Astronomers who work during daylight hours focus on observing sunspots. Why are they keeping a close eye on them right now in particular?

The changes in the paralinguistic (social, economic, cultural) and linguistic sphere influence the quantitative and qualitative changes in a categorically diversified onomastic resource and the communicative flow of its elements on three levels of linguistic contact — nationwide, local and individual. The flow is additionally determined in the sphere of spontaneous everyday communication and in higher communicative functions (official linguistic behaviour). The accumulation of determinants which allow the usage of appropriate names and appellative forms (official and unofficial, e.g. diminutives, feminisms) involves the application of cumulative research methods, including psycho-, socio- and pragmalinguistic description of proper names functioning in communication. The contemporary theory of discourse in its three dimensions — formal, functional and interactional gives this possibility. It also requires the constant specification and standardization of Neoslavonic onomastic terminology.

The study consists of three parts. The first comprises the characteristic features of social politics strategy. They include the basic assumptions and functions of the social politics strategy in the field of the development of education and aid activities at the level of local units of territorial authorities. The essence of the study is the second part. It consists of the own research results – an analysis of the aims and tasks associated with inclusive education (also with preparing local communities for creating inclusive culture), comprised in strategies. The whole is completed with final conclusions. The study is aimed at the qualitative analysis of the development strategy of 17 communes (3900 pages of documents) as regards the issues of disability. The research interest was to find out whether the slogans promoting the equal access to education, elimination of barriers and preparing mainstream schools and local community for inclusive culture had been reflected in any way in the social politics strategies of local authorities – in the documents which, at least in the assumptions, constitute the starting point for generating good practices, also in the field of social support and education for disabled learners.

Współczesne teorie fizyczne i kosmologiczne ponownie stawiają przed filozofami i metodologami problem naukowości rozważanych idei. Wiąże się to głównie z kwestią ich empirycznego testowania. Wiemy, że wiele koncepcji współczesnej fizyki teoretycznej takich jak superstruny czy multiwszechświat jak dotąd nie doczekały się ani jednej obserwacji czy eksperymentu, które by je potwierdzały. W tej sytuacji pojawiają się próby osłabienia wymogów metodologicznych nakładanych na teorie, by móc nadal uważać je za naukowe. Wyzwanie, przed którym stają fizycy, filozofowie i metodolodzy polega na próbach określenia możliwej do przeprowadzenia nieempirycznej procedury weryfikacyjnej w przypadku, gdy teorie te postulują istnienie zasadniczo nieobserwowalnych obszarów rzeczywistości.

Główną atrakcją dla astronomów w ciągu dnia jest obserwacja plam słonecznych. Dlaczego akurat teraz wypatrują ich szczególnie uważnie?

Today, there is a growing sense of the need to abandon philosophy or theology in favour of science and the convictions of specialists. The analyses presented by Aristotle and St Thomas in terms of the hierarchy of intellectual virtues allow us to draw attention to the conditions and consequences of these demands. In their view, knowledge grows out of certain principles and presuppositions, the evaluation of which belongs to the virtue of wisdom. The virtue of wisdom has as its object the highest principles, the reaching of which requires special methodological and metaphysical attention. In the case of Christian theology, this wisdom is enriched by faith in what God reveals to man. Faith understood in this way goes beyond natural cognition while at the same time having a strong rational basis of a historical and doctrinal nature. Scientific knowledge devoid of metaphysical reflection, as well as methodically dissociating itself from religious faith, can lead to a lack of awareness of one’s own act of faith in relation to one’s own presuppositions. This can entail unconscious transformations of one’s own scientific assumptions into principles of a universal philosophical nature. This can consequently lead to a misjudgement of all that is beyond the competence and methodology of the sciences.

The paper contains a description of a multiscale algorithm based on the boundary element method (BEM) coupled with a discrete atomistic model. The atomic model uses empirical pair-wise potentials to describe interactions between atoms. The Newton-Raphson method is applied to solve a nanoscale model. The continuum domain is modelled by using BEM. The application of BEM reduces the total number of degrees of freedom in the multiscale model. Some numerical results of simulations

at the nanoscale are shown to examine the presented algorithm.

The use of surface analysis to investigate brake elements shows how a pair in contact works and wears out during regular operation. The main purpose of this paper is to describe the asperities from initial state to a moment when further use of the drum and shoe is not possible. Between exchange of vital brake elements a truck with total mass exceeding 3.5 tons can cover as many as 300 000 kilometres. Use of brakes during the first 1000 kilometres after maintenance should be rather gentle with possibly intensive use of engine brake installed in the truck itself, because if this rule is not adhered to it may lead to a significant decrease of the braking force and on the surface of the pair in contact a layer will appear that is not possible to wear off and that will make it impossible to stop a truck using brakes. In that condition the shoe should be immediately replaced and the drum should be remachined (by turning) to a repair dimension. In the paper the condition and analysis of a surface after different course of exploitation was presented.