Trends in aerosol optical properties over Eastern Europe based on MODIS-Aqua

This study provides characteristics of aerosol columnar properties,measured over ten countries in Eastern Europe from 2002 to 2019.Aerosol optical depth(AOD)and Angstrom exponent(AE)were obtained with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)Collection 6.1 merged Dark Target and Deep Blue aerosol product.The product is validated using ground-based Aerosol Robotic Network(AERONET)situated at Minsk,Belsk,Moldova and Kyiv.The results showed that 76.15%of retrieved AOD data are within the expected error.It was established that 64.2%of AOD points are between 0 and 0.2 and 79.3%of all AE points are over 1.Mean AOD values in the region vary from 0.130±0.04(Moldova)to 0.193±0.03(Czech Republic)with mean value in the region 0.162±0.05.Seasonal mean AOD(AE)values were at the maximum during the summer from 0.231±0.05(1.482±0.09 in winter)to minimum 0.087±0.04 during the winter(1.363±0.17 in summer).Gradual AOD reduction is observed in all countries with annual trend from-0.0050(Belarus)to-0.0029(Russia).Finally,the relationship between AOD and AE was studied to classify various aerosol types and showed seasonal non-uniformity of their contribution depending on variation in sources.The entire region is under significant impact of various aerosol types,including clean continental(CC),mixed(MX)and anthropogenic/burning(AB)aerosols types that are at 59.77%,24.72%,and 12.97%respectively.These results form an important basis for further regional studies of air quality and distribution of sources of pollution.

Can environmental sustainability be decoupled from economic growth? Empirical evidence from Eastern Europe using the common correlated effect mean group test

The European Union(EU) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) aim to develop long-term policies for their respective member countries. Having observed increasing dangers to the environment posed by rising economic growth, they are seeking pathways to enable policy action on economic growth and environmental sustainability. Given the facts in theoretical and empirical studies, this study assessed the validity of the decoupling hypothesis by investigating asymmetricity in the relationship between environmental sustainability and economic growth in nine Eastern European countries from 1998 to 2017 using the cross-section augmented Dickey-Fuller(CADF) unit root, panel corrected standard error(PCSE), common correlated effect mean group(CCEMG), and Dumitrescu Hurlin causality approaches. Both population growth and drinking water are used as controlled variables. The outcomes establish strong cointegration among all the variables of interest. According to the results of CCEMG test, economic growth exerts short-term environmental degradation but has long-term environmental benefits in Eastern Europe;and population growth and drinking water exert a positive effect on environmental sustainability in both the short-and long-run. The results of Dumitrescu Hurlin causality test indicate that environmental sustainability is unidirectionally affected by economic growth. Based on these outcomes, we suggest the following policies:(1) the EU and OECD should implement member-targeted policies on economic growth and fossil-fuel use towards regulating industrial pollution, water use, and population control;and(2) the EU and OECD member countries should invest in environmental technologies through green research and development(R&D) to transform their dirty industrial processes and ensure productive energy use.

Analysis of lower-boundary climate factors contributing to the summer heatwave frequency over eastern Europe using a machine-learning model

A machine-learning(ML)model,the light gradient boosting machine(LightGBM),was constructed to simulate the variation in the summer(June-July-August)heatwave frequency(HWF)over eastern Europe(HWFUR)and to analyze the contributions of various lower-boundary climate factors to the HWFUR variation.The examined lower-boundary climate factors were those that may contribute to the HWFUR variation—namely,the sea surface temperature,soil moisture,snow-cover extent,and sea-ice concentration from the simultaneous summer,preceding spring,and winter.These selected climate factors were significantly correlated to the summer HWFUR variation and were used to construct the ML model.Both the hindcast simulation of HWF EUR for the period 1981-2020 and its real-time simulation for the period 2011-2020,which used the constructed ML model,were investigated.To evaluate the contributions of the climate factors,various model experiments using different combinations of the climate factors were examined and compared.The results indicated that the LightGBM model had comparatively good performance in simulating the HWFUR variation.The sea surface temperature made more contributions to the ML model simulation than the other climate factors.Further examination showed that the best ML simulation was that which used the climate factors in the preceding winter,suggesting that the lower-boundary conditions in the preceding winter may be critical in forecasting the summer HWFUR variation.

Cervical Cancer Prevention Challenges and Barriers to Cervical Cancer Screening and HPV Vaccinations in Ukraine and Eastern Europe

Objectives: To identify the obstacles and issues that hinder effective cancer prevention efforts in Ukraine. The study aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the barriers to cancer prevention, including both infrastructure and behavioral factors, and identify potential solutions to address these challenges. Study Design: Comprehensive literature review. Methods: The following databases were searched: National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and PubMed (U.S. National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health). The keywords used in the search included “Cervical Cancer”, “Human Papillomavirus Vaccination (HPV)”, “Ukraine”, “Eastern Europe”, “Healthcare Infrastructure in Disasters”, “Cervical Cancer Prevention”, “Pap Smear”, and “HPV Testing”. Results: A total of 3500 articles were screened. A total of 65 articles met the inclusion criteria. Limited public awareness and limited access to vaccination and screening, combined with inadequate treatment facilities lead to higher rates of cervical cancer. The COVID pandemic, war with Russia, and the Chernobyl disaster are significant factors for the low level of vaccination in Ukraine. Conclusion: The prevention and treatment of cervical cancer in Ukraine face significant challenges due to the inadequate HPV vaccination rates and screening by cytology. Efforts to improve funding and increase education of both the population and health care providers are necessary to increase interventions such as HPV vaccination, cervical cytology, and HPV testing to reduce cervical cancer rates in Ukraine.

Integration Approach to Studying of Regional Music Cultures --On an Example of the Eastern Europe

The paper based on the proposed integrative approach to studying music cultures of the Eastern Europe. Come to light the factors of integration promoting interference and enrichment of national musical cultures. The region of national composer schools actively joined in world art process in the second half of the 19th century （Czechia, Poland, and Hungary） and in the 20th century （Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Macedonia） Theme of this paper is to identify the basic principles of this region. The purpose of the work, defining features of the musical cultures of the Eastern European region as a whole, also here highlights the commonality of the creative ideas of representatives of the region--Bartok, Janachek, Martinu, etc.. Method of developing is defined by their orientation to the disclosure of topic. The paper used the comparative-typological and integrated approaches and methods of analysis

EASTERN EUROPE

To Eastern Europe, 1997 will be another year of constant political turbulence.For those countries which held their parliamentary elections or presidential electionsin 1996, namely Albania, Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria, political strug-gle will linger on. For other countries like Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, it wouldbe a busy year to prepare for the 1998 parliamentary elections.

Which Central and Eastern European country has the greatest potential for housing market recovery？

This paper is concentrated on analyzing the CEE （Central and Eastern European） countries housing and lending market development in 2002-2009. These countries experienced real estate boom and bust phases during that time and the aim of this paper is to understand which of these countries have the greatest potential for housing market recovery. The study has conducted comparable analysis of these countries and their real estate and lending market. The data was collected from central banks, national statistic offices and real estate companies. The results suggest that countries with higher housing debt had stronger real estate booms and the current bust-cycle has caused much steeper decline in prices. This paper attempts to look at the CEE housing markets from the developer＇s or investor＇s point of view and may be useful for banks and other financial institutions which are related to housing market and lending.

Chinese Culture and Arts Shine in Eastern Europe

In October 2009, The Chinese Cultural Ministry hosted ＂China Culture Festival＂ in Czech Republic, Hungary and Serbia respectively to mark the 60th anniversary of its diplomatic ties with these three countries in Eastern Europe, In one month＇s time, Chinese artists presented fascinating performances, exhibitions, film showcases and other cultural events. Wherever these celebrations were held, the reporter can deeply feel the friendship with Chinese people and the strong interest in Chinese culture.

Sustainability policy considerations for ecosystem management in Central and Eastern Europe

Here I discuss Central and Eastern European(CEE)countries as a region undergoing rapid change,resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union and admission of some of the states into the European Union.These events brought changes in governance and ecosystem management,triggering impacts on land use and biodiversity.What are some of the policy options toward sustainability in the face of these political,governance,and socioeconomic changes?Some policy considerations for ecosystem management and sustainability include taking a social-ecological systems approach to integrate biophysical subsystems and social subsystems;paying attention to institutions relevant to shared resources(commons)management;and using resilience theory to study change and guidance for governance.Documented experience in CEE seems to indicate shortcomings for both the centralized state management option and the purely market-driven option for ecosystem management.If so,a“smart mix”of state regulations,market incentives,and self-governance using local commons institutions may be the most promising policy option to foster ecosystem stewardship at multiple levels from local to international.

Mammal diversity during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition in Eastern Europe

Fossil record data on the mammal diversity and species richness are of importance for the reconstruction of the evolution of terrestrial ecosystems during the Late Pleistocene-Holocene transition.In Eastern Europe,the transformations during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition consisted mainly in changes in zonal structure and local fauna composition(Markova&Kolfschoten 2008).We investigated the species richness and the an­alogues of theα,βdiversity indexes(in the sense of Whittaker 1972)of large and medium size mammals for 13 climate-stratigraphic units dating to the Late Pleistocene and the Holocene,from the Hasselo Stadial(44-39 kBP)to the Subatlantic period and the present day.The biological diversity of the Last Glacial Maximum(LGM)and the Holocene thermal optimum was investigated in more detail using information about all mamma­lian taxa(PALEOFAUNA database;Markova 1995).One of our results show that theα,βdiversity values show only a negative correlation with the temperature conditions during the Late Pleistocene,the period that is char­acterized by the so-called‘Mammoth Fauna’complex.For the Holocene faunas the diversity indexes are nearly independent from physical conditions;theαdiversity index decreased and theβdiversity index increased.The relatively lowαdiversity and highβdiversity indexes for the present-day faunas are referred to the decrease of the population number of some forest species in historical time and the increase of the dominance of unspecial­ized species or the species connected with intra-zonal ecosystems.The study shows furthermore the occurrence of several East European‘centers’with a high mammal diversity,which are relatively stable during the Pleis­tocene-Holocene transition.The orientation of the boundaries between the large geographical mammal assem­blages depended,particularly in the northwestern part of Eastern Europe,on the expansion of the Scandinavian ice sheet.

Linkage Between European and East Asian Heatwaves on Synoptic Scales

Concurrent extreme weather events in geographically distant areas potentially cause high-end risks for societies.By using network analysis,the present study managed to identify significant nearly-simultaneous occurrences of heatwaves between the grid cells in East Asia and Eastern Europe,even though they are geographically far away from each other.By further composite analysis,this study revealed that hot events first occurred in Eastern Europe,typically with a time lag of3-4 days before the East Asian heatwave events.An eastward propagating atmospheric wave train,known as the circumglobal teleconnection(CGT)pattern,bridged the sequent occurrences of extreme events in these two remote regions.Atmospheric blockings,amplified by surface warming over Eastern Europe,not only enhanced local heat extremes but also excited a CGT-like pattern characterized by alternative anomalies of high and low pressures.Subsequent downstream anticyclones in the middle and upper troposphere reduced local cloud cover and increased downward solar radiation,thereby facilitating the formation of heatwaves over East Asia.Nearly half of East Asian heatwave events were preceded by Eastern European heatwave events in the 10-day time range before East Asian heatwave events.This investigation of heatwave teleconnection in the two distant regions exhibits strong potential to improve the prediction accuracy of East Asian heatwaves.

Is a correlation‑based investment strategy beneficial for long‑term international portfolio investors?

Using negative to low-correlated assets to manage short-term portfolio risk is not uncommon among investors,although the long-term benefits of this strategy remain unclear.This study examines the long-term benefits of the correlation strategy for portfolios based on the stock market in Asia,Central and Eastern Europe,the Middle East and North Africa,and Latin America from 2000 to 2016.Our strategy is as follows.We develop five portfolios based on the average unconditional correlation between domestic and foreign assets from 2000 to 2016.This yields five regional portfolios based on low to high correlations.In the presence of selected economic and financial conditions,long-term diversification gains for each regional portfolio are evaluated using a panel cointegration-based testing method.Consistent across all portfolios and regions,our key cointegration results suggest that selecting a low-correlated portfolio to maximize diversification gains does not necessarily result in long-term diversification gains.Our empirical method,which also permits the estimation of cointegrating regressions,provides the opportunity to evaluate the impact of oil prices,U.S.stock market fluctuations,and investor sentiments on regional portfolios,as well as to hedge against these fluctuations.Finally,we extend our data to cover the years 2017–2022 and find that our main findings are robust.

Nesting Orientalisms:Case of Hungary,Its Imaginary Occidentalisation Process,and Inconsistencies

What is the border between Central and Eastern Europe?This is an unanswered question in the literature of contemporary European history and politics.In the modern state system,imaginary boundaries are products of the imagined communities,and these boundaries also cause either to occidentalize or to orientalize the lands due to its top-down/elitist imagination procedure.During the Cold War years,anti-USSR voices are important to see the certain demand for Europeanization among people in today’s Central Europe where there especially had the communist legacy.In general,the ultimate goal is to identify themselves as more western among Central and Eastern European states for the sake of civilizational values of the Enlightenment and to reach today’s contested Neoliberal welfare.This desire causes Nesting Orientalisms,Milica Bakic-Hayden’s concept.Nesting Orientalisms are about re-constructing new Orient in the same region to hierarchizeitself as occidental.Through the process of mapping its location and construction of occidental identity,Hungary defines itself as a part of Central Europe.But what are the legitimated reasons of Hungary to define itself as Central European instead of Eastern Europe?Do these reasons perfectly fit in today’s Central European formulation and stereotype?What are the possible reasons to reject Hungary’s Central European self-definition?Moreover,under the shadow of the discussion on Central Europe vs.Eastern Europe,to what extent does the rise of authoritarianism block ongoing occidentalisation process of Hungary?In this research,I will answer these questions by analyzing modern political history of Hungary by the method of interpretivist process tracing.

Reconstruction of cropland area in the European part of Tsarist Russia from 1696 to 1914 based on historical documents

To evaluate the climatic and ecological impacts of anthropogenic activities in global change research,it is essential to reconstruct historical land use and land cover change on regional and global scales.In this study,we reconstructed cropland areas for 54 provinces within the European part of Tsarist Russia(ETR)over the periods of 1696–1914 using historical data,including cropland area,population,grain consumption,and grain yield per unit area.The main results are as follows.(1)Total cropland areas and fractional cropland areas of ETR for 8 time sections during 1696–1914 were reconstructed,the former increased from 31.98×104 km2 to 147.40×104 km2,and the latter increased from 7.89%to 29.20%.The per capita cropland area decreased from 0.0246 km2 to 0.0113 km2 during 1696–1914.(2)Cropland expanded from the central and southwestern ETR to the black soil region,surrounding area of the Volga River,Ukraine region,the new Russia region,the vicinity of Ural,and north Caucasus region.(3)The expansion of territory,increase and migration of population,policies related to agricultural development and foreign trade,and the impacts of climate change were the reasons for the changes in cropland within ETR from 1696 to 1914.(4)In 1914,the cropland area and fractional cropland area of each province varied from 0.16×104 km2 and 0.76%to 5.65×104 km2 and 76.68%,respectively.(5)The comparisons show that the cropland areas of ETR in this study for 1696–1914 are higher than those in the HYDE 3.2 dataset.The main reason for this finding might be the underestimation of per capita cropland areas in the HYDE 3.2 dataset,which values remained at approximately 0.01 km2 from 1700 to 1920.

Upscaling Illiberalism： Class, Contradiction, and the Rise and Rise of the Populist Right in Post- socialist Central Europe

Recent liberal political science analysis has highlighted media, manipu- lation, and populist political trickery in the apparently sudden rise of the new Right in Europe and the USA. I suggest that a robust engagement with the actual social transformations over which liberalism has presided since 1989 is imperative. Anthropological work on class processes and the rise of neo-nationalist populism in Central and Eastern Europe has been strong in developing a more relational, pro- cessual, and embedded vision. In the current paper, I am looking at the phases and spaces of the rise of iUiberalism as a popular political sensibility in Central and Eastern Europe. In particular, I am interested in its gradual upscaling to the level of the nation state and, through the ＂Visegrad bloc＂ to the EU. I argue that both the emergence and step-by-step upscaling of illiberal political sensibilities are explained by class relational processes and the regionally uneven Polanyi-type ＂counter- movements＂ against liberalizations that they brought forth.

"Alien Race" Position about Hungarians: The Dividing Line between Eastern and Western Civilizations

In the second half of the 9th century,the Hungarians migrated to the plains of the Eastern Europe from the steppes of the Inner Asia.The earliest records about the Hungarians by the Western Europeans were mainly centralized in theFrankish sourceswhich representatively reflected the Western Europeans'initial cognition and the position of"alien race"about the Hungarians.In response to that position,the Hungarians havealso strengthened their nomadic characteristics to show intentionally or unintentionally that they are different from the Europeans,especially the Western Europeans.The position of "alien race"about the Hungarians has profoundly affected the development of the relationship between the Western Europe and Hungary since the Middle Ages in Europe,and finally prompted the"Christian Shield"Hungary to become the dividing line between the Eastern and the Western civilizations.

It is time to change land use and landscape management in the Czech Republic

The identity of man-made landscapes is based on the balance among their ecological,cultural,and economic dimensions.Since the 1950s,short-term economic benefits have globally often outweighed long-term interests.This results in decreased landscape quality manifested as increased erosion of agricultural land,decreased water retention capacity,increased landscape uniformity,and loss of biodiversity.A new phenomenon influencing the condition of man-made landscapes is climate change.Extreme fluctuations of temperature and precipitation have been causing repeated floods and also periods of drought in Europe.Landscapes damaged by inappropriate management are unable to offset these impacts.It is necessary to stop this development by changing land use and management methods to restore the balance among landscape functions.For the Czech Republic,we propose to develop a long-term landscape vision and to formulate a responsible landscape policy with regional strategic goals,including subsidies and penalties(carrots and sticks),based on the principles of the European Landscape Convention.To promote ecological stability,we recommend allocating funds from the Common Agricultural Policy to both the restoration and maintenance of valuable habitats.Landscape research and management(based on habitat/species monitoring in cooperation with stakeholders)must be strengthened in order to play a proper role in the transformation.It is time for clear communication with the public and the training of state officials and land users in spatial and landscape planning.To fill this gap in interdisciplinary cooperation,we call for the establishment of a platform on sustainable landscape management in the Czech Republic.

Socioecological drivers facilitating biodiversity conservation in traditional farming landscapes

Traditional farming landscapes have evolved as tightly coupled socioecological systems that support high biodiversity.However,land-use change severely threatens the high biodiversity of these landscapes.Navigating nature conservation in such landscapes requires a thorough understanding of the key drivers underpinning biodiversity.Through empirical research on mammals,birds,butterflies,and plants in a traditional cultural landscape in Romania,we revealed seven hypothesized drivers facilitating biodiversity conservation.Similar proportions of three main land-use types support the landscape species pool,most likely through habitat connectivity and frequent spillover between land-use types.Landscape complementation and supplementation provide additional habitat for species outside their core habitats.Gradients of woody vegetation cover and gradients in land-cover heterogeneity provide mosaic landscapes with wide ranges of resources.Traditional land-use practices underpin landscape heterogeneity,traditional land-use elements such as wood pastures,and human-carnivore coexistence.Top-down predator control may limit herbivore populations.Lastly,cultural ties between humans and nature have a central influence on people’s values and sustainable use of natural resources.Conservation approaches should aim to maintain or restore these socioecological drivers by targeting the heterogeneous character of the forest-farmland mosaic at large scales through"broad and shallow"conservation measures.These large-scale measures should be complemented with"deep and narrow"conservation measures addressing specific land-use types,threats,or species.In both cases,conservation measures should integrate the entire socioecological system,by recognizing and strengthening important links between people and the environment.

Assessing impact of land use and climate change on regulating ecosystem services in the Czech Republic

Ecosystem services,defined as benefits provided by ecosystem functioning to society,are essential to human well-being.Due to global environmental change and related anthropogenic drivers,ecosystems are often degraded,which hinders the delivery of ecosystem services.This study aims to quantify the impacts of land use and climate change on two regulating ecosystem services-carbon sequestration and water purification in terms of nitrogen retention in the Czech Republic.While employing approaches of scenarios and modeling,we illustrate current and potential future status of these ecosystem services.Our results show that among the ecosystem change drivers,one of the dominant domestic land-use change of ALARM BAMBU(Business-As Might Be Usual)scenario is change of arable land and grassland to forest area that increases by 4.5%in 2080 compared to 2000.The results of ecosystem service modeling based on BAMBU scenario for the years 2050 and 2080 indicate that the highest yearly carbon sequestration rate occurred in 2000-2050,reaching 640 GgC·yr^(−1),2000-2080 shows decline in this regulating service by 16%.Average nitro-gen leaching to water streams reached 0.75 kgN·ha^(−1)·yr^(−1)for BAMBU in 2050 scenario and 0.80 kgN·ha^(−1)·yr^(−1)for BAMBU in 2080 scenario as a result of decreasing nitrogen load,which suggested a decrease in nitrogen pollution compared to 2000.Since ecosystem services have not been extensively mainstreamed into research and policies in eastern European countries,we aim to contribute to improvement of knowledge on current status and potential future pathways of the provision of regulating ecosystem services in the Czech Republic.

Abandonment of croplands: problem or chance for grassland restoration? Case studies from Hungary

In Central-and Eastern Europe,the collapse of socialist regimes resulted in a transformation of state-owned agricultural cooperatives to privately owned lands from the early 1990s onwards.These socioeconomic processes resulted in landscape-scale changes in biodiversity,ecosystem services and agricultural production.In parallel,large-scale abandonment of croplands,especially on sandy,salty or fre-quently inundated areas,became common.Abandoned croplands are usually sensitive to species invasions,and are hotspots of noxious weeds,posing threats both to agriculture and nature conservation.Grassland restoration on former croplands can be an effective strategy for suppressing these species.Thus,a common goal of nature conservation and agriculture can be the restoration of grasslands on former croplands to(1)suppress weed and/or invasive species in line with the EU policy“Good Farming Practices”,(2)support animal husbandry by creating meadows or pastures,and to(3)recover biodiversity and ecosystem services.In the present paper we report“best practices”of grassland restoration projects from Hungary.Our aim was to compare the effectiveness of spontaneous grassland recovery vs.active grassland restoration by seed sowing in terms of the recovery of biodiversity and ecosystem services,such as weed control and biomass production.Our results showed that grassland restoration on abandoned fields offers a viable solution for restoring biodiversity and ecosystem services.Seed sowing ensures higher weed control and biomass pro-duction,but results in lower biodiversity compared to spontaneous recovery.Both restoration methods can be cost-effective,or even profitable even within a relatively short period of a nature conservation project.