Metallic bearing alloys have different types, most of which are tin (Babbitt) or bronze based. Bronze bearings are used at heavy duty conditions. The goal of this research is an investigation on the effect of cooling rate and pouring temperature (two important factors in casting production) on the Brinell hardness and pin-on-disc wear resistance (two important properties in bearing applications) of bronze SAE660. The melt had prepared by induction furnace. Then, it had poured in sand mold in four different casting conditions, including pouring temperatures of 950 oC and 1200 oC, and cooling with water and air. Finally, the microstructure, hardness and wear resistance of the SAE660 had investigated. The results indicated that if the maximum hardness, along with the minimum weight loss due to wear (or maximum wear resistance) is required; the contents of intermetallic compounds, lead phase and the solid solution phase should be more. In this way, the samples which are cooled in air and poured at 950 oC have the high hardness and the lowest weight loss.

The organo-inorganic commercial binder Albertine F/1 (Hüttenes-Albertus) constituting the starch-aluminosilicate mixture was directed to structural studies. The paper presents a detailed structural analysis of the binder before and after exposure to physical curing agents (microwaves, high temperature) based on the results of infrared spectroscopy studies (FTIR). An analysis of structural changes taking place in the binder system with the quartz matrix was also carried out. Based on the course of the obtained IR spectra, it was found that during the exposure on physical agents there are structural changes within the hydroxyl groups in the polymeric starch chains and silanol groups derived from aluminosilicate as well as in the quartz matrix (SiO2). The curing of the molding sand takes place due to the evaporation of the solvent water and the formation of intramolecular and intermolecular cross-linking hydrogen bonds. Type and amount of hydrogen bonds presence in cured molding sand have an impact on selected properties of molding sand. Results indicates that for molding sand with Albertine F/1 during conventional heating a more extensive network of hydrogen bonds is created.

AZ91 alloy was cast in a steel mould pre-exposed to three different temperatures: -196 ºC, 20 ºC and 650 ºC. The aim of the study was to determine the difference in the microstructure and mechanical properties between the castings formed in a cold mould and those solidifying under near-equilibrium conditions in a mould pre-heated to 650 ºC. Solidification at a low temperature led to dispersion of the structure elements as well as supersaturation of the solid solution of aluminium in magnesium. The heat treatment results indicate that the alloy solidified in the mould pre-exposed to 20 ºC can be successfully aged (heat treated to the T5 temper). It was found that the effect of the ageing process (T5 temper) was greater than the effect of the microstructure fragmentation, which was due to rapid solidification. The ageing results were assessed by comparing the microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ91 brought to the T5 condition with those obtained for the material in the T6 condition.

The necessity of obtaining high quality castings forces both researchers and producers to undertake research in the field of moulding sands. The key is to obtain moulding and core sands which will ensure relevant technological parameters along with high environmental standards. The most important group in this research constitutes of moulding sands with hydrated sodium silicate. The aim of the article is to propose optimized parameters of hardening process of moulding sands with hydrated sodium silicate prepared in warm-box technology. This work focuses on mechanical and thermal deformation of moulding sands with hydrated sodium silicate and inorganic additives prepared in warm-box technology. Tested moulding sands were hardened in the temperature of 140oC for different time periods. Bending strength, thermal deformation and thermal degradation was tested. Chosen parameters were tested immediately after hardening and after 1h of cooling. Conducted research proved that it is possible to eliminate inorganic additives from moulding sands compositions. Moulding sands without additives have good enough strength properties and their economic and ecological character is improved.

This work presents the project of the application of Case-based reasoning (CBR) methodology to an advisory system. This system should give an assistance by selection of proper alloying additives in order to obtain a material with predetermined mechanical properties. The considered material is silumin EN AC-46000 (hypoeutectic Al-Si alloy) that is modified by the addition of Cr, Mo, V and W elements in the range from 0% to 0.5% in the modified alloy. The projected system should indicate to the user the content of particular additives so that the obtained material is in the chosen range of parameters: tensile strength Rm, yield strength Rp0.2, elongation A and hardness HB. The CBR methodology solves new problems basing on the solutions of similar problems resolved in the past. The advantage of the CBR application is that the advisory system increases knowledge base as the subsequent use of the system. The presented design of the advisory system also considers issues related to the ergonomics of its operation.

This article examines two forms of 19th-century animal magnetism. The fi rst had its roots in early 19th-century Romanticism, the other fl ourished on the fringe of orthodox science and medicine in the last decades of the century. Common to both is a confl ation of scientifi c experimentation, hermetic thought and popular culture. Mesmerism represented a peculiar, excitingly unorthodox face of 19th-century modernity. Now largely discredited and forgotten, it fed on the contemporary enthusiasm for scientifi c discoveries and confi dence in the human ability to do virtually anything. What distinguished mesmerism from other vitalist theories was its claim to shift the boundary between physics and metaphysics.

Published in 1904, Jolanta: A Dramatic Poet in One Act by Edward Leszczynski is – like Atlantyda, one of his later dramas – a celebration of love, vitality, and life. Both works are saturated with the symbolic profusion of the Pre-Raphaelites. In Jolanta the glowing spiritual and symbols, inspired by the paintings of William Holman Hunt, are used to communicate the horror of a solar apocalypse punctuating a deadlocked argument. An eschatological reading of the drama, proposed in this article, puts its apocalyptic ending in a new perspective.

The article examines the rise of the postmodern Holocaust narrative in Polish literature taking as a case in point Leopold Buczkowski’s novel Pierwsza świetność (First Glory), published 1966, in the context of the musings of Edmond Jabés and the testimonial writings of Halina Birenbaum. In this study the postmodernization of the Holocaust is treated as an alternative to the traditional genre of the Holocaust testimonial. Contrary to the broadly-held view that the postmodern Holocaust narrative is a fairly recent phenomenon, the article claims that it made its appearance some time after the war, in the mid-1960s. Its emergence can be seen as an attempt to voice the aporias and doubts that resulted from the pressure to draw a line on the wartime experiences and move on. Many writers, including Leopold Buczkowski, were convinced that it was necessary to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust by encrusting the historic record with other plots, problems and metaphors. This article is the fi rst in a series of studies of this problem in the 1970s and the following decades of the 20th and the 21st century.

This article attempts to throw some light on what may be called Poland’s new national-identity literature and its leading fi gures, Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz, Wojciech Wencel and Przemysław Dakowicz. They see their work as a psychopolitical educational tool in the service of a patriotic mission to reactivate the ‘real’ national identity. They believe that such an identity is necessary for individuals to develop strong personal identities, founded on a sense of belonging to an integral national community. Rymkiewicz, Wencel and Dakowicz champion this, somewhat archaic, model of national identity which claims total commitment from its members in virtually all their writings. This article focuses on the rhetorical devices used by the new national-identity literature to present and promote its key concept, especially the idea of a ‘sublime’ ethnic community, or a sentimentalized vision of a Polish Commonwealth.

Whereas Ingarden’s studies on the strata of the literary work of art have attracted considerable critical attention, it is not the case with the other building-block of his theory, the concept of the literary work’s temporal phases. It was ignored by the French structuralists and the American pragmatists, and, more recently, by neuroscience, although the latter is founded on insights that are similar to Ingarden’s. A comparison of the two approaches shows that his concept of temporality remains as relevant as ever. It is an analytical tool of remarkable precision that can be used to examine schemas of understanding conditioned by the sequential nature of language, especially in case complex schemas elicited by utterances with many themes and hardly any temporal or causal links. Ingarden’s analyses shed light on the analogically-functioning memory mechanisms that generate cognitive schemas responsible for the integration of the experienced objects. Drawing on Edmund Husserl, Henri Bergson and philosophers of the Lvov-Warsaw School, Ingarden assigned the key role in that process to foreshortening and the retention-protention mechanism. After identifying these sources of inspiration it is possible to suggest an alternative solution to the problem of the cognitive value of neuroscience narrative protocols and to situate current developments in narratology in a broader conceptual framework.

The article explores the problem of literary pictorialism, i.e. literary representation of the visual arts, with respect to the term hypotyposis. It appears to have sunk in oblivion, although it can boast of no less respectable origin as ekphrasis, and is by no means synonymous with the latter. In this article the precise meaning of hypotyposis is made out by means of comparisons with terms like trompe-l’oeil, anamorphosis, mise-en-abîme, and palimpsest. On the whole, hypotyposis does not describe a work of art but constitutes its verbal variant, or a structural and thematic equivalent in which the plot brings forth animated allegory of the image. We should distinguish, the article argues, two types of hypotyposis, the mimetic and the diegetic. The mimetic hypotyposis animates the content (the what) of the work of art, i.e. what is presented, or, in other words, the components of the fi ctional world. The diegetic hypotyposis dynamizes the manner (the how) of the presentation, i.e. it activates the manner in which the fi ctional world is constituted and the philosophical or formal problems raised by the work’s representation. Finally, the article examines the differences between hypotyposis and the generally accepted meaning of ekphrasis.