Academicus International Scientific Journal

9-28

Authors: Franco Ferrarotti

We live in a technical age. That is to say, modern societies have adopted technological innovation as a guide-principle. But technique is a perfection without an aim. It can only control its internal operations. It is the eternal return of the identical. Hence, a general feeling of social disorientation and anxiety. Moreover, in a nuclear age such as ours, there is no guarantee of survival for mankind. From a diachronic historical process, we are in a synchronic one. All cultures are to be considered at the same level. The only way out is dialogue, intercultural relations, based on a concept of «cultural co-tradition».

59-74

Authors: Atalia Onitiu, Diana Stere

The present research aims to investigate the perception of the parent - personal assistant on his/her profession, but also on his/her personal life, with the aim of identifying the challenges, but also the opportunities that this status brings in the lives of the parents. Starting from the purpose of our research, two objectives were pursued, namely to identify the challenges and opportunities of the personal assistant position and to analyze the parents’ perception regarding the decision to become a personal assistant. The study was designed as a qualitative research approach, the interview method was considered the most appropriate to serve the research objectives. The research took place in a day center that offers recovery services to children with disabilities in Timișoara (Romania), the subjects of our research being exclusively mothers. The research revealed that the decision to become a personal assistant for the child with disabilities is dictated by the affection for the child and the sense of duty towards him as a parent, despite the financial well-being previously ensured by a well-paid job. What impacts the respondents’ lives is not the new job, but the confrontation with the child’s disability. If in some cases the disability was accepted relatively easily, the parents offering each other support, the level of cohesion increasing and benefiting of help from the extended family, we also identified a situation where the family fell apart. The only need claimed by the parents is that of counselling, the respondents complainings were on the difficulties they have to manage with regard to stress, fatigue and lack of free time.

89-109

Authors: James J Chriss, Miyuki F Tedor

Since the early 1980s, specialized problem-solving courts known as drug courts emerged in the United States as a response to the backlog of drug and alcohol-related cases plaguing the U.S. criminal justice system. In a few decades, with the seeming success of the drug court in helping AOD defendants achieve sobriety while reducing recidivism, the drug court model has achieved international prominence as well. This paper discusses a pilot study which seeks to analyze the feasibility of connecting a website, drughelp.care, developed at the host institution of the co-authors, to the everyday operations of local drug courts. Talcott Parsons’ AGIL schema is utilized as a conceptual template for organizing our thinking about how the website could improve services to administrators and clients according to the unique functional elements of the drug court.

121-129

Authors: Laura Gómez García

Road violence is a major problem that does not yet have a universally accepted definition. It is important to consider violence in the context of the road in order to prevent it. Road criminology focuses on the study and prevention of traffic- related deviations and problems generated after and accident. There is a lack of general knowledge about the reality of crime in the road environment; the society is not aware that certain behaviours of harassment and aggression cause risky situations and fatal results. It is essential to address the problem, defining and delimiting it to combat it. Education is once again essential to prevent crime and to put an end to social permissiveness around unacceptable behaviour related to road safety.

142-168

Authors: Ksenia Dishkant

Conflict is a costly endeavor. However, conflict itself is of unobservable magnitude which makes statistical inference problematic. The long-run economic cost of conflict is calculated as the sum of the contemporaneous costs and the discounted value of future costs. Typically, researchers use War or Militarized Interstate Conflicts as independent, discrete events to calculate its contemporaneous effect and then introduce a time binary variable to estimate the lagged effects since the end of the event. The conflict datasets accurately recognize the dates of the core conflict. However, they ignore the possibility that a lack of militarized conflict does not necessarily mean that issues have been settled, thus we are underestimating overall costs. The present study estimates the economic costs of rivalry. The international rivalry cycle is a process in which a pair of states create and sustain a relationship of atypical hostility for some period. This paper is part of the renaissance of research activity in the applied economics of international trade. The gravity model is used to determine the economic cost of Rivalry on bilateral trade using panel data. At the aggregate level, strategic and enduring rivalries have a negative and significant effect on trade flow. The results show that the total effect of rivalry accounts for48%-57% of the fall in bilateral trade volume, which is equivalent in cost to 19% of the ad-valorem tax. If the rivalry is disaggregated by claim type: spatial, positional, and mixed, then we observe that the cost varies substantially with the type. Spatial rivalry explains 16%-26% of the fall in trade volume, while positional and mixed rivalry explain 49%-57% and 77%-82%, respectively.

191-199

Authors: Dalila Karakaҫi

The Grand Tour played an important role in the education of the aristocratic British youth. Several requirements served for its classical qualification. The Tour lasted from some months to some years. Travelers’ individual choices, spread of diseases, priority to special places, as well as historical events shaped the travel plan. The Tour changed its classical denotation in the 19th century, reflecting a radical social transformation in the British society. The middle class would be engaged in travelling beyond the borders of the British territory. The Romantic traveler of the 19th century differers from the classic traveler of the Grand Tour, stressing heroism and bravery, avoiding scenic descriptions. These travelers resembled the explorer. A term introduced by the Romantics. The dense narrative produced in this period would permit the British public to become familiar with unalike people, experiences, and lands. There are five travellers that visited the Albanian land in the first half of 19th century, during British Romanticims. Dodwell, Hughes, Martin Leake, Urquhart and Best published works mentioning the Albania theme, people, culture, nature, geography. Dodwell’s work is significant because of classical archeology. T.S. Hughes gives information about Ali Pasha and his mystical figure. Topographical data on the Albanian population, customs, and traditions are introduced in Leake’s book. Urquhart looks at the Orient from a philosophical viewpoint. A work about hunting, natural beauty, customs, traditions is written by Best. Therefore, their books give essential information about the country in the first half of this century.

219-223

Authors: Michele Marsonet

There are many pragmatisms, and it is a little misleading to present this variegated trend of thought as if it were a monolithic doctrine. The founding fathers, too, were all but unanimous. Peirce was not in agreement with James on many issues. Dewey, in turn, did not like various aspects of both Peirce’s and James’ philosophy, while C.I. Lewis’ views on logic were quite different from those held by Dewey. It should not be surprising, then, to find the same amount of disagreement in contemporary neo-pragmatism, where Rescher and Rorty, who both define themselves pragmatists, display different opinions on most subjects. I shall draw some comparisons between the ideas of these two thinkers.

11-19

Authors: Prof.Dr. Michele Marsonet

Is it possible to draw a border line between ontology and epistemology? A positive answer to this question looks attractive, mainly because it reflects convictions deeply entrenched in our common sense view of the world. However, anyone wishing to clarify the distinction between the ontological and the epistemological dimensions meets problems. This is due to the fact that the separation between factual and conceptual is not clean, but rather fuzzy. It is certainly correct to state that science means to offer correct information about the world, but the extent to which it succeeds in accomplishing this task is always questionable. We cannot claim that the picture provided by today science - our current scientific image of the world - is absolutely correct, because the history of science itself shows us that any such statement is likely to be rejected by future generations. While it may be recognized that science purports to offer a correct description of the real world, the past experience should also prompt us to accept its claims sub condicione, and to view them as merely provisional.

42-56

Authors: Dr. (PhD) Ilda Erkoçi

While Edinburgh is a beautiful and interesting city to visit per se, its literature is an added value which plays a crucial role in marketing the capital city. The importance of literature in generating tourism has been highlighted by a number of studies. The opposite is true as well: tourism can also lead to literature. Edinburgh is probably one of the best examples in this respect. Many people go there to just visit the city but encounter literature in unexpected places. This paper is an autoethnographic account of a literary tour in Edinburgh. It looks at how this city makes use of its literary heritage and why it is a great model to follow. The author contends that while literary tourism is open to any book lover, still, some strategies are needed to promote literature and bring it to the attention of people in new and interesting ways. The success of Edinburgh as a literary city owes a lot to the interactive ways used by its authorities to showcase literature and keep people interested through direct and active engagement. The paper has been structured as a combination of experiential and analytic writing, with the former reflected through an evocative autoethnography and the latter as an analysis of that experience.

67-91

Authors: Doctoral Candidate Keren Shua

The current research discusses the ethical aspects that were currently not studied yet in the context of the teacher attrition phenomenon and its impact on school effectiveness, which is measured in this research by promoting achievements basing the assumption that teacher perception of ethical climate might explain teacher attrition behaviors, including leaving teaching (Rosenblatt & Shapira-Lishchinsky, 2017). This research has examined teacher perceptions of school ethical climate through three dimensions found to be relevant in the 21st-century era in the aspects of organizational climate in general and school climate in particular, caring ethical climate, law and code ethical climate, and instrumental ethical climate. For this purpose, quantitative research is based on the pioneer researchers Victor & Cullen’s (1987, 1988) questionnaire and self-report of teachers regarding teacher tendency to leave the teaching profession, and their perception of learner achievement promotion in the context of ethical climate in their school was used. To deepen and expand the understanding of teacher perceptions, qualitative research including in-depth interviews was also performed. The research population consisted of 223 teachers from elementary and junior high schools in Israel. The current research indicates a principal finding that expresses the influence and importance of a caring ethical climate in reducing attrition behaviors and teacher attrition intentions and promoting learner achievements. Moreover, it was found that law and code ethical climate is correlated with promoting student achievements, and therefore integrating these two ethical climate dimensions will be the foundation for a program for new and senior teacher preservation in the education system. The research findings are currently relevant since the education system in Israel faces a severe shortage of teachers due to increased teacher attrition of teaching.

103-116

Authors: Ma. Iulia Brigitta Szabo, Dr. (PhD) Mariana I. Balaci

This study focuses on IT employee retention, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Retaining and employing young IT professionals today is a challenging task for human resources employees. We believe that this is a topical and very relevant topic for the HR field as most companies are facing staff turnover, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also known that the IT sector is very dynamic and constantly evolving, companies need manpower and competitiveness among employers is high. In addition, a poor retention strategy can have a negative effect on the productivity and work quality of the IT department. And these are some good reasons for a company to invest in a retention strategy. Our research is qualitative in nature and we have sought to identify aspects of employee motivation and satisfaction with the benefits they receive from their employers. Understanding the real needs of IT employees was also one of the aims of this research. The results of the investigation indicated a strong relevance of retention means such as the salary, the team and the good relationship with colleagues, the working environment and the development opportunities available to employees within the company.

143-153

Authors: BSc. Catalina Elisa Dosa, Dr. (PhD) Ileana Simona Dabu

Rural area represents the population with a high work capacity, but with less employment opportunities than in urban areas, so in order to have a decent job 5 (five) needs are referred to: working conditions should be safe, both physically and mentally, people should have access to medical facilities, health, working hours should be ones in which you can rest and have time for family and compensation should be acceptable for the work done. The employment opportunities that people have differ depending on the environment they come from, so in rural areas the job opportunities are discrete, as it is the quality in work, both of them depending strongly on the area characteristics - whether it is developed or underdeveloped- and by its infrastructure, always considering that agriculture is most increased activity in these areas. The study aims to map and depict the occupational situation of people living in Romanian rural areas, coping with limited job opportunities, compared to those living in towns and cities, as well as how people in rural areas choose their jobs, how the labour market has influenced them to find a suitable job and where they can get or acquire the skills they need. As people in rural areas choose to migrate, the population is an ageing one and over time, villages will depopulate and the labour force and human resources will shrink.

176-205

Authors: P4rof.Dr. Agim Leka

The purpose of the research is to solve the paradox of religion integration in education, by the new balance between religion, philosophy and science, during the post communism transition. In the field of thinking, the process is the transition from ideology to integral thinking. It is realized through the re-evaluation of the topics of the integration of religion, transitology and integral though, education, inclusiveness, solidarity, new laicity and new secularity. In the philosophical sense, integration is the objective process of being developed. This is understood as a return to identity towards a universal being. In the context of the social being, the process realizes the opening and cooperative development of all mental, spiritual-religious, scientific, creative-artistic, economic, cultural, material and non-material political fields. It includes the individual, the community, and all institutions of social life. The path of integration development is the transitive movement in a spiral form. In Albania, with the fall of communism, freedom of religion was legalized according to the standards of European democracy. The rehabilitation of religious figures that had been condemned and persecuted by the totalitarian regime began. The post-communist transition brought profound changes in the field of faith and religion such as the new dimension in the relationship of society with religion, new and unfamiliar attitudes of believers to religion, new relations between the state and religious institutions, new relations between education and religion in public institutions, opening of religious schools and increasing the influence of religion through the media and religious literature. What is considered tolerance in Europe, in the Albanian case is respect. Albanians are the best model for religious tolerance (respect). There has never been a religious clash in Albania for any reason. Respect for the religious affiliation and religious belief of the other in the Albanian case is modeled as the guiding value of their identity and appears in everyday life as the acceptance of the other. For this reason, they are the best model of respect and acceptance of the other, regardless of religious affiliation. This is an ontological value, built over the centuries and continues to this day. Albanians have not converted, but have adapted to a religious belief for economic and survival reasons. Marriages with different religions and keeping two names (Christian and Muslim) are natural phenomena among Albanians. In Albania, there are in the family and tribe people with Christian and Muslim religions individuals with two names, Christian and Muslim: Kristo and Muhamed. Albanians have lived in peaceful symbiosis with the Slavs in the centuries of the latter’s influx into Albanian lands. They have also lived peacefully with other neighbors, Greeks or Romans. This is even though the neighbors have not always been peaceful with the Albanians.