The paper presents, in the synthetic way, the issue of the rationality of the tax system and taxation principles in relation to the clearly visible fiscal crisis in the 21st century caused by, among others, COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis which is theoretical (descriptive, comparative) was carried out by using tools indicated in the area of New Institutional Economics (NIE). Attention was devoted primarily to the importance of specific institutional arrangements, broadly understood as the “rules of the game” applicable in the (...) political and economic spheres, and related to the problems of public finances. Research has shown that the appropriate design of tax rules may contribute, to some extent, to limiting the fiscal crisis. Tax policy, and even more broadly, fiscal policy, may determine the formula in which the economic achievements regarding compliance with tax principles and fiscal rules can be implemented. What is primarily important is the legal framework (one of the most important formal institutions) within which state policy in the field of public finances should be implemented. (shrink)

Drawing on the model of Grandey, it was proposed that the attitude towards occupation could buffer the negative effects of emotional labour. A total of 173 teachers participated in the study. Attitudes towards occupation, surface acting, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction were estimated. The indirect measure of the attitude towards occupation was assessed using the Approaching-Avoidance Simulation Method. Confirmatory Factor Analysis proved the validity and reliability of the indirect measurement, which is based on uncontrolled reactions of the respondents towards stimuli (...) representing the profession. The results revealed a positive correlation between attitudes towards occupation and indicators of employees’ well-being. The indirect measure of attitude towards occupation turned out to be a significant moderator of the relationship between surface acting and job satisfaction. The results raise interesting questions about the connection between indirect measures of attitudes towards occupation and employee well-being. (shrink)

The article analyzes the historical experience of creation and development of military medical aircraft in Ukraine from the 1920s. to the present. In particular, reviewed the activity of Design Bureaus of K. Kalinin and O. Antonov. Special attention is paid to the creation of military medical aircraft after Ukraine gained independence in 1991 and their application to evacuate the wounded during Armed conflict in the east of Ukraine in 2014-2016. The first attempt of creation a sanitary aircraft were made in (...) Ukraine back in the 1920s under the leadership of Konstantin Kalinin. In a qualitatively new level was realized military medical aircraft designed by bureau Oleg Antonov, created in the second half of 1970s aircraft emergency resuscitative-surgical care An-26M "Spasatel'" Accumulated experience allowed at the beginning of 2000s a similar purpose for the An-26 "Vita" for the Air Force of Ukraine. Over a longer time, he reminded to be the only one military medical aircraft in Ukraine. Plans of creating mixed air-transport unit air ambulance were not implemented. Successful use of the An-26 "Vita" to evacuate the wounded during repel of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine helped to intensify work in the field of military medical aircraft.In2015 inmedical version were rebuilt two more An-26. One of them joined the Air Force, and the second - Natinal Service of Emergencies in Ukraine. All three aircrafts are different composition of medical equipment and ability to provide medical care. Their purpose is evacuation of the wounded from the airfield vicinity of the battle area to military medical institutions. (shrink)

Our interpretive resources enable us to make sense of, navigate, and communicate about our shared world. These resources not only carve the world up into categories, but also guide how we, individually and collectively, are oriented towards it. In this thesis, I examine how these resources, and the dispositions they guide, may be harmful. A vital kind of interpretive resources are frames, which equip us with unified perspectives on the world. Perspectives are suites of open-ended interpretive (inquisitive, attentional, inferential, evaluative, (...) and affective) dispositions. Frames thereby guide how we interpret, respond to, and navigate the world. I show that these perspectives are epistemically powerful and indispensable. I argue that flawed perspectives, and the distorting frames that produce them, are deeply pernicious and I examine their relationship to oppression. (shrink)

Hands are commonly held up as an exemplar of well-known, familiar objects. However, conceptual knowledge of the hand has been found to show highly stereotyped distortions. Specifically, people judge their knuckles as farther forward in the hand than they actually are. The cause of this distal bias remains unclear. In Experiment 1, we tested whether both visual and tactile information contribute to the distortion. Participants judged the location of their knuckles by pointing to the location on their palm directly opposite (...) each knuckle with: 1) a metal baton (using vision and touch) 2) a metal baton while blindfolded (using touch), 3) a laser pointer (using vision). In Experiment 2, we investigated whether judgments are influenced by visual landmarks such as the creases at the base of each finger on the palm. Participants localized their knuckles on either a photograph or a silhouette of their hand. In both experiments, clear distortions were found across conditions, of generally similar magnitude. These results show that distal bias is resistant to changes in the stimulus information and does not rely on any specific stimulus cue or single sensory modality, suggesting that such mislocalisations reflect a conceptual misrepresentation of hand structure. (shrink)

Is medicalization always harmful? When does medicine overstep its proper boundaries? The aim of this article is to outline the pragmatic criteria for distinguishing between medicalization and over-medicalization. The consequences of considering a phenomenon to be a medical problem may take radically different forms depending on whether the problem in question is correctly or incorrectly perceived as a medical issue. Neither indiscriminate acceptance of medicalization of subsequent areas of human existence, nor criticizing new medicalization cases just because they are medicalization (...) can be justified. The article: (i) identifies various consequences of both well-founded medicalization and over-medicalization; (ii) demonstrates that the issue of defining appropriate limits of medicine cannot be solved by creating an optimum model of health; (iii) proposes four guiding questions to help distinguish medicalization from over-medicalization. The article should foster a normative analysis of the phenomenon of medicalization and contribute to the bioethical reflection on the boundaries of medicine. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is influencing our lives in an enormous and unprecedented way. Here, we explore COVID-19-lockdown's consequences for creative activity. To this end, we relied on two extensive diary studies. The first, held on March 2019, involved 78 students who reported their emotions and creativity over 2 weeks. The second, conducted on March 2020, involved 235 students who reported on their emotions, creativity, and the intensity of thinking and talking about COVID-19 over a month. We found that (...) compared with 2019, during the lockdown, students engaged slightly yet statistically significantly more in creative activities. An analysis of diaries collected during the pandemic also showed that the days when students spent more time discussing or searching for information about COVID-19 were characterized by a higher creative activity yet also mixed emotions. We discuss potential explanations of these unexpected results along with future study directions. (shrink)

We believe with the publication of our Lexicon Spinozanum, that we are meeting a need in Spinoza historiography which has been pointed out by scholars, but has never before been satisfied. In the intro duction of his Spinozas philosophische Terminologie (Leipzig, 1913), G. T. Richter promised "a Spinozistic Lexicon in which the meaning of each term is set out on an historical basis in alphabetical order". In 1924, in the Report, i.e., Nachbericht, of his four volume edition of the complete (...) works of Spinoza (Heidelberg), C. Gebhardt promised a complementary volume comprising, among other things, a general index. However, neither the one nor the other were ever published. The hope of seeing this gap quickly filled has been reiterated recently by Di Vona: "The compilation of a Spinozistic index is a task of the history of philosophy, the execution of which would gratify all scholars". (Di V on a, Studi suIt' ontologia di Spinoza, Florence, 1960). We do not know how closely our Lexicon Spinozanum corresponds to what Richter and Gebhardt projected. We believe, however, that there are common requirements at the basis of works of this sort. In our procedure and in the delimitation of our scope, we have set for ourselves two main criteria: that of clarity and that of completeness. We hope we hav:e not deviated from them too much. (shrink)

There is growing interest in a category of domestic labour frequently termed ‘emotional labour’. I argue that this labour is, in fact, primarily a form of epistemic labour. I argue that domestic epistemic labour is the target of dual erasure. Firstly, as invisible domestic labour, it is underrecognized and undervalued. Secondly, it is not recognized as epistemic, due to women’s epistemic oppression. ‘Emotional labour’, as a catch-all for feminized labour, perpetuates the dominant ideological conception of emotion as feminine and anti-epistemic. (...) Consequently, popular usage of ‘emotional labour’ attempts to address the first layer of erasure but reinforces the second. (shrink)

This study accounts for the observed patterns of variation and ambiguity in the expression and interpretation of aspect in bare habitual statements in Polish in the framework of Bouma’s ( 2008 ) recent version of stratified bi-directional Optimality Theory (OT).

Intrauterine insemination is one of many treatments provided to infertility patients. Many factors such as, but not limited to, quality of semen, the age of a woman, and reproductive hormone levels contribute to infertility. Therefore, the aim of our study is to establish a statistical probability concerning the prediction of which groups of patients have a very good or poor prognosis for pregnancy after IUI insemination. For that purpose, we compare the results of two analyses: Cluster Analysis and Kohonen Neural (...) Networks. The k-means algorithm from the clustering methods was the best to use for selecting patients with a good prognosis but the Kohonen Neural Networks was better for selecting groups of patients with the lowest chances for pregnancy. (shrink)

We could ask: how national could be a culture or another? The modernist or postmodernist perspectives seems to be unilateral here. Could be transmodernism the right sollution? The distictions between modernism, postmodernism and transmodernism are actually a pretext to set into discussion again the old dispute between Culture, regarded as a humanity universal feature and national cultures, perceived as a human community tradition symbol (community that claims a territory, a language, a religious belief and a certain government form).

As one of the characteristics of the nowadays postmodernism, the multiculturalism and the globalization seems to be profoundly related to the heterogenity and to the heteronomy. Globalization is going with the multiculturalism, but in an opposite direction: globalization towards the standardization and multiculturalismtowards fragmentation. Is the Global Village also the Postmodern Village?

Axiomatic classes of algebras of a given type which are closed with respect to direct limits are studied in this paper.

This article focuses on blood donation as a form of bloodletting in a context where donation is commonly seen to alleviate the symptoms of `thick blood'. It deals with the gendered aspects of blood donation, and the parallels drawn between donating blood and menstruating. Women are seen not to need to donate blood as much as men, who, in the absence of menstruation, are more prone to thick blood and require a means to expunge the ensuing excess. While blood donation (...) professionals strive to reconstruct donation as a selfless and ungendered act, counterposing the `facts' of arterial blood circulation to local blood-lore and beliefs, lay understandings challenge this construction in the use they make of blood donation centres or by reiterating the personalistic and gendered dimensions of donation. The article explores cases of patients who use hormonal contraceptives which suppress menstruation and express concerns over the resulting accumulation of blood in the body. It considers how blood donation is adopted by some women as a means of dispelling both the perceived inconveniences of menstrual bleeding and its swelling effects. Such literalized engagements with medical technologies reveal a conception of the body as a permeable, malleable and recipient-like enclosure. These views are often characterized as `ignorance' by medical practitioners, where ignorance is seen to derive not only from the absence of knowledge, but from the presence of the wrong kind of knowledge. (shrink)

Aphantasia is a heterogeneous neuropsychological syndrome consisting of the inability to create mental images. We argue that its progressive form may be a harbinger of dementia. Aphantasia may manifest as the inability to create any mental images or to create complex scenes, inability to spontaneously initiate generation of mental images, and/or inability to visualize a sequence of events.

Avec l’entrée massive dans l’usage du nom « émotion » comme nom générique de toutes les manifestations psychologiques, due à la vulgarisation du discours de spécialité de la psychologie, des arts, etc., il existe la tentation de considérer ce nom, du point de vue linguistique, uniquement comme un hyperonyme et même comme un « nom général », du sommet ou des fondements du lexique. Cet article présente un point de vue nouveau : il montre que, par ses propriétés morphologiques, syntaxiques (...) et anaphoriques, le nom émotion est aussi un nom de base, du même niveau lexical que peur, joie, tristesse, etc., que l’on a pu considérer comme ses hyponymes. (shrink)

The article is based upon the following starting position. In this post-modern time, it seems that no scholar in Europe supports what is called “Enlightenment Project” with its naïve objectivism and Correspondence Theory of Truth1, - though not being really hostile, just strongly skeptical about it. No old-fasioned “classical” academical texts; only His Majesty Discourse as chain of interpretations and reinterpretations. What was called objectivity “proved to be” intersubjectivity; what was called Object (in Latin and German and Russian tradition) now (...) is related to as a phenomenon; what was called Subject either is looked upon as Cartesian “cogito” or disappeares at all; what was called Truth turned to be either method of demonstration (by positivists) or the author’s sincerity (by existentialists); what was called Essence is now merely a joke. Alternatively, we speak about Sense, Meaning, and Value. (shrink)

Neither for today’s Russia, nor for the whole of the contemporary world is there, perhaps, a more important issue than the possibility of a civilized, peaceful dialogue between cultures, peoples, governments and individuals. The International Society for Universal Dialogue is one among other philosophical schools, societies and organizations which promote the idea of universal dialogue. It tries to solve problems associated with language and ideological barriers, strengthening professional and friendly ties and implementation, through joint efforts, of a peaceful and fair (...) world order. (shrink)

The phenomena of truth, truthfulness, veracity and “truthiness” discussed widely in logic, epistemology as theory of science and gnoseology as general theory of knowledge, have received many interpretations—and not a single one to be generally accepted. Discussions continue not only upon narrow technical, operational questions of the predicate calculus and/or propositions calculus, but also on logic-gnoseological problems, one of which casts doubt on the maxim “logic is the house of truth,” and the other highlights the laxity of the opposition of (...) “truth—falsehood” meanings as the main categories of the two-valued logic. These evaluations of proposition do not in fact oppose each other in the sense of a contradiction. Verity and falsity are controversial (opposite), but not contradictory (antithetical) concepts; it is truth and non-truth that are contradictory. Therefore, there is not only the possibility, but also the reality of the existence of a field, or zone, of transition between the values “true—false.”. (shrink)

Les hormones sexuelles sont des objets hybrides et complexes à la frontière du sexe et du genre. Dès lors qu’elles sont synthétisées sous forme pharmaceutique, elles peuvent attribuer des caractéristiques sexuelles au corps de manière partiellement exogène à celui-ci. Il s’en suit que l’utilisation clinique qui en est faite est socialement réglementée. À travers une analyse de divers contextes d’utilisation des hormones observés à Bahia, au Brésil, cet article montre que le dualisme sexuel est le produit de pratiques de régulation (...) biomédicales qui visent à encadrer la circulation des hormones. Le sens du terme local « hormônio » n’est pas pleinement recoupé par celui d’hormone, qu’il excède. L’emploi commun qui est fait au Brésil du singulier procure au terme « hormônio » une qualité fluide et homogène. Dans ce contexte, les hormones sont comprises comme une sorte de substance qui peut circuler entre les corps. Cette conceptualisation des hormones comme une substance a des implications pour le statut ontologique des corps et révèle la relative plasticité de la relation sexe/genre. (shrink)

_The Bounds of Reason: Habermas, Lyotard & Melanie Klein on Rationality_ is a highly original yet accessible study of the debate between modernity and postmodernity. Emilia Steuerman clearly explains the modernity/postmodernity dispute by examining the problem that has driven the whole debate: whether the use of reason is an emancipatory or enslaving force. Steuerman clearly sets out this debate by critically examining the arguments of two of its key proponents, Jurgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard. She clearly explains Habermas' defence (...) of modernity and his attempt to salvage Enlightenment ideas of truth, justice, and freedom through the use of reason. She contrasts this with Lyotard's postmodernism and his scepticism about the use of reason, and its claims to universalism and objectivity. Throughout, Steuerman contrasts the Habermas-Lyotard debate with important insights from psychoanalytic theory, and shows how Habermas' notions of intersubjectivity and a community of shared language users can be compared and contrasted with Melanie Klein's theory of object relations. (shrink)

What is the meaning of reason in our postmodern society today? Is reason a weapon of domination, or can it also serve as a means for emancipation? Is it possible for reason to understand its "other"--what it is not? Confronting such questions, Bounds of Reason is a compelling discussion of the limits and meaning of rationality as a tool for understanding the ideas of truth, justice and freedom. Emilia Steuerman explores the modernist and postmodernist controversy between Habermas and Lyotard (...) to highlight the problems encountered both by a defense of reason and by the lack of meaning that haunts a world without it. Using Kleinian theory to examine the debate as it is manifested in the main philosophical themes of this century, Steuerman argues that a rational and ethical theory of justice must take into account that which is not rational, symmetrical or transparent--namely a primitive world of love and hatred which colors and shapes our perceptions. (shrink)

_The Bounds of Reason: Habermas, Lyotard & Melanie Klein on Rationality_ is a highly original yet accessible study of the debate between modernity and postmodernity. Emilia Steuerman clearly explains the modernity/postmodernity dispute by examining the problem that has driven the whole debate: whether the use of reason is an emancipatory or enslaving force. Steuerman clearly sets out this debate by critically examining the arguments of two of its key proponents, Jurgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard. She clearly explains Habermas' defence (...) of modernity and his attempt to salvage Enlightenment ideas of truth, justice, and freedom through the use of reason. She contrasts this with Lyotard's postmodernism and his scepticism about the use of reason, and its claims to universalism and objectivity. Throughout, Steuerman contrasts the Habermas-Lyotard debate with important insights from psychoanalytic theory, and shows how Habermas' notions of intersubjectivity and a community of shared language users can be compared and contrasted with Melanie Klein's theory of object relations. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore how metaphor is mobilized to frame and describe the lived experience of dementia in a corpus of illness narratives compiled from 10 blogs initiated and maintained by individuals diagnosed with early-onset dementia. The article is set against the background of contemporary healthcare practices and discourse around chronic illness and focuses on the metaphors that patients use to communicate about their dementia experience in relation to three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness, (...) which are essential for human well-being and are heavily challenged in complex medical situations. Results are discussed in terms of the framing metaphors provide of the emotional, psychological impact of dementia and their implications for patient-centered care. This study expands prior work by researching metaphors used for a condition that has been scarcely explored from this point of view and by focusing on the patient’s perspective exclusively. (shrink)