Official Polish Research Articles

The Smolensk Disaster and the Dynamics of Death-Related Thoughts Accessibility

The article describes a study concerning death-related thoughts following the crash of the Polish Tu-154M plane with the Polish president and other members of an official Polish delegation on-board. In the study, the DRT (Death Related Thoughts) scale was used. The results showed that thoughts about death in a sample of Polish students (N=120) increased immediately after the plane crash, and after a few weeks the level measured was even higher. The obtained results also show a relatively strong positive correlation between the results of the DRT scale and the amount of information about the presidential plane crash presented in the massmedia.

Forty years of increasing suicide mortality in Poland: Undercounting amidst a hanging epidemic?

BackgroundSuicide rate trends for Poland, one of the most populous countries in Europe, are not well documented. Moreover, the quality of the official Polish suicide statistics is unknown and requires in-depth investigation.MethodsPopulation and mortality data disaggregated by sex, age, manner, and cause were obtained from the Polish Central Statistics Office for the period 1970-2009. Suicides and deaths categorized as ‘undetermined injury intent,’ ‘unknown causes,’ and ‘unintentional poisonings’ were analyzed to estimate the reliability and sensitivity of suicide certification in Poland over three periods covered by ICD-8, ICD-9 and ICD-10, respectively. Time trends were assessed by the Spearman test for trend.ResultsThe official suicide rate increased by 51.3% in Poland between 1970 and 2009. There was an increasing excess suicide rate for males, culminating in a male-to-female ratio of 7:1. The dominant method, hanging, comprised 90% of all suicides by 2009. Factoring in deaths of undetermined intent only, estimated sensitivity of suicide certification was 77% overall, but lower for females than males. Not increasing linearly with age, the suicide rate peaked at ages 40-54 years.ConclusionThe suicide rate is increasing in Poland, which calls for a national prevention initiative. Hangings are the predominant suicide method based on official registration. However, suicide among females appears grossly underestimated given their lower estimated sensitivity of suicide certification, greater use of “soft” suicide methods, and the very high 7:1 male-to-female rate ratio. Changes in the ICD classification system resulted in a temporary suicide data blackout in 1980-1982, and significant modifications of the death categories of senility and unknown causes, after 1997, suggest the need for data quality surveillance.

PRZEKŁADY KSIĄŻKI ZAGRANICZNEJ W POLSCE W LATACH 1991-2010 W ŚWIETLE STATYSTYKI

The article presents dynamics of translations of foreign literature into Polish language in the years 1991-2010. The author focuses on English, French, Spanish, German, and Russian languages. Analysis was based on the “Polish Publishing in Figures” – official Polish publishing statistics. The author has studied translations in literature, science, popular science, and textbooks.

Nicolaus Copernicus: not only a great astronomer but also a physician

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), an internationally recognized Polish astronomer, studied liberal arts at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow during the period 1491-1495. Shortly thereafter he was sent by his uncle to Bologna University, where he spent almost 5 years (1496-1501) studying law and philosophy. After his return to Poland, Nicolaus was nominated as canon in the cathedral chapter in Frombork. Next he started to study medicine in the University of Padua, one of the best-known centers of medical education in Europe. He was granted a bachelor degree and after another year, a therapeutic license (veniam practicandi), but never obtained his doctoral degree from Padua, though he was always called doctor of medicine ("medici doctor"). Copernicus returned to Warmia in 1503 and spent almost 40 years there. During the first few years he was the personal "medicus" and secretary of his uncle, Bishop Lucas Watzenrode. After the death of his uncle in 1512, Copernicus became the personal physician to the subsequent 4 Warmian bishops and his confreres from the Warmian chapter in Frombork. Copernicus practiced medicine not only in diagnosing and taking care of his patients but also in personally preparing the prescribed drugs. He was often consulted (consiglia) from several other cities, including Gdańsk, Königsberg, Lubawa, Elblag and Olsztyn. He also collaborated and consulted with Jan Benedict Solfa and Laurence Wille, the official Polish royal physicians at the time. During the epidemics of 1519, Copernicus employed sanitary preventive measures by providing several Warmian and Pomeranian towns with an innovative water supply system. Copernicus is well known as a genius in astronomy, but this great Renaissance man was also a mathematician, engineer, soldier, writer, economist and, last but not least, a practicing physician.

EWD-P as an example of a "The Best of Good Practice" project

The European Document Exchange System – Poland (EWD-P), developed by Rodan Systems SA is one of the most modern electronic document exchange systems in European Union. EWD-P is a workflow system that facilitates decision-making within the state bureaucratic system, with a special brief to work out official Polish government standpoints on numerous legislative issues constantly arising within the EU. The EWD-P project has created an effective platform for electronic exchange of documents related to the EU legislative process. The intelligent workflow management functionality aims to support a complex flow of documents through the meanders of the central government administration. The EWD-P system includes a high-level classification of documents using an artificial intelligence technique for document categorization. The EWD-P system simplifies interaction between ministerial departments involved in elaboration of a final common position and facilitates a more efficient organization of work within government and other public administration institutions involved in the EU legislative process.

National Solidarity and Organic Work in Prussian Poland, 1815-1914

Nineteenth-century Prussia was by no means a purely German state. On the contrary, between 1815 and 1918 the mother tongue of roughly every tenth subject was Polish. These Prussian lived for the most part in the provinces of Poznaii (Posen) and West Prussia, land acquired in the first and second partitions of Poland and retained by Prussia after 1815. Considerable Polish-speaking populations were also to be found, however, in Upper Silesia, Masuria, and, after the 1870s, in the Rhineland and Westphalia as well. The main focus of the Polish question in nineteenthand early twentieth-century Prussia was increasingly upon the Polish-German nationality conflict, a struggle centered on the eastern provinces, or, as they were called by later nineteenth-century German nationalists, the Eastern Marches. The government played a vital role in that conflict. Indeed, one of its most fundamental aspects involved the government's efforts, especially under Bismarck and his successors, to impose policies of Germanization on the land and people of the formerly Polish provinces. After 1871 the essential issue of the nationality conflict was whether the Poles in the eastern provinces would find methods of successfully resisting those policies, which grew both more all-encompassing and more popular in German nationalist circles with every passing year. It is not the aim of the present essay to describe the stages and content of official Polish policies in the century after 1815.1 Rather, the focus of the following pages will be upon the manner in

Overstatement of Industrial Growth in Poland

Introduction, 623. — I. Analysis of the Polish official index, 626; official and calculated indexes, 626; statistical analysis of the difference between the official and calculated indexes, 627; economic evalutaion of the official Polish index, 632. — II. Conclusions, 637.