Is the East-West Political Bipolarity the Foundation of the Ecumenical Movement? The Cold War as a Meta-Narrative of the World Council of Churches

Excerpt: ...the following remarks provide an overview of the role of churches during the Cold War. Very often, the role of churches will be represented by developments and discussions within the WCC, which can be understood as a sort of role model, because it provided the bell for similar developments in the Western and Northern European countries. Three topics were prioritized. First was the dilemma of an ecumenism between the East and West in the early phase of the Cold War during the late 1940s and 1950s, which accompanied the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Second, was the position of the World Council of Churches in the period of detente after the late 1960s. And third, was the issue of political instrumentalization of the World Council of Churches during the Cold War period. For them all, the Cold War formed a kind of meta-history, because its implicit antagonism between the West and East, between two different political systems and its various phases also shaped the great debates, controversies, and directional decisions of the churches

Using Optimization and Simulation Techniques to Estimate Initial Weevil Populations

In this paper, a mathematical programming and simulation method is used to estimate the number of weevils (Neochetina bruchi Hustache, and N. eichhorniae Warner) necessary to initialize the INSECT model which simulates the biological control of waterhyacinth by the weevils. The objective is to estimate the initial input values for the adult population so that the sum of the absolute differences between the observed and the simulated numbers of weevils is minimized. In general, the simulated values using the initial values obtained from the mathematical programming problem were within the 95% confidence intervals of the actual field observations. Also, in many cases, the simulation results indicated trends similar to those indicated by the field data in both timing and the numbers of weevils

Children at risk of poor educational outcomes. How educational research can support early identification and improve prevention. Special issue editorial

The editorial presents the papers of this special issue regarding children at risk of poor educational outcomes. The articles “provide a cross-section of the multifaceted research carried out within this framework. This research demonstrates the various theoretical and methodological approaches that can be used to tackle the question of how to provide support for students at risk.” (DIPF/Orig.

What are the important landscape components for habitat selection of the ortolan bunting Emberiza hortulana in northern limit of range?

Ortolan buntings Emberiza hotulana have undergone one of the most severe population declines of any European farmland bird over the last thirty years. The aim of this study was to find out which habitat features, including crop characteristics, ortolan bunting prefers in Estonia in breeding areas. This study compared currently occupied and unoccupied ortolan bunting territories. Occupied areas contained significantly more tall broadleaf trees, crop types, structural elements (trees, bushes, roads, overhead power lines and buildings) and spring wheat, but also had lower crop drilling densities. Ortolan bunting territories were best described by a logistic regression model containing six variables: amount of structural point elements, length of power lines, amount of tall broadleaf trees and number of different crops had a positive effect, whereas crop density and area of autumn-sown crops had a negative effect. Based on the findings of this study, the following conservation measures can be recommended: lower crop densities; spring rather than autumn-sown crops; small-field systems containing a variety of crops; scattered scrub preserved or planted; habitat patches of permanent grasslands, hedges and tall broadleaf trees retained within the agricultural landscape

COTGAME: Cotton Insect Pest Management Simulation Game

An interactive version of the Cotton and Insect Management (CIM) model was developed to aid individuals in improving their insect pest management decision making skills. This version, COTGAME, allowed the user to encounter situations and make decisions during the simulated cotton crop growing season. The intermediate results of these decisions were immediately delivered in the form of a report on the current status of the crop and insect populations. Based on the information presented in this status report, the user would make additional management decisions and take tactical actions. Once the harvest date had been reached, the economics of the simulated production season was presented to allow the user to evaluate the decisions. The use of COTGAME has been a way to apply the technology in a detailed crop growth model to improving insect pest management skills

Between Active Opposition, Dialogue and Loyalty: Churches in the German Democratic Republic 1970-1989/90

When we survey the situation in East Germany during the Cold War we find at the beginning of the decade of the 1980s an increasingly deteriorating economic situation. The GDR’s growing indebtedness to the West, the restriction of its imports and widely felt shortages of food and other goods made for a desolate economic situation. Demoralization and resignation dominated the emotional tone of the country, drawing a large part of the population into a sort of “collective depression.”One consequence of this was the increasing number of people who sought to leave the GDR and relocate in the Federal Republic of Germany (FDR) despite the risk that they themselves and their families would likely be labelled as criminals and be discriminated against by the state. Between 1962 and 1983 10,000 relocations into the FRG were registered annually, but from 1984 to 1988 the rate increased to 40,000 per year. 1 This persistent grey shade of the eighties was sensitively described by the East German writer Christa Wolf in her novel Kassandra:“Gerade die Gewöhnungan den Zustand war es, die mir die Hoffnung nahm” (“It was this getting used to the normality of it all that took away my hope”). The situation got worse in other ways too. The State Secret Service (Staatssicherheit or “Stasi”), intensified its presence, expanding its personnel to as many as 91,000 by 1989

A Protestant Revolution in Germany, 1989?

Peer reviewe

Freiheit in Grenzen. Protestantismus in der DDR. By Veronika Albrecht-Birkner. (Christentum und Zeitgeschichte, 2). Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2018 [Book review]

Non peer reviewe

A controversial and politicized issue : the World Council of Churches and Human Rights from the 1950s to 1989

Paper presented at the Conference on Christian Perspectives on Human Dignity and Humans Rights held in Wuppertal (Germany) online from 9–12 April 202