The Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is an intuitive device used by witnesses of an incident without medical training in cases of sudden cardiac arrest. Its operation consists in delivering an electrical pulse to the cardiac conduction system, as a result of which normal heart rate is restored. The lack of awareness in society concerning the usefulness of the device and the inadequate deployment of AEDs result in their too infrequent application by witnesses of incidents. The aim of this paper is (...) to verify whether cluster analysis is the appropriate statistical method to determine the appropriate deployment of AED devices on the basis of cases of sudden cardiac arrest in out-of-hospital conditions. The initial cluster analysis showed the validity of using the method in question for planning the appropriate locations of AEDs. (shrink)

In the first part of this essay the author indicates some of the problems of contemporary society related to how fragmentation of the social order affects and transforms self-identity. Today identity is chosen rather than given as it was in the past. Such freedom to choose who, how and where to be not only opens the possibility of unrestrained creativity but requires that the subject face new ethical and political issues.In the second part the author introduces these themes and questions (...) as they have been discussed by others. The problem of identity is put in the framework of space and time and approached as well with questions regarding the theory of names. Social problems of contemporary society are also discussed by using the approach proposed by Kantian philosophy. In the final essay of the present issue the question of how technology re-shapes and effects our everyday life is raised. (shrink)

This article aims to examine the Lithuanian housing policy system, with a special emphasis on social housing issues. This study is based on 20 semi-structured interviews with the decision makers and recipients of social housing. The analysis reveals the issues related to access to social housing, management and administration issues, problems related to stigmatisation of social housing recipients, and their overall satisfaction with the provided support.The study shows that accessing social housing and living in social housing is not an easy (...) task. Social housing recipients have to wait in queues for a long time, experience stigmatisation and constant fear that they may lose their social housing due to a strict income monitoring. On the other hand, the municipality tries to provide friendly strategies to solve individual cases and looks for the best solutions possible to meet the needs of social housing recipients. The findings show that massive privatisation in Lithuania created a dualistic housing market favouring home ownership and marginalising social housing as a safety net for the most vulnerable people. At the same time, a massive home ownership society formed a safety net for many, with family ties playing a crucial role. Housing safety is offered as a part of social assistance programs for the most vulnerable parts of the population. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to ways in which authors of the socialist realism novel used the poetics of the non-fiction literature (mainly reportage). Perceiving a work of art as a cultural fact of political character had serious consequences. The literary creation was to be replaced by a reportage storyline. The outer reality was depicted in accordance with top-down guidelines of propaganda. Two strategies were used: linking poetics of documentary with belles lettres and incorporating elements typical of non-fiction literature to fiction. (...) At the same time genological “light-heartedness” of authors of socialist realism makes it now difficult to decide about typological affiliation of those works. (shrink)

Copernicus "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" as an exapmle of a discourse on a method In addition to the calculations conmprehensible to the astronomers, the work of Copernicus presented to Pope Paul III for approval, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, includes also a descriptive introduction. The author uses it to report on the current astronomical knowledge, explains the importance of the accomplishments of his great predecessors, as well as the reasons for which a correction of their theories is necessary. In this part (...) of the work the importance of discovery and adjustment of a proper method to a specific area of nature research is stressed as well-long before the Descartian "Discourse on the Method"". Copernicus stresses that the misteakes of his predecessors occurred because "something necessary" would be often discarded, and replaced by something "alien, not belonging to the matter". The selective treatment of the phenomena and justification of the relations between them using non-meritorical indications and arguments might, but does not have lead to the correct conclusions. The introduction and the first tome of "De Revolutionibus" provide an example of a discourse on a method of creating knowledge. Copernicus displayed the benefits of his method, relating mainly to the authority of Aristotle, Ptolemy and Euclid. His accomplishment opened the way leading to revealing many other invisible assumptions, limiting the possibilities of researching nature. Some of them - the relation of subject and object, the trap of idealisation and usage of the models of researched phenomena - are discussed in the following article. (shrink)

W monografii Radical Entlightenment. Philosophy and the Making of Modernity poświęconej dziejom oświecenia brytyjski historyk Jonathan Irvine Israel sformułował nową tezę dotyczącą datowania, źródeł i charakteru tego okresu historii i przypisał filozofii Spinozy znaczącą rolę w sformułowaniu haseł oświecenia. Jego praca wywołała szereg kontrowersji i uwag krytycznych, dotyczących oceny faktów należących do obszaru historii idei. Artykuł przypomina o interpretacjach roli filozofii Spinozy i o jej wczesnej recepcji, kiedy filozof oddziaływał bezpośrednio. Wydarzenia polityczne w Niderlandach w okresie 1648–1677 oraz losy filozofii (...) Descartes’a są czynnikami wydatnie ingerującymi w kształtowanie się pierwotnej recepcji spinozyzmu i przesądzają na długo o losach tej filozofii. (shrink)

Šiame straipsnyje apžvelgiamos kosmopolitizmo sąvokos sociologinės apibrėžtys ir metodologinio kosmopolitizmo taikymo migracijos tyrimuose privalumai. Apibrėžiant metodologinį kosmopolitizmą kaip tyrimais grindžiamą domėjimąsi žmonėmis, kurie saistosi ne tik nacionaliai ir / ar transnacionaliai, bet ir mato save kaip globalaus pasaulio dalyvį, straipsnyje teigiama, jog kosmopolitizmas suteikia galimybę pamatyti ne tik nacionalius / transnacionalius saistymusis, bet ir situacijas, vietas, erdves, kontekstus, kuriuose minėti saistymaisi suvokiami kaip nereikšmingi. Remiantis požiūriu, jog mobilumas ir transnacionalumas nėra pakankama sąlyga kosmopolitiškoms tapatybėms atsirasti, migracijos tyrimų erdvėje siūloma ieškoti (...) atsakymo į klausimus, kaip, kada ir kodėl mobilumo patirtis gali tapti lankstaus socialinio kapitalo forma ir sukurti socialinius santykius ir gyvenimus su daugialypėmis tapatybėmis. Straipsnis parengtas vykdant LMT finansuojamą projektą „Globalizacijos (transnacionalizmo) poveikis valstybinio ir tautinio tapatumo fragmentacijai (LIVE)“. Sutarties Nr. VAT-41/2012. (shrink)

The article concentrates on motifs and ideas of biblical origin in the post-war literary output of Roman Brandstaetter, presented at different textual levels. The author of the paper considers motifs which are the most frequent and significant for writer’s artistic visage, like the prodigal son, the sacrifice of Isaac, the fight against the angel, the abyss, the imitation of God, the incarnation. The aim is to describe the transformations of the motifs and the ideas, to trace them to their biblical (...) source, and to interpret their functions in the texts. Brandstaetter’s work is interpreted in the light of the Catholic theology, the Christian tradition (included mysticism) and the whole text of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. (shrink)

This paper aims to present how logic may undermine a parliamentary assault on democratic institutions based on the analysis conducted with reference to the so-called Polish constitutional crisis. I analyse whether a law can be reviewed on the basis of this law itself. The Polish Constitutional Tribunal faced such a problem while passing the verdict of 9th March, 2016, regarding the constitutionality of the amendment to the Statute on the Constitutional Tribunal from 22nd December, 2015. This problem, called a ‘verdict (...) paradox’, was claimed to be a type of the Liar paradox. I argue that, contrary to the common view, the problem of the verdict paradox is not based on the Liar paradox; for this purpose, a logical analysis is applied to four variants of a reasoning with regard to the constitutionality of the said amendment. The distinction between two levels of analysis concerning emerging reasonings, namely an abstract level and a concrete level placed in the context of the legal system, is also introduced. This paper demonstrates that although only two variants of the reasoning concerning a law’s judicial review based on the law itself involve logical contradiction, the possibility of employing reasonings from other variants must be excluded, albeit due to alternative reasons. Therefore, the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision to avoid the verdict paradox by passing over the reviewed provisions in the review process was correct and might be perceived as an example of how logic and reason can defend the institutional guarantees of political freedom. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to characterize a non-standard use of the method of market basket analysis in one of the areas of economy, i.e. public transport. Generally, one of the aims of the market basket analysis method is associating the consumer's market basket – in the case of public transport this being the choice of bus stops in the city area made by passengers. Owing to a new, practical use of this method, it was possible to build an (...) efficient model characterizing the movement of flows of public transport passengers, and assess the degree of transferring, thus making it possible to adapt the routes of buses to the needs of people using this particular means of transport, as well as to plot new communication lines. The data analysis was performed using the Statistica statistical package and its SAL application, i.e. the algorithms used in Data Mining. (shrink)

In the Polish language, there exists the expression ‘interview-river’ meaning a very long interview draining the subject to the greatest possible depth. The article Varieties of Interview-river on given examples covers the analysis of three chosen interview-rivers with three different people. The interviews were discussed in reference to the following aspects: • interview structure • determination of its thematic variety • nature of questions • interviewer – interviewee interaction The conclusions present what is interview-river and what it is characterised by. (...) The aim of this article is to pinpoint the interview-river’s generic features and its functions. (shrink)

Cognitive and behavioral predictors in the process of smoking cessation during pregnancy: Testing for discontinuity patterns in the Transtheoretical Model The aim of the study was to assess predictive power of cognitive variables and health-promoting behaviors for the process of smoking cessation described in terms of the Transtheoretical Model. Participants in the study were 150 women, in uncomplicated pregnancy. Cigarette smokers constituted 29.3% of the sample, while the rest had previously quitted smoking. Beliefs and expectations were measured by means of (...) scales developed by the author, while health-related behaviors were assessed using the Health Behavior Inventory by Z. Juczyński, supplemented with pregnancy-specific behaviors. TTM discontinuity patterns were tested in the study using polynomial-based orthogonal contrasts. Statistically significant linear trends were found for expectations concerning the infant's health state and the course of delivery, for beliefs about the effect of maternal smoking on infant health, as well as for pregnancy health behaviors. The obtained results were confirmed by hierarchical regression analysis, with smoking cessation explained to a larger extent by cognitive factors than by health-related behaviors. This may suggest that the TTM is a "pseudo-stage" model, and a general change of the variables under study is of greater importance for the process of smoking cessation than focusing on the TTM stages. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to determine the role of self-efficacy, outcome expectancies, and risk perception in formulating the intention to undergo breast reconstruction in 178 women after total mastectomy. The social-cognitive variables were measured in the context of breast reconstruction, while depression was assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory. The structural equation modeling revealed that among the predictors there were only two that accounted for the intention to undergo breast reconstruction, i.e. self-efficacy and outcome expectancies. Subsequent analyses of (...) the related moderators, i.e. depression, age, and duration of the disease indicated a good fit to the data. Nevertheless, in subgroups with poorer resources the direct effects of self-efficacy on intention were less noticeable or non-existent. The results suggest that self-efficacy may play the regulating role in making a breast reconstruction decision if individual resources are taken into account. (shrink)

Actio immanens - as many other terms, coined by the Aristotelian-Thomist philosophical tradition - is a biological concept par excellence. It was formed as a mental result of biological observation, on the strength of studies on living beings and so, refers to them first and foremost. During the last century, the term actio immanens gradually disappeared from philosophical encyclopedias and has totally vanished from the biological and philosophical language used to describe the dynamism of life. Moreover, if this term does (...) appear at all, its meaning is rather vague. However, actio immanens belongs to the group of key concepts, without which it would seem not possible to properly describe, nor to properly understand biological phenomena. (shrink)

This paper provides the theoretical analysis of forms of solidarity in academia and its relationship to academic integrity. This analysis is inspired by the Guidelines for an Institutional Code of Ethics in Higher Education drawn up by the International Association of Universities and the Magna Charta Observatory. These Guidelines refer to the principle of solidarity in the context of international cooperation between higher education institutions. However, the author of this paper believes that this principle might also be used in a (...) broader academic context, in particular, in the field of academic ethics and academic integrity. Therefore, this paper aims at revealing the relevance of solidarity in academia and argues that the principle of solidarity can be considered as one of fundamental principles of academic ethics and should be reflected in the structure and provisions of the codes of academic ethics. For this purpose the author explores the philosophical and sociological approaches towards solidarity and defines the concept of academic solidarity, discusses the conceptual connection between academic solidarity, ethics and integrity and illustrates the impact of solidarity on the development of academic integrity. This analysis allows the author of the paper to recommend embedding the principle of solidarity in the codes of academic ethics of higher education institutions as well as extending the scope of its application by linking the rights and responsibilities of different groups within the academic community in a way that best expresses their unity, shared responsibility, mutual support in meeting the standards of social ethos. (shrink)

Artykuł poświęcony jest jednej z najbardziej wieloznacznych powieści Stanisława Lema — Pamiętnikowi znalezionemu w wannie. Świat bohatera Pamiętnika, pozbawiony łączności z tym, co zewnętrzne, zawiera się w umyśle postaci. Samoidentyfikacja wiążąca się nierozerwalnie z odosobnieniem, jest paradoksalnie niemożliwa do osiągnięcia w labiryncie korytarzy budowli. „Ja” bohatera, dążące do „bycia sobą”, nie może zdobyć pełni tożsamości, ponieważ niezdolne pozostaje do dookreślenia siebie w relacji do struktur Gmachu.

This article is an attempt to reflect on the issue of how the senses can constitute a kind of frame for the interpretation of reality, as well as an introduction to the concept of post-sightedness, related to the redirection of vision to other senses.

Der Artikel wird der Methode der Debatte gewidmet, die seit einigen Jahren in vielen polnischen Schulen angewandt wird. Eine Debatte ist keine freie unordentliche Diskussion, sondern sie hat eine spezifische Struktur, die von den Sprechern beachtet werden muss. Die eine Mannschaft verteidigt eine These, und die zweite stoßt diese These um. Die Mitglieder der beiden Mannschaften sollen Argumente für Verteidigung ihrer Stelle erheben, und auch damit die Argumente der Gegner umstoßen. Diese Mannschaft gewinnt, die nach der Meinung des Richters (Lehrers) (...) den richtigen, ehrlichen und mehr akzeptablen Ansichtspunkt zu dem bestimmten Thema darstellt. Der mit der Methode der Debatte geführte Unterricht ermöglicht Inhalte aus verschiedenen Fächern integrieren, ist also ein Fächer übergreifender Unterricht. Der Anteil an Debatten entwickelt bei Schülern viele Fähigkeiten, die zum Leben in der gegenwärtigen kommerziellen Welt notwendig sind, d.h. zum Beispiel kritisch zu denken, den Entschluss zu fassen und ihre eigene Stellung zu verteidigen. Debatten lehren auch erfolgreiche Teilnahme an dem Dialog und verschiedenen Verhandlungen, bilden die Bereitschaft der Arbeit im leam, die Fähigkeit der Selbstbildung. Das Debattieren bereitet junge Leute auf die Arbeit in vielen Berufen vor, wie z.B. Manager, Journalist, Lehrer, Jurist und auf die zukünftige politische Tätigkeit sowie auf aktive und bewusstsame Teilnahme am Leben der heutigen Gesellschaft. (shrink)

Kluczowe w filozofii Lenartowicza było pojęcie organizmu żywego rozumianego jako cykl życiowy, który będąc powiązany z innymi podobnymi cyklami wplata się w sieć linii pokoleń danego rodzaju istot żywych. Fundamentem cyklu życiowego jest dynamika rozwojowa rozpoczynająca się w momencie poczęcia organizmu. Patrząc na osobnika z perspektywy jego rozwoju, można powiedzieć, że w swej najgłębszej istocie jest on nie tyle i nie przede wszystkim całościową funkcjonalną strukturą, która przejawia życie, ile jest raczej żywą dynamiką, której jednym z zasadniczych przejawów jest zintegrowane (...) budowanie, odbudowywanie, naprawianie i modyfikowanie różnorakich skorelowanych struktur ciała, czyli maszyn molekularnych, organelli i organów, które warunkują zachodzenie różnorodnych procesów biochemicznych i fizjologicznych oraz umożliwiają selektywne interakcje ze środowiskiem abiotycznym i biotycznym. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of the relationship between God’s law and secular law, and presents a thesis for the legitimacy of the right to the objection of conscience “in which the voice of God speaks.” Considerations relate to conscience as the power of knowing good and duties, the universality of this knowledge, its legitimacy and conditions for its reliability. By referring to stoicism and neo-Platonism, but especially to the elements of St. Paul’s theology and the views of Benedict XVI, (...) the author shows how important it is to introduce the category of nature and conscience to a secular, rationalist reflection on law. He presents the position of Christian theologians who spoke out against religious law and his own arguments, as well as the view expressed, among others, by Benedict XVI about the corrective role of religion with respect to human reason, as well as the importance of human reason for religion. The author also highlights the significant lack of reflection on natural law in modern science and the dramatic consequences thereof, such as the denial of the right to conscientious objection. (shrink)

The introduction discusses the contents of the volume devoted to Polish crime literature. Individual articles have been characterized. The ways in which they were arranged in the volume according to different keys (thematic and genological) were also discussed.