PSYCHO-ONCOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY

Psycho-oncology is a branch of medicine which, combining psychiatry and oncology, studies the biological and psychological factors related to the onset and treatment of carcinoma. The struggle with this life-threatening disease requires an adaptation to a new life situation characterized by changed routines of everyday life and dynamics of personal relationships. The psycho-oncological approach is a multidisciplinary one, as modern medicine recognizes more and more the role of spirituality in the treatment and recovery from various pathological conditions. Spirituality is the adaptive capability of intelligent beings to retain the will for life in spite of adversities and awareness of the imminence of death. Faced with a challenge of malignant disease people are nevertheless able to react with positive personality changes, which leads them to a more meaningful and substantial life. The so-called posttraumatic growth is a feature which enables an individual to assume control over his own reactions to disease, which in turn can have a positive influence on the treatment outcome. An essential role in this process is played by the spiritual growth of an individual. Malignant disease can represent an opportunity for spiritual growth, a dimension often neglected by contemporary lifestyles. Religion, as an important constituent part of spirituality, can offer the believer a meaning of suffering and thus turn the disease into an opportunity for self-knowledge and development of a more mature spirituality. Christian spirituality can represent a path which helps an individual to cope with malignant disease. Modern medicine should be based on a multidisciplinary approach to the patient and encompass all the human dimensions (rational, emotional and spiritual), whereas treatment itself must be both personalized and participatory

Social Influences on Songbird Behavior: From Song Learning to Motion Coordination

Social animals learn during development how to integrate successfully into their group. How do social interactions combine to maintain group cohesion? We first review how social environments can influence the development of vocal learners, such as songbirds and humans (Chapter 1). To bypass the complexity of natural social interactions and gain experimental control, we developed Virtual Social Environments, surrounding the bird with videos of manipulated playbacks. This way we were able to design sensory and social scenarios and test how social zebra finches adjust their behavior (Chapters 2 & 3). A serious challenge is that the color output of a video monitor does not match the color vision of zebra finches. To minimize chromatic distortion, we eliminated all of the colors from the videos, except in the beak and cheeks where we superimposed colors that match the sensitivity of zebra finch photoreceptors (Chapter 2). Birds strongly preferred to watch these manipulated ‘bird appropriate’ videos. We also designed Virtual Social Environments for assessing how observing movement patterns might affect behavior in real-time (Chapter 3). We found that presenting birds with manipulated movement patterns of virtual males promptly affects the mobility of birds watching the videos: birds move more when virtual males increase their movements, and they decrease their movements and ‘cuddle’ next to virtual males that stop moving. These results suggest that individuals adjust their activity levels to the statistical patterns of observed conspecific movements, which can explain zebra finch group cohesion. Finally, we studied the song development process in the absence of social input to determine how intrinsic biases and external stimuli shape song from undifferentiated syllables into well-defined categorical signals of adult song (Chapter 4). Do juveniles learn the statistics of early sub-song to guide vocal development? We trained juvenile zebra finches with playbacks of their own, highly variable, developing song and showed that these self-tutored birds developed distinct syllable types (categories) as fast as birds that were trained with a categorical, adult song template. Therefore, the statistical structure of early input seems to have no bearing on the development of phonetic categories. Overall, our results uncover social forces that influence individual behaviors, from motion coordination to vocal development, which have implications for how group structures and vocal culture are maintained

Analiza održivog razvoja turističke destinacije

Zaštita životne sredine i održivi razvoj važni su za svaku kategoriju i razinu strategija upravljanja razvojem. Uravnotežen razvoj turizma najpotrebniji je destinacijama s već pokazanim problemima ekonomske i socio-kulturne nestabilnosti “masovnoga” turizma. Nedostatak jasnih strategija i vizija razvitka turizma na destinacijama izvanrednih vrednota, ugrozio bi jedno od temeljnih gospodarstava Hrvatske. Rad analizira primjer Dubrovnika, grada UNESCO-ve baštine i pokazuje koliko su postulati održivog turizama i upravljanja destinacijom prepoznati i primijenjeni, u skladu s relevantnim dokumentima “Agende 21”. Time se temelji hipotetički problem kako sačuvati prirodnu i tradicijsku baštinu uz poticanje spektra suvremenog turizma na agendama održivog razvoja destinacije. Povijesna jezgra grada visoko je vrednovan resurs, ali do danas nije adekvatno njime upravljano, što potvrđuju i sama skorašnja upozorenja UNESCO-a, i sve češći prosvjedi građana i kulturne elite. Neučinkovit upravljački model može biti prijetnja iskazana u kaotičnom monokulturnom i monosektorskom razvoju. Nedostatak infrastrukture i loše organizirano lokalno prometovanje, postavljaju upitan dugoročno održiv trend tržišne pozicije i visokog brendiranja vrednota destinacije

Posuđenice i lažni parovi: hrvatski, talijanski i jezično posredovanje

Ova knjiga obuhvaća studije o posuđenicama i lažnim parovima, poglavito hrvatsko-talijanskim, koji se vrlo često objašnjavaju jezičnim dodirima, posredovanjem i usporedbom s drugim jezicima. Istraživanje lažnih parova na poseban način otkriva dinamiku leksičkih promjena, od izrazne i značenjske divergencije do manje ili veće konvergencije, kojoj teže međujezični utjecaji. Riječ je o razrađenim inačicama radova, tiskanih na hrvatskom, talijanskom ili engleskom jeziku, koji su nastali na temelju izlaganja na međunarodnim znanstvenim skupovima u Hrvatskoj, Njemačkoj, Češkoj i Italiji.Ova knjiga obuhvaća studije o posuđenicama i lažnim parovima, poglavito hrvatsko-talijanskim, koji se vrlo često objašnjavaju jezičnim dodirima, posredovanjem i usporedbom s drugim jezicima. Istraživanje lažnih parova na poseban način otkriva dinamiku leksičkih promjena, od izrazne i značenjske divergencije do manje ili veće konvergencije, kojoj teže međujezični utjecaji. Riječ je o razrađenim inačicama radova, tiskanih na hrvatskom, talijanskom ili engleskom jeziku, koji su nastali na temelju izlaganja na međunarodnim znanstvenim skupovima u Hrvatskoj, Njemačkoj, Češkoj i Italiji

Posuđenice i lažni parovi: hrvatski, talijanski i jezično posredovanje

Ova knjiga obuhvaća studije o posuđenicama i lažnim parovima, poglavito hrvatsko-talijanskim, koji se vrlo često objašnjavaju jezičnim dodirima, posredovanjem i usporedbom s drugim jezicima. Istraživanje lažnih parova na poseban način otkriva dinamiku leksičkih promjena, od izrazne i značenjske divergencije do manje ili veće konvergencije, kojoj teže međujezični utjecaji. Riječ je o razrađenim inačicama radova, tiskanih na hrvatskom, talijanskom ili engleskom jeziku, koji su nastali na temelju izlaganja na međunarodnim znanstvenim skupovima u Hrvatskoj, Njemačkoj, Češkoj i Italiji.Ova knjiga obuhvaća studije o posuđenicama i lažnim parovima, poglavito hrvatsko-talijanskim, koji se vrlo često objašnjavaju jezičnim dodirima, posredovanjem i usporedbom s drugim jezicima. Istraživanje lažnih parova na poseban način otkriva dinamiku leksičkih promjena, od izrazne i značenjske divergencije do manje ili veće konvergencije, kojoj teže međujezični utjecaji. Riječ je o razrađenim inačicama radova, tiskanih na hrvatskom, talijanskom ili engleskom jeziku, koji su nastali na temelju izlaganja na međunarodnim znanstvenim skupovima u Hrvatskoj, Njemačkoj, Češkoj i Italiji

POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER AND DEPRESSION AS COMORBID DISORDERS

Introduction: Depression is the most frequent disorder of today. It is unique for the fact that it can become a comorbid illness with almost any other psychiatric disorder. Premorbid depression is also a risk factor for the development of PTSD, while at the same time traumatic experience is a risk factor for the development of depression. These facts show us that a close connection between these two diagnostic entities exists. Aim of this research was to analyze the levels of depressiveness in patients that were hospitalized and patients that were treated in the Day hospital. Also, to establish the connection of age, time spent in combat (war), length of treatment and number of hospitalizations with the results from the Beck’s depression inventory. Subjects and methods: Participants were divided into two groups, 36 patients that were treated for PTSD in a hospital setting and 64 patients that were treated in the Day hospital. Participants completed Beck’s self-evaluation inventory for depression, as it assesses the degree of depression. Results: Two groups did not differ regarding to age, time spent in combat (war), the length of treatment and level of depressiveness assessed by Beck’s depression inventory. Score on Beck’s depression inventory was significantly positively correlated with the age of participants and the number of hospitalizations. Older participants and participants that were hospitalized more often score higher on Beck’s depression inventory. Conclusion: Results show that there is no difference between the two groups of participants of differing levels of depressiveness, but depression most often presents as severe depression in both groups of participants. Older participants and participants that were hospitalized more often are more depressed. This research points to the fact that it is necessary to treat PTSD and depression at the same time, because parallel treatment of these comorbid disorders leads to a decrease of the rate of suicide, due to the fact that depression is often the leading cause of suicide