O18 - Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; InfrastructureReturn

This article explores the concept of the learning region, focusing on its development and theoretical foundations. Through a literature review, it outlines the evolution of the learning region theory in relation to earlier related concepts and highlights current challenges. The following section deals with the theoretical foundations and also uses a synthesis to point out a typology of learning regions according to focus and management style.

The use of an agricultural land in the Czech Republic is one of the increasingly topical topics. In recent years, an agricultural land in the country has been steadily declining and becoming a valuable natural resource. In recent years, agricultural land has given way mainly to construction activities, most often to the construction of development projects on the outskirts of larger towns and the construction of new economic entities. In this case, we are talking about inefficient land use, because in the case of suburbanization, the land is stopped on greenfields. A possible solution is to find the effective use of abandoned buildings and areas in the given places, the so-called brownfields, which are supported in recent years by individual ministries in the Czech Republic, which deal with the situation within the usability of individual grant titles. The presented article aims is to determine the impact of soil sealing on an agricultural land in individual NUTS 3 regions in the Czech Republic. For the purposes of the article, data on the state of the soil were obtained through the Czech Surveying and Cadastre Office. Other secondary data for the needs of the article were obtained through the Czech Statistical Office.

Smartcities are, among other things, well-known for solving optimization problems. One of the problems could be an optimal location of a central warehouse, which supplies branches. The branches are not the same; they naturally have a different location and a volume of traffic. The central warehouse must be situated in the area within the optimal distance that allows for minimal transportation costs. It can happen that the optimal solution to the abovementioned problem lies in a prohibited area such as forests, military areas. This paper deals with the problem of an optimal location of the central warehouse that must not lie in the prohibited area. The aim of the article is to present a mathematical model based on nonlinear principle, which can offer a solution to the mentioned problem. The main principle in modelling is to create a user-friendly and affordable model and to find an optimal solution to a particular situation. Such a model must take into consideration the dynamic development of logistics, construction of distribution warehouses and the chain stores nearby. The model gives results for the first phase of the planning optimal positioning. The mathematical solution must be implemented into a realistic situation. The actual location of the central warehouse must be adapted to, for example the reach of the highway.

Endogenous concepts of regional development are currently being enforced in the regional policy of the state. This fact is reflected in the specific attention given to small and medium-sized. Therefore, we have assumed differences in the qualitative characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises in underdeveloped and developed regions, as well as the presence of a relationship between the level of a region's development and the qualitative characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises. To identify the qualitative characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises in underdeveloped and developed regions, we applied a two-step cluster analysis. An analysis of the results showed a smaller percentage representation of innovative elements in the qualitative characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises in underdeveloped regions. By binary regression analysis, we have determined significance of qualitative characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises in the underdeveloped and developed regions.

In the programming period 2007 - 2013 the implementation of the European Union cohesion policy is carried out through eleven operational programmes within the frame of objectives Convergence and Regional Competitiveness and Employment. The overall European Union resources invested the amount of approximately € 11 bn. in these programmes, which is distributed under the supervision of the Transport, Construction and Regional Development of the Slovak Republic (formerly only Ministry of Construction and Regional Development of the Slovak Republic). Among these instruments is the Operational Programme Environment with total allocation of € 1,8 bn. The objective of this paper is to analyse attributes of all projects that have been approved from the beginning of the programming period until March 2013. This will enable to further study the spatial characteristics of the evaluated programme and discuss the breakdown of the beneficiaries at different levels of spatial hierarchy or the eventual volume of intervention under auspices of this programme in individual regions of the Slovak Republic. The volume and the direction of the investments in relation to the spatial dimension present a new view on implementation of the cohesion policy instruments.

The paper evaluates the level of economic, social and territorial disparities in 6 selected EU Member States and 83 NUTS 2 regions in case of Visegrad Four, Austria and Germany during reference period 2000-2010. The evaluation analysis is based on selected mathematical and statistical methods that lead to construction of simple (non-weighted) synthetic indices of economic, social and territorial disparities and weighted synthetic aggregate index of disparities. The theoretical part of the paper defines the concept of disparities and cohesion in the EU and methodological background of convenient statistical methods for regional disparities evaluation. The empirical part of the paper deals with the measurement, evaluation and comparison of disparities rates in all the selected EU countries and NUTS 2 regions through computed values of synthetic sub-indices of economic, social and territorial disparities and weighted (aggregate) synthetic index of disparities. All the synthetic indices are calculated on the basis of Z-score standardized variables using Euclidean distance method.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the regional problems of the Kingdom of Sweden at the beginning of the 21st century and to confront these findings with the regional policy of the Czech Republic. In the introduction the basic issues of Swedish regional development will be presented. In the text the tax issues will also be outlined, i.e. the system of taxes redistribution to the regional and local authorities in our republic and in Sweden. In the text a case study of regional association of "Western Sweden" follows (West Sweden the EU Project Analysis Service - WEPA). This association has established in Brussels its permanent representation and it promotes here the interests of individual cities and regions - for now only of mentioned "Western Sweden", which is not a municipal Swedish region, just the association composed of three Swedish regions (Halland, Värmland and Västra Götaland) and 71 cities. In the paper current practice and principles are documented, and the question remains: Is it possible to use this model of "Western Sweden" also in the Czech Republic? This article was created within the research project "Innovation Approach to Analysis of Disparities on Regional Level", realized under the state subsidy of The Ministry for Regional Development WD-30-07-1 at the Faculty of Economics, Technical University of Liberec, the Czech Republic.

Human capital belongs to main factors when discussing causes of regional disparities on one hand and the ways how to stimulate regional development on the other. In this regard, the process of human capital building is traditionally connected with increasing productivity. It is noteworthy that the process of human capital building is based on education and learning. Moreover, human capital is perceived as an important factor of regional differentiation. Then, it is not surprising that human capital was firmly positioned in the fundamental conceptual framework of European cohesion policy with its goal to reduce spatial disparities. This article is focused on spatial analysis of projects supported from the Operational Programme Education for Competiveness. Just this Programme may be regarded as the most relevant Czech operational programme related to the themes human capital and education. The main findings of our analysis are a bit ambivalent when considering the convergence goal of cohesion policy. Thus, the projects were allocated in all Czech districts. However, an important influence of settlement hierarchy may be identified. In addition, the absorption capacity of tertiary education institutions plays a substantial role in regional differentiation.

The paper examines and analyzes the process of real convergence in the Visegrad countries at regional level NUTS 2. Theoretical background of the paper defines the methodological concept and definition of convergence, focusing on the concept of beta convergence, which is the case of unconditional (absolute) convergence. This approach is based on the neoclassical growth model. The empirical part of the article focuses on the analysis of beta convergence in NUTS 2 regions of the Visegrad Four countries in the reference period 1995 - 2006. Beta convergence is analyzed by nonlinear regression econometric model, which is formulated in two variations based on the mathematical concept of deterministic convergence. To estimate both models, indicator of gross domestic product per capita in constant prices was used.

The article deals with the description of analytical methods suitable for analysis of logistical systems. The description is focused on a wide range, starting with a general description of analytical methods, gradually specifying methods suitable for logistics and finally outlines new methods of analysis fit for logistical systems. Below the article specifies the basic concepts of research, the general description of the approach to research, the description of research methods and their applications, the description of research methodology focusing on logistics and the resulting description of the methods used in logistics. The aim is to summarize the general outline of the methods follow the link between the solutions of exclude logistical problems and special matrix operations applied to the apparatus of Petri's networks.