Since the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided the Quinlan case a quarter of a century ago, three American Supreme Court decisions and a host of state appellate decisions have addressed end-of-life issues. These decisions, as well as legislation addressing the same issues, have prompted a torrent of law journal articles analyzing every aspect of end-of-life law. In recent years, moreover, a number of law review articles, many published in this journal, have also specifically addressed legal issues raised by palliative (...) care. Much less is known in the United States, however, as to how other countries address these issues. Reflection on the experience and analysis of other nations may give Americans a better understanding of their own experience, as well as suggest improvements to their present way of dealing with the difficult problems in this area.This article offers a conceptual and comparative analysis of major legal issues relating to end-of-life treatment and to the treatment of pain in a number of countries. In particular, it focuses on the law of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan. (shrink)

The author of the article begins with a discussion of how specialists in the field understand the term “autobiography” and what its role is. Then, she presents the results of an analysis of autobiographical elements present in texts by 136 students starting Polish studies. In analysing the collected works, she diagnoses the places and attitudes of students who referred to stories from their own school lives, their considerations about their teachers’ ways of perceiving pupils, and the purpose of such texts. (...) She also indicates the roles of emotions and the recollections of the personal past in creating school memories, and developing various ways of thinking about pupils, teachers, and literature. In treating those texts as diagnoses of the problems of school and school Polish education, she discusses the importance of such observations for their authors, readers and for school and university education. (shrink)

The Polish society has perceived privatization as an issue of special importance which enables a free market economy in a short time. Privatization has always raised hopes and expectations. It is the lack of experience in the field of ownership transformations, the level of their complexity and the economic, legal, psychological and other conditionings that have confronted those transformations with many hindrances. They have also raised numerous moral and ethical dilemmas among the staff of privatized companies and founding organs including (...) the staff of the Voivodship Council of Łódź. The decisions of the Working Board of one company about the future path of privatization have raised concerns among the staff uncertain of the fate of their place of work. In such cases the voice of the staff, which previously contributed to the company’s financial status, has always been decisive when choosing the path of privatization; this concerns mostly workers’ partnerships. It was John Paul II’s words about people of conscience who are needed in Poland, which were said in Skoczów, that were crucial for privatization decisions by the Voivodship Council of Łódź. (shrink)

Recent years in Poland have been characterized by the dynamic development of scientific activity among nurses. It might have been caused by several factors, namely: the rising needs and expectations of representatives of this professional group, the necessity of adjusting to EU standards, changes in the system of education, as well as the individual “research needs” of those representatives. However, is there a correlation between the increase in the quantity of scientific research and its quality? An attempt to answer that (...) question led the author to formulate this paper’s goal, which had been formulated as follows: to analyse different sources of information concerning the reality of scientific research in nursing in Poland. (shrink)

Interactive media create a space conducive to development of participatory culture, in which media content recipients become its active creators. Participant activities are not limited to commenting on online articles or being active on social media. They want to influence reality through their actions and to participate in creating and spreading information. The willingness and readiness of Internet users to co-create content is becoming increasingly important also in scientific projects, where success depends on the involvement of many volunteers who undertake (...) specific tasks. Although such projects are often time-consuming, they usually do not require advanced skills from the people involved. The only payoff for their efforts is the satisfaction that comes from participating, as well as the recognition in their community. The purpose of this paper is to attempt to evaluate the phenomenon of crowdsourcing in humanities, especially in the context of the new reality created by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is based on the literature which addresses the importance of crowdsourcing in projects in a variety of areas, on top of an analysis of examples in which this method is used. The selection of presented examples is strongly intended to demonstrate the enormous possibilities and resulting benefits of involving willing volunteers in humanities projects. Their role is not diminished by the fact that they do not have competencies related to project topics. It can be assumed that crowsrourcing will be more and more widely used by researchers, especially in times when increasing numbers of people undertake online activities. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between philology and literary criticism and history via two -marital problems drawn from Augustine’s life. The first is historiographical and concerns Augustine’s relations with Anonyma I, his African concubine, who was featured so famously in the Confessiones. My argument, first published in 2002, that Augustine painted his separation from her in the language of Genesis and saw her as a virtual wife, has not found favor with historians. The episode is used as a test case (...) for comparing the historiographical technique of three Augustine biographers. I revisit my reasoning, showing how, sadly, philology and history have grown apart, a phenomenon which, in turn, highlights the need for an increased awareness of and engagement with philology by historians. Philological arguments must be faced and not simply ignored or cherry-picked ad lib. The second problem is historical and prosopographical. Who was the fornicating widower of Epistula 259? In part, I use philological and literary techniques to argue that this widower was indeed Romanianus, and that this letter needs to be dated much earlier than previously thought—even to as early as 396 and the period of Augustine’s co-episcopacy. The tone of the letter is key to understanding it properly. In it, we see an affectionate, urbane, and witty Augustine. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Language in the Confessions of AugustineDanuta ShanzerPhilip Burton. Language in the Confessions of Augustine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. xii + 198 pp. Cloth, $72.Burton’s intriguing book explores language in the Confessions of Augustine. The topic is exemplified in action in Augustine’s own development from infans to puer loquens, to schoolboy, to young rhetoric student, to chattering Manichee, to professional rhetorician, Christian philosopher, and ultimately to biblical exegete (...) and preacher. Burton documents not only Augustine’s own development but also his abstract thoughts about language (development by physis vs. thesis; Latin vs. Greek; pagan vs. Christian), culture, speech (man’s, God’s, creation’s), silence, grammar, rhetoric, reading, prayer, and style (to name but a few). To study Augustine on language is to explore a crucial phase in the transition from the ancient pagan to the late antique, Christian world. Augustine’s views exercised tremendous influence in the medieval world.Burton takes an exemplary and essayistic British approach to the question rather than a systematic Teutonic one. The six chapters, three of which contain material published in other venues, explore “Sermo,” “Alternative Comedy,” “The [End Page 442] Vocabulary of the Liberal Arts,” “Talking Books,” “Biblical Idioms,” and “The Paralinguistic.” Despite its monographic cover, the book is best understood as a series of individual essays, since all can be read separately with no resultant loss of continuity or logic.After an often profound and wide-ranging introduction (“Sermo”), Burton bounces off those who view the Aeneid as a crucial subtext for the Confessions to discuss his new idea: the importance of comedy (by way of theatre in general). Three readings (Alypius in the marketplace, Monica abandoned, and Monica meribibula), which contain clearly comic lexical items as well as plausibly comic scenarios (in two cases), are supposed to invoke comic and mimic subtexts. While this reviewer is sympathetic to the approach, and has argued similarly for Apuleius (“Piscatum Opiparem... Praestinavi: Apuleius, Met. 1, 24–25,” RFIC 124[1996]:445–54) as well as for Augustine (“Avulsa a latere meo: Augustine’s Spare Rib—Augustine Confessions 6.15.25,” JRS 92[2002]:157–76 at 161) these particular interpretations, even supported as they are by sophisticated philological arguments, do not ring quite true or solve any problems in the passages. These constellations of apparently comic vocabulary (some of which is also late and biblical) may simply be an artifact of Augustine’s personal style, not the shadows of a genre or written source. Why would Augustine include a comic substrate in what Courcelle considered his inserted VAlypii? Is mime (41) really relevant, since Augustine never mentions it in the Confessions? Burton’s desire to see scenarios for moral contrast-imitation (58) seems implausible. Because we constantly confront the real coincidence of “life” vs. “literature” in the realistic genres, it is often hard to argue necessarily literary origins for a plausibly realistic motif. This fact makes the argument for “alternative comedy” in Augustine’s life-cursus somewhat unlikely.“The Vocabulary of the Liberal Arts” illustrates Augustine’s deep ambiguity about the artes through the language he uses of them. Burton uses the concept of substitutability of loan-words to explore alternative terms. In grammatica vs. litteratura and rhetorica vs. eloquentia, we see Greek terms used for distancing. Burton does some very interesting things with statistics of occurrence to show Augustine “going off” words and being defensive (for dialectica, see 76–77). He also shows us how a significant avoidance (arithmetica) enables linkage with the Bible (through numerus). The same applies to philosophia vs. sapientia (80–81). This chapter has much to say that is absolutely right and also important. Puzzling however is Burton’s concluding suggestion that Augustine varies his vocabulary for the artes to revalorize (86) and demystify them so they not appear a “knack or trade” (87). This seems unlikely, given the fate of his project on the disciplinae and the way he sneers at most of them in the Confessions.“Talking Books” develops ideas in Flores (1975) and Stock (1996) and contains much interesting material. The chapter takes us from the ancient querelle about the spoken vs. the written word, to books in the Bible... (shrink)

Typology of perpetrators of domestic violence The objective of the research conducted by the author was to obtain an answer to the question: could we distinguish different types of intrafamily violence perpetrators considering a specified profile of personality factors and temperament traits and how domestic violence perpetrators cope with stressful situations? The research was conducted on a group of 325 men who were convicted pursuant to article 207§1 & 2 of harassment over family members. In terms of a gender the (...) group was homogenous. On the basis of the literature on the subject, the following personality traits of violence perpetrators were categorised: locus of control, self-acceptance, aggressiveness, hostility, intelligent quotient and temperament traits. The following research techniques were employed in the study: the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, Berger's Self-Acceptance Scale, the Delta Questionnaire by R. Drwal, the SABD Questionnaire - Buss-Durkee, Formal Characteristics of Behaviour - Temperament Inventory by J. Strelau, the WCQ questionnaire by R.S. Lazarus and S. Folkman, a categorised interview and an analysis of court records. As a result of the analysis conducted on a group of the studied sample of violence perpetrators, four subgroups, differing in terms of selected personality traits, were specified. They are reactively aggressive perpetrators, perpetrators of low preventive competences, psychopathic and retaliatory perpetrators and perpetrators with a big adaptive potential. Further on, four distinguished groups have been characterised in terms of stress-coping strategies, and psychological processes of coping with stress proceeded differently in the research group. (shrink)

J. Such first introduced the notion of „complementary experiments”, referring to the decisive situations in science. The similar notions appears in the discussions of new experimentalists. For example, I. Hacking writes about complementarity of different types of microscopy, A. Franklin distinguishes technically good and conceptually important experiments, and P. Galison analyses examples of complementarity of two different approaches to the problem of cosmic radiation. In the article the notion of „complementarity” is extended as to cover the cases of complementarity of (...) method, complementarity of scientific teams etc. As an illustration it is used the case of discovering new type of carbon - called „fulleren”. (shrink)

The article reviews the book Osoba – fikcja czy rzeczywistość? Tożsamość i jedność ja w świetle badań neurologicznych [A Person: Fiction or Reality? Identity and Oneness of the I in View of Neurologic Research], by Józef Bremer.