This article sets out to identify the factors that have an impact on
mayoral decisions in terms of priorities for municipal development. Data from a survey conducted among Czech mayors in the years 2015 and 2016 (N = 492) are used. The sample consists of answers of mayors from municipalities of all population sizes and the sample is evenly distributed over the area of the Czech Republic. The main aim is to show the impact of geographical context, sociodemographic characteristics, and characteristics connected with political experience on mayors’ preferences for different mayoral agendas. The results of the analyses show that municipal size and the position of a municipality on the urban-suburban-rural gradient have a substantial effect on a mayor’s preference for different mayoral agendas. However, the influence of other observed characteristics cannot be overlooked either
The changes in funeral practices in Czech society which occured during the 20th century were more significant than those that took place during the whole of the second millenium. Traditional Roman Catholic Christian funerals which were performed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries are described as a starting point from which the focus moves to a study of the major changes which took place from then onwards.
Cross-border cooperation between Czechs and Germans is currently evolving in numerous areas. In recent years, the mining tradition has become the common denominator of cross-border activities in the Ore Mountains region. The study deals with this aspect of Czech-Saxon cross-border cooperation primarily from the perspective of regional development and tourism. It focuses on the Silver Road and its role in contemporary Czech-Saxon cross-border activities. As a symbol of shared heritage, the Silver Road exemplifies the so-called spatial turn, i.e. the cultural-social dimension of cross-border
cooperation.
The article seeks to present the Silver Road as an example of cross-border cooperation in tourism/destination management and to enrich that cooperation based on a survey of local residents. It strives to determine the importance of the role in public awareness played by this specific tourism product, namely the Silver Road and the mining heritage as a whole, what Czechs and Saxons know about this local tradition and the neighbouring country’s traditions. It is concluded by summarizing the potentials and deficits of the Silver Road’s destination management.
The study presents the results of a questionnaire survey implemented in mid-2016 which focused on the mining theme and its potential for Czech-Saxon cross-border activities and cooperation. The survey targeted local residents in communities along the Silver Road. 350 questionnaires were collected in the Czech Republic and 550 in Saxony. Quota sampling was applied, with minor deviations in terms of age and distribution of the population in the Czech sample due to the Silver Road’s small geographical coverage. Since the stakeholders on both sides of the border are planning to include these sites in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, we need to study the attitudes of local residents to determine whether this is
lived heritage.
The article demonstrates that the mining theme plays an important role in the practice of cross-border cooperation between the Czech Republic and the Free State of Saxony. A cross-border activity with such high ambitions as UNESCO listing cannot be found elsewhere in the Czech borderland. While the Saxon side exhibits a considerably higher intensity of cross-border activities, Ore Mountains residents in both countries are little aware of the ways the mining heritage is being developed in the neighbouring country. Most of the respondents do not know the neighbouring country’s mining
heritage sites. Based on this finding, we argue that cross-border marketing communication needs to be improved, and this applies both to the Saxon institutions dealing with regional development and tourism and to entities at the level of the Karlovy Vary and Ústí nad Labem regions. Moreover, CzechTourism, as the key agency of central government responsible for marketing communication and destination management in the Czech Republic, should probably get involved in these activities as well. Finally, cross-border destination management needs to be encouraged. Bilingual activities should perhaps be undertaken because the language barrier continues to pose a relatively major obstacle to Czech-Saxon cross-border
cooperation, a fact also revealed by previous studies. In addition to these promotional activities, marketing communication needs to be elaborated more comprehensively to better tap the possibilities of new media. Inspiration can be drawn from similar activities or areas with cross-border destination management.
Homelessness in the Czech Republic is a relatively new phenomenon. Because of ideological background before 1989, as a result of loss of employment, it could not show up. For that reason, it fully emerged in early 1990s. Under this condition, it has been also unresearched for long time. Moreover, most of the written papers have ignored key studies from abroad, especially from the USA. Therefore, this paper offers an overview of studying the homelessness in USA. It briefly describes historic and cultural movement from the pre-industrial poor to the urban centric homeless. Then, in light of distinguished periods of 20th century, it focuses on conditions of emergence and development American skid rows and particularities of their populations. Finally, the paper presents important studies of all these periods. Based on overview of American homelessness the paper articulates four propositions for a research in the Czech Republic. The research should focus on: (1) historic, socio-cultural and polical-economical context related to postsocialism and neoliberalism; (2) searching for less ideological conceptualizations of homelessness; (3) connecting poverty as the main factor of homelessness with other ones; (4) carrying out more ethnographic researches.
The aim of the following text was to intermediate the personal reflection of migrants of preponderantly Czech origin who were in the years 1991-1993 resettled from the former Soviet Union to the Czech Republic. Better to say, the article focuses on one specific group of these displaced persons who came in the year 1993 and have lived since then in the locality Kopidlno. The main aim of the text is to reflect the way how the refugees themselves at present assess the motivation for their leaving of the land of their forefathers, how they evaluate their adaptation and integration with respect to the locality in which they live, how did they cope with the „resettlement shock“ and how did they succeed in the „competition“ with the majority society, for example at work. The final part of the text presents the differences in assessment of the return migration process and in evaluation of the locality between the first and second generation of the return migrants. The text was based on repeated guided interviews and observations realized in the locality of Kopidlno during the years 2008-2010.
Soil samples were collected from the whole territory of the Czech Republic, and the presence of entomopathogenic nematodes from the families Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae was evaluated by Galleria traps method. Of the 342 samples studied, 53.8% were positive for entomopathogenic nematodes with only one positive for the heterorhabditid, Heterorhabditis megidis Poinar, Jackson ct Klein. 1987. Of steinernematid species, Steinernema kraussei (Steiner, 1923), Steinernema felliae (Filipjev, 1934), Steinernema affine (Bovicn, 1937), Steinernema intermedium (Poinar, 1985), Steinernema bicornutum Tallosi, Peters et F.hlers, 1995, and Steinernema sp. belonging to “glaseri" group were recovered. With several exceptions the nematodes occurred in all the ecosystems, subecosystcms and habitats studied. They were more frequently found in samples from tree than open habitats, from light than heavy soil, and their incidence was ubiquitous, rather than patchy. Dependence of entomopathogenic nematodes on insect incidence seemed to be elementary for both their incidence and abundance. The sampling sites with moderate to severe insect abundance were 66.5 % positive for nematodes while those with slight or no visible insect abundance only 15 %.
A long-standing problem with the taxonomic status and synonymy of the names Taraxacum nigricans (Kit.) Reichenb. and T. alpestre (Tausch) DC. is resolved. These two names, the oldest ones referable to high mountain dandelions in Central Europe, are typified, and a detailed comparison of these species’ morphology, genotype make-up, karyotypes and distribution is provided, together with a discussion of other cases of similar and probably closely related agamospermous taxa of Taraxacum and Hieracium. Taraxacum nigricans (2n = 32) and T. alpestre (2n = 32) are endemic to the Nízke Tatry Mts, Slovakia, and the Krkonoše/Karkonosze Mts, Czech Republic/ Poland, respectively. These are shown to differ in a series of minor but constant morphological, allozyme and karyotype features, and their treatment as separate agamospermous species is supported. A detailed analysis of cultivated and wild material from the Carpathians revealed the existence of a sexual taxon very close to the above two species and endemic to the region of the Bucegi Mts, Romania. It is described as a new species, T. carpaticum Štěpánek et Kirschner. Two new agamospermous species, apparently allied to T. nigricans, are described: T. rupicaprae Štěpánek et Kirschner, a species characterized by orange-ochraceous achenes and confined to the High Tatra Mts, and T. elegantissimum Štěpánek et Kirschner (2n = 24), which has substantially broader outer bracts and is known from the Rodna, Retezat and Fagaras Mts, Romania. Another three species are described that are morphological similar to T. carpaticum: T. pastorum (the Fagaras Mts, Romania), T. iucundum (the Retezat Mts, Romania) and T. pseudoalpestre (the Fagaras Mts, Romania).
Dandelions (Taraxacum) of the section Erythrosperma were studied in Moravia, Czech Republic, where both sexual diploid and apomictic polyploid species occur. Diploid species T. erythrospermum grows in the warmest part of southern Moravia and is confined to natural dry grasslands, whereas some apomictic species have ranges extending up to the submontane regions and prefer ruderal habits. Altogether, 21 apomictic types were found repeatedly but only seven were identified as previously described species: T. arcuatum, T. danubium, T. lacistophylloides, T. parnassicum, T. plumbeum, T. proximum and T. scanicum. Descriptions, notes on variation and distribution in Moravia, dot maps and pictures are given for eight species.
As a result of inconsistencies in morphological characters, Cerastium pumilum and C. glutinosum have been misunderstood or confused in many European floras since the 1960s. In the second volume of the Flora Nordica, a revised treatment of C. pumilum s.l. is provided and this concept is tested here for eastern Central European populations. The cytometric and morphological part of the study is based on living plants from 85 populations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Austria and Hungary. Flow cytometric analyses of the samples revealed two groups differing in ploidy level and corresponding to two cytotypes (a known octoploid, 2n ≈ 72, for C. glutinosum and yet unknown dodecaploid, 2n ≈ 108, for C. pumilum). Eleven morphological characters were scored or measured in plants of known ploidy level and the data set analysed using multivariate statistics (principal component analysis and canonical discriminant analysis); the two morphologically well-separated groups were identical with the two cytotype groups detected by flow cytometry. Based on these results, we suggest treating the detected cyto-morphotypes as the species C. pumilum and C. glutinosum. Our analysis further revealed that the traditionally used characters (glabrous vs. hairy adaxial surface and presence vs. absence of a scarious margin to the tip of the lowermost bracts) are not taxonomically informative. The characters best differentiating the species include indument on the lowermost vernal internodium, length of mature stylodia, length of glandular hairs on sepals and maximum diameter of mature seed. A key for identification of both species is also provided. A revision of almost 1600 specimens deposited in 16 Central European herbaria revealed that the species show different distribution patterns in Central Europe and partial habitat segregation. Specimens from the Czech Republic previously assigned to C. litigiosum were identified as C. pumilum; consequently, C. litigiosum must be removed from the Czech flora.
Traditionally, all freshwater representatives of red algae with uniaxial cartilagineous and pseudoparenchymatous thalli were placed in the genus Lemanea. Two subgenera of this genus were distinguished, Lemanea and Paralemanea. The recently proposed elevation of these subgenera to genera is fully justified and generally accepted. However, the increasing data from natural populations of Lemanea shows that not all the traditional diacritical features are reliable for distinguishing species. This paper presents the results of a research project on the morphological variability of Lemanea in the Czech Republic. Of the four species Lemanea fluviatilis and L. torulosa appear to be well-defined but there are no clear differences between Paralemanea annulata and P. catenata. A survey of taxa and key to species are presented.