Changing Societies & Personalities, 2020 Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 5–7 http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/csp.2020.4.1.086 EDITORIAL Editor’s Note The current issue of Changing Societies & Personalities covers topics pertaining to undergoing transformations in value systems investigated from such diverse perspectives as scientometric analysis of the concepts of “fourth industrial revolution” and “emotional intelligence”; transborder relations, regional studies and transborder policies; philosophical reflections on the status of the unborn human; attitudes towards the attractiveness of the human body; and age diversity in the workforce. Riccardo Campa begins his article Fourth Industrial Revolution and Emotional Intelligence: A Conceptual and Scientometric Analysis with a statement that “science is a collective enterprise”. Indeed, scientific discoveries are frequently made independently and simultaneously by multiple investigators. This article analyses the concepts of “fourth industrial revolution” and “emotional intelligence” from the perspective of the sociology of science using research tools offered by scientometrics. Campa subjects to scrutiny a large amount of literature sources dealing with the emergence and historical dynamics of these two concepts, arriving at the conclusion that, on the one hand, the recent growth in the number of publications containing both terms confirms that “more and more scholars are now relating the two concepts, even though they were born in two different scientific disciplines”. On the other hand, the nurturing of emotional intelligence is seen as a possible solution to the unwanted side effects of the fourth industrial revolution, in particular, technological unemployment. Evidently, Campa agrees with the growing number of scholars in the assumption that nurturing and enhancing emotional intelligence in children and adults is a new challenge for education systems in technologically advanced countries. Farid Abud Alkatiri in his article The Security Dimension and the Formation of Social Exclusion in the Border of Belu Regency, Indonesia describes the present situation with refugees in the West Timor / East Timor border. In analysing recent publications on the role of the military in border areas, Alkatiri stresses that these forces may cause social exclusion among the refugees’ community and the local population. Unfortunately, the existing literature on the problem rarely considers social exclusion and security border issues as an Received 1 March 2020 © 2020 Elena A. Stepanova Published online 10 April 2020 stepanova.elena.a@gmail.com https://changing-sp.com/ 6 Elena A. Stepanova integrated question. The researcher applied a qualitative methodological approach: 20 in-depth interviews and group discussions were conducted in 2016–2017 in two refugee camps and three resettlements. This article is valuable in terms of revealing the interdependence between social security policy and social exclusion in the case of Belu regency. Scientific progress has made it impossible to predict how far the intervention of biotechnologies in human life may extend. Moreover, our past convictions about the moment when life begins and when it ends now seem at least doubtful. For instance, this question is crucial for debates about abortions, since the answer directly affects the opposition “the woman’s right to her own body versus the unborn child’s right to life”. Thus, society is now facing a whole range of ethical and legal dilemmas, which results in some serious disagreements on crucial life issues, including reproductive technologies. Aireen Grace T. Andal in her article Flesh of the Unborn: On the Political Philosophy of the Unborn notes that the very issue of the unborn has become the subject of numerous disciplines from biology to feminist studies, from law to ecology. In her article, Andal focuses specifically on the concept of the unborn from the standpoint of political philosophy: “Political philosophy treats the unborn in terms of what virtues ought to govern laws and policies on the unborn. Political philosophy asks questions about the beliefs upon which political institutions and actors employ as guide to determine unborn’s political status in the society”. Such an approach seems to be valuable due to its shift from the discussion of the embryo or fetus’ personhood or consciousness to that of the legitimacy of the embryo’ body or fetus which requires protection. Jernej Jelenko’s article The Role of Intergenerational Differentiation in Perception of Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction among Older and Younger Employees in Slovenia is focused on age diversity in the workforce and its impact on values. Jelenko basically agrees with researches from various countries in that “diversity across age and work values inevitably produces generational differences in the workplace which enhance the likelihood of encountering greater age-related perspective dissimilarity with one’s coworkers, and can bring forth age discrimination in the workplace and beyond”. In the paper, Jelenko analyses the features and routs of age discrimination, highlights the importance of its effects on job satisfaction and employee engagement across older and younger age groups – the ones that play a decisive role in the present and future job market in Slovenia, – and provide important insights into effects of age discrimination on job satisfaction and employee engagement, which could be useful for both human resource management and employees. The topic of Natalya L. Antonova and Anatoly V. Merenkov’s research article Perceived Personal Attractiveness and Self-Improvement Practices echoes the current sociological interest in the body as a bio-social construct. The authors point out several factors of such interest, namely, the development of biotechnologies, the explosive growth of the beauty and wellness industry, an increase in the perceived value of beauty and vitality and the emergence of a healthy living movement. It is shown that, in contemporary society, the human body becomes an instrument that Changing Societies & Personalities, 2020, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 5–7 7 can be used to achieve a higher social status. The article presents the results of a sociological survey conducted in 2019 in Yekaterinburg (Russia), which was focused on investigating commonly shared opinions and evaluations concerning attractive body and personality characteristics. The authors demonstrate significant age- and gender-related differences in the perceptions of male and female beauty, explain widespread stereotypes concerning health and beauty, and present common practices used by the respondents for improving their physical, mental and social characteristics. In the Book Review section, one can find Andrey S. Menshikov’s review of Samuel A. Greene and Graeme B. Robertson’s book Putin v. the People. The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia (Yale University Press, 2019), which challenges the prevalent approach in authoritarianism studies focused predominantly on the ruling elite, and investigates the “relation between the Russian people and their authoritarian state”. Discussions around the topics raised in the current issue will be continued in the subsequent issues of our journal. In planning to introduce new interesting themes, we welcome suggestions from our readers and prospective authors for thematic issues, debate sections or book reviews. For more information, please visit our Journal’s website: https://changing-sp.com/ Elena A. Stepanova Editor-in-Chief Institute of Philosophy and Law, Ural Branch of the RAS, Yekaterinburg, Russia https://changing-sp.com/ https://changing-sp.com/