Deposits used as fertilizer bring to soil both biogens necessary for plant growth and other ingredients such as metals. including heavy metals. Knowledge of quantities and rate in which heavy metals are to be released to soil from granulates is important because of their toxic influence on plants (in the case of high metals concentration). This paper presents results of investigation of elution of Cu. Zn, Ni, Cd, Pb. and Cr from granulates prepared from municipal sewage sludge, hard coal ash and brown coal ash. Elution to water solution was carried out in static conditions with single-stage and tree-stage extraction. Heavy metal a component of sludge-ash granulates eluted in various quantities, i.e. from trace for cadmium to 9.26-9.53 mg/kg of d.m. for zinc. Among the soluble forms of metals the most mobile are (in decreasing sequence): Cu > Pb> Zn> Ni in granulates containing brown coal ash and Cu> Pb> Ni> Zn in granulates contain hard coal ash.

The paper presents the results of experimental investigation and the new statistical method for the determination of pre-liminary thermal characteristics of a prototype compact minichannel heat exchanger with laminar flows and significant heat transfer in the manifolds. The exemplary heat exchanger consists of 9 straight, parallel, square-shaped channels and two rectangular-shaped manifolds milled on both sides of the single aluminium plate. The design of the investigated heat exchanger is quite particular, as the heat transfer area of both pairs of manifolds provides almost 1/3 of the total heat transfer area. In the new statistical method presented in this paper, the manifolds’ and channels’ heat flows are considered separately. The heat exchanger’s thermal characteristic was obtained statistically on the basis of the experimental results and is presented in the form of the overall heat transfer rate. The developed thermal characteristic model accounts for two effects, among many others, which may affect heat transfer in the exchanger, i.e. the heat loss to the ambient and the significant heat transfer in the manifolds. It is proved that the heat transfer to the surroundings was negligible due to the suitable thermal insulation. In order to demonstrate that the heat transfer in the manifolds is significant, two calculation variants are presented. The relative differences (residuals) between the experimental and statistically corrected heat transfer rates and the coefficient of determination R² are determined in both variants. In the first variant the heat transfer in the manifold pairs is neglected and in the second model it is included. It was observed that the lack of consideration of the heat transfer in the manifold pairs provides drastic dispersion between the experimental and statistical results. In turn, in the second model, where the manifolds are accounted for, a significant enhancement in the consistency of the results is noticed. The relative residuals are much lower, and the corresponding coefficient R² is improved from R² = 0.8827 in the first variant to R² = 0.9335 in the second one, respectively.

Terrain and laboratory research were conducted to determine the potential of Gastroidea viridula Deg. (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) to control mossy sorrel (Rumex confertus Willd.). In a field study, the dynamicof plant biomass and number of larvae occurring on that plant were investigated. The Pearson’s linear correlation coefficient of biomass increase in time equalled, to r = 0.96. The regression equation showed, that the plant daily growth reached 29 g; and 210 g per week, consequently. In the laboratory, weight of consumed food by larvae, and larval body weight were measured at 20°C. First generation of G. viridula was taken into consideration. Total weight of consumed leaves by all three instars of a single larva, during 50 days of the development amounted to 1.243 g. Also seasonal abundance of larvae was observed. On May 25th the highest observed number of G. viridula larvae per plant ranged from 435 to 469 individuals. This species may be of usefulness in biological control of mossy sorrel.

The aim of the study was the implementation of a numerical simulation of the air-water two-phase flow in the minichannel and comparing results obtained with the values obtained experimentally. To perform the numerical simulations commercial software ANSYS FLUENT 12 was used. The first step of the study was to reproduce the actual research installation as a three-dimensional model with appropriate and possible simplifications - future computational domain. The next step was discretisation of the computational domain and determination of the types of boundary conditions. ANSYS FLUENT 12 has three built-in basic models with which a two-phase flow can be described. However, in this work Volume-of-Fluid (VOF) model was selected as it meets the established requirements of research. Preliminary calculations were performed for a simplified geometry. The calculations were later verified whether or not the simplifications of geometry were chosen correctly and if they affected the calculation. The next stage was validation of the chosen model. After positive verification, a series of calculations was performed, in which the boundary conditions were the same as the starting conditions in laboratory experiments. A satisfactory description of the experimental data accuracy was attained.

According to Paweł Okołowski, Bogusław Wolniewicz made a conversion: he abandoned Marxism and adopted Christianity. This author undertakes to restablish how true this claim may be. In his own opinion, Wolniewicz accepted social theory of Karl Marx (Marxism in the strict sense) all his life, although he definitely rejected the idea of communism. This author defines Wolniewicz’s position as ‘Christianism’ rather than ‘Christianity’, because Wolniewicz admitted that Christianity was the basis of the Western civilization in public life. Despite this approach to the issue of faith, he was not – as far as we can say – a religious person in the traditional sense of the term.