Spotrebiteľská gramotnosť a falšovanie medu. Časť II.

In the process of shopping behavior, consumer decisions are influenced by a wide range of factors as well as the decisions of the consumer himself. In this article, attention is paid to consumer literacy. It interacts in the range of psychographic factors of motivation, perception, learning, belief and attitudes to the extent that the consumer makes a conscious decision about the preferences of the product, its quality or brand. Cultivating consumer literacy enables the consumer to make informed choices. There are not only benefits on the site of the consumer, but also on the site of the producer, or even the whole industry. The aim of the paper is to identify the importance of consumer literacy in the purchase of bee honey in the context of its fraud. The article identifies unfair practices of honey fraud and devaluing its nutritional value. These are currently a common practice, reflected in the reduced quality of honey offered on the Slovak and world markets. The paper is based on the findings of a honey quality survey carried out by the Institute of Molecular Biology of the Slovak Academy of Science and the measures of the world organization of beekeeping associations Apimondia on honey fraud. Subsequently, measures are proposed to increase consumer literacy when buying bee honey.

Spotrebiteľská gramotnosť a falšovanie medu. Časť I.

In the process of shopping behavior, consumer decisions are influenced by a wide range of factors as well as the decisions of the consumer himself. In this article, attention is paid to consumer literacy. It interacts in the range of psychographic factors of motivation, perception, learning, belief and attitudes to the extent that the consumer makes a conscious decision about the preferences of the product, its quality or brand. Cultivating consumer literacy enables the consumer to make informed choices. There are not only benefts on the site of the consumer, but also on the site of the producer, or even the whole industry. The aim of the paper is to identify the importance of consumer literacy in the purchase of bee honey in the context of its fraud. The article identifes unfair practices of honey fraud and devaluing its nutritional value. These are currently a common practice, reflected in the reduced quality of honey offered on the Slovak and world markets. The paper is based on the fndings of a honey quality survey carried out by the Institute of Molecular Biology of the Slovak Academy of Science and the measures of the world organization of beekeeping associations Apimondia on honey fraud. Subsequently, measures are proposed to increase consumer literacy when buying bee honey.

The Impact of Trust in Public Institutions on Compliance With Epidemiological Measures to Slow Down the Spread of COVID-19

This paper investigates the causal relationship between the trust in institutions and compliance with measures introduced to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 in Slovakia. We also analyse the impact of socio-economic characteristics on compliance with introduced measures. We use the data from a survey carried out by the Slovak Academy of Sciences on the representative sample of 1000 respondents. To derive the causal effect, we use a probit regression model. We find that trust in institutions helps to increase compliance with social distancing. We find that some socio-economic characteristics such as employment status, age or whether individuals feel to be in danger of COVID-19 have a positive and statistically significant effect on compliance with measures employed to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Attitudes towards Anglicisms in Contemporary Standard Slovak

The extensive spread of anglicisms in the last decades is a tendency that can be observed in a number of languages, including Slovak. This situation immediately raises concerns about the possible effects on national languages. In Slovakia, the attitudes to borrowings from English find their place between two poles of a continuum. On one hand, there are Slovak users (not only linguists) who are strongly against borrowings and especially anglicisms. Some even consider them a serious threat to Slovak as a national language which is part of Slovak identity. On the other hand, some users are keen to use English words in their Slovak. Then many Slovak speakers are confused as to what is acceptable and seek help from an official authority. The authority is represented by Jazykovedný ústav Ľudovíta Štúra Slovenskej akadémie vied (Ľudovít Štúr Institute of Linguistics of the Slovak Academy of Science). The Institute has set up a Linguistic Advice Service to answer questions about correct use. There is a database of the questions and answers which can be searched by key words or browsed in alphabetical order. The analysis focuses on the queries concerning anglicisms. The results of the analysis show how different attitudes to anglicisms in Slovak correlate with the lexicographic treatment of the words.

Franz Beranek and his activities in Slovakia

This paper deals with the research of Prof Franz Josef Beranek focused on the so called “Habans”, a social religious group that settled in western Slovakia. This research is reconstructed according to the so called German Archive, which forms a part of the scientific collections of the Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The first part is focused on the life of Franz Beranek and his research on the Haban community, including the history, the linguistic situation, and comparisons to other Anabaptist groups. The second part deals with the procedure of cataloguing the archive and its history, structure, and issues.

Notes on a small collection of phaneropterine bush-crickets (Insecta: Orthoptera: Tettigonioidea) from Central and Southern Madagascar with the description of two new species

During a joint ecological project of the Institute of Forest Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Zvolen, Slovakia, and the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar, eight species (10 specimens) of phaneropterine bush-crickets were collected. Among them, two species were found as new to science (Mimoscudderia longicaudata n. sp., Paraphyrrhicia leuca n. sp.) and are described in this paper. Two other species (Plangia segonoides, Trigonocorypha maxima) were found the first time after their description more than 100 years ago. We provide first detailed data about their localities and habitat.