Fertility trends in Serbia during the 1990s

The 1990s represent an exceptionally complex period for the population of Serbia. In addition to the impact of long-term factors, various tumultuous events affected its demographic development, such as breaking apart of former Yugoslavia, armed conflicts in the neighboring countries, sanctions imposed by the international community, social changes (transition transformation or regression), deep economic crisis, collapse of social stratification political problems, institutional crisis, and NATO military intervention. Maladjustment to the changed system of values and norms, lower level of personal attainment, feeling of insecurity, and living under permanent stress are the main features of life at an individual psychological level. Deprivation or living at the subsistence level are the main elements of the economic cost sustained by the majority of the population. How have these changes affected an individual's decision to have children? The analysis of futility indicators points to an obvious decline in the number of births across low fertility regions of Serbia. Also, the analysis has raised the question why the decline in population fertility in the low fertility regions was not even higher, bearing in mind the experiences undergone by the countries with economy in transition as well as the depth of the crisis in society. In that sense several factors come to mind. The most important are the universality of marriage socio-psychological investigations confirmed domination of the traditional character or mentality in Serbia during the 1990s, and the government’s approach to the issue of fertility improved during this time. Besides demographic needs were carefully taken into account in all amendments to the old and formulation of the new measures in the area of social policy. Mention should be made of measures ensuring employment rights of women and their entitlement to maternity leave, maternity pay, and provision of institutionalized care for the children. On the other hand under-reporting of live births, lack of knowledge on the size and characteristics of emigration flows limited the analysis of population fertility in Kosovo and Metohia. But, registered data as well as survey results show to the perseverance of the fertility model of transitional type displaying obvious traditional elements

Structural studies of metal ligand complexes by ion mobility-mass spectrometry

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12127-013-0122-8Collision cross sections (CCS) have been measured for three salen ligands, and their complexes with copper and zinc using travelling-wave ion mobility-mass spectrometry (TWIMS) and drift tube ion mobility-mass spectrometry (DTIMS), allowing a comparative size evaluation of the ligands and complexes. CCS measurements using TWIMS were determined using peptide and TAAH calibration standards. TWIMS measurements gave significantly larger CCS than DTIMS in helium, by 9 % for TAAH standards and 3 % for peptide standards, indicating that the choice of calibration standards is important in ensuring the accuracy of TWIMS-derived CCS measurements. Repeatability data for TWIMS was obtained for inter- and intra-day studies with mean RSDs of 1. 1 % and 0. 7 %, respectively. The CCS data obtained from IM-MS measurements are compared to CCS values obtained via the projection approximation, the exact hard spheres method and the trajectory method from X-ray coordinates and modelled structures using density functional theory (DFT) based methods. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Dissociation pathways of benzylpyridinium "thermometer" ions depend on the activation regime: An irmpd spectroscopy study

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Nitric oxide- and hydrogen peroxide-responsive gene regulation during cell death induction in tobacco

Nitric oxide (NO) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) are regulatory molecules in various developmental processes and stress responses. Tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) leaves exposed to moderate high light dramatically potentiated NO-mediated cell death in catalase-deficient (CAT1AS) but not in wild-type plants, providing genetic evidence for a partnership between NO and H2O2 during the induction of programmed cell death. With this experimental model system, the specific impact on gene expression was characterized by either NO or H2O2 alone or both molecules combined. By means of genome-wide cDNA-amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis, transcriptional changes were compared in high light-treated CAT1AS and wild-type leaves treated with or without the NO donor sodium nitroprusside. Differential gene expression was detected for 214 of the approximately 8,000 transcript fragments examined. For 108 fragments, sequence analysis revealed homology to genes with a role in signal transduction, defense response, hormone interplay, proteolysis, transport, and metabolism. Surprisingly, only 16 genes were specifically induced by the combined action of NO and H2O2, whereas the majority were regulated by either of them alone. At least seven transcription factors were mutually up-regulated, indicating significant overlap between NO and H2O2 signaling pathways. These results consolidate significant cross-talk between NO and H2O2, provide new insight into the early transcriptional response of plants to increased NO and H2O2 levels, and identify target genes of the combined action of NO and H2O2 during the induction of plant cell death

Sexuality and the longing for salvation

Sexuality, with all its expressiveness, strongly reflects the deep vibrations that exist in the human psyche. In this article, we try to show that sexuality can also manifest itself in the darkest realm of real addiction, and, as it were, can become a cry for salvationand further, that sexuality is the powerful reflection of an aching body, longing for purification, and thus, salvation