Urbanization is interpreted in terms of four populations. In the beginning were the night time dwellers and the workers. New elements include city users and metropolitan businessmen. This new population is changing the social and physical shape of the city and creating a second generation metropolis.

The Kingdom of Poland, in a federal union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, became, in the 15th and 16th centuries, an important power in Central Europe. The Polish civilization took the side of the West but still remained open to another Europe. The Commonwealth—in the English of the day—was a constitutional and parliamentary alternative to Western absolutism and Eastern despotism. The multi-ethnic and multi-religious identity of the Commonwealth was ensured by law. This pax Jagellonica had latent weaknesses in politics, both internal and external.

European rural landscapes and settlements have been subject to dramatic changes since the beginning of industrialization, and traditional forms and scenarios, parts of our cultural heritage, are disappearing at an accelerating rate. However, the image of traditional settlements still forms part of national and regional identities. The paper gives a birds' eye view of the major rural landscape zones in Europe in their traditional and modern outlook.

Science can no longer be an ivory tower. It cannot ignore the effects of its application nor its environmental consequences.

Aggression, in the sense of behaviour intended to harm others, is phenomenologically and causally different at different levels of social complexity. Aggression by one individual towards another depends largely on individual aggressiveness, although other propensities also are important. At the group level, factors relating to the special properties of groups become relevant. War is best considered as an institution, with individuals acting according to the rights and duties associated with their roles in that institution. Some factors that help maintain war as an institution are considered.

A trend of increasing victimization of women and children in situations of war and community violence has emerged in the 20th century. Children are also exposed to violence in their own families, as witnesses of parental violence, targets of physical abuse, and recipients of TV violence. As regards the direct physical effects of violence, children's injuries are no different from those of adults, while indirect effects comprise increases in, for instance, malnutrition. Psychological effects of danger include post-traumatic stress disorder and maladaptations, such as aggression, cognitive impairment, and truncated moral development. Different scenes of violence are interrelated. The cycle of violence lives its own life, but breaking up the cycle is not a hopeless task.

The article concerns group-and-culture-related manifestations of interpersonal violence and aggression in children and youths. It is well documented that the intensity of aggressive behaviour in children depends more on the socio-cultural environment in which they live in than on their sex per se. One typical form of group-related violence is bullying/victimization in schools. Violence and hostility against some members of the ingroup and outgroups can develop as a result of a threat to positive social identity of the individual's own group. However, such social groups as juvenile delinquent gangs are organized/integrated around hostile and violent activities as basic values. The juvenile delinquent gang is a product of several societal processes and structural influences, which include socio-demographic factors as well as a criminal subculture. Several socio-normative conditions, i.e. disorganization of social life, diffusion of responsibility, moral approval of aggression, are important prerequisites of violence and aggression escalation in the world of young people.

The publisher wishes to apologise for a printing error on page 318 of Volume 3, Issue 4. The photograph of a male-sterile corn plant compared with a normal, male-fertile plant was inadvertently printed upside down.