This essay is constructed of two parts: the first is a historiographical sketch of several theories concerning nationalism and gender; the second part puts some of these theories into practice in interpreting an article from a fin-de-siecle Polish illustrated weekly magazine.

The paper presents differences between technical states and technical operation states of haul trucks in the technical operation process. The specification and analysis of operational parameters of technological vehicles used in surface mining is possible only due to more and more frequently used diagnostic – telemetric systems. While a detailed analysis of machines operation data can result in the more effective management of mining plant operations and the mining process itself. The determination of operational state indices and their individual components allows preventive actions to be commenced, resulting in improving the work organization of the entire mine machinery system. Moreover, the future technical state of machines operated in surface mining is strictly related to the current state and also depends on the events that occurred in the extraction system. A set of parameter values of individual state characteristics, which allow the haul trucks technical and operational state to be characterized, is a direct effect of a telemetric – diagnostic system operation.

The problem of research undertaken in the article concerns the adaptation of traditional models of calculating the cost of capital to the specifics of mining companies. Solutions known from the literature do not give reasonable results. This is due to the uniqueness of the activities of mining companies, in which case we are dealing with a lack of reference to the typical market situations. The aim of this article is to identify solutions that allow rational and reliable results to be obtained. One of the proposals is a modified Fama-French method. The article was tested by calculating the cost of capital in the largest Polish mining enterprises. The problem of calculation of the cost of capital is particularly important in the area of assessing the effectiveness of investment projects. The cost of capital is used as the discount rate in dynamic measures of performance, such as NPV.

The paper deals with a study of the effect of regulating elements on local values of heat transfer coefficients along shaped heat exchange surfaces with forced air convection. The use of combined methods of heat transfer intensification, i.e. a combination of regulating elements with appropriately shaped heat exchange areas seems to be highly effective. The study focused on the analysis of local values of heat transfer coefficients in indicated cuts, in distances expressed as a ratio x/s for 0; 0.33; 0.66 and 1. As can be seen from our findings, in given conditions the regulating elements can increase the values of local heat transfer coefficients along shaped heat exchange surfaces. An optical method of holographic interferometry was used for the experimental research into temperature fields in the vicinity of heat exchange surfaces. The obtained values correspond very well with those of local heat transfer coefficients αx, recorded in a CFD simulation.

This report describes the community involved in technology, organisation, and economics of theconstruction industry. The community includes mainly academics gathered around KILiW PAN, the Polish Academy of Sciences Section for Civil Engineering Projects. The results have been obtainedbased on the survey conducted in the period of 2007–2010. Some financial issues are presentedhere which influence the scope of the research underway and the didactic process. Some of theissues presented here comprise the subject matters of research, postgraduate studies, academicdegrees, as well as publications and international cooperation. Conclusions were presented in theform of suggestions in the field of research and teaching.

The concept of a Circular Economy assumes that the value of products, materials and resources is to be maintained in the economy for as long as possible to ultimately reduce waste generation to a minimum. In this concept, raw materials are repeatedly put into circulation many times, often passing from one branch of industry to another. So energy, water, metal ores, oil, gas, coal and others, and wherever possible, their replacement with renewable resources (wind and solar energy, natural resources). It is important, and this is the essence of the Circular Economy, the maximum re-use of scarce materials and raw materials from already produced and used products. This concept has found the support of the European Commission and activities in this area will successively be implemented through appropriate legal acts of the European Union. The need to implement solutions in the field of minimizing the consumption of raw materials, materials and energy or reducing waste production is also felt by consumers and industry. The packaging industry is particularly interested in implementing the concept of a Circular Economy. Due to the dynamic growth of the packaging market, which in 2017 reached around EUR 9.6 billion in Poland (data from the Polish Chamber of Packaging) and the increasing amount of post-consumer waste, it is necessary to introduce solutions limiting the consumption of raw materials and energy throughout the product life cycle.

The aim of the article is to present current practices regarding the reduction of the negative impact of packaging on the environment and the indication of directions for the implementation of the Circular Economy concept in the packaging industry.

The article is devoted to topical issues of energy saving management of a business organization.

The concept and essence of saving are considered. Based on the systematization of the totality of

manifestations of saving energy, the following types are distinguished: economic, ecological, ecological-

economic, reputation and social. External and internal factors of saving energy in a business

organization are identified, which reflect the conditions of its operation in the context of saving

energy. It is determined that energy efficiency barriers, which are proposed to be divided into technical-

economic, organizational-behavioral and cognitive, characterize the energy saving process in

terms of restraining factors in improving the efficiency of fuel and energy resources, reflect specific

obstacles within the energy saving process in a particular business organizations and are of an

intra-organizational nature. It is determined that to improve energy saving processes in a business

organization the use cycles of continuous development, in particular, the Deming cycle is advisable.

For the purposes of energy management, the use an appropriate business model that determines

the order of formation of the economic advantage of the entity through energy savings and reflects

a set of solutions that characterize the process of creating value for stakeholders are advisable.

Based on the formalization of the business model of energy efficiency of the business organization,

the use of an saving energy program aimed at removing barriers to energy efficiency and the impact

on internal energy saving factors, as they are the levers that a business organization can influence to

improve energy efficiency, is proposed.

The importance and the role of minerals in the economy of a country or the world is highlighted by the use of the following terms: scarce mineral, critical mineral, and strategic mineral. The validity of the raw material in the economic processes and knowledge about the sources of its acquisition, access barriers, and the shaping of prices on the domestic and international market allow the development of an action strategy. The strategy must take into account the objective of the action, time horizon, the kind of the instruments that need to be used, and the scope of international cooperation. The importance of the raw material for the country is not only the volume of turnover and volume of production obtained thanks to its application. There are also historical, cultural and social reasons for its importance. The authors present arguments for another meaning of the term – mineral criticality. They also point out the linguistic differences between the term “criticality” in Polish and English. They propose to consider water, medicinal raw materials, some rock resources and amber as critical raw materials for various reasons.

The paper presents research upon the gas distribution in a physical model and the computer simulation of dust separation in a horizontal electrostatic precipitator (ESP) with a flat inlet diffuser. The research of a gas flow was carried out using the visualization method and the velocity measurement in cross sections of a model chamber. By selecting suitable choking diffusion screens and deflecting vanes in a diffuser the oblique profiles of a gas velocity were obtained for different obliqueness degree. It was assumed that the velocity profiles obtained should guarantee higher performance of an ESP than those uniform profiles as used so far. Those assumptions were proved by the results of computer simulation obtained using a program SYMULA-X. The results of experiments and computer simulation arc presented in a graphical form.

The literature on membrane distillation and forward osmosis for treating natural and recovered wastewaters is reviewed. There is renewed interest in these membrane technologies as alternatives to pressure driven processes such as reverse osmosis, which are expensive in both capital and energy, and generally require pre-treatment of the feed water. Membrane distillation with hydrophobic microfiltration membranes can make use of low-grade heat energy, and give higher yields of product water from concentrated feed waters. Forward osmosis uses hydrophilic membranes akin to reveres osmosis, and needs a draw solution that is appropriate in the product water. or must be recovered and reused in large-scale operation. Although they show great promise as simple low energy systems, no large-scale installation of either process exists as yet. Membrane distillation has considerable potential for desalination to produce drinking water, whereas FO is currently confined to small-scale systems, especially as a source of energy drinks in emergency situations.

Platelet aggregation contributes to the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. After activation it leads to dense granule secretion and 5-HT release. The question arises; how platelet aggregation is endogenously controlled during blood circulation. In preliminary studies, we observed that human plate-lets aggregate more rapidly when suspended in buffer as compared to those suspended in plasma (PRP). These observations point to the presence of an endogenous substance that may inhibit arachidonic acid– induced platelet aggregation. An analysis of plasma Cohn fractions demonstrated that most of the plasma inhibitory activity was associated with albumin–rich and α-globulin rich protein fractions. The identity of plasma endogenous inhibitors of platelet aggregation (EIPA) was established by affinity chromatography on Cibacron Blue F3G-A for specific removal of albumin. The association of α-globulins to EIPA activity was recognized as due to haptoglobin by affinity chromatography on a column of hemoglobin-sepharose. In addition, we also found that the distribution of EIPA activity varies according to sex and physiological state. These findings reveal that EIPA may act by modulation of arachidonic acid metabolism or seques-tering the fatty acid substrate.

Purpose: Oral health and diseases are significant components of general health. However, oral health-care remains at the lowest of older patients’ priorities. The inability to obtain dental care can result in progression of dental disease, leading to a diminished quality of life and overall health. Teledentistry (TD) provides an opportunity to improve the quality of oral health services. The aim of our narrative review was to analyze the usefulness of teledentistry as a part of telemedicine to improve oral health in the elderly.
Materials/Methods: The PubMed database search was done for: teledentistry, oral health, oral- health related diseases, elderly, older adults.
Results: The applicability of TD has been demonstrated from children to older adults. Older adults have many obstacles in getting oral health care, including low income, lack health insurance, frailty, anxiety, depression, mobility problems or other handicaps. Available data suggests that the usefulness of TD in the provision of oral care in elderly people living in residential aged care facilities. Moreover, TD procedures were found to be as accurate as traditional face-to-face dental examinations, they was cost-effective and well accepted among patients and caregivers.
Conclusions: TD might be a very useful tool for professional education, improving access and patient satisfaction of dental care. However, such TD modes would be difficult to widely implementation in community-dwelling older people who cannot access dental care. The ongoing “Patient centric solution for smart and sustainable healthcare (ACESO)” project will add to the intelligent oral health solutions.

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) is a primary immunodeficiency disorder related to recurrent infections, as well as a range of non-infectious manifestations including autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. We hypothesized that patients with CVID and different clinical phenotypes would demonstrate alterations in lymphocyte T subsets, including T lymphocytes expressing programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1), and regulatory T lymphocytes. We performed flow cytometry in two CVID groups: group 1 with infections only, and group 2 with infections and concomitant noninfectious manifestations. Patients were 18–59 years old (mean 35.8 years of age). Increased proportions of CD8+PD-1+ T cells and reduced regulatory T cells were associated with lymphadenopathy. Amount of regulatory T cells correlated with CD8+PD-1+ T lymphocytes (r = 0.54; p = 0.013), and with CRP (r = –0.64; p = 0.004). Forty percent of patients expressed manifestations in addition to infections (group 2), and they had reduction in number of regulatory T cells [8 (3–12) vs. 24 (11–26)/μl; p = 0.034), naive CD4+ T lymphocytes [36 (27–106) vs. 149 (81–283)/μl; p = 0.034], and elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) [5.33 (3.15–8.82) vs. 1 (1–2.16) mg/l; p = 0.003] in comparison to group 1. In conclusion, the amount of CD8+ T cells expressing PD-1 is associated with lymphadenopathy and number of regulatory T cells in patients with CVID. Patients with CVID and non-infectious complications have increased level of inflammation and alterations in regulatory T cells.

The number of breeding pairs of penguins nesting in the Admiralty Bay region during the 1979/1980 summer was as follows: Pygoscelis papua — 3703, P. adeliae— 32918, P. antarctica — 8237. Due to diverse preferences in selection of the breeding-site environment and varying numerousness and structure of the colonies of these species the conditions of the outflow of faeces to the sea varied considerably. Long period records of the populations of penguin colonies around Pt. Thomas and Llano Pt. show increase in the number of breeding pairs of P. papua and P. antarctica and an increase in the number of P. adeliae at Llano Pt., while at Pt. Thomas the data approximate the records for the summer 1909.