As urbanisation is set to continue, understanding the impact on wildlife becomes increasingly important if we are to be able to conserve biodiversity. As an excellent group of bioindicators, invertebrates can allow us to understand some of the forces in urban areas which impact upon biodiversity and wildlife populations. This paper discusses some of the trends in the abundance, diversity and richness of invertebrates related to urbanisation and the specific urban environmental and traffic factors which may be at play., Elizabeth L. Jones, Simon R. Leather., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Článek se zaměřuje na debaty o vztahu teorie, metody a praxe v meziválečné americké sociologii. Toto období je často vnímáno jako "zlatý“ věk empirického zkoumání, během něhož bylo zformováno mnoho metodologických přístupů. Na druhé straně, jak naznačuje zde rozpracovaná argumentace, požadavky profesionalizace a specializace vytvořily výzkumný model, jenž sice úspěšně analyzoval specifické problémy, současně však selhal v kontextu kkrize“ a "rozvratu“ americké společnosti, kdy se projevilo, že vědění, jež americká sociologie produkuje, je irelevatní ve vztahu k obecnému problému logiky vývoje společnosti., The article provides a historical contextualization of the debates on theory and method within interwar American sociology. This period is often portrayed as the “golden” age of empirical inquiry resulting in proliferation of methodological orientations. It is argued that the demands of professionalization and specialization within the discipline produced a research model which succeeded in analyzing specific issues, but failed to find (in the context of the “crisis” and “disruption” of American society) a convincing answer to the general question of the logic of society’s development., and Jan Balon.
The early months of 2014 have been marked with two important
elections in two of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries. Both have been first order elections with very high stakes. Slovak presidential election was to be a test of Robert Fico’s risky maneuver, his attempt to capture the presidential office from amidst his PM mandate. Hungarian legislative election was to decide whether Viktor Orban’s unprecedented 2010 triumph would be reaffirmed
or not. One of these electioans has been characterized by astonishing result continuity (in comparison to the previous election), while the other one by a fundamental change. Contraintuitively, however, this article aims to show that it is Hungary, the country displaying election outcome stability, which
has actually been undergoing a party system change. And, conversely, in case of Slovakia, the country with a seemingly discontinuous election outcome, it would be at least premature to envisage a fundamental party system change.This article, obviously, goes beyond a narrow 2014 comparison of two single
electoral events where, moreover, two different types of elections took place. It sets the current stories into context, i.e., analyzes both party systems, compares their differing logics and offers some tentative explanations for their divergent dynamics of development. and Článek zahrnuje poznámkový aparát pod čarou
Predictions of stream landscape theory were tested with common agency fishery data in watersheds heavily fragmented by dams and barriers; large stream fragments support higher species diversity, more abundant populations, and a greater range of fish sizes. Study watersheds discharge to the Hudson River in New York USA, drain rocky and high relief landscapes, and have numerous mill dams and stream barriers. Stream fragments with fish collections ranged from 0.3 km to 119 km in contiguous length. Larger stream fragments had more diverse fish communities but not higher fish densities nor a wider range of fish sizes. However, almost all large stream fragments were supporting reproduction and rearing of the dominant stream species (brown trout Salmo trutta, brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis) while small fragments had no evidence of providing this fish community support. Therefore, consistent with the fundamental basis of stream landscape theory, large stream networks provide support for more species and more secure populations. The study supports the concept that diverse fish communities and secure populations benefit from access to a wide range of stream habitats.
The hierarchical fragmentation of a molecular cloud is modelled as a random process by the Monte Carlo method. It is proposed that the IMF for stár formation is bimodal. The probability of the fragmentation in each mode is a function of the initial cloud mass and defined critical mass, which can be derived from the surface
density and temperature of cloud. The modelled IMF is compared with the empirically determined function and the best fit was found for critical masses of 0.3 M^ for low-mass mode and 2.0 M„ for
high-mass mode of star formation.