Integracja badań polarnych w Polsce w ramach Komitetu Badań Polarnych PAN, Polskiego Konsorcjum Polarnego i Centrum Studiów Polarnych KNOW to sukces krajowego środowiska polarnego. Dzięki niej możliwe było wypracowanie Strategii Polskich Badań Polarnych (SPBP).

The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.

Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.

Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.

The role of mentors is waning: young Polish scientists, efficient at winning their own grants and proficient at English, are growing increasingly independent.

Having increasingly tightened geological and mining conditions in which the extraction of copper ore deposits in Poland is conducted, ensuring effective and safe mining is presently becoming a key task and a significant challenge for mine operators, mainly in the field of ground support systems being the equivalent for the new geological/mining conditions. As one may expect, these conditions shall be characterized by higher values of the primary stress tensor elements as well as the lower deformability and higher strength of the rock mass surrounding the copper ore body. T his means that in the near future, the rock bursts problem will become one of the most important issues deciding on the economy and safety within the newly developed mining areas. T herefore developing a novel effective ductile ground support systems which could be able to control the rock mass movement in squeezing and burst-prone rock conditions is recommended. T his type of requirement may fulfil only ductile or, in other words, the kinetic energy-absorbing systems, which permit slowing down a movement of violently ejected rock blocks. T his paper’s objective is to present the idea of the development of a new type of an effective and low cost ductile resin anchored rockbolt system with smooth and of the square cross-section steel rod is formed in coil shape of different pitch. T he developed bolt prototypes have been tested underground in the G-11 section of the Rudna mine. Results of the pull-out tests, involving different bolts’ shapes and different sliding materials set on the rockbolts’ rods, have proved those bolts’ efficiency as an element of the ductile support system.

The research of development capabilities is a fundamental of strategic issues, which has to be taken into consideration by coal mines. This is particularly difficult in the current environment, which is determined by its crisis situation. In such conditions, it is necessary to take difficult decisions, and serious, strategic challenges into account, which allow for the crisis to be overcome, for the renewal and economic effectiveness of the operation of these coal mines, which have potential to grow, and closing the coal mines, which have not potential to grow. Due to the effects of such decisions, which concern not only coal mines but also the Silesian region, it is essential to prepare information to support them and promote rational choices. This is related to the issue of research for development possibilities. The article presents considerations related to the subject of research for development possibilities of coal mines in a crisis situation. Taking the results of literature study into account, the model of research process was developed, and identified the research issues concerning the following:

- the identification of external factors which determine the possibility of development of the Polish mines and drawing a schedule of their changes in the future,

- the identification of internal factors which determine the possibility of development of the Polish mines,

- developing a way for the assessment of the development potential of the coal mines, to show appropriate strategic options and action programmes for these options,

- determining possible strategic options and corresponding schedules, appropriate for the specific nature of the mines.

The proposition of their solutions, which were obtained in the process of using the specific methods and research tools, allowed the guidelines in terms of research of development capabilities of coal mines to be presented.

The article describes the idea of a compact city, due to the needs and capabilities of contemporary Polish cities, with an emphasis on the Silesia region. Special attention has been paid to the possibility of increasing the cities’ density and several examples have been shown to present the possibilities of densifying the cities with new housing investments. Also, the article presents the studies that indicate the capacity for the internal development of selected Silesian cities: Katowice and Gliwice. The article ends with the recommendations for cities to become more compact.

Mining wastes are by-products generated during search, excavation and processing, both physical and chemical, of ores and other minerals. In 2017, wastes from group 01 constituted 60% of total wastes produced in Poland. According to the statistical data, approximately 92% of the waste generated during the excavation and processing of hard coal is economically reused. 30% of this waste used in industry and nearly 70% is used for the reclamation of the degraded industrial areas. At present, there is a tendency in the E uropean Union to shift from a linear economy to the Circular E conomy. The goal is to maintain economical value of the resources, among others, by their reuse in a productive way, which at the same time eliminates waste. One of the industrial branch where the ideals of a Circular E conomy can be implemented is the mining industry. Mining wastes may form one of the sources of anthropogenic minerals, as they belong to alternative aggregates. Deposits of anthropogenic minerals are considered sources of valuable raw materials which guarantee that the products made on their basis will be of high quality. The article presents the results of physico-chemical tests, the leachability of contaminations and phytotoxicity tests carried out on the basis of the selected mining waste in light of a Circular E conomy.

The economy of Slovakia experienced a turning point in the 1st half of 2008 and entered a phase of decline. The negative impacts of the global economic crisis became evident in the 2nd half of 2008 and led into a recession in the 1st quarter of 2009. The composite leading indicator was originally intended for forecasting of business cycle turning points between the decline and growth phases. The aim of this paper is to transform the qualitative information from composite leading indicator into quantitative forecast and verify whether the beginning of recession in Slovakia could have been identied in advance. The ARIMAX and error correction models are used for the composite reference series and GDP forecasts respectively. The nal result shows that the composite leading indicator is useful not only for identifying turning points, but also for the prediction of recession phase.

The concept of control over electronic transferable records is the central premise of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Transferable Electronic Records. It indicates the method of determining the party who has the rights embodied in the negotiable electronic record. The purpose of this article is to present the most important issues related to documents and instruments that have a circular function in international maritime trade, and the intention to create a legal framework for them when they take the form of electronic records.

The study addresses the challenges facing the law of the sea. Although UNCLOS is rightly described as a constitution of the law of the sea, it does not and cannot give answers to all problems and doubts that arise in practice and that are related to global warming, protection of biodiversity, legal status of genetic resources, controversy concerning shipping, delimitation of areas or the protection of underwater cultural heritage. Hence the question arises, what the ways and means of further development of the law of the sea are. Undoubtedly, one of the possibilities is to develop implementation agreements, of which the third devoted to the protection and sustainable use of marine biodiversity outside national jurisdiction is the subject of an international conference convened by the General Assembly, whose resolutions in the area of the law of the sea play an important role. Undoubtedly, also the importance of the organization of the United Nations system, such as the IMO, FAO, UNESCO, UNEP is significant. There is also the possibility of accepting agreements addressing the issues left by UNCLOS without solution or definition. Not without significance is the soft law and the practice of states as well as the position of the organs appointed by UNCLOS.

The location, geological structure and characteristics of the Kamionki Anticline is presented in terms of possibility of underground CO2 storage. It is situated in the Płock Trough, in the SW part of the Płońsk Block, and represents a synsedimentary graben originated in the Early and Middle Jurassic. It has been explored by a semi-detailed reflection seismic survey and three deep boreholes (Kamionki 1, Kamionki 2 and Kamionki IG-3). Assuming that the anticline is conventionally outlined by a contour line of the top of the Lower Jurassic, its length is about 15 km, width is about 5 km and the area reaches approximately 75 km2. Geological, seismic and reservoir property data allow concluding that this structure is suitable for underground carbon dioxide storage. The primary reservoir level for underground CO2 storage is represented by Barremianmiddle Albian deposits of the Mogilno Formation with an average thickness of 170 metres, containing on the average 85% of sandstones, and showing porosity of about 20% and permeability above 100 mD up to 2000 mD. The sealing series is composed of Upper Cretaceous marls, limestones and chalk reaching the thickness of about 1000 metres. The secondary reservoir level is represented by upper Toarcian deposits of the Borucice Formation.

The subject of the performed experiments comprised standard RSMM 110-02, RSMM 110-02 nozzles, AI 110-02, AI 110-02 air induction nozzles as well as AZMM 110-02, AZMM 110-03 low drift nozzles. The working speed during spraying was v_p = 7 km/h. Each sprayer was tested at the following three levels of working pressures: p₁ = 0.2 MPa, p₂ = 0.4 MPa and p₃ = 0.6 MPa. The spray liquid was pure water at the temperature of 20°C. The plant coverage was determined: s_k – spray coverage, n_k – number of droplets per 1 cm² of the leaf.

Reactive distillation (RD) has already demonstrated its potential to significantly increase reactant conversion and the purity of the target product. Our work focuses on the application of RD to reaction systems that feature more than one main reaction. In such multiple-reaction systems, the application of RD would enhance not only the reactant conversion but also the selectivity of the target product. The potential of RD to improve the product selectivity of multiple-reaction systems has not yet been fully exploited because of a shortage of available comprehensive experimental and theoretical studies. In the present article, we want to theoretically identify the full potential of RD technology in multiple-reaction systems by performing a detailed optimisation study. An evolutionary algorithm was applied and the obtained results were compared with those of a conventional stirred tank reactor to quantify the potential of RD to improve the target product selectivity of multiple-reaction systems. The consecutive transesterification of dimethyl carbonate with ethanol to form ethyl methyl carbonate and diethyl carbonate was used as a case study.

In this work, the design of current mode Fractional order filter using VDTAs (Voltage differencing trans-conductance amplifier) as an active element with grounded capacitors has been proposed. The approximate transfer functions of low and high pass filters of fractional order on the basis of the integer order transfer has been shown and the form of those functions of filters is also implemented using VDTA as an active building block. In this work, filters of the different sequence have been realized. The frequency domain simulation results of the proposed filters are obtained on Matlab and PSPICE with TSMC CMOS 180 nm technology parameters. Stability and sensitivity is also verified.

The term “cause” is ubiquitous in life and science. It is surprising how, generally speaking, the existing all-purpose dictionaries, and even «professional» ones, are clumsy in their attempts to define “cause” and its derivative terms. We urgently need a more satisfactory definition of these words, along the following lines: an acting of object x on object y is the cause of the change in object y, when at the same time object x acts on object y, object y changes, and if something of the type of object x acts on an object of the type of object y, then object y changes. When expanding the proposed definition, I consider, among others: (a) traditional counterarguments aimed at the existence of cause-effect relation, (b) the question of necessity as a component of the notion of causality, (c) the notion of acting on something and the circumstances of its occurrence, (d) the essence of change, and (e) the causality principle. In addition, I sketch the relation of the reconstructed notion of causality to the notions of motivation, perpetration, and the act of creation (in arts and in Catholicism).

The paper summarizes the debate concerning the divine hiddenness argument. First, it presents two versions of the argument that was initially formulated by J.L. Schellenberg and subsequently discussed over the last twenty years and it marks its most important theses. Then the author indicates some possible rebuttals, segregating them according to the challenged premises. Particularly noteworthy, he argues, are these theistic answers that accuse the images of God assumed by the hiddenness argument of excessive anthropomorphism and those that try to point out higher goods justifying divine hiddenness. In conclusion the author claims that the hiddenness argument proves atheism only if by theism one understands theistic personalism. Other positions, such as ultimism or theism of transcendence, are not threatened by the argument.