Concrete hollow thin-walled high piers (CHTWHPs) located in mountainous areas may be destroyed by the huge impact force of accidental rocks. The study focuses on analyzing the effects of rock impact on the pier, including its impact force, pier damage, dynamic response, and energy dissipation characteristics. The results show that: (1) Increasing the impact height led to a decrease in the peak impact force. Specifically, 15.5% decrease in the peak collision force is induced when the height of rock collision rises from 10 m to 40 m. (2) The damage mode of the pier’s collision surface is mainly oval damage with symmetrical center, radial damage on the side surface, and corner shear failure on the cross section. (3) The peak displacement of bridge pier increases with the increase of collision height. As the collision height increased from 10 m to 40 m, the bridge pier’s peak displacement also increased, rising by 104.2%. (4) The concrete internal energy gradually decreased with increasing collision height, dropping by 36.9% when the height of rock collision rises from 10 m to 40 m. The reinforcement internal energy showed an increase of 78%. The results of this study may provide reference for the rock collision resistance design of CHTWHPs.

The purpose of this study was to present the current state of avifauna in the vicinity of Polish Polar Station, at Hornsund (SW Spitsbergen). During four seasons (2003-2006) ten bird species were recorded as breeding there. Among them colonial little auk and Arctic tern were most abundant. Six additional species were noted during the breeding season but none of them bred there and their visits in the study plots were a consequence of their nesting nearby study area. Remaining 11 species were recorded during migration. The most pronounced changes over the last 35 years has been a considerable increase in number of barnacle geese exploiting the tundra as their foraging and resting area.

The influences of various operating conditions including cathode inlet air flow rate, electrolyte temperature and fuel particles size on the performance of the direct carbon fuel cell DCFC were presented and discussed in this paper. The experimental results indicated that the cell performance was enhanced with increases of the cathode inlet gas flow rate and cell temperature. Binary alkali hydroxide mixture (NaOH-LiOH, 90-10 mol%) was used as electrolyte and the biochar of apple tree origin carbonized at 873 K was used as fuel. Low melting temperature of the electrolyte and its good ionic conductivity enabled to operate the DCFC at medium temperatures of 723-773 K. The highest current density (601 A m−2) was obtained for temperature 773 K and air flow rate 8.3×106 m3s−1. Itwas shown that too low or too high air flow rates negatively affect the cell performance. The results also indicated that the operation of the DCFC could be improved by proper selection of the fuel particle size.

In this article some key events concerning founding Polish Section of the Audio Engineering Society were presented. In addition, the history covering International Symposia on Sound Engineering and Mastering was outlined. Also, papers contained in this issue were shortly reviewed.

The aim of the paper is to highlight St. Anselm’s way of thinking about nature and order in the world created by God. God for Anselm is the highest nature, one which exists most fully; He possesses the fullness of being, because His essence is identical to His existence. He is the cause of all existing things and does not have a cause Himself, for He exists per se. The order of nature may be observed in two ways: when departing from the diversity of existing beings and when considering these beings before their creation, existing in the divine intellect as ideas and models, after which God called into existence particular objects.

Moje rozważania dotyczą jednego z podstawowych tematów egzystencjalnych. Śmierć jest przynależna ludzkiej kondycji, ale w kulturze Zachodu pozostawia się na nią coraz mniej miejsca. Można to interpretować jako rezultat tego, co Paul Tillich nazywał utratą „egzystencjalistycznego punktu widzenia”, rezultat wzmocniony przez rozwój kapitalizmu i zwycięstwo mieszczaństwa. Kiedyś o śmierci mówiło się otwarcie, istniały rytuały jej uszanowania, przejścia, kontaktowania się z nią i zachowania się po niej. Dziś śmierć stała się tematem nieprzyzwoitym, niewymawialnym. Efektem tego jest, że tak umierający człowiek, jak i osoba w żałobie nie mają o tym z kim porozmawiać. Ten proces wypierania śmierci jest długotrwały. Jego wczesne przejawy odnotowywał m.in. Walter Benjamin (w świecie jego bogatych krewnych nikt nie umierał, wszyscy byli nieśmiertelni, umierało się daleko, w sanatoriach). Dziś ludzie pytają psychologów, czy to normalne, że czują smutek po śmierci bliskich. Jednym ze sposobów przywrócenia śmierci miejsca w naszym doświadczeniu jest snucie o niej opowieści.

lt seems to be of great importance to collect all possible data which will finally allow us to write the chapter of the history of Sanskrit literature which has never been thoroughly written, namely the one concerning the literary activity of lndian women. lt is high time to notice the presence of Sanskrit literature written by them and to try to understand their place and role in the world of Sanskrit culture dominated by men writers, however not exclusively. Every piece of information we are still able to gather makes the picture more complete and deepens our knowledge. The present article is devoted to Svati Tirunal Ambadevi Tampuratti of Cemprol Kottaram (1890-1928), the authoress from the Kingdom of Travancore, composing both in Sanskrit and her mother tongue, Malayalam.

The article describes the Roman Catholic understanding of the ecumenical dialogue as stated in the Decree on ecumenism of the Second Vatican Council and in further documents of the RC Church. This ecumenical dialogue may be conducted only among Christian Churches and Church Communities as it aims the restoration of full visible unity of Christians.

The dialogue should primarily lead to the common rediscovery of the truth, and never to any kind of establishing the truth, of elaborating it or reaching the compromise. The true dialogue has nothing to do with negotiating the common position, where each party wants to force oneself upon another and to make the less concessions possible. This is because we cannot reduce the requirements of the Gospel to any kind of necessary minimum, a common basis recognized by all the churches and ecclesial communities.

Such a dialogue contains its inner dynamics, its existential dimension. The truth is personal, as Christ himself is the Truth, so the search for unity belongs to the proper essence of being a Christian. So the ecumenical dialogue is “an imperative of Christian conscience” (John Paul II), so it is something that inevitably ought to be taken and accomplished by Christians.

The ecumenical dialogue however is not the goal for itself. Neither it is only mutual recognition of Christian Communities or even common prayer. The common aimis the restoration of full visible unity of divided Churches. On the way of ecumenism we cannot limit to the prayer or the ecumenical dialogue. On the contrary – we should develop all the possible ways of collaboration, because unity of action leads to the full unity of faith. Neither the unity nor uniformity of doctrine or churchly traditions, but only the unity in one faith is the far-reaching goal of the ecumenical dialogue.

The documents of the RC Church give also clear hints how to lead the ecumenical dialogues: the dialoguing parties must be expert in theology, seeking the truth, not a victory, moving from easier topics to the more diffcult ones, trying to use the language free of polemical connotations.

Before the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church didn’t lead any offcial ecumenical dialogue, what didn’t mean the lack of any ecumenical encounters. The first ones, however, were unoffcial and did not engage the offcial Church authority. Widespread engagement in the ecumenical dialogues in the time of popes Paul VI and John Paul II can be justly perceived as a direct fruit of the Second Vatican council and its Decree on ecumenism.

During the decades the commissions of dialogue have already elaborated thousands of pages of common statements and agreed declarations. The Churches must be however aware, that without strong effort of reception of these documents in their midst, the fruits of the dialogues will have no infuence on the reconciliation of Christians in one faith.

Even if there may be some kind of deception because of slowness of ecumenical process, we can be certain that meetings in the dialogue enabled Christians of various Churches an Church Communities to grow towards full, visible unity wanted by our Lord for His disciples.

A certain non-linear differential equation containing a power of unknown function being the solution is considered with application to selected geotechnical problems. The equation can be derived to a linear differential equation by a proper substitution and properties of operations G and S.

Based on the results of our research, we present the mechanisms of population changes, explain their causes and indicate possible consequences. We responded to such initiatives as “Demographic Strategy 2040. Project” prepared by the Ministry of Family and Social Policy and the draft act on the Polish Institute of Family and Demography submitted by a group of members of the Law and Justice Parliamentary Club. The above opinions are presented in the text. The proposal of the Demographic Strategy focuses on fertility. In fact demographic development is reduced to low fertility without taking into account other components of the population reproduction as mortality, health and migration. While these demographic processes are closely interrelated and cannot be analysed separately when considering about the demographic future. The parliamentary draft contains beautiful intentions indicating the need for demographic research and analysis, but it devotes just one paragraph to scientific research. The document does not refer to institutions conducting demographic research in the country, neither in international cooperation, nor to insufficient financing of this research in Poland.