Greek Ostraka in the British Library

The British Library holds one of the largest collections of Greek ostraka outside Egypt. The paper presents the history of the collection from its beginnings in the early 19th century up to its present status, surveying the various attempts to catalogue it from early facsimiles to digitized images. It highlights the crucial importance of cross-institutional collaboration for future research on the collection with examples of successful projects

Corruption manual for beginners: "Corruption techniques" in public procurement with examples from Hungary

This paper develops 30 novel quantitative indicators of grand corruption that operationalize 20 distinct techniques of corruption in the context of public procurement. Each indicator rests on a thorough qualitative understanding of rent extraction from public contracts by corrupt networks as evidenced by academic literature, interviews and media content analysis. Feasibility and usefulness of the proposed indicators are demonstrated using micro-level public procurement data from Hungary in 2009-2012. While the prime value of this broad set of indicators is the possibility of combining them into a robust composite indicator of high-level corruption, the high degree of detail also reveals that many regulatory interventions have succeeded in changing the form of corruption, but not its overall incidence

Short-Term Forecasting of Czech Quarterly GDP Using Monthly Indicators

The authors evaluate the out-of-sample forecasting performance of six competing models at horizons of up to three quarters ahead in a pseudo-real time setup. All the models use information in monthly indicators released ahead of quarterly GDP. The authors estimate two models – averaged vector autoregressions and bridge equations – relying on just a few monthly indicators. The remaining four models condition the forecast on a large set of monthly series. These models comprise two standard principal components models, a dynamic factor model based on the Kalman smoother, and a generalized dynamic factor model. The authors benchmark their results to the performance of a naive model and the historical near-term forecasts of the Czech National Bank’s staff. The findings are also compared with a related study conducted by ECB staff (Barhoumi et al., 2008). In the Czech case, standard principal components is the most precise model overall up to three quarters ahead. However, the CNB staff’s historical forecasts were the most accurate one quarter ahead.GDP forecasting, bridge models, principal components, dynamic factor models, real-time evaluation

Adaptation of settlement strategies to environmental conditions in southern Slovakia in the Neolithic and Eneolithic

Environmental conditions such as climate, topography, and soil conditions had an impact on prehistoric settlement strategies. By studying changes in settlement structure in the Nitra, Hron and Ipel’ valleys in southern Slovakia over the course of the Neolithic and Eneolithic, preferences for various climatic and topographic environments in different periods can be seen. Besides cultural and socio-economic factors, it can also be expected that changes in climate contributed to change in settlement patterns. Climatic changes in Neolithic and Eneolithic have been identified and correlated with major changes in socio-economic structure, as well as with known climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic area.Na strategije poselitev v prazgodovini so vplivali okoljski pogoji, kot so klima, topografija in vrste tal. Z raziskavo sprememb v strukturi poselitev v dolinah Nitre, Hrona in Ipela na južnem Slovaškem v obdobju neolitika in eneolitika lahko opazujemo preference za različna klimatska in topografska okolja v različnih obdobjih. Poleg kulturnih in družbeno-ekonomskih faktorjev lahko pričakujemo, da so tudi spremembe v klimi prispevale k spremembam v vzorcu poselitve. Prepoznali smo klimatske spremembe v neolitiku in eneolitiku ter jih povezali z glavnimi spremembami v družbeno-ekonomskih strukturah, pa tudi z znanimi klimatskimi nihanji na področju severnega Atlantika

Preventable mortality in regions of Slovakia-quantification of regional disparities and investigation of the impact of environmental factors

Environmental health is among the priority areas of public health, and the current professional communities are intensively engaged with it. The main objective of the study is to quantify regional disparities of preventable mortality in Slovakia and to study the extent of the influence of selected environmental factors on changes in the development of its values. A cross-sectional linear regression model is used to quantify effects of environmental factors on the preventable mortality. Also, cluster analysis is used to identify regions with similar levels of air pollution. Environmental factors were selected based on the study of the World Health Organization. From the point of view of the influence of environmental factors on preventable mortality in the case of men, statistically significant connection to sewerage, SO2 production, and production of particulate matter was demonstrated. In the case of women, equally important factors showed connection to sewerage and SO2. The results of this study point to significant regional disparities in preventable mortality and a different degree of impact of environmental factors. Preventable mortality is above the Slovak average in most of the least-developed districts. Even in this group, there are significant differences.ATTRACTIVE DANUBE "Improving Capacities for Enhancing Territorial Attractiveness of the Danube Region" [DTP40]; European Union Funds (ERDF, IPA

Kinetic studies of Candida parapsilosis phagocytosis by macrophages and detection of intracellular survival mechanisms

Peer reviewedPublisher PD