Honorary Editor Research Articles

Leading a flagship civil engineering journal in changing waters: an editor’s perspective

In December 2023, Paula McMahon stepped down after 5 years as honorary editor of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ flagship journal Civil Engineering. She reflects on how both the journal and profession have changed – and discusses the ongoing challenges both now face.

Abstracts

The abstracts are edited by Janet Lang. The Honorary Editors would like to acknowledge her continuing help, and that of others who contribute abstracts. Where no source is given, the abstract has been adapted from that provided by the author(s) of the paper.

Cheng Zhifan and the Chinese Journal of Medical History

Professor Cheng Zhifan (1922-2018), was a famous contemporary Chinese medical historian and medical history educator, who successively served as the deputy editor in chief, editor in chief and honorary editor in chief for the Chinese Journal of Medical History. He developed the Chinese Journal of Medical History into an important academic journal in the field of Chinese medical history. He had his 46 papers published in the Chinese Journal of Medical History. The papers published in his youth and middle age focused on the study of western medical history. In his later years, he shifted the focus of his research into the education of medical history and the comparative study of Chinese and Western medicine. He devoted his life to teaching and research of medical history, paid close attention to the Chinese Journal of Medical History and made an important contribution to the development of medical history.

In Memoriam: Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade (1947–2022)

1. I must apologize at the outset that this eulogy for Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade is very personal.1 I first met Antônio in the summer of 1974 at the Centre for Studies and Research of the Hague Academy of International Law. In the following summer in 1975, we both participated in the International Law Seminar organized by the UN International Law Commission (ILC). We had become very good friends ever since. I was a member of the Curatorium of the Hague Academy in 2004 to 2016, overlapping his membership during those years, when we met at least twice a year either in The Hague or in Paris. In recent years, it was my joy to meet him at the biannual meetings of the Institut de Droit International (IDI). In connection with this Journal, we served together as members of the Board of Honorary Editors for a long time. 2. When I first met him in 1974, he was telling me that he had been writing his PhD dissertation at Cambridge on Developments in the Rule of Exhaustion of Local Remedies in International Law, which was 1,700 pages. After this, I heard that the Faculty of Law of the University of Cambridge had to decide to change the regulations to limit the length of PhD dissertation to 100,000 words. He published the dissertation in 1977 in 2 volumes. This was the beginning of his career as a prolific writer who ultimately authored 30 books and 475 monographs and articles. His last major publication was International Law for Humankind: Towards a New Jus Gentium, the revised and adapted version of his General Course on Public International Law of the Hague Academy of International Law (Monograph 10, 3rd ed., 2020), an earlier edition of which was reviewed in this Journal (17 Chinese JIL (2018), 1155–1158).

The inauguration of Cancer Innovation

Cancer is a challenging disease to both understand and treat, and was responsible for 17.8% of total deaths worldwide in 2020, coming closer to the 20.6% of deaths associated with cardiovascular disease. Despite global oncology spending of 167 billion US dollars in 2020, the prognosis of most cancers, especially advanced-stage diseases, remains poor because of therapy resistance. With much emphasis and many resources placed on oncological research, progress in precancer screening, anticancer treatments, and supportive care all contribute to better survival rates and quality of life for cancer patients. However, given the diversity of treatment outcomes and complexity of adverse effects, oncology research is in desperate need of reformation. As oncology has evolved to include more fields and novel concepts, Cancer Innovation has been created to bring innovation into cancer research. The technological breakthrough is the prime driving force for progress in biomedical research. Currently, oncology is a rapidly evolving research field filled with an increasing volume of biological and medical data. This is especially marked by the variety of multiomic data types, including but not limited to genomic, proteomic, metabolic, clinical phenotype, and imaging data. Given the heterogeneous nature of cancer, variations in patient baseline characteristics, and unpredictable responses to therapies, a novel technique-driven data mining approach for cancer identification may provide additional insights. The availability of medical big data and the information they may provide regarding cancer biology are the most exciting indications of movements toward precision medicine, where prevention, diagnosis, and treatment are personally tailored based on the specific molecular characteristics of an individual patient's disease. However, many challenges remain for precision medicine. Although multidimensional data of cancer are continuously accumulating, we still lack the ideal logistics and platforms to integrate and analyze these data and interpret cancer biology concepts from them. Creating a scientific community to help researchers manage large amounts of clinical and biological data, in addition to providing a platform for open discussion and learning, is one of the main goals of this journal. A combination of treatment methods, including surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy, are currently available depending on each patient's particular situation, while each treatment meets its limitation in clinical practice. Additionally, the complications and adverse effects of anticancer therapies all pose significant threats to the patient's overall survival. However, many necessary fields remain underdeveloped: new therapies and drug candidates, drug delivery systems, biomarkers for disease phenotyping, and especially the integration of other medical subspecialties with the help of nonmedical subjects. The future approach to standardized, comprehensive, and multidisciplinary cancer management is still vague. Therefore, a multidisciplinary approach is crucial to improving treatment efficiency and quality of care. In addition to oncologists and medical experts, scientists from various disciplines such as biology, pharmaceuticals, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and computer science must collaborate to develop new strategies for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The establishment of a successful multidisciplinary community is quite difficult and requires efficient organization of all scientific members. Scientific advancements and good communication within the multidisciplinary team will help the clinicians in the decision-making process and pave the way for a more applicable multidisciplinary management strategy. Cancer Innovation is an open access and peer-reviewed journal devoted to publishing high-quality original articles, clinical guidelines, technical reports, editorials, reviews, case reports, commentaries, news, study protocols, meta-analyses, and other publication types. This journal highlights the multidisciplinary integration in innovative oncology and aims to promote interdisciplinary oncology research and management of comorbidities across medical subspecialties. With this journal, we hope to begin a journey to find the solutions to innovative oncology problems, establish a hub for collaboration and communication across disciplines, and present a high-quality platform for deepening our understanding of oncology and developing guidelines for clinical decisions. We will present a unique combination of oncology translational research, interspecialty integration, and data sciences, bringing us one step closer to precision oncology and a better future for cancer patients. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the honorary chief editors for their help and encouragement with this new journal. With support and cooperation to overcome the difficulties that may arise, I am confident that we will have a brighter future for cancer prevention and treatment. We look forward to receiving your contributions!

The Honorary Editor's preface to the Maududi special collection

The special collection appearing in this issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society makes a valuable contribution to lively ongoing discussions centred on explorations of the concept of the sovereignty of God within contemporary Islamic traditions. As its Guest Editors Humeira Iqtidar and Oliver Scharbrodt highlight in their introductory essay, the concept of divine sovereignty has come to occupy a key place in Islamist thinking, with the writings of Abul A‘la Maududi playing a hugely significant role in its twentieth- and twenty-first century articulations. Comprising articles based on papers first presented in September 2019 at an ERC-funded workshop organised jointly by King's College London and the University of Birmingham, it offers cutting-edge scholarly reflections on how Maududi's articulation of ḥākimiyyat-i ilāhiyya has been received in a multiplicity of Muslim contexts and communities. Hence, their authors—Humeira Iqtidar, Oliver Scharbrodt, Usaama Al-Azmi, and Simon Wolfgang Fuchs—grapple with how far Maududi's thinking can be understood as a response to perceived challenges of ‘modernity’, as well as to the ways in which ideas linked to this notion connect with debates going back much further in time.

Greetings for New Year!

Happy New Year to all the readers, reviewers, authors and team Pakistan BioMedical Journal. Previous year was an exciting one with a lot of success and achievements for PBMJ. We hope this year would bring more achievements for PBMJ.
 I would share another exciting news on behalf of all editors that Prof. Dr. Peter Oehme has joined PBMJ as Senior Editorial Board Member and honorary Editor. He is a German Physician and Pharmacologist. He is founder of East German Drugs Research Institute established in 1977 and he was the first Director. His main focus of research was on the ‘Origins of stress reactions’. He explored the role of Substance P in the stress response and the pharmacological properties. He also explored how the body adapts to these stressed conditions. He is among the pioneer researcher for Substance P neuropeptide and its physiological and pathological functions. In 1985, he was the corresponding member of the ‘German Academy of Sciences’, In 1988 He was the external member of the ‘Soviet Academy of Medical Sciences’ and also awarded National Prize of the German Democratic Republic Class II (Sciences and Technology) the same year. In 1990, he was selected as full member of the German Academy of Sciences and in 2014, he was selected as external member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is our great pleasure that he has joined us and it will strengthen our Journal.
 We would not forget the untiring efforts of whole team for bringing feathers to the hat of PBMJ. Contributions from the authors was marvelous and huge response from the readers as well. Editorial board has suggested many reforms and contributed hugely. Reviewers are main support who go through all the articles critically and help us improve the manuscripts.

Niedziela, the Catholic Weekly, 1981–2014: Publishing Concepts and Positioning Among Polish Media

In the ninety-year-old history of “Niedziela” a number of periods can be distinguished. They are demarcated by subsequent editions of the magazine, chief editors’ visions of its handling and the role it played among the entirety of catholic press in Poland. The newest chapter in “Niedziela’s” history is tied with father Ireneusz Skubiś who edited the magazine for almost 33 years and since July 2014 serves as honorary editor in chief. He made “Niedziela” the second biggest catholic weekly magazine in Poland and one of the leading opinion-forming magazines in Polish media system.

The Honorary Editor's Preface: Situating Sanskrit after the Sultanates

The Honorary Editor's Preface: Situating Sanskrit after the Sultanates

Professor Martin Ritzén on his time as co-editor: 'I went back on my promise and never took over after Rolf'.

Professor Martin Ritzén has been engaged with Acta Paediatrica since the 1980s (Figure 1). It was then that he was published for the first time in the journal. Since then, he has followed its development from paper manuscripts with corrections in red pen, all the way to the transition to ‘online’. His involvement nearly led to a position as editor-in-chief. In 1970 I came home after a year as a fellow at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where I had quickly learned the fundamentals of clinical paediatric endocrinology and made valuable contacts. A lab in the newly built Clinical Research Laboratory was then there waiting for me. My research at that time was more preclinical and was published in other journals. My first publication in Acta wasn’t until 1980. Associate professor -- later professor -- Carl Gustaf (C.G.) Bergstrand at that time took care of the basic work at the journal as associate editor and presented all suggestions to Rolf. Bergstrand did thorough work -- one got paper manuscripts returned with his handwritten notes in the margins. Like a corrected school report! I think it was 1988. Rolf Zetterström, editor-in-chief since a long time back, recruited me as associate editor when Bergstrand resigned and instead became an honorary editor. The chairman of the foundation, Stig Sjölin, a few years later wanted me to promise that I would take over as editor-in-chief when Rolf would one day decide to end his editorship. He didn’t do that for a very long time. I went back on my promise and never took over after Rolf. During my first year, Almqvist & Wiksell was Acta’s publisher. It had an office on Old Bridge Street, in the Stockholm city centre, where I went for some time each week. Manuscripts were presented to me in folders, which became thicker with every revision. All correspondence happened through ‘snail mail’. Later, Rolf and I came to sit in neighboring offices, and I often got the honor of participating in sandwich lunches with Rolf and four other senior professors. At those lunches, many unofficial glimpses into Karolinska Institute’s history were exchanged. Rolf was familiar with it all! Without doubt it is the transition to digital manuscripts and the correspondence between the editorial office, authors and reviewers. The paper bundles vanished. Because it has kept its character as a journal of general paediatrics, primarily aimed at clinical paediatricians. Many other paediatric journals have chosen to focus on narrow subspecialties.

In memory of the honorary founding editors behind the FCAA success story

Abstract In this editorial paper, we start by surveying of the main milestones in the organization, foundation, and development of the journal Fractional Calculus and Applied Analysis (FCAA). The main potential of FCAA is in its readers, authors, and editors who contribute to the scientific advance and promote the progress of the journal. Among the editors, a special role of the honorary editors who contributed significantly to the foundation of the journal should be highlighted. These are prominent scientists, lecturers, and disseminators of FC and related topics. Unfortunately, some of them have already passed away, but they remain our living and lasting memory. In the main part of this survey, we remind the readers some biographical data and achievements related to FCAA topics of these Honorary Founding Editors: Professors Eric Love, Ian Sneddon, Bogoljub Stanković, Rudolf Gorenflo, Danuta Przeworska-Rolewicz, Gary Roach, Anatoly Kilbas, and Wen Chen. In eight sections, each devoted to one of the honorary editors, their ways in science and in FC, as well as their main results and publications are shortly described. Special attention is given to their role in foundation of FCAA and to their contributions to its success story.

In Memoriam: XU Hong (1963-2021)

1. The Chinese Journal of International Law mourns the passing on 7 March 2021 of Ambassador Dr. XU Hong, an Honorary Editor of this Journal and Executive Vice-President of the Chinese Society of International Law, formerly Ambassador of China to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative of China to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and Director-General of the Department of Treaty and Law in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. 2. Ambassador Xu’s professional and scholarly achievements have been told elsewhere and will be told in the future, we are sure. Here in this academic forum, we do not repeat those efforts, but would like to express our gratitude to Ambassador Xu for his strong efforts to strengthen the interaction between his colleagues in the government and academia. During his term as Director-General of the Department of Treaty and Law, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China...

Honorary Editor's: Preface

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Maurice Pierre Crosland (1931-2020): an appreciation.

Following some years of declining health, Professor Maurice Crosland passed away on 30 August 2020 at the age of eighty-nine. Author of four influential scholarly monographs, Maurice played major roles in the British Society for the History of Science during the 1960s and 1970s as an active Member of Council, Honorary Editor of the British Journal for the History of Science (1965-71) and Honorary President of the society (1974-6). His academic career began in 1963 with his appointment to a lectureship in the History & Philosophy of Science at the University of Leeds. In 1974 the by-then Reader in History of Science secured a £100,000 Nuffield Foundation Grant with which to establish, for the first time, a dedicated history-of-science group at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Appointed Professor of the History of Science and Director of the Unit for the History, Philosophy and Social Relations of Science (known as the 'History of Science Unit' or simply 'the Unit'), his objectives during the five-year Nuffield-funded period were to focus on promoting the research activities of the new group, build up much-needed library resources in a university which was barely ten years old, and effect a transition to a research and teaching Unit that would offer modules to undergraduates in each of the three principal faculties (Humanities, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences). His own research centred on French science during and after the Napoleonic period, with particular emphasis on the history of chemistry and the formal institutions and informal networks of Parisian science. In 1984 his work was recognized with the American Chemical Society's award of the Dexter Prize, a rare achievement for a British scholar.

Indispensable Quality of a Scholarly Online Journal

It gives me immense pleasure to bring out this issue of the National Journal of Professional Social Work. I would like to first share credit with all the authors who have trusted and submitted their precious work to publish with us. Secondly, I acknowledge the President of ISPSW and patron of this journal who granted permission to publish and entrusted me as Honorary Editor. I am also grateful to all the Executive Committee members for their support and encouragement and my esteemed editorial board members for their prompt and positive response for an extensive review and editing of this journal issue.

In Memoriam: Duncan Dowson (1928–2020)

In Memoriam: Duncan Dowson (1928–2020)

Some parting words.

Some parting words.

Presenting the Fourth JDR Award

It is our great pleasure to present the Fourth JDR Award to Professor Nobuo Shuto for his outstanding contributions to the Journal of Disaster Research (JDR) as the Honorary Editor. Professor Shuto, Professor Emeritus of Tohoku University, is a pioneer of the theoretical study of tsunamis. He has also made a large contribution to the development of numerical simulations, visualization through computer graphics, and other critical techniques for the study and control of tsunami disasters. The development of tsunami disaster reduction and management that we have today is thanks in large part to his achievements. On behalf of the JDR editorial board, I wish to thank Professor Nobuo Shuto for his efforts and to congratulate him as the winner of the Fourth JDR Award.

Preface from the Honorary Editor in Chief

Preface from the Honorary Editor in Chief

Welcoming remarks from the IJCIC Honorary Editor

Welcoming remarks from the IJCIC Honorary Editor