<p class="Abstract">The paper presents results of the part of international survey on teachers’ opinion on autism characteristics and specific educational approach and treatment. Research was undertaken in Poland under the auspicies of ASD-EAST project using quantitative and qualitative methods. The results showed the significant differences in teachers’ perception on autism regarding to the school settings they worked in. The strong need for special training in the field of ASD was also expressed by teachers.</p>

Due to the shortage of autism-specific professional development, the international ASD-EAST project was implemented. This article presents the findings of a quantitative survey undertaken among Polish teachers (in two school settings: special, N=60; mainstream/inclusive, N=30) who attended ASD-EAST workshops. The aim was to identify the post-autism-specific professional development increase of teachers’ knowledge concerning the characteristics of students with ASD and teachers’ subjective confidence regarding their professional competencies. The results showed that the training opportunity was considered by teachers to be important and effective. The results provide grounds for concluding that the programme may be recommended for practical use in order to train teachers who will work with students with ASD

The risk of contracting COVID-19 was a very specific situation of uncertainty and ambi-guity, and of course, cognitively interesting for psychologists studying the determinants of behaviors of different personality types. In this study, we set our sights on trying to find a correlation between adherence to wearing masks and receiving vaccinations and having certain character traits that we thought might influence preventive behavior or not. We focused on the Dark Triad—psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism—as well as social approval and the need for cognition closure, as these traits have previously been linked to heightened conspiracy mentalities. We recruited 159 subjects in the experiment, including 53 male and 106 female participants over the age of 18 to take part in an online survey investigating personality and COVID-19 information. The results confirmed our hypothesis that age, empathy, the need for social approval and other psychological traits are the factors that differentiates people who wear face masks from those who do not. However, it seems impossible to define one set of features that would predispose people to not wear face masks. In our study, the importance of psychological features differed depending on the category of public places. We discuss possible implications of these findings and provide direction for future research.

Acute-phase proteins (APPs) form a group of heterogeneous proteins whose synthesis takes place in the liver. This involves mediators such as cytokines and constitutes a response to acute inflammations, bacterial infections, tumours, and autoimmune diseases. C-reactive protein is among the most important APPs. It participates in cancerous processes, especially in colon and rectal cancer. Another APP is haptoglobin. This glycoprotein prevents iron loss and kidney damage, and is associated with diagnostic neoplastic progression connected with fucosylation. Fucoso-haptoglobin is a highly effective marker for prognosis because an increased concentration of this complex is indicative of the distant metastases amount. Another APP is acidic α-glycoprotein (AGP), which increases to a serious level during acute inflammations and tumour-promoting processes. Its protective role involves platelet aggregation inhibition and chemotactic activity. The purpose of this study was to review the role of selected acute phase proteins in cancer promotion and progression. StreszczenieBiałka ostrej fazy (APP) stanowią grupę białek, których synteza zachodzi w wątrobie z udziałem cytokin jako odpowiedź na ostre stany zapalne, infekcje bakteryjne, nowotwory i choroby autoimmunologiczne. Białko C-reaktywne to jedno z najważniejszych APP. Bierze ono udział w procesach nowotworowych, zwłaszcza w przypadku raka jelita grubego. Kolejnym przykładem APP jest haptoglobina. Ta glikoproteina zapobiega utracie żelaza i uszkodzeniom nerek, a także wiąże się z diagnostyką postępu nowotworu powiązaną z fukozylacją. Fukozo-haptoglobina jest niezwykle efektywnym markerem prognozującym, ponieważ podwyższone stężenie tego kompleksu świadczy o obecności odległych przerzutów. Kolejnym przykładem APP jest kwaśna α-glikoproteina (AGP), której stężenie bardzo wzrasta podczas ostrych stanów zapalnych oraz promowania nowotworów. Jej protekcyjna rola obejmuje inhibicję agregacji płytek krwi i chemotaktyczną aktywność. Celem tego artykułu jest przegląd wybranych białek ostrej fazy i ich funkcji w promowaniu oraz postępie nowotworu.