana kadar kayıp olduğu düşünülen ve tarafımızdan keşfedilen bir mecmua içerisinde, önemli bazı diğer Zeydî-Mu‘tezilî eserlerle birlikte bulunan, Kādî Abdülcebbâr’ın Ḥudûdü’l-elfâẓ isimli risâlesidir. Genel olarak kelâmî kavramların yer aldığı ve kısmen fıkha ve mezhepler tarihine ilişkin kavramların da bulunduğu bu risâlede Kādî Abdülcebbâr dile dayalı bir tanım teorisi ortaya koymuştur. Buradaki yaklaşımı, el-Muğnî’sinde tanım ve tanımlamaya yönelik ortaya koyduğu görüşlerle uyumludur. Nitekim klasik mantıkta beş tümel üzerinden yürütülen tanım (ḥad) ve betim (resm) yerine, ele alınan kavramın manasına mutabık ve ondan daha açık olan bir lafız üzerinden yapılan lügavî tanım metodunu benimsemiş ve bu doğrultuda ele aldığı kavramın kısa bir tanım ve açıklamasına yer vermiştir. Bu durum, önceki Mu‘tezilî kelâmcılar tarafından felsefeye mesafeli yaklaşmaları nedeniyle Aristotelesçi tanım anlayışının alternatifi olarak kullanılan dile dayalı tanım anlayışının, Kādî Abdülcebbâr tarafından da tevarüs edildiğini açıkça göstermektedir. Ebû Reşîd en-Nîsâbûrî’nin el-Ḥudûd’u gibi Kādî’yi takip eden dönem bazı kaynaklarda görülen yaklaşım da onun etkisini imlemektedir.

Noé Lugaz, Réka M. Winslow, Nada Al-Haddad et al.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs can only be implemented successfully if proper work-life balance is possible in Heliophysics (and in STEM field in general). One of the core issues stems from the culture of "work-above-life" associated with mission concepts, development, and implementation but also the expectations that seem to originate from numerous announcements from NASA (and other agencies). The benefits of work-life balance are well documented; however, the entire system surrounding research in Heliophysics hinders or discourages proper work-life balance. For example, there does not seem to be attention paid by NASA Headquarters (HQ) on the timing of their announcements regarding how it will be perceived by researchers, and how the timing may promote a culture where work trumps personal life. The same is true for remarks by NASA HQ program officers during panels or informal discussions, where seemingly innocuous comments may give a perception that work is expected after "normal" work hours. In addition, we are calling for work-life balance plans and implementation to be one of the criteria used for down-selection and confirmation of missions (Key Decision Points: KDP-B, KDP-C).

Dmitry Zhevnenko, Mikhail Kazantsev, Ilya Makarov

The paper deals with the problem of controlling the state of industrial devices according to the readings of their sensors. The current methods rely on one approach to feature extraction in which the prediction occurs. We proposed a technique to build a scalable model that combines multiple different feature extractor blocks. A new model based on sequential sensor space analysis achieves state-of-the-art results on the C-MAPSS benchmark for equipment remaining useful life estimation. The resulting model performance was validated including the prediction changes with scaling.

Jiawei Chen, Lin Chen, Jiang Yang et al.

Vision transformers have achieved remarkable success in computer vision tasks by using multi-head self-attention modules to capture long-range dependencies within images. However, the high inference computation cost poses a new challenge. Several methods have been proposed to address this problem, mainly by slimming patches. In the inference stage, these methods classify patches into two classes, one to keep and the other to discard in multiple layers. This approach results in additional computation at every layer where patches are discarded, which hinders inference acceleration. In this study, we tackle the patch slimming problem from a different perspective by proposing a life regression module that determines the lifespan of each image patch in one go. During inference, the patch is discarded once the current layer index exceeds its life. Our proposed method avoids additional computation and parameters in multiple layers to enhance inference speed while maintaining competitive performance. Additionally, our approach requires fewer training epochs than other patch slimming methods.

Mingyuan Zhao, Yongzhi Zhang

This study develops a methodology by capturing both the battery aging state and degradation rate for improved life prediction performance. The aging state is indicated by six physical features of an equivalent circuit model that are extracted from the voltage relaxation data. And the degradation rate is captured by two features extracted from the differences between the voltage relaxation curves within a moving window (for life prediction), or the differences between the capacity vs. voltage curves at different cycles (for life classification). Two machine learning models, which are constructed based on Gaussian Processes, are used to describe the relationships between these physical features and battery lifetimes for the life prediction and classification, respectively. The methodology is validated with the aging data of 74 battery cells of three different types. Experimental results show that based on only 3-12 minutes' sampling data, the method with novel features predicts accurate battery lifetimes, with the prediction accuracy improved by up to 67.09% compared with the benchmark method. And the batteries are classified into three groups (long, medium, and short) with an overall accuracy larger than 90% based on only two adjacent cycles' information, enabling the highly efficient regrouping of retired batteries.

Elbert Branscomb

Notwithstanding its long history and compelling motivation, research seeking to explicate the emergence life (EoL) has throughout been a cacophony of unresolved speculation and dispute; absent still any clear convergence or other inarguable evidence of progress. This notwithstanding that it has also produced a rich and varied supply of putatively promising technical advances. Not surprising then the effort being advanced by some to establish a shared basis in fundamental assumptions upon which a more productive community research effort might arise. In this essay however, I press a case in opposition. First, that a chasm divides the rich fauna of contesting EoL models into two conceptually incommensurate classes; here named "chemistry models" (to which class belongs nearly all thinking and work in the field, past and present) and "engine models" (advanced in various more-or-less partial forms by a marginal minority of voices dating from Boltzmann forward). Second, that contemporary non-equilibrium thermodynamics dictates that 'engine-less' (i.e. 'chemistry') models cannot in principle generate non-equilibrium, organized states of matter and are in consequence inherently incapable of prizing life out of inanimate matter.

Andrea Vicini

To introduce the volume, Andrea Vicini, SJ, stresses the need to address the global cancer pandemic, while the world struggles with the ongoing pandemic caused by COVID-19. Cancer affects millions of people. It is the first or second cause of death in 134 countries, the leading cause of death in most high-income countries (i.e., 10 million deaths in 2020), and the leading cause of death by disease in American children. Cancer is also unjust. Striking inequities can be traced within and between countries in cancer incidence and survival by race, ethnicity, and socio-economic-status. Survival is much higher among the wealthy than among the poor. An overview of the volume introduces the following chapters.

Jason King, M. Therese Lysaught

This issue features a symposium honoring the work of Paul Wadell, as well as essays on dignity, COVID-19, an Augustinian response to Rod Dreher, and an analysis of Servais Pinckaers' work on "the perspective of the active person" as it relates to _Veritatis Splendor_, no. 78.

Philip John Paul Gonzales

Review of Graham James McAleer, _Erich Przywara and Postmodern Natural Law_

Manasvi Lingam

One of the chief paradoxes of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) is that it is an essential requirement for multicellular eukaryotes on Earth while simultaneously posing a threat to their survival via the formation of reactive oxygen species. In this paper, the constraints imposed by O$_2$ on Earth-like complex life are invoked to explore whether worlds with abiotic O$_2$ inventories can harbor such organisms. By taking the major O$_2$ sources and sinks of Earth-like planets into account using a simple model, it is suggested that worlds that receive time-averaged X-ray and extreme ultraviolet fluxes that are $\gtrsim 10$ times higher than Earth might not be capable of hosting complex lifeforms because the photolysis of molecules such as water may lead to significant O$_2$ buildup. Methods for testing this hypothesis by searching for anticorrelations between biosignatures and indicators of abiotic O$_2$ atmospheres are described. In the event, however, that life successfully adapts to high-oxygen environments, these worlds could permit the evolution of large and complex organisms.

Christian Molkenthin, Christian Donner, Sebastian Reich et al.

The spatio-temporal Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model is widely used to describe the self-exciting nature of earthquake occurrences. While traditional inference methods provide only point estimates of the model parameters, we aim at a full Bayesian treatment of model inference, allowing naturally to incorporate prior knowledge and uncertainty quantification of the resulting estimates. Therefore, we introduce a highly flexible, non-parametric representation for the spatially varying ETAS background intensity through a Gaussian process (GP) prior. Combined with classical triggering functions this results in a new model formulation, namely the GP-ETAS model. We enable tractable and efficient Gibbs sampling by deriving an augmented form of the GP-ETAS inference problem. This novel sampling approach allows us to assess the posterior model variables conditioned on observed earthquake catalogues, i.e., the spatial background intensity and the parameters of the triggering function. Empirical results on two synthetic data sets indicate that GP-ETAS outperforms standard models and thus demonstrate the predictive power for observed earthquake catalogues including uncertainty quantification for the estimated parameters. Finally, a case study for the l'Aquila region, Italy, with the devastating event on 6 April 2009, is presented.

Jacek Popiel

The article is devoted to the history of the edition of literary and theater works of Karol Wojtyla – John Paul II. Based on the surviving materials in the archives, often unknown facts were presented showing the subsequent phases of discovery of Wojtyła as a poet, playwright, and actor