Exploring Growth Variability and Crown Vitality of Sessile Oak (Quercus Petraea) in the Czech Republic

Unraveling climatic effects on growth of oak - Europe’s most ecologically and economically important forest species - has been the subject of many recent studies; however, more insight based on field data is necessary to better understand the relationship between climate and tree growth and to adapt forest management strategies to future climate change. In this report, we explore the influence of temperature, precipitation and drought variability on the productivity and vitality of oak stands in the Czech Highlands. We collected 180 cores from mature oaks (Quercus petraea) at four forest stands in the Czech Drahany Highlands. Standard dendromethods were used for sample preparation, ring width measurements, cross-dating, chronology development, and the assessment of growth-climate response patterns. Crown vitality was also evaluated, using the modified ICP Forests methodology. Late spring precipitation totals between May and June as well as the mean July temperature for the year of ring formation were found to be the most important factors for oak growth, whereas crown condition was significantly affected by spring and summer drought. This study is rep-resentative for similar bio-ecological habitats across Central Europe and can serve as a dendroclima-tological blueprint for earlier periods for which detailed meteorological information is missing .

Lessons in Software Evolution Learned by Listening to Smalltalk

The biggest challenge facing software developers today is how to gracefully evolve complex software systems in the face of changing requirements. We clearly need software systems to be more dynamic, compositional and model-centric, but instead we continue to build systems that are static, baroque and inflexible. How can we better build change-enabled systems in the future? To answer this question, we propose to look back to one of the most successful systems to support change, namely Smalltalk. We briefly introduce Smalltalk with a few simple examples, and draw some lessons for software evolution. Smalltalk's simplicity, its reflective design, and its highly dynamic nature all go a long way towards enabling change in Smalltalk applications. We then illustrate how these lessons work in practice by reviewing a number of research projects that support software evolution by exploiting Smalltalk's design. We conclude by summarizing open issues and challenges for change-enabled systems of the future.

Architektura a ideologie. Výchovné instituce Adolfa Hitlera v protektorátu Čechy a Morava a v Říšské župě Sudety

This article examines the architecture of the Nazi regime in two occupied cities of Czechoslovakia, Praha/Prag and Jihlava/Iglau (the latter being one of the traditionally German-speaking island in the bohemia country), and focuses specifically on the process by which Hitler youth organisations (Hitlerjugend) in case of ‘education’ and indoctrination of youth were or were not successfully established in these cities. As comparison, he takes the political-administrative centres of the Sudeten Reichsgau, Ústí/Aussig, Opava/Troppau, Karlovy Vary/Karlsbad and Liberec/Reichenberg. Drawing on Czech and German archive materials, the extensive body of modern analytical literature, and propagandist literature from the period studied, the author examines the extent to which architecture served as a projection screen for Fascist propaganda in the Occupied Eastern territories. He describes the role played by the Reichsstelle für Raumordnung and shows how the Reich’s propagandist objectives came to be reflected in a high specific typology and stylistic lexicon/configuration for the architecture of Hitler youth hostels and homes He examines the process by which these organisations were powerful implanted into the space of occupied Czechoslovakia (and Sudeten) too, a topic that has not yet been addressed in (art) history too. The building projects developed for the Protectorate (published here for the first time) and managed by the Reich’s Hitler Youth Leadership in Berlin (Kulturamt, Reichsjugendführung, RJF, Abteilung HJ) reveal the ties that existed between the construction authorities in the Reich and the Protectorate, including the Planning Committee for the City of Prague. The author asks how many German and Czech architects participated for their own profit in the Nazi system, and for future research raises the hitherto taboo question of guilt and collaboration with the Nazis and the perception of this phenomenon in art history, i.e. the measure of active cooperation of not just German but also Czech architects who contributed to the planning and implementation of projects and thereby unequivocally had a hand in consolidating the totalitarian regime and de facto in the forced „Germanification” of their own people under occupation.

Gender and language in online job advertisements - a cross-cultural study

The aim of this project is to investigate the use of gender-fair language from a cross-linguistic perspective. Specifically, we are interested in whether the use of gender-fair language correlates with socio-economic rankings of gender equality and with structural features of a language. We decided to analyze online job advertisements, as they reflect common language use and can easily be compared across languages. Moreover, formulations in job advertisements have been shown to impact personnel selection via the way target groups are addressed and referred to. In the present study we examined to what extent job advertisements are formulated in a gender-fair way and how this correlates with factors such as language, culture as well as status and gender-typicality of the job advertised. The data consisted of job advertisements published online in four European countries which occupy different positions in socio-economic rankings of gender equality (World Economic Forum, 2011): Switzerland (10), Austria (rank 34), Poland (42), and Czech Republic (75). We randomly selected 100 job advertisements from four lines of business characterized by different proportions of female employees – steels/metals, science, restaurants/food services, and health care. The advertisements were analyzed with regard to the linguistic form of the job title and the remaining text; we also noted indicators of job status, reference to gender-typical traits, pictures of women/men and other information which might be relevant to the use of gender-fair language (e.g., equal opportunity policies). A first analysis of the data indicates that the phrasing of job titles is closely related to the gender-typicality of a profession. While mainly gender-fair forms are used in healthcare, masculine forms are used more often in the domain of steels and metals. Feminine forms only, however, are almost never used. Cultural differences as well as correlations with associated variables will be discussed.