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Information technology (IT) penetrates into all areas of human activity. The automated analysis of literary texts aimed at problem identification and problem solving in these texts is a unique challenge to IT. The success of IT in the analysis of the works of art would confirm IT to be a breakthrough in technology also in the direction of the integration of natural, technical, and artistic knowledge and their optimum use in the evolution of society. The complexity of computer modelling of literary texts and the demand for the formation of extensive corpora require concentrated efforts which might be coordinated, for example, by UNESCO.
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This article is a reaction to the paper published by a team of Hungarian linguists concerning the Slovak language law. In the opinion of V. Krupa and S. Ondrejoviè language planning and language policy can and often is influenced not only by explicit legal means but also by implicit and much less transparent measures. The latter may sometimes cause more serious difficulties to linguistic (or ethnic) minorities than explicit laws that are much easier to criticize. When judging language laws, one has to take into account not only their wording but also their implementation in everyday life.
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Rationality has accompanied people since they have set out on their journey through history. Every age perceives the route in a different way and attaches a different importance to it. The following lines are an attempt at introducing one of the possible views of rationality in the modern age, the age we have lived in since the advent of rationalism. It will concern specific views of rationality dictated by the struggles for formally correct accounts of what we observe in human actions and in organized communities, economic units in particular, and the struggles for technical reconstruction of rational systems we meet in the area of advanced technologies, for example in artificial intelligence and robotics. I will ultimately try to find connections between these modern approaches to rationality and the possible understanding of rationality in the period, the character of which is discussed within the framework of postmodernism and which will come only after the modern age has been internally exhausted.
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The author states that there is a radical transformation going on in the national historiography. He also states that some historians inadequately call this transformation period as critical. According to him, the reputation of the historians' profession is in crisis. Teaching of history is not about telling fortunes, it is about encouraging man to think, about education of the spirit, and about the formation of a citizen's opinion of things. If this is true, then history will help us to have a better life, to be more tolerant, and to understand other people.
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An overview of the main features of the development and the character of Slovak philosophy from early times to the nineteenth century is provided. The authors stress the European and Christian cultural context of Slovak philosophical thought. The development of culture in the territory of what is today Slovakia gives safe evidence of the tradition of philosophy existing there. Slovak philosophers have always had knowledge of and scholarship in Western philosophy which they not only accepted but also interpreted in their own way and used for their own purposes.
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The social and economic transformation in the post-socialist countries including Slovakia has brought the legitimization of poverty. The paper deals with poverty in the agrarian milieu of southern Slovakia and with the manifestation of poverty in material and social deprivation. The author has tried to find an answer to the question whether it is caused by external factors - shortcomings of the social and economic system, whether it is individually conditioned or, finally, the consequence of both kinds of factors.
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The second part of the study analyses the development of individual subsystems of the press (regional, district, town, and company). The regional and local press is estimated within the context of the structural changes in Czechoslovak society after World War II during the past more than 50 years. Special emphasis is laid on the period after November 1989, when the publication of the means of mass communication, their content and typology changed substantially. Attention is also devoted to the situation after the introduction of the new territorial division of Slovakia in 1996.
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The article analyses an important essay by O. Paz `The Labyrinth of Solitude' from several points of view - moral, philosophical-historical or cultural-anthropological. The author uses the notion of national identity for a wider explanation of mythological and universal interpretation of human existence which enables Paz "to become someone else within one's own self" on a psychoanalytical basis. In this sense he observes especially his bonds with German Romantic poetry and philosophy (Hegel, Goethe, etc.). As he points out, from a literary point of view it is important that Paz goes beyond formalist and structuralist principles towards catching individual signs of the spiritual culture of nations (cf. his book `Shadows of Works', 1996). To a considerable extent it enables us to fruitfully connect determinism with dialectics, scholarly view with the poetic view one whereby, he also fulfils a deeper methodological framework of the term historical poetics.
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Jan Růžička–Kryštof Kozák a kolektiv: Úpadek amerického federalismu? Posilování federální vlády na prahu 21. století. 1st ed. Praha: Karolinum, 2008, 160 pp., ISBN 978-80-246-1503-5 (Petr Vilímek) Vlastimil Fiala–Pavel Šaradín–Blanka Říchová–Markéta Šůstková–Jan Outlý–Lenka Špičanová: Teoretické a metodologické problémy evropské integrace. 1st ed. Olomouc: Periplum, 2007, 343 pp., ISBN 978-80-86624-37-2 (Zuzana Zelenická) Philip Alston-Euan MacDonald (eds.): Human Rights, Intervention, and the Use of Force. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008, 294 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-955271-9 (Šárka Matějková) Ivan Kulhánek: Klopýtání přes budoucnost. Dějiny Evropy od Vídeňského kongresu 1815 do roku 2005. Evropa 19. a 20. století v politických a sociálně-ekonomických souvislostech. 1st ed. Praha: Academia, 2008, 362 pp., ISBN 978-80-200-1608-9 (Miroslav Šepták)
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The thesis deals with a particular sphere of peacebuilding: transitional justice and the building of a new social conscience. The main aim of this thesis is to focus on the interactions between the international and national levels of reconciliation in the post-conflict societies and to verify the argument that peacebuilding is more effective in those countries where the reconciliation is built on the cooperation of the international community and the original domestic institutions.
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The terms “weak”, “failed”, and “collapsed”, among others, were used to describe the specific condition of a state for the first time rather recently. The research of a state’s strength or weakness reacted to the processes of decolonisation and the collapse of the bipolar configuration of international relations. The theoretical and methodological settlement of this phenomenon in the context of political science is still a great challenge for academic society. This article aims to conceptualize the problematics of weakening and collapse of state power. The authors don’t try to challenge the current conceptions of Rotberg, Zartman, etc., but to categorise these theoretical approaches into three dimensions in the context of the parametres the authors of these conceptions work with. The three dimensions that are introduced are the one of international relations, the economic one and the socio-political one. The article concludes with the presentation of the Fund for Peace tool, which tries to include all these dimensions.
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The paper analyzes the influence of neoconservative concepts of the 1990’s on the foreign policy strategy of the George W. Bush administration after 9/11. The text begins with a short presentation of the neoconservative movement, particularly its second generation. The paper then compares neoconservative concepts from the 1990’s with principal documents of the Bush administration and shows their influence. The next part of the text presents the factors able to explain this influence. These factors are the specific long-term evolution of central institutions in the USA, the special decision-making process of the administration, the managerial style of president Bush and also the impact of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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European single market for goods is a reality for almost 20 years. EU internal borders are no more an obstacle to trade. However in case of services the situation is quite different. A real and effective single market has still to be created. The reason relies with the removal of the state of origin principle from the Services Directive. This principle is of basic importance in making permeable the EU internal frontiers to services providers. Affected by global crisis the EU is looking for more growth. Services represent the 75% of aggregate GDP of EU27, around 9 trillion euro in 2011. However less than 0.7 trillions are traded through the EU borders, namely 7.4%. Europe needs a much more integrated service market in order to improve its growth performance.The main drawback of the Service Directive is the alteration of the level playing field. Indeed a contradiction of the single market logic. Masked under the alleged reason of avoiding social dumping, the attempt to maintain rent seeking sector has been successful, but just for a tiny minority of privileged agents at the expenses of the huge majority of European citizens. The sine qua non condition is the implementation of the deleted country of origin principle. But there is no move in this direction.
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Shareholder value, financial crisis, turbo capitalism, fair products, risk management, management compensation, compliance management, employer branding –are terms that are on everyone’s lips at the moment. More and more the fields of action of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), often called soft skills, become clear to management and its stakeholders. Investors take notice of these aspects as well. Companies that neglect to fulfill their social responsibility towards workers, customers, society and environment at large will not be successful in the long term. The article gives an overview about the principles of CSR, the institutional framework of corporate social and sustainable management and its contents. Companies, practicing just shareholder value and neglecting the stakeholder dialogue will more and more loose market shares compared with those which develop a holistic strategy on corporate responsibility. But CSR is not just part of marketing or public relations. The European Union's strategy on CSR is enlarging this approach on all kind of organisations. The contribution describes the different approaches of the European Union, the Global Compact, the OECD and the ILO on CSR, describes the principles of the Global Reporting Initiative and the recent ISO standard 26000. It goes into corporate codes which obligate companies on CSR. Finally it shows the relevance of CSR for trade unions and employee representatives.
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