Article
Russian norms for 500 general-knowledge questions
General knowledge varies from one country to another; therefore, the mere translation of knowledge-based experimental tools from one language to another is usually not enough. This is one of the conclusions that can be extracted from the results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), a measure of the knowledge achieved by 15-year-olds. Over the years, this periodic measure has reflected clear differences between countries in different areas of knowledge. The PISA program assesses mathematics, sciences, and reading, designed as an indicator of “how well the students master key subjects in order to be prepared for real-life situations in the adult world” (PISA, 2019). An example of a question used in the PISA test is: “As a meteoroid approaches Earth and its atmosphere, it speeds up. Why does this happen?: (1) The meteoroid is pulled in by the 91 rotation of Earth; (2) The meteoroid is pushed by the light of the Sun; (3) The meteoroid is attracted to the mass of Earth; (4) The meteoroid is repelled by the vacuum of space.” The PISA program was first conducted in 2000 and despite the educational changes implemented by each government to increase student competitiveness, significant differences between countries remain. These and similar data suggest that general knowledge varies from country to country owing, among others, to the variety of educational practices in combination with access to the information, cultural practices, etc.
In the modern globalized world almost all the transactions involve a foreign element which inevitably leads to the disputes arising in a foreign country. This is old news for Russian citizens and companies who find themselves more often than ever in the middle of litigation abroad. However, lawyers are well aware that winning a lawsuit is not the end – seeking recognition and enforcement of the judgment is the next step. Enforcing judgments in Russia is a tricky business, the one that many are not ready to encounter. Although Russia is a party of about thirty agreements on mutual recognition of the foreign judgments, there are no such agreements with major European countries or America. In such cases, the principles of comity and reciprocity come into play. Even if there is a legal basis for recognition, then when is the court allowed not to recognize or enforce it? Russian foreign policy does reflect the need for establishing a new level of connection with the countries of the world community by enhancing economic, trade and cultural relations. As a prerequisite for this though, Russian legislation must adequately protect the rights and legitimate interests of foreign partners. Certainty of a result is what attracts businessmen, especially foreign investors. Therefore, the law on recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments (hereinafter - REFJ) must lead to a stable and predictable outcome. This paper is dedicated to analysis of the current Russian legislation, judicial decisions on REFG as well as writings of scholars on the existing problems obstacles and problems. Moreover, here will be discussed the peculiarities of the law of the United States of America on the recognition and enforcement of foreign-country judgments.
In his Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen compares the two basic approaches to evaluating institutions, transcendental institutionalism and realization-focused comparisons. Referring to Adam Smith's Impartial Spectator, he argues in favor of the latter and proposes the principle of open impartiality. However, this cannot solve the tension between universalism and contextualization of values that Sen has inherited from Smith. Based on recent Hegel scholarship, we argue that some of the difficulties can be resolved, considering the role Smith played in the development of Hegel's thinking. Hegel's concept of recognition plays an essential role in establishing the possibility of impartiality both on the level of consciousness and on the level of institutional intersubjectivity. Hegel's critique of Kant's formalist ethics (also considered as transcendental institutionalism by Sen) and his analysis of the civil society in the Philosophy of Right, especially his focus on associations and Estates, can serve as a model for making Sen's focus on public discourse theoretically more concise and pragmatically feasible. Hegel shows that universalistic attitudes can only emerge in specific institutional contexts.
Some classical and contemporary treatments of justice in sociology, interrelations of the concepts of social justice, on the one hand, and of legitimacy, recognition, majority and minority, on the other hand.
References to the problem of the End of History are not infrequent in various political, cultural and philosophic discussions. This notion is often postulated as something quite apparent or as something of great influence and which nevertheless both are attemted to be refuted. The purpose of the paper is to follow philosophic roots of this conception and observe conditions and stages in its development.
The distractive effects on attentional task performance in different paradigms are analyzed in this paper. I demonstrate how distractors may negatively affect (interference effect), positively (redundancy effect) or neutrally (null effect). Distractor effects described in literature are classified in accordance with their hypothetical source. The general rule of the theory is also introduced. It contains the formal prediction of the particular distractor effect, based on entropy and redundancy measures from the mathematical theory of communication (Shannon, 1948). Single- vs dual-process frameworks are considered for hypothetical mechanisms which underpin the distractor effects. Distractor profiles (DPs) are also introduced for the formalization and simple visualization of experimental data concerning the distractor effects. Typical shapes of DPs and their interpretations are discussed with examples from three frequently cited experiments. Finally, the paper introduces hierarchical hypothesis that states the level-fashion modulating interrelations between distractor effects of different classes.
This article describes the expierence of studying factors influencing the social well-being of educational migrants as mesured by means of a psychological well-being scale (A. Perrudet-Badoux, G.A. Mendelsohn, J.Chiche, 1988) previously adapted for Russian by M.V. Sokolova. A statistical analysis of the scale's reliability is performed. Trends in dynamics of subjective well-being are indentified on the basis the correlations analysis between the condbtbions of adaptation and its success rate, and potential mechanisms for developing subjective well-being among student migrants living in student hostels are described. Particular attention is paid to commuting as a factor of adaptation.