VARIA XXXI

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Tatiana Žiaková - Dušan Šlosár

The last decade marks not only the average life expectancy increase in healthy population, but also life expectancy increase in group of people with intellectual disorders/disabilities. Due to their diagnosis that defines and classifies them into specific categories, people with intellectual disability are finding themselves in a constant confrontation with obstacles negatively affecting the saturation of their existential needs. It creates mostly educational, social, cultural, psycho-social and economical disadvantage in the context of their lives. Consequently, their active potential is weakened, making it unable for them to influence public affairs in society from a position of an adult or elderly citizen. Building up on this condition, the focus of this monograph is on understanding and explanation of prevailing concept of social inclusion and related concepts of social exclusion. These concepts influence the way we tend to define and think about the character of society, as such.

Simultaneously, we are examining that the quality of coexistence between dominant population and people with intellectual disabilities is dependent on the development of attitudes and opinions of major population towards this specific minority. These attitudes reflect the extent of social tolerance and at the same time serve as a quantification of moral values and equity in the society, whether it concerns any type of small everyday help or professional and institutionalised long-term support.

This monograph focuses on presenting professional care for people with mental disability in form of social services as a dominant type of support in our local environment. We show that the quality of social services inevitably depends on degree of professional competences social workers possess. The significance of professional competences social workers are capable of using is reflected in the degree of the competence and adequacy of their performance. The primary aim, in relation to which professional competences should be accustomed, is to enhance meaningfulness and dignity in life of mentally disabled receivers of the social services.

Competences of social workers are a dynamic phenomenon that modifies along the development of society and also with the frequently altering needs of people with intellectual disability as receivers of the social service. For this reason we designed the presented research to reflect our goal to reappraise the scope of professional competences and define the required professional functions of social workers working with people with intellectual disability.

This monograph is dedicated not only to professionals working with this group of people but also aims at answering basic questions to practical issues that families with a intellectualy disabled member are coming into contact with.

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Magdaléna Hovanová

The university textbook offers a view of the family in social contexts. It deals with the basic characteristics of the family, the life cycle of the family from the choice of partner, through the arrival of children in the family to the end of the family. During its duration, the family performs various functions. A functional family is ideal for a harmonious relationship between partners and a suitable environment for raising children.

However, a number of factors enter the life of the family, which directly or indirectly affect the performance of these functions and can cause various disorders. It is here that the task of social work is to offer help to families to cope with their big and small problems. A specific feature of social work is the focus on the whole and a comprehensive assessment of the family, where it is necessary to take into account both the client's point of view and the aspect of the environment in which he lives and which constantly affects him. Therefore, the university textbook offers procedures for social work with the family, from the assessment of the life situation, through the plan of work with the family to social intervention.

The university textbook is intended for students of social work, who have the opportunity to practice complex issues within the assessment of the case through the enclosed case studies.

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Margita Mesárošová - Miroslava Köverová - Soňa Lovašová

Intervention Program for Supporting Self-Care in Helping Professions: "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" The intervention program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" was developed as part of the research project APVV14-0921, "Self-Care as a Factor in Coping with the Negative Consequences of Engaging in Helping Professions." Its uniqueness lies in being created based on specific research outputs from the program's authors and project.

In the first chapter, the authors offer insights into the preparation of the intervention program, justifying its theoretical foundations, methods, and specifics of the program participants. They also provide an overview of research on the effectiveness of various intervention programs aimed at reducing the negative consequences of helping and enhancing self-care and other positive effects of engaging in helping professions. Subsequent chapters focus on a detailed analysis and evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?" and its comparison with the effectiveness of other programs, which were differently focused, targeted at different populations of helping professionals, and had different theoretical and practical orientations and foundations. Most of these studies demonstrated positive changes only in isolated cases, due to various methodological shortcomings often related to practical application.

What differentiates the intervention program presented in this monograph is the participation of helping professionals actively practicing in the social field, unlike most intervention programs compiled and validated for students of these professions. The student population, being more accessible to researchers, allows for better methodology, including a larger number of participants, as well as experimental manipulation and group balancing. In the case of participants in the validation of the program "How Do I Take Care of Myself?", it involved practitioners who are engaged in the daily work process and completed training during their work breaks, which placed high demands on balancing their work and personal tasks. We believe that the effects we discovered during the validation of the effectiveness of the presented intervention program were not always clearly mathematically graspable but were evident from individual feedback.

We present the text of this monograph to the professional public with the aim of highlighting the benefits, limitations of the intervention program, as well as inspiring researchers and practitioners to further work in this area.

Authors

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Lukáš Katriňák (ed.)

Meeting of Young Historians VII.

Proceedings of contributions from the 7th scientific conference of young historians, organized by the Department of History at the Faculty of Arts of UPJŠ in Košice,

European Network Remembrance and Solidarity,

Centre of Social and Psychological Sciences SAS,

Historical Institute SAS,

and the Slovak Historical Society at SAS, held on October 25, 2017 in Košice.

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Stanislav Hvozdík 

Obdobie staršej dospelosti predstavuje dôležitú ľudskú skúsenosť. Poradenstvo môže prispieť k tomu, aby to bola formatívna a osobnosť rozvíjajúca skúsenosť. Poradenstvo chápeme ako takú aplikáciu osobnosti do oblasti jej konania, ktorá rozvíja jej bytie. Vychádzame z aplikácie vývinu do poradenstva a naväzujeme na prácu Úvod do poradenskej psychológie, ktorá bola publikovaná skôr. V týchto učebných textoch sme rozpracovali podrobnejšie kapitolu, poradenstvo starším dospelým. Publikovaná práca môže prispieť k porozumeniu a podpore tohto dôležitého obdobia v živote človeka.

Autor

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Vladimír Leško - Pavol Tholt (eds.)

Proceedings of the Third International Philosophical Conference Hegel in the Contexts of Heidegger's and Patoček's Philosophy, held on 1-2 October 2009.

The Philosophical Proceedings is a presentation of the results of the work of the research teams of the research projects VEGA 1/0650/08 - Heidegger and the History of Philosophy and VEGA 1/4679/07 - Jan Patočka's Asubjective Phenomenology and the History of Philosophy solved at the Department of Philosophy and the History of Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Applied Sciences in Košice.

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Zuzana Kolaříková - Helena Petruňová - Renáta Timková

English in the Academic Environment is intended primarily for those interested in improving their academic English and is primarily designed to fulfill the needs of university students and teachers who use English in their studies, in their work activities, and in their communication with foreign colleagues and professionals.

The publication offers selected phrases and sentence structures from the field of academic English, gives practical examples of the use of nominal, verbal and prepositional phrases, free and established collocations, idiomatic expressions, including translations of some selected phrases. It also highlights some common mistakes in the use of English in an academic environment, which are a manifestation of incorrect or insufficiently acquired linguistic resources and, last but not least, a consequence of the linguistic influence of Slovak.

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Zuzana Buráková

The English language study materials are intended for students of geography and general ecology at the Faculty of Science of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University. Their aim is to broaden communicative language competencies at an intermediate level of English proficiency, with an emphasis on the students’ field of study.

The individual chapters are based on the need for specialization within the various natural science disciplines and on preparing students to present their academic results not only at home, but also abroad. The study material contains a variety of texts, quizzes, exercises, maps, etc., which further illustrate the issues relevant to the field.

This material is intended to serve as a foundation for the future creation of even more precise materials needed for teaching specialized foreign language courses.

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Ladislav Lovaš - Katarína Vasková (eds.)

Proceedings from the International Conference "Work and Organizational Psychology 2012"

On May 23-24, 2012, the twelfth annual international conference "Work and Organizational Psychology 2012" was held in the historic premises of P.J. Šafárik University in Košice. The continuous series of conferences dedicated to work and organizational psychology began in 1999 (the first was titled "Work Psychology - Theory and Practice" and was held in Zlatá Idka). Since 2009, it has alternated between the Czech and Slovak Republics.

The conference was organized by the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Arts at P.J. Šafárik University in Košice. Co-organizers of the event were the Institute of Social Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Applied Psychology of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at Comenius University in Bratislava, and the Institute for VV and VTOS in Košice. Within the traditional focus of the conference, which is basic and applied research in the field of work psychology, a total of 37 contributions were presented (25 papers and 12 posters).

A substantial part of the plenary presentations, papers, and posters forms the content of this proceedings.

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Juraj Schenk et al.

The scientific journal Sociálne a politické analýzy (Social and Political Analyses) serves as an interactive electronic platform for communication and the presentation (publication) of experts and their work in the fields of basic and applied research and analyses within sociological, psychological, political, and methodological contexts. It is a medium focused on intensively supporting research activities and analyses within an interdisciplinary framework, facilitating the exchange of experiences, fostering collaboration, and revitalizing the production of scientific work in this area.

The publication section of the journal offers space for works such as:

- Original sociological, psychological, and political studies and analyses in any areas of social life

- Methodological studies

- Research reports

- Studies from qualification theses Research and analysis projects

- Reviews

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Renáta Gregová

This textbook is designated for the students of translation and interpreting study programmes. The increase of linguistic competence in foreign language, but also in mother tongue is an inevitable part of the preparation of translators and interpreters. The low linguistic competence is often one of the reasons of the unsatisfactory quality of translation. The main aim of this book is to provide the material for the consolidation of linguistic terminology and for the improvement of oral and written utterances in the Slovak language.

Consequently, the textbook encompasses the theoretical and the practical part. The theoretical part summarizes the basic knowledge of language levels. In the practical part, there is the brief description of the selected orthoepic, morphological, syntactic, lexical and stylistic norms of the standard Slovak with the reference to the relevant literature offering deeper analysis of the given problem. Then practical exercises verifying the mastering of linguistic norms follow. At the end of the book, there is the little Slovak-English dictionary of the selected linguistic terms that may help students in their study of the English linguistics.

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Lukáš Šutor

Currently, the eighth issue of the Doctoral Miscellanea consists of thirteen contributions from four study programs. The publication of these contributions is traditionally associated with the Autumn School for Doctoral Students at the Faculty of Arts of UPJŠ in Košice, where third-cycle students have the opportunity to first try out the conference format of presenting their research results and subsequently expand them into full studies.

Unlike last year, when the proceedings were non-conference due to the pandemic situation, we consider the return to plenary dialogue beneficial. A distinctive feature of our proceedings is its multidisciplinary nature, encompassing humanities and social science fields. Despite this diversity, interesting connections often emerge among the topics, relating to generational reassessments of regularly recurring issues as well as research on highly current phenomena.

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Vladimír Leško - Milovan Ješič - Pavol Tholt

The philosophical work of the most significant Czech philosopher of the 20th century, Jan Patočka (1907–1977), stands out for its unique intellectual originality.

Even at the time of its creation, it significantly transcended the narrow boundaries of the contemporary Czechoslovak spiritual space and uniquely connected our country with the most advanced philosophical teachings of Western thought, in which Husserl's phenomenology and Heidegger's fundamental ontology played a dominant role. Certainly, it would be a great mistake to reduce the decisive position of Patočka's philosophical work merely to the reception and critical-creative elaboration of Husserl's and Heidegger's philosophy.

In this context, we cannot overlook the decisive contribution of Eugen Fink, who introduced Patočka to the intricacies of Husserl's and Heidegger's philosophy. Both thinkers then continued in a lifelong creative philosophical dialogue. However, it is also necessary to mention Patočka's intense interest in the works of Scheler, Ingarden, Landgrebe, as well as Sartre and others.

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Milan Olejník

The history of ancient Greece and Rome represents the culmination of achievements made by ancient civilizations in political, economic, and social spheres, as well as in understanding humanity and the world, and in art. The Greeks were the first in human history to establish a system where a certain part of society—full-fledged citizens—had the opportunity to freely participate in political decisions. They could vote, be elected to offices within the political system, and discuss issues affecting community life.

A high level of education and the pursuit of rational explanations for natural phenomena enabled the Greeks to reach a level of knowledge that European nations only achieved in the modern era. Greek accomplishments in sculpture, architecture, and literature remain an inspiration to this day.

Despite a gap of more than two millennia, their thinking and actions are relatable; their victories and defeats resonate with us, offering lessons even today.

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Eva Žiaková - Lucia Tóthová et al.

The scientific monograph was developed within the framework of the grant project Vega 1/0230/15 entitled "Social and Personality Characteristics of Oncological Ill Men and Women as one of the most important factors of sociotherapy with this group of men and women clients", with the aim of finding some common personal characteristics oncological men and women patients, to focus on choosing their coping strategies that can be significant in terms of oncological disease as well as suggesting ways and means of using the basic methods of sociotherapy as one of the most important methods of social work in working with this group of men and women clients, from the knowledge of their personal and social characteristics.

It is also a starting point for other necessary steps, namely to link the results of research to prax the themselves oncologists to hospitals, their outpatient clinics and patients as well as to support the merit of developing the sociooncology, a specific science discipline.

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