The Polish EU presidency in Polish press: Did we actually notice it?

The aim of this paper is to present the findings of a quantitative content analysis of the Polish print media. Sharing the codebook and procedures with an international team, we were able to gain a broad perspective on the media coverage of the first Polish EU presidency. In particular, we focused on: (1) the number of items covering events related to the presidency, (2) the prominence of the topic, (3) genres, (4) main topics, (5) authors of news, (6) authors of opinions, and (7) the way Polish journalists evaluated Poland’s performance during the EU presidency. The findings showed that although Polish print press reported the first Polish EU presidency, the topic’s prominence was not very high. Media organizations rather rarely presented the topic on the front page and they did not change their regular editorial policy. Most of the news items, as well as opinions and comments, were written by staff members. Furthermore, journalists seemed to be more interested in the opinions of national politicians, rather than experts. As a result, the framework of the coverage was predominantly domestic. Journalists working for daily newspapers focused mostly on providing news and their own interpretations of the reported events. On the contrary weekly magazines provided comments and interviews, but again, most of the opinions were expressed by their own journalists and editors.

The priorities of the Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union

The paper discusses the Polish presidency of the EU Council in terms of its priorities. It analyzes the circumstances of their formulation, selection and implementation. The authors answer the question of what influenced the selection of Poland’s priorities and what selection mechanisms were applied. Additionally, they examine how the national agenda was ‘concealed’ in Community rhetoric. Thus, the analytical part discusses the political and legal path that determined the priorities. The EU agenda, Polish ambitions and the context of the trio is also presented. The paper concludes with the authors’ assessment of the implementation of the priorities.

The role of musical aptitude in the pronunciation of English vowels among Polish learners of English

It has long been held that people who have musical training or talent acquire L2 pronunciation more successfully than those that do not. Indeed, there have been empirical studies to support this hypothesis (Pastuszek-Lipińska 2003, Fonseca-Mora et al. 2011, Zatorre and Baum 2012). However, in many of such studies, musical abilities in subjects were mostly verified through questionnaires rather than tested in a reliable, empirical manner. Therefore, we run three different musical hearing tests, i.e. pitch perception test, musical memory test, and rhythm perception test (Mandell 2009) to measure the actual musical aptitude in our subjects. The main research question is whether a better musical ear correlates with a higher rate of acquisition of English vowels in Polish EFL learners. Our group consists of 40 Polish university students studying English as their major who learn the British pronunciation model during an intense pronunciation course. 10 male and 30 female subjects with mean age of 20.1 were recorded in a recording studio. The procedure comprised spontaneous conversations, reading passages and reading words in isolation. Vowel measurements were conducted in Praat in all three speech styles and several consonantal contexts. The assumption was that participants who performed better in musical tests would produce vowels that are closer to the Southern British English model. We plotted them onto vowel charts and calculated the Euclidean distances. Preliminary results show that there is potential correlation between specific aspects of musical hearing and different elements of pronunciation. The study is a longitudinal project and will encompass two more years, during which we will repeat the recording procedure twice to measure the participants’ progress in mastering the English pronunciation and comparing it with their musical aptitude.

Transmission Easement and Adverse Possession of Transmission Easement in the Polish Law

The object of analysis in the text are the issues concerned with the transmission easement and the adverse possession thereof on the grounds of the Polish law. The text features: (1) a historical outline of the solutions concerned with easements in the Polish law following 1945, (2) the institution of transmission easement introduced in 2008 and the solutions concerned with the claims for the establishment thereof at court, (3) the institution of adverse possession of transmission easement pursuant to civil law regulations, judicature and the legal doctrine. On account of the need to elaborate the wide-ranging legal issues concerned with the transmission easement in this text, the analysis embraces two research questions giving rise to the following conclusions: (1) What function is performed by the institution of transmission easement in the system of civil-law relations in the Polish law? The legislator in the articles introducing a transmission easement ossified the solutions functioning in the judicature of the Polish courts before 2008. The legal interpretation took a turn for clarification, that is for the establishment of a norm in the situation where its comprehension was dubious. It is noteworthy that in the period prior to 2008, the law provided for easement appurtenant, and on account of the usual course of judicial decisions also for easement appurtenant with the content corresponding to transmission easement. In 2008 these two “legal existences” were supplemented with a transmission easement, which nevertheless failed to resolve all the legal problems; nay, this gave rise to even more problems, e.g. the one of non-establishment of interpolar norms which would address the issues arising in connection with the use of various easement institutions in legal transactions. While amending the civil law, the legislator aimed to bring order to legal transactions by streamlining the unregulated actual state of easement in relation to transmission infrastructure, but also in relation to the situations where an easement was yet to be established and a facility yet to be constructed. Thus, such action is intended to regulate the disorderly legislation in force as well as to safeguard investment processes. This is of particular significance, for example, for energy companies which are burdened with statutory public-law obligations as regards securing energy supplies and providing for the development of energy infrastructure. Hence, the de facto introduced civil-law solutions indirectly served to realise the principles of the doctrine of easement in the public interest. (2) What legal problems in the civil-law relations does the application of the institution of transmission easement by adverse possession entail? On account of the functioning of various institutions of easement, that is (1) an easement appurtenant, (2) an easement appurtenant with the content corresponding to a transmission easement, and as of 2008 (3) a transmission easement, a problem arose as to which of the given easements companies exercised in particular periods, all the more so because before 1989 the State Treasury owned them and many of the transmission facilities were put in place by virtue of administrative decisions. The commonly held belief is that in the period of “society-oriented economy” as well as up to 2008 infrastructure companies could exercise an easement appurtenant which corresponded to the content of a transmission easement. Therefore, in such a case the running of the prescriptive period should allow for the general rules laid down for an easement appurtenant. Apart from the problem of the relation of a capacity to exercise a right to property and the free development of civil-law relations before 1989, the recognition of the running of prescriptive periods – given the functioning of the three various easements as legal institutions – became a significant legal problem. By way of illustration, the recognition – against the period of exercising transmission easement – of the period required for the acquisition thereof by adverse possession, whereby before 3 August 2008 the real estate featured the legal state corresponding to the content of this right, is debatable. One cannot recognise that within that period a transmission easement was exercised, because such a right was not in existence as yet. Therefore, the institution that might be employed is the running of the period as regards the adverse possession in relation to an easement appurtenant with the content of a transmission easement. Still, the problem remains as to whether the period of the exercise of the easement appurtenant with the content corresponding to a transmission easement can be recognised against the period of possession required for the adverse possession of a transmission easement pursuant to the regulations introduced in 2008. One might incline to the position whereby in such a case it would be right to fully recognise – against the period of exercising a transmission easement – the period of exercising an easement appurtenant corresponding thereto in respect of its content. That being so, the adverse possession of a transmission easement might ensue in such a situation on 3 August 2008 at the earliest, that is the moment the regulations governing this right come into effect. Conversely, if the prescriptive period expires before that date, the entrepreneur would acquire an easement appurtenant with the content corresponding to the transmission easement. Such an interpretation is aligned with the purpose intended by the legislator, which is to bring order to the actual state of the broadest scope with the aid of a new legal instrument. The text, while analysing the issue of a transmission easement and an adverse possession thereof as a institution of the civil law, presents only some selected problems. Hence, the analysis does not include, for example, the issues concerned with claims for remuneration (for usufruct without contractual basis or usufruct fees), or claims for compensation (redress or amends). Furthermore, the text does not conduct a more profound analysis of the relation between the provisions regulating public-law relations (e.g. acts of law introducing the institution of dispossession) and the provisions regulating civil-law relations (the easements in question).

Paths in remnant movement: A single solution to three problems in the Polish OVS syntax

On the one hand it has been advanced that remnant movement (RM) serves as a replacement for head movement and leads to certain permutations in word order while it disallows some others (e.g. Cinque (2005)), on the other hand, little attention has been devoted to the consequences RM has for clausal syntax. In this work, I illustrate one such consequence, namely the rise of crossing and nesting movement dependencies and their reflexes. In particular, I make a case for the existence of massive RM that involves entire clausal subtrees in Polish. The analysis provides a uniform solution to three robust puzzles in the Polish OVS construction in a straightforward way.

Espionage against Poland in the Documents and Analyses of the Polish Special Services (1944 - 1989) - as Illustrated by the Intelligence Activities of the USA

The text analyses the intelligence activity against Poland in the period 1944-1989. The paper also contains a case study, i.e. an analysis of the American intelligence service activity held against Poland. While examining the research thesis, the author used the documents and analyses prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In order to best illustrate the point, the author presented a number of cases of persons who spied for the USA, which was possible thanks to the analysis of the training materials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs directed to the officers of the Security Service and the Citizens’ Militia. The text tackles the following issues: (1) to what extent did the character of the socio-political system influence the number of persons convicted for espionage against Poland in the period under examination?, (2) what was the level of interest of the foreign intelligence services in Poland before the year 1990?, (3) is it possible to indicate the specificity of the U.S. intelligence activity against Poland? 1) The analysis of data indicates that the period 1946-1956 witnessed a great number of convictions for espionage, which is often associated with the peculiar political situation in Poland of that time. Up to 1953, the countries of the Eastern bloc had reproduced the Stalin’s system, which only ceased due to the death of Stalin himself. Since then, the communist systems gradually transformed into the system of nomenklatura. Irrespective of these changes, Poland still witnessed a wave of repressions, which resulted from the threats continuously looming over the communist authorities – combating the anti-communist underground movement, fighting with the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, the Polish government-in-exile, possible revisionism of borders, social discontent related to the socio-political reforms. Hence, a great number of convictions for espionage at that time could be ascribed to purely political sentences. Moreover, equally significant was the fact that the then judicial practice was preoccupied assessing negatively any contacts and relations with foreigners. This excessive number of convictions could ensue from other criminal-law provisions, which applied with respect to the crimes against the State, including espionage. What is also important is the fact that in the Stalin’s period the judiciary personnel acquired their skills and qualifications through intensive courses in law with the predominant spirit of the theory of evidence and law by Andrey Vyshinsky. Additionally, by the decree of 1944 the Penal Code of the Polish Armed Forces was introduced; the code envisaged the increase in the number of offences classified as penalised with death penalty, whereas the high treason was subject to the military jurisdiction (the civilians were prosecuted in military courts till 1955; the espionage, however, still stood under the military jurisdiction). In 1946, there was introduced the Decree on particularly dangerous crimes in the period of the State’s recovery, which was later called a Small Penal Code. 2) The interest that foreign intelligence services expressed in relation to Poland was similar to the one they had in all countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In the case of Poland, it should be noted that foreign intelligence services recruited Polish citizens who had previously stayed abroad and after WWII returned to their home country. The services also gathered information from Poles staying in immigrant camps (e.g. in FRG). The activity of the American intelligence service on the territory of FRG and West Berlin played a key role. The documents of the Ministry of Internal Affairs pointed to the global range of this activity, e.g. through the recruitment of Polish sailors in the ports of the Netherlands, Japan, etc. In line with the development in the 1970s, espionage, which had so far concentrated on the defence and strategic sectors, became focused on science and technology of the People’s Republic of Poland. The acquisition of collaborators in academic circles was much easier, as PRL opened to academic exchange. Due to the system of visas, the process of candidate selection for intelligence services (e.g. the American) began in embassies. In the 1980s, the activity of the foreign intelligence services concentrated on the specific political situation in Poland, i.e. the growing significance of the “Solidarity” social movement. 3) The specificity of the American intelligence activity against Poland was related to the composition of the residency staff, which was the largest in comparison to other Western countries. The wide range of these activities can be proved by the quantitative data of convictions for espionage in the years 1944-1984 (however, one has to bear in mind the factors mentioned earlier in the text, which led to the misinterpretation of these data). Analysing the data and the documents prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, one should treat them with caution, as, frequently, the Polish counter-intelligence service used to classify the ordinary diplomatic practice and any contacts with foreigners as espionage threats. It is clearly visible in the language of the training materials concerned with “secret service methods of the intelligence activity” as well as in the documents on operational activities of the Security Service in relation to foreigners. The level of interest the USA had in Poland was mirrored in the classification of diplomatic posts, according to which Warsaw occupied the second place (the so-called Group “B”) on the three-point scale. The CIA experienced spectacular defeats during their activity in Poland: supporting the Polish underground anti-communist organisation Freedom and Independence and the so-called Munich-Berg episode (both cases took place in the 1950s). The text focuses only on selected issues related to the espionage activities against Poland. Similarly, the analysis of the problem has been based on selected sources, which has limited the research scope - however, it was not the aim of the author to present the espionage activity against Poland in a comprehensive way. In order to assess the real threat posed by the espionage activity, one should analyse the case of persons convicted for espionage in the period 1944-1989, as the available quantitative data, mentioned in the text, cannot constitute an explicit benchmark for the scale of espionage activity. The inaccuracies in the interpretation of data and variables, which can affect the evaluation of this phenomenon, have been pointed out in the text.

Why intelligent travel system is a good organizing trips tool for Polish tourists?

Paper based on the report for the unit on “Sociology of New Information Technologies” at the MSc Industrial Management and Engineering at the Universidade Nova Lisbon, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, under supervision of Prof. António B. Moniz. The report had the support from the ERASMUS program.

What Determines the Innovativeness of Polish Family Firms? Empirical Results and Theoretical Puzzles

This article will review and synthesize the existing research on the innovativeness of Polish family firms in order to separate universal factors that influence the degree of innovativeness of firms from the factors which distinctively influence the innovativeness of family firms. To better assess the innovation propensity of family firms the author will work out the typology by combining the variety of innovations with particular features of family firms and the industrial context. A more nuanced approach will help to understand why the academic literature is inconclusive with regards to the question of whether family firms are anti-innovative (as some authors claim), pro-innovative or ambivalent with regard to innovations. In particular it will be argued that when assessing family firms’ innovativeness special attention needs to be paid to the impact of the management of intergenerational change on the propensity to innovate, as this process relates to the capacity for investments into innovativeness and the time horizon of the owner’s decisions.

The right to adequate housing in International Human Rights Law: Polish transformation experiences

AbstractHousing rights are now one of the most fundamental social and economic human rights. It is therefore the duty of every country to implement such rights for its own citizens, irrespective of its economicdevelopment, political situation, or social conditions. Possession of appropriate living conditions determines, in fact, the possibility of using other, more advanced human rights (e.g. the right to health, right to development, right to peace, or access to culture). Realization of the right to adequate housing is increasingly problematic for developed countries. According to the United Nations, there areover 100 million homeless people worldwide and more than 1 billion inadequately housed. Poland is an example of a country particularly afflicted by housing problems after the Second World War.Experiences of Polish democratic transformation after 1989, therefore, provide interesting lessons (and warnings) for all countries wishing to deal with the social problems arising from housing difficulties.Keywords: right to adequate housing, human rights, housing rights, social transformation, transition, economic and social human rights, social issues, Poland, United Nations, communism.ResumenEl derecho a la vivienda es uno de los derechos humanos sociales y económicos más elementales. Por lo tanto, es un deber de todos los países implementar esos derechos para susciudadanos y ciudadanas, independependientmente de su desarrollo económico, situación política, o condiciones sociales. La posesión de adecuadas condiciones de vida determinala posibilidad de utilizar otros derechos humanos más avanzados (por ejemplo, derecho a la salud, derecho al desarrollo, derecho a la paz, acceso a la cultura). La realizacióndel derecho a una vivienda adecuada es cada vez más problemática para los países desarrollados. Según las Naciones Unidas, hay más de 100 millones de personas sin hogar en todo el mundo y más de 1000 millones alojadas en viviendas inadecuadas. Polonia es ejemplo de un país particularmente afectado por los problemas de vivienda después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Experiencias de la transformación democrática de Polonia después de 1989 ofrecen lecciones interesantes (y advertencias) para todos los países que deseen hacer frente a los problemas sociales derivados de las dificultades de vivienda.Palabras clave: derecho a la vivienda, derechos humanos, transformación social, transición, derechos económicos y sociales, cuestiones sociales, Polonia, Naciones Unidas, comunismo. 

Reverse immigration

This book (256 pages, written in Korean) is a critical essay that reviews, questions, and criticises Korean and Eastern immigrants’ thinking and behaviour styles in Australia from their cultural perspectives, and discuss and proposes a creative cultural dimension for their better life in a multicultural context. Multiculturalism is not supportive of Eastern cultures because of individualistic collection of cultures, while transculturalism facilitates nurture of their culture in a community-oriented way within multicultural circumstances. Korean and Eastern immigrants, sharing oriental cultural systems and values, should approach to the Australian multicultural context with transculturalism which allows creating new cultural values in collaboration with and by participation into local communities. ------------------------------------------------------------ Many Eastern immigrants live in their own ethnic communities without or less interacting with Australian (communities). The author defines this phenomenon as “reverse immigration”. Reverse immigration refers to re-immigrating to their ethnic community in Australia or to their birth country despite they did not anticipate that this would happen to them before immigration to Australia. The author argues that Easterners’ collectivistic culture often devalues individuality and vice versa. Cultural clash between West and East often forces the immigrants to choose reverse immigration because of their lack of understanding of Western culture and their cultural characteristics such as low individuality, high power distance, and high uncertainty avoidance. For example, a vague boundary between individualist and collectivist in a collectivistic context (within their ethnic group) often leads to maladjustment to local communities and enhancement of cultural conservatism. The author proposes that the cultural clash can be overcome by cross-cultural activities named “transculturalism”. To Eastern immigrants, transculturalism can be achieved by acculturation of their two predominant cultures, the third-person perspective and generalised others. In a multicultural context, the former refers to the ability to share another person's feelings and emotions as if they were your own, and the latter does the ability to manage community and public expectations. When both cultural values are used for quality interactions between East and West, they allow Eastern immigrants to be more creative and critical and Australian to be more socially inclusive and culturally tolerant. With these discussions, the author discusses cultural differences throughout the book with four topics (chapters) and proposes transculturalism as a solution to the reverse immigration. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 1 criticises Koreans’ attitudes and methods towards learning English that is less pragmatic and practical, but more likely to be a scholarly study. The author explains that Koreans’ non-pragmatic towards learning English has been firmly built based on their traditional systems and values that Koreans view English as a discipline and an aim of academic achievements rather than a means of communication. Within their cultural context, English can be perceived as more than a language, but something like vastly superior to their language and culture. Their collectivistic culture regards English as an unreachable and heterogeneous one that may threaten their cultural identity, so that “scholarly studying” is only the way to achieve (not learn) it. This discourages the immigrants to engage and involve in daily dialogues by “using” English as a second language. The author further advises the readers to be aware of Eastern collectivistic culture in communication and interaction that sometimes completely reverses private and public topics in a Western context. This leads them to feel that they have no content to talk to natives. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 2 compares between Korea and Australia in terms of their educational systems and values, and proposes how Eastern overseas students can achieve critical and creative thinking within a Western educational setting. Interestingly, this chapter includes an explanation of why Eastern overseas students easily fail assessments including essay writing, oral presentations and discussions. One of the reasons the author explains is that Eastern students are not familiar to criticise others and think creatively, especially when they recognise that their words and ideas may harm the collectivistic harmony. Western educational systems focuses on enhancement of individuality such as self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-expression, while Eastern educational systems foster group-oriented values such as interpersonal relationship, and strong moral and spiritual values. Yet, the author argues that the collectivistic approach to criticism and creativity is often more critical and creative than Western individuals when they know what they are supposed to do for a group (or a community). Therefore, Eastern students need to think their cultural merits and demerits by using an individual perspective rather than generalised others’ perspective. The latter often discourages individual participation in a community, and the generalised others in a Western culture is weaker than Eastern. Furthermore, Western educational systems do not educate students to transform (loose) their individuality to fit into a group or a community. Rather they cultivate individuality for community prosperity. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 3 introduces various cases of reverse immigration in workplaces that many immigrants return to their country or their ethnic community after many trials for acculturation. Reverse immigration is unexpected and not planned before immigration, so that its emotional embarrassment increases such severe social loneliness. Most Eastern immigrant workers have tried to adjust themselves in this new cultural environment at the early stages of immigration. However, their cultural features of collectivism, high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, and long-term oriented cultures suppress individual initiative and eliminate the space for experiments in ways of acculturation. The author argues that returning to their ethnic community (physically and psychologically) leads to two significant problems: their distorted parenting and becoming more conservatives. The former leads the first generation of immigrants to pressure their children to pursue extrinsic or materialist values, such as financial success, fame and physical appearance, rather than on intrinsic values, while the latter refers to their isolated conservative characters because of their remoteness from the changes of their own country. The author also warns that their ethnic and religious groups actively strengthens immigrants’ social loneliness and systematically discourages immigrants’ interests and desire to be involving into local communities. The ethnic communities and leaders have not been interacting with Australian local communities and, as a result, are eager to conserve outdated cultural systems values. Even they have a tendency to weed out those people who wish to settle down within Australian local communities. They believe that those people can threaten their community’s survival and continuity. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 4 titled multiculturalism argues that Korean and Eastern immigrants should more precisely understand Australia as a multicultural society in a way of collaboratively creating new cultural values. The author introduces multiculturalism with its definitions and history in Australia and argues the limitations of multiculturalism from an Easterner’s perspective. With well known tragedies of the second generations of U.S. immigrants, Cho Seung-Hui, a university student, massacred 32 people on the Virginia Tech before committing suicide and Hidal Hassan, an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people at Fort Hood and the responses of ethnic community, the author explains that their mental illness may be derived from their parents’ (or ethnic group) culturally isolated attitude and socially static viewpoint of U.S. (Western system and values). The author insists that multiculturalism may restrict Eastern immigrants’ engagement and involvement in local communities. Multiculturalism has been systematically and historically developed based on Western systems and cultural values. In other words, multiculturalism requires high self-confidence and self-esteem that Eastern immigrants less prioritise them. It has been generally known that Easterners put more weight on human relationship than Westerners, but the author claims that this is not true. Within an individualistic culture, Westerners are more interested in building person-to-person connections and relationships. While Easterners are more interested in how individuals can achieve a sense of belonging within a group and a community. Therefore, multiculturalism is an ideology which forces Eastern immigrants to discard their strong desire to be part of a group and does not give a sense of belonging. In a consequence, the author advises that Eastern immigrants should aim towards “transculturalism” which allows them to actively participate in and contribute to their multicultural community. Transculturalism does not ask Easterners to discard their cultural values, but enables them to be a collectivistic individualist (a community leader) who is capable of developing new cultural values in a more creative and productive way. Furthermore, transculturalism encourages Western Australians in a multicultural context to collaborate with ethnic minorities to build a better community.

The pursuit of thinness : an outcome study of anorexia nervosa

INTRODUCTION: Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a growing problem among young female Singaporeans. We studied the demographics and follow-up data of AN patients referred to dietitians for nutritional intervention. METHODS: A retrospective nutritional notes review was done on 94 patients seen from 1992 to 2004. All patients were given nutritional intervention, which included individualised counselling for weight gain, personalised diet plan, correction of poor dietary intake and correction of perception towards healthy eating. We collected data on body mass index (BMI), patient demographics and outcome. RESULTS: 96 percent of the patients were female and 86.2 percent were Chinese. The median BMI at initial consultation was 14.7 kilogramme per square metre (range, 8.6-18.8 kilogramme per square metre). 76 percent were between 13 and 20 years old. 83 percent of the patients came back for follow-up appointments with the dietitians in addition to consultation with the psychiatrist. Overall, there was significant improvement in weight and BMI from an average 37 kg to 41 kg and 14.7 kilogramme per square metre to 16.4 kilogramme per square metre, respectively, between the fi rst and fi nal consultations (p-value is less than 0.001). The average duration of followup was about eight months. Among the patients on follow-up, 68 percent showed improvement with an average weight gain of 6 kg. Patients that improved had more outpatient follow-up sessions with the dietitians (4.2 consultations versus 1.6 consultations; p-value is less than 0.05), lower BMI at presentation (14.2 kilogramme per square metre versus 15.7 kilogramme per square metre; p-value is less than 0.01) and shorter duration of disease at presentation (one year versus three years; p-value is less than 0.05) compared with those who did not improve. Seven patients with the disease for more than two years did not show improvement with follow-up. CONCLUSION: We gained valuable understanding of the AN patients referred to our tertiary hospital for treatment, two-thirds of whom improved with adequate follow-up treatment. Patients that had suffered AN longer before seeking help appeared more resistant to improvement.

Substance-induced psychosis : a diagnostic conundrum

Objective: To critically examine the DSM-IV-TR criteria for Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder (SIPD). Data sources: Leading electronic databases (such as Medline, Pubmed) were searched for the years 1992 through 2007, using combinations of the following key search terms: substance abuse/dependence, alcohol, marijuana, cannabis, methamphetamine, crack, cocaine, amphetamine, ecstasy, ketamine, phencyclidine, LSD, mental health, drug-induced psychosis, substance-induced psychosis, psychosis, schizophrenia. References identified from bibliographies of pertinent articles and books in the field were also collected and reviewed. Data extraction: Only research studies or case reports series that presented data on populations diagnosed with SIPD using clinical or structured diagnostic interviews published in English were used to assess the validity of the current SIPD criteria. Data synthesis: We identified 49 articles that presented clinical data on SIPD. The majority of these publications were case reports, with only 18 articles specifically focusing on delineating the clinical characteristics or outcomes of individuals diagnosed with SIPD. While several large studies have recently been conducted to assess the stability of SIPD, there is a dearth of research rigorously examining the validity of DSM-IV diagnostic criteria across substances. Conclusions: There remains a striking paucity of information on the outcome, treatment and best practice for substance-associated psychotic episodes. Further work is clearly required before the advent of DSM-V. We propose an alternative, broader classification that better reflects the current evidence base, inferring association rather than causation.

Collective equipments of power: The road and the city

A year ago, I became aware of the historical existence of the group CERFI— Le centre d’etudes, de recherches, et de formation institutionelles, or The Study Center for Institutional Research and Formation. CERFI emerged in 1967 under the hand of Lacanian psychiatrist and Trotskyite activist Félix Guattari, whose antonymous journal Recherches chronicled the group’s subversive experiences, experiments, and government-sponsored urban projects. It was a singularly bizarre meeting of the French bureaucracy with militant activist groups, the French intelligentsia, and architectural and planning practitioners at the close of the ‘60s. Nevertheless, CERFI’s analysis of the problems of society was undertaken precisely from the perspective of the state, and the Institute acknowledged a “deep complicity between the intellectual and statesman ... because the first critics of the State, are officials themselves!”1 CERFI developed out of FGERI (The Federation of Groups for Institutional Study and Research), started by Guattari two years earlier. While FGERI was created for the analysis of mental institutions stemming from Guattari’s work at La Borde, an experimental psychiatric clinic, CERFI marks the group’s shift toward urbanism—to the interrogation of the city itself. Not only a platform for radical debate on architecture and the city, CERFI was a direct agent in the development of urban planning schemata for new towns in France. 2 CERFI’s founding members were Guattari, the economist and urban theorist François Fourquet, feminist philosopher Liane Mozère, and urban planner and editor of Multitides Anne Querrien—Guattari’s close friend and collaborator. The architects Antoine Grumback, Alain Fabre, Macary, and Janine Joutel were also members, as well as urbanists Bruno Fortier, Rainier Hoddé, and Christian de Portzamparc. 3 CERFI was the quintessential social project of post-‘68 French urbanism. Located on the Far Left and openly opposed to the Communist Party, this Trotskyist cooperative was able to achieve what other institutions, according to Fourquet, with their “customary devices—the politburo, central committee, and the basic cells—had failed to do.”4 The decentralized institute recognized that any formal integration of the group was to “sign its own death warrant; so it embraced a skein of directors, entangled, forming knots, liquidating all at once, and spinning in an unknown direction, stopping short and returning back to another node.” Allergic to the very idea of “party,” CERFI was a creative project of free, hybrid-aesthetic blocs talking and acting together, whose goal was none other than the “transformation of the libidinal economy of the militant revolutionary.” The group believed that by recognizing and affirming a “group unconscious,” as well as their individual unconscious desires, they would be able to avoid the political stalemates and splinter groups of the traditional Left. CERFI thus situated itself “on the side of psychosis”—its confessed goal was to serve rather than repress the utter madness of the urban malaise, because it was only from this mad perspective on the ground that a properly social discourse on the city could be forged.