Habitat mosaic of gravel pit as a potential refuge for carabids: a case study from Central Europe

Abstract In gravel pits, a mosaic of habitats with various environmental conditions created during mining has a great potential for persistence of many species. We focused on such a mosaic in a gravel pit surrounded by agricultural landscape. We investigated which habitats within sludge deposits in different successional stages (from bare sands to secondary forest) and agriculturally reclaimed area enhanced diversity, species richness and abundance of carabids and supported occurrence of threatened species. Since some of these habitats were extensively managed while others were invaded by the alien plant Solidago gigantea, we also tested the effect of management and the cover of S. gigantea on carabid assemblages. We found a gradient in carabid assemblages from psammophilous ones in bare sandy soils towards similar assemblages in plots with well-developed vegetation cover. Here, carabid assemblages were represented predominantly by common species of agricultural and forest lands without higher habitat requirements. Contrarily, plots with bare sand could serve as a refuge for rare psammophilous carabid species, which cannot occur in surrounding landscape due to vanished suitable habitats. Therefore, keeping some of habitats in early plant successional states is important for maintaining habitat mosaic and for persistence of such species as well. Management of grasslands and cover of S. gigantea had no effect on carabid assemblage. We presume that carabids were likely more affected by vegetation structure and density than species composition

Aktuelle Berichte und Forschungsprojekte

Autobiographie und Autofiktion. Vierte Sommerakademie Schweizer Literatur im Centre Dürrenmatt in Neuchâtel, 31. Mai – 4. Juni 2010 (Marie-Luise Wünsche) Die Stellung der Germanistik in der Tschechischen Republik nach der Bologna-Reform. Internationale Konferenz des Germanistenverbandes der Tschechischen Republik in Prag, 16. – 17. September 2010 (Monika Růžičková) Uferdasein. Quellen und Strömungen germanistischer Forschung. Internationale Tagung am Lehrstuhl für Germanistik in Ústí nad Labem, 3. – 4. Dezember 2010 (Renata Cornejo) Aktuelle Probleme der modernen Lexikologie und Phraseologie. Internationale Germanistenkonferenz an der Moskauer Staatlichen Linguistischen Universität anlässlich des 100. Geburtstags von Irina I. Černyševa, 14. – 15. März 2011 (Galina M. Fadeeva) Traum und Trauma. Kulturelle Figurationen in der österreichischen Literatur. Internationale Tagung in Wien, 15. – 16. April 2011 (Renata Cornejo) 20. Linguistik-Tage der Gesellschaft für Sprache und Sprachen in Prag, 26. – 28. Mai 2011 (Romana Vančáková) Sprichwörter kommen selten aus der Mode oder wie kann man sie im Sprachenlernen einsetzen. Über das EU-geförderte Projekt SprichWort (Vida Jesenšek

New calix[4]arene-based amides - Their synthesis, conformation, complexation

New chiral calix[4]arene-based diol-diamides 1a, 1b, tetraamides 2a, 2b and 7 as well as achiral diamide 3 and tetraamides 4-6 were prepared. The conformation of 1 has been studied in solution by NMR and in solid state by X-ray crystallography. The pinched-cone conformation of the calix[4]arene skeleton in 1 was found to be stabilized by a circular array of hydrogen bonds formed by two phenolic O-H and two amidic N-H bonds at lower rim. Whereas no significant complexation of Na+ was observed in solution for diamides 1 and 3, tetraamides 2, 4, 5, and 6 give strong complexes with Na+ as confirmed by NMR titrations of 2 and 4. The influence of anions and the solvents used on complexation ability of 2 towards Na+ is negligible

Oscillation theorems for neutral differential equations with the quasi-derivatives

summary:The authors study the n-th order nonlinear neutral differential equations with the quasi – derivatives $L_n[x(t)+(-1)^r P(t) x(g(t))]+\delta Q(t) f(x(h(t))) = 0,$ where $\ n \ge 2,\ r \in \lbrace 1,2\rbrace ,\$ and $\delta = \pm 1.$ There are given sufficient conditions for solutions to be either oscillatory or they converge to zero

Experience of stigma and discrimination in families of persons with schizophrenia in the Czech Republic

Rationale: Mental health-related stigma and discrimination not only affect persons living with schizophrenia but also their whole families. Stigma and discrimination reduction is key to respond to the unmet needs of persons with mental illness. The local context is of particular importance in this endeavor, as stigma and its manifestations depend on the specific conditions of the target population and across cultures and settings. Evidence on effective approaches to reduce stigma is sparse and lacking from Central and Eastern Europe, including from the Czech Republic. Objective: Our aim was to inform an anti-stigma campaign undertaken in the framework of the national mental health reform in the Czech Republic. Methods: We conducted a qualitative study based on semi-structured in-depth interviews with relatives of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia in the Czech Republic. Initial respondents were identified through local mental health services and users’ organizations with a consecutive chain-referral sampling. Transcribed narratives were thematically analyzed within a pre-developed four-level thematic framework to comprehensively identify experiences of stigma and discrimination in all areas of the respondents’ lives. Results: Stigma experiences of 25 diverse family members of persons living with schizophrenia spanned four levels of respondents’ lives (macro-, meso-, micro-, and intro-level). The overarching issues were: (1) general lack of understanding and misconceptions about mental illness; (2) structural discrimination and paucity of governmental and public support system; (3) burden of “pervasive and unlimited” care and inability of independent living. Conclusions: We identified several features of mental health related stigma and the ensuing discrimination in Czech Republic experienced by persons with severe mental illness and their relatives. We developed a set of recommendations for policy-makers aimed at reducing ignorance and prejudice amongst the public and professionals, improving health and social services—including employment, housing and community integration—and the provision of family support

Asymptotic Convergence of the Solutions of a Dynamic Equation on Discrete Time Scales

The paper investigates a dynamic equation Δy(tn)=β(tn)[y(tn−j)−y(tn−k)] for n→∞, where k and j are integers such that k>j≥0, on an arbitrary discrete time scale T:={tn} with tn∈ℝ, n∈ℤn0−k∞={n0−k,n0−k+1,…}, n0∈ℕ, tn<tn+1, Δy(tn)=y(tn+1)−y(tn), and limn→∞tn=∞. We assume β:T→(0,∞). It is proved that, for the asymptotic convergence of all solutions, the existence of an increasing and asymptotically convergent solution is sufficient. Therefore, the main attention is paid to the criteria for the existence of an increasing solution asymptotically convergent for n→∞. The results are presented as inequalities for the function β. Examples demonstrate that the criteria obtained are sharp in a sense

Boundary-Value Problems for Weakly Nonlinear Delay Differential Systems

Conditions are derived of the existence of solutions of nonlinear boundary-value problems for systems of n ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients and single delay (in the linear part) and with a finite number of measurable delays of argument in nonlinearity: ż(t)=Az(t-τ)+g(t)+εZ(z(hi(t),t,ε),  t∈[a,b], assuming that these solutions satisfy the initial and boundary conditions z(s):=ψ(s) if s∉[a,b],  lz(⋅)=α∈Rm. The use of a delayed matrix exponential and a method of pseudoinverse by Moore-Penrose matrices led to an explicit and analytical form of sufficient conditions for the existence of solutions in a given space and, moreover, to the construction of an iterative process for finding the solutions of such problems in a general case when the number of boundary conditions (defined by a linear vector functional l) does not coincide with the number of unknowns in the differential system with a single delay