We talk to Prof. Agnieszka Sirko from the PAS Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics about our improving understanding of cellular death.

Death is one of the key concepts present in the traditional image of the world. It means an end and is related to the process of wearing out and losing original properties. In folk anthropology, death is understood in terms of the transition from the earth world to the land of the dead, as the beginning of eternal existence. Death is one of the rites of passage and as such is correlated with other crucial moments of human existence, mainly with birth and marriage. Death is a common motif present in various genres of folklore. Researchers are interested in death predominantly because of its belief- and ritual-related image. The aim of the article is to analyse depictions of death in folk fablesand other kinds of prose works. Special emphasis is placed on the personifi cation of death as well as on its genesis and ontological status. The article also deals with the idea of death understood as both an event and a process, and it addresses death seen as a transcendental and unmaterialised force which determines a person’s life against his or her will.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a television series broadcast from 1997 to 2003. The narrative follows the heroine, Buffy Summers, ostensibly a normal teen, however she is also the latest in a long line of Slayers. Death is a gift of the Slayer. The three facets of this gift point to the conclusion that Buffy, the Maiden, is Death.

The motif of death and the maiden, so popular in literature and painting, is referred to directly in Samuel Beckett’s All that Fall, when Franz Schubert’s piece of music, under such a title, is heard at the end of this radio drama. When discussing the vision of human existence, as consistently presented in this great Irishman’s oeuvre, it is advisable to become acquainted with the basic concepts of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy, and also with Beckett’s essay Proust in which he discusses human life, characterised by suffering as “the expiation for the eternal sin of having been born.” This article discusses death in the Beckettland of suffering. Death hardly ever comes to young characters, the majority of Beckett’s characters being either old or, at least, middle-aged, are all still longing for their end to come. Despite finding different kinds of pastimes to make their waiting less oppressive, time seems to be, as it were, at a standstill, and, to use Vladimir’s words from Waiting for Godot, they “have time to grow old.”

The essay aims to analyse Dostoevsky’s artistic and literary strategies in relation to A Writer’s Diary and the short story A Gentle Spirit. The intention is to demonstrate how Dostoevsky’s artistic processes as a writer and as a publicist are combining, starting from crime news to reveal to the reader, through the path into the abysses of the human soul, the representation of the author's conception.

The article deals with the issue of illness and suffering in Carmelite sermons of the 17th–18th centuries. The question of the origin of suffering is considered along with the role of God’s mercy and justice in the preaching discourse about the rightness and purposefulness of suffering of the human being. In addition, an analysis of the views of preachers about topics related to passing away and the attitude they advocate in the face of death is included.

The death of a person, particularly my own death, is the most momentous occasion that happens in a lifetime. It seems to be an inevitable end of any possible experience, ceasing any relationship, the end of memories and hopes. It evokes various reactions in the living, just to mention some as: fascination, fear, stress, consent, willingness to familiarization. Each of them may be analysed, while each one shows also the death in a different aspect. In the proposed article, the author indicates another reaction - that is experiencing anxiety. It appears that this is the key experience, both when I am thinking about it as something that may afflict me at any moment, as well as when I become aware that there is a possibility of exit of the loved ones or just a popular person. Some texts by Joseph Ratzinger have inspired me to carry out such analyses.

This article looks at the allusions made by Austrian artists Birgit Jürgenssen and Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed to the historical genres “Dance of Death” and “Death and the Maiden”. I examine in particular Jürgenssen’s series “Totentanz mit Mädchen” and “Untitled Polaroids” (also known as the “Death and the Maiden” polaroids). I raise the significance of her titles and argue that she is dancing with the genre, in effect with art history itself. Then I consider Mohamed, 43 years Jürgenssen’s junior. I propose her as an heir of Jürgenssen. I argue that one of the reasons both artists allude to the two traditional genres is in order for the work to address the nature of art itself.

The present paper analyses the self-portrait of Isabelle Eberhardt emerging from the letters she wrote to three men: her brother Augustin de Moerder, her friend Ali Abdul Wahab and her husband Slimène Ehnni. The paper is divided into three parts. The first one discusses her desire of Orient, the second shows her will of annihilating herself and the last one focuses on the power of the desert which helps the writer to find the desired calm.

The author, putting the metaphor of “a living dead” to the interpretation, tries to find the common points in the creative output of both writers i.e. Pushkin and Kharms. Both writers, belonging to extremely different literary periods and using other medium, were interested in the most important matters, among others the matter of life and death. Paradoxical metaphor of “a living dead” may imply not only a person being physically exhausted but above all a person deprived of emotions, experience and human reactions, whose fate brings nothing else but the inevitability of death. However, the matter that links both Pushkin and Kharms is the concept of “a coincidence”, which rules human fate, which is unpredictable, hard to avoid and which is a tool at hands of the providence.

The paper is based on the assumption that the balance of positive and negative, aggression and nurturing, or plus and minus results in the ultimate annihilation of the existence of both. The duality balance results in opposite reaction. The plus becomes minus and the minus becomes a plus. This is presented by the feminine becoming masculine, understood through Hofstede’s (2001) division into masculine and feminine cultures, by taking on the traditional male role, ultimately killing the feminine, being no-one and thus becoming death impersonated contrasted with assigning attributes to concepts fully understood through themselves. This will be based on the female character Arya Stark in J.R.R. Martin’s popular series “A Song of Ice and Fire” and its adaptation in “Game of Thrones.”

Harriet said…, a lesser known, 1972 novel by an acclaimed writer Beryl Bainbridge (1932–2010), is a work about friendship. However, only apparently – as the events in the story unfold, the reader slowly realizes how toxic and corrupting the bond between the eponymous Harriet and her nameless friend (the narrator) is. Bainbridge, inspired by real-life tragedy, presents a haunting vision of friendship marred by violence, both emotional and physical. Two adolescent girls devise a specific life ideology and as they explore the limits of their self-understanding, they transgress social norms, which ultimately leads them to a completely gratuitous crime. Hence, an important questions arises – is it still a friendship or, rather, a form of mutual exploitation? What makes their relationship Gothic? The aim of my analysis will be to respond to these queries.

Ursula K. Le Guin was an American writer, a master of science fiction and fantasy. She was the author of the famous Earthsea trilogy, in which magic remains the pivotal idea. In the novels, Le Guin links immense, yet dangerous, supernatural abilities with the idea of Equlibrium within realms, a principle that governs the universe. The paper is an attempt to elucidate how certain visions of life after death are constellated within Le Guin’s fantasy writings. Visibly inspired by Eastern mythologies and religious doctrines, the author does not steer clear from the vision rooted in Western traditions. The ongoing debate is an attempt at clarifying the universal concept of soul and mankind.

Introduction: Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) is a Gram-positive, anaerobic rod-shaped bacteria, widely spread in the human environment. In the last decade, the frequency and severity of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) have been increasing, making this particular disease one of the most significant nosocomial infections. The aim of our study was an analysis of CDI risk factors, its course and consequences.

Materials and Methods: Medical documentation of the patients treated for CDI in the University Hospital in Cracow and St Anne’s Hospital in Miechów has been analysed. The analysis focused on epidemiological data, blood parameters, comorbidities, recurrence rate, and complication rate (deaths included). As part of risk factors analysis, antibiotic use or hospitalisation in a period of 3 months before the episode of infection was considered relevant. Blood tests have been performed using routinely employed, standard methods.

Results: We evaluated data of 168 people infected with C. difficile, out of which there were 102 women (61%) and 66 men (39%). Th e median age of the patients was 74 years for the entire population with 76 years for women and 71 years for male patients. One hundred thirteen people (67%) had been previously hospitalised, and 5 person was a pensioner of a nursing home. 99 people (59%) were treated with antibiotics within 3 months before the first episode of infection. An average length of the hospital stay because of CDI was 11 days. One hundred thirty persons (77%) experienced only 1 episode whereas 38 people (23%) had more than 1 episode of infection. The person with the largest number of recurrences had 9 of them.

Conclusions: The development of CDI is an increasing problem in a group of hospitalised persons, particularly of an old age. The general use of beta-lactam antibiotics is the cause of a larger number of infections with C. diffi cile. Vast majority of patients have had at least one typical risk factor of CDI development.

On the deeper complexities of this entreaty.

In the present article, the author attempts to solve the paradox hidden in the declaration pronounced by Bogusław Wolniewicz who referred to himself as a ‘Non-Confessional Roman Catholic.’ First, the author analyses (1) the way Wolniewicz understood the sources of religion, and then, (2) how he defined the minimum of Christianity. (3) The author investigates whether it is possible to reconcile his acceptance of euthanasia with the teaching of the Church, and finally, (4) the author focuses on his evangelical aesthetics. By way of conclusion the study traces on similarities between the tychistic rationalism and Christianity.

The author analyses problems of disease, dying, and death addressed in a play by Margaret Edson entitled Wit. Special attention is paid to the structure of meta-theatre and the function of wit in the play. The author investigates limitations of reason in the approach adopted by the doctors who take care of Vivian Bearing, and who subject her to an excruciating experiment in order to achieve a potential research success. She also discusses the protagonist’s attitude to literary works, dealing with her own disease, to other people and to God. This offers an opportunity to ruminate on the exact meaning of irretrievable loss involved in suffering. She also concentrates on the attitude of the nurse who – thanks to her emotional intelligence and empathy – accompanies Vivian on her way to death.

This study was carried out to determine the time-dependent changes in the ultrasonographic image of the ovary with computer-assisted analysis programs at certain intervals after ovulation and to determine whether computer-assisted analysis programs and ovulation programs can be managed in cases where the ovulation time is unknown. The study included 40 purebred Arab mares. The study was subdivided into 4 different time periods of 6 (Group 1), 12 (Group 2), 18 (Group 3) and 24 (Group 4) hours following ovulation. In addition, after ovulation and ultrasonographic examination, natural insemination was performed at 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours, and pregnancy examination and follow-up were performed at 15-30-45 days. In the echotexture analysis, mean grayness value (MGV) and contrast (CON) measurements were at different levels according to the time groups (p<0.001). Homogeneity (HOM) measurements were at different levels according to the time groups (p<0.001). A very strong, significant negative correlation was determined between MGV and pregnancy rates (r=-0.91, p=0.01, p<0.05). No significant relationship was observed between HOM values and pregnancy rates (r=0.19, p=0.23, p>0.05). A very strong, significant negative correlation was determined between CON and pregnancy rates (r=-0.92, p=0.01, p<0.05). It was concluded that the use of ultrasonographic echotexture in mares after ovulation provided very important information. In cases where the time of ovulation was not known, by looking at the values of echotexture parameters, it was seen that the highest pregnancy rates were at the 6th hour and the lowest pregnancy rates were at the 24th hour. As the echotexture parameters MGV and CON increased, it was determined that pregnancy rates decreased, but there was no relationship between them and the HOM value.

Hayden White did not directly examine the issue of the independence of history as a discipline of knowledge in his theoretical reflection. He did not ask about the subject of historical studies, the specificity of the methods used in it, the difference between history and other fields, or the economic and social conditions of historical discourse. In this article, I revise White’s writing and reconfigure the extant research using the concept of autonomy.
White — primarily in his works from the 1970s and 1980s — devoted much attention to exposing and describing cultural compulsions resulting in historical practices and violating their autonomy. These actions also brought unexpected results. At first, the use of structuralism in these practices, and then poststructuralist concepts of “the death of the author” and textualism, suggested claims that freed historiography from its links with an author’s biography and world-view, and with the social context in which a given work is produced. Using Foucault’s descrip-tion of the order of discourse, in turn, brought the image of a strict rigor of historical discipline, which, however, is not equal to the strong autonomy of history.
A stronger delimitation of the field of history appears in his — already in the twenty‑first century — offer to use Michael Oakeshott’s division into the practical past and the historical past. Whilst censuring academic historical writing as sterile and rejected by readers because it fails to answer contemporary existential, social and political questions, White, most likely unintentionally, described the independence of historians’ actions from the demands of the societies to which they belong. According to commentators, his remarks can be a productive inspiration for reflection upon the distinctiveness of the discipline of history.

This article presents a picture of war in Mikhail Shishkin’s novel The Light and the Dark (2010). In the narrative, the author introduces a character who fought on the side of the Russian army during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China (1898–1901). When describing the events of that period, Shishkin relied on numerous archival materials, especially the study by Dmitry Yanchevetsky At the Walls of Immovable China. As a military journalist who participated in the rebellion, this author blamed the Chinese people, disgruntled with the domination of other countries in their country, for the war. Shishkin, abundantly drawing on Yanchevetsky’s factual research, in his book reevaluates the historical events and condemns the aggression of the Eight-Nation Alliance on China. The writer compares this war to the Soviet Union’s attack on Finland in 1939 citing a term from Aleksandr Tvardovsky’s poem: “the infamous war”. Because Russia’s participation in quashing the Boxer Rebellion remains a little-known fact among Russian readers, it becomes a generalized representation of war in the novel: a universal one. Shishkin adopts a pacifist attitude here. He debunks the myth of war, which presupposes a sacralization of killing and a heroic death of soldiers. There are no glorious warriors on the battlefield, only corpses of anonymous soldiers, blood, the smell of rotting bodies, chopped off heads, flies, and dirt. In this novel, war is an evil that alters one’s perception of reality and emotional reactions and destroys elementary moral principles.

The object of the article is the “dying process” of a dear one, as lived by himself, his family, and the medical personnel, and as described and analyzed by the psychologist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. First, the patient’s reactions to death were presented: denial and isolation, anger and rebellion, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The next part describes the reactions of the family in the face of the prospect of death: the stage of rejection and isolation, the stage of anger and rebellion, the stage of compromise and making pacts, the stage of experiencing depression, and the stage of acceptance. At the end of our reflection, we indicated the essential elements of an “end of life ethics”, which would permit us to approach, in a more conscious and responsible manner, “our” mysterium mortis at a personal level, in the family and in hospital. These elements are: the attitude of listening, valuing the past as a legacy for the future, the mediation function in and through the reactions of the sick person, the attitude of respect towards the person’s choices of values in the face of death, understanding the sick world, help and pastoral service, and acceptance of failures.

ABSTRACT:

The aim of the work is to determine the exact place and date of Kazimierz Stronczyński’s birth and death. An analysis of documents reveals that he was born on 24th July 1809 in Piotrków Trybunalski and died on 10th November 1896 in the same town.

SUMMARY:

Kazimierz Stronczyński was one of the greatest 19th century Polish numismatist, who is sometimes called the father of Polish medieval numismatics. Even though his life, career and works are very well known, in works devoted to Kazimierz Stronczyński’s life we can find several different dates and places of his birth and several different dates of his death. The following text, based on original documents, explains exactly when and where Kazimierz Stronczyński was born and died.

The aim of this contribution is to derive a general matrix formula for the net period premium paid in more than one state. In order to avoid “overpayment” which implies higher premiums we give a formula for replacement of lump sum benefit into annuity benefits paid in more than one state. The obtained result is useful for example to more advanced models of dread disease insurances allowing period premiums paid by both healthy and ill person (e.g. not terminally yet). As an application, we supply analysis of dread disease insurances against the risk of lung cancer based on the actual data for the Lower Silesian Voivodship in Poland.

The article examines diverse relations between Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl and the final distich of Paul Celan’s “Deathfugue,” which the American writer chose as an epigraph to her Holocaust prose. An intertextual analysis of both texts (which relate to each other in a midrash-like manner) demonstrates the existence of numerous parallels in the language and imagery used by both authors, as well as their identifiable references to the motif of “Death and the Maiden,” which can be found in German paintings (Grien, Deutsch) and music (Bach, Schubert, Wagner).