Folklore has often been seen as an independent element, specific to a certain time and space, forgetting that it does not belong only to a territory, but is present in universal culture. Clearly, when analyzing Romanian culture, we must start from the fact that local folklore is an essential component of national culture. The study of popular culture should not be profoundly affected by new trends in modern research or by new mass media, but rather should be combined to modernize (...) the discourse of folklore in order to achieve the desired results. Starting from the beginnings of the history of the Romanian people, passing through the modern era and reaching the contemporary period, the folk tradition and the Orthodox Christianity constituted some of the basic pillars of our affirmation all over the world. In this sense, the concern for the Romanian faith and tradition is permanently combined in the old and new preoccupations of the Orthodox spirituality. (shrink)

Presa creştin-ortodoxă craioveană a ocupat un loc important în viaţa culturală şi duhovnicească a locuitorilor Cetăţii Presa creştin-ortodoxă craioveană: trecut şi prezent 71 Băniei şi nu numai, începând cu secolul al XX-lea. Publicaţiile apărute de-a lungul timpului au avut ca principal scop clădirea sufletească a credincioşilor olteni, fară a uita de pregătirea lor teologică şi de conectarea la realităţile religioase şi laice din anumite perioade. între apariţiile de acest fel din Craiova (din consideraţii de spaţiu nu ne-am ocupat în aceste (...) pagini decât de o parte dintre ele), cea mai importantă rămâne revista Mitropolia Olteniei, cu o vechime neîntreruptă de peste 70 de ani, continuând traseul început de vechile publicaţii ortodoxe craiovene şi deschizând perspective pentru noile apariţii periodice olteneşti ce abordează teme religioase. (shrink)

Nowadays, mass-media represents a support for the Church in his process of communication with his believers. The liturgical and also the dogmatic message can reach easiest to the one who are far from the ecclesiastical and liturgical communion. In this case, we can say that the Church is very present in the life of the people and also much implicated in the modern society. For the Christians the communications (having here the mass-media channels) become communion because it represents the mission (...) of the Church in the process of teaching and confessing the truth of the Gospel. We can say that the Church must use the modern channels of communication in media because she has the possibility and power to transform them after the words of the Holy Scriptures. In this regard, in the periodic and religious newspapers from our country, besides the period in which they appeared or the area in which they were distributed, there were published pages of great interest for the believers, written both by great theologians of the Church and also by the cultural personalities with love for the Christian values and faith. At the same time, alongside the theological issues, there existed also memorable pages about the architectural monuments and about the priests and believers which confessed the Orthodox faith in different periods of the history of the Church. (shrink)

In a society that is constantly changing and transforming, in which new aspects of reality always tend to replace older forms, traditional communities are beginning to lose both their place and the role they have played in history for a long time. Traditional Romanian values acknowledgement and promotion through modern means of mass communication, present and used on a global scale in the modern world, must become both a necessity and priority in order to confirm and preserve the identity, form (...) new generations and reintegrate our national culture into the great universal culture, to which it has always belonged to. In today’s global society we can speak of an increasing dependence of people on media systems. There is an interdependent relationship created between people and the media system as a whole or with certain parts of media. This relationship does not bear only one significance, but it also concerns the way in which media system depends more and more on the resources controlled by others. Without being the only modern means used to achieve certain goals, media facilitates their understanding, orientation and fulfilment. The consumption of a media product depends both on the context in which it is broadcast and on the product itself. The study of media in Romania must start from the Romanian realities, a country which has undergone from totalitarianism to democracy. This has also been reflected and illustrated by the way in which the Romanian media are perceived both locally and in Europe. Radio and television continue to play an important role in this process, along with other modern means of mass communication. The analysis of the Romanian audio-visual media contributes to outline an overview on the impact that media have on the society which we live in. (shrink)

Carey leaves unaddressed an important evolutionary puzzle: In the absence of a numeral list, how could a concept of natural number ever have arisen in the first place? Here we suggest that the initial development of natural number must have bootstrapped on a material culture scaffold of some sort, and illustrate how this might have occurred using strings of beads.

Extruded polystyrene (XPS) otherwise known as a thermoplastic polymer has a closed cell structure and is often stronger, with a higher mechanical performance. XPS is a pressed material and is sold in different thicknesses ranging from 2 cm to 10 cm, thus having a weight that varies from 28 to 45 kg/m3 due to the force and pressure exerted on it. In general, XPS material has very low thermal conductivity and is resistant to bending. This material obtains typical values of (...) thermal conductivity between 0.025 and 0.040 W/m∙K., which means that it is ideal for surfaces that have to withstand weight, continuous traffic, etc. It is also resistant to moisture absorption and has a homogeneous density. Other characteristics of the material are good acoustic properties, easy assembly, and high durability over time. It should always be kept in mind that the surface where the thermal insulation will be applied must be leveled, cleaned, and dried. Primer is applied, before placing the thermal insulation on the surface. Then, XPS boards are placed on the surface, adhering to the corresponding mortar. This paper will deal with different cases of application of XPS tiles in the city of Tirana. A closer look at the resistance of this material from the day of application until today will be analyzed. The results during the observations showed high thermal stability of the material and no mold surface. EPS Expanded Polystyrene, otherwise known by the Dow Chemical trademark name STYROFOAM, is a lightweight product made from expanded plastic beads. It was first discovered by Eduard Simon in 1839 in Germany. EPS in its composition has 95% air and only about 5% plastic. This material is used because of its excellent properties, including good thermal insulation, good protective properties, and extremely lightweight. EPS is inert in nature and therefore does not result in any chemical reaction. EPS is durable, strong, and lightweight and can be used as an insulated panel system for facades, walls, roofs, and floors, as floating material in marine construction, and as a lightweight filler in road and railway construction. Different examples from the city of Tirana, of buildings where XPS and EPS materials are applied, are going to be analyzed, drawing conclusions. (shrink)

Imagine two urns, each with a thousand beads - in one all the beads are blue while in the other only one of the thousand is blue. If one of these urns is pushed forward (based on the toss of a fair coin) and the single bead then randomly drawn from it is blue, we must infer that it is a thousand times more probable that the urn pushed forward is the purely blue one. The hypothesis that this was instead (...) the urn with only one blue bead would require that the occurrence of the evidence, the blue bead being drawn, was something improbable - and it is improbable that something improbable is what has occurred. Next consider an example of only one urn with no prior description. By the same reasoning as above, if all the first beads randomly drawn are blue, it is becoming more and more probable that the beads in the urn are generally blue. (Otherwise something improbable would be happening in another colour not appearing; and what’s improbable is improbable.) It is therefore probable also that the next bead drawn will be blue. This is induction. As Hume would have said, we could not know a priori, given this evidence, that the next bead will be blue. But, as he overlooked, we can know a priori, given this evidence, that it is probable that the next bead will be blue. In neither urn example has the belief regarding the beads been formed as a Humean habit of expectation after many observations of beads. (In the first case there is only one observation. The second could be modified to have all the beads drawn out at once.) Rather the belief is a product of a priori reasoning about probability. Next imagine that a coin has been tossed a thousand times and landed heads every time. There was a fair and a loaded coin. According to the same reasoning, it is overwhelmingly more probable that the coin used was the loaded one. For that the fair coin had so landed is most improbable. The hypothesis that there is no external world makes the orderliness in my current experience improbable - much like getting all heads with a fair coin. (Uncaused sensation would most probably be chaotic.) The most probable hypothesis is that of things like those we believe in causing this orderliness - as the coin’s being loaded would have caused all heads. The hypothesis that my experience has been made to take this pattern by a Cartesian malicious demon or by scientists controlling my brain in a vat can only falsely seem to make the character of the experience probable by sneaking in an inherently improbable ad hoc specification that this sort of pattern of experience was that which they were aiming at producing - like an ad hoc specification that the fair coin was one that by chance landed heads all thousand times. We may thus reject such hypotheses as improbable. So this is the problem of induction solved and scepticism answered through a priori reasoning. (shrink)

Después de varios años bajo los efectos del boom del posmodernismo, en la década de los 90 la intelectualidad latinoamericana comenzó а recibir uп nuevo paquete de propuestas teóricas reunidas en torno al concepto “poscolonialidad”. Bajo el iпflujo de las teorías poscoloniales у los estudios subalternos se crea oficialmente en los Estados Unidos en 1994 el Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudios Subalternos (Latin American Subaltern Studies Gгoup). А el pertenecían intelectuales como Walter Mignolo, John Beverley, Alberto Moreiras, Ileana Rodríguez у (...) Norma Alarcón. Este grupo nace con la loable finalidad básica realizaг una renovación poscolonial de los llamados "Estudios de Área" norteamericanos, en particularг, de los "Latin American Studies”. En el trabajo, luego de describir algunas de las ideas más importante del grupo, se pasa a exponer, en forma de interrogantes, algunas reflexiones críticas sobre sus propuestas. (shrink)

Después de varios años bajo los efectos del boom del posmodernismo, en la década de los 90 la intelectualidad latinoamericana comenzó а recibir uп nuevo paquete de propuestas teóricas reunidas en torno al concepto “poscolonialidad”. Bajo el iпflujo de las teorías poscoloniales у los estudios subalternos se crea oficialmente en los Estados Unidos en 1994 el Grupo Latinoamericano de Estudios Subalternos (Latin American Subaltern Studies Gгoup). А el pertenecían intelectuales como Walter Mignolo, John Beverley, Alberto Moreiras, Ileana Rodríguez у (...) Norma Alarcón. Este grupo nace con la loable finalidad básica realizaг una renovación poscolonial de los llamados "Estudios de Área" norteamericanos, en particularг, de los "Latin American Studies”. En el trabajo, luego de describir algunas de las ideas más importante del grupo, se pasa a exponer, en forma de interrogantes, algunas reflexiones críticas sobre sus propuestas. (shrink)

Ramayan Through Kundalini Yoga Shodasi is an ideal read for Sanskrit-literate readers who are open to eclectic yogarthas and connotative meanings -------- So you thought Vyasa was before Valmiki, Mahabharat was before Ramayan, Rama a Vishnu avatar, and tantrism distinct from vedism? Think again. In Shodasi: Secrets of the Ramayana, Telugu poet Seshendra Sharma re-reads the Ramayan to come up with a number of new conclusions. Much of the book sets out to prove that Ramayan was written before the Mahabharat. (...) Sharma discusses how Indra is cited more often than Vishnu, thus placing the context of the Ramayan closer to Vedic than Puranic thought. He quotes from the Mahabharat to show how it follows descriptions of hills, rivers from the Ramayan. The Mahabharat has some prose, and therefore, it must have been composed after Ramayan, which is entirely in poetry. These are only some of the numerous reasons that Sharma offers to suggest a new sequence of our itihasas. Sharma’s book is also an experimental reading of the Ramayan through the interpretive lens of what he calls Kundalini yoga. Hanuman’s flight to Sri Lanka gets a new interpretation. “Charana Charite Pathi” is interpreted as the path of Kundalini, and the first verse of the Sundara Kanda “Tatho Ravana Nithayah” is interpreted by Sharma to refer to Hanuman traversing the sushumna nadi of the Kundalini. Trijata’s dream becomes the Gayatri mantra through an imaginative recasting of words as numbers. Gaja (elephant) means eight, danta (teeth) means thirty-two, and maha-gaja-chaturdantam somehow also adds up to 32 syllables, which is the number of syllables in the Gayatri mantra. That Trijata’s dream is halfway through the Ramayan also becomes significant for Sharma, he calls it the ‘central bead’ in the Ramayan garland of 24,000 beads. Identifying 32-syllables as the Gayatri follows a convention, for mantras are referenced by the number of syllables; however, it is the “secret” yogartha—or mystical, anagogical translations—derived by Sharma that becomes problematic, unless he is considered an authority in his own right. conclude that the name Sundarakand is unrelated to any descriptions of beauty of any of the main characters in the Ramayan. However, Soundarya and Tripura-Sundari are well-known conventions in the tantric tradition and hence, Sharma concludes that Sundarakand derives its name from Shakti’s beauty, and “Sundara-Hanuman” means “Hanuman who is a devotee of Devi” (117). A coda in this book is about the benedictory verse in Kalidasa’s Sakuntalam which has traditionally been understood to refer to Ishwara. Sharma re-interprets this verse highlighting the “eight forms” of the last line as the eight forms of Devi that please Ishwara. This book is suitable for a reader who is Sanskrit-literate and open to eclectic yogarthas and connotative meanings. Sharma cites substantially from the Ramayan in roman but without diacritics, this is difficult to follow; and he does not always include translation. Sharma often cites commentators without citing names and sources. It is not clear why the book is called Shodasi—readers may note, this book is not about the Srividya tradition. Even if the reader is unconvinced by Sharma’s reasoning or methodology, the free flow of references may prove absorbing for a reader interested in the subject. This could also be an eclectic reference for a scholar researching tantric elements in the Ramayan. - Mani Rao The Sunday Standard Magazine The New Indian Express 29th November 2015 . (shrink)