We report 3 years of data from one meteorological and three smaller stations in University Valley, a high-elevation (1677 m) site in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica with extensive dry permafrost. Mean air temperature was -23.4°C. Summer air temperatures were virtually always < 0°C and were consistent with the altitude lapse rate and empirical relationships between summer temperature, distance from the coast and elevation. The measured frost point (-22.5°C) at the 42 cm deep ice table is equal to the surface frost point and above the atmospheric frost point (-29.6°C), providing direct evidence that surface conditions control ground ice depth. Observed peak surface soil temperatures reach 6°C for ice-cemented ground > 15 cm deep but stay < 0°C when it is shallower. We develop an energy balance model tuned to this rocky and dry environment. We find that differences in peak soil surface temperatures are primarily due to the higher thermal diffusivity of ice-cemented ground compared to dry soil. Sensitivity studies show that expected natural variability is insufficient for melt to form and significant excursions from current conditions are required. The site's ice table meets the criteria for a Special Region on Mars, with 30% of the year > -18°C and water activity > 0.6.

Mental health systems in Eastern Europe started to develop separately in 1990.

Inpatient care mainly concentrates in hospitals. There is still domination of separate psychiatric clinics. But patients with the neurotic spectrum disorders are admitted to the general hospitals, other patients receive inpatient care in psychiatric clinics. The main trend in inpatient care is deinstitutionalisation with decreasing number of beds and increasing number of daily stay facilities, rehabilitation centres, etc. Number of inpatient beds per 10 000 populations varies from 4,3 in Serbia to 12,9 in Latvia.

Duration of hospitalisation in psychiatric departments has been reduced, but this sometimes leads to the vicious circle of multiple re-hospitalisations. Governmental residential facilities where disabled people may stay for longer periods are insufficient or lacking and if commercial ones exist in the country relatives of psychiatric patients very rarely can afford the expenses. One of the positive changes is the access to a much wider variety of medicines in psychiatric units. Sometimes in the hospital treatment with an expensive drug may be initialized, which may be unaffordable in outpatient care.

The principle of multidisciplinary teamwork including involvement of a psychotherapist in the treatment process has been implemented in many hospitals. The main challenges for the inpatient care are: lack of financial resources, adaptation to the changing mental health system and brain drain.

Reforming mental health in our countries we need to bear in mind that it should be effective to the patients and comfortable for the doctors to work in.

Global sea level is rising at an increased rate since the late 19th century as a result of rising global mean temperatures. This rise is geographically non-uniform, with substantial spatial differences, and in the latest decade faster than expected. New evidence suggests that more rapid changes than indicated in the Fourth IPCC report take place in the two large continental ice sheets, Greenland and Antarctica. Consequently, the projected sea level rise threatens low-lying countries like the Netherlands. The process of ‘climate-proofing’ the flood protection system of the country offers, however, new opportunities for innovative solutions, providing not only higher flood protection, but also possibilities for multifunctional land-use.

We report on 475 measurements of depth to ice-cemented ground in four high-elevation valleys of the Quartermain Mountains, McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. These valleys have pervasive ice-cemented ground, and the depth to ice-cemented ground and the ice composition may be indicators of climate change. In University Valley, the measured depth to ice-cemented ground ranges from 0–98 cm. There is an overall trend of increasing depth to ice-cemented ground with distance from a small glacier at the head of the valley, with a slope of 32 cm depth per kilometre along the valley floor. For Farnell Valley, the depth to ice-cemented ground is roughly constant (c. 30 cm) in the upper and central parts of the valley, but increases sharply as the valley descends into Beacon Valley. The two valleys north of University Valley also have extensive ice-cemented ground, with depths of 20–40 cm, but exhibit no clear patterns of ice depth with location. For all valleys there is a tendency for the variability in depth to ice-cemented ground at a site to increase with increasing depth to ice. Snow recurrence, solar insolation, and surface albedo may all be factors that cause site to site variations in these valleys.

In 2005, during the annual ‘intensive’ archaeological survey in the peri-urban zone of Sagalassus (Pisidia, southwest Anatolia), the remains of an extensive Classical-Hellenistic settlement were identified at Düzen Tepe, 1.8km southwest of Sagalassus. The results of three seasons of site investigation (2005–2007), comprising archaeological and geophysical surveys, architectural and topographical mapping, test soundings, and archaeometric and environmental research, are presented here, together with a discussion of the settlement's most probable socio-economic background. According to the latest results of all excavated or sampled survey ceramic artefacts and AMS C14 dating of faunal remains, the (proto-)urban settlement at Düzen Tepe was inhabited during the fifth to second century BC. It is the first of its kind to shed light on the material culture of the ancient inhabitants of the region, the ‘Pisidians’.

In our previous study with kids (Marinova et al., 2001) it was shown that a sunflower oil supplemented diet changed deposition and distribution of body lipids. In this study, however, we are particularly interested on the effect of sunflower oil supplemented diet on the fatty acid composition of liver lipids of kids, due to the important role of liver in nutrient uptake and regulation of lipid metabolism.