Changing the Health Behaviour of Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented changes in educational, professional, and leisure activities around the world. Protecting health against the virus has become the most important task in the social and individual dimension. The aim of the study was to diagnose changes in the behaviour and health beliefs of students. The WHO definition of health and the Health Belief Model (HBM) were adopted as the theoretical basis for defining variables. The study was of diagnostic and verification nature, and a quantitative strategy was used in it. The general population comprised students of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. The study was conducted electronically in 2020, during the first lockdown in Poland. The Likert scale was used as a tool to assess the degree of change. The respondents declared the greatest changes in terms of caring about physical and relational health. The declared behavioural changes concerned the most conservative, trained forms of pro-health activity. Despite the declared beliefs about the importance of maintaining health and the personal risk of viral infection, the respondents declared undertaking more advanced pro-health activities only to a small extent.

The ECB Under the Threat of Fiscal Dominance – The Individual Central Banker Dimension

This paper examines the threat of fiscal dominance for central banks with a focus on the individual dimension. A general symptom of fiscal dominance is a feedback loop from sovereign debt developments to monetary policy decisions. Our theoretical reasoning clarifies under which assumptions the individual members in a federal central bank system should pay particular attention to their home regions’ public debt situation. We present empirical evidence for the existence of such a repercussion in the context of the ECB Council. Based on public statements regarding the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP), we classify the governors of the euro area national central banks (NCB) and the ECB board members as “hawks”, “neutrals,” and “doves”. We correlate the resulting classification with their home countries’ debt level. The resulting pattern is consistent with what can be expected for a regime of fiscal dominance. Whereas the doves tend to come from high-debt countries, the average debt level of the hawks’ home countries is significantly lower. As expected, this pattern is even more pronounced for the NCB presidents than for board members.

The Individual Dimension of Digital Innovation: The Altered Roles of Innovation Agents and Market Actors

Digital innovation entails the employment of new technologies to address business issues and to create practices that lead to the achievement of sustainability. It is observed that digital technology alters the individual dimension of the innovation process, allowing for a set of heterogenous actors to become active engagers in the process. A review of the previous research revealed a lack of focus on the roles these different actors play in the digital innovation process, as well as the mechanisms by which digital technology facilitates actor engagement, calling for research to shed some light on this topic. This phenomenological study undertakes an exploratory investigation of twenty-one Malaysian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, with the aim to demonstrate the importance of engaging market actors in each stage of the value co-creation process. Interviews with industry players show the shifted role of market actors in the innovation process—from product receivers to gatekeepers—at different stages of the innovation process. Market actors are extensively engaged in validating and evaluating the progress of ongoing digital innovation projects and, therefore, can modify their direction. Meanwhile, the role of innovation agents changes from an authoritative to reflective one. This study provides evidence that market actors are in a controlling position at certain points of the innovation process. As such, the view of the innovation process as being company-centric is challenged by the findings of this research. We provide new information regarding innovation practices, the roles of key actors, and their value in the digital context, which can serve as valuable knowledge for both academics and practitioners.

Four years of fake news: A quantitative analysis of the scientific literature

Since 2016, “fake news” has been the main buzzword for online misinformation and disinformation. This term has been widely used and discussed by scholars, leading to hundreds of publications in a few years. This report provides a quantitative analysis of the scientific literature on this topic by using frequency analysis of metadata and automated lexical analysis of 2,368 scientific documents retrieved from Scopus, a large scientific database, mentioning “fake news” in the title or abstract. Findings show that until 2016 the number of documents mentioning the term was less than 10 per year, suddenly rising from 2017 and steadily increasing in the following years. Among the most prolific countries are the U.S. and European countries such as the U.K., but also many non-Western countries such as India and China. Computer science and social sciences are the disciplinary fields with the largest number of documents published. Three main thematic areas emerged: computational methodologies for fake news detection, the social and individual dimension of fake news, and fake news in the public and political sphere. There are 10 documents with more than 200 citations, and two papers with a record number of citations.

The Impact of the Church–State Model for an Effective Guarantee of Religious Freedom: A Study of the Peruvian Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments established important restrictions on religious freedom. Due to a restrictive interpretation of the right to religious freedom, religion was placed in the category of “non-essential activity” and was, therefore, unprotected. Within this framework, this paper tries to offer a reflection on the relevance of the dual nature of religious freedom as an individual and collective right, since the current crisis has made it clear that the individual dimension of religious freedom is vulnerable when the legal model does not offer an adequate institutional guarantee to the collective dimension of religious freedom.

Teachers’ Perceptions on Environmental Citizenship: A Systematic Review of the Literature

As we are living amid an unprecedent environmental crisis, the need for schools to empower students into environmental citizenship is intensifying. Teachers are considered as the main driving force in fostering students’ environmental citizenship. However, a critical question is how teachers conceive environmental citizenship and whether their perceptions of environmental citizenship are well-informed. There is an urgent need to investigate teachers’ perceptions, considering their crucial role in the formation of students’ environmental citizenship. This study examines teachers’ perceptions of environmental citizenship through a systematic review and thematic analysis of relevant empirical studies. The selected studies (n = 16) were published in peer-reviewed journals during the timespan of the last twenty-five (25) years (1995–2020). The thematic findings of this review revealed that teachers’ perceptions: (a) manifest a relatively decreased understanding of environmental citizenship, (b) are narrowed down to the local scale, individual dimension and private sphere, (c) affect teaching practices, (d) are multi-dimensional, defined by inter-related components, (e) vary according to teachers’ educational/cultural background and personal identity, (f) affect other environmental constructs defining teachers’ professional identity, (g) can be enhanced during teacher education, (h) can be also improved during professional development initiatives. These findings bear significant implications for researchers, policymakers, as well as for teacher educators in the field of Environmental Education.

Non-standard interactions in SMEFT confronted with terrestrial neutrino experiments

The Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) provides a systematic and model-independent framework to study neutrino non-standard interactions (NSIs). We study the constraining power of the on-going neutrino oscillation experiments T2K, NOνA, Daya Bay, Double Chooz and RENO in the SMEFT framework. A full consideration of matching is provided between different effective field theories and the renormalization group running at different scales, filling the gap between the low-energy neutrino oscillation experiments and SMEFT at the UV scale. We first illustrate our method with a top- down approach in a simplified scalar leptoquark model, showing more stringent constraints from the neutrino oscillation experiments compared to collider studies. We then provide a bottom-up study on individual dimension-6 SMEFT operators and find NSIs in neutrino experiments already sensitive to new physics at ∼20 TeV when the Wilson coefficients are fixed at unity. We also investigate the correlation among multiple operators at the UV scale and find it could change the constraints on SMEFT operators by several orders of magnitude compared with when only one operator is considered. Furthermore, we find that accelerator and reactor neutrino experiments are sensitive to different SMEFT operators, which highlights the complementarity of the two experiment types.

SOCIOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON IDENTITY AND SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION: THE INDIVIDUAL IN AMBIGUOUS MODERNITY

The paper examines the diverse ways of self-definition of individuals in a changing reality, which is attributed to a hybrid and ambiguous character. The emphasis is on identity discourse in the individual dimension. While questioning the possibility of clearly defining the Self in the world of diverse relations and ambiguous social reality, a dilemma arises: one identity or many identities? It should be pointed out here that there is a transition from identity as a complex and dynamic attribute (aspect) of the individual to the multiplicity of individual identities as a variety of its identifications with the objects of the social world. More radically, doubts can be raised here about the usefulness of the category of identity. Behind such thinking are not merely methodological difficulties in recognizing the different dimensions and contexts in which the individual defines his or her identity or identities. It is certainly possible to speak here of a different meaning attributed to the category of identity, especially in its theoretical-cognitive sense. The consequence of this is also the different meaning that is attributed to the utility of this category, i.e. its instrumental use for the self-determination of individuals. The stronger the adherence to the terminology of modernity, the stronger the indication of a possible and fully conscious (reflexive) project that identity may become for the constructively acting individual. Departure from modern nomenclature complicates the issues of defining identity itself, and thus also does not make the task easier in the sphere of social practice and does not provide easy utilitarian solutions. Moreover, the difficulties concern not only what individual identity is (or could be) in the functional sense, but also its very structure and the fundamental question of its durability (or at least relative stability) in the context of individualization.

Meaningful Work

Though work is important for people’s self-esteem and recognition, the sociology of work pays little attention to the meaning of work. This reflects that work in capitalist societies tends to be alienated. But empirical findings show that employees nevertheless try to appropriate their work by asking for its meaning. They claim for a meaningful work and for the possibility to execute work in a meaningful way. If they have to carry out work they feel to be meaningless they can suffer psychological strain. Meaning has not only an individual dimension but it refers to the meaning for society and other people and there are social institutionalizations of recognized meanings of work. Fordism and flexible capitalism are connected to different forms of alienation and difficulties to appropriate work as meaningful. Therefore, meaningful work is embedded in relations of collegiality and cooperation and can be damaged by the fragmentation of work.

Dream-based cartography: creative processes involving an imaginary Prague

This work aims to discuss aspects of artistic creation derived from dream speculation. Based on a dream that took place in the capital of Czechoslovakia, a region unknown to the dreamer, and which happened at the beginning of the quarantine period due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the research began on the internet using search mechanisms. In the evening event, in addition to its narrative elements, the journey through places that presented themselves vividly was of paramount importance, so the first stage arose from the researcher’s curiosity in verifying if there was any coincidence between the real Prague and the dream Prague. To her surprise, although there was no prior contact with systematized information about that location, coincidences were emerging. And these similarities allowed the initial elaboration of a data collection for the memories would not be lost and could be used in the future as tools for artistic creation. Somehow, that fact so unique and different from other experienced dream phenomena aroused a series of sensations and reflections on the possibility of incorporating the unforeseen and irrational element, which daily invades our senses when we are asleep, as a means of promoting academic inquiry and artistic research. In Antiquity, as the work of Artemidoro confirms, the dream had a cosmic dimension that was related to the mystical tradition and to the collectivity. However, the psychoanalytic conception, influential in western society since the first decades of the twentieth century, contributed to fixing the perception of the dream as a private event and that concerns only the individual dimension. At the same time, neuroscience favors a biological approach to dreaming, even though Sidarta Ribeiro is a dissonant voice in this environment and dedicates himself to research focused on the “oracle of the night”. The Brazilian neuroscientist says that, in his work, he identified a very intricate relationship between dreams and memory and a double temporal articulation: we dream as a way of remembering what we are and do, and also to prepare for the future. These reflections joined the coordinates collected by me during the aforementioned night experience. The conceptual project design that I provisionally called “Prague Dreamiary” started from a dream and proceeded, at first, with the help of Internet search engines. From there, a map was created that unites both objective information found on the networks and the translation of dreamed symbolic messages. The dream experience allowed a deviation in the search algorithms by means of private intuition, which contradicts the consensual rational tendency behind the “improvement” of the artificial intelligence of these mechanisms. In addition to the creation of “dream hyperlinks”, this process included bibliographic research and the creation of a digital banner for the online page that will contain more information about the work in process.