Civil Society, Politics, Solidarity: The Contribution of the Social Sciences
Civil Society, Politics, Solidarity: The Contribution of the Social Sciences
Editorial
More...
Editorial
More...
Keywords: right; employee protection; strategy; flexicurity
EU legislation concerning judicial relationships pertaining to labour law has known an important change in the time between the Rome Treaty establishing the European Economic Community in 1957 and the Amsterdam Treaty in 1997. A relatively new concept in this matter is flexicurity, which is a harmonization of labour flexibility and security. Within this concept the notion of labour security differs from the classical one known in social security legislation. Flexicurity was defined by the European Commission in 2007 as being „an integrated strategy” to simultaneously enhance flexibility and security in the labour market. Within this context, after nearly a century of labour legislation, emerged on the premises created by the International Labour Organisation in view of ensuring employee protection, EU legislation has devised norms addressing worker – owner relationships, in other words the relationships between labour and capital.
More...
Keywords: critical infrastructures; cyber space; cyber threats; vulnerabilities; information and operational technology systems;
In an increasingly connected world, critical infrastructures have become more vulnerable than ever to cyber securitythreats, whether they come from national states, criminal organizations or individuals. This new vulnerability stems fromfundamental changes in the technological systems of organizations (government and private). In this regard, the Virtual CriticalInfrastructure of any organization / nation represents an arena where security is absolutely imperative. Cyber protection hasbecome crucial in every sector of activity, and the absence of measures to protect critical infrastructures threatens to causehuge damage to the functioning of the company.
More...
Keywords: Agrarian and Environmental pedagogy; gender; gender competence; gender-sensitive; diversity; sexuality; methods
Equality and equal opportunities for women and men are central values of our society. Changes in traditional gender roles can only be achieved if people learn to be more aware of them. Gender-sensitive pedagogy assumes that girls and boys enter school with different interests, strengths and weaknesses through their socialisation in family and society and are confronted with different worlds of experience. For this reason, school – alongside family – is an extremely influential institution for the development of social gender and an equal relationship between the sexes. Based on the concept of the course "Sexuality and Gender", possibilities are shown how gender-sensitive education can be introduced in agrarian and environmental pedagogical professions and how the school system can benefit from it.
More...
Keywords: Cryogenic burn; frostbite; r22; Freon;
Introduction Frostbite usually occurs in cold weather countries due to the environment of extreme cold climate. Frostbite in a tropical country is a rare occurrence and all of the available cases described were due to chemical cryogenic elements as insulting agents. Freon is a widely used industrial r22 chemical refrigerant that can lead to severe cryoinjury of the skin. There were scanty published papers of Freon burn injury in the literature.Case report We present the first 2 such cases in Malaysia involving Freon injury to the hand – one treated conservatively while the other benefited from early excision and skin grafting. Each case was managed according to their individual presentations with a good outcome.Conclusions Freon burn is a serious ailment which can be linked with substantial morbidity. Appropriate pre-hospital intervention and definitive treatment are imperative to decrease tissue damage and optimize the outcome of the injured extremity.
More...Keywords: embroidery; traditional; textile; symbol; Romania; Mexico;
Under its various forms, tradition is an integral component of every nation’s culture, it is that which every generation inherits and subsequently passes onwards. An important role in its perpetuation can be attributed to the textile heritage and, by extension, to the women who weaved and stitched traditional motifs across the ages. The symbols found on traditional clothing used to have a double purpose: they were both apotropaic, meant to protect the wearer, as well as ornamental, meant to be decorative and aesthetically appealing. This has been true around the world, as people everywhere gazed at the sky, observed the nature that surrounded them and then chose signs and symbols with which to represent what they were seeing. In the present day there exists a worldwide trend of returning to traditional values in a form adapted to modern tendencies. Ethnologist Nicolae Dunăre has undertaken ample research of traditional Romanian and European popular ornaments, in a continuous global comparison. The painter Frida Kahlo reclaimed Mexico’s great variety of indigenous motifs when she wore the costumes. Bearing this in mind, we shall analyse some motifs found on textiles from Romania and Mexico, both countries with a vibrant popular culture, in parallel, observing whether or not commonalities exist. We shall also transpose said motifs in a digital format by way of vector drawing.
More...
Keywords: Immanuel Kant; religion; ethics; politics; philosophy
Best known for his ethical works, Immanuel Kant was part of the liberal Enlightenment and addressed most of the principal political issues of his day. Several of his major works were written in the wake of the storming of the Bastille in Paris, while Europe was engaged in the French Revolutionary Wars. His rejection of revolution but endorsement of the principles for which the French revolutionaries were fighting, as well as his plea for a federation of European states that would settle disputes peacefully, reflected his engagement with the controversies raised by the Revolution. But, although he could not countenance revolution, he declared that, once a revolutionary government has succeeded in establishing itself, citizens should obey the new government, rather than try to restore the ousted authorities.
More...
Keywords: arbitration; equity; institutionalized arbitrage; risk; opportunity;
The role of the arbitration is to humanize the settling procedure for disputes over formalist and sometimes not fully understood state justice, or like the great Honore de Balzac once said "as soon as a man has fallen into the hands of justice, he is no more than a moral entity, a matter of law or of fact, just as to statitics he has become a zero.".One must not misunderstand that arbitration should replace state justice as the state justice in the only one that can guarantee and ensure the observance of the correlative rights and obligations, public order, morals and imperative provisions of the lato-sensu law by applying the coercive force of the state, being the only one able to act in this way.Thus, arbitration is an opportunity for the parties and not a risk of denial of justice.
More...Keywords: Cybercrime; borders; European Union; cooperation; online attacks;
When it comes to cybercrime, borders are no longer an issue for the perpetrators, for hackes or any other person or group acting illegaly in this area. At E.U. Level, the responsible instituitions are making efforts in order to keep up with the progress members of the crime world are doing every day.
More...
Keywords: COVID-19, pandemic;
More...
Keywords: Trianon; Romania; Hungary; Transylvania; Woodrow Wilson;
When we speak of the new architecture of Central and Southeastern Europe after World War I, it is imperative to make the distinction between factual and legal realities. Actually, the entire oldorder of the region collapsed in the year 1918, when four empires fell (German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman) and new states were formed, or others were completed according toethnic and national criteria. The cause of this huge change was, undoubtedly, the peoples’ fightfor national emancipation, initiated in the 18th century and culminating in the “century of nationalities” and in the 1900s. Obviously, the Treaty of Trianon has its international and nationalimportance which is difficult to estimate and impossible to minimize: it legitimized the just will ofthe Romanian people and consecrated a valuable legacy at international level.
More...
Keywords: Immanuel Kant; I; Me; Mine; Wittgenstein’s use of ‘I’;
Review of: EKIN ERKAN - Béatrice Longuenesse, I, Me, Mine: Back to Kant and Back Again, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xix + 257 pp.
More...
Keywords: artificial intelligence; retail; buying and consumer behaviour; consumers’ perceptions of artificial intelligence; store of the future; next normal;
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the use of Artificial Intelligence in retail on buying and consumer behavior, better understanding how consumers perceive Artificial Intelligence on the path to the Next Normal. The consumer-technology partnership is confirming the reinvention of the retail organizations, retailers’ advancement on this path involving acting on the new patterns and behaviors by considering the new technology adoption within the context of COVID-19. Based on a comprehensive literature review on the impact of Artificial Intelligence in retail a quantitative research design was employed to demonstrate the nature of linkage between this impact and consumers’ perceptions of Artificial Intelligence. The data collection was performed through survey conducted in a supermarket chain in Romania, consumers’ perceptions of Artificial Intelligence being considered a central metric for assessing the successful use of Artificial Intelligence-enabled interactions within the context of the offline-online convergence confirmed by the Store of the Future, and consumers’ use of mobile phones in their Omni channel shopping journey. The present research, whose results were validated, offers retailers deep consumer insights with regard to the buying and consumer behavior change in Romania on the path to the Next Normal.
More...
Keywords: Vocal technique; Musical thinking; Phonation process;
Singing is the way of expression through which feelings, experiences, anideational content are poetically expressed; in its absence the vocal qualities cannot justifythe purpose of the interpretation. The topicality of music education for young performers isdetermined by an appropriate approach to the process of knowing the essential structure ofsinging, by understanding and mastering the multiple styles and ways of interpreting eachgenre, all in conjunction with an integration of historical views on the art of singing. Findingdirections of orientation and thinking in the field of vocal interpretation, corroborated withthe identification of some intrinsic values of it will contribute to achieving a stablefoundation on which the lyrical artist can build a career in interpretation.
More...
Keywords: religious literature; Jonah; the imperative of conveyance; prophet; artist; “grand narratives”;
A dominant trait of Ioana Parvulescu’s writing is the use of fictional leaps in recent epochs/times (19th century, the interwar period and Romanian Communism). Her last novel, Prevestirea, proposes a fictional immersion into an immemorial time, starting from the Old Testament episode of the prophet Jonah. By returning to the “grand narratives”, a subverted trend of Postmodernism, the writer’s text is structured around the imperative of the conveyance of revelatory truths, one of the recurrent characteristics of Romanian religious literature. The novel not only re-tells the story of Jonah, but also follows the way in which it was conveyed, understood and interpreted by a retinue of feminine characters, who represent the genealogical tree established by the prophet. The fictional odyssey of the prophet Jonah showcases his sinuous development and his wavering relationship with the Divine. Thus, we are presented with multiple hermeneutic perspectives through which the biblical narrative and Jonah’s portrait can be re-read and reinterpreted.
More...
Keywords: inalienability; non-enforceability; forced execution (foreclosure); subjective rights; registration;
Alienation through the real estate sale is fully valid in case of recording in the Land Book the forced execution of the property, prior to the Sale Contract, the sale becoming consolidated when the creditor has received the sale price for the covering the main due debt and also the interest rates and execution costs generated for late payment, the validity of the sale Agreement being independent of the request for the creditor’s prior agreement for the alienation.
More...
Keywords: Covid-19; Civil rights and media freedom; Freedom of speech; fake news;
A characteristic of all major crises that cause a state of emergency in a country or community, such as coups, wars, natural disasters, or the current COVID-19 pandemic, is their impact on the role and behavior of the authorities and how they treat their citizens. That is when officials display their true nature and their tendencies towards autocratic decision-making “in the interest of the public” and for their own good. The first step consists of declaring a state of emergency or, in a milder form, a state of crisis, which entails suspension of democracy and the functioning of state institutions and a concentration of uncontrolled power in the hands of one or a very small number of people, who then translate their decisions into laws. Apart from suspending democracy, which is usually done for undefined periods of time, human rights and liberties suffer, and there are limitations to media freedom. For authorities with an autocratic approach, it is imperative that the public not know what they are doing during the state of emergency and that their procedures and regulations are not exposed to public scrutiny.
More...
Keywords: Covid-19; Human Rights; Social Insurance; Social Rights;
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has lead North Macedonia into a serious social and economic crisis. The paper discusses the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the formulation of the national social security policy and legal framework, in line with international standards based on human rights treaties. Crucial social security measures in the country particularly give the pressure on health protection, unemployment, family and child support. The evaluation will focus on the adopted and new policy measures for social security. An important question is does the North Macedonian social security system is well established to protect workers from social risks during a pandemic. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some workers who lost jobs might rely on unemployment compensation. So, the focus of this paper is on the challenges of the social security system from large-scale disruptions such as COVID-19. The paper ends with a summary of the main policy measures and an outlook where further research is needed. It concludes that during and after the pandemic the social security policy will be more important than ever.
More...
Keywords: gender; sex; Christian identity; martyrdom; virginity; ecstasy; love; marriage
Focusing on three historical examples of a different understanding of Christian identity, the paper seeks to address the role of contemporary concepts of sex and gender in the creation of Christian identity. In the first case study, focused on the literary representations of the Christian martyrdom from the second and third centuries, special emphasis is placed on the demand for the ‘manly’ or ‘masculine’ way of witnessing faith. The second historical example relates to the creation of a wider ascetic movement in the fourth-century Asia Minor, and its specific focus is on Macrina the Younger. In her Vita, Gregory of Nyssa distinguishes between Macrina’s gender identity based on her virginity on the one hand, and her social role as a widow, and ‘mother’ and ‘father’ of her monastic community on the other. Finally, the focus is shifted towards Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor, whose teachings about ecstasy, as a way to transcend oneself in the movement towards the loved one, provide the basis for establishing a theology of marriage and creating a Christian identity based not on sexual or gender roles, but on the uniqueness of human nature.
More...
Keywords: politeness; indirectness; euphemism;
When expressing reticence, people resort to a wide variety of strategies on a morphological and syntactic level, some of which will be the focus of our article. Firstly, reticence in discourse can be triggered by a certain level of politeness which prevents the speaker from telling everything or from telling it exactly as it is thought. Therefore, mention will be made of such means as indirectness; apologies; self-deprecation; reserve and social awkwardness, with much emphasis laid on conventional and non-conventional indirectness. Secondly, but in close connection to politeness, taboos cause reticence in speech and they can lead to the creation of euphemisms as more colourful versions of the orthophemism.
More...