Vertical Mystical Homoeros An Altered Form of Desire in Fundamentalism

This paper inquires into the kind of desire specific to the fundamentalist mode. The author suggests that the simplistic, black-and-white, ostensibly “horizontal” divisions between good and evil, right and wrong, pure and impure that characterize the fundamentalist sensibility create at the same time two phenomena: (a) gross emotional intensity that endows experience with a stark quality (e.g., grandiosity and abjection), and (b) a “vertical” division that constructs basic inequalities. The “vertical” difference between the believer and his God intensifies longing and mystical desire. The longing of the holder of such desire is to merge with a tantalizing, perfect, and cruel God and to renounce his individuality and even life. The concept of a “regression-to-the father” is a tempting and potentially dangerous process of abnegation if not countered by the need to overcome the “father” one so submissively desires.     

Large sample bias of maximum likeihood estimates from a series of sparse ixj tables

For a large series of IxJ tables, each containing two observations, the bias of the maximum likelihood estimates of log linear partial association parameters is shown to be equal to the parameters, regardless of the size of I and J. The partial association considered is that between row and column variables; the three way interactions are assumed to be O. This is a generalization of Andersen's results (1973a, 1973b) for a series of 2x2 tables.     

Pre-term Foetal Life Times in Scotland

A proportional hazards model was used to evaluate the association between ten categorical covariates and the risk of pre-term delivery for women having their first child and women in subsequent pregnancies. An adaptation of the model for use with grouped survival times made it possible to model foetal life times between 28 and 36 completed weeks of gestation for 67,000 Scottish singleton births in 1981. The use of the model was justified by testing time-dependent effects. For both groups of women age, and a history of abortion, were major factors associated with increased hazard. For women experiencing a second or higher-order birth a history of perinatal death was also associated with substantially increased hazard to the pregnancy.     

Integration and Inclusion: Illusion or Progress in Services for Disabled People?

This paper analyses the meanings of "integration" and "inclusion" in the context of disability services to determine the extent to which the latter signals a change in perspective rather than simply a change in terminology. It is argued that integration implies that disabled people need to be integrated into "mainstream" society and that it is they rather than society which is required to change. The policy response which results from this approach may thus be a technical one which focuses on physical integration alone. In contrast, inclusion takes as its starting-point the fact that a just state of affairs is one in which disabled people are included in society and hence the required policy response is a broad one which includes comprehensive civil rights legislation, an analysis of the effects of present and future policy on disabled people and the participation of disabled people in the democratic decision-making process. However, as disabled people are currently excluded from many aspects of society, the potential for an inclusive approach to be dismissed as being too idealistic is noted, and a number of possible barriers to its realization are discussed. It is concluded that whilst such barriers exist they should not, in themselves, provide a reason for inaction as an understanding of the implications of inclusion for policy and practice can provide a useful starting-point from which to bring about change.     

Beliefs and practices resulting in female deaths and fewer females than males in India

A preference for sons and the low status of females are implicated in the preponderance of males over females as reported in each census of India from the first one taken in the 19th century. A number of cultural practices, some of which are quite ancient, are involved in this sexual imbalance, namely, maternal mortality due to unhygienic lying-in and postpartum conditions and practices, female infanticide, female feticide, Sati, murder, dowry murder, and suicide. This discussion is based both on 19th and 20th century sources and on fieldwork conducted in the North Indian village of Shanti Nagar in 1958–59 and 1977–78. These practices are most prominent in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, and the Union Territory of Delhi. Initially the British tended to overlook some of them, but in the early 19th century and thereafter the British Raj passed laws to curb, especially, female infanticide and Sati. The modern Government of India has also sought to abolish dowry which would, presumably, put an end to dowry murder. Moreover, the Government has issued three circulars directing that action be taken under the penal code against anyone using a prenatal sex-determination test with the object of abortion—a directive aimed at stopping female feticide. Again with the intent of curbing female feticide, a bill providing for punishment and heavy fines for doctors violating the ban on sex-determination tests has recently been introduced in the state legislature of Maharashtra. Despite these efforts, most of the beliefs and practices here described have proved to be tenacious.