Cultural Ecosystem of Creative Place: Creative Class, Creative Networks and Participation in Culture

The scope of this paper is to conceptualise a data-based research framework for the role of creative networks in cultural exchange. Participation in culture measured as audience per 1000 residents and expenditures on culture-related activities were analysed in relation to such territorial assets as accessibility to creative infrastructure, the economic status of residents, the governance networks of civil society, and cultural capital. The results indicate how accessibility, governance networks, and cultural capital contribute to participation measured via audience indicators while a low poverty rate has explanatory value with respect to expenditures on culture

Orientacja rynkowa we współrządzeniu miastem

W publikacji przedstawiono praktyki dużych miast polskich, które wpisują się w nowy model zarządzania publicznego – współrządzenie. Analiza licznych przykładów współdziałania menedżerów publicznych z interesariuszami instytucjonalnymi w procesach przyciągania inwestorów, turystów i potencjalnych studentów oraz w tworzeniu dobrych warunków do rozwoju lokalnych przedsiębiorców pozwoliła na zobrazowanie sposobów realizacji zasad dobrego współrządzenia przez samorządy miejskie. Przykłady te wzbogacone o przejawy dobrych praktyk wewnątrzorganizacyjnych urzędów wskazujących na ich otwartość, efektywność, nastawienie partycypacyjne i koordynację dają bogaty obraz orientacji rynkowej badanych miast rozumianej jako kultura organizacyjna, w której główną rolę odgrywa responsywna maksymalizacja wartości dostarczanych mieszkańcom i użytkownikom. „Tematyka monografii ma duże znaczenie nie tylko dla nauk ekonomicznych, ale i dla pokrewnych, w tym nauk o urbanistyce, architekturze, planowaniu przestrzennym. Autorzy badają tworzenie relacji między marketingiem a współrządzeniem na szczeblu samorządów terytorialnych. Ujmują to w ujęciu modelowym, koncentrując się na skuteczności funkcjonowania tych relacji wobec długotrwałych tendencji, jakie występują w procesie miastotwórczym […]. Monografia jest oryginalnym dziełem i na pewno pionierskim krokiem na drodze do interpretacji skomplikowanych relacji administracji wobec współczesnych wyzwań społecznych i gospodarczych organów lokalnych w Polsce”.Monografia powstała w ramach projektu NN115364339 „Marketing jako operacyjne rozwinięcie koncepcji governance w zarządzaniu publicznym”

Partycypacyjne praktyki z zakresu sztuki jako element zarządzania widownią w kontekście rozwoju miasta kreatywnego

W tym rozdziale poruszono tematykę partycypacji w kulturze w szerokim i wąskim rozumieniu oraz partycypacyjnych praktyk kulturalnych i ich wpływu na rozwój miast kreatywnych. Dokonano przeglądu koncepcji łączących uczestnictwo w kulturze z kreatywnym tworzeniem miejsc i planowaniem kulturalnym oraz przedstawiono przykłady partycypacyjnych praktyk artystycznych w przestrzeni miejskiej. Nawiązując do obecnego rozumienia koncepcji rozwoju widowni, określono obszar zastosowania praktyk partycypacyjnych, które służąc umacnianiu pozycji artysty/ organizacji działających w obszarze sztuki, równocześnie oddziałują na budowanie społeczności miasta kreatywnego.The scope of the paper is to explore the problem of participation in culture in general, participatory art practices, and their influence on the growth of creative cities. The author elaborates on concepts and categories of creative placemaking, and cultural planning and presents cases of participatory art practices in urban environment. Building upon the concept of audience development the paper describes the opportunities for application of participatory practices that would improve the situation of artists and cultural organizations, and at the same time have a positive impact on community building and social integration within a creative city

Beyond Figures and Numbers Participatory Budgeting as a Leverage for Citizen Identity and Attachment to Place

The purpose of the paper is to examine the potential of participatory budgeting (PB) for the formation of citizen identity and attachment to the place in terms of individual, territorial and thematic focus. In the theoretical discussion, the authors analyse the concepts of place attachment, social identity and their influence on civic participation. The authors propose a conceptual framework for the analysis of relationships between PB, place attachment, and social identity. In the case of the community development model of PB, place attachment should lead to the citizens’ increased inclination to participate. In the case of participatory democracy model of PB citizen participation can lead to a stronger place attachment. The conceptual framework presented in the paper requires empirical confirmation. Further research on the subject should revolve around the influence of place attachment on the formation of social identity and vice versa by application of the discussed models of PB. The placemakers should take into account literature-based evidence that advisory models of PB do not reinforce place identity. The places that apply one of the transition models should consider the evolution of their PB policies towards either community development model or participatory democracy model. By review of diverse theoretical approaches on place identity and local participation, the paper creates a solid foundation for further analysis of the relationships between the application of PB and the development of civic identity and place attachment

Soil chemical properties affect the reaction of forest soil bacteria to drought and rewetting stress

Reaction of soil bacteria to drought and rewetting stress may depend on soil chemical properties. The objectives of this study were to test the reaction of different bacterial phyla to drought and rewetting stress and to assess the influence of different soil chemical properties on the reaction of soil bacteria to this kind of stress. The soil samples were taken at ten forest sites and measured for pH and the contents of organic C (C(org)) and total N (N(t)), Zn, Cu, and Pb. The samples were kept without water addition at 20 – 30 °C for 8 weeks and subsequently rewetted to achieve moisture equal to 50 – 60 % of their maximum water-holding capacity. Prior to the drought period and 24 h after the rewetting, the structure of soil bacterial communities was determined using pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes. The drought and rewetting stress altered bacterial community structure. Gram-positive bacterial phyla, Actinobacteria and Firmicutes, increased in relative proportion after the stress, whereas the Gram-negative bacteria in most cases decreased. The largest decrease in relative abundance was for Gammaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. For several phyla the reaction to drought and rewetting stress depended on the chemical properties of soils. Soil pH was the most important soil property influencing the reaction of a number of soil bacterial groups (including all classes of Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Acidobacteria, and others) to drought and rewetting stress. For several bacterial phyla the reaction to the stress depended also on the contents of N(t) and C(org) in soil. The effect of heavy metal pollution was also noticeable, although weaker compared to other chemical soil properties. We conclude that soil chemical properties should be considered when assessing the effect of stressing factors on soil bacterial communities. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13213-014-1002-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Inteligentne zarządzanie dziedzictwem kulturowym w procesie budowania marek miast

Cel: Celem artykułu jest analiza zmian w podejściu do zarządzania dziedzictwem kulturowym w procesie budowania marek miast przy zastosowaniu elementów koncepcji miasta inteligentnego. Ewolucja paradygmatu zarządzania dziedzictwem od ochrony, poprzez konserwację po planowanie wymaga od decydentów przyjęcia proaktywnej postawy wobec użytkowników miasta w procesach współdecydowania o definiowaniu i wykorzystywaniu lokalnego dziedzictwa. Wykorzystanie inteligentnych narzędzi w komunikowaniu się z użytkownikami, tworzeniu zasobów, czy dystrybucji dóbr kultury służy usprawnieniu procesów tworzenia marek miast opartych o kulturę. Metody: Wchodząc od paradygmatu planowania dziedzictwa, jako modelowego ujęcia nowoczesnej polityki kulturalnej, przeanalizowano dane wtórne dotyczące praktyk wybranych miast z zakresu zarządzania kulturą, które wpisują się w koncepcję smart city. Dokonano przeglądu dobrych praktyk w zakresie inteligentnego zarządzania dziedzictwem kulturowym pochodzących z miast zrzeszonych w sieci miast kreatywnych UNESCO, które z dziedzictwa kulturowego uczyniły idee przewodnią swoich marek. Na tym tle zaprezentowano dyskusję na temat aktualnych uwarunkowań budowania marki miasta, traktując dziedzictwo kulturowe jako jeden z jej najważniejszych komponentów. Wyniki: W opracowaniu zidentyfikowano metody i narzędzia bazujące na nowych technologiach, które są najbardziej użyteczne w obszarze zarządzania dziedzictwem kulturowym jako komponentem marki miasta. Wskazano na kluczowe znaczenie nowych technologii w brandingu miast w obszarze kultury, jako narzędzi, które pozwalają na najpełniejszą realizację idei partycypacji obywatelskiej i koprodukcji (integracja wymiarów smart living i smart people w polityce kulturalnej miast inteligentnych)

Thalidomide, dexamethasone and lovastatin with autologous stem cell transplantation as a salvage immunomodulatory therapy in patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma

The treatment of patients with multiple myeloma usually includes many drugs including thalidomide, lenalidomide and bortezomib. Lovastatin and other inhibitors of HMG-CoA reductase demonstrated to exhibit antineoplasmatic and proapoptotic properties in numerous in vitro studies involving myeloma cell lines. We treated 91 patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma with thalidomide, dexamethasone and lovastatin (TDL group, 49 patients) or thalidomide and dexamethasone (TD group, 42 patients). A clinical response defined of at least 50% reduction of monoclonal band has been observed in 32% of TD patients and 44% of TDL patients. Prolongation of overall survival and progression-free survival in the TDL group as compared with the TD group has been documented. The TDL regimen was safe and well tolerated. The incidence of side effects was comparable in both groups. Plasma cells have been cultured in vitro with thalidomide and lovastatin to assess the impact of both drugs on the apoptosis rate of plasma cells. In vitro experiments revealed that the combination of thalidomide and lovastatin induced higher apoptosis rate than apoptosis induced by each drug alone. Our results suggest that the addition of lovastatin to the TD regimen may improve the response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory myeloma

Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2016 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for death and disability, but its overall association with health remains complex given the possible protective effects of moderate alcohol consumption on some conditions. With our comprehensive approach to health accounting within the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016, we generated improved estimates of alcohol use and alcohol-attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 195 locations from 1990 to 2016, for both sexes and for 5-year age groups between the ages of 15 years and 95 years and older. Methods Using 694 data sources of individual and population-level alcohol consumption, along with 592 prospective and retrospective studies on the risk of alcohol use, we produced estimates of the prevalence of current drinking, abstention, the distribution of alcohol consumption among current drinkers in standard drinks daily (defined as 10 g of pure ethyl alcohol), and alcohol-attributable deaths and DALYs. We made several methodological improvements compared with previous estimates: first, we adjusted alcohol sales estimates to take into account tourist and unrecorded consumption; second, we did a new meta-analysis of relative risks for 23 health outcomes associated with alcohol use; and third, we developed a new method to quantify the level of alcohol consumption that minimises the overall risk to individual health. Findings Globally, alcohol use was the seventh leading risk factor for both deaths and DALYs in 2016, accounting for 2.2% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 1.5-3.0) of age-standardised female deaths and 6.8% (5.8-8.0) of age-standardised male deaths. Among the population aged 15-49 years, alcohol use was the leading risk factor globally in 2016, with 3.8% (95% UI 3.2-4-3) of female deaths and 12.2% (10.8-13-6) of male deaths attributable to alcohol use. For the population aged 15-49 years, female attributable DALYs were 2.3% (95% UI 2.0-2.6) and male attributable DALYs were 8.9% (7.8-9.9). The three leading causes of attributable deaths in this age group were tuberculosis (1.4% [95% UI 1. 0-1. 7] of total deaths), road injuries (1.2% [0.7-1.9]), and self-harm (1.1% [0.6-1.5]). For populations aged 50 years and older, cancers accounted for a large proportion of total alcohol-attributable deaths in 2016, constituting 27.1% (95% UI 21.2-33.3) of total alcohol-attributable female deaths and 18.9% (15.3-22.6) of male deaths. The level of alcohol consumption that minimised harm across health outcomes was zero (95% UI 0.0-0.8) standard drinks per week. Interpretation Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss. We found that the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero. These results suggest that alcohol control policies might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption.Peer reviewe

Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index for 195 countries and territories and selected subnational locations: A systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016

Background: A key component of achieving universal health coverage is ensuring that all populations have access to quality health care. Examining where gains have occurred or progress has faltered across and within countries is crucial to guiding decisions and strategies for future improvement. We used the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2016 (GBD 2016) to assess personal health-care access and quality with the Healthcare Access and Quality (HAQ) Index for 195 countries and territories, as well as subnational locations in seven countries, from 1990 to 2016. Methods Drawing from established methods and updated estimates from GBD 2016, we used 32 causes from which death should not occur in the presence of effective care to approximate personal health-care access and quality by location and over time. To better isolate potential effects of personal health-care access and quality from underlying risk factor patterns, we risk-standardised cause-specific deaths due to non-cancers by location-year, replacing the local joint exposure of environmental and behavioural risks with the global level of exposure. Supported by the expansion of cancer registry data in GBD 2016, we used mortality-to-incidence ratios for cancers instead of risk-standardised death rates to provide a stronger signal of the effects of personal health care and access on cancer survival. We transformed each cause to a scale of 0-100, with 0 as the first percentile (worst) observed between 1990 and 2016, and 100 as the 99th percentile (best); we set these thresholds at the country level, and then applied them to subnational locations. We applied a principal components analysis to construct the HAQ Index using all scaled cause values, providing an overall score of 0-100 of personal health-care access and quality by location over time. We then compared HAQ Index levels and trends by quintiles on the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a summary measure of overall development. As derived from the broader GBD study and other data sources, we examined relationships between national HAQ Index scores and potential correlates of performance, such as total health spending per capita. Findings In 2016, HAQ Index performance spanned from a high of 97\ub71 (95% UI 95\ub78-98\ub71) in Iceland, followed by 96\ub76 (94\ub79-97\ub79) in Norway and 96\ub71 (94\ub75-97\ub73) in the Netherlands, to values as low as 18\ub76 (13\ub71-24\ub74) in the Central African Republic, 19\ub70 (14\ub73-23\ub77) in Somalia, and 23\ub74 (20\ub72-26\ub78) in Guinea-Bissau. The pace of progress achieved between 1990 and 2016 varied, with markedly faster improvements occurring between 2000 and 2016 for many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia, whereas several countries in Latin America and elsewhere saw progress stagnate after experiencing considerable advances in the HAQ Index between 1990 and 2000. Striking subnational disparities emerged in personal health-care access and quality, with China and India having particularly large gaps between locations with the highest and lowest scores in 2016. In China, performance ranged from 91\ub75 (89\ub71-93\ub76) in Beijing to 48\ub70 (43\ub74-53\ub72) in Tibet (a 43\ub75-point difference), while India saw a 30\ub78-point disparity, from 64\ub78 (59\ub76-68\ub78) in Goa to 34\ub70 (30\ub73-38\ub71) in Assam. Japan recorded the smallest range in subnational HAQ performance in 2016 (a 4\ub78-point difference), whereas differences between subnational locations with the highest and lowest HAQ Index values were more than two times as high for the USA and three times as high for England. State-level gaps in the HAQ Index in Mexico somewhat narrowed from 1990 to 2016 (from a 20\ub79-point to 17\ub70-point difference), whereas in Brazil, disparities slightly increased across states during this time (a 17\ub72-point to 20\ub74-point difference). Performance on the HAQ Index showed strong linkages to overall development, with high and high-middle SDI countries generally having higher scores and faster gains for non-communicable diseases. Nonetheless, countries across the development spectrum saw substantial gains in some key health service areas from 2000 to 2016, most notably vaccine-preventable diseases. Overall, national performance on the HAQ Index was positively associated with higher levels of total health spending per capita, as well as health systems inputs, but these relationships were quite heterogeneous, particularly among low-to-middle SDI countries. Interpretation GBD 2016 provides a more detailed understanding of past success and current challenges in improving personal health-care access and quality worldwide. Despite substantial gains since 2000, many low-SDI and middle- SDI countries face considerable challenges unless heightened policy action and investments focus on advancing access to and quality of health care across key health services, especially non-communicable diseases. Stagnating or minimal improvements experienced by several low-middle to high-middle SDI countries could reflect the complexities of re-orienting both primary and secondary health-care services beyond the more limited foci of the Millennium Development Goals. Alongside initiatives to strengthen public health programmes, the pursuit of universal health coverage hinges upon improving both access and quality worldwide, and thus requires adopting a more comprehensive view-and subsequent provision-of quality health care for all populations