Sociology of tribalism for inclusive corporate social responsibility communication in Nigeria

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to deconstruct the term “tribalism” for its application to foster context and industry-based corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication system in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approachThis research used both the qualitative and quantitative research methods of data collection; it is an in-depth survey with multiple data collection settings.Findings(1) There is a pattern of CSR communication across the three industries sampled. (2) CSR across three industrial sectors is much about “donation” and “gift”. (3) CSR functions are now in a stand-alone corporate communication department. (4) CSR communication lacks the participatory mechanism to really involve the host communities' concerns. (5) Across the four organizations, CSR communication is often as financial or annual reports. (6) There is a general feeling and understanding that CSR and corporate communication in corporate organizations in n Nigeria require a more participatory mechanism. (7) CSR policy in Nigeria is till much of legal enforcement and efforts to have a national CSR commission has gone beyond legislation process.Research limitations/implicationsThis research was only able to collect data from four selected organizations representing just three industrial sectors (freight-forward, banking/finance and insurance) in Nigeria. There was no external funding to capture more organizations.Practical implicationsThe first implication of the findings of this study is that, for the practice of CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria, the system is much a top-down and non-participatory. This means host communities and other stakeholders do not have considerable participation in the organization's CSR and communication process. The companies in this study select or budget for CSR interventions they consider valuable to communities in most cases. This pattern of CSR operation cuts across the four selected organizations in this study. Thus, it could be argued that this pattern is an industrial/national phenomenon because all the respondents indicated that their organizations operate CSR based on what other related companies do in Nigeria. Second, the fact that CSR and communication by corporate organizations in Nigeria are regulatory influenced means many organizations may try to evade CSR activities by not budgeting for it.Social implicationsMeanwhile, in this study, deconstructing the evolutionary perspective which sees tribe as a primitive form of organization and relation characterized by the absence of a centralized collaborative system, it is argued that tribalism can catalyze systemic participation and oneness. In line with this perspective, tribal corporate organizations in Nigeria would model an alliance for CSR and communication system on proximity of operational context, that is, Nigeria. Being part of a tribe, corporate organizations as against the public ones will represent an identity reference for social corporate communication in Nigeria.Originality/valueDespite the theoretical problematic issues raised by the notion of tribe, it is deconstructed in this study to define modes of social organization, and it reflects native perceptions of a changing collective identity. Thus, it is also argued in this study, that there will be an increase in works on tribalism in organization communication and CSR in Nigeria as emerging business and global market will continue to shape the operation environment.

Developmental Evolution of Hypaxial Muscles: Insights From Cyclostomes and Chondrichthyans

Jawed vertebrates possess two distinct groups of muscles in the trunk (epaxial and hypaxial muscles) primarily defined by the pattern of motor innervation from the spinal cord. Of these, the hypaxial group includes muscles with highly differentiated morphology and function, such as the muscles associated with paired limbs, shoulder girdles and tongue/infrahyoid (hypobranchial) muscles. Here we summarize the latest findings on the evolutionary mechanisms underlying the morphological variety of hypaxial musculature, with special reference to the molecular insights obtained from several living species that diverged early in vertebrate evolution. Lampreys, extant jawless vertebrates, lack many of derived traits characteristic of the gnathostomes, such as jaws, paired fins and epaxial/hypaxial distinction of the trunk skeletal musculatures. However, these animals possess the primitive form of the hypobranchial muscle. Of the gnathostomes, the elasmobranchs exhibit developmental mode of hypaxial muscles that is not identical to that of other gnathostomes in that the muscle primordia relocate as coherent cell aggregates. Comparison of expression of developmental genes, including Lbx genes, has delineated the temporal order of differentiation of various skeletal muscles, such as the hypobranchial, posterior pharyngeal and cucullaris (trapezius) muscles. We have proposed that the sequential addition of distal muscles, associated with expression of duplicated Lbx genes, promoted the elaboration of skeletal musculature. These analyses have revealed the framework of an evolutionary pathway that gave rise to the morphological complexity and diversity of vertebrate body patterns.

Electric shock causes fear-like persistent behavioral response in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans

Electricity is widely utilized as environmental stimulus to sense the world by many animal species. Despite its importance, however, molecular and physiological mechanisms for responding to electrical stimulus have been far less understood compared to other sensory stimuli. Here we report novel behavioral responses to electrical stimulus of the nematode C. elegans. When the animals on food are stimulated by alternating current, their movement speed suddenly increases more than 2-fold, which persists for a few minutes even after the electrical stimulation is terminated. Genetic analyses reveal that voltage-gated channels are required for the response, possibly as the sensors, and neuropeptide signaling suppresses the persistent response. Additional behavioral analysis reveals that, in addition to the persistence, the animal's response to electrical shock is scalable and has a negative valence, which are recently regarded as emotion primitives, suggesting that the response may reflect a primitive form of "fear" of animals.

ECOLOGICAL SPECIFICITY OF PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY OF FUTURE CIVIL PROTECTION PROFESSIONALS

The article investigates that the process of formation of ecological culture has passed from primitive society through primitive form, slave, feudal (adaptive-regressive form), to modern society with progressive-adaptive form of ecological culture. In the process of evolution, these changes led to coevolution associated with the development of man and society, and with the evolutionary development of nature itself. It is proved that in the conditions of global deterioration of ecological situation the new vision of the person consists that it is seen not as the owner, and is an organic part of the nature. The idea of priority cooperation with nature is being developed, and the search for ways to achieve these goals begins. The human community is approaching the initial stage of forming a holistic environmental culture. It is revealed that as a new historical type, a new stage of culture of society has the following structure: industrial culture (culture of industrial type), post-industrial or information culture (culture of information society) and ecological culture as a new type (period) of culture; environmental culture, which implies a new stage in the development of culture in general, associated with a change in the goals of production, its reorientation to the preservation of nature and humanity itself.

Molecular diversity in Lactucaspeciesusing Isozymes and RAPD Markers

Understanding of the molecular basis of genetic diversity in Lactucaaccessions is substantial for the management, improvementand efficient uses of Lactuca accessions. Therefore, this workaimed to evaluate molecular diversity among twenty-six accessions of Lactuca species usingisozymes and RAPD analyses. The polymorphic percentages were 87.09%and 100% in isozymes and RAPD analyses respectively, indicating a high genetic variation within and among Lactuca species. The number of alleles were higher in the wild species compared to the cultivated species, reflecting a reduction in the richness of alleles in the cultivated species due to domestication that caused a reduction in genetic diversity to meet the demand for high crop productivity.Isozymes and RAPD clustering dendrogrames: (1) separated,L. sativa accessions in more than one cluster confirming their polyphyletic origin; (2)collected the accessions of L. vimineain one cluster revealed its homogeneity; and (3) divided the accessions of L.saligna in two clusters varied in the number of alleles, particularly “A” form. The corresponding analysis associated the accessions of the wild species based on the alleles “B”of the tested isozymes and the cultivated species on alleles “A” and “C”, suggesting that: (1) allele “B” might be the primitive form of these loci that can tolerate the environmental stresses which prevails in the habitats of the wild species, and (2) “A” and “C” could be the derived forms. These results are of great interest for the management of Lactuca germplasm and for future breeding programs of lettuce.

Product placement as an efficient marketing tool within the media mix

Product placement has existed in its most primitive form since the dawn of cinema. Now, due to the saturation of conventional advertising, this technique has reached its zenith, with brands appearing in an environment without competition, as a natural element of the plot. The automotive sector has been present from the beginning and soon understood the expressive possibilities that were offered. General Motors began its journey in the film industry in 1933 following an agreement with Warner. Since then, the General Motors group has had a growing presence in the film industry, which reached its peak in Transformers (2007), an unprecedented type of product placement. It is possible to identify a clear cause-effect relationship in the company’s sales, with product placement being an efficient marketing tool within the media mix, as we will show throughout this investigation. The study begins with a historical review of brand placement in North American cinema (1933-2014), then proceeds with a content analysis, following the methodology proposed by Méndiz (2001), of advertising placement in film and a structured interview with Norm Marshall, the director and founding partner of Norm Marshall & Associates, responsible for GM’s product placements.

Dynamic Nonprehensile Manipulation of a Moving Object Using a Batting Primitive

To achieve human-level object manipulation capability, a robot must be able to handle objects not only with prehensile manipulation, such as pick-and-place, but also with nonprehensile manipulation. To study nonprehensile manipulation, we studied robotic batting, a primitive form of nonprehensile manipulation. Batting is a challenging research area because it requires sophisticated and fast manipulation of moving objects and requires considerable improvement. In this paper, we designed a batting system for dynamic manipulation of a moving ball and proposed several algorithms to improve the task performance of batting. To improve the recognition accuracy of the ball, we proposed a circle-fitting method that complements color segmentation. This method enabled robust ball recognition against illumination. To accurately estimate the trajectory of the recognized ball, weighted least-squares regression considering the accuracy according to the distance of a stereo vision sensor was used for trajectory estimation, which enabled more accurate and faster trajectory estimation of the ball. Further, we analyzed the factors influencing the success rate of ball direction control and applied a constant posture control method to improve the success rate. Through the proposed methods, the ball direction control performance is improved.

Physicality as a possible key to understanding human nature

The statement about human nature is the subject of numerous discussions, which, however, does not negate the presence of the substrate of its origin, manifestations, specificity, and real dynamics in space and time. In the process of analysis, we find a lot of arguments that confirm this fact, as well as a decent number of counterarguments. In this article, a priori, we proceed from the validity of the existence of the term "human nature", recognizing its ambiguity. Of course, our stated physicality as an aspect of human nature does not exhaust the idea of his nature. The nominal division into soul, spirit, etc. gives us some methodological tools. No more than that. Physicality, in its turn, requires problematization. "Physicality "is a category that denotes what a given human body naturally becomes in the course of its social modifications, so this category can certainly not be considered outside of conjunction with another very important category - "spirituality". These concepts, as well as the phenomena they denote, are interrelated (MORGAN 2006). In our review, there are three main ways to interpret "Physicality". Firstly, it is the only factuality that initially claims the ontological status. Secondly, it is part of a harmonious whole that includes all non-corporeal things. I would like to focus on the third aspect, which includes at least three principles. Thirdly, physicality changes its seemingly simple "fate" dramatically, turning into a problem as a way of human existence. This can be interpreted "as a creative act of overcoming oneself". Only this overcoming of the present self presupposes a reliance on its relevance and reality. This ontologically conditioned event is always self-based. In this sense, the body as a creative phenomenon " never appears just by its own. Yet it is precisely overcoming that is the constitutive feature of human existence. A man is bigger than himself. We can say that the problem is a way of human existence. The problem in the most primitive form can be expressed as "I already want to, but I can't yet". Where does the desire come from if the object of desire (the desired situation) is not yet available? How can you want something that doesn't exist yet and never has? The man himself is a few steps ahead (BUBLIK, 2006). Human rationality is based not only on reflectivity, but also on the ability of a person to operate with ideas that do not have objective visibility (for example, the ultimate category of being). Thus, man proves his metaphysicality: "man's metaphysics expresses not only the presence of the supernatural dimension in man but also his ability to determine himself, to be his own creation". The main methods used in writing the article: the unity of historical and logical, the method of reflection.

Molecular Diversity in Lactuca Species Using Isozymes and RAPD Markers

Background: understanding molecular diversity in Lactuca species is substantial for the management, improvement and efficient uses of their accessions. Therefore, this work aimed to evaluate molecular diversity among and within Lactuca species. Methods and Results: the molecular diversity was assessed using isozymes and RAPD analyses that gave 87.09% and 100% polymorphic percentages respectively, indicating a high genetic variation within and among Lactuca species. The number of alleles were higher in the wild species compared to the cultivated species, reflecting a reduction in the richness of alleles in the cultivated species due to domestication that caused a reduction in genetic diversity to meet the demand for high crop productivity. Isozymes and RAPD clustering dendrogrames: (1) separated, L. sativa accessions in more than one cluster confirming their polyphyletic origin; (2) collected the accessions of L. viminea in one cluster revealed its homogeneity; and (3) divided the accessions of L. saligna in two clusters varied in the number of alleles, particularly “A” form. The corresponding analysis associated the accessions of the wild species based on “B” form of the alleles of the tested isozymes, and the cultivated species on the forms “A” and “C”, suggesting that: (1) allele “B” might be the primitive form of these loci that can tolerate the environmental stresses which prevails in the habitats of the wild species, and (2) forms “A” and “C” could be the derived forms. Conclusions: These results are of great interest for the management of Lactuca germplasm and for future breeding programs of lettuce.

The Book of Job

The Greek version of the book of Job in its primitive form (OG) presents a text that is 389 stichs shorter than that of the Hebrew textus receptus. The pre-Hexaplaric Greek text is attested by scattered quotations from some Latin authors, by the Coptic-Sahidic version, or by the Greek Testament of Job. Origen filled the lacunae with revised material in order to restore the original length of the text. While the literal approach of this asterisked material towards the Hebrew helps in determining the translation technique that the translator followed, the OG text shows less concern for literality. Origen’s Hexaplaric Septuagint is hybrid because the lacunae were not simply the result of mere omissions, but also verses that were summarized or more synthetic. The ecclesiastical version preserved these additions and manuscripts have carefully indicated them, as also modern editions.