mosque is among the most important edifices in islamic architecture, which has a significant role in the cultural, social, and religious life of the muslims. since mosque is god’s house and a place for whispering supplications to him, the muslim rulers have attempted to construct or reconstruct mosques. they have benefited from the help of the artists and calligraphers for the physical and spir...

OBJECTIVES Sensory phenomena, including premonitory urges, are experienced by patients with Tourette syndrome (TS) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The goal of the present study was to investigate such phenomena related to tics, obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS), and global functioning in Japanese patients with TS. METHODS Forty-one patients with TS were assessed using the Universit...

Trust is a critical aspect of social interaction. One might predict that individuals trust religious out-groups less than religious in-groups, and that costly signals performed by members of religious in-groups increase trust while costly signals performed by members of religious out-groups decrease trust. We examined how Christian participants perceived the trustworthiness of Muslim and Christ...

The paper analyzes the relation between religious beliefs, religious participation and social cooperation. In particular, we focus on religions that instill beliefs about the connection between rewards and punishments and social behaviour. We show how religious organizations arise endogenously, analyze their e¤ect on social interactions in society and identify a "spiritual" as well as a "materi...

Current measures of adaptive functioning are typically validated using samples from Western populations, which limit their utility in non-Western populations. The present study examines the development and a locally derived measure functioning, Penn/RESIST/Peradeniya Competencies (PRPC) Scale, among Tamil survivors Sri Lankan civil war. This scale—developed data 622 qualitative interviews war-a...

BACKGROUND The functional outcome of people with severe mental disorders (SMD) is purported to be better in low- and middle-income countries compared to high-income countries; however, cross-cultural measures of functioning may not capture adequately the relevant functional activities in rural, non-Western settings. This study aimed to gain in-depth understanding of day-to-day functioning in a ...

BACKGROUND Hoasca (also called ayahuasca) is a N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) - containing psychedelic brew originally used for magico-religious purposes by Amerindian populations of the Amazon Basin. Recently, Brazilian syncretic churches have helped spread the ritual use of hoasca to Western societies. The aim of this study was to evaluate substance use, and neuropsychological and psychological...

In 2007, Kaiser Permanente's (KP) Southern California Region designed and implemented a systematic in-reach program, the Proactive Office Encounter (POE), to address the growing needs of its three million patients for preventive care and management of chronic disease. The program sought staff from both primary and specialty care departments to proactively identify gaps in care and to assist phy...