Psychedelic medicines for existential distress associated with life-threatening illnesses

This presentation will review the history of scientific research into the use of psychedelic medicines for the treatment of existential distress due to life-threatening illnesses, it will then outline the current state of affairs in North America, and conclude with exploring the implications it will have on the future of palliative care. Despite the significant advances in the field of palliative care with regards to symptom management, and pain control in particular, we have yet to devise an effective treatment strategy for individuals facing the existential distress associated with the inevitable reality of facing death. Psychedelic-assisted therapy, which involves the use of various psychoactive substances in the right set and setting to experience an altered state of consciousness, could serve as a powerful tool to alleviate the anxiety that many face after receiving a life-threatening diagnosis.

Responsibility and Sustainability Choices in the Animal Feed Industry

The conventional discourse on corporate social responsibility (CSR) focuses on big companies and tends to neglect small, medium, and family firms. However, scholars state that simply scaling down CSR theories does not capture the variations in CSR choices across companies and contexts. The authors remedy this state of affairs by investigating an Italian family firm in the animal feed industry in light of an integrative framework that combines institutional- and company-level factors explaining the variations in CSR choices. The findings highlight how the company under investigation is committed to ensuring animal welfare by offering healthy and safe animal feed through innovation and certification. In addition, the company is well embedded in the local community and represents a point of reference for the inhabitants. Initiatives ranging from scholarships to university exchange programs to running races contribute to mobilizing human resources and to improving the company's brand awareness.

Physics models in the course "The basics of computer simulation"

A review of the methodological literature on computer modeling shows the existence of different approaches to its teaching in secondary and higher education. It is a common approach in which the construction of models is carried out using the apparatus of higher mathematics, which is possessed mainly by senior students. This leads to the transfer of the course “Methods of mathematical modeling” for 7-8, and sometimes 9-10 semesters, which reduces its role in shaping the worldview of the future specialist, which takes place in high school and junior high school. This state of affairs forced us to create a propaedeutic course “The basics of computer simulation”, which was developed by the joint efforts of the Department of Informatics and Applied Mathematics of Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University and the Department of Informatics of the Kryvyi Rih Tsentralno-Miska gymnasium. The methodological support of the course is a textbook designed for high school students and junior high school students.

FL code-switching in the L1 environment among early-aged monolingual learners: a pilot study

Code-switching has recently become an interesting phenomenon to study because it is a part of the developmental processes, as well as the result of the use of, and exposure to, multiple languages. For this reason, code-switching usually occurs during foreign language teaching and learning, “especially when studying English based on the different backgrounds and reasons” (Yusuf, 2009). Accordingly, code-switching can be examined from various viewpoints such as the form, location, patterns, conditions, and functions, in relation to the use or the roles of the L1 and L2 or FL in the classroom, the former being most often referred to. This paper aims to determine the conditions for the use of code-switching in a quite different situation, namely, among very young learners conceived of as monolinguals who happen to switch to English (FL) in the L1 classroom environment. The article opens with a brief characterization of code-switching, defining its most frequent forms and functions, and a description of bilingual and monolingual code-switching contexts, an emphasis being put on the role of L1 in the language adaptation process and switching. The study, composed of a questionnaire distributed among 5 kindergarten teachers in public kindergartens in Poland, has shown bits and pieces of code-switching to be observed among four groups of Polish children (early-aged monolinguals), and their “linguistic behaviors” on a daily basis in the kindergarten classroom. What has been hinted at ranges from the exact situations of switching to language samples, presented according to age, and possible reasons for the current state of affairs.

Anti-EU Backlash from Below or Above? Public Opinion in Central and Eastern Europe Prior to the 2015 Migration Crisis

Relations between Brussels and Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) worsened during and after the 2015 migration crisis. In order to see to what extent CEE citizens contributed to and/or resonated with this new state of affairs, this paper investigates public opinion before the migration crisis in seven CEE EU Member States. We inquire whether the main issues of the rift (CEE political elites’ opposition to following EU decisions and immigration and their emphasis on sovereignism, nationalism, Christian Europe and historical traumas) could also be traced to public stances towards these issues before the migration crisis. We used the ISSP National Identity module conducted in 2013 and 2014 in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia. The results show that opposition to EU supranationalism was not linked to ethnic nationalism and religious identity (except in Hungary). Contrary to political elites, who emphasised the cultural threat posed by migration, public opinion was more concerned with the economic threat. Moreover, the perception of cultural threat was not linked to opposing EU supranationalism in any of the countries. However, particularly support for sovereignism (in almost all the countries), but also pride in national history (in some countries) correlated negatively with support for EU supranationalism. The results suggest that political elites can bypass public opinion to construct an anti-EU climate, however not out of thin air. The conditions for such a process were present in Hungary with its emerging transnational cleavage, which shows the importance of cleavages in studying Euroscepticism.

Distance learning in Polish schools during the Coronavirus lockdown: the areas of success and failure experienced by Polish teachers of English as a FL

Based on Roblyer & Edwards (2000: 192), distance learning means “the acquisition of knowledge and skills through mediated information and instruction, encompassing all technologies and other forms of learning at a distance.” The instructional delivery includes an instructor who is physically located in a different place from the learner, as well as possibly providing instruction at disparate times. More specifically, the instructor controls the instructional sequencing and pacing and all learners participate in the same learning activities. The aim of the paper is to show the advantages and disadvantages of distance schooling during the Covid-19 lockdown, the emphasis being placed upon among others, the teacher – student relationship, the equipment conditions required for running an English lesson and working online, as well as some “food for thought” in the form of necessary changes and modifications to be introduced, which have been suggested by the sample in question. The respondents constitute 9 teachers from secondary schools, who have replied to an online questionnaire investigating the situation in Polish schools, concerning distance education, specifically teaching a FL. Apart from presenting the current state of affairs, some suggestions for the future are remarked upon.

“Person” in CIC and CCEO Matrimonial Law. On the Idea of Vetera et Nova Harmonization in the Church Doctrine and Jurisprudence

serious confrontation with the subject: “Person” in the Code of Matrimonial Law (CIC and CCEO), is an—invariably relevant—challenge that the study of canon law and jurisprudence have to face. The argument for the validity of this conclusion is provided by the famous John Paul II’s thesis, proclaimed in the Familiaris Consortio exhortation (1981) and the famous 1997 Address to the Roman Rota, which can be summarized in the following words: the foundation and structural principle of interpersonal (ethical and legal!) relationships in marriage is matrimonial love. This axiom—still insufficiently present in the thoughts of canonists and church judges—reflects the deepest truth, of which “prophetically” the author of the monumental works Love and Responsibility and The Acting Person gave testimony; the truth that not elsewhere, but in the conciliar spiritually person-centric vision of matrimonial community (communio/consortium), a hermeneutic key should be sought for an adequate and complete understanding of the structure of marriage, harmoniously integrating its two personal and institutional dimensions.Karol Wojtyła’s/John Paul II’s brilliant thought deserved to be confronted with the premises that prove the hypothesis that the mere declarative identification in the expressed judgments/concepts with the idea of a personalistic aggiornamento (“programmed” especially in numbers 47–52 of the Council’s Constitution Gaudium et Spes) does not yet guarantee the adequacy and completeness of the canonistic approaches to the “truth of matrimony.” This is both in the sphere of theological exposure in accordance with the Magisterium (in the light of the “Image of God”) and at the praxis level: the interpretation and application of the normative records in the nodal canons of CIC and CCEO. The first part of the study is dedicated to illustrating such a state of affairs – in various proposals of doctrine and jurisprudence: from a concept that is completely misguided and destined to fail in advance; through a concept that, because of its extremely conservative approach to the need for vetera et nova harmonisation, has not stood the test of time, to concepts, indeed, universally acknowledged in the study of canon law, whose authors (or their adherents), after all, should be suggested to implement certain necessary corrections: bigger or smaller. In the second part, the research contemplation focuses on the conclusions of the realization of the conciliar postulate of “harmonization” in presenting a person-centric vision of matrimony. These synthetic remarks constitute an attempt to show the basis for an adequate interpretation of the formula adopted by the two codes announced in the title: “a partnership of the whole of life”.

Narrative essence of language content in the expression of the composer evaluation of their own creativity

The purpose of the article is to investigate the narratives of contemporary Ukrainian composers in the context of their assessment of their own work and the actual existing musicological components of each work: its purpose, the whole conglomeration of musical means of expression, and their multidimensional and multifunctional context. Attention is focused on the problem of inconsistency of the author's linguistic content in expressing his own ideas about his work, with the actual state of affairs, in terms of musicological logic, psychology, etc. The research methodology is based on the analysis of the sphere of expression of human thinking by R. Bart, K. Bremon, F. Jameson, T. Tytarenko, Ts. Todorov, E. Tshebinski and others. Also, studies by G. Gadamer, M. Heidegger, P. Reeker, R. Harre, which consider the narrative as a discursive structure, formed on the basis of their own experience. In the field of musical art, the problem of narratology is paid attention to in the works of N. Gerasimova-Persidskaya, O. Zinkevych, Y. Chekan, and some other musicologists. Scientific novelty. For the first time in the work a comparative analysis of the subjective-authorial understanding of composers of the narratives of their own work with the musicological, culturological, and socio-political context of the existence of the individual, to establish the artistic conceptuality of some of their works. Conclusions. It is established that the assimilation and awareness of meaning are possible only through certain messages that can have many meanings, and decoding them together can take any form. Thus, at the junction of the meanings of the narrator and the listener, his interpretive understanding appears, which becomes the basis of the final conclusion. Keywords: language content, creative narratives, artistic conceptuality, decoding.

Inhibition of Return (IOR): Is it Consciousness of an Object without Attention or Attention without an Object and Consciousness?

The crux of the dispute on the mutual relations between attention and consciousness, and to which I have referred in this paper, lies in the question of what can be attended in spatial attention that obviously resonates with the phenomenological issue of intentionality (e.g., the noesis-noema structure). The discussion has been initiated by Christopher Mole. He began by calling for a commonsense psychology, according to which one is conscious of everything that one pays attention to, but one does not pay attention to all the things that one is conscious of. In other words, attention is supposed to be a condition which is sufficient but not necessary for consciousness, i.e., consciousness is a necessary concomitant of attention, but attention is not a necessary concomitant of consciousness. Mole seeks to validate his stance with data from psychology labs. His view is, however, partly confronted, for instance, by Robert Kentridge, Lee de-Wit and Charles Heywood, who used their experimental research on a neurological condition called blindsight as evidence of a dissociation between attention and consciousness, i.e., that visual attention is not a sufficient precondition for visual awareness. In this meta-theoretical state of affairs, I would like to focus on the cognitive phenomenon most often referred to as Inhibition of Return (IOR) and suggest that, following its micro dynamics from the perspective of micro-phenomenology, it can be used to actually showcase all of the options on both sides of the argument. One of my leading goals would be also to follow Mole’s attempt to link attention with agency but where we differ is that I wish to heuristically articulate the matter in terms of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological notion of embodied pre-reflective intentionality.