Zygmunt G. Wąsowicz, PhD emeritus of the Chair of Acoustics and Multimedia, Wrocław University of Technology, passed away on the 8th of January 2014. His whole professional career was associated with the acoustics. Dr. Z. Wąsowicz was born in Nowy Sącz in 1931. In 1956 he graduated from the Faculty of Telecommunications at the Wrocław University of Technology and started to work there in the same year. In 1966 he obtained the PhD title, under supervision of Professor Z. Żyszkowski, for the dissertation concerning the subjective criteria of nonlinear distortions in loudspeakers. His main interests of activity were room acoustics as well as subjective assessment of sound quality. He worked out the subjective method of loudspeaker evaluation for Polish Loudspeaker Company “Tonsil” – this method was based on so-called “the live apparent sound”. He worked also on computer methods of acoustical field modeling in rooms. The works mentioned above were pioneer and modern in Poland. He participated as an acoustician, in various designers groups at for example auditory halls of Faculty of Electronics. Dr. Wąsowicz was the outstanding academical teacher whom students liked very much. He was also a member of Polish Acoustical Society and worked for the Main Board as well as the Wrocław Division of this society. In periods 1979–1983 and 1994–1996 he was the vice-dean of Faculty of Electronics. He received many awards, for example Golden Cross of Merit, Knight’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, Medal of the National Education Commission and many awards from the Governors of Wrocław University of Technology and Institute of Telecommunications and Acoustics. In 1996 he was retired and beside of this he stayed in contact with Faculty of Electronics for many years. Wrocław acoustical community mourns the loss of Dr. Z. Wąsowicz.

The aim of this contribution is to present the theory of intentionality proposed by the Spanish Dominican Lope de Barrientos (1382–1469), as it is offered by his Clavis Sapentiae: in this erudite work, written at the turn of the 15th century in the context of the new-born School of Salamanca, the terms proper to the gnoseological lexicon of the Thomist scholasticism are taken into consideration, analysed and renewed in a new original way. This makes possible to demonstrate from one hand how the tradition opened by Thomas Aquinas is inherited in the upcoming Renaissance and from another hand to look how a typical Renaissance scholar as Barrientos builds a theory of knowledge that is original, although faithful to the Thomist tradition to which it has been continuously and cogently referred and consulted.

All local government units in Poland have been analysed regarding their consolidated debt. The consolidated debt was compared with the budget debt which is subject to monitoring and statutory restrictions. The scale of extra-budgetary debt has been revealed as recorded in the balance sheet of a local government unit, a parent entity. In practice, the consolidated balance sheet and debt presented in it are not subject to debates and analyses. Local governments refrain from auditing and publicising of the consolidated balance sheet. The article describes the risks related to unlimited local government debt.

The COVID-19 pandemic, and pandemics in general, affect socioeconomically disadvantaged people more severely. This is due not only to their precarious living, health, and working conditions, but also to public actions and omissions. However, their plight remains mostly invisible to the public, governments, and legislators, which raises many questions regarding respect of their fundamental rights. In this contribution, I explore these questions in light of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). On the basis of the corpus of literature in the field and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case law, I show that the Strasbourg Court has developed some protection for people in a precarious situation, especially under the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment and the right to private and family life. This case law is likely to be relevant to the protection of socioeconomically underprivileged people during pandemics. However, this protection is limited and imbued with pitfalls. Against this background, I show that there is an urgent need for practitioners and courts to explore an additional tool under the ECHR: the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of socioeconomic status. This tool can be used to tackle issues of misrecognition which particularly affect socioeconomically underprivileged people, who are more severely affected by public actions and omissions in the context of the current pandemic.

Recent years have witnessed the publication of a number of research papers and books seeking to assess threats of electoral victories of anti-establishment politicians and political parties, described as authoritarian populists. This essay focuses on three books directly addressing the origins and threats of authoritarian populism to democracy. It consists of six sections and the conclusion. The first section presents findings (Norris and Inglehart) based on surveys of values of voters of various age cohorts concluding that authoritarian populism is a temporary backlash provoked by the post-materialist perspective. The second section examines the contention, spelled out in Levitsky and Ziblatt, that increase in openness of American political system produced, unintentionally, a degradation of the American political system. The third section continues brief presentations focusing on to the causes and implications of “illiberal democracy,” and “undemocratic liberalism” (Mounk). The fourth section examines developments in the quality of democracy in the world showing that despite the decline in Democracy Indices, overall there was no slide towards non-democratic forms of government in 2006–2019. The next two sections deal with dimensions missing in reviewed books; the notion of nation-state, international environment, civic culture and, in particular, dangers of radical egalitarianism to democracy. The last section concludes with regrets that the authors ignored rich literature on fragility of democracy and failed to incorporate in their analyses deeper structural factors eroding democracy: by the same token, return to the pre-populist shock trajectory is unlikely to assure survival of liberal democracy.

This article presents values of porosity and compression strength of hard coals from the area of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin. The change of the stage of carbonification, which results from conversion of coal substance in the process of coalification, is a source of many changes in the structure of coal. These changes exert influence on values of physical parameters, including the values of porosity and strength. Porosity and compression strength change with the degree of carbonification, a result of the depth of deposition. This study determined the values of effective porosity of coals and their strength considering the age chronology of coal seams and the depth of their occurrence. It examined coals of the Cracow Sandstone Series, the Mudstone Series, the Upper Silesian Sandstone Series, and the Paralic Series from depths ranging from about 350 m to 1200 m. The authors have shown that effective porosity of the Upper Silesian coals changes for particular stratigraphic groups and assumes values from a few to a dozen or so per cent, while compression strength from several to several dozen megapascals. It has been observed, from a chronostratigraphic perspective, that there is a shifting of the upper and lower limits of intervals of porosity variations towards higher values for younger coals. With the increase in compression strength, value of porosity in particular stratigraphic groups generally decreases. However, no regular changes were observed in mean, uniaxial compressive strength with the increase in the age of subsequent stratigraphic groups. On the other hand, for bright coal and semi-bright coal, a visible decrease in compression strength with the depth of deposition of strata was observed.

The exploration of mineral resources is an area of strategic importance for the pace of further development of all industries. The results of companies deciding to carry out exploration work depend on further investments of mining companies, i.e. the entities purchasing full deposit documentation. Being at the beginning of the entire mining process, junior mines assume a high risk related to investments enabling the commencement of works without providing high guarantees of the project’s success. Companies running these types of projects must seek funding in a variety of ways. One of these is to try to raise capital from the stock trading markets. However, the specificity of junior companies does not allow them to start on the main trading floors, hence the decision to enter alternative markets. In considering the broader context of the activities of junior mines, research was conducted on companies listed on the London Alternative Investment Market (AIM). In the first part, this concerned the market characteristics – the market value added values were determined for selected ranges of market capitalization. In the second part, which is a statistical study, factors that may affect their market value was checked. The analysis covered both traditional value drivers – related to revenues, the demand for net working capital, investment expenses and the cost of equity – and their supplementation with selected values of financial statements. The result of the analysis is a regression equation indicating the factors that have a statistically significant impact on the market value of junior mines listed on AIM London.

The impact of the Polish language on the English lexical fabric, although unimpressive, is worth noticing. However, thus far it has not been a source of interest of many scholars. The present paper aims at discussing Polish loanwords that have found their way into the English language; this is done by means of collecting alleged loanwords from an array of sources (dictionaries, subject literature, and the Internet) which are later verified against, inter alia, such etymological dictionaries as the Oxford English Dictionary. Next, in order to assess their scale of use, selected items are checked in a number of corpora available online. The research concludes that there are 33 direct borrowings from the Polish language (belonging to 8 semantic categories) present in English, and nearly half of them are yet unattested in the OED.

Today’s discussions concerning metonymy abound in distinctions that may be far from obvious for those who would like to get acquainted with the major achievements and directions of research in this field. That is why the article aims to trace the path that metonymy has covered within Cognitive Linguistics from its initial characterisation in the publication by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) to the present day. The article attempts to provide a general historical perspective on the phenomenon trying to indicate and discuss both the major trends as well as the consecutive stages in the development of the cognitive thought on metonymy. The author identifies different directions of expansion of the phenomenon, enumerates different types of metonymy, and its most frequently discussed dimensions. The article is concluded with an attempt to summarize the key elements of progress that has been made in understanding metonymy since 1980.

In the period 1950* 2020, international migration in Europe changed significantly. One of the most char-- acteristic features was the change in net migration from negative to positive. At the beginning of the twenty first century, Poland belonged to the minority of countrie s in this respect that is, it experienced strong emigration but only minor immigration. However, migration in Poland has also been changing. In the second decade of this century, the outflow of people has weakened, the inflow of migrants has increased an d the migration balance has become positive. I analyse these phenomena from the theoretical perspective of the migration transition that was experienced in the second half of the twentieth century by most countries in Western, Northern and Southern Europe. I attempt to answer the question of whether the latest migration phenomena prove that this transition is also occurring in Poland. In conclusion, I argue that the available toKeywords: migra date evidence provides an affirmative answer to this question.

Based on empirical research conducted in Hungary and Poland in 2016–2017, as well as on analysis of social media, blogs and newspaper articles, this article discusses Hungarian and Polish attitudes towards Muslims and Islam. Against a historical background, we analyse how the Hungarian and Polish governments responded to the large-scale influx of Muslim refugees during the 2015 ‘migration crisis’. The anti-immigrant narratives, fueled by both governments and the right-wing press, resulted in some-thing akin to Islamophobia without Muslims. Instead of portraying the people arriving at the southern border of Europe as refugees seeking safety, they described the migration process in terms such as ‘raid’, ‘conquest’ and ‘penetration’. These narratives often implied that Muslims will combat Europe not only with terrorism but with the uteruses of their women, who will bear enough children to outnum-ber native Poles and Hungarians. The paper ends with a discussion of positive attempts to improve attitudes towards refugees in Poland and Hungary.

Most satellites stationed in space use catalytic propulsion systems for attitude control and orbit adjustment. Hydrazine is consumed extensively as liquid monopropellant, in the thrusters. Catalytic reactor is the most important section in the catalytic thruster. Ammonia and nitrogen gases are produced as a result of complete catalytic decomposition of hydrazine in the reactor, causing an increase in temperature and a rise in specific impulse. Ammonia is subsequently decomposed, leading to nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Decomposition of ammonia leads to a decrease in temperature, molecular weight and specific impulse. The latter phenomenon is unavoidable. The effect of ammonia decomposition on the reactor temperature, molecular weight of gaseous products and conclusively on specific impulse was studied in this article. At adiabatic state, thermodynamic analysis revealed that the maximum and minimum temperatures were 1655 K and 773 K, respectively. The highest molecular weight was obtained at ammonia conversion of zero and the lowest when ammonia conversion was 100%. The maximum specific impulse (305.4 S) was obtained at ammonia conversion of zero and completely conversion of ammonia, the minimum specific impulse (about 213.7 s) was obtained. For specific impulse, the result of thermodynamic calculation in this work was validated by the empirical results.

For thin-walled structures invariably exposed to thermal and noise environment, their dynamic response is an extreme concern in the design of the component of advanced hypersonic aircraft. To address the problem, three theoretical models are established with three typical graded thermal distributions considered. By introducing the thermal moment, membrane forces and acoustic loadings into the vibration equation of plate, the governing equation is derived and it is solved combined with boundary conditions of the plate, the modal function and velocity compatibility equations at the fluid-structure coupling surface. The accuracy of the theoretical predictions is checked against finite element results with good agreement achieved. The results show that not the physical parameters with variation of temperature but the thermal moments and membrane forces, cause the buckling phenomenon. It is noted that buckling phenomenon occurs not only in uniform temperature field but also in graded temperature distribution filed. The mechanism analysis about modal snap-through and losing phenomenon indicates that thermoacoustic loadings will affect the stiffness matrix and mass matrix of structure. With the increase of temperature, the lower modes of the plate are lost, the higher modes appear in advance, and the losing phenomenon occurs in accordance with the order.

Acoustical analysis of snoring provides a new approach for the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS). A classification method is presented based on respiratory disorder events to predict the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) of OSAHS patients. The acoustical features of snoring were extracted from a full night’s recording of 6 OSAHS patients, and regular snoring sounds and snoring sounds related to respiratory disorder events were classified using a support vector machine (SVM) method. The mean recognition rate for simple snoring sounds and snoring sounds related to respiratory disorder events is more than 91.14% by using the grid search, a genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization methods. The predicted AHI from the present study has a high correlation with the AHI from polysomnography and the correlation coefficient is 0.976. These results demonstrate that the proposed method can classify the snoring sounds of OSAHS patients and can be used to provide guidance for diagnosis of OSAHS.

In this paper, a new Multi-Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLP NN) classifier is proposed for classifying sonar targets and non-targets from the acoustic backscattered signals. Besides the capabilities of MLP NNs, it uses Back Propagation (BP) and Gradient Descent (GD) for training; therefore, MLP NNs face with not only impertinent classification accuracy but also getting stuck in local minima as well as lowconvergence speed. To lift defections, this study uses Adaptive Best Mass Gravitational Search Algorithm (ABGSA) to train MLP NN. This algorithm develops marginal disadvantage of the GSA using the bestcollected masses within iterations and expediting exploitation phase. To test the proposed classifier, this algorithm along with the GSA, GD, GA, PSO and compound method (PSOGSA) via three datasets in various dimensions will be assessed. Assessed metrics include convergence speed, fail probability in local minimum and classification accuracy. Finally, as a practical application assumed network classifies sonar dataset. This dataset consists of the backscattered echoes from six different objects: four targets and two non-targets. Results indicate that the new classifier proposes better output in terms of aforementioned criteria than whole proposed benchmarks.

The acoustic vector sensor (AVS) is used to measure the acoustic intensity, which gives the direction-ofarrival (DOA) of an acoustic source. However, while estimating the DOA from the measured acoustic intensity the finite microphone separation (d) in a practical AVS causes angular bias. Also, in the presence of noise there exists a trade off between the bias (strictly increasing function of d) and variance (strictly decreasing function of d) of the DOA estimate. In this paper, we propose a novel method for mitigating the angular bias caused due to finite microphone separation in an AVS. We have reduced the variance by increasing the microphone separation and then removed the bias with the proposed bias model. Our approach employs the finite element method (FEM) and curves fitting to model the angular bias in terms of microphone separations and frequency of a narrowband signal. Further, the bias correction algorithm based on the intensity spectrum has been proposed to improve the DOA estimation accuracy of a broadband signal. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed bias correction scheme significantly reduces the angular bias and improves the root mean square angular error (RMSAE) in the presence of noise. Experiments have been performed in an acoustic full anechoic room to corroborate the effect of microphone separation on DOA estimation and the efficacy of the bias correction method.

Reverberation time (RT) is an important indicator of room acoustics, however, most studies focus on the mid-high frequency RT, and less on the low-frequency RT. In this paper, a hybrid approach based on geometric and wave methods was proposed to build a more accurate and wide frequency-band room acoustic impulse response. This hybrid method utilized the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method modeling at low frequencies and the Odeon simulation at mid-high frequencies, which was investigated in a university classroom. The influence of the low-frequency RT on speech intelligibility was explored. For the low-frequency part, different impedance boundary conditions were employed and the effectiveness of the hybrid method has also been verified. From the results of objective acoustical parameters and subjective listening experiments, the smaller the low-frequency RT was, the higher the Chinese speech intelligibility score was. The syllables, consonants, vowels, and the syllable order also had significant effects on the intelligibility score.

The contents of total P and its bioavailable forms. as well as of Fe, Al, Mn, Ca, and OM in the bottom sediments of the Solina-Myczkowce (S-E Poland) cascade of reservoirs, are presented. Notwithstanding a relatively low calcium content, it is the apatite fraction that accounts for the largest share of total phosphorus in the shallower parts of the Solina and Myczkowce Reservoirs. In turn, while contents of iron and aluminium (and manganese in the Solina Reservoir) are high, the fraction containing non-apatite inorganic phosphorus accounts for the smallest portion of the total phosphorus in the bottom sediments of both reservoirs. Bottom sediments of the Solina Reservoir are also characterised by significant correlations between total phosphorus content and aluminium content. Otherwise, significant correlations are reported for only some of the stations at each of the reservoirs.

The historic municipal park located in Zduńska Wola is covered in the central and northern part by conservator protection through an entry in the register of monuments and on the basis of an entry in the local spatial development plan. In terms of nature, the area has significant values due to old trees and the water system, which consists of two ponds fed by the Pichna River. As part of the preparatory work for the revalorization of the park, several studies and analyses were carried out, including assessment of the sanitary state of waters of Pichna River that supplies reservoirs. Degree of the river pollution made it impossible to restore the water system, the most important element of the park, while further supplying the ponds with river water. In order to ensure a satisfactory degree of purity and transparency of water in ponds, a decision was made to apply complex and modern technological solutions enabling the renovation of the water system. Project documentation was developed in 2015. After two years, they began to implement the project. Banks of both ponds were formed more gently, and the basins were deepened. Selection of vegetation around the reservoir and in the reservoir itself was based on the principle of biocenotic assumptions. The designed system is equipped with a circulation pump, skimmers, bottom drains, mechanical-mineral filter, swamp filter. This was to ensure adequate purification of water in ponds, based on natural processes, stimulated by the use of new, pro-ecological technologies.

Loads of N-NO3, N-NH4, PO4 and BOD5 carried in surface waters of the upper Dunajec catchment basin (at the section in Krościenko) in the years 1985–1998 are presented in this paper. Water quality of the Biały Dunajec (in Szaflary), Czarny Dunajec (in Ludźmierz) and Dunajec (in Krościenko) was characterised. Annual loads discharged from the area per km2 of the catchment were calculated from mean annual flows (SQ) and concentrations of studied components in river waters. Concentration of N-NO3 in waters of the Biały Dunajec was more than two times higher and that of phosphates – over seven times higher than the respective concentrations in the Czarny Dunajec and Dunajec. Different population density, numerous tourists and low level of water and sewage infra-structure were responsible for these differences.

This study presents the results of research on the effect of long-term use of phosphorus fertilizers on permanent sugar beet crops for more than 50 years and on the transformation of phosphate forms on light chestnut soil and its yield. Our work aims to establish the main factors of quantitative and qualitative changes in various phosphates in light chestnut soil. Despite the large amount of practical material, the influence duration of phosphorus fertilizer application has not been sufficiently studied on the irrigated soils of Kazakhstan. It should be noted that the current study was carried out in long-term stationary experimental sites for the production of sugar beet with permanent sowing. The introduction of phosphate fertilizers primarily on the permanent crops of sugar beets in the same norms contributes to a more significant increase in gross phosphorus reserves. The soil content of gross phosphorus for 58 years on the control and nitrogen-potassium variants show practically no changes. Furthermore, when phosphorus fertilizers are applied on the variant with the annual application of a single norm of phosphorus and its amount for 58 years (4400 kg∙ha–1 of application doses) its content increased by 2660 mg∙kg–1, and with the introduction of its one and a half norms (6600 kg of application doses) by 2860 mg∙kg–1 of soil.

This study aims to investigate how grazing is perceived across the Curvature Subcarpathians (Romania) by farmers. We investigate farmers’ attitudes toward and understanding of grazing practice and associated processes involving small ruminants (sheep and goats). Additionally, we review the scientific literature and new discussions about grazing vs overgrazing terms and changes in the Romanian small ruminant livestock. Results of the survey on the total of 101 case studies from villages in 3 counties (Damboviţa, Buzau, and Vrancea) show that: (i) grazing is differently perceived; (ii) most of the areas designated for grazing are located near riverbanks (over 55%); most of the respondents reported that the areas intended for grazing are quite close to the inhabited areas; distances are less than 2.5 km; and over 60% of respondents believe that the areas are continuously subject to soil degradation processes; (iii) answers given in connection with the issues addressed provide both relevance to the Curvature Subcarpathians (6792 km2) and the potential impact of higher pressure of grazing on local areas due to the discouragement of specific transhumance policies (more than 60% required subsidies). The average stocking density is about 4.7 head per ha. In general, beyond different farmers’ perceptions, a scientific question remains open regarding the quantitative impact of grazing on hydrological processes. Hence, a field survey (e.g., rainfall-runoff experiments) to assess grazing pressure on water and soil resources will be performed.