Roman Catholicism in Ukraine: The Contemporary Situation, Social Acceptance, and Social Service

This article investigates the historical peculiarities of the formation and specificity of the current stage of development of Catholicism in Ukraine. It considers the spiritual, socio-cultural, economic, and political prerequisites for the resumption of the activity of the Roman Catholic Church during the revival of Ukraine\u27s independence in the 1990s. A quantitative comparison of dioceses since the end of the last century has been undertaken and their patterns of growth have been identified. The main achievements of the largest Catholic churches in the country since Ukrainian independence have consisted in building its ecclesiastical structures and expanding its community networks and active social service. This has resulted in a positive trend of increasing awareness and confidence among the Ukrainian citizens in Catholic institutions, their leaders, and Catholicism in general. Various aspects of the “Vatican\u27s Eastern Policy” and its implications for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church are also examined, as well as problems and prospects for further integration of the Roman Catholic identity into the spiritual space of Ukrainian society. The main contours of the institutional Catholic response to the current crisis situations in Ukrainian society are outlined, including the war in the East of the country, family problems, poverty, existence of socially vulnerable groups of people, despair, and so forth

Temperature dependence of coherent oscillations in Josephson phase qubits

We experimentally investigate the temperature dependence of Rabi oscillations and Ramsey fringes in superconducting phase qubits driven by microwave pulses. In a wide range of temperatures, we find that both the decay time and the amplitude of these coherent oscillations remain nearly unaffected by thermal fluctuations. The oscillations are observed well above the crossover temperature from thermally activated escape to quantum tunneling for undriven qubits. In the two-level limit, coherent qubit response rapidly vanishes as soon as the energy of thermal fluctuations kT becomes larger than the energy level spacing of the qubit. Our observations shed new light on the origin of decoherence in superconducting qubits. The experimental data suggest that, without degrading already achieved coherence times, phase qubits can be operated at temperatures much higher than those reported till now.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Фізична модель трьохкоординатного технологічного комплексу на базі СО2-Laser

В статье рассматривается физическая модель высокопроизводительного лазерного технологического комплекса (ЛТК) на основе CO2 –Laser SM-1200. У статті розглядаєтся фізична модель високопродуктивного лазерного технологічного комплекса (ЛТК) на основі CO2 –Laser SM-1200. In this article a physical model of a high-performance laser technological complex (LTC) on the basis of CO2-Laser SM-1200 is considered

Cпособности к усвоению иностранного языка как психологическая проблема

Представлены компоненты лингвистических способностей – фонематический слух, симультанность слухового, зрительного и кинестетического восприятия; лингвистические обобщения, семантизация, лингвистический анализ, синтез, абстрагирование и конкретизация; вербальная память, синтагматические ассоциации; вероятностное прогнозирование – и соотнесены с механизмами усвоения иностранного языка – восприятием фонем, слов и фраз, пониманием, запоминанием, опережающим отражением.Разработка и описание модели взаимосвязей компонентов способностей к усвоению иностранного языка с механизмами процесса усвоения иностранного языка

How Christians of the First Centuries Experienced Epidemics

The article examines the ethical responses of the Christian communities of the first centuries to the challenges of the Antonine Plague and the Plague of Cyprian. During these times, the institutionalization and development of the Christian church took place, and thus the strategies of its social service and behavior in the conditions of acute social crises and trials were developed. Already during the first epidemics, the Christian communities showed a radically different attitude to the sick and sufferers than was accepted in the society of that time. This attitude was based on Christian love and charity, self-sacrifice and service to others. The Christian communities offered unique examples of attitudes to the value of human life, its meaning, as well as to death and the culture of dying. Such behavior has become an impressive testimony to the viability and truthfulness of the Christian religion. This distinguished Christianity among other religions of the time, attracted people’s attention and became one of the factors in the significant growth of its adherents. Our hypothesis is that it was at that time that important patterns of the Church’s response to the challenges of rapidly spreading infectious diseases were developed. Understanding these patterns clarifies not only the interaction of religion and medicine today, but also the essence of Christianity

Enhanced Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling in Bi2_2Sr2_2CaCu2_2O8+δ_{8+\delta} Intrinsic Josephson Junction Stacks

We have investigated macroscopic quantum tunneling in Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$ intrinsic Josephson junctions at millikelvin temperatures using microwave irradiation. Measurements show that the escape rate for uniformly switching stacks of N junctions is about $N^2$ times higher than that of a single junction having the same plasma frequency. We argue that this gigantic enhancement of macroscopic quantum tunneling rate in stacks is boosted by current fluctuations which occur in the series array of junctions loaded by the impedance of the environment.Comment: 4 pages and 5 figure

Multi-photon spectroscopy of a hybrid quantum system

We report on experimental multi-photon spectroscopy of a hybrid quantum system consisting of a superconducting phase qubit coherently coupled to an intrinsic two-level defect. We directly probe hybridized states of the combined qubit-defect system in the strongly interacting regime, where both the qubit-defect coupling and the driving cannot be considered as weak perturbations. This regime is described by a theoretical model which incorporates anharmonic corrections, multi-photon processes and decoherence. We present a detailed comparison between experiment and theory and find excellent agreement over a wide range of parameters.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Measuring the temperature dependence of individual two-level systems by direct coherent control

We demonstrate a new method to directly manipulate the state of individual two-level systems (TLS) in phase qubits. It allows one to characterize the coherence properties of TLS using standard microwave pulse sequences, while the qubit is used only for state readout. We apply this method to measure the temperature dependence of TLS coherence for the first time. The energy relaxation time $T_1$ is found to decrease quadratically with temperature for the two TLS studied in this work, while their dephasing time measured in Ramsey and spin-echo experiments is found to be $T_1$ limited at all temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Estudio de algunos aspectos protolingüísticos de los aprendices ucranianos de español como L2

En el presente artículo vamos a estudiar los principales errores y rasgos protolingüísticos de la interlengua utilizada por un grupo de estudiantes de español de la Universidad Lingüística Nacional de Kiev. Todas las alumnas tienen características sociolingüísticas homogéneas, son mujeres ucranianas, estudiantes universitarias de segundo curso y tienen un nivel B1 de español. Los rasgos protolingüísticos se estudian en base a los errores más frecuentes de la expresión oral y escrita para determinar cuáles son áreas de mayor dificultad y así evitar errores. Este estudio permitirá a los profesores diseñar las actividades didácticas apropiadas a los errores más comunes. La metodología se centra en el análisis cuantitativo y cualitativo de los datos obtenidos a través de las grabaciones realizadas en la Universidad Lingüística Nacional de Kiev durante el curso 2011/2012. Las teorías utilizadas para el análisis son el análisis de errores, el análisis contrastivo y el análisis de protolenguaje, siguiendo a D. Bickerton (1990).The aim of this paper is to study the main errors and proto-linguistic features of the interlanguage used by L2 Ukrainian university students with homogeneous sociolinguistic characteristics (second year Ukrainian female students, with a level of Spanish equivalent to B1). Proto-linguistic features, as set in Bickerton 1990, are studied on the basis of the most common mistakes committed in oral and written interlanguage. This will be useful to identify the most difficult learning topics and also to avoid these errors. This study will allow teachers to design pedagogical activities to improve the linguistic skills of students. The methodology focuses on quantitative and qualitative data analysis. Such data were obtained through recordings made in Kiev National Linguistic University (during Academic Year 2011/2012)