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Abstract
Poverty is a complex phenomenon which has been the subject of research across the social sciences. There have been varying approaches to defining and measuring poverty, especially with regard to research focus. In economic and sociological research, the concept of subjective poverty, which is particularly interesting in terms of psychological research into poverty, represents an alternative to the predominant objective measures of poverty. This article reviews the approaches to poverty used in economic and sociological research, paying special regard to representative approaches to subjective poverty, including subjective poverty lines and outlines the aspects relevant to psychological research into poverty.

The purpose of this article is firstly to discuss the basic theoretical approaches used to interpret the concept of trust in the context of social capital and then to present the results of research conducted on trust. The analysis concentrates on elements related to trust in the literature, reflecting the methodological approaches for assessing and measuring trust. In theoretically conceptualising trust we generally adopt Hardin's explanations (1991, 2002a, 2002b, 2006), which are then used as an interpretational framework for our research results. The paper mainly analyses and interprets subjective conceptual mental maps of trust developed on the basis of associations obtained in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia using the Associative Group Analysis Technique. The participants were management and economics students and there were 100 of them in each country (50 female and 50 male; 50 from each capital -Prague, Budapest, Warsaw and Bratislava; 50 from a smaller town in each country- Ostrava, Szeged, Olsztyn and Prešov). Altogether 400 students in four countries completed the tasks. In this article we mainly present the results relating to the Slovak section of the research sample.

The concept of globalization is interpreted by various authors in terms of its importance or content. This article presents results of an analysis of the influence of globalization trends on important macroeconomic indicators of selected countries. An examination of the level of globalization as a quantitative marker was enabled by the KOF Index of Globalization, which provides an indication of the economic, political and social globalization at global level. Research methods included time series analysis, trend analysis and nonparametric regression model (regression of panel data).

Cross-border cooperation represents a "laboratory" of the international integration process, in which synergy is created between the diverse political, economic, cultural and social characteristics of the actors involved. The present paper examines perceptions of local cross-border cooperation actors in Slovak-Ukrainian borderlands. It is aimed 1) to identify their perceptions regarding the impact of more intensive cross-border interaction and expected impacts of the Association Agreement and 2) to verify the relationship between their views on the effects of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement implementation, as well as on deepening cross-border interaction and their tendency to perceive the EU, Ukraine or Slovakia as reliable partners. The empirical research and the statistical analysis were based on the approach proven within the EXLINEA research project. The results have revealed that the more intensive cross-border interaction has, as perceived by local actors on both sides of the border, a rather positive impact on borderlands. At the same time, perceptions regarding the reliability of Ukraine's partnership with Slovakia and the EU are seen as relatively significant correlates of attitudes of local cross-border cooperation actors. Namely, their attitudes to the effects of cross-border economic interaction, cross-border cooperation and the impacts of the Association Agreement implementation.