Books on the topic 'Nowadays world'

The University of Groningen has been an international university since its foundation in 1614. The first professors formed a rich international community, and many students came from outside the Netherlands, especially from areas now belonging to Germany. Internationalization, a popular slogan nowadays, is therefore nothing new, but its meaning has changed over time. How did the University of Groningen grow from a provincial institution established for religious reasons into a top-100 university with 36,000 students, of whom 25% come from abroad and almost half of the academic staff is of foreign descent? What is the identity of this four-century-old university that is still strongly anchored in the northern part of the Netherlands but that also has a mind that is open to the world? The history of the university, as told by Klaas van Berkel and Guus Termeer, ends with a short paragraph on the impact of the corona crisis.

The present book faces a wide range of problems concerning the history of Eastern slavic culture in its interation with cultural models, typical of Western Europe. This collective work is the final result of the french-italian congress “Fractures and Integrations between Russia, East Slavic world and the West. History and literary civilisation from the Middle Age to the Contemporary Era” (University of Florence, 16-17 april 2015): the complexity of cultural relations between Russia, Slavic East and European West is analysed enhancing the variety of points of view and benefiting of different methodological approaches as well as from perspectives, provided from different fields of study. Here we introduce new materials and new analytical methods, which are useful for studying the complex interactions between the western cultural tradition and the east oriental one, from Middle Age up to nowadays. The “fractures” and “integrations” are therefore highlighted throughout the reading or critical re-reading of textes, works and authors, who took part to the construction and the development of cultural interchange among the various european areas.

The word media hype is often used as rhetorical argument to dismiss waves of media attention as overblown, disproportional and exaggerated. But these explosive news waves, as well as - nowadays - the twitter storms, are object of scientific research, because they are an important phenomenon in the public area. Sometimes it is indeed 'much ado about nothing' but in many cases these media storms have play an important role in political issues, scandals and crises. Twitter storms sometimes ruin reputations within hours. Although different concepts are used, such as media hypes, news waves, media storms, information cascades or risk amplification, all the studies in this book refer to the same process in which key events trigger a chain of reactions and interactions, building up huge news waves in the media or rapidly spreading social epidemics in the social media. This book offers the first comprehensive overview of this important topic. It is not only interesting for scholars and students in media and journalism, but also for professionals in PR and communication, crisis communication and reputation management.

This chapter systematically surveys conceptual frameworks (models) that have been suggested to identify similarities between World Englishes and to classify them accordingly. The earliest suggestions along these lines were static models, which either worked out historically based relationships between national varieties, having branched off in a family-tree-like manner, or classified countries based on whether English is used as a native, second or foreign language in them. Other early categorizations emphasized the global, national or regional outreach of varieties (in “hub-and-spoke” models) or variety types based on sociolinguistic settings in communities and their resulting linguistic properties. In contrast, recent models emphasize the evolutionary or even cyclic character of varieties; these include Trudgill’s deterministic theory and, very widely accepted nowadays, Schneider’s Dynamic Model, which is broadly outlined, including a brief discussion of some applications of and reactions to it.

This volume brings together thirteen of my essays on ancient epistemology, published between 2000 and 2020, along with a new, synoptic introduction. The essays focus on Plato, Aristotle, and the Pyrrhonian sceptics, though some attention is also given to the Cyrenaics and Descartes. Some essays compare these philosophers to one another, and/or to more recent discussions of these topics. One central theme is cognitive conditions and their contents. For example, is epistêmê knowledge as it is conceived of nowadays? Are doxa and dogma belief as it is conceived of nowadays? I also ask whether Plato and/or Aristotle is committed to the Two Worlds Theory; and whether Pyrrhonian skeptics take anything to be subjective and whether they are external world skeptics.

Fleas are wingless bloodsucking insects infesting a large variety of hosts. They can cause dermatological problems and act as zoonotic vectors transmitting very important agents of diseases in humans and in animals living close to humans. Among the agents of diseases occur: viruses, plaque bacteria or even worms etc. Thus flea control is an important target nowadays in order to protect human and animal health all over the world.

The new jus gentium of our times is centred on the human person, and has much advanced on humanist grounds. The general principles of law form the substratum of the legal order itself. Of great significance is the direct access of individuals to international justice nowadays. The recent cycle of UN World Conferences has, as a common denominator, the particular attention to the conditions of life and needs of protection of human beings. There has been a reassuring gradual expansion of the material content of jus cogens. International jurisprudence has evolved in pursuance of humanist thinking, in the line of jusnaturalism.

This chapter describes how Amish families from the Enon Valley in Pennsylvania and from Holmes and Wayne counties in Ohio arrived to start a new settlement in the Conewango Valley in Cattaraugus County, east of Chautauqua Lake. Since the founding of the Conewango Valley community, other Amish groups have moved east into Cattaraugus and neighboring Chautauqua County, and nowadays this region offers the Amish world in microcosm, with some of the most conservative Amish living near some of the most progressive. Like their counterparts who arrived in Lewis County in the nineteenth century, these Amish settlers to New York State have remained committed to the Anabaptist values of their forebears. Nevertheless, the settlements they have founded show the myriad ways in which these values can be realized in everyday life.

This chapter presents an overview of the development of historical narratives combining visual and textual elements in comic strips and graphic novels. History comics developed strongly during the 1940s and 1950s and became popular, in particular among young readers in Western Europe and North America. Having gained increased cultural respectability, comics more recently also obtained an adult audience. Two internationally renowned educational comics from the Anne Frank House, published in the first decade of the twenty-first century, illustrate how comics are nowadays capable of representing sensitive topics from recent history, in particular World War II and the Holocaust. Yet, combining fact and fiction requires a balanced way of (re)presenting, involving discussions among historians and others on what may be possible and desirable in this specific war of making history public.

This essay asks whether the world could be (or could become) its own imagined community in the 21st century. Thinking with and through Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, Mauad contemplates Anderson’s shift from defining the “nation” from a political perspective to defining it in cultural and symbolic ways, and uses that to examine both Ban’s essay and Ellis’ essay in the book Global Perspectives on the United States. Mauad is interested in the large gap that has opened up between the kinds of global emphasis one sees nowadays and the relatively established “new American intra- and contingent hemispheric studies” on the other. Both essays, she writes, raise the issue of how cultural expression can suggest meanings and even proposals for a new world in a new century, whether drawing on popular culture or on “high art.” But Mauad also brings into the discussion ideas developed by Brazilian anthropologist Renato Ortiz on mundializacao and ways this differs from what is commonly called globalization (at least in the U.S.).

The chapter discusses algorithmic trading, which refers to any automated process, consisting of a number of interconnected components, whose main aim is to perform financial transactions of any kind. Its chief advantage lies in the fact that human intervention is minimized to an acceptable extent. This is quite desirable because nowadays numerous factors affect financial decisions. Financial managers are able to deal with a limited amount of information. There are many ways to implement algorithmic trading systems. This chapter aims to highlight the efficiency of biologically inspired methodologies when incorporated in such systems. Biologically inspired intelligence comprises a range of algorithms whose common philosophy is based on the behavior of real-world, natural systems and networks. What is more, the performance of the applied nature-inspired intelligence (NII) methodologies is compared to traditional benchmark approaches such as the random portfolio construction.

This chapter introduces a ‘meta-theory’ of international law. It employs the insights of Thomas Kuhn, who argued that once a paradigm has been accepted by a scientific community, most scientists accept it without much question. When the paradigm is overwhelmed, a ‘scientific revolution’—a new paradigm—emerges. The paradigm for the sources of international law is Article 38 of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Statute, which emerged during and after World War I when international lawyers, faced with the horrors of that awful conflict, lost faith in their old discipline, thereby initiating Kuhn’s scientific revolution. Nowadays, Article 38 remains an attractive paradigm: first because the ICJ and its Statute are almost universally accepted; secondly, because it is neatly formulated; thirdly, because the paradigm has been confirmed in case law and commentary; and fourthly, because it is widely taught.

The way science is done has changed radically in the last years. The personal reflections and experiences of a protagonist help us to understand the mechanisms of contemporary science. A system where passion, dedication and reliability, have increasingly less room, pressed by hard market laws. From vocation of a few, science has become the profession of many, possibly too many. With consequences and risks, such as the increase of frauds, plagiarism, but in particular with a huge amount of scientific publications, often of little relevance. The solution? A slow approach with more emphasis to quality than quantity, that helps us to rediscover the central role of a responsible scientist. The work is a critical review and assessment of present-day policies and behaviors in science production and publication, touching upon the tumultuous growth of scientific Journals, in parallel to the growth of self-declared scientists over the world. Along with personal reminiscences of times past, the author investigates the loopholes and hoaxes of pretended Journals and non-existing Congresses, so common nowadays in the scientific arena. The troubles with bibliometric indices are also discussed, as resulting in large part from the above distortions of science life.

The Oxford Handbook of Indian Philosophy tells the story of philosophy in India through a series of exceptional individual acts of philosophical virtuosity. It brings together forty leading international scholars to record the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute philosophy in the geographical region of the Indian subcontinent, a region sometimes nowadays designated South Asia. The chapters provide a synopsis of the liveliest areas of contemporary research and set new agendas for nascent directions of exploration. Each of the chapters provides compelling evidence that in the global exercise of human intellectual skills India, throughout its history, has been a hugely sophisticated and important presence, host to an astonishing range of exceptionally creative minds engaged in an extraordinary diversity of the most astute philosophical exploration conceivable. It spans philosophy of law, logic, politics, environment, and society, but is most strongly associated with wide-ranging discussions in the philosophy of mind and language, epistemology and metaphysics (how we know and what is there to be known), ethics, meta-ethics, and aesthetics, and meta-philosophy. The reach of Indian ideas has been vast, both historically and geographically, and it has been and continues to be a major influence in world philosophy. In the breadth as well as the depth of its philosophical investigation, in the sheer bulk of surviving texts and in the diffusion of its ideas, the philosophical heritage of India easily stands comparison with that of China, Greece, the Latin West, or the Islamic world.

The nineteenth century is notable for its newly proclaimed emperors, from Franz I of Austria and Napoleon I in 1804, through Agustín and Pedro, the emperors of Mexico and Brazil, in 1822, to Napoleon III in 1852, Maximilian of Mexico in 1864, Wilhelm I, German emperor, in 1871, and Victoria, empress of India in 1876. These monarchs projected an imperial aura by means of coronations and acclamations, courts, medals, and costumes, portraits and monuments, ceremonial and religion, international exhibitions and museums, festivals and pageants, architecture and town planning. They relied on ancient history for legitimacy while partially espousing modernity. The empress consorts had to find a meaningful role for themselves in a changing world. The first emperors’ successors—Pedro II of Brazil, Franz Joseph of Austria, and Wilhelm II of Germany—expanded their panoply of power, until Pedro was forced to abdicate in 1889 and the First World War brought the Austrian and German empires to an end. Britain invented an imperial myth for its Indian empire in the twentieth century, until George VI relinquished the title of emperor in 1947. The imperial cities of Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and New Delhi bear witness to these vanished empires, as does Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City and the town of Petrópolis in Brazil. How the empires came to an end and how imperial cities and statues are treated nowadays demonstrates the contested place of the emperors in national cultural memory.

This volume sheds new light on the evolution of Greek epigram from the Hellenistic up to the early Byzantine era. It is concerned not with the work of individual authors but with the complexities of epigram as a genre; with the dynamics of poetic imitation and competition, as reflected in the work of epigrammatists who belong to the same or different anthologies and in the editorial activities of the poets who edited and created those anthologies; with the absorption and adaptation of earlier poetry in epigram; with the cross-fertilization between inscribed and literary epigram; with the dynamics of the relationship between epigram and its literary, sociopolitical, and cultural background from the third century BCE up until the sixth century CE; with its interaction with the visual arts and with Latin poetry; with the activities of late antique compilers who have generated the selections that survive nowadays. The chapters in this collection do not seek to offer a single comprehensive overview of epigram but individually and collectively demonstrate its remarkable richness and diversity. In the process they help to explain the fascination that epigram exercised, both in the ancient world and in subsequent ages, and contribute to the growing body of research on this significant and versatile poetic form.

The Yiguandao (Way of Pervading Unity) was one of the major redemptive societies of Republican China. It is nowadays one of the largest and most influential religious movements of the Chinese world and at the same time one of the least known and understood. From its powerful base in Taiwan, it develops worldwide, including in Mainland China, where it nevertheless remains officially forbidden. Based on extensive ethnographic work carried out over nearly a decade, Reclaiming the Wilderness explores the expansionary dynamics of this group and its regional circulations such as they can be primarily observed from a Hong Kong perspective. It analyzes the proselytizing impetus of the adepts, the transmission of charisma and forms of leadership, the specific role of Confucianism that makes it possible for the group to defuse tension with Chinese authorities and, even sometimes, to cooperate with them. It also delves into Yiguandao’s well-structured expansionary strategies and in its quasi-diplomatic efforts to navigate the troubled waters of cross-strait politics. To readers primarily interested in Chinese studies, this work offers new perspectives on state–religion relationships in China, the Taiwan issue seen through the lenses of religion, or one of the modern and contemporary fates of Confucianism—that is, its appropriation by redemptive societies and religious organizations. But it also addresses theoretical questions that are relevant to completely different contexts and thus contributes to the fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychology of religion.

Exception handling is required for the development of robust and efficient numerical software, a principal application of Fortran. Indeed, the existence of such a facility makes it possible to develop more efficient software than would otherwise be possible. Most computers nowadays have hardware based on the IEEE standard for binary floating-point arithmetic, which later became an ISO standard. Therefore, the Fortran exception handling features are based on the ability to test and set the five flags for floating-point exceptions that the IEEE standard specifies.

When a new name is necessary for a concept, word formation and borrowing are possible ways to produce one. As such, they are in competition for the creation of neologisms. However, borrowings can also interact with existing word formation rules. The reanalysis of a borrowing can result in its attribution to an existing word formation rule. The reanalysis of a number of formally similar borrowings can even result in a new word formation rule. Word formation and borrowing both have an inherently diachronic component to them. Historically, Latin was an important source language for borrowing. The effects are found in neoclassical word formation and in many internationalisms. Nowadays, anglicisms have become the most frequent kind of borrowings. Word formation rules may be activated to counter the prevalence of borrowing by creating alternative designations, but they may also be used to integrate borrowings into the lexical and grammatical system of the borrowing language. After an introduction with some theoretical background, twelve case studies present particular situations illustrating different types of interaction of word formation and borrowing in a range of European languages. The concluding chapter describes some general trends that emerge from these case studies.

Aristotelian virtue ethics has gained momentum within latter-day moral theorizing. Many people are drawn towards virtue ethics because of the central place it gives to emotions in the good life; after all, Aristotle says that emotions can have an intermediate and best condition proper to virtue. Yet nowhere does Aristotle provide a definitive list of virtuous emotions. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle does analyse a number of emotions. However, many emotions that one would have expected to see there fail to get a mention, and others are written off rather hastily as morally defective. Whereas most of what goes by the name of ‘Aristotelian’ virtue ethics nowadays is heavily reconstructed and updated Aristotelianism, such exercises in retrieval have not been systematically attempted with respect to his emotion theory. The aim of this book is to offer a revised ‘Aristotelian’ analysis and moral justification of a number of emotions that Aristotle either did not mention (such as awe, grief, and jealousy), relegated, at best, to the level of the semi-virtuous (such as shame), made disparaging remarks about (such as gratitude) or rejected explicitly (such as pity, understood as pain at another person’s deserved bad fortune). It is argued that there are good ‘Aristotelian’ reasons for understanding those emotions either as virtuous or as indirectly conducive to virtue. The book begins with an overview of Aristotle’s ideas on the nature of emotions and of emotional value, and it ends with an account of Aristotelian emotion education.

A long tradition, going back to Aristotle, conceives of logic in terms of necessity and possibility: a deductive argument is correct if the truth of its conclusion follows necessarily from the truth of its premises or, put differently, if it is not possible for the conclusion to be false when the premises are true. A relatively unknown feature of the analytic tradition in philosophy is that, at its very inception, this venerable conception of the relation between logic and modality was put into question. The founders of analytic philosophy, Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell, held that there are no genuine distinctions among the necessary, the possible and the actual. In this first of a two-volume book, I investigate the grounds and consequences of this anti-modal position. The grounds lie in doctrines on truth, thought, and knowledge, as well as on the relation between mind and reality, that are central to the philosophies of Frege and Russell, and are of enduring philosophical interest. The main consequence is that logic is fundamental, and, to be coherent, modal concepts would be reconstructed in logical terms. This rejection of modality in early analytic philosophy remains of contemporary significance. The coherence of modal concepts is rarely questioned nowadays, because it is assumed that suspicion of modality derives from logical positivism, which has not survived philosophical scrutiny. The anti-modal arguments of Frege and Russell, however, have nothing to do with positivism, and remain a challenge to the contemporary acceptance of modal notions.

Is it possible to develop techniques and mechanisms so that women can get out of a depression without the help of medication, even though they are in a deep state of apathy? It is scientifically proven that moving, eating well, cultivating good relationships and even meditating are actions that help the human being to become fuller and happier. The recipe is easy. There is a step-by-step that, most of the time, provides positive results to those who follow it. But what about when the individual is listless? At that stage of unwillingness, lack of strength and courage to change the stage? He may be fully aware of what he should do, how he should act and how much it would be beneficial for his well-being, yet he still does not find the strength to act. It is a feeling of pain and anguish that does not pass and there is no desire to do anything to pass. Would it be possible to use or create a revolutionary technique or set of techniques, "magical" that help the start of psychological / emotional change, without the aid of drugs? There are numerous studies that demonstrate both the ineffectiveness and the various side effects of antidepressant and psychotropic drugs. To check if there are mechanisms that help individuals to restore mental and emotional health without the aid of allopathy is to find a way out so that less people, in addition to not getting rid of depression, become dependent on the medications they use. Nowadays depression is often diagnosed and treated incorrectly, especially among women – one in seven is medicated. If there are effective mechanisms to change a depressive stage in a natural way, there will be a reduction in the consumption of medications, thus avoiding serious side effects such as dependence, reactions and physical changes such as disorderly weight loss or gain, sexual dysfunction and incapacity to live in society.

TOWARDS THE NEW LIFE Theology and Importance of Christian Initiation for the Life of Faith The book is in equal parts a presentation and an invitation. The subject matter of both is the mystagogical initiation leading to the personal encounter with God and eventually to the union within the Church in Christ, which happens initially and particualry in the sacramental liturgy. Mystagogy was the essential experience of life in the early Church and now is being so intensely discussed and postulated by the ecclesial Magisterium and through the teaching of the recent popes and synods. Within the ten chapters of this book the reader proceeds through the aspects strictly associated with Christian initiation, noticeable in catechumenate and suggestive for further Christian life. It is not surprising then, that the study begins with answering the question about the sense of dealing with catechumenate at all. The response developed in the first chapter covers four key points: the contemporary state of our faith, the need for dialogue in evangelization, the importance of liturgy in the renewal of faith and the obvious requirement of follo- wing the Church’s Magisterium, quite explicit in the subject undertaken within this book. The introductory chapter is meant to evoke interest in catechumenate as such and encourage comprehension of its essence, in order to keep it in mind while planning contemporary evangelization. For doing this with success and avoiding pastoral archeology, we need a competent insight into the main message and goal of Christian initiation. Catechumenate is the first and most venerable model of formation and growth in faith and therefore worth knowing. The second chapter tries to cope with the reasons and ways of the present return to the sources of catechumenate with respect to Christian initiation understood to be the building of the relationship with God. The example of catechumenate helps us to discover, how to learn wisely from the history. This would definitely mean to keep the structure and liturgy of catechumenate as a vehicle of God’s message, which must be interpreted and adapted always anew and with careful and intelligent consideration of the historical flavour on particular stages within the history of salvation and cultural conditions of the recipients. For that reason we refer to the Biblical resources and to the historical examples of catechumenate including its flourishing and declining periods, after which we are slowly approaching the present reinterpretation of the catechumenal process enhanced by the official teaching of the Church. As the result of the latter, particularly owing to the Vatican Council II, we are now dealing with the renewed liturgy of baptism displayed in two liturgical books: The Rite of Baptism for Children and the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). This version for adults is the subjectmatter of the whole chapter, in which a reader can find theological analyses of the particular rites as well as numerous indications for improving one’s life with Christ in the Church. You can find interesting associations among the rites of initiation themselves and astounding coherence between those rites and the sacraments of the Eucharist, penance and other sacraments, which simply means the ordinary life of faith. Deep and convincing theology of the process of initiation proves the inspiring spiritual power of the initial and constitutive sacraments of baptism and confirmation, which may seem attractive not only for catechumens but also for the faithful baptized in their infancy, and even more, since they might have not yet had a chance to see what a plausible treasure they have been conveying in their baptismal personality. How much challenge for further and constant realization in life may offer these introductory events of Christian initiation, yet not sufficiently appreciated by those who have already been baptized and confirmed! We all should submit to permanent re-evangelization according to this primary pattern, which always remains essential and fundamental. Very typical and very post-conciliar approach to Christian formation appears in the communal dimension, which guards and guarantees the ecclesial profile of initiation and prepares a person to be a living member of the Church. The sixth chapter of the book is dealing with ecclesial issues in liturgy. They refer to comprehending the word of God, especially in the context of liturgy, which brings about a peculiar theological sense to it and giving a special character to proclaiming the Gospel, which the Pope Francis calls “liturgical proclamation”. The ecclesial premises influence the responsibility for the fact of accompanying the candidates, who aim at becoming Christ’s disciples. As the Church is teaching also in the theological and pastoral introduction to the RCIA, this is the duty of all Christians, which means: priests, religious and the lay, because the Church is one organism in whose womb the new members are conceived and raised. As this fact is strongly claimed by the Church the method of initiation arises to great importance. The seventh chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the catechumenal method stemming from Christ’s pedagogy and His mystery of Incarnation introducing a very important issue of implementing the Divine into the human. The chapter concerning this method opens a more practical part of the book. The crucial message of it is to make mystagogy a natural and obvious method which is the way of building bonds with Christ in the community of the people who already have these bonds and who are eager to tighten them and are aware of the beauty and necessity of closeness with Christ. Christian initiation is the process of entering the Kingdom of God and meeting Christ up to the union with Him – not so much learning dogmas and moral requirements. This is a special time when candidates-catechumens-elected mature in love and in their attitude to Christ and people, which results in prayer and new way of life. As in the past catechumenate nowadays inspires the faithful in their imagination of love and mercy as well as reminds us about various important details of the paschal way of life, which constitute our baptismal vocation, but may be forgotten and now with the help of catechumenate can be recognized anew, while accompanying adults on their catechumenal way. The book is meant for those who are already involved in catechumenal process and are responsible for the rites and formation as well as for those who are interested in what the Church is offering to all who consciously decide to know and follow Christ. You can learn from this book, what is the nature and specificity of the method suggested by the Rite itself for guiding people to God the Saviour and to the community of His people. The aim of the study is to present the universal way of evangelization, which was suggested and revealed by God in His pedagogy, particularly through Jesus Christ and smoothly adopted by the early Church. This way, which can be called a method, is so complete, substantial and clear that it deserves rediscovery, description and promotion, which has already started in the Church’s teaching by making direct references to such categories as: initiation, catechumenate, liturgical formation, the rereading the Mystery of Christ, the living participation in the Mystery and faith nourished by the Mystery. The most engaging point with Christian initiation is the fact, that this seems to be the most effective way of reviving the parish, taking place on the solid and safe ground of liturgy with the most convincing and objective fact that is our baptism and our new identity born in baptismal regenerating bath. On the grounds of our personal relationship with God and our Christian vocation we can become active apostles of Christ. Evangelization begins with ourselves and in our hearts. Thinking about the Church’s mission, we should have in mind our personal mission within the Church and we should refer to it’s roots – first to our immersion into Christ’s death and resurrection and to the anointment with the Holy Spirit. In this Spirit we have all been sent to follow Christ wherever He goes, not necessarily where we would like to direct our steps, but He would. Let us cling to Him and follow Him! Together with the constantly transforming and growing Church! Towards the new life!