Due to unfavorable factors, dangerous conditions occurred in the delivery of electric energy in Poland. This was the most serious incident of its kind since the 1980’s. Such a serious incident raised concern about the safety of the electric power system in the summer and led to the formulation of conclusions for the future. In this article, the author analyses the conditions, which caused that situation. Poland was experiencing a doubt in August 2015, which along with an extremely high maximum daily temperature created remarkably unfavorable conditions for power plants and decreased the capacity of overhead power lines. Such unfavorable metrological conditions occurred not only in Poland, but also in Central-Eastern and Western Europe. It is worth emphasizing that the safety of electric energy delivery was endangered only in Poland. The improper renovation and upkeep policies, as well as unplanned outages in power plants caused a significant decrease of available power in the National Electric Power System. Unscheduled flows between Germany and Poland ruled out the possibility of importing electric energy at such a critical time. The author presents the correlation between the maximum daily air temperature in the sweltering heat and an increase in the demand for electric energy. Overall, unfavorable conditions posed a threat in the delivery of electric energy in Poland. In this article, the author draws attention to the report from the Supreme Audit Office (Najwyższa Izba Kontroli – NIK) from 2014, which predicted such a dangerous situation. Unfortunately, that report remained unnoticed. The author formulated appropriate solutions in order to increase the safety of electric energy delivery in the summer and to prevent such occurrences in the future.

The subject of the study are strategies for the development of 9 cities, which are among the strongest centres outside the current capitals of regions (in Polish: voivodeships) in the least-developed Polish regions. These cities can give the chance to activate their surroundings. Good strategies that increase the competitiveness of cities and stimulate development can contribute to this. The aim of the research was to fi nd answers to the questions whether and to what extent the studied strategies: (1) are in line with the definition and methodology of strategic planning; (2) recognize and use specific combinations of developmental factors; (3) can contribute to the development of their surroundings. The research method involved the analysis of the strategic plans in the light of the above questions. The strategies studied are not fully in line with the strategy defi nition. They contain errors and methodological flaws commonly encountered in other strategies. They use the specificity of developmental factors, but without conscious, methodical recognition of their combinations and without exposing them. The author signals methodical problems specific to the strategic planning in territorial units and makes suggestions for planning practice.

The purpose of the article is to show how the TV-series—one of the most important forms of television production — is incorporated into the daily routines of the spectators. Michel de Certeau perspective of applied sociology of everyday life and critical reflection on everyday life is used as a theoretical framework. In the case of TV-series, the routines can take a form of: (1) “logging in” and “reading”” TV-series, (2)movement and sociability routines, and (3) discursive development of received meanings. “Soap opera experience” consists mainly of linguistic practices cultivated while watching the series, which is a modern form of storytelling, socializing, which changes the audiences’ view of reality, its social framework for evaluation and interpretation. A viewer is critical and active; they use consumption processes as an excuse to construct their own meanings and narratives, and negotiate the meaning of what is presented to them.

The obligation of states to guarantee the sustainable use of the natural resources of the seas and oceans is a result of the regulations of international law. Above all, these emphasize the necessity of linking the process of managing those resources with protection of the marine environment in which they occur. Less attention, however, is paid to the social consequences of not fulfilling the duty to use resources sustainable. The subject of this article is the heterogeneous scope of rights and duties of individual states to use marine resources, dependent on the geographical localization of these resources. Attention will also be given to the central role which is fulfilled, in the context o f the law of the sea, by the whole set of legal principles, according to which states using resources should be guided with the aim of ensuring the sustainable exploitation of those resources.

Effects of mixing on the course of fast chemical reactions are relatively well understood, especially in homogeneous systems. This enables to design and operate chemical reactors with the goal to achieve a high yield of a desired product and use systems of complex reactions as a chemical probe (chemical test reactions) to identify progress of mixing and quality of mixture. Recently, a number of studies have focused on the application of chemical test reactions to identify energy efficiency of mixing, being a convenient way of comparing mixers and reactors in terms of their mixing efficiency. This review offers a presentation of chemical test reactions available in the literature and methods of applications of test reactions to identify the energy efficiency of mixing. Also methods to assess the extent of micromixing by measuring product distribution or segregation index, and to determine the time constant for mixing are presented for single phase homogeneous systems and two-phase liquid-liquid systems.

Reliable estimation of longitudinal force and sideslip angle is essential for vehicle stability and active safety control. This paper presents a novel longitudinal force and sideslip angle estimation method for four-wheel independent-drive electric vehicles in which the cascaded multi-Kalman filters are applied. Also, a modified tire model is proposed to improve the accuracy and reliability of sideslip angle estimation. In the design of longitudinal force observer, considering that the longitudinal force is the unknown input of the electric driving wheel model, an expanded electric driving wheel model is presented and the longitudinal force is obtained by a strong tracking filter. Based on the longitudinal force observer, taking into consideration uncertain interferences of the vehicle dynamic model, a sideslip angle estimation method is designed using the robust Kalman filter and a novel modified tire model is proposed to correct the original tire model using the estimation results of longitudinal tire forces. Simulations and experiments were carried out, and effectiveness of the proposed estimation method was verified.

Obtaining discrete data is inseparably connected with losing information on surface properties. In contact measurements, the ball tip functions as a mechanical-geometrical filter. In coordinate measurements the coordinates of the measurement points of a discrete distribution on the measured surface are obtained. Surface geometric deviations are represented by a set of local deviations, i.e. deviations of measurement points from the nominal surface (the CAD model), determined in a direction normal to this surface. The results of measurements depend both on the ball tip diameter and the grid size of measurement points. This article presents findings on the influence of the ball tip diameter and the grid size on coordinate measurement results along with the experimental results of measurement of a free-form milled surface, in order to determine its local geometric deviations. One section of the surface under research was measured using different measurement parameters. The whole surface was also scanned with different parameters, observing the rule of selecting the tip diameter d and the sampling interval T in the ratio of 2:1.

The development of the crystallographic texture in copper subjected to severe plastic deformation (SPD) by means of high pressure torsion (HPT) and equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) was experimentally investigated and analyzed by means of computer modelling. It was demonstrated, that the texture developed in HPT and ECAP Cu is characterized by significant inhomogeneity. Therefore, the analysis focused on the study of the texture distribution and its inhomogeneity in sample space. The detailed texture analysis, based on the X-ray diffraction technique, led to important observations concerning the localization of the maximum texture gradient and the regularity of its changes related to the parameters of the applied deformation. The obtained results provided the basis for certain conclusions concerning complex texture changes in SPD Cu.

The text is an overview of the first volume of the lexical atlas of the Russian folk dialects. It presents modern cartographic methods used in the volume and types of maps contained therein. In order to better present the volume, one exemplary map is analysed, indicating its advantages and drawbacks. In conclusion the richness of the Russian dialectal lexical material, which was precisely geographically located, is stressed. This is the biggest merit of the atlas.

Since Vatican II there have been issued many Church documents of different rank, which are explicitly devoted to dialogue with non-Christian religions or contain statements on the matter; there is also a very comprehensive bibliography on interreligious dialogue. The article presents three issues which occupy a signifcant place in these works. The frst is the theological bases for dialogue. They have been expressed in the trinitarian structure. At the heart of the dialogue is faith in God, the creator and father of all people, in the Son, through whom universal salvation took place and the Spirit, which everywhere personifes the salvation work of God in three persons. The second issue, which is the content of the article, expresses a unique position of Judaism in dialogue of Christianity with other religions. The importance of Israel for the emergence and existence of the Church, and at the same time for her salvation role for the entire Jewish people, is an important spur to the refection on the salvation relationship of christianity to other religions. The dialogue is diffcult to operate without a proper spiritual attitude. This issue is the subject of interest of the third point in the article. Spirituality shaped by attitudes of conversion and submission to the will of God, especially in the prayerful elation of the human heart, becomes a source of behaviours which are conducive to dialogue.

The paper deals with application of the Gumbel model to evaluation of the environmental loads. According to recommendations of Eurocodes, the conventional method of determining return period and characteristic values of loads utilizes the theory of extremes and implicitly assumes that the cumulative distribution function of the annual or other basic period extremes is the Gumbel distribution. However, the extreme value theory shows that the distribution of extremes asymptotically approaches the Gumbel distribution when the number of independent observations in each observation period from which the maximum is abstracted increases to infinity. Results of calculations based on simulation show that in practice the rate of convergence is very slow and significantly depends on the type of parent results distribution, values of coefficient of variation, and number of observation periods. In this connection, a straightforward purely empirical method based on fitting a curve to the observed extremes is suggested.

The paper presents a spatial model of the satellite antenna with an arbitrary number of flexible arms. Such a system is an example of an open kinematic chain with a tree-like structure. The modification of the rigid finite element method is used to discretise flexible links. The equations of motion are derived from the Lagrange equations and the motion of the system is described using joint coordinates and homogenous transformations. Numerical simulations have been carried out to analyse how the method of extending the arms influences the dynamics of the system.

The paper presents a simulation model of the hybrid magnetic bearing dedicated to simulations of transient state. The proposed field-circuit model is composed of two components. The first part constitutes a set of ordinary differential equations that describes electrical circuits and mechanics. The second part of the simulation model consists of parameters such as magnetic forces, dynamic inductances and velocity-induced voltages obtained from the 3D finite element analysis. The MATLAB/Simulnik softwarewas used to implement the simulation model with the required control system. The proposed field-circuit model was validated by comparison of time responses with the prototype of the hybrid magnetic bearing.

The resistance parameters of timber structures decrease with time. It depends on the type of load and timber classes. Strength reduction effects, referred to as creep-rupture effects, due to long term loading at high stress ratio levels are known for many materials. Timber materials are highly affected by this reduction in strength with duration of load. Characteristic values of load duration and load duration factors are calibrated by means of using probabilistic methods. Three damage accumulation models are considered, that is Gerhard [1] model, Barret, Foschi[2] and Foshi Yao [3] models. The reliability is estimated by means of using representative short- and long-term limit states. Time variant reliability aspects are taken into account using a simple representative limit state with time variant strength and simulation of whole life time load processes. The parameters in these models are fitted by the Maximum Likelihood Methods using the data relevant for Polish structural timber. Based on Polish snow data over 45 years from mountain zone in: Zakopane – Tatra, Świeradów – Karkonosze, Lesko – Bieszczady, the snow load process parameters have been estimated. The reliability is evaluated using representative short – and long –term limit states, load duration factor kmod is obtained using the probabilistic model.