The conviction that hate speech is somehow acceptable in online communication may have disastrous consequences, threatening to turn us into a hostile society devoid of empathy or even basic manners.
The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.
Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.
Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.
As many as three international disputes containing allegations of infringement of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Racial Discrimination (ICERD) have been brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), thus contributing to the number of cases allowing the Court to pronounce itself on the international human rights law. Even though none of the cases invoking violations of ICERD has been (yet) adjudicated on the merits, they have already provided an opportunity to clarify (at least in part) the compromissory clause enshrined in Art. 22 of ICERD, as well as to tackle some other issues related to provisional measures ordered by the Court. This article discusses the ICJ’s approaches to the application of ICERD in the three above-mentioned cases, while posing the question whether indeed the 1965 Convention can be useful as a tool for settling inter-state disputes. The author claims that ICERD and the broad definition of “racial discrimination” set out in its Art. 1 constitute cornerstones for the international protection of human rights, though the recourse to the procedures provided in Art. 22 of ICERD – vital as they are – should not necessarily be perceived as a better alternative to the inter-state procedures and the functions exercised by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
The occurrence of gas confined in shales allows us to consider it as a component of the host rock. During drilling wells, the gas is released into the drilling fluid from finely ground gas-bearing rock particles. The amount of gas released can be determined on the basis of mud-gas logging; in addition, it is possible to determine the gas-content in shales expressed by the volume of gas released per mass unit of rock [m3/ton]. The gas content in the Ordovician and Silurian shales (Sasin formation and Jantar member respectively) in two selected wells in northern Poland was determined using this method. It has been found that clearly distinguishable, highly gas-bearing sections, which are separated by very poorly gas-bearing ones, can be determined in the well log. The increased gas content in shales can be observed in zones generally enriched in TOC. No direct correlation between TOC and gas-bearing capacity was found however, but the structure of TOC variability and the gas-bearing capacity described using variograms is identical. Correlations of the distinguished gas-bearing layers in the wells under consideration suggest a multi-lens or multi-layered reservoir model. The lack of natural boundaries in the shale gas reservoir means that they must be determined arbitrarily based on the assumed marginal gas-bearing capacity. In the case of several gas-bearing zones, numerous variants of interpretation are possible. In any case the low, best and high estimated resources may be evaluated, assigned to each borehole in the area with radii equal to the range of variogram of gas content in horizontal part of the well.
In the summer of 2019 as the UK was in the midst of heated Brexit debates and Theresa May’s minority government clung on to power, Professor Louise Ryan interviewed Professor Nira Yuval-Davis about her recent book Bordering (Yuval-Davis, Wemyss and Cassidy 2019). Although things have changed in some significant ways since that interview, for example Boris Johnson has now replaced Theresa May as Prime Minister, and won a landslide election victory in December, 2019, and the controversial Brexit Bill was passed by the British Parliament, many of the issues about borders and bordering remain extremely relevant today. The current pandemic has not only revealed Britain’s dependence on migrant workers, especially in health and social care, but also exposed health inequalities among migrants and ethnic minorities. As the post-Brexit immigration landscape begins to emerge, the analysis of Nira Yuval Davis remains as pertinent as ever.
The engine simulations have become an integral part of engine design and development. They are based on approximations and assumptions. The precision of the results depends on the accuracy of these hypotheses. The simplified models of frozen composition, chemical equilibrium and chemical kinetics provide the compositions of combustion products for engine cycle simulations. This paper evaluates the effects of different operating conditions and hypotheses on the exergetic analysis of a spark-ignition engine. The Brazilian automotive market has the highest number of flex-fuel vehicles. Therefore, a flex-fuel engine is considered for simulations in order to demonstrate the effects of these different hypotheses. The stroke length and bore diameter have the same value of 80 mm. The in-cylinder irreversibility is calculated for each case at the closed part of the engine cycle. A comparative analysis of these hypotheses provides a comprehensive evaluation of their effects on exergetic analysis. Higher values of accumulated irreversibility are observed for the oversimplified hypothesis.
If we want to provide the efficient training intervention to increase the duration of using hearing protection devices (HPDs) by workers, we need a tool that can estimate the person’s hearing threshold taking into account noise exposure level, age, and work history, and compare them with audiometry to find out the percent reduction of workers hearing loss.
First, the workers noise exposure level was determined according to ISO 9612, then 4000 Hz audiometry was done to find age and work history. On basis of ISO 1999 the hearing threshold was estimated and if the hearing protection device was not used continuously and correctly, the hearing protection device’s actual performance was reduced adjusted with person’s audiometry. After training intervention, the estimate was done again and was compared with the adjusted audiometry.
According to ISO 1999 standard estimation results, the percent reduction of the workers hearing loss level was 6.48 dB in intervention group. This level remained unchanged in control group. The mean score of hearing threshold estimation (standard ISO 1999) was statistically more significant than mean score of hearing threshold (p-value ¡ 0.001). The results show not significant change in control group due to lack of changing of noise exposure level.
In regards to the results of hearing threshold estimation based on ISO 1999 and comparing with workers audiometry, it can be seen that BASNEF training intervention increases the duration of using the HPDs and it could be effective in reducing hearing threshold related to noise.
In this paper, the authors analyse the propagation of surface Love waves in an elastic layered waveguide (elastic guiding layer deposited on an elastic substrate) covered on its surface with a Newtonian liquid layer of finite thickness. By solving the equations of motion in the constituent regions (elastic substrate, elastic surface layer and Newtonian liquid) and imposing the appropriate boundary conditions, the authors established an analytical form of the complex dispersion equation for Love surface waves. Further, decomposition of the complex dispersion equation into its real and imaginary part, enabled for evaluation of the phase velocity and attenuation dispersion curves of the Love wave. Subsequently, the influence of the finite thickness of a Newtonian liquid on the dispersion curves was evaluated. Theoretical (numerical) analysis shows that when the thickness of the Newtonian liquid layer exceeds approximately four penetration depths 4δ of the wave in a Newtonian liquid, then this Newtonian liquid layer can be regarded as a semi-infinite half-space. The results obtained in this paper can be important in the design and optimization of ultrasonic Love wave sensors such as: biosensors, chemosensors and viscosity sensors. Love wave viscosity sensors can be used to assess the viscosity of various liquids, e.g. liquid polymers.