Difficult Questions Research Articles

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century

<i>The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century</i>

Improving the System of Legal and Civic Education of Students in Higher Education Institutions

The subject of the authors' research is the problem of improving the mechanisms of legal education and civic education of students in educational institutions of higher education. Attention is drawn to the presence of scenarios of legal education (personal adaptation programs) of students in advanced Russian universities. At the same time, the formal nature of such programs is recognized, their abstraction from the existing realities in the educational environment of the university. It is emphasized that in the professional pedagogical community back in the 2000s, by no means difficult questions were postulated about what performance indicators of legal education and civic education in higher education should consist of. An equally important topic for discussion is the complexity of organizational and regulatory nature in determining the criteria for the effectiveness of legal education methods, which are proposed to be used in training sessions. The authors of the article formulated project proposals intended for practical application in the implementation of strategies of legal education and civic education of students at universities, taking into account the profile of the main professional educational programs being implemented. The author's programs on regulatory and legal support of education (professional, profile) for students of pedagogical, law enforcement and technical (engineering) universities are described.

Understanding the Voluntary and Involuntary Aspects of the Sleep Mechanism

This article deals with quantum biology, the new tool to complete traditional biology and answer difficult questions about living organisms and human existence. We elucidate the involuntary aspect of the sleep mechanism with the work of Nobel laureate Prigogine on dissipative structures and introduce the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking; we explain why sleep and syncope are two protective mechanisms to prevent it from occurring in living organisms.

Léon Cordes écrivain et paysan. L’expérience du Paysan du Midi (fin des années 1940 - début des années 1950) : un billet d’humeur en occitan dans la presse agricole en français

Léon Cordes (1913-1987) was a winegrower in the Minervois before the war, a horticulturalist in Lattes, near Montpellier, after the Liberation, an Occitan-speaking writer and a defender of the language that was his own. As a singer and theater performer, including on stage, Cordes was a popular educator, passionately seeking to forge links with a public that was still often Occitan-speaking by birth. Not surprisingly, in the early 1950s, he became involved with the new trade publication Le Paysan du Midi, founded and directed by Philippe Lamour (1903-1992), the father, among others, of that emblematic land development project, the Compagnie du Bas-Rhône. In 1952, under a pseudonym, he published a weekly humor column in Occitan, Sul pic de Miegjorn (Sur le coup de Midi), in Le Paysan du Midi, in which he commented on current events in vineyards, wine and much more, in a serious tone that was nonetheless full of critical verve. Cordes sought and found a tone in a language that was both deeply rooted and easy to understand, somewhere between theater, public intervention and complicity with his audience of winegrowers. This experience of "literacy" in an essentially oral language did not last, but it did reveal the difficult questions posed by an intervention in Occitan in a widely circulated French periodical.

К истории публикации брошюры Н. И. Кареева «Южные славяне и Италия на Адриатике». 1916 г.

The article publishes correspondence concerning publication of a pamphlet by the famous Russian historian, Nikolai Ivanovich Kareev (1850–1931) “Southern Slavs and Italy on the Adriatic.” It was to be published in the series “World War and Slavic Questions.” The compilers intended the series to increase the knowledge in the Russian society about the “Slavic question” and its prospects after the war. In particular, they supported the idea of uniting the Czechs and Slovaks into a Czechoslovak state and expanding the borders of Serbia, both at the expense of Austro-Hungarian territories. Kareev held to a similar point of view in his brochure, based primarily on historical facts. Written in the summer of 1916, this work reflected his views on the course of the war and the future post-war world order. In the question of the fate of Austrian Istria and Dalmatia, Kareev actually supported the Serbian side, seeing no reason for Italy to acquire these lands after the victory over the Central Powers. At the stage of censoring, the essay encountered some obstacles. According to the existing procedure, the Petrograd Committee for Press Affairs (which also dealt with military censorship) sent essays on foreign policy topics to the Press and Information Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for review. In August 1916, Kareev’s manuscript was received there. After reviewing it, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Neratov advised to postpone the publication of the brochure, as it raised difficult questions and might have caused discontent of Italian allies of Russia. The manuscript was “stuck” in the censorship committee for two months, and Kareev tried to solve the problem by contacting the head of the Second Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, baron Boris Nolde, who, in his turn, advised him to write a personal letter to Neratov. In his letter, Kareev assured Neratov that there was nothing “offensive” in the brochure; it was written in “objectively scientific” language; the facts had been published and discussed not only in England and France, but also in Italy. Kareev also asked Neratov for a personal meeting to convey his arguments. It is possible that the meeting actually took place, because a week later the director of the Press and Information Department, Alexander Lysakovsky, informed the chairman of the Petrograd Press Committee, Nikolai Levitsky, that the Foreign Ministry no longer had any complaints against Kareev’s brochure and it could be published. The published documents show the mechanism of censoring essays on foreign policy topics in Russia during the First World War. In addition, N.I. Kareev’s letter is now introduced into scientific use, supplementing his extensive epistolary legacy.

Этноэкология: опыт реконструкции культурного наследия

This article attempts to conceptualize the ethno-cultural identity of Adygs through the prism of ecological ethno-existence. Global processes are developing so rapidly and with such complexity that they pose difficult questions to traditional culture: “Who are we in the conditions of the new reality? “Through what symbols does Adyghe traditional culture speak to us today? “What does it mean to be an Adyghe in the modern world?”. Today we are witnessing a turning point, which threatens to turn into an ethno-cultural catastrophe. The limit to the basic principles of Adyghe culture – Trust and Devotion – has been exhausted, we no longer judge ourselves on their behalf. We do not possess universal consent and this situation of fragmentation does not present an opportunity to keep the Adyghe world in integral unity. Historically, it is the ethno-ideological system Adygstvo that has acted as the ethno-forming beginning of the Adyghe ethnos. To what extent the ethno-cultural normative system – Adygstvo – is able to respond today to the main challenges of modernity.

Pengembangan Instrumen Tes untuk Mengukur Kemampuan Numerasi Siswa Kelas V Sekolah Dasar

The purpose of writing this article is to develop a numeration-based test instrument that is tested for validity, reliability, and the level of difficulty and discriminating power of questions to determine students' numeracy abilities. The subjects of the research trial were fifth grade students of SD Negeri 02 Jolotigo, Talun District, Pekalongan Regency. The validity test was carried out with content validity, criteria, and expert validation. Reliability test is done by looking for the price of the reliability coefficient r. The characteristic test is carried out by determining the level of difficulty and distinguishing power. The results of the reliability test obtained are the value of r in the 0.869 test. The results of the validity test showed that the instrument was declared to meet content validity, criteria, and expert validation with valid criteria. The characteristics of the evaluation instrument developed indicate that the instrument has a proportion of difficulty levels, namely 10% easy questions, 80% moderate questions, and 10% difficult questions. The results of the discriminatory analysis were then combined with the level of difficulty and obtained 10 items of good quality that could be used.

Pengembangan Instrumen Tes untuk Mengukur Kemampuan Literasi Sains Siswa Kelas V Sekolah Dasar pada Materi Sistem Pencernaan Manusia

This study aims to develop a test instrument based on scientific literacy on the material of the digestive system. The design of this research is Research and Development (R&amp;D). The test instrument was tested for validity, reliability, and the level of difficulty and differentiating power of questions to determine students' scientific literacy abilities. The subjects of the research trial were fifth grade students of SD Negeri Tosaran, Kedungwuni District, Pekalongan Regency. The validity test was carried out with content validity, criteria, and expert validation. Reliability test is done by looking for the price of the reliability coefficient. The characteristic test is carried out by determining the level of difficulty and distinguishing power. The results of the reliability test obtained are the value of r in the 0.840 test. The results of the validity test showed that the instrument was declared to meet content validity, criteria, and expert validation with valid and very valid criteria. The characteristics of the evaluation instrument developed indicate that the instrument has a proportion of difficulty levels, namely 30% moderate questions, and 70% difficult questions. The results of the discriminatory analysis were then combined with the level of difficulty and obtained 10 items of good quality that could be used.

Stephen J. Glain. Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. 350 pages. $25.95. Hardback.

In this book, Former Wall Street Journal reporter Stephen Glain sets out to answer an extremely broad and difficult question: namely why is it that the Arab world, specifically the Levantine region, has consistently underperformed economically since the beginning of the 20th century. The book provides the reader with a somewhat in-depth analysis of the political, social and economic state of six Arab nations (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Egypt, and Iraq). By breaking down his analysis into country-specific chapters, Glain enables the reader to understand the multi-faceted problems facing the region as a whole. In doing so, Glain shows the reader a common thread of bad governance, corruption, negative external interference, and protectionism; the thread that runs through all these nations, causing economic decay.

La réforme de la fonction publique : Vecteur de bonne gouvernance et du développement en République Démocratique du Congo

Abstract Public sector reform policies have experienced considerable development over the past few decades in most developed countries, but also in those on the African continent. The civil service has thus been at the heart of many administrative reforms: since development has ceased to be considered from a solely economic or technical angle, the scientific community is more unanimous than in the past in its recognition that the effectiveness of economic structures depends largely on the complementarities they encounter in the political, administrative, social and even mental environment. Over the years, the will to reform the civil service has appeared as a constant for the countries in question. Justified by the principle of adaptation of the public service, civil service reform takes the form of projects which aim, on the one hand, to improve the direct relationship between the citizen and the administration and, on the other hand, to establish the terms of its management. In the Democratic Republic of Congo more than elsewhere, the functioning and performance of the public service has posed difficult questions for more than forty years, preventing it from breaking the paradox which characterises it - namely that in such a rich country, the population is one of the poorest on the planet. Thus, this study aims not only to analyse the strategies deployed in the implementation of civil service reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo but to attempt to evaluate the results as well.

Intracranial haemorrhage and falls: cause or effect?

A difficult question in autopsy practice is whether intracranial haemorrhage has resulted from or brought about a fall. To address this we undertook a retrospective study of all autopsy reports (N= 2126) complied over a 10 year period (2009-2018). Of 720 patients who underwent a comprehensive post mortem neuropathologic examination we found 226 patients who had a history of a fall. Of the 226 with a history of fall, 175 (79%) had an intracranial haemorrhage which was classified as truamatic (n= 134, 77%) or spontaneous (n= 41, 23%. Within the traumatic group, falls from a standing height (51%) were more common than falls involving stairs (31%) or falls from a height (12%). Cerebral contusional injury (51%) and subdural haemorrhage (45%) were the most common type of haemorrhage in the traumatic group. In the spontaneous haemorrhage group cerebral amyloid angiopathy (49%) was the commonest detected cause and was typically lobar in distribution). We are of the view that a comprehensive analysis of fatal falls with intracranial haemorrhage warrants a detailed neuropathologic examination as part of the overall death analysis.

Kupasan Terhadap Kritikan Terpilih Renato Constantino: Antara Konflik dengan Pelestarian Identiti dalam Pendidikan di Filipina, 1901- 1935

The education system in the Philippines has been argued by one of its most prominent historians, Renato Constantino, as the root of confounding national identities in the post-independence Philippines and the multitudes of the internal crisis faced by the country. Constantino was regarded as a “left-wing” scholar, raising difficult questions on the nation’s adaptation of colonial thoughts and the uncritical approach to Americanisation, a result of the education model introduced by the administration of the United States (1898-1901). This study focuses on American rule in the Philippines from the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction in 1901 which had formed and implemented education policies in the country to the founding of the Commonwealth government in 1935, an interim government before the United States granted full independence to the Republic of the Philippines in 1946. This paper proposes that conflicts in the Philippines can best be understood through a critical reading of Constantino’s controversial and critical works. Additionally, this paper also stresses discussion on the interconnectedness between political problems, social issues, and post-colonial education which had affected the Philippines, and in general many formerly colonized nations.

Questions/Difficult Questions of Preschool Children with Different Socio-Economic Conditions to Parents and Parents’ Answers to Difficult Questions

The present is a qualitative study which aims to examine the difficult questions of preschoolers’ children with different socioeconomic conditions to their parents and the answers of the parents. 60 parents with different socioeconomic conditions whose children continue to preschool education in a province located in the central part of Turkey participated in the study. An interview form consisting of structured interview questions was used to in data collection. The data were analyzed with the content analysis technique. The results of the study showed that the children asked their parents difficult questions about daily life, religion, science/nature and sexuality/birth. The frequencies of children's difficult questions by themes showed difference according to socioeconomic conditions. Parents answered to the children's difficult questions with explanations or leaving the questions unanswered. Parents who did not answer the children's difficult questions used the strategies of passing off, saying that they will look into it, saying that they do not know and offering to look into it together. The frequencies of the strategies used by the parents when they did not answer the children's difficult questions differed based on socioeconomic conditions.

Editorial: Why Free Speech?

Many of us struggle to make sense of what is without doubt a deepening global socio-economic and political crisis, and at the heart of this crisis lies an unprecedented and multi-directional assault on freedom of speech. But what is free speech? How should it be exercised and to what ends? These are more difficult questions to navigate in contexts of growing divisions in society, the crises of state governabilities, people’s governmentalities and disparities in power and wealth. Debates about freedom of speech are not new; however, the form they take now seems particularly vindictive and violent. Across the world, we are witness to disturbing moves to curtail free speech in liberal democracies and totalitarian states alike and among left wing as well as right wing movements. As recent events show, free speech is the first casualty of all forms of authoritarianism including religious fundamentalism. And from this flow a range of other crackdowns on civil society and serious human rights violations that cannot be challenged. This is why the debate on freedom of speech has become increasingly urgent.

Role of glandular hormones in estimating time passed since death: histological and biochemical examination (an experimental study)

ABSTRACT One of the most common and difficult questions that a forensic practitioner faces is the estimation of time since death. The goal of this study is to investigate the post-mortem interval in relation to degenerative histological alterations and biochemical hormonal analysis of follicular stimulating hormone (FSH), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), testosterone (T) and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in pituitary, testicular and adrenal glands respectively. One hundred adult male albino rats were divided into five groups (0, 1, 5, 10 and 15 days post-mortem groups). The glands showed normal histological structure at time of death. Autolysis started in the glands within 1 day post-mortem (PM) and became marked with increase post-mortem interval. FSH level in pituitary gland, T hormone and DHT levels in testicular gland and DHEA level in adrenal gland revealed statistically significant reductions by ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) with increased post-mortem interval. Glandular hormones proved to be a useful parameter consistent with the histopathological changes for the estimation of post-mortem interval from the pituitary, adrenal and testicular glands. New equations for estimation of the post-mortem interval (PMI) were performed and appeared to be useful in estimating the post-mortem interval.

Pandemic Rule-Breakers, Moral Luck, and Blaming the Blameworthy.

This paper takes under consideration a piece by Roger Crisp in which he questions what the problem of moral luck can teach us about COVID-19 lockdown rule-breakers. Taking the position that although such rule-breakers might seem to be new examples of moral luck, Crisp ends up denying the existence of moral luck and argues that moral luck is an outdated notion in so far as it relies on other questionable aspects of morality, that is, retributivist punishment and blame. Although the author agrees with Crisp that pandemic rule-breaker cases are putative examples of resultant moral luck, he proposes that Crisp has misconstrued what moral luck is and the paper examines in detail what he sees as the numerous problems with Crisp's claims. The author concludes that Crisp's analysis of pandemic rule-breaking does not shed any new light on the moral luck debate, and the difficult questions of luck, moral responsibility, and desert are not so easily resolved.

Carotid endarterectomy in Russia. What if current guidelines do not answer difficult questions?

This literature review covers the publications of Russian vascular surgeons in recent years and deals with debatable issues of carotid surgery, including: 1. What is the best technique for carotid endarterectomy (CEA)? 2. Why does restenosis of the internal carotid artery (ICA) develop and how to eliminate it? 3. How to operate on bilateral ICA stenosis? 4. Should carotid glomus be preserved? 5. Is CEA safe in the acute phase of cerebrovascular accident (CVA)? 6. Is CEA safe in elderly patients? 7. How to operate on patients with combined internal carotid and coronary artery involvement? The evidence presented in this publication makes it possible to draw the following conclusions: 1. When choosing a CEA technique, the classical technique with patch angioplasty should be avoided due to the high risk of ICA restenosis. 2. To eliminate ICA restenosis, carotid angioplasty with stenting (CAS) should be used. When performing primary CEA with ICA transposition over the hypoglossal nerve, reCEA can be used 3. In the absence of contraindications, bilateral ICA stenosis can be operated at the same time using CEA. 4. CEA with carotid glomus preservation is the operation of choice in the treatment of patients with hemodynamically significant ICA stenosis due to the elimination of the risks of postoperative hypertension and the formation of hemorrhagic transformation. 5. If there are indications for cerebral revascularization in the most acute period of stroke, CEA should be abandoned in favor of CAS. 6. In old age, CAS is the safest treatment strategy. 7. In the presence of a combined ICA and coronary involvement, the choice of treatment tactics should be carried out only by a multidisciplinary commission, taking into account the risk stratification of adverse cardiovascular events.

A Comparative Study of Error Vector Magnitude Measurement in a Reverberation Chamber

This letter shows a comparative analysis between the conventional and reverberation chamber (RC) measurements of error vector magnitude (EVM). The conventional methods, including direct link (DL) and anechoic chamber (AC), have been used to measure EVM for several years. However, the over-the-air testing of devices under test (DUT) is emphasized, and the EVM measurement in RC is a difficult question. For mass production testing, instead of using two chambers (RC and AC), it is expected to integrate EVM testing into the existing RC measurement system to give a pass/fail conclusion quickly. Hence, we measured EVM in 2 GHz (2412 MHz) and 5 GHz (5180 MHz) using RC, AC, and DL methods. From the measurement results, we find that the measured EVM is repeatable, stable, and insensitive to the location of DUT. Besides, the measured EVMs obtained from all scenarios deteriorate with the decrease of received power. Comparing the results from RC with that from the conventional methods, it could be concluded that with the reduction of multipath effect, the measured EVMs approach to the ideal values measured in AC. The differences among the methods could be used to calibrate the measured EVMs and give a pass/fail conclusion efficiently for mass production.

Psychological group intervention to support parenting: Qualitative study about needs and preferences of mothers with breast cancer.

Parental worries and parenting stress can increase when a mother receives a breast cancer diagnosis. This study presents the findings of needs and preferences of mothers with breast cancer to inform the development of a group intervention program for mothers with breast cancer and other alternatives of support. Using qualitative data from eighteen Portuguese women with at least one minor child when they received a breast cancer diagnosis, and content analysis on three focus groups transcripts, we uncover the participants' parenting needs and their perceptions of the potential benefits and the formal aspects of a group intervention. Mothers revealed that they need support on several parenting-related issues (e.g., communicating with the children about the mother's diagnosis, dealing with children's responses and difficult questions). They provided information about the potential benefits of group intervention and preferences regarding intervention content, sessions' structure, frequency, location, and timing. Some participants also suggested other types of support, such as online information and individual psychological support. The development of an intervention informed by the patients' needs and preferences can contribute to increasing its feasibility and efficacy. The findings indicated the specific parenting needs of Portuguese mothers with breast cancer, and it offered health professionals some important clues on how to support other family members.

Analysis of proteome adaptation reveals a key role of the bacterial envelope in starvation survival

Bacteria reorganize their physiology upon entry to stationary phase. What part of this reorganization improves starvation survival is a difficult question because the change in physiology includes a global reorganization of the proteome, envelope, and metabolism of the cell. In this work, we used several trade‐offs between fast growth and long survival to statistically score over 2,000 Escherichia coli proteins for their global correlation with death rate. The combined ranking allowed us to narrow down the set of proteins that positively correlate with survival and validate the causal role of a subset of proteins. Remarkably, we found that important survival genes are related to the cell envelope, i.e., periplasm and outer membrane, because the maintenance of envelope integrity of E. coli plays a crucial role during starvation. Our results uncover a new protective feature of the outer membrane that adds to the growing evidence that the outer membrane is not only a barrier that prevents abiotic substances from reaching the cytoplasm but also essential for bacterial proliferation and survival.