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Dear josha-journal readers, We have had a strange year 2022 with all its ups and downs. In the public perception, unfortunately, the negative aspects predominate: War in Ukraine and other regions of the world, climate change, poverty and inflation. Hopefully, we as a scientific community can do something to fight against the negative things and contribute something for the improvement of our world. On a small scale, through a diverse and global community, but perhaps also on a large scale with scientific research for the benefit of humanity. The josha-journal would like to contribute to both. And here we are with the highs of the year that is now coming to an end. Once again, we were able to provide our readers with a large number of articles from various fields and different regions of the world. And also in 2022 we supported young scientists with Demetrios Prizes in the categories Bachelor, Master and PhD. This is something to build on for the new year 2023.

Helen Flanders Dunbar, the mother of psychosomatic medicine, was an outstanding pioneer whose life was to end tragically. A brilliant academic career led her to becoming an authority on Danté, a leading psychosomaticist who studied the healing shrines and one of the first to promote the work of clerics in hospitals. She did several large studies that put psychosomatic medicine on the map. With Franz Alexander she was regarded as the leading authority in the field, becoming the first editor of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Inspired by her Danté studies, Dunbar believed in combining art and science, manifested in a holistic attitude. She differed from Alexander’s organ specificity model, instead using the term personality constellation. Not a traditional Freudian, she was more interested in the symbolism of Jungian and Reichian typologies. Her studies also led to the finding of accident proneness which, tragically, could apply to her own life.

Over ten weeks in Whitechapel in the Autumn 1888, five women (the ‘Canonical Five’) were brutally murdered by a mutilating serial killer. The murders represented a new form of killing. Jack the Ripper, the accepted metaphor for the killer, has become a cultural meme, with a new candidate surfacing every decade or so, without any solution as yet. A review of the killings is provided, followed by new forensic techniques that can be used to investigate the crimes. As it is accepted that new evidence will not arise after all this time, historians recommend a psychological approach as the only option to discover the killer. A promising approach, overcoming the limitations of profiling, is the spatial hypothesis developed by David Canter. This shows the likely base of the killer and posits that Aaron Kosminski, who died in an asylum, was the killer.

The place and status of ‘Ulamā as a major factor in the history of Borno are beyond all question. It is impossible to discuss much of Borno’s history, both past and contemporary, without paying attention to how ‘Ulamā have contributed to the intellectual, political, social, and economic development of the polity. First, they contributed greatly to the Islamisation of various places and peoples within and outside the polity. Second, the ‘Ulamā promoted literacy and scholarship. Third, some of the ‘Ulamā had succeeded in rescuing and building states and encouraged learning. The‘Ulamā’s blessing and prayer are also solicited in several individual rites of passage; and they are normally asked to preside over rituals related to naming ceremonies of newborns, marriage, and death. Yet, no research has been made on the status, position, and roles of the ‘Ulamā in Borno as well as their relationship with the state. This study, therefore, is designed to fill in this existing gap.

Antidepressants, and in particular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), hold an important role in our current society. 13.2% of the population in the United States of America are estimated to have used antidepressants between 2015-2018, and the usage is rising. Antidepressants were developed with the goal of improving people’s mental wellbeing, in particular during periods of depression. In addition to depression, antidepressants are also commonly used for treatments of anxiety, OCD, and eating disorders. Of these antidepressants, SSRIs are some of the most prescribed medications. Yet, although SSRIs now reach a broad segment of our population that struggle with mental health challenges, researchers still do not know how SSRIs work. Of greater concern, the jury is still out as to whether SSRIs have a significant impact on people’s mood and wellbeing. In this article, I dive into the research testing which effects SSRIs are documented to have in the short and long-term.

Newsletter - 11/2022 Collaborative Research Institute Intelligent Oncology (CRIION)

One of the major concerns of existentialists is the question of authentic existence. Oscar Wilde, a famous Irish poet and playwright, whose literary works contain lots of philosophical nuances, also battled with the concept of authentic living. The paper is therefore an attempt to identify his concept of authentic existence or living in comparison with other existential philosophers. The work is qualitative research sourcing its data from various library materials with application of and hermeneutics and comparison. The finding of this work is that authentic living, for Oscar Wilde, means self-actualization, which is more comprehensive than the position of many existential philosophers. Linus Akudolu: oluchukwu1900@gmail.com

Dear josha-journal readers, The year is ending, and josha-journal presents itself with a bulging basket of top-class contributions. First, we would like to point out another winner of a Demetrios award. Nadine Bleile won the prize in the Master category with her paper “Turning Point Motherhood”. It deals with the socially relevant question of how women can combine work and family. Also receiving a Demetrios award was Elena Greta Falcini for her work on art and artificial intelligence. Our focus on medicine is strongly represented this time by neuroscientist Pernille Bülow's contributions on psychological topics and especially on cancer research with contributions from Sina Reis, Michelle P. Peñaherrera and Carlos A. López. A topic on which there can never be enough research. We wish all our readers a good read. Stay tuned to us.

Newsletter - 09/2022 Collaborative Research Institute Intelligent Oncology (CRIION)

A preliminary survey was conducted to determine the conservation importance of Gomti lake situated in Dakor town (Kheda district), Central Gujarat. The lake happens to be one of the last strongholds of an endangered freshwater turtle species– Indian soft-shell turtle (Nilssonia gangetica), and the resident population is now severely threatened due to a complete loss of nesting habitat.