The strategic goals of EU energy development have been clarified, based on efforts to increase and comply with environmental protection requirements, reducing energy consumption in the manufacturing and service sector, reduce dependence on energy imports, and increase the involvement of renewable resources in energy. The structure of the unified energy system of Ukraine was monitored. The volumes of electricity released by various power-generating enterprises in Ukraine, as well as the existing capacity of main and inter-state electric power grids for transmission of electricity, were analyzed. The volume of electricity exports and imports of the unified energy system of Ukraine and its possibilities to increase exports to the EU countries have been diagnosed. It has been proven that due to the change in the operating model of the electricity market the liberalization of the electricity market of Ukraine promotes the attraction of investment resources aimed at branching the possibilities of importing electricity generated in Ukraine into the ENTSO-E system. The structural tendencies of changes in generated electricity in final consumption at the expense of renewable energy sources of the European countries and Ukraine were studied. Options for increasing the efficiency of renewable energy sources are proposed The use of renewable energy sources on the basis of leveling out certain disadvantages is proposed. The directions improve the management of electricity enterprises in the conditions of the European integration choice of Ukraine including towards attracting investment resources through the use of public-private partnerships to improve the efficiency of the energy system of Ukraine are substantiated.

Biodiversity conservation cannot operate in Central Eastern European countries without a well-established monitoring system, that is dependent on the citizen scientists input. Here we analyse, based on a Polish case: (1) The contribution of NGOs to the national nature monitoring scheme and their collaboration with governmental and scientific institutions and (2) the motivation of citizen scientists to volunteer for NGOs’ monitoring activities. The study comprises a focus group interview, 30 in-depth interviews with coordinators, citizen scientists, experts and a 23 days long participant observation of a model NGO. We have assessed the monitoring input of NGOs as being a contributory factor influencing the biodiversity conservation effectiveness. The cooperation between governmental, scientific institutions and NGOs exists, but is dependent on national funding. Although NGOs highlight the lack of coherence in monitoring methodology, they are willing to join the biodiversity monitoring, especially at the European Ecological Network – Natura 2000 sites. On the other hand the trust concerning cooperation with citizen scientists is limited. However, despite this, they still turned out to be trustworthy partners. The most effective way to maintain cooperation with citizen scientists is to create a bond in a group and to provide them with the opportunity to develop their passion for nature. Our findings have shed light on the growing importance of citizen scientists in biodiversity governance, providing recommendations for development of the effective monitoring schemes based on the volunteer work of citizen scientists.

Global brown coal resources are estimated to be extracted at around 512 million Mg. They are found in over a dozen countries, including primarily: Australia, China, the Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, Poland, Russia, the United States and Turkey. More than 80% of total brown coal production in the EU takes place in: Germany, Poland, Greece and the Czech Republic. This means that the majority of production still uses conventional fuels, including both hard coal and brown coal. Given the current energy needs in the context of brown coal reserves depletion and the impacts of the current climate and energy policies of the EU, it is very important that all new investments in mining and energy complexes based on brown coal resources must be prepared carefully to ensure high production efficiency and minimize negative environmental impacts. This article attempts to solve a problem involving the choice of the location of the opening cut to expose brown coal deposits. Due to the stratified nature of brown coal deposits and the associated open-cast mining technology used in a continuous mining system with bucket wheel excavators, belt conveyor systems and spreaders, the location of the opening cut is not completely random and the number of potential solutions is finite. The multifaceted technical, organizational, economic, social and environmental problems require a holistic approach to this research problem. Such an approach should take the different, often opposing, perspectives of the many stakeholders into account. These issues can be solved using mathematical tools designed for multiple-criteria decision support. With the proposed method, a ranking of alternatives can be created, depending on the predefined location of the opening cut.

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships between emotional intelligence (EI) and temperament. It was assumed that the two main components of EI – experiential and strategic – have different temperament correlates. One hundred and four Polish university students aged 19 to 26 completed self-descriptive questionnaires of temperament and emotional intelligence. The results confirmed that the relationship with temperament depends on the examined component of EI. Acceptance of emotions (which is a subcomponent of experiential EI) only correlated with two temperamental traits – activity and briskness. Many more dependencies were found in relation to strategic EI. Endurance, strength of inhibition, sensory sensitivity and perseveration turned out to be significant predictors of emotional control, which jointly explained 44% of the variance in results, while perseveration and sensory sensitivity explained 28% of the variance in results on the understanding emotions scale. Based on the results obtained, it can be assumed that the configuration of temperament traits that determines a high capacity for processing stimulation is most conductive to strategic EI. Other propitious traits include those that determine the speed of neural processes, flexibility and ease of adaptation to changing conditions as well as a low sensitivity threshold to sensory stimulus.

Two cognate groups of appellatives appear in the West Germanic languages: OE. līra m. ‘muscle, soft parts of the body’, E. lire ‘fl esh, muscle, brawn’, MDu. liere f. ‘fleshy part of the leg, calf’ (< PGm. *līzán-) and MLG. liese ‘thin skin’, LG. liëse f. ‘layer of fat around the kidneys’ (< PGm. *lī́san-). The words under discussion straight forwardly derive from the Proto-Indo-European archetype *léh1is-on- (gen. sg. *leh1is-n-ós)m. ‘soft, fl eshy part of the body’, which is closely related to the Proto-Indo-European adjective *léh1isos (o-stem) ‘soft, lean (of meat)’, cf. Lith. líesas adj. ‘lean (of meat), thin, non-greasy, slim, skimmed, infertile’, Latv. liẽss adj. ‘lean (of meat), thin, non-greasy, slim, infertile (of soil)’, Gk. λεῖος adj. ‘level, smooth, rubbed, well-ground’. Other nouns derived from the same adjective fre-quently denote ‘soft organs (of the body)’ in Indo-European languages, e.g. Latv. liêsa f. ‘spleen’; Hitt. lēši n. ‘liver’; Arm. leard ‘liver’; Toch. A lyyā (pl.) ‘parts of the body’, Toch. B lyyāsa (pl.) ‘members (of the body)’ (< PIE. *leh1is-).

The subject of the present study is the persuasive function of irony in a special type of media discourse called socio-political editorial. The use of irony enables the journalist to establish the axiological domain of editorial in order to reinforce the information content and manipulate the readers’ opinions. Therefore, the main aim of the paper is to describe the problem of language manipulation in verbal irony considered by the author as one of semantico-rhetorical means of evaluation. The analyzed articles were culled from selected web pages of French journals and magazines (2005-2008) treating about two types of social reforms and the urban violence in French suburbs.

The present paper describes the temporary language situation in Sweden. The country has a high rate of immigration and large minority groups have lived in Sweden for many hundreds of years. In order to reflect its cultural and language diversity Sweden has developed its own Language Law. This establishes Swedish as the main language in Sweden and declares five other languages to be national minority languages: Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, Yiddish and Sami. Furthermore, the country’s language law protects and at the same time promotes Swedish Sign language. Swedish communes offer free Swedish courses for adult immigrants and immigrant children attend courses in Swedish as a Second Language both in primary and secondary school. Due to the multinational composition of Swedish suburbs a new variety of Swedish called rinkebysvenska has developed. This variety is characterized by many loan words from other languages, divergent pronunciation, morphology and syntax. Rinkebysvenska is used primarily by young immigrants living in Stockholm, Göteborg and Malmö and has assumed the status not only of a Sociolect, but also of a special Swedish slang. The mobility of Swedish inhabitants within the country has led to a smoothing out of Swedish dialects so that differences can only be observed in pronunciation. On the other hand, there is a strong tendency to protect and develop Övdalian – one of the dialects that differs most from Swedish.

Poles are today the largest group of family immigrants to Norway. Since Polish immigration is an intra-Euro-pean movement of labour, there are no specific laws or regulations, apart from labour regulations, pertaining to the introduction of Polish families to Norway and their settlement there. Consequently, there are few guidelines in schools and local authorities on dealing with Polish children in school. They receive the same introduction to school as immigrants from any other background, with no considera-tion of the specific characteristics of Poles. Equally, their parents are not eligible for the orientation courses and language classes that are offered to adult asylum seekers or refugees. As these are expen-sive, many Polish parents postpone language classes until they can afford them or find alternative ways of learning language and culture. In this article, I explore the inclusion of Polish children in Norwegian schools through the voices of teachers receiving Polish children in their classrooms and Polish mothers of children attending school in Norway. Interviews with both teachers and mothers reveal inadequate understandings of each other’s conceptions of school, education and the roles of home and school in the education of children. They also demonstrate a limited understanding of culturally bound interpre-tations of each other’s actions. Although both sides are committed to the idea of effective integration, we risk overlooking the social and academic challenges that Polish children face in Norwegian schools unless conceptions and expectations of school and education are articulated and actions are explained and contextualised. There is also a risk that cultural differences will be perceived as individual prob-lems, while real individual problems may be overlooked due to poor communication between schools and families. The data is drawn from an extended case study including classroom observations, inter-views with teachers and Polish mothers in Norway, and focus groups of educators and researchers in the field of social work.

In contrast to the usual integration of migrant workers in the ‘bottom jobs’ on the labour market, the em-ployment of Ukrainian workers in Hungarian electronics plants seems to take place in a more beneficial way. With the active mediation of temporary (temp) agencies, Ukrainian migrant workers are offered regular blue-collar assembly work, together with the same social rights and benefits as their local Hungarian col-leagues. Relying, in our analysis, on the literature on industrial sociology, migration research and global value chains, we are developing a critical perspective in which migration and employment are not seen as separate spheres but as mutually reinforcing each other. We combine bottom-up empirical research based on interviews with workers and a sectoral inquiry on industrial and employment relations in the temp agency sector supplying multinational corporations. Our main argument is that complex contracting also means subtle controlling. Such contracting is not the cheapest form but it creates a different, efficient employment regime with dependent, controllable, flexibly available, ‘fluid’ employees. Employee respondents described their position as dependent, ‘out of control’ and a temporary earning opportunity. Devoid of clear mecha-nisms for controlling their work conditions or growth within the job, all respondents turned to a more instru-mental approach, in which they invested in building up social capital through friendships, networks and personal relationships. Obtaining Hungarian citizenship and learning the language were two other main strategies for dealing with insecurity. Their efforts correspond with and reinforce a more globally integrated but ethnically motivated immigration regime, characteristic of post-socialist Hungary.

Promising cooling systems for high-power electronic elements are those based on vapor chambers and heat pipes which allow for the local heat flow to be dispersed from the electronic element to a larger surface area of the vapor chamber or the heat pipe. To reduce the thermal resistance of the cooling system, a finned radiator is installed on the outer surface of the vapor chamber or heat pipe. The authors propose a new design of the radiator which increases the heat transfer efficiency. The paper presents results of numerical simulation of heat transfer and aerodynamic resistance of the heat transfer surface with lamellar-split finning. The comparative analysis of heat transfer and aerodynamics was carried out for three types of radiators: with lamellar smooth finning, with lamellar split finning and with the sections of split finning rotated 30◦ against the air flow. It is shown that cutting the fins and rotating the split sections leads to an increase in heat transfer intensity and increase in aerodynamic resistance. The obtained results may be useful in the design of cooling systems for computer processors, power amplifiers for transmitting modules, energy-saving solid-state light sources, etc.

The aim of the research was to determine the occurrence of possible, significant levels of infrasound and low frequency noise both in classrooms and around the primary school. Two sources of noise during research were significant: traffic on the national road and a wind farm, located near the school building. So far, few studies have been published regarding the impact of low-frequency, environmental noise from communication routes. The identification of hazards in a form of estimated noise levels resulted in preliminary information whether the location of the school near the road with significant traffic and the nearby wind farm can cause nuisance to children. There have been determined the criteria for assessing infrasound and low frequency noise. There have been made third octave band analyses of noise spectrum and the essential noise indicators were calculated. The results of learning in that school were thoroughly analysed for a long period of time and they were compared to the results obtained in other schools within a radius of 200 km situated near similar noise sources. Chosen assessment criteria show small exposure to low frequency noise. Measured infrasound noise levels are below hearing threshold.