A modern take on research communication, Part I

What if we could start all over again? Knowing what we know now, about the needs for research and the opportunities to improve the human condition, about the power of the Internet, and about the importance of the global village, what would we want publishing to look like? ...

William Golding

Sir William Gerard Golding (1911–1993), the writer of Lord of the Flies (LOTF), occupies a pivotal position within the post–World War II canon of writers. Though Golding does not seem to belong to any particular “school” or movement of fiction writers who wrote at the height of Cold War and its aftermath per se, he is a staple in high school, college, and university curricula all over the globe. His magnum opus, Lord of the Flies (1954), transformed him into a writer who commands worldwide attention. In the book he attacked the belief in any stable notions of civilization, society, and culture, and was keen to show the innate depravity of the human spirit. His trilogy To the Ends of the Earth, which comprises Rites of Passage (1980), Close Quarters (1987) and Fire Down Below (1989), further explores his themes of the civilizing process and class consciousness, while the travelogue An Egyptian Journal (1985) shows his fascination for the ancient land and his journey there after he won the Nobel Prize in 1983. His famous quote about humanity, “Man produces evil as a bee produces honey,” speaks of his disbelief in the progress and the health of modern civilization and any stable notions of human progress. His Nobel Prize citation stated it was given “for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in a world of today,” thus summarizing his lifelong mission as a writer. Golding’s themes are class consciousness, human society (particularly what happens to it in isolation), modern and postmodern trauma with respect to human dreams and aspirations, and, lastly, the entire notion of “civilization” itself. His fiction has been analyzed with recourse to anthropology, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, narratology, trauma studies, and queer scholarship. Critical commentary on Golding continues to grow, especially around LOTF, due to its continued relevance owing to themes of violence, totalitarianism, queer studies, and its apocalyptic vision. It should be stressed, however, that compared to LOTF, his only play, The Brass Butterfly (1958), his Poems (1934) and his other nonfiction, such as A Moving Target (1982) and The Hot Gates (1965), the three short narratives in The Scorpion God (1971), and even his posthumous The Double Tongue (1995), have received scant attention. Though the themes of the essential drama of human conflict played against the backdrop of morality, human choice, and postmodern trauma that remain foundational to human existence might be applied to any 20thcentury writer, they are particularly germane to Golding’s works.

South Asian Rituals of Self-torture

The expression “South Asian rituals of self-torture,” chosen as the all-encompassing title of this bibliographic article, indicates a complex of inherently painful, injurious, hazardous, or, in any event, trying religious practices falling either within the domain of the mystic-ecstatic experience or within that of possession in both theistic (i.e., Hindu) and shamanistic (i.e., tribal) cult traditions of South Asia. Such practices, generally not observed within Brahmanical contexts, are also commonly termed “religious ordeals.” The English-language term ordeal is a modern reflex of Proto-Germanic *uz-dailjam, lit. “that which is dealt out (by the gods),” namely, “God’s judgment,” and it etymologically denotes an ancient mode of trial by divine judgment consisting of an arduous physical test a person charged with guilt could be occasionally forced to undergo; the result of the test was believed to determine that person’s guilt or innocence by immediate judgment of the deity. By introducing a shift in meaning that excludes from the definition of ordeal such judicial concepts as “guilt,” “trial,” “test,” and “judgment,” a number of historians of religion have used this term to designate self-torture rituals as a whole within diverse religious traditions. In the South Asian context, Hindu votive (or devotional) ordeals aim at purifying or healing the bodies and souls of devotees keeping a religious vow who have resolved to practice self-torture in order to enter into a spiritual communion with their own elected deity (by whom they are often considered to be possessed during their performance of the ordeal) so as to be temporarily identified with him/her. Whereas in theistic Hindu cults religious ordeals are performed in fulfilment of a vow and out of devotion to acquire the favor and power of a personal deity and, in certain cases, to become his/her oracles, in shamanistic tribal cults they are undertaken as rites of passage performed to authenticate a change of state in both the body and the soul of a sacred specialist (who can be variously a shamanistic figure, a medium, a diviner, or a traditional healer); the goal of the ordeal is, in this case also, the transcending of the profane human condition. In either case undergoing an extreme physical experience is equated with being initiated into a new and closer relationship with the divine, which is reflected in a person’s manifest ability to bear the physical discomfort caused by acts of self-torture while in a self-transcending or in a possession/trance state that is interpreted by both the actors and the audience as a radically transforming experience. Thus, the aim of both votive/devotional and shamanistic ordeals is achieved only when the vow-keeper’s or the shamanistic specialist’s indifference to self-torture is exhibited before an audience of devotees, and this substantial fact marks the difference between them and the individualistic, private penances involving self-torture carried out by Hindu ascetics. In this article, sections dealing with the diverse South Asian rituals of self-torture are organized in terms of both phenomenal typology and geographical area (the most parsimonious method for classifying them).

Early Daytime Sleepiness and Nighttime Slow-wave Sleep Disorganization in Progressive Macaque Model of Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinsonian patients often experience wake/sleep behavior disturbances, which can appear at an early stage of the disease in a way that is still not fully described. We aimed here at reproducing and characterizing these clinical signs in a progressive non-human primate model of the Parkinson’s disease to better understand the underlying physiopathology and to identify biomarkers of the disease. Three adult non-human primates (macaca fascicularis) were equipped with a polysomnographic telemetry system allowing the characterization of the wake/sleep behavior by long-term neurophysiological recordings and a modified multiple sleep latency test. Experiments were first performed in healthy animals and then during the progressive induction of a parkinsonian syndrome by chronic intramuscular injections of low doses of MPTP. We observed a significant early onset of wake/sleep behavior disturbances, before any motor symptoms, resulting in (i) a disorganization of nighttime sleep with more deep sleep and (ii) a disorganization of daytime naps with an excessive daytime sleepiness characterized by longer duration of naps, which occurred faster. These observations persisted and worsened in stable symptomatic state. In that latter state, we observed persistent excessive daytime sleepiness and more disorganized nighttime sleep architecture and continuity. Interpolating to the human condition, the present study suggests that nighttime and daytime sleep disorders may appear in early stage of the disease. They could thus be used as biomarkers of the disease for early stratification of patients who are at risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.

Theories of Institutions

The human condition teems with institutions – intertemporal social arrangements that shape human relations in support of particular values – and the social scientific work developed over the last five decades aimed at understanding them is similarly vast and diverse. This book synthesizes scholarship from across the social sciences, with special focus on political science, sociology, economics, and organizational studies. Drawing out institutions' essentially social and temporal qualities and their varying relationships to efficiency and power, the authors identify more underlying similarity in understandings of institutional origins, maintenance, and change than emerges from overviews from within any given disciplinary tradition. Most importantly, Theories of Institutions identifies dozens of avenues for cross-fertilization, the pursuit of which can help keep this broad and inherently diverse field of study vibrant for future generations of scholars.

Examining Social Exchange Theory and Social Change in the Works of George Caspar Homans – Implications for the State and Global Inequalities in the World Economic Order

This paper focuses on the critical investigation of ‘Social Exchange theory’ and ‘Social Change’ in the works of George Homans. The objectives are to appropriate the interpenetrations of the twin concepts, and their implications towards the amelioration of the human condition both within the state, and within the global socio-economic relations. Thus, the paper achieves its objectives by applying a qualitative-critical descriptive method of analysis on the subject matter –with a critique from Peter Blau’s variant perspective for helpful extrapolations to explaining human condition within the state, and globally. The paper made some findings, draws conclusions, and recommendations. A few of these findings include 1) the propensities of breaching the norm of reciprocity in social exchange process are higher than the tendencies to maintain the norm; 2) at the breach of the norm of reciprocity, there are higher risks of losses than the gains, and there are immanent implications; 3).That societal progress can also emerge via resistance to an ‘apopular’ status quo. The paper concluded that, there is a semblance of order when the norm of reciprocity is observed among nations, and within nations; but moments of aggression exists with immanent crisis-tendencies that are anti-development where the norm is violated. Therefore, the paper recommends: the state should be committed to its part of the social contract with the citizenry in terms of provisions of human-centered development facilities; and where the state loses the sanctity of its legitimacy and turns to a ‘class-state’, counter-reactions and resistance from the subaltern classes (the civil society) through protests for progressive social change or for the improvement of the human condition, should not be discouraged. Additionally, the advanced nations should recognize the socioeconomic rights of the less developed nations for a fair deal in the global economic relations. Received: 29 November 2021 / Accepted: 28 December 2021 / Published: 5 January 2022

Employee Welfare Measures

The welfare measures for employees in an organization have always and will keep playing a pivotal role in enhancing the morale of the employees. These schemes facilitate thrust for both the employee and employer relations. An employee's welfare is inherent core component, as they act as life blood for achieving the objectives of an organization. The main intention behind implementing the welfare measures is to secure the employee force by providing proper human condition of work and minimizing its hazardous effect on the life of the employees and their family members. This chapter determines the various welfare measures implemented with its impact on the employees' work efficacy in different public and private sector manufacturing organizations. This chapter also articulates the importance of welfare, symptoms of frustration, standards set by the employees, implications of welfare measures and its effectiveness on employees' and the organizational productivity.