New material of Laophis crotaloides, an enigmatic giant snake from Greece, with an overview of the largest fossil European vipers

Laophis crotaloides was described by Richard Owen as a new and very large fossil viperid snake species from Greece. The type material is apparently lost and the taxon was mostly neglected for more than a century. We here describe a new partial viperid vertebra, collected from the same locality and of equivalent size to the type material. This vertebra indicates that at least one of the three morphological characters that could be used to diagnose L. crotaloides is probably an artifact of the lithographer who prepared the illustration supporting the original description. A revised diagnosis of L. crotaloides is provided on the basis of the new specimen. Despite the fragmentary nature of the new vertebra, it confirms the validity of L. crotaloides, although its exact relationships within Viperidae remain unknown. The new find supports the presence of a large viperid snake in the early Pliocene of northern Greece, adding further data to the diversity of giant vipers from Europe

First description of a fossil chamaeleonid from Greece and its relevance for the European biogeographic history of the group

The fossil record of Chamaeleonidae is very scarce and any new specimen is therefore considered important for our understanding of the evolutionary and biogeographic history of the group. New specimens from the early Miocene of Aliveri (Evia Island), Greece constitute the only fossils of these lizards from southeastern Europe. Skull roofing material is tentatively attributed to the Czech species Chamaeleo cf. andrusovi, revealing a range extension for this taxon, whereas tooth-bearing elements are described as indeterminate chamaeleonids. The Aliveri fossils rank well among the oldest known reptiles from Greece, provide evidence for the dispersal routes of chameleons out of Africa towards the European continent and, additionally, imply strong affinities with coeval chamaeleonids from Central Europe

Direct costs and sources of financing of nature conservation and biodiversity protection in forest districts in the Mazowieckie Province

The paper analyses direct costs of nature conservation and biodiversity protection incurred by forest districts of the State Forests in the Mazowieckie Province in the period 2008−2011. It also examines sources of their financing. The study shows that the largest amount of money – 65% of all costs – was spent on a wide range of activities related to biodiversity protection. The most significant fund donors were forest districts themselves. They provided 68.3% of all resources for nature conservation and biodiversity protection. The research also shows that funds received for these purposes from the state budget are rather of secondary importance

Application of Data Envelopment Analysis to efficiency evaluation in forestry and wood-based industry

The paper presents the literature review concerning the general assumptions of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and its applications in forest management and wood industry evaluation. So far, efficiency evaluation in forestry sector was carried out using mostly the ratio analysis only. The DEA approach, which was developed in the 1970s, is based on the mathematical programming algorithm and gives more opportunities to analyze efficiency in forestry sector. We describe the main steps of DEA and possible options for the analysis. It also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the method applications. We also present the most significant papers concerning DEA application in forest management and wood−based industry. As far as forest management is regarded, DEA was used for evaluating forest offices, administration and institutions and optimizing forestry operations performed by both private and state−owned companies. In case of wood−based industry, the method was used mostly for evaluating efficiency of sawmills and pulp mills. Most of the research in this field was carried out in the United States and Canada. DEA was applied to measure efficiency in forest management in Poland only recently, which should be considered as a good step towards improvement of research quality in this field in Poland and should provide comprehensive results of forest management efficiency evaluation. The method should be used more widely to evaluate efficiency of various aspects of forestry and wood−based industry in Poland

Data Envelopment Analysis in evaluation of the forest districts efficiency

The aim of this paper was to evaluate the financial and economic resources efficiency of forest districts in the years 2008−2012 using a nonparametric approach of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA is a linear programming based method for evaluating the performance of comparable production units such as firms. The relative efficiency of compared forest districts is calculated with the Variable Returns to Scale (VRS) model. Although the method is already extensively applied in many areas of economics, its use in forestry remains limited. We studied 110 forest districts from Wrocław, Katowice, Kraków and Krosno regional directorates of the State Forests. The research was conducted in groups of forest districts according to the similar forest site type, which ensured the homogeneity of the units and the comparability of research results. Two categories of the forest districts were identified: ‘lowland' and ‘upland−mountain' ones. The study covered selection of input (efforts) and output (results) variables as well as selection of appropriate DEA model, which were used to evaluate technical efficiency of the forest districts. Within the so−called model of economic resources they were quantified in technical units, whereas in a financial model – in value terms. The research shows differences in the use of economic and financial resources by the analyzed forest districts. The ‘lowland' were more effective than ‘upland−mountain' ones both in terms of the use of the financial and economic resources. Average relative efficiency in a financial model for the ‘lowland' forest districts amounts to 0.896, while for the ‘upland−mountain' ones – to 0.839. In economic resources model this parameter equals 0.853 and 0.823, respectively. The DEA method may be an alternative or complementary to other methods of evaluation of the forest district efficiency. Any attempt of such analysis may be very valuable support in the forest management

Opportunity costs of establishing nature reserves in selected forest districts of the Mazowieckie Province

The article presents the results of research on the opportunity costs related to establishing nature reserves in four randomly-selected forest districts located in the Mazowieckie Province: Celestynów, Grójec, P³oñsk and Zwoleń. Our analysis included calculation of profits forgone by forest districts due to the cessation of timber harvesting in nature reserves and an estimation of work places lost as a result of introduction of new limitations, as well as the expenses incurred by municipalities related to their establishment of forest tax concessions in nature reserves. The establishment of nature reserves incurred losses related to timber harvest of about 246 thousand m3 during the period of 10 years, which is equivalent to between 4.1% and 19.8% of the planned timber harvest stated in the forest management plans of the studied forest districts. Total opportunity costs were equal to 25.5-27.2 million PLN during these 10 years or 1502-1605 PLN/ha of nature reserve annually. Annual opportunity costs calculated per unit of forest area were equal to 56-60 PLN/ha. The estimated loss in work places was 98.8 working days annually per 1000 ha of forest area in forest districts. Total expenses incurred by municipalities related to establishment of forest tax concessions in nature reserves reached about 18.1 thousand PLN in 2011. The research results show that the economic and social costs of nature protection activities are concentrated in their places of their origin. Those costs are felt the most by the owners of the affected forests and local communities. We recommend that possibilities are explored for the introduction of instruments to allow the mitigation of negative effects resulting from restrictions in forest use. Restructuring of forest and nature protection policy, to take into account the interests of all stakeholders would provide an improved model for the use of these forests

Determining the trailers' and trailer-trucks' trajectories

W opracowaniu przedstawiono pewien sposób wyznaczania toru ruchu ciągniętych przyczep i pociągów drogowych. Przedstawiono zależności dla przypadku kiedy tor przegubu łączącego pojazd z przyczepą opisany jest dowolną krzywą. Omówiono trzy przypadki szczególnie kiedy tor przegubu łączącego ciągnik z przyczepą opisany jest sinusoidą, linią prostą oraz okręgiem.The paper presents a method for finding the trajectories of trailers and trailertrucks. The relationships were derived for the case when trajectory of the joint connecting the truck with the vehicle is described with a curve. Three specific cases were discussed, that is when the trajectory of the connecting joint is described as a sinusoidal, straight line or as a circle. Althogh the method does not allow to exactly determine the real trailer paths since the drift angles are not considered, still it possible to evaluate such parameters as the width of the traffic lane and the overlap. The autors recommend that thus computed minimal width of the traffic lane should be increased by 10-20% when the inner roads onthe construction sites are designed. The method presented here was verified during the testing of the articulated buses

Opportunity costs of establishing nature reserves in selected forest districts of the Mazowieckie Province

The article presents the results of research on the opportunity costs related to establishing nature reserves in four randomly-selected forest districts located in the Mazowieckie Province: Celestynów, Grójec, P³oñsk and Zwoleń. Our analysis included calculation of profits forgone by forest districts due to the cessation of timber harvesting in nature reserves and an estimation of work places lost as a result of introduction of new limitations, as well as the expenses incurred by municipalities related to their establishment of forest tax concessions in nature reserves. The establishment of nature reserves incurred losses related to timber harvest of about 246 thousand m3 during the period of 10 years, which is equivalent to between 4.1% and 19.8% of the planned timber harvest stated in the forest management plans of the studied forest districts. Total opportunity costs were equal to 25.5-27.2 million PLN during these 10 years or 1502-1605 PLN/ha of nature reserve annually. Annual opportunity costs calculated per unit of forest area were equal to 56-60 PLN/ha. The estimated loss in work places was 98.8 working days annually per 1000 ha of forest area in forest districts. Total expenses incurred by municipalities related to establishment of forest tax concessions in nature reserves reached about 18.1 thousand PLN in 2011. The research results show that the economic and social costs of nature protection activities are concentrated in their places of their origin. Those costs are felt the most by the owners of the affected forests and local communities. We recommend that possibilities are explored for the introduction of instruments to allow the mitigation of negative effects resulting from restrictions in forest use. Restructuring of forest and nature protection policy, to take into account the interests of all stakeholders would provide an improved model for the use of these forests