European policy has seen a number of changes and innovations in the field of early childhood preschool education over the last decade, which have been reflected in various forms in the policies of individual EU countries. Within the Czech preschool policy, certain innovations and approaches have been implemented in the field of early children education, such as the introduction of compulsory preschool education before entering primary school from 2017, emphasis on inclusive education, equal conditions in education and enabling state-supported diversity (...) in the education concepts of kindergartens. The aim of our study was to assess the influence of various preschool education systems in the Czech Republic in the context of psychological variables reflecting selected children’s outcomes which may contribute to future school achievement. The monitored variables were the attitudes, motivations and executive functions of children in the last year of preschool education. A comparison was made between the traditional preschool education program and the so-called alternative types of preschool education, such as Montessori, Waldorf and religious schools. The total sample was divided into four subgroups, namely a group of children attending traditional kindergartens, religious, Montessori, and Waldorf kindergartens. To determine empirical data, the following research methods were used: Attitude Questionnaire, School Performance Motivation Scale, and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function. The results of our survey show the fact that the type of kindergarten attended has a significant effect on the child’s level of school performance motivation, attitudes toward school as well as executive functions. Significant differences were found between the different types of kindergartens attended in the monitored variables. (shrink)

Writing strategic documents is a major practice of many actors striving to see their educational ideas realised in the curriculum. In these documents, arguments are systematically developed to create the legitimacy of a new educational goal and competence to make claims about it. Through a qualitative analysis of the writing strategies used in these texts, I show how two of the main actors in the Czech educational discourse have developed a proof that a new educational goal is needed. I draw (...) on the connection of the relational approach in the sociology of education with Lyotard’s analytical semantics of instances in the event. The comparison of the writing strategies in the two documents reveals differences in the formation of a particular pattern of justification. In one case the texts function as a herald of pure reality, and in the other case as a messenger of other witnesses. This reveals different regimens of proof, although both of them were written as prescriptive directives – normative models of the educational world. (shrink)

Self-resemblance has been found to have a context-dependent effect when expressing preferences for faces. Whereas dissimilarity preference during mate choice in animals is often explained as an evolutionary adaptation to increase heterozygosity of offspring, self-resemblance can be also favored in humans, reflecting, e.g., preference for kinship cues. We performed two studies, using transformations of facial photographs to manipulate levels of resemblance with the rater, to examine the influence of self-resemblance in single vs. coupled individuals. Raters assessed facial attractiveness of other-sex (...) and same-sex photographs according to both short-term and long-term relationship contexts. We found a preference for dissimilarity of other-sex and same-sex faces in single individuals, but no effect of self-resemblance in coupled raters. No effect of sex of participant or short-term vs. long-term attractiveness rating was observed. The results support the evolutionary interpretation that dissimilarity of other-sex faces is preferred by uncoupled individuals as an adaptive mechanism to avoid inbreeding. In contrast, lower dissimilarity preference of other-sex faces in coupled individuals may reflect suppressed attention to attractiveness cues in potential alternative partners as a relationship maintenance mechanism, and its substitution by attention to cues of kinship and psychological similarity connected with greater likelihood of prosocial behavior acquisition from such persons. (shrink)

Social Deviations, Labelling and Normality This paper discusses the issues of labelling, normality and social deviation. I focus on the sociological and socio-psychological aspects of these topics in light of their importance for pedagogy. Labelling mainly concerns the ways in which the formal and constitutive institutions of social control, including schools, respond to behaviour. Mainly children and young people are "marked" or labelled according to both their existing and presumed patterns of deviant behaviour. School, as a social institution, expects its (...) students to be normal. It has the power to define normality and, moreover, a network of social control to achieve it. However, from the perspective of the school it is very important not to prematurely label pupils negatively during the selection process. On the contrary, school should enable as many pupils as possible to contribute successfully towards the requirements of a knowledge society. Research indicates that there is a correlation between a child's school performance and the perceptions and expectations held by the teacher. Recent studies, concerning for example violence at school, have shown how strongly the aggressive behaviour of pupils is connected to the teacher's behaviour. The theory of labelling is concerned with the fundamental question of why some individuals and groups are branded as deviating from norms more often than others. Stigma is a relative phenomenon; it is the result of successful labelling, delivering a punitive and disapproving response. In order to better understand labelling, the concepts of social norms and social deviance also require clarification. (shrink)

У статті автор пропонує своє бачення процесу становлення системи кадастрового обліку в національних районах Російської імперії . Аналізуються нормативно-правові документи, що слугували юридичною основою для проведення генерального межування та обліку земельних дач на південноукраїнських землях. Досліджуються технічні засади межування та основні проблеми, з якими стикалися співробітники межових контор під час вимірювальних робіт на Півдні України.

Studie pojednává o analýze a navrhovaném řešení problému „hodnotové neutrality" vědy německým kritickým racionalistou Hansem Albertem. Především Albert odmítá dvě vyhrocené pozice: novopozitivistickou ignoraci hodnotících soudů i jejich existencialistickou adoraci. Naopak se prostřednictvím takzvaných přemosťovacích principů snaží překlenout propast mezi poznáním na jedné straně a rozhodnutím na straně druhé. V návaznosti na Maxe Webera uznává princip hodnotové neutrality ve vědě, ovšem pouze v oblasti jejího objektového jazyka, neboť věda jako technologický systém výpovědí má pouze informativní, nikoli normativní charakter. To však (...) nevylučuje hodnocení v rovině předmětů věd a v rovině hodnotové báze věd. Dále se tato studie věnuje otázce hodnoty vědy o sobě a nakonec krátkému seznámení s Albertovým pojetím kritického racionalismu jako návrhu „způsobu života". (shrink)

This paper contains a summary of public support for the idea of unconditional basic income in the Czech Republic in the first part. Interest in unconditional income can be found both in the Czech political sphere and in the social sciences community. In the second part, the article theoretically analyzes the possible sources of unconditional basic income funding. The aim of this paper is to support argumentation in favor of the implementation of BI by a systematic analysis of the real (...) possibilities of its funding through the state tax revenues. The feasibility of funding a BI scheme using taxes on labor, property, consumption, environmental taxes, financial transaction tax, and tax on the transfer of information is considered. Consideration is also given to administrative savings that the basic income system could bring. Due to political enforceability of BI, it is important to contemplate and discuss the distortions and other problems of proposed changes in taxation, which would not be negligible as can be expected. (shrink)

BACKGROUND: Ontologies play a major role in life sciences, enabling a number of applications, from new data integration to knowledge verification. SNOMED CT is a large medical ontology that is formally defined so that it ensures global consistency and support of complex reasoning tasks. Most biomedical ontologies and taxonomies on the other hand define concepts only textually, without the use of logic. Here, we investigate how to automatically generate formal concept definitions from textual ones. We develop a method that uses (...) machine learning in combination with several types of lexical and semantic features and outputs formal definitions that follow the structure of SNOMED CT concept definitions. RESULTS: We evaluate our method on three benchmarks and test both the underlying relation extraction component as well as the overall quality of output concept definitions. In addition, we provide an analysis on the following aspects: How do definitions mined from the Web and literature differ from the ones mined from manually created definitions, e.g., MeSH? How do different feature representations, e.g., the restrictions of relations' domain and range, impact on the generated definition quality?, How do different machine learning algorithms compare to each other for the task of formal definition generation?, and, What is the influence of the learning data size to the task? We discuss all of these settings in detail and show that the suggested approach can achieve success rates of over 90%. In addition, the results show that the choice of corpora, lexical features, learning algorithm and data size do not impact the performance as strongly as semantic types do. Semantic types limit the domain and range of a predicted relation, and as long as relations' domain and range pairs do not overlap, this information is most valuable in formalizing textual definitions. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis presented in this manuscript implies that automated methods can provide a valuable contribution to the formalization of biomedical knowledge, thus paving the way for future applications that go beyond retrieval and into complex reasoning. The method is implemented and accessible to the public from: https://github.com/alifahsyamsiyah/learningDL. (shrink)

Rozsáhlé dílo obsahující celoživotní práci Karla Engliše nejen z oblasti teorie poznání představuje nikdy nevydaný rukopis s názvem Velká logika. Jedním z výsledků snahy o jeho postupnou publikaci je nyní zveřejněný přepis Englišovy studie „Zeleného kritika mé teleologie“. Přepis části rukopisu je opatřen autorskými vysvětlujícími a obsah doplňujícími poznámkami. Engliš se musel vypořádávat s kritikou svého teleologického přístupu, jež upřednostňoval v ekonomické vědě, stejně jako musel obhajovat své trojí dělení způsobů myšlení (ontologický, teleologický a normologický). Právě Englišovy obhajoby myšlenkových řádů (...) umožňují vyniknout jeho originalitě v axiologické oblasti. (shrink)

In the present-day information burst and information revolution epoch the mankind must realize the adaptation to the new conditions of its existence in the limited time. The most important problem is the problem of the human being successful adaptation to the modern information medium. The information medium is the factor demanding absolutely new adaptation of human being. Modern information medium specific character leads to correction of existing nature and social human being adaptation mechanisms and creation of new mechanisms. Information technologies (...) as a modern civilization core change not only quality and substance of present time human being life, but they threaten to transformate his way of existence in the modern world. (shrink)

BackgroundHumanitarian crises and emergencies, events often marked by high mortality, have until recently excluded palliative care—a specialty focusing on supporting people with serious or terminal illness or those nearing death. In the COVID-19 pandemic, palliative care has received unprecedented levels of societal attention. Unfortunately, this has not been enough to prevent patients dying alone, relatives not being able to say goodbye and palliative care being used instead of intensive care due to resource limitations. Yet global guidance was available. In 2018, (...) the WHO released a guide on‘Integrating palliative care and symptom relief into the response to humanitarian emergencies and crises’—the first guidance on the topic by an international body.AimsThis paper argues that while a landmark document, the WHO guide took a narrowly clinical bioethics perspective and missed crucial moral dilemmas. We argue for adding a population-level bioethics lens, which draws forth complex moral dilemmas arising from the fact that groups having differential innate and acquired resources in the context of social and historical determinants of health. We discuss dilemmas concerning: limitations of material and human resources; patient prioritisation; euthanasia; and legacy inequalities, discrimination and power imbalances.ImplicationsIn parts of the world where opportunity for preparation still exists, and as countries emerge from COVID-19, planners must consider care for the dying. Immediate steps to support better resolutions to ethical dilemmas of the provision of palliative care in humanitarian and emergency contexts will require honest debate; concerted research effort; and international, national and local ethical guidance. (shrink)

Neoklasická aproximace lidského jednání je obsahem předpokladů modelu homo economicus. Práce odpovídá negativně na otázku, zda je neoklasický koncept překonaný. Za kritérium pro překonanost je pokládána nekvalitní predikční schopnost modelu a jeho nahrazení alternativním konceptem. Práce je zaměřena pouze na úpravu předpokladů modelu člověka ekonomického posunující jednání agenta blíže k realitě a nezaobírá se odmítnutím modelu založeným pouze na důkazech o reálném jednání, které se neshoduje s předpoklady modelu. Článek se zabývá teorií omezené racionality, výsledky behaviorálních experimentů a Beckerovou rozšířenou (...) užitkovou funkcí. Dále je vysvětleno, proč na trhu přežívají subjekty i s neefektivními vzorci chování, a to z důvodu nedostatečného evolučního tlaku. Je dosaženo závěru, že model homo economicus není překonaným modelem, neboť dovoluje rozšíření předpokladů vedoucí ke kvalitnějším předpovědím lidského jednání. (shrink)

Vrcholným dílem celoživotní teoretické činnosti Karla Engliše měla být Velká logika, která se zachovala v podobě obsáhlého rukopisu (cca 2500 stran) a dosud nebyla publikována. Prvním průběžným výsledkem snahy o publikaci rukopisu je zveřejnění studie "Kritika Schopenhauera". Autoři textu předkládají přepis části rukopisu opatřený poznámkami ke zpřístupnění jeho obsahu. Schopenhauerova filosofie poznání tvoří jednu ze stěžejních inspirací pro Englišovu teorii myšlenkových řádů. Englišova kritika Schopenhauera tak poskytuje vodítko k hlubšímu porozumění vztahu Englišovy teorie a transcendentální filosofie.

Článek představuje první a přitom relativně uzavřenou část série, která je věnována analýze pojetí jazyka ve vybraných dílech Francise Bacona a Jana Amose Komenského. Předkládá textovou analýzu Baconova díla Nová Atlantida a naznačuje přítomnost multilinguální, metafyzické a teologické roviny v Baconově přístupu k jazyku.

Článek představuje druhou a přitom relativně uzavřenou část série, která je věnována analýze chápání jazyka ve vybraných dílech Francise Bacona a Jana Amose Komenského. Předkládá textovou analýzu dvou pozdních Komenského děl o vzdělání a představuje pokus nechat vystoupit specifikám jeho pojetí jazyka, tak jak se v textech ukazují a jsou kultivovány.

Factors Which Influence the Growth of Creative Industries: Cross-section Analysis in China With the more and more important roles of creative economy, its research has become one of the major fields in economic development. The creative economy has the potential to generate income and jobs while promoting social inclusion, cultural diversity and human development. As a developing country, China is also in need of developing the creative economy to adjust the economic structure and realize the sustainable development. In this paper, (...) we examined the factors which influence the growth of creative industries in China through the cross-section analysis of 23 regional data in 2007. Four main factors were examined in this multi-regression model, that is, GDP per capita, the number of higher education institutions, the number of students enrolled in higher education institution and the number of patents.The statistical analysis found that the model's fit is quite good and 69% of dependent variable is explained by the model. Specifically, there are three sub-conclusions. Firstly, there is not a positive relationship between GDP per capita and dependent variable; on the contrary, there is a weak negative relationship in this model. We infer that it is because of the stage of economic development. China heavily depends on the development of the second industry in the process of industrializing. Secondly, there is no linear relationship, in this model, between the number of higher education institutions and the dependent variable. We infer that it is mainly due to the differences between the higher education institutions, such as scales and qualities, etc. Thirdly, there is enough evidence to conclude that the number of students enrolled in higher education institution and the dependent variable are linearly related; the number of patents and the ratio of creative industries are linearly related, as well. They represent the important roles of talents and technology in the development of creative industries. (shrink)

Článek představuje třetí a závěrečnou část série, která je věnována analýze chápání jazyka ve vybraných dílech Francise Bacona a Jana Amose Komenského. Pokouší se uplatnit srovnávací přístup, díky němuž nechá vystoupit specifické jednotě a diferenci přístupů a z nich vyplývajících závěrů zkoumaných myslitelů. V druhé části práce budeme sledovat přinejmenším implicitní vliv Baconova ideálu "učené společnosti" na Swiftovu vizi reformy a nápravy anglického jazyka cestou ustavení akademie. Závěrečná část práce přináší nová zjištění o překvapivé podobnosti Komenského přístupu jazyku s přístupem (...) Dr. Thomase Sheridana, ředitele reformované školy, filosofa a jazykovědce z Dublinu první třetiny 18. století, jehož Jonathan Swift nazývá "druhým Šalamounem" a považuje za největšího soudobého učitele. (shrink)

Studie se zaměřuje na problém statusu přírodních zákonů, přičemž vychází z analýzy Popperova raného díla Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnislehre, které bylo napsáno ještě před Logikou vědeckého zkoumání, avšak bylo publikováno až o téměř padesát let později. Popper je zajedno s logickými pozitivisty v tom, že z logického hlediska je možné rozhodnout o pravdivosti singulárních tvrzení o skutečnosti, nikoli však tvrzení všeobecných. Logičtí pozitivisté proto odmítají uznat přírodní zákony jako všeobecná tvrzení a označují je pouze jako souhrnné zprávy, které mohou (...) být definitivně verifikovány nebo falzifikovány. Oproti tomu Popper tvrdí, že přírodní zákony jsou všeobecná tvrzení, která lze definitivně (logicky) falzifikovat, avšak v pozitivním smyslu se mohou jen dočasně (pragmaticky) osvědčit. Popper se inspiruje tzv. konsekventním pragmatismem a označuje své vlastní řešení problému statusu přírodních zákonů jako asymetrii hodnot. (shrink)

The red tape and delays around research ethics and governance approvals frequently frustrate researchers yet, as the lesser of two evils, are largely accepted as unavoidable. Here we quantify aspects of the research ethics and governance approvals for one interview- and questionnaire-based study conducted in England which used the National Health Service procedures and the electronic Integrated Research Application System. We demonstrate the enormous impact of existing approvals processes on costs of studies, including opportunity costs to focus on the substantive (...) research, and suggest directions for radical system change. We have recorded 491 exchanges with 89 individuals involved in research ethics and governance approvals, generating 193 pages of email text excluding attachments. These are conservative estimates. The exchanges were conducted outside IRAS, expected to be the platform where all necessary documents are provided and questions addressed. Importantly, the figures exclude the actual work of preparing the ethics documentation. We propose six areas of work to enable system change: 1. Support the development of a broad range of customised research ethics and governance templates to complement generic, typically clinical trials orientated, ones; 2. Develop more sophisticated and flexible frameworks for study classification; 3. Link with associated processes for assessment, feedback, monitoring and reporting, such as ones involving funders and patient and public involvement groups; 4. Invest in a new generation IT infrastructure; 5. Enhance system capacity through increasing online reviewer participation and training; and 6. Encourage researchers to quantify the approvals processes for their studies. Ethics and governance approvals are burdensome for historical reasons and not because of the nature of the task. There are many opportunities to improve their efficiency and analytic depth in an age of innovation, increased connectivity and distributed working. If we continue to work under current systems, we are perpetuating, paradoxically, an unethical system of research approvals by virtue of its wastefulness and impoverished ethical debate. (shrink)

Стаття присвячена проблемі становлення та розвитку системи військово-топографічних обстежень у Російській імперії в ХІХ ст. Аналізуючи проблему створення військово-топографічних описів, автор перш за все приділяє увагу дослідженню джерельної бази описово-статистичних джерел, установленню рівня їхньої репрезентативності та достовірності. Завдяки залученню історико-порівняльного методу автору дослідження вдалося повністю реконструювати джерельну базу військово-статистичних творів, установити рівень володіння укладачами описів методами джерелознавчої критики. Подібне дослідження відкриває нові можливості для переосмислення проблеми інформативності військово-топографічних описів України кінця 40-х - початку 50-х рр. ХІХ ст.

Tato studie představuje specifické uchopení kritického racionalismu jako návrhu způsobu života. Jeho reminiscence jsou patrné již u Karla Poppera, který se však zaměřoval spíše na problematiku filosofie vědy. Ono specifické pojetí kritického racionalismu jako komplexního návrhu způsobu života rozpracoval až Popperův následovník, německý filosof Hans Albert. Popperovské filosoficko-vědní předpoklady Albert rozvíjí a aplikuje na oblast etiky, ekonomie, politiky a lidského sociálního života vůbec. Vychází přitom především z takzvaného falibilismu, který konstatuje omylnost veškerého lidského myšlení a jednání. Falibilismus je v rámci (...) Albertova kritického racionalismu spojen s takzvanými postuláty realizovatelnosti a kongruence, což souvisí s Albertovým řešením problému dichotomie poznání a rozhodnutí, respektive problému hodnotové neutrality vědy a problému tzv. čisté filosofie. V závěru studie je pak podniknut exkurs do současné vědecké praxe a načrtnuty možnosti kritického racionalismu jako způsobu života. (shrink)

V článku se snažím odpovědět na otázku, proč byl Platón tak nevraživý vůči sofistům. Hlavní téma mé odpovědi spočívá v rozlišení mezi běžnou antickou sofistikou a pravou filosofickou rétorikou. Podle Platóna je běžná sofistika nebezpečná, protože je zaměřena pouze na populistické lahodění, které rozhodně nevede ke ctnosti. Naopak pravá rétorika je prospěšná, a to nejen pro jednotlivého člověka, nýbrž pro společnost jako celek, neboť se zakládá na takzvané občanské ctnosti. Moje argumentace vychází z intepretace Platónových dialogů Prótagoras, Gorgias a Ústava, (...) se zřetelem k dialogům Politikos a Faidros. (shrink)

Článek poukazuje na problém, do jaké míry je smysluplné rozlišovat přírodní vědy, sociální vědy a humanitní vědy, respektive co mají tyto vědy společného potud, pokud je lze skutečně nazývat vědou. Jde o následující otázky: Jaký je rozdíl mezi humanitními a sociálními vědami? Je možné vést ostrou demarkační linii mezi humanitními a přírodními vědami a jejich metodami? Co vlastně opravňuje dotyčný systém výpovědí k tomu nazývat se vědou? Je osudem humanitních věd "kvantitativní smrt" či je naopak možné vedle hi-tech úspěšných exaktních (...) věd považovat humanitní vědy za nepostradatelné know-how pro přežití lidské společnosti? Odpovědi na tyto otázky se budou opírat o definici sociální vědy Maxe Webera, požadavek autonomie metod humanitních věd klasické hermeneutiky, univerzální hermeneutiku Hans-Georga Gadamera, scientistický návrh novopozitivismu a v neposlední řadě o řešení problému hodnotové neutrality vědy Hanse Alberta. (shrink)

Kritický racionalismus je v české akademické diskusi spojován především se jménem sira Karla R. Poppera. Cílem tohoto článku je komparativně rozšířit tento obraz prostřednictvím myšlenek Hanse Alberta, Popperova následovníka v německé jazykové oblasti. Konkrétně bude diskutována problematika rozlišení kontextu objevu a kontextu zdůvodnění. Na základě vybraných problémů, s nimiž se Popper nedokázal zcela vypořádat, bude ukázáno, jak tyto problémy do své koncepce involvuje a jak je řeší Albert. Zajímavý na tomto srovnání je především fakt, že Albert pojímá původně filosoficko-vědní problémy (...) v širším filosofickém rámci. Díky tomu se mu podařilo uchopit kritický racionalismus – jak sám Popper uznal – s odstupem a v nových souvislostech. In the Czech academic environment, the critical rationalism is associated above all with the name of Sir Karl R. Popper. The aim of this paper is to comparatively extend this view via thoughts of Popper’s German follower Hans Albert. Specifically, the issue of the distinction between context of discovery and context of justification will be discussed here. Against the background of selected problems, which Popper did not adequately solve, I will demonstrate how Albert involves these problems in his own conception and how he solves them. The interesting fact about this comparison is that Albert approaches the originally philosophical-scientific problems in a wider philosophical context. Thanks to this wider context he grasps the critical rationalism from a distance and in new connections, as Popper accepted himself. (shrink)

Objectivity, as one of the key attributes of science, has become an indispensable part of its ethos and a central theme of the philosophy of science. As such, it has been a subject of philosophical reflection by a number of authors. In our project – in which both philosophers of science and scientists participate – we examine the concept of objectivity in the natural sciences with the tools of experimental philosophy. We aim to identify specific operational dimensions of objectivity, those (...) with which current scientist actually work, thus making them accessible for further theoretical analysis and research. In this text, we present results from the first, qualitative phase of our research based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with scientists working in the Czech Republic. Further, we confront this empirical data with theoretical notions of objectivity. We also present other findings from the research and formulate hypotheses for the research’s subsequent phases. (shrink)

This article examines two opposing media consumption trends—news avoidance and doomscrolling—through the lens of media environment and societal fragmentation. News avoidance refers to the conscious limitation of economic or socio-political content consumption to maintain emotional well-being, while doomscrolling is defined as compulsive and excessive attention to negative news. The study is based on 91 semi-structured interviews with individuals exhibiting these media consumption styles. News avoiders and doomscrollers demonstrate the ability to understand each other's logic through reflection on their own experiences (...) and interactions with their social environment. However, both groups criticize the opposing media consumption style. Doomscrollers view news avoiders as passive and under-informed, whereas news avoiders accuse doomscrollers of addictive behavior. The interviews frequently reveal normative judgments about the necessity of consuming or avoiding news. Additionally, both groups perceive each other as more vulnerable to misinformation: news avoiders are associated with ignorance, while doomscrollers are seen as prone to believing false or biased media reports. A commonality between the two groups is anxiety about the future. The differences in news consumption volumes are explained by varied approaches to managing anxiety and assessing the usefulness of information. Thus, doomscrolling and news avoidance can be considered two sides of the same coin. However, these opposing media consumption styles contribute to further societal fragmentation, widening the gap in awareness of current events. (shrink)

The cultural diversity and the culture of plural coexistence becomes the global problem of existence. Mutual penetration and leveling of the boundary having divided the world into Other and Own is relevant, as it challenges identity in the conditions of openness and unification. Own culture is able to reveal its potential and present its essential features and original character only in the context of a different cultural dimension. The complex intertwinings, connections, influences of the cultures of different peoples and their (...) worldviews in a single world cultural space are illuminated by the dialogue. Dialogue determines the nourishing interaction, which allows to get richer by knowing the unique, valuable experience of the Other, to expand the horizons of one’s own existence. The atmosphere created by the dialogue is marked by humanism, implies the dignity and the right of each participant to argue their own point of view, therefore, to use their own intellectual abilities, knowledge and values. (shrink)

Aim: This article presents key ethical challenges that were encountered when conducting a participatory qualitative research project with a very specific, small group of nurses, in this case with practice development nurses in Malta. Background: With the small number of nurses employed in practice development roles in Malta, there are numerous difficulties of maintaining confidentiality. Poorly constructed interventions by the researcher could have resulted in detrimental effects to research participants and the overall trustworthiness of the research. Generally, ethical guidelines for (...) research exist to reinforce validity of research; however, there is not an established consensus on how these strategies can be utilised in some types of qualitative field work. Research design: The researcher used an exploratory case study methodology. The sample consisted of 10 participants who were interviewed twice using face-to-face interviews, over a period of 2 months. Ethical considerations: The study was ethically reviewed by the University Research Ethics Committee and the Faculty Research Ethics Committee, University of Malta. The participants referred to in this article have been given adequate information about the study and their consent has been obtained. Discussion: Numerous strategies for ensuring confidentiality during recruitment of the participants, during data collection, during transcription and data analysis and during dissemination of research results assisted the researcher in responding to potential and actual ethical issues. Conclusion: This article emphasises the main strategies that can be used to respond to ethical challenges when researching with a small easily identifiable group. The learning discussed here may be relevant to or even transferable to other similar research studies or research contexts. These methods fostered a greater credibility throughout the research process and predisposed the participants to greater trust, and thus, they disclosed their experiences and speak more freely, thus enhancing the quality of the study. (shrink)

As the ubiquity of technology-mediated communication grows, so does the number of questions about the costs and benefits of replacing in-person interactions with technology-mediated ones. In the present study, we used a daily diary design to examine how people’s emotional experiences vary across in-person, video-, phone-, and text-mediated interactions in day-to-day life. We hypothesised that individuals would report less positive affect and more negative affect after less life-like interactions (where in-person is defined as the most life-like and text-mediated as the (...) least life-like). In line with this hypothesis, the analysis of 527 unique interactions reported by 102 individuals (mean age = 19.3; 85.6% female) over the course of 7 days reveals that people feel lonelier, sadder, less affectionate, less supported, and less happy following less life-like interactions. Additional analyses show that the links between life-like communication and momentary experiences are independent of properties of individual interactions such as interaction length and participants’ overall evaluations of interaction quality. These findings provide initial evidence that there may be inherent properties of common technology-mediated communication tools that may lead to momentary changes in affective experiences and make social connection more challenging. (shrink)

The paper analyses empirical research results comparing the impact of the medium (traditional, paper-based vs. screen-based) on the reading process and text comprehension. It focuses on two analytical approaches—the first looks at the construction of cognitive maps of texts and the other the material aspects of the medium – which enable readers to orientate themselves and to explore and interpret the text more comprehensively. The paper discusses differences in how readers approach textual meaning according to experience of using digital technologies, (...) the text, and reader experience and abilities. It concludes by arguing that strengthening these individual experiences and abilities is key to effective inference of textual meaning. (shrink)

Book review: Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Pacidius Philalethi – Pacidius Philalethovi. Přeložil Jan Makovský. Praha: Oikoymenh, 2019. 341 stran.