From sacrum to profanum: reinterpretation of communist places of power in Baltic cities

Places always represent the social and cultural dimensions of societies, seen through relationships between ideas, beliefs, and hopes. Places and their social practices are interwoven into the urban fabric and have become vital components of urban and ideological identities. Ideological systems create unique arrangements and classifications of those special places, which can be called “hallowed” or “profaned.” This project focuses on the recent transformation of the communist system of “sacral” spaces and their recent “profanation.” The transformation of meaning, together with the use and attitude toward landscape, has become visible due to spatial and functional manifestations of post-socialist cities.     

“I (can) see myself… But what for?” On Live Camera Feeds in Courtrooms (from the Perspective of Witnesses)

The paper’s aim is to present and critically discuss a peculiar practice noticed and studied in courtrooms in the Lower Court in Kraków, Poland. In courtrooms where different hearings take place, two cameras are installed on the wall or on the stand near the judge’s bench. One camera is aimed at the center of the courtroom, where non-professional participants such as witnesses or plaintiffs stand while being questioned by judge. The second camera’s view is more general—it covers the rest of the courtroom, including the benches for plaintiffs, claimants, defendants, and their legal representatives, and most notably the general public. Naturally, the mere presence of cameras in the modern courtroom is not surprising. What raises some questions is the presence of TV screens in the Kraków Lower Court’s courtrooms (and in Poland’s courts in general), which display the feed from both cameras during the hearing. Consequently, people gathered in the courtroom, especially people questioned by the judge (such as witnesses), can see themselves “live” in the TV screen. Even without raising the subtle details and differences between individual courtrooms, the system of displaying, in real time, live video feeds from a courtroom into the same courtroom begs for more detailed, critical analysis. For instance, one should address the system’s (presumably intended) functions (e.g. transparency, behavior control, and correction of time perception) and the real consequences for the dynamics during hearings, which are not assumptions or hypotheticals. The paper distinguishes the issues connected with the system and addressees them through the perspective of witnesses who participate in the hearings, using the collected opinions of witnesses.

     

Detection of Contact Traces of Powdery Substances

The current practice in securing the contact traces of chemical substances taken from clothes belonging to a person suspected of manual handling explosives is focused on pockets and cuffs. The outerwear worn by people who had contact with fluorescent powders that simulate explosives and drugs was the subject of this study. Clothes were first exposed to the test substance for a period of time and then analyzed by fluorescence methods to determine the location of the highest quantity of traces. The results obtained from the study confirm that the areas with the highest concentration of powdery traces are different from those suggested by current forensic practice. They appear to be promising for a more efficient identification of the suspects involved in illegal manufacturing of drugs of abuse or explosives. Moreover, they may be helpful for developing the methodology for handling the evidence material in the forensic clothing examination process.     

Neonatal freshwater drowning after birth in the bathroom

The macroscopic and microscopic findings in neonatal freshwater drowning are demonstrated on the basis of 3 exemplary cases of birth in the bathroom after concealed pregnancy. If the newborn is expelled under water and remains there until death, the lungs cannot be ventilated with air. In case of incomplete or only temporary submersion, aeration of the lungs may develop in the immediate postpartum period. The morphologic criteria of separate existence are critically discussed with respect to the presented findings.     

Naming the Nation: A Critical Analysis of Names in Polish Political Discourse

This article offers a critical discursive analysis of proper names used in Polish political discourse, focusing on six addresses to the nation made by prominent public figures of the Polish political scene?the president, prime minister, and the primate of the Catholic Church. The names used in the speeches did not function merely as means of referring to places or persons. The speakers used them to construct an ideologically preferred reality. Those used by the president of Poland ''embellished'' the Communist past of the country and showed his political (post-Communist) option as a viable proposal for Poland. The speeches made by the primate of Poland created a politically uncontroversial image of the country, with the head of the Catholic Church positioned as a moral authority. Finally, the visible absence of names in the prime minister's speech represented the etatistic view of Poland.     

A rare case of lethal methadone intoxication of a 3-week-old infant

The authors describe a rare case of lethal methadone intoxication of a 3-week-old infant. Born of a drug-addicted mother who was undergoing methadone substitution therapy, the newborn presented withdrawal symptoms and was immediately admitted to a paediatric ward where it was treated for 3 weeks, without administration of methadone. The infant died during bottle feeding within 24 h following discharge home.A post-mortem examination was performed as well as histopathological, toxicological and genetic tests were carried out in order to establish the cause and mode of death.The autopsy revealed obstruction of the lower air passages by stomach contents along with classical features of asphyxia. Toxicological tests revealed high concentrations of methadone and its metabolite in blood and urine as well as presence of methadone in stomach contents, and the DNA polymorphism analysis of the (sex-specific) amelogenin locus gave a negative result.On the basis of the results of the post-mortem examination, the laboratory tests and the police investigation, it was concluded that the drug was ingested with the bottle milk, and the possibility of administration of methadone at the hospital or its ingestion with the breast milk was precluded. Though both the cause and mode of death were established, the public prosecutor discontinued proceedings in the case due to inability to find the perpetrator.     

The belief in an unjust world: An egotistic delusion

The main hypothesis of Lerner's just world theory says that people are inclined to think that their physical and social environment is just and that individuals generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Contrary to Lerner's assumption, however, it is suggested in the article that in some situations, people may perceive the world as unjust because such a belief has a specific ego-defensive compoment for an individual. It is likely, for instance, that the belief in an unjust world, though in itself a legitimate block to success, may be aggrvated in conditions diagnostic for competence and hence can be used as a special form of self-handicapping strategy. This assumption has been tested in a 2 (low vs. high tendency to engate in self-handicapping behaviors) x by 2 (low vs. high opportunity to use the belief in an unjust world as a self-handicapping strategy) experiment. The results of the study fully supported the author's predictions.