A study was undertaken to investigate the effects of crumb rubber on the strength and mechanical behaviour of Rubberized cement soil (RCS). In the present investigation, 26 groups of soil samples were prepared at five different percentages of crumb rubber content, four different percentages of cement content and two different finenesses of crumb rubber particle. Compressive strength tests were carried out at the curing age of 7 days, 14 days, 28 days and 90 days. The test results indicated that the inclusion of crumb rubber within cement soil leads to a decrease in the compressive strength and stiffness and improves the cement soil’s brittle behaviour to a more ductile one. A reduction of up to 31% in the compressive strength happened in the 20% crumb content group. The compressive strength increases with the increase in the cement content. And the enlargement of cement content is more efficient at low cement content.

The scope of the paper refers to long- and medium-run trends of labour supply in Poland. The main purpose is to determine current trends in the labour supply and its projections till the year 2050. In the theoretical part of the paper determinants of labour supply are considered. The projections are based on the population forecasts till 2050 made by the Central Statistical Office of Poland (CSO) and by the authors’ own simulations. Several variants of upper limit of working age and activity rates are taken into account. The population forecasts by the CSO indicate it will occur big decrease of working age population till 2050. The biggest decrease will refer to the group of working age 18–59/64 years and the lowest decrease in the age group 18–66 years. The analysis shows that the declines in labour supply in the years 2020–2050 will occur in all variants of working age population, the biggest decline in the variant assuming the age group 18–59/64 and the smallest decline – in the group 15–74 years. Retirement age is of big importance for the size of labour supply. This is why it is recommended to encourage older people to prolong their economic activity. It is also necessary to increase activity rates in the working age population.

In the era of an aging society, age friendly cities planning is gaining in importance. Due to the low mobility of these people, it is important to plan their immediate living environment, ensuring access to facilities and areas that meet the basic needs of this special group of urban space users. The paper analyzes the potential accessibility of older people to green areas, sports and recreation facilities, service and commercial facilities, culture and health care facilities, and public transport stops, in order to delimit problem areas characterized by functional and spatial deficits in this area. In addition, the level and quality of accessibility of older people to the abovementioned elements of development.

The focus of the article is the Vatin culture settlement at the site of Vinča-Belo Brdo in Northern Serbia. The general idea is that this settlement, whose existence was relatively short in time, benefited from being established by the Danube — a great connective factor in the world of the Middle Bronze Age. It shares many characteristics with the contemporary settlements in the southernmost part of the Carpathian basin, starting from the position in the vicinity of the Danube, at the places which had already been settled in prehistory, prior to the Middle Bronze Age. Not only do they have pottery style in common, but the wider repertoire of finds illustrating the material culture. What’s more, comparison of the material remains from Vinča with the neighbouring sites from the left Danube bank enlightens how the Vatin culture was integrated into a wider space of the Bronze Age cultures of the Carpathian basin, influencing the Balkans hinterland, too.

We measured the bone-specific alkaline phosphatase (ALP) isoenzyme activity in 67 plasma samples from 14 newborn Holstein calves using both a conventional method (featuring heat inactivation) and a commercial agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE) kit; the relevant isoenzymes were termed bone-specific ALP (BAP) and ALP isoenzyme 3 (ALP3). We explored whether the AGE kit afforded reliable data when used to analyze samples from Holstein calves. The blood was collected from the jugular vein of each calf immediately prior to the first colostrum feeding (pre-feeding), 20 and 40 h after pre-feeding, and on days 4 and 7; whereas three samples (from three calves) were not obtained. The total plasma ALP activity varied widely, exceeding the ranges of reference values. On electrophoresis, 52 of 67 plasma samples (77.6 %) clearly contained both ALP isoenzyme 2 and ALP3, as did control human serum. The total ALP activity of the 52 samples ranged from 166–1989 U/L (median: 1013 U/L), whereas the values for the other 15 samples (22.4%) exhibiting abnormal isoenzyme fractionation ranged from 1014–5118 U/L (median: 1780 U/L). In the 52 plasma samples exhibiting clearly separated isoenzymes, ALP3 and BAP activities were strongly positively correlated as revealed by Deming regression (y = 0.93x + 22.6, p<0.0001) and Bland-Altman analysis (ALP3/BAP activities limit of agreement: −5.1%). Thus, the AGE kit yields useful information on newborn calves, and can replace the conventional method when the total plasma ALP activity is less than approximately 1000 U/L.

This paper presents a new approach to study the palaeoecological and archaeological benefits of the previously investigated Szeged-Öthalom area. The aim was to combine the archaeological results with the palaeoecological ones by a new integral view. Age-depth models of 14C dated charcoal were calculated via Bayesian method to reconstruct the sediment accumulation rates in the investigated loess- palaeosol sequences. Moreover, the age of a Mammoth bone found in 1935 at the nearby Palaeolithic site was correlated with the calculated accumulation rates. Through our new results, the age of the Palaeolithic site could be correlated to the late LGM dust-accumulation-peak period. Even if this period is considered as cold and dry, the palaeoecological settings indicated dense forest cover and cool climate in the investigated area. This means that the palaeoenvironment may have encouraged the diffusion of Gravettian hunters in this area, founding campsites like Öthalom in the southern part of the Carpathian Basin.

This article is devoted to the subject of age and the elderly in the Middle Ages, and the manner of viewing elderly people in those times. The author uses Jan Długosz’s Annals, books 9–12, as his basic source. His analysis concentrates on the following questions: Whom did the Polish historian consider worthy of remembrance in his Annals? How did he describe those figures? What words did he use to describe the phenomenon of age or aging? The author analyses the Latin terms used to describe specific older persons, and also presents the perceptions of older women, older men, and elderly people as a group. An attempt is made to answer the question of whether old age was a period of well-being and prosperity in medieval times.

Changes in the size and the age structure of a population have a great impact on an economy, especially on national savings and capital flows. Poland’s population, although still relatively young when compared to other developed countries, is expected to experience accelerated ageing and decline in forthcoming decades. In this paper, we assess the effects of these processes for Polish economy. Using an open-economy OLG model with demographic shocks and a variable retirement age, we simulate dynamics of real interest rates, main macro aggregates as well as net foreign assets to GDP. We show that rapid ageing will reduce the interest rate gap between Poland and the developed countries by 1.3-2 p.p. We also document a strong positive relationship between interest rates and the retirement age and find that the decline in the interest rate in Poland is primarily driven by the surviving probability shock

The article presents chosen aspects of foundry engineering of the settlement dwellers, including the archaeometric characteristics and

metal science analysis of the artefacts, as well as an attempted reconstruction of the production organization. Discovered in Szczepidło

(Greater Poland), the foundry workshop is unique in Central European Bronze Age.

This workshop foundry operated roughly XIV-XII Century BC. Its production is evidenced by the presence of markers of the whole

production cycle: semi-finished and finished products, production waste, fragments of crucibles and casting ladles with traces of usage,

and tools. On this basis, the alloys and foundry technologies used have been described.

The analysis of foundry technology of copper alloys in the settlement area was carried out by observing the surface and structure of the

products, semi-finished artefacts and fragments of crucibles by applying optical microscopy (OM), confocal microscopy (CLSM) and Xray

radiography (RT). The investigations of compositions were made by means of the energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy

(ED-XRF) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with an energy dispersive X-ray analysis system (EDS).

Annual and interannual phenomena and canopy behavior of prickly comfrey (Symphytum asperum Lep.) were studied in a 10-year experiment with 25 measurement sessions during the growing season. The results confirm the importance of long-term experiments in studying plant phenomena, biometrics and behavior. Prickly comfrey produced a green canopy each year and growth started very early in spring. Maximum plant height was less than 160 cm. Annual phenomena (growth initiation, seedling phase, flower phase, seed phase, senescent phase), interannual phenomena (initiation and youth, reproduction, new generation formation, plant death) and two population cycles (colonization and expansion) were measured. The duration of annual development up to canopy death can be expressed as x+2x+3x+2x, where x is initial growth. The genetic structure and activity of prickly comfrey promotes generative development of the species. Its age can be measured over a single and several vegetation generations. The ability to change the angle of vertical stem growth after 9 weeks can be considered a functional behavior of prickly comfrey and part of its life strategy. The differences between the organs in the upper and lower parts are very considerable and should be taken into account in morphological descriptions of this species. The upper and lower stems and leaves showed differential growth. Both stem and leaves were densely setose. Old leaves were 3.8 times longer, 4 times broader and 2.4 times thicker than young leaves. Hairs were on average 3 times longer on old than on young leaves. Flowers had contact with pollinators making relatively long visits to them.