Natural Environment Protection Instruments as Stimulators of Positive Changes in the Natural Environment and Landscape in Poland

The article presents a systematic set of instruments for environment protection as the background to describe major achievements Poland can boast of in the field of environment protection. In the presented group of instruments for environment protection, regulations, institutions and a financing system are concerned as rudimentary since they constitute a legal, institutional, and economic basis for environment protection. The achievements of environment protection in Poland result both from the political transformations that took place after 1989 and from a consistent application of environment protection instruments on all the state managerial levels

Efficiency of participatory instruments of city management

Celem artykułu jest identyfikacja instrumentów partycypacyjnych w zarządzaniu miastem. Na tym tle dokonano szczegółowszej analizy referendum lokalnego w sprawie odwołania organów samorządowych, ich podstaw prawnych, przesłanek, dynamiki i wyników.Partycypacja społeczna zaspokaja potrzeby samorealizacji, przynależności do grupy i uznania. Efektywność zarządzania miastem jako organizacji publicznej rozpatrywana musi być w wymiarze ekonomicznym i społecznym. Wymiar ekonomiczny dotyczy mierzalnych nakładów i mierzalnych efektów. Natomiast wymiar społeczny dotyczy szerszego zakresu oddziaływania nakładów na otoczenie, np.: efekty ekologiczne, edukacyjne, zdrowotne, więzi społecznych.The purpose of this study is to identify the instruments of participation in city management. Against this background, a careful analysis has been carried out on the local referendum on the subject of appeals to local government bodies, their legal basis, rationale, dynamics and performance.Social participation meets the needs of self-fulfilment, belonging and recognition. The effectiveness of urban management as a public organization must be considered in economic and social terms. The economic dimension refers to measurable inputs and measurable results. The social dimension refers to the broader impact on the surrounding area such as the effect on the environment, education and health, and on social ties

Evacuation in the Social Force Model is not stationary

An evacuation process is simulated within the Social Force Model. Thousand pedestrians are leaving a room by one exit. We investigate the stationarity of the distribution of time lags between instants when two successive pedestrians cross the exit. The exponential tail of the distribution is shown to gradually vanish. Taking fluctuations apart, the time lags decrease in time till there are only about 50 pedestrians in the room, then they start to increase. This suggests that at the last stage the flow is laminar. In the first stage, clogging events slow the evacuation down. As they are more likely for larger crowds, the flow is not stationary. The data are investigated with detrended fluctuation analysis.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; PACS numbers: 89.75.Fb, 05.40.-a, 05.45.Tp, 89.40.B

Intermittent activity of radio sources. Accretion instabilities and jet precession

We consider the radiation pressure instability operating on short timescales 10^3 - 10^6 years in the accretion disk around a supermassive black hole as the origin of the intermittent activity of radio sources. We test whether this instability can be responsible for short ages (<10^4 years) of Compact Steep Spectrum sources measured by hot spots propagation velocities in VLBI observations and statistical overabundance of Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum sources.The implied timescales are consistent with the observed ages of the sources. We aslo discuss possible implications of the intermittent activity on the complex morphology of radio sources, such as the quasar 1045+352, dominated by a knotty jet showing several bends. It is possible that we are whitnessing an ongoing jet precession in this source due to internal instabilities within the jet flow.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of the 275 IAU Symposium "Jets at all scales", Buenos Aires, 13-17.09.2010; eds. G. Romero, R. Sunyaev, T. Bellon

Medical care before and during the Winter Paralympic Games in Turin 2006, Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014

Medical care in disabled sports is crucial both as prophylaxis and as ongoing medical intervention. The aim of this paper was to present changes in the quality of medical care over the consecutive Paralympic Games (PG). The study encompassed 31 paralympians: Turin (11), Vancouver (12), and Sochi (8) competing in cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, biathlon and snowboarding. The first, questionnaire-based, part of the study was conducted in Poland before the PG. The athletes assessed the quality of care provided by physicians, physiologists, dieticians, and physiotherapists, as well as their cooperation with the massage therapist and the psychologist. The other part of the study concerned the athletes’ health before leaving for the PG, as well as their diseases and injuries during the PG. The quality of medical care was poor before the 2006 PG, but satisfactory before the subsequent PG. Only few athletes made use of psychological support, assessing it as poor before the 2006 PG and satisfactory before the 2010 and 2014 PG. The athletes’ health condition was good during all PG. The health status of cross-country skiers was confirmed by a medical fitness certificate before all PG, while that of alpine skiers only before the 2014 PG. There were no serious diseases; training injuries precluded two athletes from participation. The quality of medical care before the PG was poor, however, became satisfactory during the actual PG. The resulting ad hoc pattern deviates from the accepted standards in medical care in disabled sports