Freedom and Sin in John Chrysostom and Nikolai Berdyaev: A Study on the Problematics of Eastern Orthodox Therapeutics

This study focuses on John Chrysostom (c. 349-407) and Nikolai Berdyaev (1874-1948), who are respectively chosen as representatives of the Greek patristic centre and the Russian Religious Renaissance margins of Eastern Orthodoxy. In its pages, the writings of these thinkers are analysed in order to respond to a tendency among some Orthodox Church leaders, particularly in Orthodox-majority southeastern European countries, to use therapeutic sin language negatively to call ‘spiritually sick’ persons (including, but not limited to, LGBTQ+ persons) whose beliefs and lives diverge from the Orthodox Church’s teachings. It is argued that this tendency is theologically problematic, as it hinders Eastern Orthodoxy’s ability to communicate its Christian message in a loving and missionally effective manner, and the following research question is raised: Is there a way in which Orthodox Church leaders can employ therapeutic sin language with love and missional effectiveness in their communication with Orthodox and non-Orthodox persons alike? Seeking to offer a positive answer to this question, the present work scrutinises Chrysostom’s and Berdyaev’s thought worlds and brings their ideas into an original theological dialogue. Through investigating Chrysostom’s understanding of freedom and sin, the former of which has not been substantially examined before, and by presenting Berdyaev’s view of intuition, freedom, and sin while challenging previous readings of his thought, it provides a systematic account of Chrysostom’s and Berdyaev’s intellectual architectures and uncovers the place of therapeutic sin language in them. Then, attention is given to the differences and similarities between Chrysostom’s and Berdyaev’s understandings of freedom and sin, and, drawing constructively on the latter, an answer to the above research question is formulated. According to this, Orthodox Church leaders can use therapeutic sin language in a loving and missionally effective manner when addressing both Orthodox and non-Orthodox persons because the flexibility in Chrysostom’s and Berdyaev’s thinking, combined with the distinct therapeutic models of sin that are derived from their theologies, enables them to adjust their therapeutic sin language to best communicate in different contexts.</p

Inferring directional wave spectra via motion sensing on ocean-going autonomous surface vessels

This paper investigates the estimation of directional wave spectra from autonomous surface vessels by leveraging their dynamic response to ambient wave forcing. The approach combines pre-computed hydrodynamic transfer functions with a two-stage processing chain: (i) estimation of the directional spreading function via the Extended Maximum Entropy Principle using heave acceleration, roll, and pitch cross-spectra; and (ii) transformation from the encounter domain to intrinsic wave frequency, explicitly accounting for Doppler effects due to forward speed. The methodology is applied to a July 2025 deployment of the wind-propelled Oshen C-star in the English Channel, and validated against a nearby scientific waverider buoy (E1). Results show strong agreement for significant wave height (RMSE ≈ 0.16 m, R2 ≈ 0.94) and improved estimates of the mean zero up-crossing period after Doppler correction (RMSE ≈ 0.46 s, R2 ≈ 0.80), while peak period is largely unaffected at the observed low vessel speeds. Directional estimates are more sensitive, with accuracy improving under segments exhibiting limited heading variability. The study demonstrates the feasibility of ASV-based sea state monitoring to complement traditional networks.</p

Applications of representation theory and of explicit units to Leopoldt’s conjecture

Let L/K be a Galois extension of number fields and let G = Gal(L/K). We show that under certain hypotheses on G, for a fixed prime number p, Leopoldt’s conjecture at p for certain proper intermediate fields of L/K implies Leopoldt’s conjecture at p for L. We also obtain relations between the Leopoldt defects of intermediate fields of L/K. By applying a result of Buchmann and Sands together with an explicit description of units and a special case of the above results, we show that given any finite set of prime numbers P, there exists an infinite family F of totally real S3-extensions of Q such that Leopoldt’s conjecture for F at p holds for every F ∈ F and p ∈ P</p

BOWIE-ALIGN: Exploring degeneracies in the muted transmission spectrum of the aligned hot Jupiter NGTS-2b with NIRSpec/G395H.

We present the first atmospheric observation and characterisation of the aligned, 1468 K hot Jupiter, NGTS-2b, with one JWST NIRSpec/G395H transit. These observations complete the GO 3838 observing campaign of the BOWIE-ALIGN program, which aims to investigate the link between hot Jupiter atmospheric composition and formation history through the atmospheric analysis of planets orbiting F stars that are aligned and misaligned with the host stellar spin axis. The 2.84–5.18 µm spectrum shows weak absorption features attributed to H2O and CO2 absorption, which our free chemistry retrievals fit with posteriors that converge on high mean molecular weight solutions attained through significant H2O mixing ratios. By comparing our results to interior modelling, we show that some of these solutions exceed the 43.5× solar upper limit we obtained from our interior structure models. Such solutions are likely due to cloud-metallicity degeneracies and insufficient wavelength coverage to resolve them. We show that, in the case of our observations, the likelihood distribution of H2O abundances is flat and uninformative, such that our retrievals are biased by the prior. Additionally, our statistically favoured atmospheric solution contains absorption from SO. The chemical abundances retrieved with this model are likely not astrophysically feasible and we demonstrate that the presence of SO is driven by only two data points. Our equilibrium chemistry retrievals hint at a subsolar C/O ratio and supersolar metallicity; however, we find wide posterior distributions that extend to solar values.</p

EFL Teacher Stress in Saudi Higher Education: A Critical Narrative Research

This study critically examines how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers experience and respond to workplace stress in Saudi higher education. In the context of Vision 2030 reforms, research on teacher stress in Saudi higher education remains limited and predominantly quantitative, often foregrounding individual factors rather than institutional conditions. Addressing this gap, the study explores the primary workplace stressors perceived by EFL teachers, how these stressors shape personal well-being, how occupational stress influences professional practices and career trajectories, and the coping strategies teachers employ within and beyond the workplace. Using a critical narrative research design, data were collected from 15 EFL teachers (13 females, 2 males) across four Saudi state universities, with varied nationalities, qualifications (BA, MA, PhD), and academic ranks. Participants were recruited through purposive, convenience, and voluntary sampling. Semi-structured interviews and reflective journals were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, informed by the Job Demands–Resources model and the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping. Findings are organised into three overarching themes and suggest that EFL teachers’ workplace stress is predominantly institutional and systemic. Workplace Stressors highlights policy instability, administrative opacity, constrained autonomy, and career barriers as dominant sources of strain. The Impact of Stress on Well-being and Professional Life illustrates emotional and physical costs, spillover into home life, and consequences for professional practice, including diminished motivation, more detached pedagogy, and uncertainty about promotion and longer-term trajectories. Coping Mechanisms shows the use of cognitive reframing, faith, and social support, alongside avoidant responses, which are often insufficient in the absence of institutional care.</p

Transnational Transfer of Euro-American Autism-Related Knowledge in Japan’s Medical, Educational, and Welfare Domains, 1952–1999

This thesis examines how autism-related knowledge was transnationally transferred—introduced, accepted, rejected, and localised—from Euro-American countries to Japan by Japanese doctors, researchers, teachers, government officials, and parents. This thesis positions Japan as an early non-Euro-American participant in the transnational exchange of autism-related knowledge. In doing so, the study examines how autism-related knowledge became transnational through Japan’s early engagement with Euro-American knowledge. Japan’s trajectory illuminates an early phase of the globalisation of autism-related knowledge, demonstrating that autism had already been transnational well before its later expansion to low- and middle-income countries in the 2000s. This study sees the globalisation of autism through the framework of global assemblages (Ong and Collier 2005), through which heterogeneous forms of knowledge and practice became contingently connected under the name of autism. From this perspective, autism-related knowledge did not circulate as a coherent package that was uniformly implemented across contexts. Instead, a wide range of pre-existing and newly formed practices across the medical, educational, and welfare domains were mobilised, reinterpreted, and selectively reconfigured in relation to autism. By foregrounding the simultaneity of regional diversity and the expansion of a shared global vocabulary, this study examines how autism-related knowledge came to be assembled in Japan. This study analyses written materials and interview data across the medical, educational, and welfare domains, both at the discursive and practice levels. The findings reveal that the concept of autism was received differently in each domain; that debates in the medical field shaped knowledge transfer in other sectors; that overseas therapies did not fit Japan’s administrative systems, leading to their adaptation in schools in different ways from original protocols; and that Japanese ministries and experts coined local terms to mediate between foreign concepts of autism and Japanese contexts. These findings highlight the entanglement of multiple domains and demonstrate that policy and administrative systems, rather than cultural factors, played a key role in shaping localised forms of autism knowledge. The findings also suggest a nuanced account of the interactions between Japan and Euro-American countries that co-produced recognition of Euro-American knowledge as internationally authoritative.</p

Nearest centroid classifier for multivariate time series using DTW-MP centroid

This research presents results from evaluating a range of centroid functions for the nearest centroid classifier applied to several multivariate time series classification datasets. These are tested on seven of the largest benchmark datasets available. The centroid functions includes two proposed methods for generating centroids from time series: DTW-MPI and DTW-MPD and five state-of-art centroid functions: SoftDTW, DBA, PAM, Mean and SE. These proposed centroid algorithms use dynamic time warping to combine any number of time series together into one representative centroid. The input time series can be of different lengths and of multivariate data (n-dimensional). Centroids of time series have a wide range of uses but are often used as a nearest centroid classifier which is faster than a DTW-1NN classifier due to a much lower number of DTW comparisons being required to classify a new time series into existing classes. Therefore we utilize the task of nearest centroid classification in this research as a means to evaluate the performance of two proposed and five state-of-art centroid functions. For evaluation, six of the largest publicly available multivariate time series benchmark datasets currently available were used. These results show that the proposed DTW-MPI and DTW-MPD centroid algorithms perform comparatively with state-of-art time series centroid functions and these could have further uses in other time series applications.</p

Skateboarding’s sovereign excellence

This paper considers sovereign attributions to skateboarding by various public intellectuals and scholars characterized as ‘heroic’, ‘aristocratic’, and of a ‘higher style of play’. They argue that such attributions are indicative of a form of internal excellence (areté) that manifests externally in a continuum from criminal vandal to Olympic athlete not unlike similar attributions in Archaic and Ancient Greece as well as the Edo period of Japan. They argue further that skateboarding’s sovereign excellence includes subversive elements that present a ritualized reworking of the meaning and value of the city, tacitly redeeming it from a merely pecuniary role. While toying with sovereignty, its value for understanding excellence within the sport enclave, the authors also propose an epistemology that takes seriously the mythic poetics of skateboarding.</p

Body composition phenotypes, and specific adiposity and lean mass indicators, and their lifestyle determinants among adult childhood cancer survivors – the iBoneFIT adult study

Background & Aims: Childhood cancer survivors (CCSs) face elevated long-term cardiometabolic risk due to altered body composition. This study aimed to identify distinct body composition phenotypes among adult CCSs and to examine their associations with lifestyle behaviors. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 92 adult CCSs (54% male; median age 35 years) underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry to measure body composition. Physical activity (PA) and sedentary time were measured using ActiGraph accelerometers. Factor and hierarchical cluster analyses identified body composition phenotypes, from BMI, waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), visceral fat area (VFA), body fat percentage, fat mass index (FMI), lean mass index (LMI), total body lean mass, total body fat mass, and subcutaneous adipose tissue. Multinomial and linear regressions adjusted for sex and age, assessed associations between phenotypes, lifestyle factors, and individual body composition indicators. Results: Four body composition phenotypes were identified: muscle-dominant (21%), high adiposity (16%), thin-low muscle (27%), and low adiposity-preserved lean (36%). Male CCSs were more prevalent in the muscle-dominant phenotype, whereas female participants predominated in the thin-low muscle phenotype. Older age was associated with the muscle-dominant phenotype (RRR=1.08, p=0.032) and with higher LMI (β=0.07, p=0.013), WHR (β=0.003, p=0.001), and VFA (β=1.61, p=0.003). Lifestyle behaviors were not associated with phenotypic classification. However, moderate-to-vigorous PA was positively associated with LMI (β=1.05, p=0.008) and total lean mass (β=4.15, p=0.008), while light-intensity (β=-0.48, p=0.048) and total 64 PA (β=-0.46, p=0.032) were inversely associated with body fat percentage Conclusions: Distinct body composition phenotypes were identified among adult CCSs. While lifestyle behaviours did not differentiate phenotypes, PA was favourably associated with key body composition measures.</p

SmartHeat: Examination of real-world heat pump electricity consumption

Analysis of anonymised heat pump electricity consumption data from nine homes to identify real world heating patterns, including indicators of low use and implications for customer support and future monitoring.</p