Weiterführung und Ausbau von MEDEA and MEDEA V1.1 Handbuch (Continuation and Further Development of the MEDEA Event Data Base)

The main goal of the event database MEDEA that was initiated within StartClim for the collation of meteorological extreme events is the mid- and long-range storage and safekeeping of diverse types of interdisciplinary datasets related to meteorological extreme events in Austria. Additionally, it should provide access to the Austrian climatology community for specific analysis and queries

StartClim2004F: Continuation and further development of the MEDEA event data base (Heat and Drought and their Impacts in Austria). Final Report - StartClim2004, p.24-27

In 2002, Austrian climatologists founded the research platform AustroClim. Its goal is to meet the challenges that climate change poses to science and to support the necessary decisions that need to be made in the political and economic sectors and by each and every individual. This is to be achieved in an interdisciplinary approach that will provide the basis for the decision- making process. In light of AustroClim’s call for a coordinated climatological research effort, and based on an initiative of the Austrian Federal Minister of the Environment, six funding partners1 commissioned the Start Project Climate Protection: „StartClim – First Analyses of Extreme Weather Events and their Impact in Austria“ (StartClim2003). The BOKU - University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences as representative of the AustroClim Research Platform agreed to act as the project leader for StartClim. The administrative tasks were assumed by the Federal Environment Agency. StartClim continued in 2004 by sponsoring research on “heat and drought” and is now set up as a program initiating research in climate change topics not yet established in Austria. StartClim research projects are intended to subsequently be carried farther in the framework of normal research funding or as studies commissioned by interested stakeholders

Psychology of Fragrance Use: Perception of Individual Odor and Perfume Blends Reveals a Mechanism for Idiosyncratic Effects on Fragrance Choice

Cross-culturally, fragrances are used to modulate body odor, but the psychology of fragrance choice has been largely overlooked. The prevalent view is that fragrances mask an individual's body odor and improve its pleasantness. In two experiments, we found positive effects of perfume on body odor perception. Importantly, however, this was modulated by significant interactions with individual odor donors. Fragrances thus appear to interact with body odor, creating an individually-specific odor mixture. In a third experiment, the odor mixture of an individual's body odor and their preferred perfume was perceived as more pleasant than a blend of the same body odor with a randomly-allocated perfume, even when there was no difference in pleasantness between the perfumes. This indicates that fragrance use extends beyond simple masking effects and that people choose perfumes that interact well with their own odor. Our results provide an explanation for the highly individual nature of perfume choice

Vocal Learning and Auditory-Vocal Feedback

Vocal learning is usually studied in songbirds and humans, species that can form auditory templates by listening to acoustic models and then learn to vocalize to match the template. Most other species are thought to develop vocalizations without auditory feedback. However, auditory input influences the acoustic structure of vocalizations in a broad distribution of birds and mammals. Vocalizations are dened here as sounds generated by forcing air past vibrating membranes. A vocal motor program may generate vocalizations such as crying or laughter, but auditory feedback may be required for matching precise acoustic features of vocalizations. This chapter discriminates limited vocal learning, which uses auditory input to fine-tune acoustic features of an inherited auditory template, from complex vocal learning, in which novel sounds are learned by matching a learned auditory template. Two or three songbird taxa and four or ve mammalian taxa are known for complex vocal learning. A broader range of mammals converge in the acoustic structure of vocalizations when in socially interacting groups, which qualifies as limited vocal learning. All birds and mammals tested use auditory-vocal feedback to adjust their vocalizations to compensate for the effects of noise, and many species modulate their signals as the costs and benefits of communicating vary. This chapter asks whether some auditory-vocal feedback may have provided neural substrates for the evolution of vocal learning. Progress will require more precise definitions of different forms of vocal learning, broad comparative review of their presence and absence, and behavioral and neurobiological investigations into the mechanisms underlying the skills.PostprintPeer reviewe