Impairment of spatial memory, including an inability to recall previous locations and navigate the world, is often one of the first signs of functional disability on the road to cognitive impairment. While there are many screening and diagnostic tools which attempt to measure spatial memory ability, they are often not representative of real-life situations and can therefore lack applicability. One potential solution to this problem involves the use of virtual reality, which immerses individuals in a virtually-simulated environment, allowing for scenarios (...) more representative of real-life without any of the associated risks. Here, we review the evidence surrounding the use of VR for the screening and diagnosis of spatial memory impairments, including potential limitations and how it compares to standard neuropsychological tests. We will also discuss the evidence regarding the potential use of VR in the rehabilitation of spatial memory deficits, which has not been well studied, but which could be game-changing if proven successful. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que l'inconscient? À cette question, de nombreuses disciplines, de la psychanalyse aux neurosciences, ont proposé une réponse - toujours frustrante. Peut-être cet échec reposait-il sur le fait que l'inconscient a trop longtemps été considéré comme une chose à observer de loin, plutôt que comme un paysage à arpenter, à explorer. S'entourant d'une pléiade d'artistes, de cinéastes et d'écrivains, de Christopher Nolan à Mikhaïl Boulgakov, de Pierre Huygue à Stanley Kubrick, de Michel Houellebecq à Liv Strômquist, Sinziana Ravini propose (...) ici une traversée de l'inconscient en compagnie de ceux qui ont choisi de ne pas chercher à le circonscrire, mais d'en approfondir les chemins. À sa suite, on découvrira un monde où les dimensions les plus narcissiques de l'inconscient se confondent avec les plus collectives - un monde où la vie intime des individus se fait l'écho de celle de la réalité elle-même. Dans un va-et-vient méditatif, avec une approche nouvelle et sensible, Sinziana Ravini cherche moins à définir les règles de compréhension de notre vie psychique qu'à poser les questions susceptibles de nous aider à poursuivre le voyage - à devenir enfin, comme les artistes eux-mêmes, les psychonautes de notre présent."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In Romania, the Baptist denomination includes, according to the 2002 census, about 130,000 believers, subsequent to the Pentecostal denomination. Areas having a large number of followers are Banat and some parts of Transylvania; besides these, there can be added large urban areas such as Bucharest, Timişoara, Constanţa, Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, and Arad. In terms of ethnicity, Romanians represent the majority, followed by the Hungarians (Hungarian Baptist Convention). One of the smallest minorities in Romania, that is the Czechs, also provides a number (...) of believers, in the village of Sfînta Elena (Coronini Township, Caraş-Severin County) being the only Czech Baptist community in our country. Here, besides Catholics, a Baptist community is to be found, twice as small and of fairly recent origin. In the following, we intend to outline its image, based on field observations and interviews carried out between 2005-2010 (All of these have been materialised in our book, Istorie şi memorie în comunităţile cehilor din Clisura Dunării). We paid a particular interest in the neo-Protestant group, in order to identify means of building the image of another group with a different faith, considering the double minority, ethnic and religious status. Also, we tried to capture the ratio of forces between two different faith groups that were facing the same economic and social problems, problems that have caused the depopulation of villages, by massive migration of people to the Czech Republic. (shrink)

After the fall of the communist regime in Romania, in the name of their shared religious faith, a series of religious NGOs from Turkey and other Islamic countries expressed their readiness to support the members of the two communities in their search for their lost religious identity after the religious constraints enforced by the communist regime had been lifted in 1989. The fieldwork undertaken as part of a research project on the two historical Muslim communities in Dobruja, the Turks and (...) the Tatars, has shown the involvement of some religious organizations in the life of these ethnic groups. The present study analyzes the feedback on the actions of the aforementioned organizations as they are depicted in oral testimonies recorded in 2013 and 2014 and in written texts. The aim of this paper is the description of the interactions between the old Muslim community of Dobruja and their co-believers who volunteered to support them through religious education and social work directed at the disadvantaged groups. Discussing their religious beliefs caused the individuals we interviewed to reflect on another version of Islam, unknown to them before 1990 and promoted today by those who read the Quran literally and follow it to the letter. (shrink)

Annotation Based on the research he undertook in rare book collections housed in Scotland, the United States, Finland, Iceland, Holland, Germany and Austria, the author presents a systematic history of cannabalism as reflected in the mirror of philosophy.

The current research is based on Senninger’s Learning Zone Model applied to the tourists’ comfort zone. This model was created in 2000 and it proved to be useful in many applied areas: Psychology, Sociology, Marketing and Management. This modes is a behavioral one and shows how a person can justify his action based on previous tested experiences or dares to step beyond in fear, learn or growth zone. Our research is extending the existent area of expertise to tourism. We aimed (...) at exploring whether the tourists’ apprehension toward choosing their next destination from a comfort zone perspective or rather from the other zones’ perspectives such as fear, learning or growth. To meet this purpose we conducted a mixed method: firstly a qualitative one, an in-depth interview based on Delphi method with 10 tourism specialists and secondly an online survey on 208 Generation Z tourists. The interviews were meant to help developing a 20 items scale to measure from which of the 4 zones are the respondents making the choice of the future travel destination. Our conclusions show that Gen Z tourists display behaviors that can be associated with learning or growth zones rather than the comfort zone. This is relevant when choosing the next travel destination, because our findings could bring about a new approach to promoting tourist destinations as part of various products. As a result, a large range of managerial tools can better adapt the promotion messages to the target market from a new psychological perspective. (shrink)

Scholars of stakeholder management have long grappled with the question of how to communicate with stakeholders to enhance cooperation and reduce conflict. We build on insights from the literature on stakeholder dialog to highlight the importance of four elements of firm–stakeholder dialog processes: timing, valence, richness, and topicality of firms’ responses to stakeholder engagements. We demonstrate a link between these elements of the firm–stakeholder dialog process and changes in stakeholder cooperation or conflict with the firm, as well as contingent tradeoffs (...) among them. Specifically, we show that the relative importance of these elements is contingent upon stakeholder type and status. Government actors prioritize richness and topicality over timeliness and valence. Economic actors, by contrast, prioritize timeliness and valence. Civil society stakeholders prioritize timeliness, valence, and topicality over richness. Low-status actors across sectors deprioritize topicality and richness while high-status actors demand attentiveness to all four elements. (shrink)