A Conceptual Model of Natural and Anthropogenic Drivers and Their Influence on the Prince William Sound, Alaska, Ecosystem

Prince William Sound (PWS) is a semi-enclosed fjord estuary on the coast of Alaska adjoining the northern Gulf of Alaska (GOA). PWS is highly productive and diverse, with primary productivity strongly coupled to nutrient dynamics driven by variability in the climate and oceanography of the GOA and North Pacific Ocean. The pelagic and nearshore primary productivity supports a complex and diverse trophic structure, including large populations of forage and large fish that support many species of marine birds and mammals. High intra-annual, inter-annual, and interdecadal variability in climatic and oceanographic processes as drives high variability in the biological populations. A risk-based conceptual ecosystem model (CEM) is presented describing the natural processes, anthropogenic drivers, and resultant stressors that affect PWS, including stressors caused by the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 and the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. A trophodynamic model incorporating PWS valued ecosystem components is integrated into the CEM. By representing the relative strengths of driver/stressors/effects, the CEM graphically demonstrates the fundamental dynamics of the PWS ecosystem, the natural forces that control the ecological condition of the Sound, and the relative contribution of natural processes and human activities to the health of the ecosystem. The CEM illustrates the dominance of natural processes in shaping the structure and functioning of the GOA and PWS ecosystems

Divorce Trends in Seven Countries Over the Long Transition from State Socialism: 1981–2004

The collapse of communism was a defining geopolitical event of late-20th century Europe, with well-documented economic, social, and political implications. Yet there is a striking absence of research on how it influenced divorce. The objective of this study is to provide an exploratory analysis of trends in divorce over the long transition from communism—starting from the decline of the communist economy in the 1980s and ending with economic revival—in seven countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Russia. We discuss how the transition could be expected to either increase or decrease divorce risks. We analyze retrospective micro-level data on first marriages from the Changing Life Course Regimes in Eastern Europe (CLiCR) dataset. Based on our event-history analyses, we find that divorce rates increased in each country at some stage during the long transition and these increases cannot be explained by compositional change of the marriages. However, no uniform pattern emerged in the timing and duration of the increase in divorce risk. This striking variation leads us to conclude that even the effect of major societal ruptures is contextually contingent

Transition and trade perspectives on Eastern European agriculture

In the economic and political restructuring of Eastern Europe, a new agricultural structure is taking shape, based upon private ownership, genuine cooperatives, and a market economy. Agricultural trade policy in six Eastern European nations will be characterized by the aim of self-sufficiency, but privatized and centered around market methods, improvement in agricultural systems will occur slowly, and over the long term may achieve self-sufficiency and greater exports. Meanwhile, Eastern European agriculture will provide investment and market opportunities for countries of the developed world