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This article has been written in response to Alexander Maxwell’s paper published in this issue of the Historický časopis. Based on an in-depth reading of Ludevít Štúr’s Nárečja slovenskuo alebo potreba písaňja v tomto nárečí, it is here demonstrated that the author of the mentioned paper creates an erroneous interpretation of Štúr’s term nárečja, when equating it with the modern term dialect or nárečie. What present-day linguists call dialect was by Štúr unambiguously denoted as rozličnorečja. Moreover, it is evident from Štúr’s Nárečja slovenskuo that Štúr cannot be regarded exlusively as a Pan-Slav (in the sense of an advocate of the All-Slav idea), since at the same time he was not only a Slovak patriot, but also a Pan-Humanist.

This review article focuses on Jewish insurgency under the British mandate for Palestine from 1939 to 1948. The Jewish guerrilla campaign represents a successful case study in the field of the research on small wars and insurgency, proxy wars. The authors analyze the early phase of the British Mandate in 1918-1939, referred to as the prelude to the subsequent Jewish uprising; a period when Jewish paramilitary groups including the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi emerged and developed, emphasizing their ideological underpinnings, operational and tactical strategies of warfare, and the material capacities that these organizations possessed. The authors primarily emphasize the period from the initiation of the White Paper in 1939 until the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948. British restrictions on Jewish immigration and the beginning of the Second World War stimulated the Jewish forces to a massive terrorist campaign against the British resulting in an unprecedented Zionist victory.

The paper deals with the evaluation of the mechanical properties of the crepe paper and chickpaper. The thickness of crepe paper was 300 m with the surface mass 150 g*m-2 and chickpaper paper thickness was 100 m with the surface mass 40 g*m-2. Crepe paper and chickpaper are usually used for chicken breeding. Longitudinal and transversal tensile properties were studied. The tensile behavior was monitored on the motorized test stand ANDILOG STENTOR 1000 (Andilog Technologies, Vitrolles, France).There were measured the tensile properties as modulus of elasticity, maximal elongation, maximal tensile force, tensile strengths, tensile index and strain at break of the longitudinal and transversal samples by testing paper strips. Mean values of the maximal elongation b of longitudinal chickpaper samples were three times smaller than maximal elongation of transversal samples. Mean values of maximal tensile force Ft, tensile strength btensile indexwand maximal strain at break T of longitudinal chickpaper samples were two times smaller than maximal quantities of transversal samples. Mean values of the tensile modulus of elasticity of longitudinal and transversal chickpaper samples were almost equal. Chickpaper mechanical properties in tension were different in the longitudinal and transversal direction of the original paper surface. Mean values of the maximal elongation b and maximal strain at break T of longitudinal crepe paper samples were sixty times smaller than maximal elongation and maximal strain at break of transversal samples. Mean values of maximal tensile force Ft, tensile strength bandtensile indexwof longitudinal crepe paper samples were fourth times smaller than maximal quantities of transversal samples. Mean values of the tensile modulus of elasticity of longitudinal samples of crepe paper were thirty eight times smaller than values of transversal samples.

The conducted study has shown problems with electronic documents already in the moment of their accession, as well as arrangement and description, storage and providing access to them in the archive. It turned out that, unfortunately, electronic documents are treated only as an addition to paper versions of materials. The study uses method of document analysis (including electronic document), as well as a survey – a questionnaire. The object of the study was a private papers of Professor Stanisław Gorgolewski.

Although the US Constitution introduced a republican state system, there is no specific definition of the republic there. The US Constitution is deliberately short document. Its authors wanted to create a charter that would survive throughout times and conditions. However, given the briefness of the Constitution, they felt the need to explain and defend the ideas that had been advocated in it. Thus, The Federalist still serves as the primary source of interpretation of the US Constitution. It is therefore my intention to examine the meaning of republicanism in The Federalist. Although I speak of the republican teaching of The Federalist, there is, in fact, an ambiguity in the use of the word in those essays. This ambiguity reflects an ambiguity in the general use of the word in the political theory and discourse of the 18th century. However, more fundamental problem seems to be the so-called Madison’s “two definitions” of republic from Federalist No. 37 and No. 39. Both of these essays were written by James Madison. I agree that there is a fundamental difference between these two definitions. I do not, however, believe that it reflects inconsistency in Madison’s thinking. I will argue that these “two definitions” reflect Madison’s strategy to introduce a new definition of the republic. Thus, in The Federalist, there are two uses of the word republic: 1) its putative meaning in America, the meaning which was embodied in most of the state constitutions and which is the Anti-Federalist understanding of republicanism; and 2) The Federalist’s understanding of what constitutes republicanism. This second use is a new republicanism and represents a significant break on certain crucial points from the then dominant American understanding.

Although the cultural life of Slovak communities found in the territory of Hungarian Lower land quite long lacked a direct contact with dramatic culture, at the turn of the 1910s theatre and dramatic art were already an integral part of Slovak-language culture in Vojvodina. Theoretical reflection on modern dramatic art developed, too, which can be proven by two articles published in Národnie noviny in 1914. Both of the authors had more or less direct links with the Slovak-language Lower-land enviroment. Vladimír Hurban Vladimírov (1884 – 1950) from Stará Pazova, nowadays regarded as the most significant Lower-land playwright, focused in his lecture O dramatickom umení (On Dramatic Art, Národnie noviny, 18 July 1914) on the basic principles of dramatic art being applied from the earliest times to present, which he had derived from contemporary German theatre studies. His paper received an immediate response from Ivan Lilge-Lysecký (1886 - 1918), working in Báčki Petrovac for some time, whose article Dramatické umenie (Dramatic art, Národnie noviny, 30 July 1914, 4 August 1914) was intentionally specialized in modern dramatics – in this respect Lilge was the first Slovak to inform about so-called intimate theatre. Both of the papers show the contemporary - yet unaffected by war - thinking on the form and character of dramatic art, which on the one hand grew against a background of analytically oriented Naturalism and Realism, and, on the other hand, it placed weight on synthetic expression, symbol, stylistic features and a new way of depicting intimacy. At the same time, they demonstrate that modernists´ attempts were not merely poetic and prosaic, but they were also made in the area of drama, moreover they occurred in the most modern form and a close connection with European contemporary tendencies and trends.

The article is critical about the way Kateřina Kubová (2015) analysed and compared the images of (a) Czech cultural underground in the 1970s in the official periodicals of the communist régime, and (b) the freetekno festival CzechTek taking place in the years 2004 and 2005 in Czech newspapers. Objections are made mainly concerning the historical context of (a) and concerning the whole interpretation of (b).

The purpose of this article is to explore broadsheet newspaper framing and agenda-setting of two events using the five-frame model developed by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000). This article provides insight into how the leading broadsheet newspaper within BiH’s Republika Srpska frames relationships between the three main ethnic groups and is the first such study to occur in BiH. By identifying and exploring the most common frames in Glas Srpske during the five-year period (from 31 December 2015 to 30 December 2020), the research is meant to answer the following research questions: How does Glas Srpske frame the conversation about it and portray the Day of Republika Srpska (RS) and Referendum of the RS Day? The results, which find Attribution of Responsibility and Conflict frames to be the more prevalent in Glas Srpske, illustrate contentious politics that reinforce differences between ethnic groups in BiH. These events and the controversial narrative surrounding them are relevant more than ever in the light of the recent non-paper ‘Western Balkans – A Way Forward’.

The paper discusses Kant’s distinction between appearances and things in themselves, phenomena and noumena, and the problem of affection. The difference between appearances and things in themselves is understood as a methodological difference between two manners in which an object can be viewed: either as an appearance, or as a thing in itself. The author claims that this double-aspect view is a consequence of Kant’s conception of space and time as a priori forms of sensibility. The difference between phenomena and noumena, on the other hand, cannot be explained only by the double-aspect view; Kant understands it also as an ontological difference between two different kinds of objects. The paper concludes with a discussion of the problem of affection. The author claims that this problem is a pseudo-problem if we understand the difference between appearances and things in themselves as double-aspect view. Kant had maintained only an empirical affection. Passages in which Kant seems to advocate a transcendental affection can be brought in line with Kant’s critical philosophy.

The paper advocates the view that within Kant’s project of transcendental philosophy, the metaphysical problem of the relation between body and soul is reduced to an epistemic problem. The paper also aims to demonstrate the particular implications of this reduction with regard to the issues addressed in metaphysical conceptions of the relation between body and mind. Further, it is shown what conception of matter Kant develops within his reduction.

The article offers a methodological reflection on the trends that have shaped literary historical research from the postmodern cultural turn in the late 20th century to the present. It maps and analyses postmodern tendencies that have challenged the model of literatures based on the principle of homogeneous and unified identity, emphasised hybridity and syncretism, and shifted attention from the centre of cultures to their peripheries. However, it becomes evident that similar strategies inherent in the previously rejected cultural models – such as the construction of a unified identity and the projection of a teleological, emancipatory trajectory – are also present here. The paper highlights contemporary initiatives that correct these approaches and conceptualise new relations between diversity and homogeneity and centre – periphery dichotomy. The article also applies these processes to the study of Slovak literature conceptualised as a “small” literature – an approach rooted in principles that the current cultural paradigm views with scepticism. Drawing on the methodological impulses of Yuri M. Lotman’s theory of culture, the paper points to the potential of a methodological starting point that accepts the processual nature of identity, as well as the dynamic character of the centre and periphery of cultures. Thus, the processes shaping both culture and the history of literature as its “institutionalized discourse” (Galin Tihanov) aim for a unified identity as an ideal, yet are fundamentally rooted in diversity and pluralistic movements.

The content of the paper is based on reactions that are stimulated by Alexandr Stich’s ideas in his study on the concept of language culture and its content. In his statements there is a hidden conviction about the need for a “reasonable” approach to language culture. Although the attribute reasonable in this context is questionable, the paper discusses the possibility of determining such an approach. The author’s conception is based on the conviction that the natural meaning of our behaviour and actions consists in cultivating a way of life that corresponds to our humanizing determination in the evolutionary process. From this follows the thesis that a reasonable way of human life is governed by the authority of its natural basis. This also applies to the way of cultivating the language. Language users show this by tending to linguistic behaviour that corresponds to the nature of their native language. If the democratization of a literary language has reached such a degree that its users accept it as a mother tongue, it is reasonable to cultivate it in accordance with its natural basis. The task of linguistic theory is to analyze this basis and draw “reasonable” conclusions for the approach to literary language cultivation. The attribute “reasonable” means that this approach is generally accepted in a community that is guided by the principle of rationality alone.

The portrait of a young woman named Josefina is a paraphrase of a famous model in the work of Josef Mánes – Titian’s Toilette of a Young Woman from the collections of the Prague Castle Picture Gallery. In this context, it is possible to consider what models Mánes himself professed and why and how his work was influenced by the constant ideological-theoretical effort to define Czechness, but at the same time the worldliness of domestic painting. In this paper I deal with the development of the idea of such models (medieval and baroque) and the contemporary idea of their Czechness. In Mánes’ case, I focus on the connection between the idea of Czechness and the folk elements defined in 1848 thanks to Ludvík Rittersberg, but also with the valued examples of the anti-academic approach to colour as a key means of painting. Another tendency can be observed in the appreciation of Baroque artists and is also reflected in the selection of works for the very first major public exhibition of domestic art held in Kutná Hora in 1867. The aim of the paper is therefore to reflect on how the idea of defining Czechness and the worldliness of domestic painting changed in the third quarter of the 19th century and what role the work of Josef Mánes played in this. The second level is to ask which of these phenomena stood out as the current painting theme of his time and which of the idea of the Czechness, worldliness and modernity of Mánes’s work is a projection of later interpretations.

This paper examines the challenges encountered during the implementation of the Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plan (SDBIP) within the uPhongolo Local Municipality. The paper adopted New Public Management (NPM) theory as the theoretical framework that offers insights into organisational capabilities and resources relevant to this study. The paper utilises a qualitative methodology, which combines an extensive evaluation of existing literature with primary research methods such as interviews conducted with municipal personnel. The study sample was 9 participants. The present study aims to expand the existing knowledge on the obstacles encountered in municipal government and offers practical strategies to improve the execution of the Service Delivery and Budget Implementation Plan (SDBIP). These findings have the potential to be relevant to other municipalities experiencing similar concerns. The primary obstacles that have been highlighted include limitations in resources, hurdles to effective communication, and the resulting consequences on the provision of services and public perception. The paper's findings indicate that the issues result in project execution delays, which have a detrimental impact on the municipality's capacity to achieve its strategic goals and undermine public confidence. Moreover, the research emphasises the significance of community involvement in local government administration and the potential advantages of using digital technologies to improve operational effectiveness. The report presents a series of practical suggestions based on the aforementioned results. The recommendations include enhancing resource management practices, using digital project management tools, and establishing periodic community involvement forums.

On the basis of the analysis carried out, the fundamental purpose of the present article is to demonstrate to the reader the elementary essence of gender policy and at the same time to highlight the effective solutions implemented on the basis of the projects implemented by the European Structural and Investment Funds. The central object of the paper is the labour market, which is characterised by certain barriers directly related to the feminisation of poverty, which also stems from the unequal position of women in the labour process. Following the analysis of the undesirable situation, the author will present the reader with the potential of the implementation of the funds allocated for the implementation of the projects in question. Finally, on the basis of the analysis carried out, the paper illustrates good practice with an example from one of the EU Member States.

The abuse of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution during the late presidency of Hindenburg has been criticized in many previous studies as one of the key factors of the collapse of the Weimar Republic that led to the establishment of the Third Reich, resulting from the lack of understanding of the parliamentary democracy. Whereas those criticisms have arisen primarily from the analysis of the consequences, this paper analyzes the issue of the executed presidential emergency powers with an integrative approach by comparing the arguments by Preuß, the drafter of Article 48, and Schmitt, taking into account the perspectives of members of the constitutional assembly as well as their contemporaneous intellectuals. While Preuß and Schmitt may appear generally contrastive in their beliefs and theories, some implicit logical agreements are observed, such as those on their interpretations of the relation between the first and the second sentences in Article 48, paragraph 2, and their thoughts regarding the handling of the law of the Reich that should be in Article 48, paragraph 5. With the findings of their commonalities and others in their theories, this paper attempts to contribute to refining the current systems of law and democracy for emergency situations in various contexts.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the leading international organization in the field of nuclear energy and nuclear non-proliferation. This paper examines the most important policy body of the Agency, the Board of Governors (BoG). The legal foundation of the BoG will be discussed in light of its constitutional documents, most notably the Statute of the IAEA and the Rules of Procedure of the BoG. The research question will be approached from the theoretical angle of functionalism. The paper suggests that in fact, the practical role of the BoG is even more important than could be concluded on the basis of the legal documents whence the powers of the BoG derive. Over the years, the normative framework of the IAEA has enabled the BoG to adapt to rapidly changing decision-making environments and political situations. Furthermore, this has made it possible for the BoG to contribute in a relatively effective manner to the development of substantive international nuclear policy and law.

This paper explores the concept of islands in international law and its implications for the South China Sea dispute. Islands are important for various reasons, such as territorial sovereignty, maritime rights, and natural resources. However, the legal binding definition of artificial islands has not been enacted by any international document until now. This paper traces the historical development of the concept of islands, from the Hague Conference in 1930 to the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982. It also analyses the challenges and opportunities of artificial islands, which are man-made structures that can serve different purposes but can also create various legal and environmental problems. Artificial islands are especially relevant for the South China sea dispute, which involves multiple costal states, while China has significant geopolitical and economic implications. This paper argues that the South China Sea dispute can be resolved through cooperation and dialogue, based on international law framework. Taking into account the provisions of UNCLOS, South China Sea dispute, state practise, and legal scholarship, this article aims to unpack the complexities surrounding artificial island and implications of artificial islands on the international relations.

The Czech literary scholar Jiři Levy (1926–1967) has gained international recognition for his great contribution to the general theory of translation and has greatly contributed to the history and theory of translation into the Czech language in his books Uměni překladu (1963; Die literarische Ubersetzung: Theorie einer Kunstgattung, German transl., 1969; The Art of Translation, English transl., 2011) and Česke theorie překladu (1957, Czech Theories of Translation), respectively. His other distinguished research included versology, theatrology and various studies on British and American writers. This paper focuses on two related but less discussed aspects of his oeuvre – his contribution to Czech Anglophone Studies and his early translations of foreign poetry into Czech. It chronologically surveys Levy’s papers in the field of Anglophone Studies and outlines their contribution to Levy’s translatological oeuvre. It also includes their bibliography and a hitherto unpublished tentative bibliography of his Czech translations of poetry with two specimens of his translations.

In this study, we attempt to classify, describe and name individual types of documents used by the district council in Boskovice in written contact with authorities, organizations and private persons in the years 1870–1928. The structure is based on a combination of rank and formality. We then scrutinize the documents across the entire page, and we focus on papers and personal papers used exclusively by the district governor as the head of the office. We also deal with what are formally the simplest communication documents – indorsements. In a separate chapter we discuss the modernization of communication papers at the end of 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The text is supplemented by examples of selected documents in a separate pictorial appendix.

Eugen Bormann, Professor of Ancient History and Epigraphy at the University of Vienna from 1885 to 1914, left a great scientific legacy after his demise. Because of the private correspondence of his widow Auguste with her daughter Emma, we know details about the sale of this legacy. The legacy was bought by the textile industrialist Hugo Ritter Grab von Hermannswörth, who donated it to the German University in Prague. Some of this legacy has not yet been found. But what we have in abundance is Bormann’s correspondence in the archives of Charles University in Prague. This article will not only trace the story of the sale of the ‘Bormann papers’, it will also cast light on a few selected bundles, e.g. gifts for Bormanns 70th birthday, school certificates, letters from Otto Benndorf, Alexander Conze, Michael Rostovtzeff, or Marie von Ebner -Eschenbach. This will show what tremendous treasure slumbers for the biographical research on Eugen Bormann in the Prague archive. The author’s goal is to lift this treasure in the next few years.

The main goal of the paper is to identify the causes of non-realization of project prediction and to propose a new framework for project prediction. A secondary goal is to explain why the approaches to project prediction used currently do not provide satisfactory results. The research was realised in the form of qualitative research using semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that the main causes of non-realization of project prediction are follows: there is no methodology that could be practically used; simplified approaches to project prediction usually have low reliability for which reason they are generally unusable; suitable input data and information for project prediction are not available. The main contribution made by the paper is the identification of causes of non-realization of project prediction and the proposal of a new framework for project prediction that respects changing conditions during the lifecycle of the project and changes in the way of thinking in project prediction. A prerequisite for its application is a functioning system of knowledge management in projects, including the realization of post-project analysis.

Blackout events in smart grids can have significant impacts on individuals, communities and businesses, as they can disrupt the power supply and cause damage to the grid. In this paper, a new proactive approach to an early warning system for predicting blackout events in smart grids is presented. The system is based on deep learning models: convolutional neural networks (CNN) and deep self-organizing maps (DSOM), and is designed to analyse data from various sources, such as power demand, generation, transmission, distribution and weather forecasts. The system performance is evaluated using a dataset of time windows and labels, where the labels indicate whether a blackout event occurred within a given time window. It is found that the system is able to achieve an accuracy of 98.71% and a precision of 98.65% in predicting blackout events. The results suggest that the early warning system presented in this paper is a promising tool for improving the resilience and reliability of electrical grids and for mitigating the impacts of blackout events on communities and businesses.

The concept of individualization has emerged as an essential advance in education, representing a paradigm shift adopted by educational systems worldwide. This paradigm evolution aims to optimize student performance by harnessing the potential of diverse e-learning platforms tailored to individual needs. These platforms enable students to acquire knowledge that matches their unique interests and skills. This not only fosters academic prowess but also proactive engagement of stakeholders invested in talent development endeavours. This paper attempts to provide a holistic overview of adaptive e-learning approaches using a recognized categorization framework. This categorization delineates three main approaches: the macro-adaptive approach, the aptitude-treatment interaction approach and the micro-adaptive approach. Through the exposition of illustrative examples within each category, the paper seeks to elucidate and scrutinize the similarities and differences inherent in these approaches. Furthermore, it endeavours to outline the theoretical foundations of the learning process. It contrasts e-learning with traditional learning modalities and examines the transformative impact of e-learning on the learning process and knowledge generation. By delving into the historical trajectory of adaptive e-learning platforms, the paper reveals a symbiotic relationship between their evolution and the evolving principles of education and cognitive science. Ultimately, the study strives to bring a nuanced understanding of the adaptive e-learning landscape and its evolutionary trajectory over time, thereby contributing to the broader discourse surrounding educational innovation and pedagogical progress.

Breast cancer, a pervasive global health concern, necessitates early detection for an improved prognosis. Mammography, a pivotal screening tool, faces challenges in interpretation, motivating the integration of advanced computational models. This paper offers a comprehensive examination of breast cancer classification through mammography, focusing on machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) approaches. The discussion encompasses widely used mammography datasets, preprocessing techniques, data augmentation and diverse classification algorithms. Noteworthy datasets include LAMIS-DMDB, EMBED and INbreast. Preprocessing involves denoising and contrast enhancement, employing techniques such as Wiener filtering and histogram equalization. Data augmentation, a critical factor in handling small datasets, is explored using basic and advanced techniques, including generative adversarial networks. ML algorithms analyse entire mammograms, while DL techniques, notably convolutional neural networks, focus on localized regions of interest. Despite promising strides, challenges persist in obtaining high-quality datasets and ensuring model interpretability, as well as the strong similarities between cancer and non-cancer regions and irrelevant feature extraction. The paper concludes by outlining potential research directions to further transform breast cancer prognosis and treatment.

The paper looks into the German-language manuscript notebook and excerpt book of Samuel Ferjenčík (1793 – 1855) from the 1840s. The authors comprehensively reconstructed the sources of notes and excerpts, although the manuscript, with only a few exceptions, contained no references. The German-language originals and their adaptations in Ferjenčík’s manuscript were analysed, especially substitutions, contextual transpositions, insertions, etc. The paper used the concepts of intertextuality, hypertextuality, transformation, and imitation to interpret the text. Research results provide an insight into the Ferjenčík’s thoughts during the preparation and organization of the political text Slovenský prestolný prosbopis [Slovak petition to the throne] from 1842, written not long before the revolutionary events of 1848 – 1849. It also examines the reading of this Slovak intellectual of his time, the German-language sources he used and the problems he tried to grasp through parallels and analogies.

The article focuses on the publishing activity of Karl Weiß-Schrattenthal (1846 – 1938) and the perception of his personality in the Bratislava German newspaper Preßburger Zeitung. He spent more than half of his life in Pressburg, later Bratislava (1886 – 1938), where he worked as a teacher at a higher real school. German-language literature of his times was his profession and hobby, he wrote poems, novellas, and short stories. He also devoted himself to literary criticism and especially to literature written by women. He regarded criticism as a tool of possible improvement for the author. Apart from reviews, he promoted authors in articles in the press and also by publishing collections of their poems. The paper takes a closer look at two series of feuilletons published under similar titles before and after the First World War (Literárne listy pre jednu prešporskú dámu [Literary Letters to a Lady of Pressburg], 1886, Listy pre tunajšiu dámu [Letters to a Local Lady], 1919 – 1924). On the basis of these, the author examines what content K. Weiß-Schrattenthal addressed to his fellow citizens, as well as how his texts changed after the establishment of the 1st Czechoslovak Republic. The paper also analyses the articles in the Preßburger Zeitung which concerned his personality and shaped the image of him.

One of the difficult situations in government occurs due to the double vacancy of the President and Vice President offices. The country’s constitution must navigate this vacuum by providing for an Interim President to temporarily lead the government until a new President and Vice President are elected. In the constitutions of various countries, there are two models of Interim President, some give mandate to bureaucratic actors (Prime Ministers/Ministers) and some give mandate to legitimate actors (legislature of House of Representatives/Senate) to step up as Interim President. This paper aims to explain these two models in terms of filling public positions and presidentialism settings. The results of this study will be able to showcase the strengths and weaknesses of bureaucratic actors and legitimate actors when serving as Interim President, which supported with experience from various countries. With the help of socio-legal methods, this paper closes the theoretical gap in the constitutional and political law literature which has not explained these two models. Our paper shows that both have advantages in different aspects: the bureaucrat actor is superior in terms of policy because he was involved in the previous Government Cabinet, while the legitimate actor is superior in terms of politics because he has democratic legitimacy and was elected by the people and political parties. What is a weakness for one actor, becomes an advantage for the other.

In the limited liability company law currently in force in Indonesia, holding company and subsidiaries in the form of limited liability companies are seen as independent and separate legal entities, where each company has the right to independently carry out legal actions in accordance with the company’s interests. This differs from the concept of “group of companies” which consists of a collection of legally independent companies, where the subsidiaries are controlled by the holding company. This kind of concept raises fundamental questions considering that there is a contradiction between the principle of independence possessed by the company as an independent legal entity on one hand, and the reality of control by the holding company over its subsidiaries as a unitary economic entity. To answer this kind of problem, our paper offers a systematic explanation based on a normative and case approach to the company’s legal regime in Indonesia. This paper argues that the contradiction between the principle of independence and the reality of control by a parent company over its subsidiaries as an economic unit has the potential to prevent subsidiaries from moving independently based on their own business interests. The amount of control authority that the holding company has over its subsidiaries – as this paper will show – must be exercised by taking into account several things, including: the control does not conflict with legal regulations, does not cause losses to the subsidiaries, and does not harm the interests of the third parties as the limitation of control by the holding company.

International business research is usually focused on various aspects of foreign direct investment (FDI) by non-European emerging-market multinational enterprises (EMNEs) without attention to non-traditional factors pulling them into host countries. The objective of this paper is to examine the investments of EMNEs from two source countries, China and Russia, within the Visegrad Four (V4) economies. Based on interviews and a qualitative document analysis, it explores the main characteristics of their investments into the V4, including host-country determinants by focusing on macroeconomic, institutional and political factors. The paper finds that these factors do influence EMNEs’ investment practices, and that they correlate with the changing quality of political relations, but this influence needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

The paper focuses on the issue of air pollution in the industrially important Most region in the 1960s. It analyses how society and government responded to increasing environmental degradation in the region within the evolving political and economic context by examining the media and changes in legislation. Inspired by Donald Worster’s environmental history framework, the paper aims to illustrate the dynamic interplay between the expansion of industry, environmental concerns and policymaking during this crucial period. By investigating the nuances of media discourse and legislative reforms, it explores how air pollution was perceived and what actions were taken to tackle it in the region, contributing to a deeper understanding of the interconnections between society, state, and ecology in environmental contexts.

This paper focuses on Arthur Danto’s approach to literature. One of the leading philosophers of art in the analytical philosophical tradition, Danto published on art ontology, defining art and art historicity as well as serving as an art critic for the magazine The Nation in the late phase of his career. The essence of Danto’s philosophy thus lies in the visual arts, and it seems he was not interested in literature from a philosophical point of view. However, following Garry L. Hagberg, I show that Danto was not only a keen reader but also reflected on literature, its specificity, and its role. In the first part of the paper, I scrutinize what — in Danto’s view — is a literary work of art, and I compare his position to the view of New Criticism. In the second part, I explore the often neglected dimension of Danto’s philosophy of art, i.e., the spectator’s emotional response to an artwork. I argue that Danto draws on works of literature to illustrate the nature of this response for the reason that they provide the basis for a deeper understanding in this context.

What is the threat posed by paramilitary groups on the state? This paper seeks to examine the role and impact of paramilitary forces on domestic politics and how their involvement results in political (in)stability. It examines how the interplay between the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary force in Sudan and the Sudan Armed Forces has resulted in a humanitarian crisis since the overthrow of Omar Al Bashir's government in 2019. The authors argue that the formation of paramilitary groups is aimed at protecting the government from internal and external threats, yet these paramilitary groups can shift or withdraw their loyalty to the political leadership. Such a shift the paper finds creates a high potential for confrontation between the paramilitary forces and regular forces leaving the citizens vulnerable to mass atrocities and war crimes. The paper begins by examining the origin, spread and activities of militia groups globally and at the regional level before examining the concept of paramilitary forces. The authors then look at Sudan’s historical and contemporary experiences with paramilitary groups before discussing the recent crisis between the regular forces and the paramilitary force in Sudan. They find that the preferential treatment of paramilitary forces influences their actions during a crisis.

This paper is focused on examining selected Israeli technologies operating based on artificial intelligence and the possible use of these technologies by the Israeli Defense Forces in the war in Gaza. These technologies include the Besorah system, an AI technology for identifying and recommending targets suitable for aerial bombardment, as well as other forms of attacks carried out from a distance. The SMASH system is an automatic targeting and firing system for small arms. The Goshawk system is a fully autonomous UAV used for aerial protection. The IRIS robot can be used for the initial investigation of tunnels ahead of assaults. The alleged use of these technologies in the war in Gaza cannot be verified by independent sources, mainly due to the ongoing conflict. The paper strives to present a general theoretical assessment of these technologies and weapons from the perspective of international law and armed conflicts.

This paper primarily aims to address aspects related to regional development in Romania, which has become a challenge both at the national and global level. The way regional development is approached is different, depending on the particularities of each country, as well as the governing ideologies in each state. However, the goal is common, one aims at shaping a competitive and strong economy, a high standard of living, access to education and medical assistance. The purpose of the paper is to compare socio-economic indicators from two time periods, to highlight similarities and differences and to observe their evolution within a 10-year timespan. The method used is Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to identify groups of statistical indicators (variables) that explain the level of development within a sample, in our case the development regions of Romania. In the context of regional development, PCA can be applied to extract relevant information about economic, social or demographic variability in different regions of the country. Several objectives of regional development analyzed through the lens of this method were pursued: identification of regional disparities, optimization of resource allocation, evaluation of the determining factors of economic development, monitoring of the impact of regional policies. Following the PCA analysis, it was observed that regional development cannot be evaluated by means of variables belonging to a single sector. This method allowed the identification of the variables that have the greatest weight describing economic, social, educational and infrastructure aspects. PCA was applied for two time periods and similar situations were obtained, the first main component called by the authors the economic statistics includes for both periods the indicators: Gross average nominal salary gain, GDP by development regions, Employees from research and development activity at the end of the year, Beds in health facilities (state and private). The second component was called social statistics and includes the indicator Employment rate in working age (15-64 years), and the third component called agricultural statistics includes the indicator Population served by the public water supply system. As a conclusion, we consider that the situations are not overlapping because there are indicators that have undergone changes during the 10 years, which is expected and normal in regional development. For example, the number of graduates decreased due to the continuously decreasing birth rate, the vacancy rate decreased in 2018-2019 compared to 2008-2009 because Romania went through the financial economic crisis.

The paper deals with the standardization process of the regnal name of the new King Charles III in Czech. It documents the fact that leading Czech internet media at first referred to the new king in the original form, Charles III, but very soon began to call him Karel III, using the Czech form of the English name Charles. The paper places this process into the broader context of translating foreign personal names into Czech and investigates whether European Monarchs are usually referred to by their original names or a translated form of their names in contemporary written Czech (as evidenced by the SYN corpus series). The central focus of the paper lies in the hour-byhour detailed reconstruction of how it happened that the Czech internet media ceased quite suddenly to call the new king Charles III, beginning to call him Karel III. The paper proceeds to discuss this process in the context of language standardization theories, showing that although authorities (linguists, predominantly from the Czech Language Institute) explicitly refused to recommend (“from above”) either the original, or a translated variant of the name, internet media representatives interpreted their statements in favour of the translated version and started to call the new king Karel III in Czech.

This paper examines the constructivist turn in political representation from the perspective of Nadia Urbinati’s diarchic model of democracy. To properly assess the significance of Urbinati’s work, it is necessary to situate diarchy within constructivism. While constructivism aims to create new representation spaces for the excluded and marginalized, this endeavour faces challenges in allegations of elitism and manipulation. This paper compares democracy as diarchy with two prominent constructivist approaches, Saward’s claim-making, and Laclau’s hegemonic representation, and it suggests that both fail to address these allegations because they see procedures as external to democratic will formation. This paper concludes that Urbinati’s understanding of how procedures are inherent to democracy provides a valuable synthesis of proceduralism and constructivism, thus providing a novel way of thinking about democratic legitimacy within the constructivist turn.

The study is based on an analysis of the communication papers of selected manorial nobility administrations, mainly from the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, using four large Moravian estates Třebíč, Uherský Brod, Veveří and Židlochovice as examples. It is concerned with individual types of documents and the form of communication between the particular levels of instance administration.

W artykule zaprezentowano informacje o odkrytym w 2015 r. w katedrze gnieźnieńskiej licznym zbiorze dokumentów papierowych z XV i początku XVI w. Jak wskazuje wstępna inwentaryzacja, powstał on w związku z działalnością konsystorza gnieźnieńskiego i składają się na niego m.in. mandaty oficjałów, pisma procesowe pełnomocników stron czy zeznania świadków. Najlepszą analogię do znaleziska stanowią znane z archidiecezji Canterbury i York kolekcje tzw. cause papers. Tekst zamyka edycja sześciu przykładowych dokumentów. The paper presents a large collection of paper documents from the 15th and early 16th centuries, discovered in Gniezno Cathedral in 2015. Initial analysis shows that it originated in connection with the activities of the Gniezno consistory and contains, among other items, mandates of officials, process writings of plenipotentiaries of sides in court cases or testimonies of witnesses. The best analogy for the finding are the collections of so-called cause papers known from the archdioceses of Canterbury and York. The paper ends with editions of six sample documents.

The paper revisits the question of immortality with Dostoevsky’s reference to ‘eternal memory’ as a leitmotif. Starting with Agamben’s discussion of Hegel, language, and death, the paper notes three ways in which language is understood as mimetic. For Hegel (according to Agamben) language imitates death. However, Heidegger highlighted the challenges of speaking authentically about death in such a way as to raise the further question as to the nature or capacity of language. For Herder, language imitates nature and poetry is the supreme expression of language. How this might work in relation to our thrownness towards death is explored by Michael Theunissen in his study Pindar, where he sees poetic language as essentially imitating a divine hope in relation to death. The paper concludes how this might be restated in the context of modernity.

The paper surveys domestication, one of the characteristic features of a number of translations in the early period of the Czech National Revival in the first decades of the nineteenth century. At that time, translations played a role of enormous cultural significance in the development of Czech literature, making up for as yet unrepresented genres and providing models to enrich the corpus. A particular set of circumstances developed due to the social and political conditions of the Czech nation: after a period of gradual decline of the Czech language following the Thirty Years’ War, the Czech language was gradually regaining the status of a language of literature and science. From the twenties onwards the rising middle-class reading public demanded entertaining belles-lettres in Czech. Many of these translations were freely adapted mainly from contemporary popular German prose without crediting the original author and at times even plagiarized, as the writer Karolina Světlá, well-read in both literatures, later recorded in her memoirs. This paper presents two typical examples of localization of English pieces of literature. In his translation of Thomas Gray’s An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Josef Jungmann replaced the English historical figures (Hampden, Milton and Cromwell) with Czech ones (Thurn, Rokycana and Žižka), while Jan Kaška replaced the London characters and setting with Prague in his translation of a piece from Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz. These examples show how domesticated poems and tales typically preserved the original plot with localized characters and setting. At present we can see an increase in scholarly research of the original and translated literature of the period.

This paper reflects upon the relevance of the ideas of Peter Newmark to legal translation. Even though legal translation was not the focus of Newmark’s interest, he makes several references to legal translation in his writings, mostly in relation to authoritative statements, which is a broad category of texts introduced by Newmark and including legal and administrative texts. The paper provides a critical analysis of his ideas and puts them into today’s legal translation studies context. The second part of the paper includes a brief and non-exhaustive overview of Newmark’s con-cepts that have been echoed in legal translation studies, namely his list of translation techniques, and his dichotomy of semantic and communicative translation.

The development of information technology and its use in everyday life must inevitably have an impact on public administration and its decision-making. Progress in artificial intelligence is also opening up wider opportunities for the use of automation of decision-making processes in public administration. Decision-making processes that once had to be handled by humans can now be automated. However, there must be a sufficient legal basis for this, setting out the legal limits of such automated decision-making. In this paper, the legal possibilities of automation of decision-making processes in the field of public administration in the Slovak Republic were examined, the obstacles that hinder the use of this tool were defined, as well as certain legal solutions eliminating or minimizing the consequences of these obstacles were outlined. The purpose of this paper was not to exhaustively describe and solve the problems with the automation of decision-making processes in public administration in the Slovak Republic. Rather, the purpose was to outline the problem areas that should be addressed in legal research in the coming period.

The paper focuses on the issue of automated decision-making in civil proceedings. First of all, attention is given to procedural institutes that direct and facilitate automated decision-making, in particular the digital court file and the legal framework of videoconferencing equipment, without focusing on electronic service of documents, which should be a separate paper. Asingle case of legal regulation of automated decision-making in the form of an electronic payment order is then analyzed (cf. Section 174a of the Code of Civil Procedure). For each of these fields, an analysis of digitalization to date is given, which is followed by a consideration of further developments. It also outlines the limits encountered by the use of modern technologies and the potential risks proposed adjustments.

This paper explores the evolution of the experimental paradigm in legal frameworks, tracing its development from early influences in comparative law to the contemporary application of regulatory sandboxes. It begins with the integration of empirical methods inspired by scientific research into the field of law. The exploration covers various aspects of experimental law, including federalism, comparative law, legisprudence, emergency and incremental legislation, soft law, sunset legislation, temporary regulations, and experimental legislation stricto sensu. The paper concludes by discussing the challenges and implications of balancing experimental law’s flexibility with the need for legal stability and security.

This paper examines the Talyshi people, an Iranian ethnic group divided by the Araxes River between Azerbaijan and Iran. The division, a result of the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813), placed the Talyshis within two distinct political and cultural paradigms. The northern Talyshis, under the successive rule of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and Azerbaijan, were confronted with a Turkish political and cultural orientation that contrasted with their Iranian linguistic and cultural heritage. This orientation led to significant shifts in identity, with the Talyshis becoming minorities within a Turkic-speaking, Turkish-oriented Azerbaijan. Southern Talyshis who remained in Iran experienced a more consistent cultural development within the Iranian paradigm, despite political changes. This study examines the impact of these divisions on Talyshi identity, language preservation and socio-cultural adaptation. It discusses the challenges of assimilation and cultural preservation faced by the Talyshis, their linguistic characteristics, and the revival of Talysh self-awareness and nationalism in the face of external pressures. The paper uses a comprehensive analysis of historical, linguistic and ethnographic data to provide insights into the resilience of Talysh identity amidst political and cultural change.

This paper examines the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) among the Dawoodi Bohra community in Pakistan. FGM, a non-therapeutic alteration of the female genitalia, is examined through the lenses of religion, culture and health. The Dawoodi Bohra, predominantly based in Karachi, practice FGM as a religious and cultural rite, linking it to notions of purity and social acceptance. Despite global efforts to outlaw and eradicate FGM, it persists, underpinned by deeply held beliefs and the insular nature of the community. The physical and psychological effects of FGM are profound, leading to immediate and long-term complications such as severe pain, infection and psychological trauma. This paper discusses the impact of these practices on women’s health and rights, while critiquing the lack of an effective legal framework in Pakistan to combat FGM. In addressing this issue, the paper contributes to the broader discourse on gender-based violence and the rights of women and children in patriarchal societies.

The technological advancements in the field of E-healthcare have resulted in unprecedented generation of medical data which increases the risk of data security and privacy. Ensuring the privacy of Electronic Health Records (EHR) has become challenging due to outsourcing of healthcare information in the cloud. This increases the chance of data leakage to unauthorized users and affects the privacy and integrity of the user data. It requires a trustworthy central authority to protect the sensitive patient information from both internal and external attacks. This paper presents a blockchain based privacy preservation framework for securing EHR data. The proposed framework integrates the immutability and decentralized nature of blockchain with advanced cryptographic techniques to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of EHR. The EHR data are stored in an InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) which is encrypted using a hybrid cryptographic algorithm. In addition, a novel smart contact based patient-centric access control is designed in this paper using a blockchain-based SHA-256 hashing algorithm to protect the privacy of patient data. The experimental results show that the proposed framework enables secure sharing of health information between network users with improved data privacy and security. Furthermore, the optimized search process reduces the time and space complexity compared to the traditional search process. Through the utilization of smart contracts, this framework enforces patient-centric access controls and allows patients to manage and authorize access to their medical data.

The paper is designed to present the development of scientific research into dynamic pricing in the e-commerce industry. Researchers all over the world attempt to investigate the influence of dynamic pricing on revenue and operational costs and propose models to solve operational or strategic problems in different industries, including e-commerce. In order to understand the level of development of dynamic pricing in e-commerce, a bibliometric analysis is performed. The analysis covers 153 papers collected from the Web of Science database. The analysis reveals that while dynamic pricing research is widespread, it is often explored in industries beyond e-commerce. Key industries, including electricity, airlines, home delivery, transportation and hospitality, have also adopted dynamic pricing strategies. The study highlights the growth of interest in dynamic pricing in e-commerce since 2001, with a peak in 2021. The results represent the growing interest among researchers in dynamic pricing in e-commerce in line with the development of e-commerce as an industry. The analysis underscores the ongoing relevance and expanding scope of research in this domain, with many unexplored aspects and challenges in the dynamic pricing strategies employed by e-commerce businesses.