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\"Communication decisively impacts upon all our lives. This inherent need to connect may either be soothing or painful, a source of intimate understanding or violent discord. Consequently, how it is brokered is challenging and often crucial in situations where those involved have quite different ways of being in and seeing the world. Good communication is equated with skills that intentionally facilitate change, the realisation of desirable outcomes and the improvement of human situations. Withdrawal of communication, or its intentional manipulation, provokes misunderstanding, mistrust, and precipitates the decline into disorder. This international collection of work specifically interrogates conflict as an essential outworking of communication, and suggests that understanding of communication's potency in contexts of conflict can directly influence reciprocally positive outcomes.\"--Back cover.

This article offers a critique of the rhetorical responses of President George W. Bush to the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict and of President Barack Obama to the 2014 Russia-Ukraine conflict. Its central objective is to identify parallels and differences between the situations calling for presidential rhetoric on the crises in Georgia and Ukraine and determine how the president’s reactions to the conflicts were similar or different, judging the responses against Theodore Otto Windt, Jr.’s analytical framework for foreign crisis rhetoric.

This paper describes how general election presidential debates have changed over the last four decades. It will trace the development of the debate format, the dynamics of visual rhetoric, and the patterns of discourse; and will compare the standards followed by John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon in the first series of general election presidential debates held in 1960, with those followed by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the latest series of debates held in 2012. It will also analyze debate videos and transcripts in order to identify the techniques used during both series of debates, and emphasize the similarities, differences, and effectiveness thereof. Considering the growing influence of the media on presidential campaigns over the last forty years, it is assumed that the rules and format for debates, as well as the dynamics of visual rhetoric and functions of debate discourse, have changed. This stands in contrast to the role of such debates in managing and guiding public opinion during elections, which has remained the same.

The article focuses on the rhetoric of President Barack Obama regarding the US intervention in Libya in 2011. It challenges the view that Obama was changing the course of US foreign relations and shows that his words worked to represent actions that made it impossible to shift the direction of US foreign policy. Analysis reveals that the president spoke of alternatives to military action but his language served to justify the use of force in the region. He called for action through an integrated international framework but his message was designed to diminish the US profile in public opinion and not deem the US as a controlling power. Consequently, the article suggests that mysticism provides the structural basis for Obama's perception of reality and presents options for reactions to an international crisis.

This international collection interrogates conflict as an essential and potent outworking of communication. It suggests that an understanding of communication in conflict situations may positively reduce misunderstanding and increase reciprocity.

Science denialism is characterized by the refusal to accept existing consensus and available evidence. Typical strategies denialists employ include spreading conspiracies, selective use of information, relying on fake experts, or general fallacies in logic. A flood of misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. Simultaneously, it was a subject of many denialistic opinions, from denying the existence of the epidemic challenge to claims that questioned the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. This study’s main aim was to assess the manifestations of denialism in attitudes toward the preventive measures recommended during the pandemic, with a special focus on vaccination. In-depth interviews were conducted with fifty representatives of the general population, demonstrating diversified opinions about COVID-19 vaccines and other preventive behaviors. The interviews were performed face to face in participants’ houses or at other places they identified as convenient. Some of the interviewees preferred to do the interview via teleconference. The interviews were carried out from November 2022 to March 2023. The interviewees were recruited initially by convenience, and in further stages, the snowball technique was used. The interviewees were residents of four main administrative districts in Poland. Out of 50 participants, 26 were males, 29 were between 18–40, 16 were inhabitants of rural areas, and 28 had a university level of education. The interviews were based on a semi-structured guide that addressed, in addition to views about the origin of the new coronavirus, respondents’ attitudes toward vaccination and sanitary recommendation, the health status of interviewees, their use of healthcare services, and their health behaviors. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed with MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2022 software (Release 22.7.0). Thematic analysis (TA) was applied to the content generated from the interviews. Based on the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine, the participants were divided into three groups: unvaccinated, hesitant, and vaccinated (18, 4, and 28 interviewees, respectively). The main themes were established based on the TA of the interviews: attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccination, perception of sources of information, and the origin of the new coronavirus. The first theme decidedly drew the greatest attention of the interviewees. There was also a clear relationship between vaccination status and the presence of denialist thinking among interviewees. Interestingly, the role of experts as a key source of information about the pandemic was underlined by study participants. However, the criteria for being an expert differed. The subject of the origin of a new coronavirus was not interesting to interviewees. The analysis of the adherence to preventive measures revealed an interplay of diversified attitudes and motivations. Individuals presenting denialist views most frequently abstained from COVID-19 vaccination. However, such views were also present among those who hesitated or even among those who had been vaccinated. Furthermore, denialism was only one of the determinants of adherence to preventive measures.

Lamin proteins are type V intermediate filament proteins (IFs) located inside the cell nucleus. They are evolutionarily conserved and have similar domain organization and properties to cytoplasmic IFs. Lamins provide a skeletal network for chromatin, the nuclear envelope, nuclear pore complexes and the entire nucleus. They are also responsible for proper connections between the karyoskeleton and structural elements in the cytoplasm: actin and the microtubule and cytoplasmic IF networks. Lamins affect transcription and splicing either directly or indirectly. Translocation of active genes into the close proximity of nuclear lamina is thought to result in their transcriptional silencing. Mutations in genes coding for lamins and interacting proteins in humans result in various genetic disorders, called laminopathies. Human genes coding for A-type lamin ( LMNA ) are the most frequently mutated. The resulting phenotypes include muscle, cardiac, neuronal, lipodystrophic and metabolic pathologies, early aging phenotypes, and combined complex phenotypes. The Drosophila melanogaster genome codes for lamin B-type (lamin Dm), lamin A-type (lamin C), and for LEM-domain proteins, BAF, LINC-complex proteins and all typical nuclear proteins. The fruit fly system is simpler than the vertebrate one since in flies there is only single lamin B-type and single lamin A-type protein, as opposed to the complex system of B- and A-type lamins in Danio , Xenopus and Mus musculus . This offers a unique opportunity to study laminopathies. Applying genetic tools based on Gal4 and in vitro nuclear assembly system to the fruit fly model may successfully advance knowledge of laminopathies. Here, we review studies of the laminopathies in the fly model system.

Our retrospective study aimed to evaluate the rate and the appropriate use of antenatal corticosteroid therapy, and their effect on the incidence and treatment of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and its complications. A retrospective analysis of clinical practice in Poland was performed using standard investigating tools: a questionnaire on the frequency of using antennal corticosteroids in the selected centers, as well as neonatal data. A total of 987 newborns at ≤ 32 weeks of gestation, treated in 54 centers (including 42 tertiary and 12 secondary referral centers) over a period of 6 months in 2013, were deemed eligible. The study group consisted of 749 newborns whose mothers received antenatal steroids. The non-steroid group included 238 newborns. Antenatal corticosteroids were administered to 75.89% of the neonates from the study group, with 79% and 21% receiving one and two courses, respectively. Children whose mothers received prenatal steroids presented with less extensive radiographic changes typical of RDS, and less often required surfactant therapy (70% vs. 78%; p = 0.0143). In the group of children undergoing antenatal steroid therapy, the percentage of BPD was lower (13.27% vs. 18.63%) (p = 0.0881). The mortality rates were 20.91% and 10.81% in controls and the study group, respectively (p = 0.0001). The percentage of antenatal steroid use in secondary and tertiary referral centers in Poland is unsatisfactorily low (76%). Antenatal corticosteroids demonstrated high efficacy in decreasing severe forms of RDS, less need for surfactant therapy, and reduced BPD and mortality rates.