Birth, Survival and Growth of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Poland: 1990-1994

This research is based on a unique and extensive database which tracks the employment, payroll and sales of individual Polish firms for the period 1990 to 1995. This allowed the authors to calculate the birth, survival and growth rates for different categories of enterprises (state-owned, cooperative, private, foreign-owned and privatised after 1990) and regions. These data match data collected in the United States, making it possible to compare the Polish situation with that of the state of Michigan. Analysis of the data and lessons from the Poland-Michigan comparisons provide a solid basis for the formulation of new policy recommendations for Poland. Allowing for certain important differences, Poland would still seem to need a higher rate of births of new companies. New small private companies and companies with foreign capital can be seen as the main source of job creation and economic revitalisation. To strengthen positive trends in the economy, Poland should create a model of institutional support for both potential entrepreneurs and foreign investors.

Isolated Islands? Memory of the Holocaust in Formal and Non-Formal Education. The Case Study of Post-Communist Poland

Existing studies revealed several conflicts around the memory of the Holocaust in Poland: between understanding the need to teach about the Holocaust and indifference toward anti-Jewish graffiti; a conflict around the perception of Polish help to Jews; and the competing images of Polish and Jewish suffering during World War II. Those conflicts will be addressed in the paper as reflecting educational gaps in the Polish education system (lack of bad memory). This paper will look at the consciousness of young Poles, in terms of attitudes toward Jews, the Holocaust and memory of the Holocaust. The data presented are the preliminary results of the author’s longitudinal study „Attitudes of Young Poles toward the Jews and the Holocaust”. Quantitative and qualitative studies include field studies and participant observation of educational projects in Tykocin, Treblinka, Warsaw, Lublin, Bodzentyn and Kielce. The paper will present some components of the development of education about the Holocaust in Poland. There is a need to evaluate the attempt to bring back the memory of Jewish neighbours in some of the states of Central and Eastern Europe, a process with an ongoing effort to renovate monuments, destroyed cemeteries and synagogues. The number and scope of such initiatives in Poland indicate that civic institutions and individuals are intensifying their efforts to teach their fellow citizens about the Holocaust, however their impact should be assessed in detail.

Organisational and methodical aspects of drug and addiction prevention among young people. Developments in the Ukraine, in Germany, Spain and Russia (Project Description)

From october 2000 to march 2003 the project has been coordinated by the institute of social work and welfare studies of the TU Dresden and financed by the European Commission (INCO-COPERNICUS-Programme). It was an international cooperation between the TU Dresden (Germany), the University of Internal Affairs and the National Technical University in Kharkiv (Ukraine), the research institute AREA in Valenciá (Spain) and the Belgorod Juridical Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia) which was established for improving the knowledge base of drug prevention activities by the East European partners. The overall aim of the project was the analysis and elaboration of approaches to drug and addiction prevention. Under consideration of the specific conditions within the East-European countries this work should contribute to the development of pluralistic approaches towards health promotion which are embedded into an intercultural, European horizon.

Holtite and Dumortierite from the Szklary Pegmatite, Lower Silesia, Poland

The Szklary holtite is represented by three compositional varieties: (I) Ta-bearing (up to 14.66 wt.% Ta(2)O(5)), which forms homogeneous crystals and cores within zoned crystals; (2) Ti-bearing (up to 3.82 wt.% TiO(2)), found as small domains within the core; and (3) Nb-bearing (up to 5.30 wt.% Nb(2)O(5),) forming the rims of zoned crystals. All three varieties show variable Sb+As content, reaching 19.18 wt.% Sb(2)O(3) (0.87 Sb a.p.f.u.) and 3.30 wt.% As(2)O(3) (0.22 As a.p.f.u.) in zoned Ta-bearing holtite, which constitutes the largest Sb+As content reported for the mineral. The zoning in holtite is a result of Ta-Nb fractionation in the parental pegmatite-forming melt together with contamination of the relatively thin Szklary dyke by Fe, Mg and Ti. Holtite and the As- and Sb-bearing dumortierite, which in places overgrows the youngest Nb-bearing zone, suggest the following crystallization sequence: Ta-bearing holtite -> Ti-bearing holtite -> Nb-bearing holtite -> As- and Sb-bearing, (Ta,Nb,Ti)-poor dumortierite -> As- and Sb-dominant, (Ta,Nb,Ti)-free dumortierite-like mineral (16.81 wt.% As(2)O(3) and 10.23 wt.% Sb(2)O(3)) with (As+Sb) > Si. The last phase is potentially a new mineral species, Al(6)rectangle B(Sb,As)(3)O(15). or Al(5)rectangle(2)B(Sb,As)(3)O(12)(OH)(3), belonging to the dumortierite group. The Szklary holtite shows no evidence of clustering of compositions around 'holtite I' and 'holtite II'. Instead, the substitutions of Si(4+) by Sb(3+)+As(3+) at the Si/Sb sites and of Ta(5+) by Nb(5+) or Ti(4+) at the Al(l) site suggest possible solid solutions between: (1) (Sb,As)-poor and (Sb,As)-rich holtite; (2) dumortierite and the unnamed (As+Sb)-dominant dumortierite-like mineral; and (3) Ti-bearing dumortierite and holtite, i.e. our data provide further evidence for miscibility between holtite and dumortierite, but leave open the question of defining the distinction between them. The Szklary holtite crystallized from the melt along with other primary Ta-Nb-(Ti) minerals such as columbite-(Mn), tantalite-(Mn), stibiotantalite and stibiocolumbite as the availability of Ta decreased. The origin of the parental melt can be related to anatexis in the adjacent Sowie Mountains complex, leading to widespread migmatization and metamorphic segregation in pelitic-psammitic sediments metamorphosed at similar to 390-380 Ma.

Spring temperature variability and eutrophication history inferred from sedimentary pigments in the varved sediments of Lake Żabińskie, north-eastern Poland, AD 1907–2008

Varved lake sediments are excellent natural archives providing quantitative insights into climatic and environmental changes at very high resolution and chronological accuracy. However, due to the multitude of responses within lake ecosystems it is often difficult to understand how climate variability interacts with other environmental pressures such as eutrophication, and to attribute observed changes to specific causes. This is particularly challenging during the past 100 years when multiple strong trends are superposed. Here we present a high-resolution multi-proxy record of sedimentary pigments and other biogeochemical data from the varved sediments of Lake Żabińskie (Masurian Lake District, north-eastern Poland, 54°N–22°E, 120 m a.s.l.) spanning AD 1907 to 2008. Lake Żabińskie exhibits biogeochemical varves with highly organic late summer and winter layers separated by white layers of endogenous calcite precipitated in early summer. The aim of our study is to investigate whether climate-driven changes and anthropogenic changes can be separated in a multi-proxy sediment data set, and to explore which sediment proxies are potentially suitable for long quantitative climate reconstructions. We also test if convoluted analytical techniques (e.g. HPLC) can be substituted by rapid scanning techniques (visible reflectance spectroscopy VIS-RS; 380–730 nm). We used principal component analysis and cluster analysis to show that the recent eutrophication of Lake Żabińskie can be discriminated from climate-driven changes for the period AD 1907–2008. The eutrophication signal (PC1 = 46.4%; TOC, TN, TS, Phe-b, high TC/CD ratios total carotenoids/chlorophyll-a derivatives) is mainly expressed as increasing aquatic primary production, increasing hypolimnetic anoxia and a change in the algal community from green algae to blue-green algae. The proxies diagnostic for eutrophication show a smooth positive trend between 1907 and ca 1980 followed by a very rapid increase from ca. 1980 ± 2 onwards. We demonstrate that PC2 (24.4%, Chl-a-related pigments) is not affected by the eutrophication signal, but instead is sensitive to spring (MAM) temperature (r = 0.63, pcorr < 0.05, RMSEP = 0.56 °C; 5-yr filtered). Limnological monitoring data (2011–2013) support this finding. We also demonstrate that scanning visible reflectance spectroscopy (VIS-RS) data can be calibrated to HPLC-measured chloropigment data and be used to infer concentrations of sedimentary Chl-a derivatives {pheophytin a + pyropheophytin a}. This offers the possibility for very high-resolution (multi)millennial-long paleoenvironmental reconstructions.

History of the Jews in Russia and Poland : from the earliest times until the present day

by S. M. Dubnow. Transl. from the Russian by I. Friedlaender

Sir Moses Montefiore : a centennial biography with extracts from letters and journals

by Lucien Wolf