Studies in Mysticism and Mystical Experience in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

The paper highlights the key perspectives on mysticism typical for Soviet and Post-Soviet religious studies. Recognizing the vagueness of the ”mystical’, Soviet scholars interpreted it as a belief in ”communication’ with ”supernatural powers’. Furthermore, ”mysticism’ was thought of as a multicomponent entity composed of mystical experiences, mystical beliefs, and ”mysticism’ as a ”false ideology’. Such an understanding resulted from their epistemological settings, i.e. the reflection theory of dialectical materialism. In this light, mystical experiences and beliefs were distorted ”reflections’ of objective reality in the human mind caused by factors both of an individual and a social nature. This understanding still defines the academic interpretations of the ”mystical’ in Russia today

The Effect Of Sexually Objectifying Media And Social Threat On Sexual Coercion

Sexual aggression researchers have struggled to find a specific profile of individuals likely to become sexually aggressive (Abbey, 2005). As most of the research has focused on internal personal characteristics, some researchers have called for more research into external or situational factors that may increase the likelihood for men to become sexual perpetrators (Farris, Viken & Treat, 2010). Thus, the current investigation sought to explore the impact of two promising external factors, sexually objectifying media and social threat, on sexual coercion proclivity. Sexual coercion is a much lesser studied form of sexual aggression but is very common and often normalized in U.S. culture (Testa & Derman, 1999). Additionally, narcissism was explored as an impacting factor because narcissists have been shown to compensate with increased aggression upon social threat (Stucke & Sporer, 2002; Konrath et al., 2006). Participants included 299 heterosexual men ages 18 â 35 years who were recruited over Amazon Mechanical Turk and exposed to sexually objectifying music videos and a social threat condition, Cyberball, before answering questions about their likelihood to engage in sexual coercion. It was found that these external factors did not increase sexual coercion proclivity. Men higher in narcissistic characteristics showed higher sexual coercion proclivity, but there was minimal support suggesting that narcissists respond in a compensatory manner to social threat with increased sexual coercion. Recommendations for future research include studying both proximal and distal factors and designing more ecological studies to truly understand the complex nature of sexual coercion

Moonshine: How a Return to the Sunshine policy under President Moon Jae-In will bring Stability to the Korean Peninsula

Abstract:Following ten years of conservative rule in South Korea, the election of President Moon Jae-In presents an opportunity to improve its relationship with North Korea. A major architect of the Sunshine Policy, many of Moon’s proposed policy changes echo those of the Sunshine Policy. This paper will present and evaluate the merits of the Sunshine Policy, and compare them to Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Openness, the alternative presented during the governments of Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye. Finally, this paper will present the merits of a return to such policies of reconciliation and openness with North Korea, examining the structural factors leading to North Korean proliferation. Résumé :Après dix années de régime conservateur en Corée du Sud, l’élection du président Moon Jae-In est l’occasion d’améliorer ses relations avec la Corée du Nord. Grand architecte de la politique Sunshine, bon nombre de changements proposés par Moon font écho à ceux de la politique Sunshine. Ce document présentera et évaluera les mérites de la politique Sunshine, et les comparera à Vision 3000 : Dénucléarisation et Ouverture, l’alternative présentée pendant les gouvernements de Lee Myung-bak et Park Geun-hye. Enfin, ce document présentera les mérites d’un retour à de telles politiques de réconciliation et d’ouverture avec la Corée du Nord, en examinant les facteurs structurels conduisant à la prolifération nord-coréenne

Optimal designs for inspection times of interval-censored data

We treat optimal equidistant and optimal non-equidistant inspection times for interval-censored data with exponential distribution.We provide in particular a recursive formula for calculating the optimal non-equidistant inspection times which is similar to a formula for optimal spacing of quantiles for asymptotically best linear estimates based on order statistics. This formula provides an upper bound for the standardized Fisher information which is reached for the optimal non-equidistant inspection times if the number of inspections is converging to infinity. The same upper bound is also shown for the optimal equidistant inspection times. Since optimal equidistant inspection times are easier to calculate and easier to handle in practice, we study the efficiency of optimal equidistant inspection times with respect to optimal nonequidistant inspection times. Moreover, since the optimal inspection times are only locally optimal, we provide also some results concerning maximin efficient designs

Main Elements of Logistics

Virtually lossless self-compression of 10-mJ 3.9-um sub-100 fs pulses in bulk YAG resulting in 9-mJ 33-fs pulses is reported. Generated peak power exceeds 250 GW which is suitable for filamentation in ambient air

Approximations and asymptotic expansions for sums of heavy-tailed random variables

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Mathematik, Diss., 2015von Nadja Malevic

Anisotropic Photoconductivity and Terahertz Emission from Semiconductors

In this report we consider the anisotropic photoconductivity in a semiconductor excited by two-frequency optical radiation, as well as its contribution to the photocurrent at the beat frequency corresponding to the THz region. The interband anisotropic photoconductivity arises due to the anisotropy of the momentum distribution of electrons excited by polarized light and the energy dependence of the momentum relaxation time and effective mass of the electrons. The response time of the anisotropic photoconductivity is very short, since it is determined by the electron momentum relaxation time, which for typical semiconductors is about 200 – 300 fs

Development of performance indicators for sustainable enterprises

The sustainable development of industrial enterprises presupposes a qualitatively new investment level aimed at the transition to the cleanest, least resourceintensive and most waste-free production possible through a continuous process of innovation and investment projects implementation. At the same time, the current conditions for real investment are generally associated with increasing uncertainty (in particular, due to globalisation and progressive technical development), and therefore are accompanied by a high risk level, which certainly affects the ongoing projects results. The purpose of this study is to develop indicators for assessing the enterprises effectiveness, taking into account the changing external environment, the processes of transition to sustainable development of the economy. The methods of analysis, synthesis and generalisation have been applyed. The results can serve as a justification for the widely used today in practice and in economic science, but insufficiently substantiated position that in market conditions the economic efficiency of an income-generating object can be assessed by its market value. The asset owner is always interested in increasing the market value, therefore, it is generally accepted that an increase in the market value over a certain period is also an indicator of the economic efficiency of the object use by the owner, and vice versa, a decrease in the market value of a facility indicates the presence of factors impeding effective operations