Suchergebnisse

"Concern about the functioning of the world's ecosystems has become commonplace, in the scientific literature as well as in everyday parlance. Climate change, loss of biological diversity, chemical pollution, land use changes, and the spread of exotic species are all discussed in connection with the perceived or anticipated degradation or destruction of ecosystems, or at least with an impairment of their functioning. While attention has been focused in the past mostly on the fate of specific processes relevant to human life (such as clean water or the maintenance of food production) or specific valued species, the emphasis has shifted increasingly towards a broader perspective, namely that of the whole ecosystem. Since about the early 1990s, ecosystems and their functioning have become major targets of conservation and management, accompanied by biodiversity as the other major broad-scale conservation focus. Today, both conservation aims are embodied in national and international management strategies, such as the variety of ecosystem management approaches (e.g. Yaffee et al., 1996; Boyce and Haney, 1997) or the Convention on Biological Diversity (including also an 'Ecosystem Approach' as a cross-cutting issue), and the various regional and national strategies are still newly developed"--

Insufficient literature has been produced addressing children with borderline intellectual functioning (BIF) and gifted intellectual functioning (GIF). The goal of this work is to compare levels of self-esteem, depression, anxiety at school, and insecurity among children with BIF and GIF, and a control group of average intellectual functioning (AIF). There were participants of 104 children (fourth grade of primary school). Analyses revealed that children with BIF showed a lower level of self-esteem and higher levels of depression and school anxiety. Moreover, our findings highlight the co-occurrence of school anxiety, depressed mood, and insecurity among the BIF and AIF groups. One of the issues that emerge from this study is the need to implement prevention programs aimed at identifying children with lower or higher levels of intellectual functioning. These findings highlight the importance of establishing what the most appropriate educational and clinical interventions are in reducing the risks of mental disorders in this population.

Stepfamilies are the fastest growing family form in the country. Although clinicians note the need for different family patterns for stepfamilies, those differences have not been identified and empirically tested. The predominance of literature on the subject has been problem focused: Research has often been based on families in treatment or has assessed differences in stepfamilies as problematic. In this exploratory research, well–functioning stepfamilies were interviewed in their homes, themes common to and different from biologically based families were noted, and differences from families in treatment were assessed. A further purpose of this study was to assess the usefulness of standardized family-functioning measures on this population.

Postwar Soviet relations; political parties; government and politics.