This article sheds light on the advent of online platforms and the way it is reshaping urban enviroment, breaking down traditional axes of both social interaction and commercial power, shifting the structure of traditional services. The platform revolution is radically transforming an array of many functional cities’ areas, like transportation, accommodations and personal services. Thus current concerns as strong urbanization, industrialization and world population growth, enable sharing economy firms to flourish as a reaction against the frictions of urban life exploiting such exacerbation, in order to fulfill demand for appropriate services. After a critical analysis of these issues, the article deepens innovative transportation services, moving on to illustrate the Italian rulemaking process as a chance to provide a solution to the ongoing problem of striking the right balance between competing priorities, such as market access and preservation of sustainable mobility. It suggests to reflect upon the best approach able to face the complexity of urban transport systems, in order to break in a new culture for urban mobility, comply to EU legislation too.

In the paper the topic of Building Information Technology BIM is investigated. It is new in Polish circumstances technology for construction and for building product industry, which contribute to change and develop level of industrialization. Especially challenge raising from the information and introducing IT technology into daily practice is considered to provide changes in construction branch of economy. In Poland there is the hot need of start to introduce BIM as the common technology for owners of assets, facility management, construction entities, design offices, administration officers and many other players relative to construction data and processes. BIM technology introduction, basing on foreign case studies, results in cost savings, control and time reduction of investment processes and some more advantages. The perspective of digital buildings, digital infrastructure, digital roads, digital railways and digital cities is outlined at the perspective of technology challenge, but simply transfiguration of many fields of personal everyday life, where digitalization is already present and with the question when it will be common in professional activity, particularly in civil engineering.

The paper presents a synthesis of approaches to development and functioning of Functional Urban Areas. The authors present typology of such areas and determine how they facilitate the flow of various types of potentials, paying particular attention to creativity and innovations. The emphasis is put particularly on non-spatial factors of development of such areas. The process of forming the functional area basing on common strategy of development founded on various types of potentials is presented on two examples.

Circular economy – a new approach in the understanding of the human–environment relationship. The work presented the assumptions of the circular economy as a new concept of the economy functioning with the method of production “from cradle to cradle” constituting the opposition to the commonly used linear economy approach (take, make, dispose). Work discussed also the impact on the quality of human life and the management of environmental resources. Functional assumptions of the circular economy and its territorial dimension were presented, especially in urban areas where the green economy and sharing economy mechanisms are used. The potential for economic growth and the creation of new jobs was also emphasized due to the implementation of circular economy in the EU countries.

The problem of the optimal driving technique during the fuel economy competition is reconsidered. The vehicle is regarded as a particle moving on a trace with a variable slope angle. The fuel consumption is minimized as the vehicle covers the given distance in a given time. It is assumed that the run consists of two recurrent phases: acceleration with a full available engine power and coasting down with the engine turned off. The most fuel-efficient technique for shifting gears during acceleration is found. The decision variables are: the vehicle velocities at which the gears should be shifted, on the one hand, and the vehicle velocities when the engine should be turned on and off, on the other hand. For the data of students’ vehicle representing the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering it has been found that such driving strategy is more effective in comparison with a constant speed strategy with the engine partly throttled, as well as a strategy resulting from optimal control theory when the engine is still active.

Spatial Structures of Financial Transfers to the Budgets of Municipalities in Poland in 2007-2015. The purpose of the submitted paper was to analyse and assess the budgetary income of local self-government units in Poland. The scope of the study was focused on the main categories of revenue being transferred from the state budget to municipal budgets, which were significantly influencing the financing of public tasks at the local level. On the basis of the conducted research it can be stated that the increase of the income of municipalities due to participation in personal income tax, which significantly influenced the incomes of municipalities, should be considered as particularly important. This phenomenon was undoubtedly the result of the influence of many economic, social, legal and administrative factors. It was particularly related to the increase in the income of citizens and indirectly to the improvement of the income situation of enterprises. The observed general increase in the part of incomes of the municipalities acquired as a share of the state budget revenues was also an important positive reflection of a number of significant changes introduced in the period of socio-economic transition in Poland.

The aim of this study was to analyze diesel fuel consumption in Poland and identification of the causes of changes in the needs of individual sectors of the economy for this type of fuel. Time range of the researches covered from 2004 to 2014. Data from the Central Statistical Office (CSO) were the source material. In the years 2004-2014 diesel consumption in Poland was 111 553 thousand tons. In 2014 domestic consumption of diesel fuel was 11 203 thousand tons and it was more than 2 times higher than the level of consumption of this fuel in 2004. The highest consumption of diesel in Poland in the period took place in 2012. The increase in the consumption of diesel fuel in Poland had benefited from increased demand for diesel in transport, which became a result of an increased amount of transport services. The share of transport in the consumption of diesel fuel in Poland for the period 2004- 2014 was about 75%. Another area, which consumes the largest quantity of DF in Poland is agriculture. Consumption of this fuel in agriculture in the years 2004- 2014 increased by 7%. DF consumption in industry and the manufacturing sector it was variable. DF biggest consumption in these sectors of the economy in the period was recorded in 2004. The analyzes did not allow to identify the specific causes of changes in the use of DF in the industry and manufacturing. In transport it showed a relationship between the consumption of diesel fuel and the amount of transport work and the transported cargo.

The Dilemmas of the Kaliningrad Oblast Today. The Kaliningrad Oblast is a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea neighbouring with the EU countries of Poland and Lithuania. On one hand, the Oblast belongs to the Russian political, economic and defence area, and on the other, it is separated from other parts of the Russian Federation. This specific location affects the nature of the local economy, the dependence on import and a drive towards cooperating with countries abroad. The economic situation of the Kaliningrad Oblast is strictly related to the economic situation of the remaining parts of Russia. Kaliningrad is subject to principles established by the federal centre, and Moscow decides about the most important issues of the region. At the same time, the Oblast makes efforts to provide conditions for social and economic development comparable to the development standards of neighbouring countries. The residents of the Oblast can be characterised by a sense of own identity, their openness to Europe, as well as activeness and entrepreneurship as compared to other Russian citizens. The greatest number of military units in Russia cluster in Kaliningrad Oblast. This potential is continually strengthened with the progressing modernisation of Russian military forces. Small border traffic, initiated in July 21 between the Republic of Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast of the RF, had a major impact on the animation, volume and the dynamics of cross-border relations and the promotion of Poland. In July 2016, the Polish side suspended the project.

We consider the Debreu private ownership economy in which all consumption plans belong to a proper linear subspace of the commodity-price space ℝ^l. This geometric property of consumption sets means that there is a dependency between quantities of some commodities in all consumption plans. Competitive mechanism makes producers adjust their plans of action to the same dependency. It results in the mild evolution of the production sector to offer production plans which are also contained in the given subspace of ℝ^l. Modified production system and the initial consumption system can form an economy in equilibrium. The aim of this paper is to model gentle changes of producers’ activity that give equilibrium in the Debreu economy with consumption system reduced to a proper subspace of ℝ^l without considering additional costs.

The paper shows the impact of despatialization on processes of territorial development. The essence of despatialization is the decreasing importance of the spatial factor in the information society, as a result of the use of information and computer technologies, and in particular – the Internet. It creates new challenges for spatial management. Real contact between people and organizations is often replaced with links and information flows, the quality of which is growing and which in many cases eliminate the resistance that spatial distance makes. The multiple effects of this phenomenon modify social relations, at the same time being challenges, but also opportunities to create new tools for managing development policy.

This paper makes a contribution to food research and studies of mobility through analyzing food exchange in a translocal context. Furthermore, by focusing on Muslim women’s practices in the North Caucasus it also contributes to gender studies of post-socialism, which, for the most part, are based on the field material from the non-Muslim part of the Russian population. Anthropologists have viewed social changes through the lens of various food items or consumption patterns. I argue that adding a mobility aspect to the research centered on food can help us discover social changes and practices that may otherwise remain unnoticed. I will show that studying the dynamics of food circulation and human mobility may serve as a good starting point towards the broader study of societies. Thus, by taking people originating from the Shiri village in Daghestan as an example, I look into channels of food sharing to analyze the nature of reproduction of social relations within communities and the cultural entanglements created by the circulation of goods. Furthermore, the analysis of their vernacular practices reveals the existence of informal exchange networks, in particular the ones secured by and for women. Through these networks, food and favors are exchanged, and social bonds and feelings of obligation are created and preserved. Further analysis also reveals social changes connected with mountain abandonment, in particular the growing awareness of the weakening of tukhum (lineage) and village ties. These dynamics reflect recent changes in the Daghestani society that are connected with increased mobility and the processes of (re)islamization.

The transition to a zero-carbon economy is the inclusive growth story of the twenty-first century. It needs to be managed with effective and cohesive policies, whilst recognizing that sustainable development, inclusive growth and climate action are interwoven and mutually supportive.

Environmental protection is one of the objectives of the implemented concept of sustainable development and circular economy. The construction industry and its products (building objects) have a large contribution in negative influences, therefore all actions limiting them are necessary. One way of doing this is to apply substitution to existing unfavourable solutions, both in terms of construction and materials as well as technology and organization. The aim of the article was to determine the key factors conditioning the use of substitution at each stage of the investment and construction cycle, leading to environmental protection. The research paid attention to the use of substitute recycled products. The defined factors were subjected to a SWOT analysis and then, using the DEMATEL method, cause-andeffect relationships were identified that determine development in the application of substitution in the environmental context of sustainable and closed-cycle construction. The analysis was carried out by using a summative, linear aggregation of the values of the position and relationship indicators.

Demand for energy and resources has been growing as a result of population growth and increased consumption to the point where all the scientific evidence shows we are bumping up against fundamental planetary boundaries on which our civilizations depend. In new EASAC report trends that lead calls for “transformative” change, with a focus on some of the systemic and structural failures that are driving our current unsustainable development has been discussed.

Commercial use of the sea includes, among others: sea shipping closely related to the transport of cargo and passengers, transhipment services in sea ports, fishery and aquaculture, marine mining, marine renewable energy, including the development of technologies for obtaining energy from renewable sources (wind, waves, tides), marine and coastal tourism. All the above-mentioned areas of economic activity are part of the traditionally understood maritime economy. Considering the maritime economy through the prism of sustainable development has led to the crystallization of the concept of the blue economy both at the universal level in the United Nations and at the regional level, e.g. in the European Union. The blue economy is a low carbon, resource efficient, circular economy based on sustainable consumption and production patterns, improving human well-being and social justice, providing economic value and employment, and significantly reducing environmental risks and shortages. The blue economy aims to promote economic growth, social inclusion, and the preservation and improvement of living conditions, while ensuring the environmental sustainability of seas, oceans and coastal areas. The legal framework for the blue economy includes, inter alia, in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The function of further development of the blue economy is the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Expenditures Related to Technical Infrastructure. The aim of the study is to answer to the question what is the economic (financial) scale of expenditure and local investments related to the technical infrastructure and to what extent the investment processes are correlated with the planning coverage. The study is based on data used in the annual reports of the Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization of the Polish Academy of Sciences on the state of planning work in communes. A detailed analysis of municipal budget expenditures was carried out, demonstrating large diversity of water and sewerage services, road construction and renovation, investment expenditures, etc. The research showed that a significant part of the investment is located outside local plans based on the decision on building conditions. This creates a serious risk of irrationality of spatial management and leads to increase of infrastructure service costs.

For the private and public sector in any particular country it is crucial to know, which industries may exhibit comparative advantages, that for some reasons are not realized. This can efficiently help all current and potential actors to improve their economic strategy both at the micro- and macroeconomic level. In this paper we propose an approach of forecasting comparative advantages dynamics in foreign trade. The instrument is based on relative price differences and is efficient for countries in the process of economic liberalization. An empirical analysis based on the example of Central and East European countries confirms a good performance in the sense of predictive power of this instrument. On the example of Russia, experiencing a period of economic liberalization and with the prospect to join the WTO agreements, we demonstrate which sectors are most likely to contain comparative advantages in the near future.

The paper considers a private ownership economy in which economic agents could realize their aims at given prices, Walras Law is satisfied but agents’ optimal plans of action do not lead to an equilibrium in the economy. It means that the market clearing condition is not satisfied for agents’ optimal plans of action. In this context, the paper puts forward three specific adjustment processes resulting in equilibrium in a transformation of the initial economy. Specifically, it is shown, by the use of strict mathematical reasoning, that if there is no equilibrium in a private ownership economy at given prices, then, under some natural economic assumptions, after a mild evolution of the production sector, equilibrium at unchanged prices can be achieved.

We estimated a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model describing the links between a banking sector and a real economy. We proposed a new method to verify robustness of impulse-response functions to the ordering of variables in an SVAR model. This method applies permutations of orderings of variables and uses the Cholesky decomposition of the error covariance matrix to identify parameters. Impulse response functions are computed and combined for all permutations. We explored the method in practice by analyzing the macro-financial linkages in the Polish economy. Our results indicate that the combined impulse response functions are more uncertain than those from a single model specification with a given ordering of variables, but some findings remain robust. It is evident that macroeconomic aggregate shocks and interest rate shocks have a significant impact on banking variables.

The problem of optimal driving techniques during fuel economy competition is considered. The kinetic model of the record wheeled vehicle is proposed. It is regarded as a particle moving on a trace with variable slope angle. Engine characteristics are taken into account. The fuel consumption is minimized as the vehicle goes over a given distance. The problem is formulated in optimal control. The direct pseudospectral Chebyshev’s method is employed. The motion of student’s vehicle representing the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering during Shell Eco-marathon in Nogaro, France, in 2006, is used as an example.

In the current industrial scenarios those involved in production and services distribution

are called to deal with a plurality of stakeholders, considering different interests, readings

and positions. This paper exploits the concept of collaboration in this fast changes and

flexible scenario by describing the characteristics of collaboration among enterprises and

their scope. In this context, the purpose of all managers to maximize utility, to save cost or

to minimize of transaction costs is hard to be reached. Under this prospective, to collaborate

with other firms is a logical way to work and to pursue the previous objectives. The purpose

of this paper is to define all the aspects of collaboration, mainly among enterprises, and the

reasons that can drive a manager to stipulate a collaboration agreement. Two different ways,

through collaboration can rise, have been described: collaboration induced by external body

(top-down collaboration) or born in a spontaneous way (bottom-up). The management of

the collaboration and the identification of key performance indicators, able to control the

development of the network system, is addressed by exploiting the Italian network contract

and the case study of the energy cluster.

In the constant pursue of the sustainability of socio-industrial systems, the definition of useful, reliable and informative, and at the same time simple and transparent, indicators is an important step for the evaluation of the circularity of the assessed systems. In the circular economy (CE) context, scientific literature has already identified the lack of overarching indicators (social, urban, prevention-oriented, etc.), pointing out that mono-dimensional indicators are not able to grasp the complexity of the systemic, closed-loop, feedback features of CE. In this respect, Emergy accounting is one of the approaches that have been identified as holding the potential to capture both resource generation and product delivery dimensions and therefore to provide an enhanced systems’ evaluation in a CE perspective.

Because of Emergy’s intrinsic definition and its calculation structure, Emergy-based indicators conceptually lend themselves very well to the evaluation and monitoring of circular processes. Additionally, Emergy has the unique feature of enabling the evaluation of systems that are not necessarily only technosphere systems, but also of technological systems which embed nature (techno-ecological systems).

The present paper gives a perspective on a set of Emergy-based indicators that we have identified as suitable to evaluate circular systems, and outlines the different perspective compared to the circularity indicators defined in the “Circularity Indicators Project” launched by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Municipal waste management has been an area of special interest of the European Commission (EC) for many years. In 2018, the EC pointed out issues related to municipal waste management as an important element of the monitoring framework for the transition towards a circular economy (CE), which is currently a priority in the economic policy of the European Union (EU). In the presented monitoring framework, 10 CE indicators were identified, among which issues related to municipal waste appear directly in two areas of the CE – in the field of production and in the field of waste management, and indirectly – un two other areas – secondary raw materials, and competitiveness and innovation. The paper presents changes in the management of municipal waste in Poland in the context of the implementation of the CE assumptions, a discussion of the results of CE indicators in two areas of the CE monitoring framework in Poland (production and waste management), and a comparison of the results against other European countries.

In Poland, tasks related to the implementation of municipal waste management from July 1, 2013 are the responsibility of the municipality, which is obliged to ensure the conditions for the system of selective collection and collection of municipal waste from residents, as well as the construction, maintenance and operation of regional municipal waste treatment installations (RIPOK). The municipality is also committed to the proper management of municipal waste, in accordance with the European waste management hierarchy, whose overriding objective is to prevent waste formation and limiting its amount, then recycling and other forms of disposal, incineration and safe storage. The study analyzed changes in the value of two selected CE indicators, i.e. (1) the municipal waste generation indicator, in the area of production and (2) the municipal waste recycling indicator, in the area of waste management. For this purpose, statistical data of the Central Statistical Office (GUS) and Eurostat were used. Data has been presented since 2014, i.e. from the moment of initiating the need to move to the CE in the EU. In recent years, there has been an increase in the amount of municipal waste generated in Poland as well as in the EU. According to Eurostat, the amount of municipal waste generated per one inhabitant of Poland increased from 272 kg in 2014 to 315 kg in 2017. It should be noted that the average amount of municipal waste generated in Poland in 2017 was one of the lowest in EU, with a European average of 486 kg/person. Poland has achieved lower levels of municipal waste recycling (33.9%) than the European average (46%). The reason for Poland’s worse results in the recycling of municipal waste may be, among others, the lack of sufficiently developed waste processing infrastructure, operating in other countries such as Germany and Denmark, and definitely higher public awareness of the issue of municipal waste in developed countries. Municipal waste management in Poland faces a number of challenges in the implementation of GOZ, primarily in terms of achieving the recycling values imposed by the EC, up to a minimum of 55% by 2025.