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The scientific community in Central Europe often discusses the extent to which temperature changes over the last two decades have contributed to changing the stresses induced in structures. In the field of road and environmental engineering, this question is especially pertinent for pavements. The pavement structure must first be defined methodologically by identifying and defining the types of parameters that change with time. Additionally, it is important to identify the areas of Central Europe that are most affected by climate change. The most important parameters must be described statistically for these areas. Slovakia is one of the countries that may be able to contribute to the solution of this issue due to its location in the middle of Europe. This paper provides a statistical analysis for the period from 1971 to 2020 in Slovakia. A concrete pavement, which is the most commonly used type of pavement, must be used as an example to numerical assess the situation. The conclusions and discussion in this scientific field are directed towards the evaluation of the measurement results in the context of the designed pavement composition and the calculations using the different methods specified in the standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey oak (Quercus cerris L.) is a thermophilic oak species that is gaining importance in the context of ongoing climate change because of its better resistance to climatic extremes and drier conditions. Therefore, this article focuses on Turkey oak's role and growth properties in the coppice forests of Southern Europe (Italy, Bulgaria) compared to similar site conditions in Central Europe (Slovakia, Czechia). The aims are to evaluate the basic dendrometry indicators, stand biodiversity, growth dynamics, and the effect of climatic factors on tree-ring increment on specific site chronologies. We found that the tree density in coppices of 50–60 years varied between 475 and 775 trees ha−1, and the stand volume ranged from 141 to 407 m3 ha−1. The complex stand diversity of all plots ranged from a monotonous to uniform structure. The size of tree-ring growth was closely related to indicators of stand density. The lowest influence of climatic factors on tree-ring growth was found in sites in Italy and the highest in Slovakia. The primary limiting factor for growth was the lack of precipitation during the growing season, especially in June and July. In contrast, temperature had a marginal effect on radial growth compared to precipitation. The radial growth in research plots in Southern Europe goes through longer 6 to 8-year growth cycles, and in Central European sites, it goes through shorter cycles of 2.4 to 4.8 years, which confirms better growth conditions in this region. The studied coppice stands exhibit a stable reaction to climate change. Yet, regarding cyclical growth, the Central European stands benefit from an advantageous climate and grow better than in Southern Europe. As part of the changing environmental conditions, Turkey oak is becoming an important tree species that can achieve high production potential even in drier habitats due to its regeneration characteristic as coppice and may play a critical role in its northerly introduction in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a summary of mass COVID-19 testing of almost the entire population in Slovakia by antigen tests. We focused on the results delivered by two testing rounds and analyzed the benefits and weaknesses of such type of testing. We prepared mathematical models to critically examine the effectiveness of the testing, and we also estimated the number of potentially sick people that would become infected by those marked as positives by antigen tests. Our calculations have proven that antigen testing in hotspots can flatten the curve of daily newly reported cases significantly, but in regions with low-risk of COVID-19, the benefit of such testing is questionable. As for the regions with low infection rates, we could only estimate the proportion of true and false-positive cases because the national health authority had not validated the results by RT-PCR tests. Therefore, this work can serve as an introductory study on the first nationwide testing by antigen tests in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change causes an increase in the frequency and severity of weather extremes. One of the most relevant severe and damaging phenomena in Europe is drought. However, a difference in the spatial frequency of the occurrence and drought trends is evident between southern and northern Europe. Central Europe and particularly the West Carpathian region form a transitional zone, and drought patterns are complicated because of the geomorphologically complicated landscape. Since almost half of the Slovak state territory is represented by such natural landscape, it is necessary to investigate regional drought specifics. Therefore, we decided to analyze drought occurrence and trends using the SPI (Standardised Precipitation Index) and the SPEI (Standardised Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index) at available climatological stations of the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI) in the upper Hron region within the 1984–2014 period. We found that (1) drought incidence decreased with increasing altitude, (2) increasing air temperature increased the difference in drought trends between lowlands and mountains during the studied period, and (3) abrupt changes in time series of drought indices, that could indicate some signals of changing atmospheric circulation patterns, were not revealed. Finally, we constructed a simplified map of drought risk as an explanation resource for local decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]