As a result of climate change, accelerated sealevel rise, increased storm-iness and stormflood frequency will pose great risks to the coastal zones during the 21st century. The research programme "impacts of climate change on the coast" which is being planned and coordinated by us, addresses the consequences these impacts are likely to have on coastal waters, on the biosphere and on human activities in the North Sea and Baltic coastal zones of Germany. It aims at understanding the coastal system's reactions, both natural and human, to the anticipated environmental changes and at formulating adequate management strategies. The programme's interdisciplinary and top-down approach makes it a pathfinder for the innovative climate impact research concept.

Authors: Horst Sterr, Wolfgang Ebenhöh and Frank Simmering

Hearing-impaired and elderly people often complain about their difficulties in understanding speech in noisy environments.Conventional hearing aids do not provide much benefit in this situation because they amplify both desired and undesired sound signals in the same way. In addition, hearing-impaired people complain about the sound being too loud or too soft. This forces them to continuously adjust the vol-ume control of the hearing aid. This article explains why these problems occur and which solutions will be provided in future "intelligent" hearing aids.

Author: Birger Kollmeier

Policy analysis has developed terms and tools for a more precise look at passing a new piece of legislation. These are used to demonstrate how policy networks operating in different policy arenas produced Germany's new system of party financing. The result stayed within the limits set by the Supreme Court and satisfied the parties' finan-cial needs as well as possible repercussions among the media.

Authors: Hiltrud Nassmacher, Karl-Heinz Nassmacher

The medieval legend of Robin Hood has never remained stable but has always changed with the times. The English outlaw's image has been repeatedly remodelled over the centuries, as he has been transformed from the danger-ous robber of the oldest ballads into a dispossessed nobleman, then a stalwart Anglo-Saxon patriot combatting the Norman aggressors, and more recently a champion of the people struggling to secure liberty and justice for all. The steady flow of Robin Hood books and films in recent years clearly demonstrates the continuing appeal of the legend throughout the world and its astonish-ing amenability to fresh interpretation. Author: Kevin Carpenter

Up to early modern times for most people death and dying belonged to their everyday life, were omnipresent in physical as well as in religious and cultural respects. In times of famine, epidemics or natural disasters like storm tides, human beings have been subject to death, but did they fear death more than we do? It seems not, because from the Middle Ages to the 18th century their world of imagination and belief was influenced by the church and religion, which determined the way people dealt with death and dying. The article draws tentative conclusions from a research project which is investigating attitudes to death and dying during the 17th and 18th centuries in the region of Oldenburg and which is based upon the analysis of protestant funeral orations.

Authors: Heike Düselder, Heinrich Schmidt