Directory of Open Access Journals

Purpose: to determine self assessment and aggression’s manifestations of judo wrestlers in age and qualification aspects. Material: in the research boys – Judo wrestlers from sport schools of Kaunas (Lithuania) participated (n=90, age – 16.9 ± 2.0 years). The athletes were divided into three groups. In qualification aspects were divided into two groups. The first group was composed as per sport achievements – the members of combined Lithuanian teams. The second group consisted athletes of different sport categories, which were not the members of combined teams. We used questionnaire as per scale of self assessment of M. Rosenberg and questionnaire of aggressiveness of Buss-Perry. Estimation of the received data was fulfilled with the help of U criterion of Manna-Whitney, H criterion of Kruskall-Wallis and χ2-criterion. Assessment of confidence of mean group data’s differences was fulfilled by Student’s t-test. Correlations of indicators were determined with the help of correlation coefficient of Spearmen. Results: with increasing of Judo wrestlers’ age we observed the tendency to increasing of their self-assessment. The older sportsmen become the higher is theirs aggressiveness. Depending on self-assessment level we did not find statistically confident differences in their aggression indicators. Large quantity of elite Judo wrestlers has high self-assessment. Self assessment and aggression indicators of sportsmen with sport categories statistically do not differ for elite Judo wrestlers’ indicators. Correlation between mean level of self assessment and aggression are present only in young Judo wrestlers. Conclusions: in all age groups of Judo wrester’s average level of self assessment prevails. Higher level is characteristic only for members of combined teams of the country. Judo wrestlers’ aggression depending on age differs only by one component [...].

Purpose – to reveal the importance of responsible production and consumption to overcome the plastic paradox. Design/methodology/approach – analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, comparative analysis of good practices in different countries. Findings – The business and society should take care not only for “today” but for “tomorrow” too. As a result, both business and society need to be encouraged or even forced to behave socially responsible more actively to contribute to overcoming plastic paradox in the world. The aspiration of socially responsible production and consumption is still increasing in Lithuania. Practical implications – it is necessary to learn the good practices of other countries in order to encourage the business and society to behave socially responsible in the processes of production and consumption and in this way to contribute to the overcoming the plastic paradox in the world. Originality/Value – the importance of responsible production and consumption is disclosed. Only actively acting responsible business and society can contribute to overcome the plastic paradox.

The relationship between energy consumption and economic growth has been a hot issue in academic research. The results of the investigations have been varied due to quite different national economic development and diversity of research methods as well. This paper investigates the causal relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in the Baltic countries, such as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the period of year between 1995 and 2012. To that end, Granger causality test is applied in order to suggest which variable in the model has significant impact on the future value of other variable in the system. Based on the causal relationship, regression model has been employed for the estimation of interrelationship between energy consumption and economic growth. The empirical results could be summarized as following: 1) in terms of correlation analysis between energy consumption and economic growth, there is a weak and insignificant relationship for Lithuania, strong and significant for Latvia and moderate one for Estonia; 2) in terms of causality running from GDP to energy consumption, the causal relationship exists for Estonia. The main implication of this finding is that the energy conservation policies will not have impact on economic growth; moreover, the results of the research highlight the absence of Granger causality between variables observed in the case of Lithuania and Latvia. In this light, national energy policies will not have impact on economic growth as well as economic growth will not has influence on energy consumption.

The aim of the article is to systemically analyse the associations of war and the morality of community. Recently military conflicts became more frequent all over the world. It is noticed that military conflicts have the tendency to repeat and to gain chain reaction, when the wave of war affects many countries. General level of human aggressiveness has influence for the beginning of war. But the presidents of the countries with psychopathic personalities are at the starting point of the war. They possess the power and transfer their personal negative features to a conflict with another country. This is the reason why electing a president is such a responsible act, when society must pay attention not only to the election programme, but also to candidate’s morality and hierarchy of values. We have to remember that peace begins in our minds and all of us are responsible for peace in our country and all over the world.

Introduction: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been recently defined as a systemic pulmonary inflammatory disease, and congenital α1 antitrypsin deficiency is one of the well-established genetic risk factors for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The aim of our study was to evaluate the possible associations of α1 antitrypsin with inflammatory markers – CRP, sCD14, TNF-α, sTNFR-1, and sTNFR-2 – in patients with COPD with different α1 antitrypsin genotypes. Material and methods: Serum biomarkers from patients (n = 355) with COPD, defined according to the GOLD criteria, were analyzed using commercial ELISA kits; α1 antitrypsin concentrations were determined by nephelometry, and α1 antitrypsin phenotyping was carried out by means of isoelectric focusing. Results: No significant differences in CRP, TNF-α, sTNFR-1, sTNFR-2, and sCD14 levels were found comparing COPD patients with different genotypes. In patients without α1 antitrypsin deficiency (PI*MM), a significant negative correlation between lung function (FEV1) and serum α1 antitrypsin (r = –0.522, p = 0.03) and CRP concentration (r = –0.590, p = 0.011) was detected. The level of α1 antitrypsin positively correlated with: a) CRP concentration (r = 0.671, p = 0.005), b) sCD14 (r = 0.510, p = 0.008) and c) sTNFR-1 (r = 0.567, p = 0.007). Conclusions: In patients without α1 antitrypsin deficiency, the positive association of α1 antitrypsin concentration with CRP, sCD14, and sTNFR-1 and the negative association with FEV1 show the importance of α1 antitrypsin as a marker of systemic inflammation.