Language depth and complexity are comparable with the world reflected in its reality. The conceptual categories are formed by its means, allowing conceptualize ideas about the world, on the basis of which cognitive experience of man further develops. In all periods of its existence, the language is characterized by dynamism and synergy, the ability of self-development, improvement of socio-functional nature, taking care of maintaining its communicative suitability in the best condition. As a unique object of reality, as the most brilliant (...) creation of a human being, language deserves not only to be spoken, but also to get attention and be studied. Research experience proves that the language still holds many secrets and unrevealed laws of its being, development and functioning. Revealing these secrets and laws is possible on the basis of scientific and linguistic competence; the base substrate of it is communicative language competence, which itself can not get enough depth without the support of linguistic competence. Language is the most important means of formation and protection of ethnic and cultural consciousness and the identity of a man whose personal features begin to form on the base and with the help of language in early childhood. Historically, it is through the medium of the Russian language numerous peoples of Russia, the former Soviet Union, and abroad maintain and develop their culture in the broadest sense of the word connection, and it allows everyone to feel their place in the world and thus realize the dynamic integrity of mankind in the general context of space and time, rootedness in their limits, responsibility to them. Russian is the official language, and the state is obliged to develop and adopt measures linguoecological protective nature towards their language in the interests of Russian language and Russian-speaking communities abroad, and to ensure the preservation of its cultural and communicative power. The experience of Russian linguistics in formation of the theory of state language is invaluable in general sociolinguistic approach to language, based on the objective fact of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity of Russia. (shrink)

Online courses attract thousands, even millions of students from all corners of the Earth. As such, they have the potential to educate many people. Education, however, is not neutral. Knowledge is embedded in contexts and perspectives, carrying ideological baggage, and so is teaching and learning. Teaching can no longer be the mere provision of content. The knowledge explosion implies that the ability to master content should become part and parcel of the course curriculum. In the same vein, the fact that (...) online courses attract students from many different contexts necessitates that lecturer and student alike should be aware of the underlying ideologies in the course content. To this end, in this conceptual article it is argued that discourse analysis of not only the written course content but also of images used to illustrate the content can be helpful; these are often not scrutinised for ideological baggage. If not, the online educated human might become the online indoctrinated human, to the detriment of all. (shrink)

In contrast to interreligious dialogue, which has been the subject of careful scrutiny by both Ukrainian and foreign researchers of religion, attention to interreligious organizations remains disproportionately lower than their role in public life and in the international arena. This article aims to present a systematic review of the main directions of current researches on interreligious organizations. It consistently covers four aspects: (1) the possible reasons for the previous low research attention to interfaith organizations (in particular, the impact of the (...) secularization theory and the relative "youth" of the majority of interfaith organizations); (2) the problem of interpretation the term "interreligious organizations" (e.g., expansion of the range of actors who can act on behalf of religious organizations; correlation of approaches to interreligious organizations in religious studies with the UN criteria for defining international organizations); (3) current approaches to the classification of interreligious organizations based on the pool of participants and difficulties of adapting these classifications to the Ukrainian context – untranslatabilities, changes of emphasis, national preferences and connotations; (4) functions of interfaith organizations on international arena and its challenges: threats of political instrumentalization of religion, problem of representativeness and inclusion of all actors, which is especially relevant for Ukrainian religious organizations, most of which do not have independent representation in international interfaith organizations. The conclusions outline the prospects for further study of the topic in the context of growing diversity of interreligious organizations and of the entry of Ukrainian religious organizations in the international religious field. (shrink)

This paper empirically examines how consumers react when a company marks a product with a gay label. The company under scrutiny is one of the largest video game developers in the world, and the labeled product is a popular video game character. We use a regression discontinuity design to exploit the quasi-experimental setting. The main finding was significant drop in demand for this character and a return to previous levels after approximately 3 months. Possible mechanisms and dynamics were explored by (...) analyzing demand for other characters and by surveying consumers. The results are consistent after performing robustness checks based on grid search, subsampling, and placebo tests. (shrink)

The very occurrence of post-Soviet Russia necessarily dictates the need to study ideological foundations of its existence. What are they? How did they influence and continue to influence the social well-being of the country: do they corrupt or contribute to the unity of society; do they strengthen Russians in pondering over the historical path of the country's development, or, on the contrary, bring confusion into the souls of people and prophesy trouble? The purpose of the paper is to study the (...) language of everyday life as a kind of mirror reflecting the social well-being of the post-Soviet Russian Federation. The authors conclude that this social value is associated with the prosperity of both individuals and society as a whole, but of primary importance is the preservation of cultural and civilizational identity, sovereignty of the country, and solidarity. In modern conditions, cohesion seems to be the first step to social well-being of the country. (shrink)

The article considers the features of ensuring the economic security of enterprises in the conditions of intensive introduction of information technologies in their activities in the process of forming the digital economy. It is determined that digitalization creates important advantages for enterprises in terms of implementing a long-term strategy for their development, strengthening economic security, and achieving significant competitive advantages in doing business. It is studied that the system of economic security of the enterprise is an organized set of elements (...) of the management infrastructure of the enterprise, which are focused on ensuring stable and effective development of the business entity, neutralization, and elimination of internal and external threats. (shrink)

BackgroundCollecting post-mortem brain tissue is essential, especially from healthy “control” individuals, to advance knowledge on increasingly common neurological and mental disorders. Yet, healthy individuals, on which this study is focused, are still understudied. The aim of the study was to explore, among healthy potential brain donors and/or donors’ relatives, attitude, concerns and opinion about post-mortem brain donation (PMBD).MethodsA convenience sampling of the general population (twins and their non-twin contacts) was adopted. From June 2018 to February 2019, 12 focus groups were (...) conducted in four Italian cities: Milan, Turin, Rome and Naples, stratified according to twin and non-twin status. A qualitative content analysis was performed with both deductive and inductive approaches. Emotional interactions analysis corroborated results.ResultsOne hundred and three individuals (49–91 yrs of age) participated. Female were 60%. Participants had scarse knowledge regarding PMBD. Factors affecting attitude towards donation were: concerns, emotions, and misconceptions about donation and research. Religion, spirituality and secular attitude were implied, as well as trust towards research and medical institutions and a high degree of uncertainty about brain death ascertainment. Family had a very multifaceted central role in decision making. A previous experience with neurodegenerative diseases seems among factors able to favour brain donation.ConclusionsThe study sheds light on healthy individuals’ attitudes about PMBD. Brain had a special significance for participants, and the ascertainment of brain death was a source of debate and doubt. Our findings emphasise the importance of targeted communication and thorough information to promote this kind of donation, within an ethical framework of conduct. Trust in research and health professionals emerged as an essential factor for a collaborative attitude towards donation and informed decision making in PMBD. (shrink)

Significant transformations in postmodern society determine the need to form a space of digital communications and the involvement of information and communication technologies. Such trends make significant demands on various categories of professionals, including managers in the field of tourism. The aim of this research is to study the psychological peculiarities of morality in the representatives of digital Generations Y and Z in the field of tourism. In accordance with the aim, we paid attention to the study of such components (...) of moral regulation as ethics attitude, moral foundations, justice sensitivity and moral disengagement. The research involved 200 participants being represented by volunteers from five regions of Ukraine, including 100 respondents in the age of 25-30 who formed part of the Generation Y group; the other 100 participants in the age of 18-23 formed the Generation Z group. The results show that millennials are more idealistic. The intercrossing of the factors of idealism and relativism allows us to characterize millennials as situationalists, and centennials as subjectivists. It is ascertained that millennials are characterised by such important moral foundations for judgments as “Faithfulness”, “Purity”, which is reflected in the greater importance of “Ethics of community”. At the same time, it was found that centennials place more emphasis on the moral foundations of care and justice, and as a result, they are more committed to the “Ethics of autonomy” and “Progressivism”. The research confirmed the uniqueness and specificity of the moral regulation of different digital generations of representatives of the tourism industry. (shrink)

The importance of the adolescence in the value orientations formation as a stable personality trait associated with the shaping of worldview has always been a matter of special research attention. This article seeks to investigate the formation of teenagers’ value orientations through creolized texts. The creolized text is a text in which verbal and nonverbal components form a visual, structural, semantic and functional wholeness, aimed at a complex impact on the recipient. The authors cleared out cognitive, emotional, and behavioural criteria (...) for the formation of students’ value orientations. To determine students’ instrumental and terminal values, M. Rokeach’s method of value orientation diagnostics was used. Educational workshops aimed at altering teenagers’ values with the use of creolized texts were arranged. Examples of motivational posters and comics created by students in the process of these extracurricular activities are provided. The reflexive component is presented through students’ impressions of working with creolized texts. (shrink)

In this article, we present findings from a participatory action research program in France on the exercise of human rights and supported and substitute decision-making, inspired by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (“CRPD”). Bringing together persons with the lived experience of disability, academics, and health and social care and support professionals, the project used the method of “experience-based construction of public problem” to transform experience into collective expertise. This enabled the exploration of support that (...) persons in vulnerable situations, whose capacity to exercise their human rights has weakened, need to make decisions in their lives and participate meaningfully in public debate. The relationship between the awareness of rights and exercise of rights is discussed. We argue for the need to balance out the positions of different contributors in participatory action research, in a reasoned manner, by recognizing the scientific and citizen-based participation of all partners. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“We all love with the same part of the body, don’t we?”Iuliia Voznesenskaia’s Zhenskii Dekameron, New Women’s Prose, and French Feminist TheoryYelena Furman (bio)Starting out as a poet who eventually turned to fiction, Iuliia Voznesenskaia was also one of the main figures of the Soviet feminist movement, a fact that makes her biography both unusual and courageous. In the 1970s, Voznesenskaia’s involvement with the dissident movement in (...) Leningrad resulted in several arrests, imprisonment, and time in the camps.1 Although she was not initially interested in women’s issues, her incarceration in all-women’s camps and prisons convinced her that “the situation of women in our country demands special attention” (“Zhenskoe dvizhenie v Rossii” [“The Women’s Movement in Russia”] 41). Along with several other women dissidents, she founded the Soviet feminist movement, putting out the samizdat women’s journal Zhenshchina i Rossiia (Woman and Russia), which precipitated immediate reprisals from the KGB. A women’s club, Mariia, and a journal by the same name followed, as did more KGB reprisals. For her feminist activity, Voznesenskaia was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1980, settling in West Germany.2In 1985, in West Germany, Voznesenskaia wrote her first and best-known novel, Zhenskii Dekameron (The Women’s Decameron). The novel is set in a Leningrad maternity ward containing ten new mothers from different backgrounds with different life experiences: Larisa, Emma, Natasha, Nelia, Galina, and Valentina are educated and all have careers except Galina, whose occupation, admittedly strange for a feminist novel, seems to be a dissident’s wife; Ol’ga works in a shipyard; Irishka is a secretary; Al’bina is an Aeroflot flight attendant doubling as an escort on the KGB’s payroll; Zina is homeless and has served time in the camps; Valentina is a Party worker, whereas Galina is part of the dissident community. Quarantined together for ten days because of a spreading infection and inspired by Emma’s reading of Boccaccio’s Decameron, the women begin to tell each other stories to pass the time. As its title makes clear, Voznesenskaia’s novel is heavily indebted to Boccaccio’s, borrowing its structure and many of its themes, such as an emphasis on storytelling and sexual explicitness. The humor and poignancy of the women’s stories make it a highly enjoyable read, and the focus on female sexuality and the author’s play with the narrative set this novel apart from other Soviet writers’ works.3 The novel also features what is surely a unique occurrence in Russian and Soviet literature: an openly feminist character (Larisa), referred to by the authornarrator as “zhenshchinoi vpolne emansipirovannoi, mogushchei ukrasit’ soboi liuboe zapadnoe feministicheskoe obshchestvo” [“a completely emancipated woman, capable [End Page 95] of adorning any Western feminist group”] (13), who is moreover depicted in a wholly positive light.4Yet despite enjoying a modicum of success, including being translated into several languages and staged as a play, Zhenskii Dekameron remains an under-read and underrated work.5 The reasons for its relative obscurity are closely allied with Voznesenskaia’s political activities in the 1980s. Exiled abroad for being politically undesirable to Soviet authorities, she could not have her work published in the Soviet Union; rather, the novel came out in Russian in Israel in 1987 (Curtis 186n2).6 The lack of visibility from which she suffered in her native country changed only in the (post)glasnost’ period: in 1991, the novel was published in Russian in Tallinn, and in 1992, in Moscow.7 Despite being able to be published, however, Zhenskii Dekameron seems not to have made a strong impact on either readers or critics, and there does not appear to be any discussion of it in Soviet/ Russian literary journals.The novel likewise suffers from a lack of familiarity in the West. The interest Voznesenskaia generated among Western European and American feminists in the early 1980s was for her feminist activism in the Soviet Union, which preceded her novel writing. Zhenskii Dekameron seems to have made a modest impact on readers; scholars, too, discuss it only occasionally. The most comprehensive treatment of the work to date has been Jerzy Kolodziej... (shrink)