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Abstract

Mineral-resource mining is a pillar of many state economies and, in many cases, it determines the welfare of the society. The mining of mineral resources provides the market with the raw materials that are traded and drives the economic and social development of countries, although it can also be a source of tensions and crises (e.g. the “curse of wealth”, “Dutch disease”). The trade of raw materials is conducted by exchanges, bilateral deals and other forms of transactions, and is regulated by trade regulations and contract agreements, and in most cases, constitutes a source of income for exporters. In this paper, the use of game-theory modelling for creating the selling price of mineral products on the basis of Polish export quotas for refined copper raw materials is proposed. Using a characteristic function created on the basis of reported export values, possible cooperation arrangements are defined and solutions are calculated for an n-person game of hypothetical coalitions of the major (in terms of volume) recipients of refined Polish copper, i.e. Germany, Italy and France. Alternative markets and possible supplies of cheaper raw material are excluded from the analyses, while the price spread between the rates paid by the buyers is taken into consideration. Among the many possibilities, the game core, the Shapley imputation and the Gately point are arbitrarily adopted as permissible solutions to the defined system. The obtained results are used for a speculative analysis relating to the possibility of renegotiating prices between the producer and recipients of the raw material. Marginal contributions resulting from Shapley’s solution are taken into account as is the power of individual trading-participant coalitions. The paper demonstrates that the recognition and adoption of solutions based on the n-personnel game model as impartial would require the redefinition of contracts and the rates paid for the raw material.
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Authors and Affiliations

Mariusz Krzak
1

  1. AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland
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Abstract

Five years ago, the Act on the protection of animals used for scientific or educational purposes entered into force. It is the implementation of Directive 2010/63/ EU into the Polish legal system. During the work on the Directive, most scientists were convinced that the previous Act on animal experiments of 2005 was in line with the new EU law and only minor modifications would be necessary. Legislators, however, decided to create a completely new legal act. Already at the time of the Act's creation, the scientific community made many critical comments regarding the law. Significant discrepancies between the Directive and the proposed provisions of the Act were far more stringent, and in many places with imprecise provisions which could have resulted in difficulties in conducting research using animals. Unfortunately, most of the postulates of the scientific community were not considered at that time. What does the Act look like 5 years after its adoption? Instead of a transparent and balanced law modeled on the EU Directive, which provides real protection for experimental animals, while safeguarding the intellectual rights of animal testing units, a patch of underdeveloped, sometimes mutually exclusive provisions has been issued. Instead of raising the welfare of the animals used for research to a higher level, it significantly increased the costs of operating research units and increased bureaucracy. Instead of rationalizing the system of issuing consents for research, it has been weakened and entangled in administrative and legal disputes without the provision of basic administrative facilities. Instead of increasing the international mobility of scientists and technicians working with experimental animals, the implementation of the law created a training “system” that is not recognized in any other EU country. In the light of the 5-year experience of the scientific community and the expert part of the composition of local ethics committees, we postulate to introduce a number of significant changes to the act so that its amended version actually ensures animal protection, respect for researchers and returns to the current of European legislation.

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Authors and Affiliations

Małgorzata Gajewska
Joanna Gromadzka-Ostrowska
Jan Konopacki
Krzysztof Turlejski
Cezary W. Watała
Krzysztof Wąsowicz
Anna Wesołowska
Marek Wieczorek
Piotr Wlaź
Romuald Zabielski

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