The spatial concentration of social disadvantage in rural areas not only poses a risk to social cohesion but also represents a challenge for public policy. This article draws on a multidimensional concept of disadvantage to study spatial aspects of disadvantage in Czech rural areas. Current studies aimed at identifying ‘inner peripheries’ as areas with an increased risk of social exclusion fail to distinguish between different forms of disadvantage. Their methodological approach blends regions struggling with various problems into one category. Contesting the one-dimensionality of peripheries, this article presents an alternative approach that allows the delimitation of multiple types of peripheral areas based on four separate dimensions of disadvantage. It is possible then to distinguish: peripheries characterised by low qualifications, lower living standards, and the absence of a middle class; peripheries with an increased risk of social exclusion; peripheries with poor accessibility; and peripheries facing demographic challenges. Differences in the spatial patterns of the four types of peripheries indicate that different sociospatial processes contribute to the emergence of different types of peripheries and this calls for varied public policy tools and measures.
The article analyses how the so called "inner refugees", dispersed in Bosnia and Herzegovina as a result of the civic conflict in the 1990s view "home". The principal aim of the study rests in answering the question of how, as a result of prolongation of the period of stay of the refugees in other places, their longing for returning to their home changed (the so callded "myth of return").
We tested whether the known cytochrome c oxidase (COX) inhibition by nitric oxide (NO) could be quantified by VO 2 kinetics during constant load supra-Anaero bic Threshold (AT) exercises in healthy trained or untrained subjects following aerobic training or nitrate administration. In cycle er gometer constant load exercises supra-AT, identified in previous incremental tests, VO 2 kinetics describe a double exponential curve, one rapid and one appreciably slower, allowing the area between them to be calculate in O 2 l. After training, with increased NO availability, this area decreases in inverse ratio to treatment efficacy. In fact, in 11 healthy subjects after aerobic tr aining for 6-7 weeks, area was decreased on average by 51 %. In 11 untrained subjects, following the assumption of an NO donor, 20 mg isosorbide 5 mononitrate, area was decrea sed on average by 53 %. In conclusion, supra-AT VO 2 kinetics in constant load exercises permit the quantification of the inhibitory effect NO-dependent on COX after either physical training or nitrate assumption., D. Maione ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
We recorded and analysed the songs of ten male icterine warblers (Hippolais icterina) in České Budějovice (Czech Republic) to identify mimicry. Imitations represented 76.2 % of the total time of all songs and we detected 42 mimicked species. Barn swallow (Hirundo rustica), blackbird (Turdus merula), common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) and fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) were the most common species imitated. Principal components analysis (PCA) detected individual variability in the species mimicked. The length of recording needed to detect 95 % of species mimicked was assessed to be 8.2 minutes.
From June to August in 2004 and 2005, we conducted the studies on spontaneous vocalization development of greater horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, in Zhi’an Village (Jilin province, Northeast China). In contrast to adult bats, infant bats of the greater horseshoe bat emitted calls characterized by multiharmonics and variable harmonic patterns. With the physical growth of infants, the dominant frequency, pulse duration and frequency of each harmonic of spontaneous calls increased, the number of harmonics decreased from 5–8 to 1–2 and dominant harmonic switched from first to the second with peak frequency increasing. Vocalizations of infant bats of the greater horseshoe bat could be categorized to those serving as precursors of echolocation sounds and those serving as isolation calls used to attract their mothers. According to observation on mother-infant reunion, the female adult bats only suckled their own babies, but not other pups in the same colony. And the mother recognized their own infants through both odor and vocal cues indicating that the isolation calls emitted by infant bats played an important role in mother-infant communication.
Vocalizations of the plaintive cuckoo (Cacomantis merulinus) and brush cuckoo (C. variolosus) were compared. Six major sound types were identified in the plaintive cuckoo, and four in the brush cuckoo. On the basis of song similarity as assessed by sonogram qualitatively and quantitatively, the grey-bellied cuckoo (C. passerinus) was considered conspecific with C. merulinus and the rusty-breasted cuckoo C. sepulcralis was considered conspecific with C. variolosus. The song similarities between C. merulinus and C. variolosus were considered homologous and derived from common ancestry.
The paper reported vocalizations of endemic Tibetan Plateau steppe sparrow, red- necked snow finch (Pyrgilauda ruficollis) by using SAS-Lab Pro. The subject similarity contrast and multivariate contrast were used to study the complexity and stability of sounds. The results indicated that songs of P. ruficollis were highly complicated with varied song types, song phrases, song syllable and combination of them. One song syllable shared by snow finches (Montifringilla nivalis henrici, M. adamsi, P. ruficollis and P. blanfordi) was selected as indicator to compare the taxonomic relationship among them. The similarity contrast and cluster analysis through SPSS were conducted to construct the similarity tree based on this shared syllable’s acoustic parameters including the highest frequency (HF), the lowest frequency (LF), the main frequency (MPF) and duration (DUR). The results revealed that the syllable similarities are accordant with taxonomic status suggested in previous studies based on morphologic, ecological and molecular analysis methods. The syllable shared by these snow finches were presumed to be homologous and derived from a common ancestry. Further studies on songs encoding phylogenetic signal of snow finches are needed.