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Fotografie, memorie şi adevăr istoric

Author(s): Ludmila Bîrsan / Language(s): Romanian Issue: 14/2014

As a sign of the past, photography is the strongest form of memory. Walter Benjamin wrote in Arcades Project that history decomposes in images, not stories. Although photographs provide us with the possibility to witness worlds we no longer have access to, some authors claim that photography does not illustrate the truth and is opposite to history. Photographs are are discontinuous, they `freeze` events, they are traces of events. Unlike photography, that just captures the moment without considering its meaning, history also tries to understand its meaning. Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, John Berger and Siegfried Kracauer are a few of the authors that analysed the connection between photography, memory and history.

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Modern and Postmodern Perspectives on Social Values

Author(s): Nicoleta Ungureanu / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

The present article proposes a review of the most influential theoretical approaches on values, showing their contribution to contouring a postmodern perspective on social values. We oriented towards Schwartz's approach, Inglehart's theory of modernization and postmodernization and Hofstede with the five dimensions of culture.

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Religious Practice in Contemporary Romanian Rural Space. Book review at the volume Dinamica fenomenului religios şi modernizarea rurală. Autor Roxana

Author(s): Antonio Sandu / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

Confidence in the church is, nowadays, extremely high opposed to trust in other institutions of the state, especially the political ones. A first explanation is that the church manages to manage best the feeling of trust as key element of individual coping towards the society at risk. Faith in post-existence as a straight world, governed by a benevolent deity deeply contrasts with the disappointment and frustration accumulated during the accelerated course of the process of development implied by the post-industrial society. The sociologist, and especially the social worker has the burden to reply, on the basis of the empirical data, to what is the place and role of religion in the processes of the current social development. The author Roxana Necula answers to this very question in the volume “Dinamica fenomenului religios şi modernizarea rurală”, published in March 2015 at Lumen Publishing House in Iasi.

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Family Support and Quality of Life of Children with Kidney Chronic Disease

Author(s): Laszlo-Zoltan Sztankovszky,Magdalena Iorga / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

For the child with kidney chronic disease, the psychological effects and factors reflecting the personal profile, the age difficulties, the family type and educational level double the medical problems. Involving into the specific age activities with the limits imposed by the disease could create a suitable style according to their needs. Family is an important factor for the quality of life and studies reveal the major influence on treatments and the evolution of disease and comorbidities.

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Intelligence as a Factor of Production in the Post-Crisis Economy

Author(s): Adrian Moraru / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

Nowadays, a lot of information is becoming available to anyone around the world, thanks to the development of the internet and the increasingly rate of globalization. Concepts like business intelligence, data mining and, more recently, big data, gain an important role in the work of information management. However, the new knowledge based society needs the development of a more specific and competitor based type of information analysis, such as the one part of the Competitive Intelligence cycle. The result of the information analysis within the Competitive Intelligence activity is called intelligence, and it refers to useful and actionable information, which can be used by a decision maker within a firm in order to gain durable competitive advantages. Therefore, with the competitiveness playing an essential role in the new post-crisis economy, earning competitive advantages with the use of proper actionable information is mandatory. The sub-prime economic crisis hit firms and corporations all over the world and the period following this crisis was and still is a real test of survivability. Only the strongest and the most adaptable firms can thrive in a society with skeptical and more and more exigent consumers. This study brings information together with the other newer factors of production (besides labour, land and work), such as technological or entrepreneur’s ability, properly managing information analysis inside a firm being an important element of development in the new post-crisis economy. At the same time, it can be the base of a more thorough research regarding the importance intelligence for the competitive market and the role it can play in developing the business environment. The main answer this study gives refers to the importance of information analysis and of using its results inside a firm that aims to increase its competitiveness in the market.

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From Communicative Action to Social Practices. Book review. Acţiune comunicativă, justiţie deliberativă şi restaurativă – authors Antonio Sandu and El

Author(s): Loredana Terec-Vlad / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

The book „Acţiune comunicativă, justiţie deliberativă şi restaurativă. Perspective socio-juridice asupra medierii şi probaţiunii” (Communicative Action, Deliberative and Restorative Justice. Socio-legal Perspectives on Mediation and Probation) published by Antonio Sandu and Elena Unguru under the aegis of Tritonic Publishing House calls for philosophical, sociological and legal reflections, being a transdisciplinary lesson about justice (Ciucã, A., 2014). The aim of this paper is to analyse the changes within the social reality; understanding the societal avatars is the result of an interpretative agreement achieved through communicative action (Sandu, A., Unguru, E. 2014). The paper has two parts, which provide an exhaustive analysis of mediation and probation.

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Pharmacists' and Doctors’ Perception of Pharmaceutical Representative’s Ethical Practices of Drug Promotion in Romania.

Author(s): Laszlo-Zoltan Sztankovszky,Vasile Astărăstoae,Magdalena Iorga,Camelia Soponaru / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

The purpose of the study is to identify perception of doctors and pharmacists on drug promotion practices adopted by pharmaceutical representatives. Material and Methods: A total of 72 pharmacists and 65 doctors responded to a questionnaire about their perceptions on drug promotion practices by pharmaceutical representatives, both in relation to pharmacists and doctors in the relationship. Variables such as age, work environment (urban, rural), seniority, were considered. Of all pharmacists who responded to the questionnaire, a percentage of 47.8% say they have no information about the existence of an ethical code of the pharmaceutical company, and 52.1% believe that there is such a code. Pharmacists estimated that over 75% of pharmaceutical representatives promote clearly the products; the information provided is accurate, complete and balanced enough to compete. Meanwhile, the percent estimated by doctors is 73%. Informal gifts are more often offered to doctors, in both category’s opinion. Conclusion: medical doctors have a more positive evaluation about pharmaceutical representative’s attitude than pharmacists.

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Economic and Organisational Wisdom for Asian Century

Author(s): Arup Barman,Satabdi Roy Choudhury / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

The Asian Century is rich and already 14 years old. Today, Asia is in the middle of a historic transformation which has brought both challenges and opportunities. To meet these challenges, Asian leaders need to devise bold and innovative national policies for pursuing avenues for regional and global cooperation. In the similar way organisation and business in Asia will transform. This transformative whirlpool calls the Asian private sector and public sector organisations for absorption of new wisdom, values and principles in place of 20th century’s management. Overall, the capacity to respond to the changing global economic landscape through flexibility and adaptivness will carry a high premium. This paper delve the issues how Asian Organisations have already been used the wisdom during the global chaos. Deriving from the examples of Asia in the midst of global chaos in many points of time, this present paper attempts to re-focus on organisational wisdom of commitment and ability for Asian organisation, modernization, governance and helping to retool institutions, for enhancing transparency, and finally to develop accountability for organisational resilience and survival.

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Buying Addiction: Reliability and Construct Validity of an Assessment Questionnaire

Author(s): Santo DI NUOVO,Gioacchino LAVANCO,Loredana VARVERI / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

The paper presents the construction and studies of reliability and construct validity of a new questionnaire, the Problematic Shopping Scale, designed to evaluate the shopping behaviour. In Italy, in fact, there is not a valid questionnaire to evaluate the shopping behaviour. The questionnaire, in its final form, is composed of 22 item and shows good internal consistency. PSS can be considered a reliable psychometric tool suitable to assess problematic buying behaviour. Also, it is an instrument easy to administer and to score. Further research is needed to analyse concurrent validity by means of clinical criteria, and to obtain a standardization of the scale in Italian representative sample.

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Difficulties in Building the Physician–Patient Relationship: the Physician’s Perspective

Author(s): Adrian Lupu,Daniela Cojocaru,Mihaela Rădoi / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

The necessity of empirical research in the field of medical services provision is highlighted both by the numerous modifications within the legislative framework (through which the medical system is organized and functions) and by the dysfunctionalities within its existence. The study proposes to pinpoint the factors that may influence the quality of the physician–patient relationship. We identified factors at the level of communication between physician and patient, of empowering and involving the patient, of understanding the patient, of the patient’s way through the system, and of relating to a “second opinion.” We also present solutions identified by physicians for optimising these relations. The study is based on the analysis of 12 interviews conducted with physicians within public and private institutions in Iaşi. The topics of discussion focused on the following aspects: physician–patient relationship, physician’s trust in the patient, particularities of trust relationship, patient empowerment and involvement, level of patient’s information, “the second opinion,” physician’s experience as a patient (or as caregiver). The paper brings attention to the difficulties pinpointed by physicians, in their relation with both the institutions and the patients. The main aspects identified are related to the way in which the physician–patient relationship is shaped, to the difficulty of communicating the diagnosis (mainly determined by the way in which the patient understands the diagnosis and becomes involved in the treatment).

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From the Dualist Gnosis to the Imaginary Literature on the Devil. Review for the volume Imaginea nefratelui în literatură, author Simona-Maria Drelciu

Author(s): Antonio Sandu / Language(s): Issue: 1/2015

This paper represents an excellent overview of the censorship of the European collective imaginary, challenged as stranger of the one that is different, of the non-brother identified eventually as Satan. In the vision of the author Simona Maria Drelciuc, the Devil is the existential pole of the medieval imaginary, a fundamental cultural mark, “catalyst of the European civilization” (Drelciuc, 2015). This bringing into attention of the image of the non-brother allows us to reflect on the European civilization, of religious nature, and of “cultural periphery placement” of the Christian moral values such as love, tolerance etc.

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Preliminaries to a Social-Semiotic Model of Communicative Action

Author(s): Antonio Sandu / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The purpose of this article is to bring contributions to the elaboration of a social-semiotic model of social constructionism, which will make a synthesis between the theory of communicative action and the theories of social-constructionist semiotic model, based on the postulation of a social universe in a network of communicative interdependencies developed on levels of reality. The interpretative model we propose comes to conceptualize the particularities of the sociological analysis of the transmodern society, seen as a knowledge-based society, placed at the interference with the postmodern society; that of generalized permissiveness. The model proposed aims at a constructionist-fractalic analysis (of deconstruction-reconstruction type) of the interpretative drift of social constructs, under the empire of different constructive instances.

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The Self-Reflexivity of Social Action

Author(s): Bogdan Popoveniuc / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The most puzzling and striking feature of Social Theory lies in the impossibility to control its leaning toward self-fulfilling statements. In Sociology, the epistemic explanation become part of explained world and the Theory is at risk to become either futile or subjective along with the dialectic evolution of social understanding. As major mature sciences, it has solid instruments and methods for acquiring useful knowledge, self-regulatory rules for assuring the accuracy of its affirmations and errors refutation. More than any other sciences, it achieved the level of meta-theoretical thinking about its own practice and sets up its limits and expertise. However this is not enough. The understanding brought by sociological the most evolved concept of reflexivity is overwhelmed complexity of social reality, because it fails to cover the self-reference supposed by itself. The Scientific discourse of third person should be transcended toward the level of dialectical co-constructed consciousness-reality awareness, that the subjective “I”, is the condition of possibility for objective knowledge (of Science), which, in turn, represents the categorical conditions of possibility for (self-)understanding. A self-reflexive level of understanding instead, would illuminate many concealed suppositions, conundrums and inconsistencies of social discourse and reasoning. This enhancement is also required to put the present uncontrolled collective intelligent development of Mankind on a safety and desirable path.

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About Security, Democratic Consolidation and Good Governance. Romania within European Context

Author(s): George Poede / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

More than a decade has passed since the tragic events that took place in America in the dramatic day of September 9th 2001. For the first time since the end of the second World War, the United States were being attacked on their own territory, without prior notice, by a non-state military force which was globally organised, for religious and ideological reasons. The terrorist attacks planned and executed by the terrorist organisation Al-Qaeda on American military and civilian targets have reconfigured the international security environment. The author remarks that the security of the European continent is inextricably linked to what happens outside its external borders. Transnational organized crime, illegal human trafficking, illegal migration, traffic of drug, weapons, ammunition and portable vectors, the proliferation of illegal trade of radioactive and other "sensible" technologies, the expansion of terrorist networks – they all represent threats to the Eastern border of Romania and concern the security of the EU Eastern neighbourhood.

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Value Immersion and Value Regression: on Moral Aggregation of Virtual Communities

Author(s): Narcisa Loredana Posteucă / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The scope of this research paper is to analyze the value integrative-models that can be applied to the virtual interactive constructs, but also to delineate the correspondences established between identity, self and value representation. Concerning the social acquirements that can be distinguished at the level of virtual communities, it is necessary to follow the immersion/ regression processes through which a value layout is settled. Concerning the User’s ability to mediate this value progression in various networking sequences, an analysis of the content transfer modalities between the social agents and occurrences is required. Along with the axiological functions that a virtual interactive project can sustain, a new issue arises: does the social cyberspace actually support a moral layer? Between projection and representation, virtual identities merge specific patterns of valuation and assessment that reflect different virtual scenarios. Therefore, the finalities of this study are oriented towards the interpretation that value criteria and ethical standards attain within a viable/feasible virtual community. Questioning the value transfer regularities, the moral imaginaries and the metaethical subject predicaments involves a clear delineation of the virtual cultural elements in a new, (post)modern perspective.

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Identity Change in the World of International Migration

Author(s): Carmen Balan / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

In this new publication, Cristina Cormoş professionally addresses a sensitive issue, complex and difficult in the same time, and ambitiously manages to give us a picture of international migration viewed through identity change. Starting from the hypothesis that "migration is a change that simultaneously occurs in both physical and socio-cultural realms, which implies not only movement from one community to another, but also the disintegration of structural bonds in the departure area, paralleled by a cultural assimilation of the destination environment", the author analyzes identity changes of the emigrants throughout the entire migration process, the factors underlying these changes, as well as the consequences and implications of these factors in the return migration. The issues addressed within this book also cover the changes occurred in the family and community of origin as a result of the absence of one of its members and of the manifestation of identity changes respectively.

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What about Eternal Life? A Transhumanist Perspective

Author(s): Loredana Terec-Vlad / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The human individual has been preoccupied with the phenomenon of death since death expresses the end of the existence on earth. The issue of life and death has not lost its actuality, whereas nowadays life extension (and why not immortality) is considered the ultimate goal of scientists. The aim of this article is to highlight the problems that will arise along with the achievement of eternal life. In this regard, I shall focus on human enhancement and the principle of procreative beneficence as means of achieving this objective. In addition, I shall bring into question the fact that the principles of bioethics are being violated along with human enhancement: the principle of respect for autonomy and beneficence, avoiding harm-causing behaviours and the principle of justice. Given that the researchers in the field of transhumanism argue that the penetration of the new technologies into the private sphere of the individual is inevitable, I shall present arguments that prove the fact that the principles of bioethics are being violated along with the achievement of eternal life, given that human enhancement is only accessible for an elite both in terms of costs as well as in terms of the Christian values.

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The Effect of Study Island Software on Grades 9-11 State Scores in Literacy

Author(s): Peter Kiriakidis,Rodney Gernert / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

At the research site, which was one high school within a public school district, state scores in literacy of Grades 9-11 indicated that students were not meeting academic standards. Study Island software was integrated into the literacy curriculum for Grades 9-11 students to help them improve their proficiency in literacy. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the effect of Study Island on state scores in literacy. The theoretical framework was based on Tomlinson’s differentiated instruction theory. Data were collected from Grades 8-11 students who did not use Study Island in Grade 8 and used Study Island in Grades 9-11. Data were analyzed using one-way repeated measures ANOVA. The findings indicated that students’ reading proficiency scores were significantly higher after Study Island was used in Grades 9-11. These findings can be used by school and district administrators regarding the integration of Study Island into other academic subjects. The use of Study Island in academic subjects in Grades 9-11 may help students pass standardized tests and graduate from high school.

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Building Place Identity through Heritage

Author(s): Alexandra Păcescu,Vlad Thiery / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

In an increasingly globalized world, the fading specificity is producing homogeneous images that make cities more and more difficult to tell apart. The market economy tends to commodify each and every aspect of urban life, even those belonging to the cultural realm. As a consequence, a need for differentiators arises, which can be best embodied by the local heritage. The present paper is trying to establish a link between the concept of Place Identity, seen from a marketing point of view, and Heritage, as a key factor to build or emphasize a ‘point of difference’ for ‘a unique selling proposition’. Although ‘brands’ are commonly associated with globalization and its supposed tendency to erase defining characteristics, their marketing principles could prove to be the very solution to regaining the lost specificity, since they help embed local heritage, already an asset, into the ‘mix’ that determines ‘place identity’. Building and promoting an identity is also the endeavor of branding, hence the overlapping of these two concepts. It is therefore useful to examine the evolution of brands from simple marks of identity to entities which develop complex relations with the users. The need for a ‘a unique selling proposition’ that brands have already acknowledged should be considered when building the place identity so much needed by cities in their fierceful competition for attracting activities. Branding through heritage could prove to be a safe bet to reinforce the particular in the globalised market, if correctly managed and planned. Promoting the city and salvaging one of its key differentiators at the same time is, for sure, a win-win situation.

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Post-Structuralism and Politics: towards Postmodern Balkan Studies

Author(s): Sanja Lazarević / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Although post-structuralism, on the first sight, lacks political dimension, its application to social problems expose the potential of political engagement. First, it comes from interviving linguistics and humanities, that inspired new understanding of the relationship between structure and power. While emerging from cultural studies and therefore from synthesis of history and literary criticism, studies on the Balkan, point out a role of mental images, stereotypes, discourses and therefore, political power of its image. Following the concepts of Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida and to lesser extent Julia Kristeva, the Balkans is set within the post-structural paradigm.

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