The article is an analysis of the content of the reports of the national mining companies and vertically integrated operators in the energy value chain, in light of the guidelines of global standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility). A verification of the review of the literature and reports of selected companies in terms of non-financial data publication was conducted, that is information which is based on ES(G) (E – Environment; S – Social; G – Governance), especially considering all environmental and social aspects. It was also indicated which selected mining companies prepare integrated reports (financial and non-financial data), in line with the GRI (Global Report Initiative) guidelines and G4 Mining and Metals – the document contains a set of disclosures for use by all organizations in the Mining and Metals sector. According to the author, universal access to non-financial data expanding the circle of stakeholders and can mitigate the negative public opinion towards the mining industry. Integrated reporting is a new experience for Polish mining companies and vertically integrated energy groups reporting sent to various stakeholder groups, using the GRI guidelines. The analysis showed that only two domestic companies out of the 10, i.e. LW Bogdanka S.A. and KGHM Polska Miedź S.A. submitted the report for 2015, based on the indices dedicated to the, „mining and metals” Industry. The selection of companies has been dictated by their significant share in the mining industry in Poland. The article indicates skipping important aspects of the business activities of mining and vertically integrated enterprises, which should be a necessary part of the reports (due to the obvious impact of mining on the environment and society). It refers to the GRI G4 Mining and Metals guidelines as the indicators which are additional tools to reporting on sustainable development. The purpose of this article is to point out important aspects of the mining companies and vertically integrated enterprises which are omitted and, in the opinion of the author, should be the components of those reports.

The author shows the activity of the inhabitants in the process of revitalization which took place in Poznan at the turn of the 20. and 21. century. Overview of actions demonstrates the transformation of instruments and methods of conduct, but also is a presentation process of self-education of all participants: the associations, municipal authorities and residents. Relevant are also the examples of intentional educational and cultural initiatives addressed to the residents and held with residents in the framework of the Urban Renewal Program. Accumulation of these activities led to stimulate of civic awareness, neighborly relationship and local identification, but also initiated the transformation of individual mental. As a result, they developed a multi-threaded relationship: realization by the people of the right to co-decision and shared responsibility influences the attitudes of representatives of the local authorities and a kind of reciprocal social education, leaning to the subjective treatment of all participants of social processes.

The octagonal tower of the ruined castle Ojców (southern Poland) is considered one of the most impressive foundations of king Kasimir III the Great (†1370). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the results of archaeological dig carried out in 2016 and to combine it with written evidence to form the basis for the reconstruction of its long-gone past. The tower is an octagon in plan, has 11.55 m in diameter and has walls that are ca. 2.7-2.8 m thick. On the inside it is round, 6.2 m in diameter. It was built of carefully processed hewn limestone set in lime mortar and what is important to note, it is the only known castle tower realisation of king Kasimir which was built on such blocks. On the other hand, the raw material used for building the tower has close affinities with church foundations of the king (e.g. in the collegiate church in Wiślica).

Noteworthy, the fieldwork of 2016 provided rich assemblage of architectural details, including stylistically homogenous window or portal framings with characteristic pear-shaped mouldings and hollow-chamferred profiles, which likely relate to the earliest stages of the castle, perhaps already to the realisation of king Kasimir. There is a high degree of confidence that these elements were originally placed in the tower, and, if so, they determined rich and representative design of the whole structure.

According to the author of the paper, there are strong indications that the impressive octagonal tower which is distinguished among the other contemporary defensive realisations by its building material, size and, possibly, a decor, was built as a commemorative realisation, given to honour the memory of the father of king Kasimir – Władysław the Elbow-high, who according to the local tradition, early in the 14th c. found a refuge in a cave located nearby (note the castle’s name: Oczecz − further Ojców − in Polish means Father).

Last but not least, the archaeological dig brought to light the remains of an undefined building from the late 15th-mid 16th c. west from the tower, the remains of post-medieval (17th c.?) wall adjacent to the tower from the north, and some important stratigraphic observations, which allow to state that the octagonal structure witnessed some extensive restoration work in the second half of the 15th c.

The paper features some aspects of providing information security and business continuity to public administration by means of an integrated computer-aided management system OSCAD. The system is based on international standards ISO/IEC 270001 and BS 25999 (ISO 22301). First, the significance of information security and business continuity issues in public administration was presented along with a short introduction to the applied standards. Then the possibilities of the OSCAD system were discussed together with the examples how the system can solve the problems encountered by public administration.

The objective of this article is to describe the main characteristics of ‘football field’s anti-Semitism’, to understand its main causes, and to answer the question of whether anti-Semitism among football fans constitutes a symptom of one of the kinds of anti-Semitism discussed in the literature of the subject, or is its own kind of phenomenon. Based on reports of racism in Polish and Ukrainian stadiums, press articles, internet material, and in-depth interviews with fans of the Cracovian team Wisła, the authors conclude that football field’s anti-Semitism is a specific type. Even though footballs fans use content characteristic of modern or contemporary religion-based anti-Semitism, the addressees of their hatred are not followers of Judaism, members of the Jewish ethnic group, or the state of Israel, but fans of the opposing teams. Anti-Semitic incidents recur in places with a long history of Polish-Jewish coexistence, where the resulting antagonisms have been retained till today. The figure of the ‘Jew’ appears to be an effective, historically tested, method of showing contempt—the fans make use of the available content to insult their rivals.

The purpose of this paper is to model daily returns of the WIG20 index. The idea is to consider a model that explicitly takes changes in the amplitude of the clusters of volatility into account. This variation is modelled by a positive-valued deterministic component. A novelty in specification of the model is that the deterministic component is specified before estimating the multiplicative conditional variance component. The resulting model is subjected to misspecification tests and its forecasting performance is compared with that of commonly applied models of conditional heteroskedasticity.

At both state and federal level in the USA there exist various instruments to protect the maritime environment. The general conception of protection is to base it on the construction of a protected area. In 2006, there existed at least 500 areas under protection. These were created by more than 100 federal and state administrative offices. The development of environmental protection law is moving in the direction of an appropriate management of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. In US legal doctrine it is stressed that US jurisdiction extends up to 200 nautical miles from the US shoreline. Coastal states have a right to regulate the legal status of the first three nautical miles of the oceans that touch their coasts. The doctrine of public trust is derived from common law. Its essence is the recognition that certain natural resources - the waters and bottom of coastal seas and large lakes - are of considerable importance for society as a whole. They cannot be given into private hands and controlled by private owners. The concept of protected maritime areas first emerged during the meetings of the World Congress of National Parks in 1962. Protected maritime areas on a federal level take various forms: maritime national reserves, national parks, national areas for wild life refuge, national natural monuments, areas o f fishery management, and threatened habitats. The author of the article discusses the legal acts of Presidents Clinton and Bush relating to maritime protected areas. The establishment of such areas is consistent with tendencies observable in the UN.

Emotional intelligence (EI) is conceptualized as a personality trait or an ability. Most of conducted studies on EI-coping association referred to trait emotional intelligence. Therefore, the role of ability emotional intelligence is less clear and need to be further studied. The present study examined the relationship between two EI abilities (emotion recognizing and emotion understanding) and stress coping strategies in adolescent men and women. The data were collected from 1033 Polish high school students (520 men and 512 women) aged 18-20 years (Mage = 18.46 years). Coping strategies were assessed using the COPE inventory and emotional abilities were measured using the Emotional Intelligence Scale – Faces (SIE-T) and the Emotion Understanding Test (TRE). The results supported the existence of an association between EI abilities and coping strategies. The analyses of the interaction effects revealed the moderating role of gender on some of the relationships between EI abilities and coping strategies.

Flood risk management are considerably influenced by several factors, such as all sources of flooding, social circum-stances, policy and even the potential for local economic growth. To encourage government, business, community and oth-er parties to continue investing in flood risk management projects, it is necessary to give understanding that the projects can also provide economic benefits through systematic predictions and assessments of costs, benefits and social values, espe-cially on flood-affected communities. This study aims: (1) to develop knowledge and understanding on small-scale flood risk management project in Malang City, Indonesia, and; (2) to assess the economic efficiency of the project investment considering all benefits, both monetary and non-monetary. The research method is a mixed method combining quantitative questionnaires (N = 53 from 162 families) with qualitative in-depth interviews (N = 10) and field observations. The runoff discharge and the inundation depth were calculated using hydrology and hydraulic analysis, while the economic efficiency was analysed using cost benefit analysis (CBA). The results show that the community-based flood risk management system can reduce the flood risk up to 30% compared to before the implementation of that system. This system also provides direct financial benefits through the use of drainage channels for fish and vegetables farming. It causes the increase of the net so-cial benefit about 70–90% and the net present value (NPV) greater than zero (NPV > 0). Therefore, the project investment is recommended to be proceeded.

This article discusses the results of studies using the developed artificial neural networks in the analysis of the occurrence of the four main mechanisms destroying the selected forging tools subjected to five different surface treatment variants (nitrided layer, pad welded layer and three hybrid layers, i.e. AlCrTiSiN, Cr/CrN and Cr/AlCrTiN). Knowledge of the forging tool durability, needed in the process of artificial neural network training, was included in the set of training data (about 800 records) derived from long-term comprehensive research carried out under industrial conditions. Based on this set, neural networks with different architectures were developed and the results concerning the intensity of the occurrence of thermal-mechanical fatigue, abrasive wear, mechanical fatigue and plastic deformation were generated for each type of the applied treatment relative to the number of forgings, pressure, friction path and temperature.

A method of using the electric charge in a capacitor was applied for the manufacture of thermocouple micro-joints. The motivation for the study was the need to produce a stable welded connection without affecting the geometry of the substrate, which was a thin sheet of Inconel 625 alloy (UNS designation N06625). Within the framework of the research work, a suitable workstation for micro-joints elaboration was built and welding experiments were performed using different electric charges. Studies carried out within the framework of the present work have shown that joints based on Inconel 625 alloy and platinum have the best application properties in the range of small-scale temperature measurements. They can be used, e.g., for monitoring the temperature distribution on the inner surfaces of electric motor casings. An undeniable advantage is in this case the high thermal resistance of both materials used to produce the joint, i.e. the Inconel 625 alloy and platinum. This allows them to be used at high temperatures under atmospheric conditions.

Constantly developing nanotechnology provides the possibility of manufacturing nanostructured composites with a polymer matrix doped with ceramic nanoparticles, including ZnO. A specific feature of polymers, i.e. ceramic composite materials, is an amelioration in physical properties for polymer matrix and reinforcement. The aim of the paper was to produce thin fibrous composite mats, reinforced with ZnO nanoparticles and a polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) matrix obtained by means of the electrospinning process and then examining the influence of the strength of the reinforcement on the morphology and optical properties of the composite nanofibers. The morphology and structure of the fibrous mats was examined by a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). UV –Vis spectroscopy allowed to examine the impact of zinc oxide on the optical properties of PVP/ZnO nanofibers and to investigate the width of the energy gap.