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The paper presents new discoveries of the early Slavs in the Eastern Carpathians at the Miercurea Ciuc – Fodor-kert, Şumuleu site (Harghita County). The dwellings belonged to various types but all had ovens built of stones. It is remarkable the high proportion of clay pans among the exclusively handmade pottery. The dwellings were dated based on analogies but above all by 14C analysis. Based on these the settlement could have been founded already in the middle of the 5th century and it was abandoned latest by the middle of the 7th century.

The present paper deals with some Middle Bronze Age burials in the valley of the Black River, in south‐ eastern Transylvania, Covasna County. The material published (analyzed) came from the excavations made in the early 1910’ s and between the 1960– 1990. Some of these burials have been published already, but we considered a reevaluation as being necessary. The burial at Poian – Panta de piatră was only mentioned in a half sentence, providing no information about grave goods, context, etc. The findings at Sânzieni – Piatra de tocilă were connected to the Tumulus Culture, unknown in the studied area. We consider they belong to a Wietenberg burial, since Wietenberg pottery was discovered in the settlement layer. Another discovery connected to the Middle Bronze Age was also made at Sânzieni, in the place called Locul domnesc. One funeral urn was discovered at Turia – Groapa caprei. We have been able to identify another urn, which probably belonged to a second burial. The burials can be dated to the Wietenberg II phase since the complex decorating motifs, characterizing the IIIrd phase are totally missing. The urns were buried in the vicinity of the settlements or inside them. An exception are the burials at Turia (including the necropolis), where the closest settlement is at 900 m

The main goal of this paper is to present the results of field surveys, effectuated during the last three years in the Târgu Secuiesc Basin, Covasna County. The archaeological material (including ceramics and fragmentary stone tools) covers a wide period of time, from the beginning of the Neolithic to the 18th century AD. The most significant material belongs to the Neolithic (Starčevo-Criş culture) and Bronze Age (Wietenberg culture). Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age sherds were discovered sporadically. New settlements belonging to the classical Dacian and post-Roman period are known from five locations each, suggesting a dense and extended settlement network.

Regional climate change has noticeable influence on grape and wine production in West Hungary. Sopron and Zala wine-growing regions are among the potential winners of the climate change, previously rather unsuitable for viticulture. Over the past 30 years, the minimum and maximum temperatures significantly increased, the precipitation decreased, nevertheless, the convective precipitation increased by 14 days during the growing season. Each climate indicator has changed between 1986 and 2015 compared to the previous 30 years (1956-1985). One of the effects of climate change is a significant shift in the annual growth cycle of grapevines (phenological phases). Budbreak begins nearly 8 days earlier, flowering 7 days and the veraison 8 days, while the harvest has been shifted to a date 11 days respect to the previous period. The time between the budbreak and the flowering has shortened by 4.5 days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Weather classification approaches may be useful tools in modelling the occurrence of respiratory diseases. The aim of the study is to compare the performance of an objectively defined weather classification and the Spatial Synoptic Classification (SSC) in classifying emergency department (ED) visits for acute asthma depending from weather, air pollutants, and airborne pollen variables for Szeged, Hungary, for the 9-year period 1999-2007. The research is performed for three different pollen-related periods of the year and the annual data set. According to age and gender, nine patient categories, eight meteorological variables, seven chemical air pollutants, and two pollen categories were used. In general, partly dry and cold air and partly warm and humid air aggravate substantially the symptoms of asthmatics. Our major findings are consistent with this establishment. Namely, for the objectively defined weather types favourable conditions for asthma ER visits occur when an anticyclonic ridge weather situation happens with near extreme temperature and humidity parameters. Accordingly, the SSC weather types facilitate aggravating asthmatic conditions if warm or cool weather occur with high humidity in both cases. Favourable conditions for asthma attacks are confirmed in the extreme seasons when atmospheric stability contributes to enrichment of air pollutants. The total efficiency of the two classification approaches is similar in spite of the fact that the methodology for derivation of the individual types within the two classification approaches is completely different.

In 378 children affected by asthma and 87 healthy children, physical loading was carried out by three kinds of test, viz. free running, stairstep test or skipping, and bicycle ergometry. In 32% of healthy children physical exercise led to improved respiratory function, while this value was only 7% in asthmatics. An improvement in respiratory function exceeding 20%, i.e. appreciable bronchial dilatation, never occurred in asthma patients. The bronchospasm of healthy children showed no consistent time course, in asthmatics it was most pronounced three minutes after exercise. Exercise induced bronchospasm occurred most frequently after free running, least frequently after ergometric loading. The stairstep test and skipping provoked exercise induced bronchospasm in a nearly identical proportion. Severity of exercise induced bronchospasm exhibited a similar distribution. In addition to cases with a positive response to running test, some of the other methods revealed further 5-6% of cases. Free running is the most suitable method for demonstration of exercise induced bronchospasm, ergometric loading appears the least sensitive test in this respect. By application of three loading tests exercise induced bronchospasm could be demonstrated in 52% of paediatric asthma patients.