Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science)

Diasporas participate in the home country’s development through remittances, philanthropy, knowledge transfer, investment, and political engagement. Based on the theoretical perspective of network governance, this paper argues that governments can enhance diaspora contributions by offering incentives to engage with the homeland. The paper then applies this perspective to assess the effectiveness of Lithuania’s diaspora engagement policy. Based on successful strategies adopted by other countries, the paper makes recommendations on how to strengthen the incentives for the diaspora to participate in Lithuania’s political, social, economic, and cultural life, and on how to create a better environment for the diaspora’s contributions.

Previous studies have documented that, relative to conventional tillage (CT), alternative soil management (reduced tillage, mulching, or cover crops) decreases soil erosion and increases soil organic matter (SOM) in vineyards. These previous studies, however, failed to consider the loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) with erosion that could occur with the adoption of agro-environmental measures (AEM) in a semiarid environment. Accordingly, the aims of this study were to determinewhether changes in SOC content under AEMmanagement are always positive and to develop a conceptual model for estimating the “SOC threshold”. The SOC threshold was defined as that level of SOC in an AEM-managed vineyard above which erosion will result in greater loss of C than occur in a comparable vineyard with CT management. SOC was analyzed at a 100 paired sites (vineyards with AEM management vs. CT). The results showed that in some cases the loss of C was higher with AEM than with CT. Overall, the results indicate that the SOC threshold may be a key parameter in determining the best AEM measures for vineyards that are on slopes and therefore vulnerable to erosion.

Straipsnyje pristatoma iki šiol beveik nevartota mąstymo etikos sąvoka bei atliekama pamatinė jos analizė. Teigiama, kad ši sąvoka atitinka filosofijos kaip dvasinės praktikos suvokimą, o jos esmė – įvesti į tokį mąstymo santykį su tikrove, kuriame dalyvautų „visas žmogus“, o ne tik konceptualaus racionalumo galia. Šiuo požiūriu yra nagrinėjama M. Heideggerio, E. Levino, H. Bergsono, S. Weil bei paties sąvokos autoriaus, popiežiaus Jono Pauliaus II, filosofijos. Mąstymo etikai yra priešinamas giliai europietiškoje mąstymo tradicijoje įsišaknijęs racionalizacijos įprotis. Racionalizacija apibrėžiama kaip tikrovės pakeitimas konceptais, užsibaigiantis ideologijų kūrimu bei jų konfliktais. Išskiriama radikali racionalizacijos fazė – visuotinė technologizacija, kai tikrovė yra keičiama jau net ne konceptais, o skaičiais. Straipsnio tikslas – konfrontuoti abi mąstymo koncepcijas atsižvelgiant į daugybę egzistencinių problemų, su kuriomis susiduria šiuolaikinis pasaulis.

The paper combines the bootstrapped Malmquist productivity index and the Multiple Correspondence Analysis to measure the changes in the total factor productivity. The bootstrapped Malmquist productivity index enables us to identify insignificant change in the total factor productivity, whereas the Multiple Correspondence Analysis relates the estimates to the environmental variables. A sample of Lithuanian family farms is utilised to test the proposed framework. Specifically, the research covers 200 family farms and the period of 2004–2009. The analysis showed that the total factor productivity decreased by some 15–18% during 2004–2009 depending on the farming type. Multiple Correspondence Analysis suggested that all of the farming types exhibited change in the total factor productivity close to the average, although the crop farming was located in the more stochastic area.

Straipsnyje aptariama turbūt svarbiausių šiuolaikinės filosofijos paradigmų – natūralizmo ir fenomenologijos – priešstata bandant išskirti ideologinį jos pobūdį. Autorių domina ne istorinėje filosofinėje retrospektyvoje išsikristalizavę fenomenologiniai ir natūralistiniai truizmai, bet veikiau jų funkcionuojančios kovingos pasaulėžiūrinės nuostatos. Atitinkamai, užuot ieškojus aptariamų paradigmų pa(si)teisinimų, į filosofinio jų pagrindimo galimybę siekiama žvilgterėti pro kvailybės ir drąsios kūrybos prizmę.

The purpose of the article is to provide strategic guidelines for increasing employment and reducing unemployment in Lithuania with regard to the EU strategic documents in the field of employment, the European Commission's communiques, the European Council decisions, studies, recommendations to Member States made by the International Labour Organization. The paper presents and analyses the present situation in the EU labour market; the present situation is without precedent throughout the total historical period of the EU's existence. The most pressing problems of the labour market in Lithuania (unemployment of young people, long-term unemployed, and women) are brought in this context, and their fundamental causes are disclosed. The scenarios of increasing employment in Lithuania are identified and proposed after a thorough analysis of the global and EU strategic documents. The article states that the employment-friendly macroeconomic policy-making is a fundamental strategic guideline in order to address the problems of employment and social economic inequality. It is necessary to implement the macro-economic policies aimed at full employment in Lithuania; the macro-economic policies should ensure dignified jobs and expand the employment opportunities, foster to adopt the necessary measures in the labour market and business in order to eliminate the effects of the crisis and at the same time to ensure stability of the public finance and tax bases. Creation of the green economy, organic farming, and green jobs are other strategic guidelines. The green economy and green jobs development are one of the priority directions of increasing employment in Lithuania. [...]

Friend influence over prosocial behaviour and delinquent behaviour was examined as a function of relative parental protectiveness in a community sample of Lithuanian high school students (M = 16.5 years old). Participants completed self-reports describing commitment to personal values, delinquent behaviours, prosocial behaviours, and perceived parental protectiveness. Mutual friends (158 male dyads, 241 female dyads) were identified from peer nominations. Distinguishable dyad Actor–Partner Interdependence Model analyses illustrate how parenting promotes positive peer influence. The results indicate that friend influence is greatest in the context of protective parenting: Adolescents who perceived more parental protectiveness were positively influenced by the strength of their friend's personal values, whereas adolescents who perceived less parental protectiveness were not.

Recent studies suggest that individual variation in behaviour of prey individuals may cause distinctive responses to nest predators and cooperation with conspecifics. We assessed individual differences during a novel object test and whether these responses were related to nest failure and survival of females during incubation. We additionally carried out experimental trials in natural field conditions using a stuffed pine marten, a principal nest predator, to test for a relationship between neophobia and mobbing predators. Our results show that antipredator responses of breeding great tits are dependent on their personality and personality type of neighbouring conspecifics. We found that neophilic individuals (those that rapidly resumed feeding of nestlings in the presence of a novel object) have an advantage over neophobic individuals (those that slowly resumed feeding of nestlings in the presence of a novel object) in their reproductive success, as measured in numbers of successful nests and of females that survived. Furthermore, neophilic-neophilic pairs exhibited stronger antipredator mobbing responses than neophobic pairs. Results show that consistent individual differences in response against novel objects and antipredator behaviour are related, and that these responses are important predictors of nest failure in breeding great tits.

We propose necessary and sufficient conditions for a distribution (generalized function) f of several variables to be positive definite. For this purpose, certain analytic extensions of f to tubular domains in complex space Cn are studied. The main result is given in terms of the Cauchy transform and completely monotonic functions.

Strong consistency was found between Kosovar findings and those for neighbouring countries with respect to CFA results, mean item ratings, alphas and problem score levels. Results of this epidemiological survey highlight the utility of the CBCL for identifying Kosovar Albanian children with mental health service needs.