Perceptions of climate change and adaptation in Hungarian agriculture: results of an interview study

In this paper, the results of an interview survey of farmers in Győr-Moson-Sopron, Fejér, Hajdú-Bihar, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, Pest and Zala (NUTS 3) counties of Hungary are used to demonstrate the major factors of climate change perception, such as the terms psychological climate, temporality and problem localisation. Adaptation strategies are also discussed. The interview results underline the subjectivity of temporality as well as the fact that the phenomenon of localisation and the narratives for place attachment differ when climate change is interpreted within the locality. Considering adaptation, it seems that Hungarian agriculture includes individuals who can be regarded as leaders or as people escaping ahead in terms of climatic adaptation, but the majority seems to be unable to follow them because they lack the necessary knowledge, technology or financial resources

Nyugat és Kelet határán: Sopron a belföldi migrációban = Sopron: a border town attracting internal migration

A rendszerváltozás után a belföldi migrációban jelentős változások következtek be, amit több tényező (pl. gazdasági átalakulás, a szuburbanizáció felerősödése, a közlekedés fejlődése) indukált. Az egyes településeket különbözőképp érintette a belső vándorlás intenzívebbé válása, aminek demográfiai szempontból is vannak „nyertesei” és „vesztesei”. Az előbbiekhez sorolható az osztrák határ közelében fekvő, mintegy 63 ezer fős város, Sopron is, amely az egyik legnépszerűbb célpont az országon belül vándorlók körében. Tanulmányunkban egyrészt Sopron szerepét értékeljük a belföldi migrációban, bemutatva azt, hogy a belső vándorlás különböző típusai hogyan járultak hozzá a város vándorlási nyereségéhez. Empirikus kutatásra alapozva arra keresünk választ, hogy kik a Sopronba bevándorlók, és hogy van-e lényeges különbség a bevándorlók jellemzőiben attól függően, hogy a legutóbbi gazdasági válság előtt vagy után érkeztek a városba. Az elmúlt évtizedekben folyamatosan gyarapodott a népesség Sopronban, miközben az ország egészében és sok városában fogyott. A növekedés legfőbb forrása a vándorlási többlet volt, különösen az ezredforduló után. 1990 és 2016 között közel 13 ezer fős vándorlási nyereségre tett szert a város, elsődlegesen az ideiglenes bevándorlásból. A nagyarányú bevándorlás számos okra vezethető vissza (pl. a nyugati határ menti fekvés felértékelődése 1990 után, kedvezőbbé vált közlekedési kapcsolatok, relatíve közeli fekvés az osztrák fővároshoz és Burgenland északi fejlettebb településeihez, az osztrák munkavállalási korlátozás feloldása). A felmérés tapasztalatai igazolták, hogy a gazdasági válság markáns fordulatot hozott az ezredforduló után Sopronba bevándorlók összetételében, munkapiaci ismérveiben és térkapcsolataiban. A 2009 után megfigyelhető új, kedvezőtlen trendek a helyi társadalomban is mélyreható változásokhoz vezethetnek

Perception, understanding, and action: attitudes of climate change in the Hungarian population

This study is based on a non-representative, national level survey sample whose main purpose is to interpret the general population’s understanding of climate change. The study also provides an examination of correlations between climate change concerns and the taking of individual action as well as the relationship between pro-environmental thinking and climate change scepticism. Our results show a moderate correlation between the general population’s concerns and the professional views on the subject, known in the literature as the New Environmental Paradigm scale and Scepticism scale, but a significantly weaker correlation when it comes to taking action against climate change. Factors relating to the respondents, such as residence settlement type, education level, gender, age, personal and social values, or casual attributions in relation to climate change heavily influence this weaker correlation. Most respondents assessed climate change as a current (urgent), but geographically remote phenomenon. This is a clear indication of problems associated with cognitive conceptualization and the localization of climate change in communication. The target audience must be taken into account when designing climate change communications because interpretations of climate change can vary widely and cover a broad range attitudes ranging from concern about to issue all the way to climate change scepticism. This also applies to views concerning responsibility for climate change with some believing it is a political responsibility and others believing it is a scientific responsibility

Addressing gaps in care of people with conditions affecting sex development and maturation

Differences of sex development are conditions with discrepancies between chromosomal, gonadal and phenotypic sex. In congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, a lack of gonadotropin activity results primarily in the absence of pubertal development with prenatal sex development being (almost) unaffected in most patients. To expedite progress in the care of people affected by differences of sex development and congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, the European Union has funded a number of scientific networks. Two Actions of the Cooperation of Science and Technology (COST) programmes - DSDnet (BM1303) and GnRH Network (BM1105) - provided the framework for ground-breaking research and allowed the development of position papers on diagnostic procedures and special laboratory analyses as well as clinical management. Both Actions developed educational programmes to increase expertise and promote interest in this area of science and medicine. In this Perspective article, we discuss the success of the COST Actions DSDnet and GnRH Network and the European Reference Network for Rare Endocrine Conditions (Endo-ERN), and provide recommendations for future research

Contribution of copy number variants to schizophrenia from a genome-wide study of 41,321 subjects

Copy number variants (CNVs) have been strongly implicated in the genetic etiology of schizophrenia (SCZ). However, genome-wide investigation of the contribution of CNV to risk has been hampered by limited sample sizes. We sought to address this obstacle by applying a centralized analysis pipeline to a SCZ cohort of 21,094 cases and 20,227 controls. A global enrichment of CNV burden was observed in cases (OR=1.11, P=5.7×10−15), which persisted after excluding loci implicated in previous studies (OR=1.07, P=1.7 ×10−6). CNV burden was enriched for genes associated with synaptic function (OR = 1.68, P = 2.8 ×10−11) and neurobehavioral phenotypes in mouse (OR = 1.18, P= 7.3 ×10−5). Genome-wide significant evidence was obtained for eight loci, including 1q21.1, 2p16.3 (NRXN1), 3q29, 7q11.2, 15q13.3, distal 16p11.2, proximal 16p11.2 and 22q11.2. Suggestive support was found for eight additional candidate susceptibility and protective loci, which consisted predominantly of CNVs mediated by non-allelic homologous recombination