New Year’s Eve is an example of a situation in which urban residents are exposed to an almost continuous and increased noise level from the impulsive sounds sources – fireworks. This custom has become a source of many controversies related to the protection of human and animal health or environmental pollution. However, current legal regulations only slightly affect the subject of noise of fireworks and its harmfulness. Currently, it does not seem possible to completely prohibit the use of fireworks in urban areas, but this does not mean that it is not possible to decrease the degree of their annoyance.

The paper consists the issues of identification, analysis and assessment of impulsive noise of fireworks and acoustic climate during New Year’s Eve. Material presented refers to measurements of time series, frequency spectrum and values of noise parameters of selected fireworks. It was presented, among others, that the measured values exceed the criteria for occupational noise (LCpeak), due to the direct hazard of hearing loss, from 1.8 dB at a distance of 25 m and 6.2 dB at a distance of 15 m. Also this work discusses results of impulsive noise measurements of fireworks recorded during New Year’s Eve in years 2016–2017. Material refers to measurements at three measurement points spread over the city of Kraków. Obtained results were compared with typical noise levels for night time in urban area, indicating also the main sources of annoyance and hazard from this type of noise.

A mathematical model is proposed that makes it possible to describe in a conceptual and functional aspect the formation and application of a knowledge base (KB) for an intelligent information system (IIS). This IIS is developed to assess the financial condition (FC) of the company. Moreover, for circumstances related to the identification of individual weakly structured factors (signs). The proposed model makes it possible to increase the understanding of the analyzed economic processes related to the company's financial system. An iterative algorithm for IIS has been developed that implements a model of cognitive modeling. The scientific novelty of the proposed approach lies in the fact that, unlike existing solutions, it is possible to adjust the structure of the algorithm depending on the characteristics of a particular company, as well as form the information basis for the process of assessing the company's FC and the parameters of the cognitive model.

The paper covers the research on the process of solutionizing of 7075 aluminum alloy in cold tools during the stamping of a high-strength structural element (B-pillar’s base). For technological reasons, in order to obtain high strength parameters of the 7075 alloy, it is necessary to carry out a solutionization process, which allows to obtain dispersion strengthening during ageing process. Properly performed heat treatment of the alloy increases the strength of the material to approx. 600 MPa. The combination of the process of solutionization with simultaneous shaping is aimed at improving and simplifying technological operations of aluminum alloy stamping, shortening the duration of the manufacturing process and reducing production costs. The manufactured lower part of the B-pillar will be used for the verification of the validity of the developed method. During the experiment, a series of stamping tests were carried out, in which the lubricants, pressure and position of the upper and lower blankholders were the variables. The obtained results allow to estimate the influence of the cooling conditions on the strength of the drawpieces obtained after the process of artificial ageing. In order to verify and analyse the results more quickly, a numerical simulation was carried out.