Regional Disparities in Central and Eastern European Countries: Trends,Drivers and Prospects

Growth in Central and East European countries (CEE) is territorially unbalanced, more so than in most other parts of the EU. The benefits of transformation in these countries have been unequally distributed among particular social groups and territories—with the emergence of highly educated and internationally successful professionals and entrepreneurs located mainly in metropolitan areas on the one hand, and structural unemployment, persistent poverty and social exclusion in peripheral regions on the other. These regional imbalances are characterised by a process of metropolisation that has privileged a handful of dynamic urban centres while exacerbating the structural problems of old industrial regions, vast rural areas and regions located on borders, and especially the EU's eastern borders. Different as they are in social, cultural and geographical terms, these declining or stagnating regions share general problems of economic peripherality and many negative effects of structural change, such as rural depopulation, ‘brain drain’, disinvestment and, frequently, below-average levels of socio-economic well-being. This polarised economic and territorial development within CEE poses challenges not only for the respective countries, but also for European cohesion.     

East sees east: the image of Jews from Islamic countries in the Jewish discourse of interwar Poland

This article explores travel pieces on Jews in Islamic countries published in the Jewish press (in Yiddish and Polish) in interwar Poland. It argues that many of the strategies of representation that Polish–Jewish journalists employed to describe the Jews of Islamic countries during this time borrow from the way the Jews of Eastern Europe were perceived. Turning the Western gaze on the Orient served Eastern European Jewish intellectuals as an act of multiple redemption. Finding themselves in between modern and traditional identification, Polish–Jewish journalists decided to ensure their belonging to the world which they saw as civilised by transposing concepts they knew from home.     

Die Zugriffsverbote des § 42 Abs. 1 BNatSchG im Zulassungs- und Bauleitplanverfahren – unter Berücksichtigung der Entscheidung des BVerwG zur Ortsumgehung Bad Oeynhausen (in diesem Heft)

Zusammenfassung  Artenschutzrechtliche Regelungen schieben sich in verwaltungsrechtlichen Zulassungsverfahren immer mehr in den Vordergrund und erweisen sich als ein ?u?erst schwieriger Problemkreis. Teilweise scheint der Artenschutz inzwischen der Kernpunkt der naturschutzrechtlichen Beurteilung zu werden, wobei die Reichweite der Tatbestandsmerkmale nicht immer beachtet wird. Die nachfolgende Ausführungen sollen dazu beitragen, den Anwendungsbereich der artenschutzrechtlichen Verbote nach § 42 Abs. 1 BNatSchG zu konturieren und deren Umfang der gesetzlichen Einschr?nkungen zu erl?utern. Die Entscheidung des BVerwG zur Ortsumgehung Bad Oeynhausen wurde berücksichtigt.     

Patterns of Romanian and Bulgarian Migration to Spain

The main purpose of this article is to establish to what extent migration from Bulgaria and Romania to Spain first, has a temporary and circulatory or a long-term and permanent nature, and secondly, responds to family or individual strategies. Several indicators are analysed: demographic composition; family reunification processes; migratory strategies within the family framework; the age of immigrants' children; and the frequency of movements between the destination and origin. The article demonstrates that many immigrants do not follow family reunification strategies but rather adopt individual strategies and that long term migration is the predominant pattern.     

Logiken urbaner Polarisierung. Der Blick „von unten“

In allen Großstädten der westlichen Industriestaaten zeichnet sich die Etablierung eines neuen Regimes städtischer Marginalisierung ab. Im Unterschied zu den Armutsphänomenen des fordistischen Zeitalters handelt es sich dabei nicht um eine konjunkturabhängige, zyklische Erscheinung, sondern um eine langfristige und persistente Krise. Die folgende Analyse befasst sich mit den Gründen dieser ?neuen Armut“ in den Metropolen und versucht eine Systematisierung der zugrunde liegenden wirtschaftlichen, politischen und sozialen Ursachen. Der Vergleich zwischen den USA und den westeuropäischen Ländern zeigt darüber hinaus, dass die prominenten Theorien einer ?Amerikanisierung“ Europas wie auch das lamentierte Ende des Nationalstaates einer empirischen Grundlage entbehren.     

A Quest for Feminist Space and Time

Abstract

This article offers an investigation of practical and political aspects of new materialism on the basis of texts accepted for publication in Women: A Cultural Review. The authors emphasize various political strategies that appear in the collected essays; above all they stress the practical aspects of theory itself. Theory as praxis is a concept inspired by contemporary philosophers such as Georges Canguilhem, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Donna Haraway. It can also be the basis for a politics of location and it highlights the importance of being situated in specific sociocultural, historical, local and geographical contexts. The authors raised the question of the potential alliances between their specific, Polish context and the possibility of participating in and creating a broader feminist movement, which proves to be possible thanks to a variety of perspectives that are considered important and worth considering in new materialism. In the article, the Polish Kongres Kobiet (‘Women's Congress’) initiative is presented as a platform for feminist activity which combines various kinds of political, social and cultural interests, concerns and goals. Along with the importance of space for feminist politics, the authors consider time as a crucial constituent of feminist activism. Both rethinking the past—tradition, heritage, history—and directing reflection towards the future hopes, possibilities, politics and theories, constitute important characteristics of the new materialism approach. The authors conclude by introducing the notion of the ‘politics of squatting’, which serves as a metaphor for a feminist quest for space and time.     

Identification and synthesis of by-products found in 4-methylthioamphetamine (4-MTA) produced by the Leuckart method

The synthesis of the designer drug 4-methylthioamphetamine (4-MTA) has been carried out using the well-known Leuckart reaction in four versions. The treatment of 4-methylthiophenylacetone with formamide, mixture of formamide/formic acid, ammonium formate, and mixture of ammonium formate and formic acid followed by acid hydrolysis brought about the formation of 4-MTA contaminated with a number of impurities. The gas chromatography mass-spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of the reaction mixtures allowed identification of the most prominent impurities, such as diasteromers of N,N-di-[β-(4-methylthiophenyl)isopropyl]amine, N,N-di-[β-(4-methylthiophenyl)isopropyl]methylamine, N,N-di-[β-(4-methylthiophenyl)isopropyl]formamide, the Schiff bases derived from 4-MTA and 4-methylbenzaldehyde (benzaldimine) and 4-methylthiophenylacetone (ketimine) as well as some heterocycles: 4-methyl-5-(4'-methylthiophenyl)pyrimidine, 4-(4'-methylthiobenzyl)pyrimidine, 2,6-dimethyl-3,5-di-(4'-methylthiophenyl)pyridine, 2,4-dimethyl-3,5-di-(4'-methylthiophenyl)pyridine. The correctness of identification was confirmed by independent synthesis of these compounds. Each synthesized reference compound was characterized by means of MS, (1)H and (13)C NMR, and IR methods. The stereochemistry of (RR/SS) diasteromer of N,N-di-[β-(4-methylthiophenyl)isopropyl]amine was confirmed by a crystallographic method.     

Independent Discretion or Democratic Legitimisation? The Relations between National Regulatory Authorities and National Parliaments under EU Regulatory Framework for Network‐Bound Sectors

The European legislator, being supported in that regard by the Court of Justice, confers upon national regulatory authorities (NRAs) the exercise of the most important tasks concerned with the regulation of the network‐bound sectors, while at the same time guarantees NRAs a far‐reaching independence in exercising of their discretionary powers and shielding NRAs against other public authorities, including national parliaments. This, in turn, raises many doubts from the perspective of some essential constitutional principles of the Member States, such as, among others, ‘the domain of the law,’ which reserves the regulation of issues sensitive to the citizens as an exclusive parliament's prerogative. It is submitted in this article that national parliaments should play a much more active role in regulating the network‐bound sectors. The main point is to strengthen the protection of fundamental rights of regulated parties and create the real democratic legitimisation of NRAs, while not undermining those regulatory objectives that are already accorded at the EU level.     

Fatal Intoxication with α‐PVP,a Synthetic Cathinone Derivative

This study presents the fatal case of a young man who was admitted to the ICAU due to sudden cardiac arrest. An interview revealed that the patient had taken some unspecified crystals. From the moment of admission, his condition deteriorated dramatically as a result of increasing circulatory insufficiency. After a few hours, sudden cardiac arrest occurred again and the patient was pronounced dead. In the course of a medicolegal autopsy, samples of biological material were preserved for toxicology tests and histopathological examination. The analysis of samples using the LC‐MS/MS technique revealed the presence of α‐PVP in the following concentrations: blood—174 ng/mL, urine—401 ng/mL, brain—292 ng/g, liver—190 ng/g, kidney—122 ng/g, gastric contents—606 ng/g. The study also presents findings from the parallel histopathological examination. Based on these findings, cardiac arrest secondary to intoxication with alpha‐PVP was determined as the direct cause of the patient's death.