One of the major objectives in a democratic state is ensuring health security of the citizens including combating epidemic diseases. The subject matter of this article is the presentation and analysis of legal regulations regarding preventive vaccination in Poland, in particular the aspect of imposing a legal obligation and restricting parents’ right to express consent for medical intervention. The reflections made herein are aimed at finding an answer to the question whether the adopted legal solutions are admissible in a democratic (...) state with regard to ensuring health security. The purpose of the analysis is also to assess whether the abovementioned legal regulations have been formulated in a clear way and do not raise interpretation doubts and, consequently, whether they are comprehensible to the parents obliged to comply with them. As it follows from analysis of the legal provisions, parents must not refuse to subject a child to obligatory preventive vaccination and their consent is not required by law, both as regards the medical qualifying examination to exclude contraindications to performing vaccination and the vaccination itself. It is a legal obligation, from which exemption is only possible on grounds of certain medical conditions that would render vaccination inadvisable. The legal provisions that concern obligatory preventive vaccination in Poland, including in particular those referring to its enforceability, have not been formulated in a way that is sufficiently comprehensible to parents who are under the obligation of complying with them, irrespective of the fact that the language of the provisions of law should be clear and raise no interpretative doubts. In a democratic state the protection of public health against epidemic hazards justifies the implementation of legal solutions that restrict an individual’s freedom of self-determination, thus limiting the right of patients or their statutory representatives to grant or refuse consent for a medical intervention in the form of preventive vaccination – the purpose of this legal solution being to prioritize the safeguarding of state health security. It is vitally important to engage in a social dialogue with the purpose of convincing the public of the need for vaccination, its significance and its implementation for the better good. (shrink)

The purpose of the present discussion is to present, reflect upon, and evaluate the effective legal regulations concerning the obligation to terminate a medical experiment. The considerations made herein aim at providing an answer to the question whether the aforesaid legal regulations are clear and sufficient. The said analysis is based on the following source: The Act of 5 December 1996 concerning the Professions of General Practitioner and Dental Practitioner. The regulations concerning the obligation to discontinue a medical experiment, both (...) by the will of the participant and on the physician’s initiative, are of great importance owing to the fact that they guarantee protection of the patients taking part in the experimental study. The provisions implicitly oblige the physician to monitor the patients’ state of health and conduct constant assessment whether or not further carrying on the experiment is expedient and admissible. The legal regulations effective in Poland are explicit and sufficient. Their wording does not raise any considerable reservations. As it appears, the legislature managed to work out appropriate rules so as to minimize the danger zone for the participants of clinical tests and at the same time implement a guarantee that participants’ rights shall be respected. (shrink)

Why obey the state? Dorota Mokrosińska presents a fresh analysis of the most influential theories of political obligation and develops a novel approach to this foundational problem of political philosophy, an intriguing combination of the elements of natural duty and associative theories. The theory of political obligation developed in the book extends the scope of the contemporary debate on political obligation by arguing that political obligation can be binding even under the jurisdiction of unjust states. The arguments pursued in (...) the book are illustrated with the results of sociological research concerning the reasons that governed people's attitudes to the authoritarian communist regimes in East Europe viz. communist Poland. This book provides the first detailed argument of how a theory of political obligation can apply to subjects of an unjust state. (shrink)

The study was designed to examine whether trait emotional intelligence would moderate the impact of negative emotions at work on job burnout. A total of 188 female nurses participated in this study and completed measures of trait affectivity, emotional intelligence, anger and sadness at work [over five consecutive days, nurses rated the extent to which they experienced anger-related emotions (i.e., irritation, embitterment and anger) and sadness-related emotions (i.e., depression, disappointment and sadness)], and burnout. The results revealed significant and positive relationships (...) between both types of negative emotions and burnout above and beyond demographics and the nurses’ trait affectivity. Importantly, the study demonstrated that trait emotional intelligence buffers the effects of negative emotions on burnout. Specifically, anger- and sadness-related emotions predicted greater burnout among nurses with low trait emotional intelligence but not among nurses with high trait emotional intelligence. These results suggest that emotional intelligence training could be implemented to prevent the adverse effect of negative emotions felt at work on job burnout. (shrink)

Author: Angutek Dorota Title: ON THE ROLE OF JERZY KMITA’S SEMIOTIC CONCEPTS IN DESCRIPTION OF NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION (O wykorzystaniu pojęć semiotycznych Jerzego Kmity w opisie komunikowania niewerbalnego) Source: Filo-Sofija year: 2011, vol:.12, number: 2011/1, pages: 329-346 Keywords: SEMIOTICS, SIGN, NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION, HAPTIC COMMUNICATION, CULTURE, CONVENTION Discipline: PHILOSOPHY Language: POLISH Document type: ARTICLE Publication order reference (Primary author’s office address): E-mail: www:The author discusses various approaches to nonverbal communication and tries to provide a general descriptive account of the problem in (...) order to confront it with Jerzy Kmita’s theory of culture, signs, and symbolic communication. On the base of semiotic conception of Kmita, the author sketches theoretical background which opens the possibility of conventional interpretation of nonverbal communicates and presupposes their social and cultural relativization. (shrink)

Starting from the observation that the construction of vague reference in legal texts is intended by the legislator, we examine the intensifier adjective grave linked to linguistic vagueness. The aim is to define the meanings of grave and the role of the noun it qualifies, and to identify Polish equivalents in comparable and parallel legal texts. After mentioning studies on vagueness and vague reference, we analyse definitions that indicate two meanings: ‘importance’ and ‘consequence. The ‘cause-consequence’ relationship becomes central to the (...) study of the categories of intensifiable nouns and grave meanings. The Polish equivalents prove that it is polysemous and that the place of the N in the logical relation must be taken into account. (shrink)

Pythagorean Women Philosophers argues for a rewriting of Greek philosophical history so as to include female intellectuals. Dutsch presents testimonies regarding the role of women in the Pythagorean school as demonstrating their active contribution to the philosophical tradition.

Artykuł zawiera rozważania nad zróżnicowaniem tekstów eseistycznych dotyczących problematyki polskości, wynikającym z różnorodnej roli pamięci w poszczególnych koncepcjach narodowej tożsamości. Celem szkicu jest podjęcie refleksji nad relacją, w jaką wchodzą teksty, dające się określić jako tradycjonalistyczne oraz modernizacyjne, z orientacjami esencjalistycznymi i kontruktywistycznymi. Przedmiot analizy zawartej w tekście stanowią przede wszystkim dwie publikacje: Awangardowy konserwatyzm Pawła Rojka oraz Polska: wspólnota fantazmatyczna Agaty Bielik-Robson. Eseje te pozwalają się traktować jako reprezentatywne przykłady złożonych zależności ideowych występujących w obszarze refleksji nad polskością.

Looking at Holocaust testimonies, which in her view always involve some form of translation, the author seeks to develop an ethics of translation in the context of Levinas’ hyperbolic ethics of responsibility. Calling on Benjamin and Derrida to make explicit the precipitous task of the translator, she argues that the translator faces an ethical call or assignation that resembles the fundamental structure of Levinasian subjectivity. The author relates the paradoxes of translation in Holocaust testimony to Levinas’ silence on the problem (...) of translation—puzzling if one considers Levinas’ focus on the ethical essence of language, his multilingualism, and the fact that he wrote his texts in a second language. She proposes that the trace of the philosopher’s displacement from his linguistic community can be discerned in his exilic conception of ethical subjectivity and in the testimonial impetus that animates his work. Thus, although Levinas’ Saying is posited as a translinguistic horizon that transcends the boundaries of a particular national language, it carries the remainder of the disavowed loss of the mother tongue. (shrink)

Dilemma one, Between the theoretical concepts and authorial intention -- Dilemma two, Good manners and eristic -- Dilemma three, Between strangeness and familiarity -- Dilemma four, Between scholarly research and faith.

The author of foregoing article has a thesis that a conception of interculturality in the modern world determines new standards in politics, economy and especially in teaching foreign languages. The starting point of the discussion is the explanation of key words: culture, interculturality, intercultural teaching, intercultural competence. The author explains the specificity of intercultural teaching during the foreign language classes and regards the intercultural competence as an essential requirement for effective communication with representatives of other cultures. She considers referring to (...) our own model of interpretation to understand a statement as one of the most important reasons of misunderstanding in intercultural communication. To avoid this misunderstanding while working on vocabulary, one should underline the differences and similarities between cultures. (shrink)

One of the most influential views in privacy scholarship is that privacy protects individual autonomy. On the early liberal view, the exercise of autonomy requires detachment from social and political life and privacy facilitates it. This view of privacy still informs current legal and political practice. As this view of privacy presupposes a tension between privacy and society, it is responsible for the underrating of privacy in legal and political practice. Over the last decades, liberal reflection on autonomy has shifted (...) from the early liberal understanding of autonomy as calling for detachment from social life to the idea of autonomy as socially embedded. This development has brought about a corresponding adjustment in the liberal concept of privacy: privacy has come to be seen as a social rather than merely an individual interest. The social turn in thinking about privacy has gone a long way to change the problematic image of privacy in legal and political practice. It has not gone far enough, however, to draw conclusions regarding the political relevance of privacy. I argue that we should understand autonomy as politically embedded. Revised along these lines, privacy has a political value: when we claim privacy, we do not make a claim to withdraw from political life, but rather make a claim to protect certain forms of political engagement. (shrink)

Looking at a number of memorials, memory sites and artworks relating to the Holocaust the book uses this idea of synaesthetic perception to explore trauma, memory and the production of art in relation to painful memories.

This study contributes to the constantly accumulating evidence on the effects of customer incivility (CI) on service employee exhaustion. Previous research has demonstrated that surface acting (SA) acts as a mediating variable in the relationship between CI and exhaustion. This study extended prior findings in two ways. The results of Study 1 (315 retail sales employees, 62.2% female) demonstrated that SA mediates the positive relationship between CI and exhaustion while controlling for employees’ trait positive and negative affectivity (NA). The results (...) of Study 2 (292 customer service representatives, 51% female) supported a moderated mediation model demonstrating that trait emotional intelligence (EI) buffers the direct and indirect (through SA) effects of CI on exhaustion. Specifically, it was found that employees exposed to many uncivil customer behaviors but high in trait EI reported using less SA and, thus, experienced fewer exhaustion symptoms than their low in trait EI counterparts. These results highlight EI as an important personal resource that mitigates the adverse effects of CI on service employees’ exhaustion, and suggest that organizations should consider implementing EI training programmes for their frontline service employees. (shrink)

Many studies examine a stressors-professional burnout (PB) relation, but only few consider the role of ethical conflicts (ECs) in this context. The aim of this study was to characterize ECs' frequency and level of burden with them among nurses and to establish the relations between ECs' frequency, burden and PB. One hundred nurses participated in this study. ECs' frequency and burden were tested with an originally developed questionnaire. PB was examined with Maslach Burnout Inventory. Most frequent ECs concerned a nurse-patient (...) relationship. PB was positively related to ECs' frequency (r = .54; p = .001) and burden (r = .22; p = .03). Frequency of specific conflict did not imply burden with it and vice versa. ECs' frequency seems more important for PB than a level of burden with them. The most frequent and the most burdening conflicts may lead to development of PB but the less frequent and less burdening ones are also dangerous. (shrink)

The associative argument for political obligation has taken an important place in the debate on political obligation. Proponents of this view argue that an obligation to obey the government arises out of ties of affiliation among individuals who share the same citizenship. According to them, relationships between compatriots constitute basic reasons for action in the same way in which relationships between family members or friends do. As critics point out, this account of the normative force of relationships has counterintuitive implications: (...) if relationships between people sharing the same citizenship make up basic reasons for action, then relationships between people sharing other attributes, for example, relationships between racists or sexists form basic reasons for action too. In this essay, I pursue a modified version of the associative approach that is not vulnerable to this objection. (shrink)

The study investigates the possibility of applying texture analysis (TA) for testing Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) therapies. The work is based on the Golden Retriever Muscular Dystrophy (GRMD) canine model, in which 3 phases of canine growth and/or dystrophy development are identified: the first phase (0–4 months of age), the second phase (from over 4 to 6 months), and the third phase (from over 6 months to death). Two differentiation problems are posed: (i) the first phase vs. the second phase (...) and (ii) the second phase vs. the third phase. Textural features are derived from T2-weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images. In total, 37 features provided by 8 different TA methods (statistical, filter-based, and model-based) have been tested. The work focuses on finding such textural features that evolve along with the dog’s growth. These features are indicated by means of statistical analyses and eliminated from further investigation, as they may disturb the correct assessment of response to treatment in dystrophy. The relative importance of each remaining feature is then assessed with the use of the Monte Carlo (MC) procedure. Furthermore, feature selection based on the MC procedure is employed to find the optimal subset of age-independent features. Finally, three classifiers are used for evaluating different sets of textural features: Adaptive Boosting (AB), back-propagation Neural Network (NN), and nonlinear Support Vector Machines (SVM). The best subsets of age-independent features ensure 80.0% and 78.5% of correctly identified phases of dystrophy progression, for the first (i) and second (ii) differentiation problem respectively. (shrink)

Artykuł przedstawia rozważania historiograficzne wokół pytania, czy można wpisać nowożytne Państwo Kościelne w pojęcie „małego państwa”, a jednocześnie jakie były przyczyny wielkiego sukcesu dyplomatycznego Rzymu w XVI i XVII stuleciu. Działalność dyplomacji papieskiej została przedstawiona jako skupiona przede wszystkim na afirmacji dualistycznego autorytetu nowożytnej Stolicy Apostolskiej (zarówno jako świeckiego państwa terytorialnego, jak i uniwersalnej monarchii o charakterze religijnym). Niniejsza analiza dotyczy również papieskiej postawy „aktywnej neutralności” jako strategii politycznej i dyplomatycznej ukierunkowanej na osiągnięcie „międzynarodowej” pozycji papiestwa. Profil pracy ma charakter (...) historiograficzny, czerpie ze spuścizny polskiej, francuskiej, niemieckiej, angielskiej i włoskiej nauki historycznej. Badanie ma na celu usystematyzowanie i syntezę dotychczasowych sądów historyków dotyczących natury państwowości Państwa Kościelnego w kontekście sprawowania przez papieża powszechnej władzy kościelnej. Działające od końca XV w. stałe nuncjatury apostolskie stały się rdzeniem nowożytnej dyplomacji europejskiej, gwarantując Rzymowi ekspansję polityczną po kryzysie awiniońskim, pomimo słabości gospodarczej i militarnej papieskiej bazy terytorialnej: Państwa Kościelnego. W tym sensie Państwo Kościelne przestało być „małym państwem” i stało się podmiotem o charakterze uniwersalistycznym, zarówno politycznym, jak i kościelnym. Kuria Rzymska nie odgrywała już jedynie roli biernego obserwatora w stosunkach „międzynarodowych”; przeciwnie, dzięki nowemu systemowi stałych przedstawicielstw dyplomatycznych przy katolickich dworach uzyskała ona możliwość podejmowania własnej inicjatywy politycznej, pełnienia funkcji mediatora i arbitra, a także wzmocnienia kontroli nad życiem religijnym europejskich państw. (shrink)

This exploratory study aims at integrating the psychometric approach to studying creativity with an eye-tracking methodology and thinking-aloud protocols to potentially untangle the nuances of the creative process. Wearing eye-tracking glasses, one hundred adults solved a drawing creativity test – The Test of Creative Thinking-Drawing Production (TCT-DP) – and provided spontaneous comments during this process. Indices of visual activity collected during the eye-tracking phase explained a substantial amount of variance in psychometric scores obtained in the test. More importantly, however, clear (...) signs of methodological synergy were observed when all three sources (psychometrics, eye-tracking, and coded thinking-aloud statements) were integrated. The findings illustrate benefits of using a blended methodology for a more insightful analysis of creative processes, including creative learning and creative problem-solving. (shrink)

The paper presents the theological and philosophical category of Deus absconditus and shows it in the perspective of Nicholas of Cusa’s ideas contained in his dialogue De Deo Abscondito. The hidden God is the totally transcendent God that is beyond creation both ontologically and logically. Deus absconditus is God that cannot be the object of rational cognition and positive knowledge, hence the only way to acquire any knowledge of him is the method of negative theology. Therefore, the hidden God is (...) the subject of mystical epistemology. Cusanus’s Deus absconditus is also called Truth and as such he is not only incomprehensible, but also incommunicable. God’s transcendence, rational unintelligibility and inexpressibility are the aspects which the considerations presented in this paper build on. (shrink)

On the Non-atheistic and Acosmic Character of Pantheistic Philosophy of Spinoza According to Salomon Maimon The article presents Salomon Maimon’s view on the pantheistic philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and Maimon’s conviction that the system in question cannot be defined as atheism. The Jewish thinker states that Spinozian philosophy should be rather called acosmism which term is suggested by Maimon due to the fact that this system of thought affirms the sole reality of God – what, on the other hand, denies (...) the credibility of defining Spinoza’s philosophy as atheism. However, the article shows that the more addequate term with regard to the pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza would be pancosmism. The last seems to better correspond to the theses of pantheism – the determinant common for both the pantheism and pancosmism is namely the real status of reality. (shrink)

Palma Dewory Moszego Kordowera jako egzemplifikacja żydowskiej kabalistycznej doktryny etycznej pod postacią imitatio dei Artykuł podejmuje zagadnienie żydowskich kabalistycznych dyrektyw etycznych,, sformułowanych w Palmie Dewory autorstwa żydowskiego mistyka kabalisty Moszego Kordowera. Czyni to w oparciu o fundamentalną ideę mistyki judaizmu – kategorię dziesięciu sefirot, które w tutejszym systemie etycznym zostały, każda z osobna, skorelowane z pożądanymi i zalecanymi ludzkimi sposobami postępowania, zachowania się wobec bliźniego. Rezultatem zalecenia wehalachta bederachaw, tj. idei naśladowania Boga – wyrażającej się tu w regule naśladowania sefirot, (...) tj. uwewnętrz¬niania, „zaszczepiania” w sobie cnót, cech moralnych immanentnych poszczególnym sefirotycznym atrybutom – jest człowiek doskonały etycznie, ergo podobający się Bogu, co stanowi wartość najwyższą religijnego Żyda. (shrink)

The 7th of September 2013 was a significant day from a point of view of the public manifestation of the history of philosophy: the reconstructed monument of the eighteenth-century Jewish philosopher Salomon Maimon [Salomon ben Jehoshua] (1753–1800) was unveiled in Kożuchów (Lower Silesia, Poland). The unveiled memorial of Maimon is the only one worldwide.That event was significant on a number of dimensions:First, it commemorated the person that was influential in philosophy in general: Maimon was the representative of epistemological rationalism. Secondly, (...) it honoured a prominent representative of European philosophy. Thirdly, it memorialized an important representative of a German philosophical system: Maimon was in fact Kantian, Kant’s critic, and the representative of transcendental idealism.As such Maimon is the author of Essay on Transcendental Philosophy (London-New York 2010; in original: Versuch über die Transcendentalphilosophie. Mit einem Anhang über die symbolische Erkenntni .. (shrink)

In this work, a system for the classification of liver dynamic contest- enhanced CT images is presented. The system simultaneously analyzes the images with the same slice location, corresponding to three typical acquisition moments. At first, the texture features are extracted separately for each acquisition mo- ment. Afterwards, they are united in one “multiphase” vector, characterizing a triplet of textures. The work focuses on finding the most appropriate features that characterize a multi-image texture. At the beginning, the features which are (...) unstable and dependent on ROI size are eliminated. Then, a small subset of remaining features is selected in order to guarantee the best possible classification accuracy. In total, 9 extraction methods were used, and 61 features were calculated for each of three acquisition moments. 1511 texture triplets, corresponding to 4 hepatic tissue classes were recognized. As a classifier, an adaptive boosting algorithm with a C4.5 tree was used. Experiments show that a small set of 12 features is able to ensure classification accuracy exceeding 90%, while all of the 183 features provide an accuracy rate of 88.94%. (shrink)

Pamela Sue Anderson’s project about vulnerability and the silencing of the female speaker began with her realization of the female philosopher’s position within academia. Exposing the disavowal of the female “knower,” Anderson lays bare the mechanisms of excluding women from intellectual, artistic and religious discourse. Moving beyond the negative configuration of vulnerability associated with an openness to violence, Anderson refigures it as an openness to affection. The denial of thus refigured vulnerability has led to the literal and discursive oppression of (...) women through the “wilful ignorance” of their intellectual, emotional and sexual needs. In this article Filipczak analyses manifestations of this oppression exposed by female writers who illustrate the predicament discussed by Anderson in their fiction. Starting with Anderson’s refiguring of Antigone as a figure of dissent and marginality in her early work, Filipczak discusses Maggie Tulliver from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot, Morag Gunn from The Diviners by Margaret Laurence and Mary Magdalene from The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene by Michèle Roberts. What connects these characters is the fact that they are disavowed as knowers in intellectual, artistic or theological endeavours by male figures of authority who deny vulnerability as an openness to affection, and rely on social collusion with such denial. The analysis also refers to Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and Aritha van Herk’s Places Far From Ellesmere. (shrink)

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, I found myself struggling with debilitating professional burnout as a physician assistant (PA) in emergency medicine. Despite initial fears and uncertainties, I chose to volunteer at a refugee center in Wroclaw, Poland, where I provided medical care to Ukrainian war victims. This experience proved to be a transformative journey, reigniting my passion for patient-centered care and addressing my burnout. Establishing a profound connection between medical care and humanity reminded (...) me of the reasons I entered the medical profession. Practicing medicine in a refugee center, free from the constraints of the healthcare business model, allowed me to reconnect with the core values of my profession. This experience underscored the therapeutic potential of volunteering as a means to combat professional burnout and fostered a renewed commitment to patient care upon my return home. In an era where clinician burnout is increasingly prevalent, this narrative explores the importance of rekindling one’s passion for medicine by returning to its fundamental purpose: compassionate, patient-centered care. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to verify the importance of reinforcing a sex stereotype onparticipants’ identification with this role. The results were analysed as a function of both biological sex and psychological gender. In the study the Psychological Gender Inventory was used, as well as a scale measuring Agency and Communion, a scale measuring Unmitigated Agency and Unmitigated Communion, lists of sentences containing stereotypes of the male sex and the female sex, and sentences that were neutral with regard to (...) sex. The results showed that feminine women ascribed more female characteristics to themselves regardless of whether the role that was associated with their biological sex was reinforced or not. Men showing characteristics of both sexes ascribed a similar level of unmitigated communion and agency to themselves irrespective of whether the sex stereotype was reinforced or not. (shrink)

The article addresses the problem of the culture-creating role of museums designed by Mieczysław Treter in the first years of the Second Polish Republic – an art historian from Lviv, the curator of the Museum of the Lubomirski family name in Lviv and the director of the State Art Collection in Warsaw. The publicist of this author is a testimony of how in the first years after Poland regained independence, attempts were made to develop a new way of thinking about (...) the culture-forming function, status and formula of Polish museums, adequate to the changed realities of life in a free state. It formulated the postulate of treating museums as an institution of Polish cultural policy, an institution supporting the rebuilding of an independent state and its status on the international arena. In the perspective of the perceived role of museum outlets, the way of thinking about culture understood as a constant update of historical values was revealed at the same time. The museum discourse of Treter also revealed the shortcomings of extra-banking thinking about culture, which on the threshold of independence – on the one hand – was to be harnessed in state-building processes, and on the other – to realize values developed in the years of national captivity. (shrink)