Much of the work in artificial intelligence (AI), automated planning, machine learning, computer vision, and related fields focus primarily on the capabilities of formal logic, statistics, and other mathematical tools to emulate human cognitive capabilities. Though these areas have in fact seen significant success (e.g., spam detection, information retrieval, etc.), the much-sought goal of a hu...

The Shroud of Turin (hereafter the Shroud) is one of the most widely known and widely studied artifacts in existence, with enormous historical and religious significance. For years, the Shroud has inspired worldwide interest in images on its fabric which appear to be of the body and face of a man executed in a manner consistent with crucifixion, and many believe that these images were formed in...

religion and politics in muslim world are like two next-door neighbors. current developments in the region, no matter they named as arab spring, islamic awakening or radicalism stress the mentioned fact. however, involvement of religion in politics is not inappropriate at all, probably these two are janus-faced and they have synchronically showed tendency to each other: constructive and destruc...

The Aymara Pentecostalism is one of the most important religious movements in Chile. In the last decades it has been produced a considerable amount of sociological and anthropological research about this movement and this has resulted in the emergency of a particular field. However, these studies have not the thematized the relevance of the theoretical assumptions that underlie in their analysi...

Sacred or protected values have important influences on decision making, particularly in the context of intergroup disputes. Thus far, we know little about the process of a value becoming sacred or why one person may be more likely than another to hold a sacred value. We present evidence that participation in religious ritual and perceived threat to the group lead people to be more likely to co...