The article explores some of the issues that have arisen in the discourse on pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement (PCE), that is, the use of stimulant drugs such as methylphenidate, amphetamine and modafinil by healthy individuals of various populations with the aim of improving cognitive performance. We explored the presumed sizes of existing PCE user populations and the policy actions that have been proposed regarding this trend. Specifically, we focused on the empirical examination of a potential PCE user population in a national context (students at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia) and on the examination of regulatory options proposed in the international academic literature and in the recommendations made by several national ethics advisory bodies in Europe.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32151389
One of the basic questions in cultural heritage studies is the relationship between accepted definitions of national cultural heritage and social power. In the case of Slovene popular music heritage, however, things are more complicated. To determine what kind of picture of Slovenian popular music heritage this work portrays, its most important segments are analysed. Results show that the publications cover mainly urban and alternative music genres. While this is interesting, there is at least one problematic side effect in this respect - namely that in this way, the music enjoyed by the majority of Slovenians is almost completely left out of the analytical focus. This means that not only is the picture of Slovenian popular music emerging from these accounts rather biased, but also that many problematic elements of this music are also left out of critical analysis.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32148061
The article discuses the fundamental characteristics of vegetarianism as a heterogeneous and controversial practice, and tries to asses its scope in contemporary Western world. In the central part it presents the main results of the empirical study of vegetarianism and its perceptions on a representative sample of adult residents of the two largest cities in Slovenia, Ljubljana and Maribor. On this basis, the author proposes a more comprehensive design of quantitative and qualitative research on social aspects of vegetarianism and responses to it.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32446045
This article investigates how nanotechnology is presented and framed in Slovenian national newspapers. The focus is on the mass mediaʼs influence on citizensʼ perceptions of the social implications of nanotechnological progress. An empirical analysis of newspaper coverage of nanotechnology in Slovenia between 2004 and 2009 suggests that Slovenian newspapers are in an early stage of covering nanotechnology issues since they emphasize the positive aspects and scientific interpretations. Additional in-depth interviews with nanotechnologists reveal considerable dissatisfaction with the level and quality of the mediaʼs reporting of the issue of nanotechnology in Slovenia.
COBISS.SI-ID: 30992989
Why is there nostalgia for real socialism? Is it but a logical response to sudden, dramatic transformation? Don’t people remember those days anymore—or do they remember them all too well? In popular opinion, nostalgia for socialism is something fabricated, invented, and then imposed by different groups of people to achieve some goals: to open a new commercial niche, to attain political credit, to win popular support, to get artistic inspiration, and so on. Thus, many academic studies have examined only this instrumental side of the phenomenon, limiting it to the “industry of nostalgia” only. But research shows that nostalgia is in fact a retrospective utopia, a wish and a hope for a safe world, a fair society, true friendships, mutual solidarity, and wellbeing in general, in short, for a perfect world. As such, it is less a subjective, arbitrary, ideological effort to recall the past as it is, an undetermined, undefined, amorphous wish to transcend the present. So nostalgia for socialism in fact does not relate exclusively and precisely to past times, regimes, values, relations, and so on as such, but it embodies a utopian hope that there must be a society that is better than the current one.
COBISS.SI-ID: 29045085