We kindly inform you that, as long as the subject affiliation of our 300.000+ articles is in progress, you might get unsufficient or no results on your third level or second level search. In this case, please broaden your search criteria.
This paper develops a general equilibrium model for the Republic of Croatia to evaluate CGE model use in macroeconomic management and forecasting. Since Croatia is a small open country subject to large external shock and growth constraints efficient macroeconomic management framework is fundamental. The lack of data prevents to follow historic economic variables over a longer period of time, which is why CGE models look as possible solution. CGE models use calibration to solve the problem of missing most macroeconomic variables. After developing the model, we use it to run different scenarios for economic policies using a CGE model for Croatia. Results show that CGE model can be an important instrument for policy makers in running macroeconomic policies for small open countries.
More...
Paweł Schreiber provides a report on the 9th Festival of New Dramaturgies in Bydgoszcz (2-10.10.2015). The author calls attention to the English-language name of the festival, which, to his mind, does a fine job in encapsulating the change in the structure of the events, and emphasizes the shift in focus to the presentation of new dramaturgy. Schreiber lists the plays and shows their diversity of themes and forms. He does note, however, that they are joined by their political concerns. He has a close look at the plays: Aleksandra Zec by Oliver Frljić, War I Did Not Survive by Agnieszka Jakimiak, directed by Weronika Szczawińska, Sounds Like War and Black Bismarck byandcompany&Co, and Oh My Sweet Land by Amir Nizar Zuabi. He considered Rabih Mroué's Riding the Clouds to be the finest performance.
More...
Weronika Szczawińska calls attention to the growing interest in collective memory in the Polish theater of the 1990s. In her analysis of the memory metamorphoses in the theater, she usesJay Winter's notion ofa “memory boom.” At the beginning the article addresses the crisis of the discourse on memory and the collective, and the revision of the concept of communality following the political transformations of 1989. Drawing reference to texts by Beata Guczalska, Jacek Sieradzki, and Grzegorz Niziołek, Szczawińska presents a multifaceted picture of how themes of history and memory have appeared on the Polish scene from the 1990s to the early 2000s. In sum, she forwards the thesis that the memory turn in Polish theater serves a therapeutic function, helping to salvage a modern collective identity after the transformation with fragments of a previously repressed history.
More...
Jacek Wachowski investigates transformations in human perception whose beginning he traces back to Doppler's discovery of ways of perceiving light waves. The Austrian scholar's observation irreversibly negated the relationships that had theretofore reigned between the sensorium and the cogito, which had been the axis of the narrative of human nature. In Wachowski's opinion, this should be understood in terms of the emergence of post-humanism. In exploring the experiment of the sensory loop of feedback (which is able to send perceptual data between a subject and the objects surrounding him/her in an interactive manner) he recalls numerous experiments made by artists and engineers. Wachowski believes that, as a material for making art, technology became a way of performing reality, creating new representations, and a method for interacting with them in numerous ways.
More...
The late phases of the Middle Bronze Age Wietenberg culture are characterized by the predominance of good quality and carefully decorated pottery. One of the most remarkable pottery products of this period is the so-called quadrilobed vessel, a lavishly decorated high quality product. The vessel has an odd, lobed shape, not immediately readable in terms of functionality. In addition to its esthetic and technical features, it is also a rare find: it constitutes a small proportion of the pottery discovered in settlements, being even rarely associated to funerary contexts. Although the quadrilobed vessel has received a certain academic attention, it was invariably analyzed as individual find. This paper discusses several recently discovered quadrilobed vessels at the Pianu de Jos – Lunca Pârâului settlement. By using statistical tools, micro- and macroscopic analysis, it will consider the functionality of such vessels, with a focus on the technological and morphological characteristics of the pottery found at Pianu de Jos – Lunca Pârâului site, on the Mureș valley.
More...
A new archaeological site was discovered in 2012 in Romania in the river Mureș Valley, at Tărtăria (Alba County). Researchers have been able to date it during the first period of the Iron Age (middle Hallstatt, Basarabi culture). Excavation has revealed a collective burial containing the remains of seven individuals (six of which were articulated and a seventh only partially represented). Due to the very poor preservation and extreme degree of fragmentation of the material, anthropological analysis could only determine age at death for some of the individuals. This article discusses this common burial together with other individual funerary features have also been discovered in one of the trenches bordering the site. The skeletal assemblage from Tărtăria has analogies in other contemporary assemblages recovered from Hungary and Serbia and remains particularly important for our understanding of funerary rites during the early Iron Age in the Carpathian basin.
More...
The spatial dimension of human behavior is an important research field in archaeology. The methods and techniques related with geomatics, especially GIS (Geographical Information System), are useful tools for archaeologists. The present study aims to analyze the anthropic impact on the archaeological sites in the Ilfov County, based on the data that covers a 150 years period (1864 – 2015) are used. Along with assessing anthropic impact, this paper presents a methodology of work which can be used in urban planning, in order to minimize uncontrolled losses on heritage.
More...
Considering a growing number of Polish prisoners addicted to psychoactive substance, the need exists for adequate therapeutic interactions to target this specific group of patients. Previous studies suggests that to be effective such treatment must be adapted to prison conditions and tailored to specific needs and personality profiles of inmates. Our research focused on selected aspects of prisoners’ personality structure before and after addiction therapy in prison conditions. The results have revealed positive changes in a number of personality features, abilities and needs under observation, which may testify to the positive therapeutic effect. Additionally, inmate population has been split into three group, according to three personality types (RUO). The analysis shows that positive change has occurred only among the overcontrolled and the undercontrolled, while no change has been recorded among the resilient. The findings prove that there may exist a significant correlation between personality types as classified here and the change induced in inmates by therapeutic process, and that personality may have an impact on the effectiveness of addiction therapy in prison conditions.
More...
In their work probation officers need to engage in an array of tasks in dealings with their clients and institutional stakeholders. They work in the field with their clients, in the courtroom, to exchange information with judges on pending and planned actions against their clients, and interact with external stakeholders - institutions and organizations which foster assistance and social rehabilitation. The variety of tasks and the need to coordinate them, tough decisions which induce changes in human lives and affect the clients and their families, difficulties and resistance to change, with the ensuing drop of effectiveness, insecurity driven by task specificity, the need to combine the outside involvement with persona goals - all these are major challenges for this professional group. Thus, probation officers need to possess the proper ‘inner equipment’ understood as a high sense of coherence (comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness), the ability to define professional and personal goals and the sense of purpose in life, not to mention the ability to cope in difficult situations. The paper presents and describes the findings from the study of the aforementioned variables among professional probation officers.
More...
Over recent years, the Internet has become the platform for a myriad of social movements fighting for their rights and claiming the change of the current status quo. In this respect much ink has been spilt on the role of the Web in the wave of social unrest in Egypt and Tunisia. These developments were examined in a number of publications, including the book by Manuel Castells “Networks of Outrage and Hope. Social Movements in the Internet Age”. The virtual space enabled people to coordinate their actions and, in the context of violation of fundamental human rights, brought the discussion on a number of social issues to the international level. Yet, the Internet has its other, darker side. As on-line communities can be created easily, the virtual space has been more and more often used by groups whose agenda is not always socially acceptable and which often question the existing social order. This paper discusses this negative side of the Web. It depicts social movements which use the Internet to relay their message and to call for hate. It presents examples of groups which organize such on-line communities and the means used to that end. Moreover, it touches upon the issue of legal and technological constraints in fighting hate speech on the Web.
More...
The paper examines factors which shaped the reform of the Polish labor law between 2009 and 2013. The government aimed at making legislation more flexible but its response: 1) was loosely related to the post-crisis issues in the Polish economy and overlapped with the program of the ruling party, abstract from the crisis itself; 2) revealed the features of the ‘path-dependence’ mechanism, and in particular highlighted such comparative advantages of the Polish economy as low labor costs and the ability to variably adapt employment levels to employers’ needs. The paper uses research tools of institutional approaches in political and social sciences, including the thinking on the varieties of capitalism, as well as the literature dealing with the retrenchment of welfare state.
More...
Although there have been some important contributions to the study of the relationship between the Portuguese Assembleia da República and the institutional system of the European Union, more research and studies are required in order to examine the multiple features of that relationship. Bearing that in mind, this article will analyse in particular the role of the Assembleia da República’s plenary in relation to European matters, by systematizing the plenary debates particularly addressing EEC/EU matters, which took place in Parliament after Portugal’s accession to the European project, from the IV Legislature (1985-1987) through the XI Legislature (2009-2011) and by assessing the intensity and the evolution of plenary sessions devoted to this subject during those 26 years. This article therefore seeks to present a quantitative analysis of the number of plenary debates dedicated to European matters held in each legislature, while also providing a qualitative approach regarding the contents of those debates. Also included is an analysis of the changing legal framework in which mandatory plenary sessions devoted to EU affairs have been held over the years, covering the latest developments introduced by the entry into effect of the Lisbon Treaty and of Law no. 21/2012 of May 17, which amends Law no. 43/2006 of August 25, on the Assembleia da República’s monitoring, assessment and pronouncement regarding the development of the European Union.
More...
This paper brings into focus two major innovations of European identity: the Liber Augustalis (1231) and Paneuropa (1923). It discusses several concepts of modern Europe and their possible medieval origins in the first written constitution of government in the Western tradition. The purpose of the constitutiones was to reign in these regimes and unite them under a single rule of law that defined the rights, powers, and duties of each of the components, purpose that mirrors the labors of the European Union today. We gaze into the ideological and terminological correspondences between the Liber Augustalis and Paneuropa in order to understand the origins of the best example of Pan-Europeanism: the European Union. Introspection on the machinations of the main European power of the thirteenth century that had one language (i.e. Latin) and wanted to create one law, offers a better understanding of the signs manifested by the Pan-European movement, with English serving as main language, slowly heading towards Europeanism. We contest the hypotheses regarding the primacy of the Paneuropa manifesto as the first popular movement for a united Europe, and we bring arguments that Europeanism is an heirloom of medieval origins, and that these constitutiones were not confined to defining the structures, procedures, rights, powers, and duties of government as later constitutions would be.
More...
Wallachia represents an interesting environment, not just for the Eastern European history itself, but also defines various expressions in mural art. The leaders are represented most of the times on the walls of churches that they have built. These paintings have many particularities, and, besides the clothing, the „votive” paintings, as we call them, are revealing good knowledge of the art of composition. It is like a single genre: „the votive painting”, but no work of this type looks like any other. Matei Basarab (1635-1654), Şerban Cantacuzino (1678-1688), Constantin Brâncoveanu (1688-1714), Constantin Mavrocordat (six times prince of Wallachia), are only a few who have their portraits integrated into the fresco surfaces. The paintings are hiding problems to resolve in dealing with the space, the light and the chromatic element. There are various representations of the same character, some contemporary, some made years after. It is there a sense of mystery in structure or in the semiotic of forms and even, the semiotic of some decoration. The portraits in murals represent a mirroring of a noble personality on a humble and yet, monumental surface: the wall of a church located in a forest or in an old town. Not just the personalities have their place in history, but also their portraits should have the proper place in the history of art.
More...
Jean Baudrillard’s postmodern metaphysics proposes a completely new system in its dialectical approach regarding the analysis of postmodern culture and society. Living in the age of speed, the author of famous postmodern philosophy like “America”, “Simulacra and Simulation”, “The System of Objects” or “The Agony of Power” explains the shortcomings of the secularized postmodern world and finds a comprehensive way of explaining the loss of meaning in the world where contemporary media, financial drive, multinational capitalism and super urbanization contribute to a high extent to the creation of an artificial hyper reality in which the real and the unreal are merged into one. His analysis provides an account for the cultural void, which can be perceived in today’s highly computerized and technological systems. He then introduces the concept of simulation of reality to relate it to the human experience, by explaining the fact that, in the postmodern society, symbols and signs have replaced all reality and meaning. Language plays a more important role in delimiting power relations within society and the sign language replaces the real meaning.
More...
This paper examines how Jean Renoir's films sought to initiate a spirit of integration in French and other European societies. Renoir observed that, historically and unfortunately, large sections of the population like women and minorities were deprived of many fundamental rights. Renoir strongly believed in a just and equitable social order. He realized that social justice could only be achieved through a wide and comprehensive integration of all constituent groups forming a social milieu. He thus proposed equal rights for women and the under-privileged common people who formed the majority of the any population. Renoir also appealed for the majority to tolerate and embrace the "foreign migrants" who were usually ostracized in their new environments, in order to foster social diversity. Renoir’s aim was to achieve the greater good of all. A forerunner in espousing such a liberal idea, Renoir believed that France and Europe could lead by example.
More...
In contemporary societies, communication plays a paramount role and is an indispensable form of social and political mediation. The function of communication is enhanced in the context of the European Union, since the large territorial dimension, the different countries involved, and the relatively new political institutions with respect to the nation states require an intensive communicative exchange in order to strengthen the process of cooperation, development, and integration. The reference to the principles of communication, as highlighted by the theories of Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas, offers a concrete possibility to shape communication from an ethical standpoint, and allows for conceiving a pluralistic, democratic process. With the integration of some aspects of the communitarian thinking, the idea of an ethics of communication provides some concrete chances of reflecting on the relation between people and institutions, and of conceiving of a communication which be more attentive to the present challenges and which secure a more effective and respectful interweaving among the different subjects and instances concerned.
More...
Our paper aims to analyze the subculture concept and phenomenon in the context of a knowledge-based society, considering various manifestations at the level of society and of the community, and implicitly the issue of their consequences. In this regard we have taken into account the potential factors that trigger or prevent the formation of subcultures, be they ethnical or conflictual, deviant or criminal. Our research also considers the current situation at European level, taking into account the demographics’ dynamics (the aging population and the strong influx of immigrants), seeking to explain the occurring trends linked to the multiplication of subcultures in the European area, especially in the EU, as a structure of the new Europe. The increase of the EU’s strength goes hand in hand with the increase of the different regions’ force, some of them hoping to become independent given the weakening of the national sovereignty (the post-sovereign era). The cultural, geographical and historical differences among historical region are obvious and important especially for the inhabitants, involving trends of subcultures’ manifestations (in Germany – the Länder have different cultures, and Belgium can be divided into the French and the Walloon areas).
More...