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An Empirical Study of Latvian Consumers’ Attitudes and Perceptions Towards Genetically Modified Organisms

Author(s): Inese Aleksejeva / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2016

Genetic modification and genetically modified organisms (GMO) remains a controversial issue. Latvian consumers’ attitude towards genetic modification and GMO have been characterized as negative using Eurobarometer data, but so far no specific investigation of Latvian consumers has been done in this field. The aim of this study was to analyse Latvian consumers’ attitude towards genetic modification and GMO, the subjective and objective knowledge about this questions and acceptability of use of GMO in different application areas. Main task in frame of this research is to summarize different literature and data available to outline some of factors that influence attitudes towards GMO: mainly public subjective and objective knowledge, perception on risk and benefits, and ethical concerns. The survey method was chosen as a tool to collect data and elicit Latvian consumers’ attitude towards use of GMO in different industries. The survey was composed of 18 questions; seven of them have been structured on one to ten–point scale.The survey data of Latvia’s inhabitants (N = 1184) were collected by the telemarketing company from September 2014 until June 2015. To select the units to be included in the sample systematic sampling was applied – every twentieth inhabitant was approached by phone call and invited to answer on survey questions. The results of Latvian consumers’ survey showed that Latvians’ acceptability of genetic modification varies by application area; genetically modified (GM) non–food products are more accepted than GM food and feed products. Ethical and moral aspects play essential role among Latvian consumers. Respondents’ subjective and objective knowledge of genetic modification and GMO differs. The findings would be essential to policy makers when designing risk–communication strategies targeting different consumer segments to ensure proper discussion and addressing potential concerns about genetic modification.

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ANALIZA UČESTALOSTI DEFEKTNOG VIĐENJA BOJA U ROMSKIM POPULACIJAMA TUZLANSKE REGIJE

Author(s): Elbisa Hasukic / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 8/2016

Promjenjivost (varijacija, varijabilnost) jedna je od univerzalnih i najuočljivijih pojava u živom svijetu i osnovna karakteristika svih vrsta živih bića sa biparentalnim (spolnim) razmnožavanjem. Osnovno zapažanje o pojedinačnim osobinama jeste da se neke od njih kod svih pripadnika proučavane grupe javljaju u jednoj formi (varijanti) druge u dvije, a ostale u tri ili više međusobno različitih varijanti (fenotipova, modaliteta, oblika).

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Archaeology, Evolution and Darwinism

Author(s): Aleksandar Palavestra,Marko Porcic / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2008

This paper presents a short history of the influence evolutionary thinking has had on anthropology and archaeology. The focus is on four major "schools" in evolutionist thought: the classical evolutionism of the 19th century, Neo-evolutionism, social biology (sociobiology) and Neo-Darwinian archaeology. The basic conclusion of this text is that the idea of socio-cultural evolution, understood in the broadest sense, has left a lasting impression on anthropological and archeological theory, and that it still represents a useful theoretical framework for new research.

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Around the Bloc: Georgian Anti-Hep C Project an Overwhelming Success

Author(s): TOL TOL / Language(s): English / Issue: 05/16/2017

Large-scale elimination of virus is the result of pilot program launched by U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturer, which offered free treatment to hepatitis patients.

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Australian Kinship

Author(s): Lyle B. Steadman / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2005

There is a strange custom in Australia, among the Aborigines. A man and his wife give their five-year-old daughter to a young boy to be the little boy’s future mother-in-law. From that moment on, throughout their lives, the boy will call the girl “mother-in-law”, will show her extreme respect, will never be familiar with her, and will send her gifts of meat when he’s successful in hunting. Thirty or forty years later, when they have grown up, the boy’s “mother-in-law” will begin sending him her daughters as wives as they reach fifteen years of age or so. In my talk today I shall use Darwinian selection theory to offer an explanation of this strange custom, which may, until recently, have been extremely widespread, perhaps universal in the 500 or so tribes that covered Australia.

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BESLENMENİN ÖNEMİ VE ERGOJENİK BESLENME TAKVİYELERİNİN BESLENMEDEKİ YERİ İLE SPORDA KULLANIMI

Author(s): Onur Oral,Kerim Bakan,Anna Suza,Solmaz P. Hasdemir,George Nomikos,Nuray Öztasan / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 31/2016

Sports activities in science and technology has brought great success. The distorting the concept of fair play by the strain of the limits of the athletes physical borders leads a new industry. It should be noted that in sports science should be used correctly and equitable. While it has been discovered the secrets of human physiology, scientists are trying to determine the limits of the right amount and form of nutrition and supplements. These studies are in line with the coach and athlete is necessary to define the limits of ergogenic supports the concept of fair play within the framework of this science.

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BIODIVERZITET I DINAMIKA POPULACIJA VRSTA IZ PORODICE NYMPHALIDAE (INSECTA: LEPIDOPTERA) TUZLE I OKOLINE

Author(s): Zerina Terzic,Merima Terzic / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 8/2016

Considering the fact that butterflies are exceptionally diverse and significant swarm of insects, very little research is done in Tuzla and surrounding areas. So, the main aim of this research is to establish diversity, abundance as well as population dynamics of species of the family Nymphalidae. During the research which include period from May to October, 2012 we have obtained results that the family Nymphalidae is the most represented with 17 recorded species in Tuzla and surrounding areas. Maniola Jurtina isthe most represented species, whereas the other species like: Melitaea didyma, Apaturairis, Pararge aegeria, Lasiommata maera, Aphantopus hyperantus i Brintesia Circe are the least represented. So far as population dynamics of species of the family Nymphalidae is concerned, we have examined the density of population where are noticed remarkable fluctuations in different periods of spring and summer in 2012. So, taking into consideration the methods that have been used during the research, we can ascertain that they are the most important indicators of ecological state of an area and at the same time they represent the most interesting swarm of insects that can be examined in a certain area.

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Biosphere as semiosphere: Variations on Lotman

Author(s): Anton Markoš / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2014

Th e analogy between semiosphere (world of cultures) and biosphere (world of life), coined by J. Lotman, is a courageous attempt to interconnect two seemingly incompatible worlds. In congruence with his view, I would like to convince the reader that the only possible general definition of life is “a system born, endowed with semiosis, with history”. Such a view requires considering biosphere and semiosphere as coextensive, which requires merging the cultural, scientific, historical, and linguistic approaches into a coherent whole.

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Ciało w kulturze wizualnej – wybrane konteksty

Author(s): Karina Leksy / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2015

Modern man is exposed to countless images, mainly products of the pop culture. Generally, the reception of these does not require a great intellectual effort; visual content is easily absorbed by a mass recipient. Dominant in this visual content is the body whose “shape” is determined by social and cultural processes. A repeated exposure to images of an ideal body propagated by the western culture results in this image being internalized and conceived as a model, especially by young people. Consequently, young people define and evaluate themselves by the appearance of their body, simultaneously making many efforts to improve this appearance and social presentation. This behaviour can, however, cause various negative consequences both for an individual and society. The author’s awareness that the images of the body presented by the media usually do not reflect reality makes her emphasize the need to develop a strategy in media education promoting critical interpretation and evaluation of the visual coverage.

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City Dwellers and Institutions: What lies at the Back of the Stray-Dogs Debate in Bulgaria

Author(s): Yavor Lilov / Language(s): English / Publication Year: 2009

The homeless dogs debate presents an interesting phenomenon. The heated exchanges, the arguments, the examples used often shift the attention away from animals to humans, social groups, models for structuring society.

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Conectare emoţională şi iertare în cuplurile romantice: testarea relaţiilor cu modelul interdependenţei actor-partener

Author(s): Simona Herb,Gabriela liliana Horea-Lungu / Language(s): Romanian / Issue: 15/2015

The current study based on the premise that the level of emotional connection and each partener's trait forgiveness contribute to the engagement in behaviourss witch support the resolution of attachment injuries within a romantic couple. Parteners from 85 couples completed a protocol which included four standardised questionnaires. The raw data was analysed using both univariate and multivariate techniques (path analysis). The unit of analysis was the romantic dyad. The multivariate data analysis used the interdependence actor-partner model. For both females and males, emotional connection was associated with the partener's level of engagement in forgiveness-oriented behaviours. For both females and males, the actor-partner effect was stronger than the actor-actor effect. These findings suggest the importance that the emotional connection of one partener has when it comes to choices and behaviours of the other partner. The results are discussed considering their implications for the emotionally focused couple therapy.

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Cultural semiotics, translatability, and informational loss in visual texts of the biotech industry

Author(s): Charikleia Yoka,Evangelos Kourdis / Language(s): English / Issue: 4/2014

The paper examines a specific advertising campaign of a biotech company characteristic of the whole biotech industry and discusses how the evocation of universal values, such as the protection and correct management of the planet’s resources, the struggle against poverty and against the shortage of raw materials, the support of farmers and their families, distorts information about nature, global agriculture and the biotech industry’s products. This distortion is a necessary and vital part of this industry’s existence. Th e rhetorical techniques of conscious informational repression and distortion, which are often discussed only in terms of informational loss, are expressly evident and even taken to their extremes in the case of biotechnology. Yet on the other hand they are characteristic of a translation process that takes place in the rhetoric of advertisement in general, as is evident in the use of Göran Sonesson’s translation model which we suggest is appropriate for the definition and study of advertising codes.

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Czy zasadne jest stosowanie „antropologicznej” koncepcji „rasy”?

Author(s): Miroslaw Twardowski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2014

The term “race” was introduced to the scientific vocabulary in the mid-eighteenth century by the French philosopher, scientist and mathematician Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. In anthropology, this concept settled primarily through the German scientist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. From the outset, the concept has aroused controversy among scholars. Even Charles Darwin himself expressed clear skepticism towards using the concept of race in reference to people. Clear doubts about the scientific basis of racial typology were reported in the early twentieth century by the American anthropologist Franz Boas, and later, in the 1940s, by the British-American anthropologist Ashley Montagu. In the 1960s, the American anthropologist and geneticist Frank Livingstone, on the basis of genetic evidence, sought to undermine the concept of human races. At the same time, a prominent American geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky expressed a similar opinion, claiming that there were no races which would be “discrete units”. In the 1970s, the American geneticist Richard Lewontin, on the basis of his own research, proved that there is no possibility of isolating races based on genetic criteria. In this article, we refer to the achievements of modern biology, especially genetics, to find out whether it is appropriate to use the “anthropological” concept of race. For a fuller picture of the issues of interest, we refer also to the historical sources, recalling the arguments put forward by various authors over the centuries against the concept of race in relation to human beings.

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Disruption and the Changing Concept of Leadership

Author(s): M S S El Namaki / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

Leadership is a catch all concept and the subject attracts intensive attention. Yet the concept, as it stands today, is obsolete. The prime parameters of people and tasks have lost content with people performance parameters going through palpable change and the fundamentals of the task seriously disrupted. Those developments are rendering concepts of leadership in their current professional and conceptual framework, blurred. Gamely and fashion prone colourful presentation of “leadership” are taking over. A serious search into the heart and soul of leadership and a formulation of building blocks is, therefore, needed. It should be serious and it should be conceptual and operationally cogent.

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Dwujądrowe Rhizoctonia spp. jako patogeny roślin

Author(s): Ewa Moliszewska,Dagna Maculewicz / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2016

The Rhizoctonia complex is a large, heterogenuous group of filamentous fungi including multinucleate R. solani with Thanatephorus teleomorph, binucleate Rhizoctonias (BNR) with Ceratobasidium teleomorph and other „Rhizoctonialike” species. They can be saprotrophs as well as crop pathogens or orchid mycorrhizal symbionts. Basics characteristics for Rhizoctonia genus is uniform hyphal structure, possibility to form undifferentiated into rind and medulla sclerotia, hyphae long, branched with dolipore septa, hyphae with branches growing almost on right angle, a bit narrower in the point of branching and with septum near the point of branching, no possibility to form mitospores, forming short and wider cells named monilioid cells, lack of clump connections and rhizomorphs. One of the basic criteria of dividing into genus Rhizoctonia is the number of nuclei in young, vegetative and actively growing hyphae as well as the diameter of vegetative hyphae. This allow to distinguish the group with narrow hyphae (5-7 μm) with the average number of nuclei less than four, mostly it is two and sometimes three, but it is also possible to find one or four nuclei in a separate cell.

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Dynamics of Mixed Unions in Transylvania, Romania

Author(s): Mihaela Haragus / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2015

In this work, mixed union formation and dissolution of Hungarian ethnics in Transylvania have been investigated, with the aim of finding which characteristics of individuals were connected with the tendency towards exogamy, and whether inter-ethnic unions are more fragile than endogamous ones. The analysis showed that the language of studies makes a clear difference between endogamous and exogamous union formation: persons that had studied at least one educational level in Romanian language had visible higher risks to form an inter-ethnic union, both marriage and cohabitation. In case of marriage dissolution, higher divorce risks for exogamous than for endogamous marriages have been found, and in case of formation of a second union, the results showed that persons who had a first exogamous union exhibit twice the risk of entering a second exogamous union compared with persons that had a first endogamous union.

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Ecosemiotic aspects of zoomorphic metaphors: The human as a predator

Author(s): Ariel Gómez Ponce / Language(s): English / Issue: 1-2/2016

Through history, predatory features are used to constructs when constructing textual representations on the human/animal frontier. The predatory act has remained a recurring motif that emerges from a metaphoric system in cultural imagination. An ecosemiotic approach to this topic allows us to understand how specific predatory behaviours constitute a source of meaning: in other words, how an alleged “animal tendency” is appropriated (translated) into various cultural texts through metaphors, creating a rhetorical order. To illustrate this, some features of metaphors of predatoriness in certain texts in Argentinian culture will be reviewed. A particularly vivid example is provided by two species, the cougar and the jaguar, that have generated cultural translations which expand and proliferate into contemporaneity. These translations constitute a form in which culture metaphorizes aggressiveness and interprets certain species from a historical and ideological perspective. The Argentinian cases suggest a revision of how history has treated the cultural other in terms of cultural and biological inferiority.

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Edukacja seksualna w doświadczeniach nastoletnich matek. Studium przypadku

Author(s): Sylwia Maria Polcyn-Matuszewska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2015

The knowledge regarding sexuality, fertility and reproduction should be given to young people in generational families and, later, in educational institutions, such as schools. Properly implemented sex education should provide reliable information on the psycho-physical development of people, the available methods of contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. In Polish homes and schools this type of education is marginalized, which in turn can bring about the phenomenon of a growing number of teenage mothers. This paper presents the results of a study in which information was gathered by the method of a diagnostic survey with the use of the technique of an interview. A structured interview was conducted with teenage mothers who gave birth to their first child before the age of 18.

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EVOLIUCINĖS ETIKOS TRADICIJA NŪDIENOS KONTEKSTE

Author(s): Ceslovas Kalenda / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 72/2007

The article discusses the role performed by evolutionary ethics in the specification of causes of the emergence of present-day ecology problem and in the determination of methodological foundations for relevant solutions. The formulation of such particular goal was prompted by the universally inadequate human responses to the unfavourable ecological condition on the planet indicating the obvious underdevelopment of moral abilities compared to the development of technological changes. The article seeks to treat this problem from the point if view of evolutionary ethics focusing on the circumstances and the character of the formation of cognitive and moral qualities in a human determined, possibly, not only by the characteristics of his historical and cultural development. Drawing on the history of philosophy (D. Hume, A. Smith, H. Spencer, P. Kropotkin) and research findings (Ch. Darwin, E.O. Wilson), the sources, the development, and the current contents of evolutionary ethics is revealed (H. Mohr). Having started from the premise that ethics must have emerged from social instincts inherent in human nature, the evolutionary ethics has reached the point of a sociobiological project seeking to base the objective quality of ethical value of human behaviour on the genetic arguments. Criticising the extremely challenging ideas, the present article gives a positive evaluation to the attempts to explain the development of moral abilities demonstrated by Homo sapiens sapiens by biological or culturally-interacting factor models. This particular methodological approach, as is indicated by the findings of Roman Club members, enables a more profound and clear understanding of the causes of current ecological crisis, and to give a more precise definition and prognosis of the ways and tempo of its fighting.

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FEMINIZING WORLD POWER: A NEW CONSTELLATION OF WOMEN IN POLITICS?

Author(s): Michael A. Peters / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

This article charts the emergence of women leaders currently in power, the highest it has ever been with 22 female heads of state and political leaders in 2015. It canvases Fukuyama’s (1988) sociobiology arguments and those of feminists on questions of women’s political representation. It briefly investigates the “critical mass” argument of Kanter (1977) and others to ask whether there is a new constellation of women in politics, especially with Hillary Clinton’s possible ascendancy to the US presidency, leading to the possibility of feminizing world power.

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