Psychosocial consequences of growing up as Austrian occupation children in post-World-War II Austria.

During the post-World War II occupation of Austria, approximately 20,000-30,000 'children born of war' (CBOW), also called occupation children were born through intimate contacts between Austrian women and occupation soldiers. Research on other CBOW populations indicates that CBOW mostly grow up under difficult conditions, sometimes with strong long-term mental health consequences. To examine whether comparable psychosocial consequences can be found in Austrian occupation children (AOC), a first quantitative study was carried out.

Individualized social niches in animals: Theoretical clarifications and processes of niche change.

What are social niches, and how do they arise and change? Our first goal in the present article is to clarify the concept of an individualized social niche and to distinguish it from related concepts, such as a social environment and a social role. We argue that focal individuals are integral parts of individualized social niches and that social interactions with conspecifics are further core elements of social niches. Our second goal in the present article is to characterize three types of processes-social niche construction, conformance, and choice (social NC processes)-that explain how individualized social niches originate and change.

Health-Oriented Environmental Categories, Individual Health Environments, and the Concept of Environment in Public Health.

The term 'environment' is not uniformly defined in the public health sciences, which causes crucial inconsistencies in research, health policy, and practice. As we shall indicate, this is somewhat entangled with diverging pathogenic and salutogenic perspectives (research and policy priorities) concerning environmental health. We emphasise two distinct concepts of environment in use by the World Health Organisation.

How Individualized Niches Arise: Defining Mechanisms of Niche Construction, Niche Choice, and Niche Conformance.

Organisms interact with their environments in various ways. We present a conceptual framework that distinguishes three mechanisms of organism-environment interaction. We call these : niche construction, in which individuals make changes to the environment; niche choice, in which individuals select an environment; and niche conformance, in which individuals adjust their phenotypes in response to the environment.

ENCODE and the parts of the human genome.

This paper examines a specific kind of part-whole relations that exist in the molecular genetic domain. The central question is under which conditions a particular molecule, such as a DNA sequence, is a biological part of the human genome. I address this question by analyzing how biologists in fact partition the human genome into parts.

Childhood maltreatment in children born of occupation after WWII in Germany and its association with mental disorders.

Background: Children born of war are a common phenomenon of conflict. In the aftermath of World War II, more than 200,000 German occupation children (GOC) were fathered by occupation soldiers and born to local women. GOC often grew up under difficult conditions and showed high prevalence rates of mental disorders even decades later.

Long-term effects on adult attachment in German occupation children born after World War II in comparison with a birth-cohort-matched representative sample of the German general population.

Background: Children born of war are a phenomenon of every conflict. At the end of World War II and thereafter, approximately 400,000 children were fathered by foreign soldiers and born to local women in Germany. Quantitative research on psychosocial consequences of growing up as German occupation child (GOC) has been missing so far.

[Culture-Sensitive Aspects in Diagnostics of Mental Distress in Refugees - Two Commented Case Reports].

High levels of mental disorders, especially PTSD, are commonly known among groups of people forced to leave their homeland as a consequence of war-related experiences (e. g. armed conflict, torture or persecution).

Depression, Somatization, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Children Born of Occupation After World War II in Comparison With a General Population.

At the end of World War II and during the first decade after the war, roughly 200,000 children were fathered in intimate contacts between German women and foreign soldiers. The experiences of these German occupation children (GOC) have been so far described in case reports and from historical perspective only. Research on psychosocial consequences of growing up as a GOC has been missing so far.

[Growing up as an occupation child of World War II in Germany: Rationale and methods of a study on German occupation children].

Objectives: To date the experiences of German occupation children (GOC) have been described solely in historical studies; empirical research on the psychosocial consequences growing up as German occupation children was missing. This paper provides an introduction to the background, methodological approaches and descriptive information on a sample for the first German-based empirical study on this topic. It also touches on methodical challenges and solution processes.

Posttraumatic stress disorder and its comorbidity with depression and somatisation in the elderly - a German community-based study.

Objectives: Even 60 years after World War II, the German elderly population is significantly more often affected by posttraumatic symptomatology compared to the younger cohorts. This study is addressing prevalence rates of posttraumatic symptomatology and its comorbidity with depression and somatisation.

Methods: This study examines posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) according to DSM-IV, partial PTSD, depression and somatisation in a randomly selected sample of the German general population aged 60-85 years (N = 1.

The stigma of obesity in the general public and its implications for public health - a systematic review.

Background: Up to this date, prevalence rates of obesity are still rising. Aside from co-morbid diseases, perceived discrimination and stigmatization leads to worsen outcomes in obese individuals. Higher stigmatizing attitudes towards obese individuals may also result in less support of preventive and interventive measures.

The limits of reductionism in the life sciences.

In the contemporary life sciences more and more researchers emphasize the "limits of reductionism" (e.g. Ahn et al.