Phenomenological model of nonequilibrium solidification

The maximum entropy production principle is used as a foundation for the nonequilibrium solidification theory. Based on this principle, a new simple model of dendrite solidification is proposed. The model predicts the explicit dependency of a dendrite's rate and tip size on supercooling. The obtained results are devoid of the contradictions of the previous models and show quantitative agreement with the recent experimental data for the SCN dendrite. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Critical thinking as a premise for the intercultural competence development

The intercultural orientation of education at the present stage is dictated by the objective conditions of the socio-economic and political context of the current century. Intercultural communicative competence is one of the main aspects of professional competence of a specialist. The intercultural orientation of language education is embodied in the objectives of the modern stage of development of the theory of teaching foreign languages. Language today is considered as a special tool for creating and interpreting the “image of the world”, which provides the opportunity to “penetrate” into world culture, as well as the individual’s awareness of their national and cultural identity, which in turn contributes to the formation and socialization of the student’s personality. Such an understanding of the language, as well as the specificity of intercultural communication leads to the need to consider intercultural interaction from the perspective of mental processes. It is thinking that, being the highest stage of human knowledge, allows one to gain knowledge about such objects, properties and relations of the surrounding world that cannot be directly perceived through sensory perception. Thinking is an integral part and a special object of self-consciousness of a person, the structure of which includes understanding oneself as a subject of thinking, differentiation of “one's own” and “other’s” thoughts, awareness of an unresolved problem as one’s own, awareness of one’s attitude to the problem. Critical thinking involves performing certain mental operations along with affective personality parameters. An analysis of intercultural communication from the perspective of cognitive personality parameters allows us to conclude that these parameters correlate with cognitive processes that form the essence of critical thinking and state the need for their interconnected development in the process of forming students' intercultural competence

The Methodology of Intercultural Competence Development on the Basis of a Cognitive Style-inclusive Approach

AbstractThe author's view of the problem consists in the integration of cognitive, learner-centered and intercultural approaches to teaching intercultural communication. The paper shows that cognitive style is involved in the picture of the world's formation. The analysis of the intercultural communication phenomenon from the position of cognitive science reveals that one of the most essential conditions for effective intercultural communication is the cognitive readiness for intercultural communication that comprises of cognitive and communicative abilities to participate in the intercultural dialogue and can be improved by the development of a wider range of cognitive strategies utilized by a person in the learning process

Impact of IT on management and humans in modern conditions

The introduction of IT changes the organizational structure and all the elements of management processes, particularly the way we manage organizations. The problem is the fact that information technology is not adequately implemented in all the parts of the business process. Specifically, it is applied to the operatively executive, administrative, accounting jobs, archiving, retrieval and selection of data for planning and analysis, and its implementation is lagging behind in leadership and management. This paper aims to highlight the impact of IT on the management process, i.e. on people as the most valuable potential of each organization

Periodontitis in HIV patients

The article presents the study of formation mechanisms and periodontitis course in patients with subclinical stage of HIV-infection. The examination of 45 patients has enabled the division of patients into three basic groups: patients with periodontitis and HIV-infection; patients with periodontitis; and HIV patients without periodontitis. It has been determined that the patients with periodontitis and subclinical HIV-infection have developed local inflammatory reaction with infection, activation of anti-inflammatory cytokines in parodontal recess fluid. It has been proved that the causative factor of frequent and durable relapses in parodontal pathology with clinical HIV-infection was the development of pathologic process with endotoxicosis syndrome and imbalance of lipid peroxidation and antioxidant syste