City dwelling wild bees: how communal gardens promote species richness

Urban areas consist of wide expanses of impervious surfaces which are known to negatively affect insect biodiversity in general, but green spaces within cities have the potential to provide necessary habitat and foraging resources. Although, communal gardens were primarily intended to provide fresh, regional food to denizens, these green islands also host a surprisingly high number of wild bee species.

The gardens were characterized based on structural elements such as flower frequency, the relative percentage of lawn, trees, shrubs, planted crops and infrastructure (e.g. seating possibilities or garden houses). Further, the effects of different landscape structures surrounding the gardens and distance to the city center were analyzed on the total wild bee species richness and functional traits. Focusing on these putative influencing factors, statistical analyses calculating random decision forests along with generalized linear mixed models were applied. With 113 observed wild bee species, communal gardens provide habitat for a quarter of all known species in Vienna. In conclusion, results revealed that only elements within the gardens had an effect on species richness, with flower frequency as the major positive driver. The examined communal gardens promote and conserve wild bees independent from the location within the city or garden size. Furthermore, these green patches are important sanctuaries, hosting rare and threatened species as well as remarkably special wild bee communities.

     

Elements of life satisfaction among young adults in Serbia

Contemporary sociological studies argue that employment and personal life have diversified effects as determinants of life satisfaction (LS) of young adults. We have, therefore, decided to explore the three different aspects of general LS, satisfaction with personal (intimate) domain, satisfaction with family life and satisfaction with occupation (professional domain), by using the survey data on 1627 young adults aged from 19 to 35 from Serbia. The correlations between the three domains are significant, while the strongest tie is between satisfaction with intimate relations and satisfaction with family life. The analysis exposed that social variables (employment, education, housing autonomy and financial autonomy) and personal variables (partnership and parenthood) are in a diverse manner related to the three domains of LS, as well as that their effects are different for young men and women. Taking into account particularities of social context in Serbia, we have introduced functional autonomy (decision-making and acting independent of parents) as mediating variable. The results uncover that functional autonomy has little influence on satisfaction with occupation, while social variables have a strong effect, suggesting that agency in professional domain is significantly socially bound. Regression models reveal divergent and gender-specific relations of variables and three aspects of LS related to particular structural and cultural context in Serbia that sets limits to gender detraditionalization.     

Privatisation Effects: Some Evidence from Serbia

This paper analyses basic outcome and effects of the privatisation process in Serbia. The first two parts of the paper deal with general achievements of the newest privatisation plan adopted in 2001. We present a brief background of the results of the privatisation process, analysing changes in the structure of enterprises by ownership status, the number of privatised firms, revenues earned through privatisation, the rate of successful transactions, and other relevant privatisation indicators. The paper continues with an analysis of a survey conducted within a sample of Serbian enterprises offering some evidence about performance, competition, and restructuring within different types of firms: socially owned, privatised, and new private. Contrary to the broadly accepted statement that new private firms are leading in transition economies, according to our estimation of the effects of the ownership type on firm performance, it appears that the privatised sector seems to be more active. A comparison of the survey results with findings for three neighbouring countries indicates that there is no general conclusion about the way how ownership status of a firm affects its performance in a transition economy. Although conclusions drawn from our survey analysis should be regarded as preliminary and limited by the quality of survey data and could not be generalised for the privatisation process in other transition countries, the findings we present, including the comparison made with other economies, could contribute to the understanding of both privatisation effects in general and effects remarkable for the Serbian economy.      

Serbian Judiciary and Transition: Recent Jurisprudence

This article examines the role and position of national courts during transitional periods with focus on and case study of the judiciary in Serbia. Courts in Serbia, as any other judiciary in transition, have undergone a staggering transformative process as illustrated by a chronology of human rights cases. On the other hand, courts in Serbia, as their counterparts worldwide, have also been the transformation force, as evidenced by recent jurisprudence in cases dealing more or less successfully with political assassinations, organized crime, corruption, war crimes, and international courts.     

Diathesis stress or differential susceptibility? testing longitudinal associations between parenting,temperament, and children's problem behavior

In this study we investigated longitudinal associations among parenting, children's temperamental negative affectivity, and internalizing and externalizing behavior. Second, we tested whether findings confirmed the diathesis‐stress model or differential susceptibility theory when conducting stringent interaction tests. The sample included 129 children and their families. Parenting quality (age 5) was measured by parent–child interaction observations. Parents evaluated child negative affectivity (age 7) and teachers reported on problem behavior (age 12). Multiple regression analyses revealed an interaction effect of negative affectivity and parenting on externalizing behavior. Visual inspection suggested ‘for better and for worse’ effects of parenting for children with negative affectivity. However, more stringent tests failed to show convincing evidence for differential susceptibility theory. For internalizing behavior, negative affectivity may render children vulnerable regardless of parenting. Our results point at the importance of further testing interaction effects to distinguish between differential susceptibility theory and the diathesis‐stress model.     

Exchange Rate Policy in Serbia

In August 2006, Serbia adopted an inflation targeting regime as its monetary regime. The initial period of implementation of this regime was characterized by an extremely high capital inflow and appreciation of the exchange rate of the dinar. Under such conditions, the selected monetary policy regime functioned well. However, at the end of 2008, when the global financial crisis caused the outflow of foreign capital, deterioration of foreign borrowing conditions and an increase in inflationary expectations, the dinar lost about 25 per cent of its value within a relatively short period, despite the interventions of the National Bank of Serbia in the foreign exchange market. Therefore, the authors of this paper raise a dilemma whether Serbia conducts an adequate policy of the exchange rate of the dinar. The authors point out that, at the moment, the policy of a free floating exchange rate is not adequate for Serbia. As an alternative, a two nominal-anchor regime—inflation and the exchange rate—is proposed.     

Broadcasting multiple messages in the 1-in port model in optimal time

In the 1-in port model, every vertex of a synchronous network can receive at most one message in each time unit. We consider simultaneous broadcasting of multiple messages from the same source or from distinct sources in such networks with an additional restriction that every received message can be sent out to neighbors only in the next time unit and never to already informed vertex. We use a general concept of level-disjoint partitions developed for this scenario. Here we introduce a subgraph extension technique for efficient spreading information within this concept. Surprisingly, this approach with so called biwheels leads to simultaneous broadcasting of optimal number of messages on a wide class of graphs in optimal time. In particular, we provide tight results for bipartite tori, meshes, hypercubes, Knödel graphs, circulant graphs. We also propose several open problems and conjectures.     

Sozialer Status und prosoziales Handeln: Ein Quasi-Experiment im Krankenhaus

Sociological, social psychological and economic research on the nexus between socioeconomic status and prosociality has so far provided contradictory findings. Some studies suggest that actors with a high socioeconomic status act more egoistically than actors with a lower socioeconomic status. Other studies find the opposite to be true. In contrast to previous research, which has worked with one-dimensional measures for socioeconomic status, this study examines prosocial behavior among occupational groups that have regular real-life contact in their workspace. About 150 hospital employees (physicians, nursing staff and nursing students) participated in experiments on altruistic giving in dictator games. The findings are surprisingly strong and clear-cut: Actors with higher social status act more prosocial than low-status actors. Furthermore, we find hardly any in-group effects, which have been repeatedly postulated. Our findings support the claim that high status promotes prosocial behavior. Also, they indicate that the inconclusive and in part contradictory findings provided by previous research stem to a considerable degree from deficient measures of social status and problematic experimental designs.     

Strengthening family cohesion through shared participation of family members in religious activities in Croatia

This article presents research results pertaining to an examination of the relation between family members’ participation in shared religious activities, perception of family cohesion, satisfaction with family life, and the level of conflict in the family. The survey of 503 parents of preschool children was conducted in Zagreb, Croatia. The findings demonstrate a significant correlation between shared participation of family members in religious activities, perception of family cohesion and satisfaction with family life, but not with perception of the level of conflict in the family. The results suggest that spiritual and religious matters are an important element necessary for understanding family functioning, and that cultivating shared religious practices in the family can contribute to the strengthening of family cohesion and greater satisfaction with family life.