We wszystkich obszarach aktywności twórczej wyobraźnia, jest niezbędnym elementem w życiu i funkcjonowaniu człowieka. W wielu sytuacjach życiowych jest ona nieodłącznym elementem wykorzystywanym w sposób mniej lub bardziej świadomy. Pozwala tworzyć wyobrażenia, które nie mają odpowiedników w żadnym z wrażeń, stanowiąc podstawę twórczości wszelkiej aktywności człowieka. Wyobraźnia jest naturalnym przedłużeniem wzroku, specyficzną zdolnością do wywoływania obrazów, pobudzającą do twórczego myślenia i działania. W dzisiejszych czasach człowiek nieustannie bombardowany jest coraz większą ilością dźwięków i obrazów, które „zagłuszają” naturalny rozwój wyobraźni. Szybki postęp technologiczny, którego jesteśmy świadkami, nie pozostaje bez wpływu na rozwój twórczego myślenia, tworzy bariery ograniczające człowieka.

This is the first insight into effect of development of nonpublic and paid schools on social stratification in Poland. Logistic and multinomial regression of the Polish general Social Survey data 1998 is conducted to test hypotheses concerning effect of the fathers’s EGP category on access to various types of schools in secondary and tertiary education. Results confirm the hypotheses that respondents from intelligentsia families are overrepresented in both secondary and tertiary paid schools and have greater odds of entry in to public tertiary education in comparison to lower non-manual categories, owners, working class and peasants. Children of intelligentsia also have more opportunities to attend “better” stationary (than non-stationary) schools in comparison to other categories. This analysis provides support for the thesis about growing role of qualitative differentiation in education.

The main issue of this article are eco-bridges, pedestrian-friendly imaginary sites (enclave) of greenery in urban tissues. Discussed cases include the implementations of projects such as: the High Line in New York and the Garden Bridge in London. The main theme of the article is to compare the green bridges in the urban tissue embedded with “living root bridges”. The author of the article highlights the potential limits for “living root bridges” in the urban tissue, resulting from the climate, time of their creation and limits of urban space. She also notes the strong tendency to create green areas in the “concrete” urban structure, but also the use of artificial materials in tissue of “living root bridges”.

In the process of extraction and enrichment of coal waste, considerable quantities of waste material are produced, mainly the gangue and coal sludge, considered as waste or raw material. The main directions of the management development of the waste rock are the production of aggregates, the production of energy products and the liquidation works in hard coal mines and the filling of excavations. The paper proposes the extension of these activities to the use of waste material. The possibility of using aggregates or extractive waste to fill open-pit excavations has been proposed, also in areas within the reach of groundwater and the possibility of building insulation layers of waste material and the production of mixtures of hard coal sludge and sewage sludge to produce material with good energy properties. The analysis was based on the author’s own research and literature data related to selected parameters of waste material. This paper presents our own preliminary studies on the amount of combustion heat and the calorific value of coal sludge combined with other wastes such as sewage sludge. The proposed methods and actions are part of the current directions of development, but they allow the extension of the scope of use of both extractive waste and products produced on the basis of gangue or coal sludge. Due to the frequent lack of the stable composition of these materials, their current properties should be assessed each time before attempting to use them. The fact that it is important to continue research to promote existing economic use and to seek new activities or methods has been concluded.

This paper discusses spatial integration in an urban environment that consists of dispersed fragments of various development forms and origins. The discussion is presented on a specific example — the vicinity of Dworzec Towarowy in Kraków. The specificity of this type of place was determined so as to present the processes that formed its current state of development throughout history, and to identify current problems and spatial barriers. Then, a proposal of the development of the area was prepared, including the improvement of its spatial coherence and the creation of a new, user-friendly space. Examples of design measures that can be taken in a difficult space affected by disintegration were considered to improve the quality of the area’s development.