Over the last 20 years, Polish society’s attitude towards people with disabilities has changed for the better. However, we still have not completely rid ourselves of prejudices, fears, and stereotypes.

The use of graywater in households has become increasing popular. Socio-economic aspects of graywater vary from one place to another and they need to be investigated in order to predict whether graywater use can be accepted by people. The aim of this study is to investigate the social response in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, toward the reuse of graywater in households.
Results of 511 surveys among residents of the Gaza Strip revealed that about 84% of the interviewed people accepted the idea of using graywater. Knowing that installing a graywater system would cost about USD500.00 per family, people reversed their acceptance of 84% and the rejection rate reached about 90%. The situation returned back to the 84% acceptance rate when it was known that the cost paid by the resident would only be USD50.00, with the rest of the cost to be contributed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The study also revealed that water outage seemed to be the most compelling reason behind the feeling of having a water problem, which is encouraging for the future of graywater use because graywater can be a good alternative during times of water outage.

When considering tax reporting, taxpayers have an individual attitude towards the risk of being caught evading taxes by the tax authorities. This attitude is interdependent with how this inherent risk is perceived. We propose to analyse this phenomenon through a risk perspective by adding a risk attitude and corresponding perceived probability of being caught evading. In this paper, we study the dynamics of tax evasion under risk perception and attitude, and the consequent propensity of imitators to evade or to comply. Under this proposal, we conduct our experiments through a multi-agent based simulation. Simulation results suggest first that the risk attitude, in conjunction with perceived risk and its consequences are the main reasons to guarantee a low level of tax evasion. Secondly, results also demonstrate a non-linear impact of tax rate, investment interest rate and fines which is especially interesting and non-intuitive.

The discourse on homosexually has largely remained Euro-American with a focus on human right of African homosexuals residing in Africa. However, current debates in Africa have centered on the cultural acceptability, legality as well as mental health concerns presumed to be associated with homosexuality. The paper approaches the issue of homosexuality from a perspective that is sensitive to the cultural context of Ghana and also through a non-Euro-American lens. The author attempts to address some of the misunderstanding about the legal status of homosexuals and the negative attitudes in Ghana. The paper concludes that Ghanaians face a paradox of accepting homosexuality because it cannot be understood to further growth of human society from their perspective. Similarly, if Ghanaians view homosexuality as a mental health issue, then it is more appropriate to decriminalize it as it is not appropriate to criminalize mental disorders. Reconceptualizing the issue as a human rights one in which both anti- and pro-homosexual religious and sexual rights respectively are accommodated may be more progressive than promoting one set of rights at the expense of the other. Though Ghana is the focus of this paper, it is believed that the discussions presented are applicable to the rest of Africa and other non-Western societies.

The integrated Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) method can recursively estimate the attitude and attitude rates of a nanosatellite. At first, Wahba’s loss function is minimized using the SVD and the optimal attitude angles are determined on the basis of the magnetometer and Sun sensor measurements. Then, the UKF makes use of the SVD’s attitude estimates as measurement results and provides more accurate attitude information as well as the attitude rate estimates. The elements of “Rotation angle error covariance matrix” calculated for the SVD estimations are used in the UKF as the measurement noise covariance values. The algorithm is compared with the SVD and UKF only methods for estimating the attitude from vector measurements. Possible algorithm switching ideas are discussed especially for the eclipse period, when the Sun sensor measurements are not available.

Conventionally, the filtering technique for attitude estimation is performed using gyros or attitude dynamics

models. In order to extend the application range of an attitude filter, this paper proposes a quaternionbased

filtering framework for gyroless attitude estimation without an attitude dynamics model. The attitude

estimation system is established based on a quaternion kinematic equation and vector observation models.

The angular velocity in the system is determined through observation vectors from attitude sensors and the

statistical properties of the angular velocity error are analysed. A Kalman filter is applied to estimate the

attitude error such that the effect from the angular velocity error is compensated with its statistical properties

at each sampling moment. A numerical simulation example is presented to illustrate the performance of the

proposed algorithm.

Wave-Based Control has been previously applied successfully to simple underactuated flexible mechanical systems. Spacecraft and rockets with structural flexibility and sloshing are examples of such systems but have added difficulties due to nonuniform structure, external disturbing forces and non-ideal actuators and sensors. The aim of this paper is to extend the application of WBC to spacecraft systems, to compare the performance of WBC to other popular controllers and to carry out experimental validation of the designed control laws. A mathematical model is developed for an upper stage accelerating rocket moving in a single plane. Fuel sloshing is represented by an equivalent mechanical pendulum model. A wave-based controller is designed for the upper stage AVUM of the European launcher Vega. In numerical simulations the controller successfully suppresses the sloshing motion. A major advantage of the strategy is that no measurement of the pendulum states (sloshing motion) is required.

On one hand, the development of medicine allows to prolong the life of patients who previously had no chance for survive, on the other hand, though, it condemns some of them and their loved ones to extreme suffering. Fear of suffering is the main reason for a possible wish for euthanasia. The research aimed at measuring the attitude towards euthanasia among doctors and nurses who come in professional contact with terminally ill patients or patients versus the medical personnel who do not come in such contact. The research included: age, profession and workplace as well as personal experience in providing care to the seriously ill. The Attitudes Towards Euthanasia Questionnaire by Głębocka and Gawor was used during the research. The method consists of three scales: Informational Support, Liberal Approach and Conservative Approach. Medical stuff taking care of terminally ill patients were less conservative in their opinions than the participants from the comparative group. The intergroup differences in terms of Liberal Approach towards Euthanasia Scale were not obtained. It turned out that the age fostered the conservative approach, and working at the intensive care units or taking care of an ill relative fostered the reduction of such approach. All the respondents approve the idea of providing the patients and their families with informational support. Working in intensive care units or taking care of terminally ill relatives seems to reduce conservative attitudes towards euthanasia because persons with such experience have personally faced the multifaceted emotional and physical costs of suffering.

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is a change in the evaluation of a neutral stimulus due to its pairing with another affective stimulus. Our Experiment 1 (N = 40) was carried out based on Rydell et al. (2006). During the conditioning stage, participants were presented with pictures of faces (CS) and positive or negative information about their behavior (explicit US). The images were preceded by short verbal primes (implicit US) of opposite valence to behavioral information. In Experiments 2 (N = 122) and 3 (N = 100) we provoked the transfer of implicit and explicit attitudes between USs and CSs by using social objects that potentially carry discrepant implicit and explicit evaluations. The data shows an inconsistency between implicit and explicit attitudes towards The results also confirm that those explicitly assessed attitudes are affected only by explicit information. At the same time, implicit attitudes are influenced not only by automatic processes but also by many other processes and information available to one's conscious mind.

The importance of skin colour is often neglected in empirical studies of negative attitudes towards minori-ties. In this study we use data from the 2014/2015 wave of the European Social Survey to analyse explicitly racist attitudes in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. The data was collected before the refugee crisis of 2015–2016, which gives the study a unique opportunity to analyse these attitudes in three of the countries that were among the most hostile to migrants in the EU. The study demonstrates how theoretical perspectives commonly used in explorations of negative attitudes based on ethnicity may be effectively used to analyse racist attitudes. The results show high levels of racist attitudes in both Hungary and the Czech Republic, despite there being very few non-white immigrants in these countries, while, in Poland, the racist attitudes are less widespread. Realistic threats seem to be of little importance for understanding racist attitudes – in contrast, symbolic threats appear to be very important for understanding them. There is also the surprising result that voters for more moderate political parties are no less racist than voters for the more radical political parties in any of the three countries.

Freedom and Resentment (1962), written by Peter Frederick Strawson, is one of the most influential papers in 20th century investigations regarding the problem of free will. An interesting criticism of that work was proposed by his son, Galen Strawson, who analyzed and rejected his father’s view, called the theory of reactive attitudes. In my paper I reconstruct the views of Peter Strawson and present counterarguments put forward by Galen Strawson. In the summary I suggest, following Robert Kane, that the disagreement may reflect some important changes in analytic philosophy.

The article investigates the phenomenon of code-switching among bilingual speakers – Polish students studying English Philology who switch to English by inserting English words, phrases and even whole sentences while speaking their mother tongue Polish. The study is based on the questionnaire and aims at determining the various reasons and functions of code-switching (CS), the attitudes and the factors which either facilitate or impede its occurrence. The study demonstrates that code-switching constitutes an indispensable part in the respondents’ daily interactions although their attitudes, functions and factors which determine the incidence of code-switching are miscellaneous and vary considerably.

The objective of the research was to investigate the efficiency of selected methods of data fusion from visual sensors used on-board satellites for attitude measurements. Data from a sun sensor, an earth sensor, and a star tracker were fused, and selected methods were applied to calculate satellite attitude. First, a direct numerical solution, a numerical and analytical solution of the Wahba problem, and the TRIAD method for attitude calculation were compared used for integrating data produced by a sun sensor and an earth sensor. Next, attitude data from the star tracker and earth/sun sensors were integrated using two methods: weighted average and Kalman filter. All algorithms were coded in the MATLAB environment and tested using simulation models of visual sensors. The results of simulations may be used as an indication for the best data fusion in real satellite systems. The algorithms developed may be extended to incorporate other attitude sensors like inertial and/or GNSS to form a complete satellite attitude system.

Single-frame methods of determining the attitude of a nanosatellite are compared in this study. The methods selected for comparison are: Single Value Decomposition (SVD), q method, Quaternion ESTimator (QUEST), Fast Optimal Attitude Matrix (FOAM) − all solving optimally the Wahba’s problem, and the algebraic method using only two vector measurements. For proper comparison, two sensors are chosen for the vector observations on-board: magnetometer and Sun sensors. Covariance results obtained as a result of using those methods have a critical importance for a non-traditional attitude estimation approach; therefore, the variance calculations are also presented. The examined methods are compared with respect to their root mean square (RMS) error and variance results. Also, some recommendations are given.

Estimation of satellite three-axis attitude using only one sensor data presents an interesting estimation problem. A flexible and mathematically effective filter for solving the satellite three-axis attitude estimation problem using two-axis magnetometer would be a challenging option for space missions which are suffering from other attitude sensors failure. Mostly, magnetometers are employed with other attitude sensors to resolve attitude estimation. However, by designing a computationally efficient discrete Kalman filter, full attitude estimation can profit by only two-axis magnetometer observations. The method suggested solves the problem of satellite attitude estimation using linear Kalman filter (LKF). Firstly, all models are generated and then the designed scenario is developed and evaluated with simulation results. The filter can achieve 10e-3 degree attitude accuracy or better on all three axes.

Implementing energy transformation through the goal of the more extensive use of renewable energy sources is one of the key tasks on the road to slowing adverse climate change. The pace of this transformation is dependent on both the political decisions and social support for the implemented changes. The indicator of the aforementioned support is the Willingness to Pay for Renewable Energy Sources (WTP) declared by residents. The increase of the WTP value influences a more rapid and wider substitution of non-renewable energy sources with renewable energy sources. The goal of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the WTP indicator on the example of residents of Kraków and their perception of the actions aimed at reducing the level of environmental pollution. Research is based on a survey performed on a representative sample of 393 residents of Kraków, Poland. In the surveyed group of residents, the average monthly willingness to pay more for renewable energy was PLN 83.7, i.e. approx. USD 21.47. The WTP differs in a statistically significant manner depending on the type of housing in which the respondents reside. On average, the residents of detached houses or terraced housing declared the WTP value twice as high as the WTP value declared by the residents of apartment buildings or tenement houses.

The paper presents the characteristics of the attitude that students have towards electric cars and the significance of distinguished attitude elements in creating interest in the purchase of such vehicles. Electric cars are the new type of vehicles that have an electric motor and use the electricity stored in batteries. They are introduced to the market, but for various reasons the volume of sales is not high. So far, it is not sufficiently known how electric vehicles are assessed by Poles. The presented research is an attempt to know what the attitude towards this type of vehicle. The attitude model tested in this research includes three areas: knowledge about them, emotions that they evoke and potential behaviors. The participants were students of Rzeszów University of Technology – a group of young people who are potential consumers of new technologies. The obtained results indicate that electric cars are rather unknown. At the same time, they arouse great interest and their image is very positive. The attitude characteristics towards this type of vehicle is supplemented by perceived limitations: too high of a purchase price, lack of sufficient information about them and unsatisfactory technical parameters, mainly the long time needed to recharge the battery and the insufficiently long distance with one recharge. The interest in the purchase is dependent on positive emotions, and the lack of sufficient information is an obstacle in thinking about buying such a vehicle. Understanding the attitudes of Polish students towards electric cars can be helpful in adapting information about such cars to potential customers, which in turn may affect the level of interest and sales volume.

In the article, the authors propose a typology of political knowledge from online learning activities and test its validity in an empirical qualitative study. The essence of their proposal is that meaningful study of the process of acquiring knowledge (rational analysis of factors modifying attitudes) must take into account both the perspective of the citizen (the demand for information) and an analysis of the publicly available knowledge (the supply of information). The authors distinguish three main methods of acquiring information: heuristic, reflective, and by-product learning. They note the importance of generational factors in shaping the cognitive activity of Internet users. There has been a gradual increase in the importance of source management, with simultaneous alienation and skepticism towards information obtained on the Internet. While the authors’ analysis is restricted to the Internet, their approach is not reductionist in that they consider the internet to be a medium for traditional media and its influence on civic attitudes.

‘Return to nature’ has become a buzzword in both scientific and public discourse. The growing interest in this phenomenon calls for the development of reliable tools for scientific research, for example the adaptation of various connectivity to nature (CN) scales developed by researchers from other cultural circles and other countries. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Polish version of the AIMES scale for multidimensional assessment of CN as conceptualized by Ives et al. (2018). Validation studies were conducted using a survey administered on Prolific, an online platform, with a sample of 516 Poles (56% of them women) aged 18-66. The Polish version of AIMES showed high internal consistency (α = .92). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the scale structure consists of a unified second-order factor with five first-order factors: attachment, identity, materialism, experiential, and spiritual. Relevance analysis showed significant positive associations of CN with perception of nature and silence, pro- environmental attitude and behaviour, psychological well-being, gratitude/awe, forgiveness, spirituality, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, and a marginal positive association with openness to experience. The results strengthen the psychometric qualities of the AIMES scale, indicating its applicability to the study of CN in Polish contexts.

Previous research showed that children can exhibit preferences for social categories already at preschool age. One of the crucial factors in the development of children’s attitudes toward others is children’s observation and imitation of adults’ nonverbal messages. The aim of our study is to examine whether children’s tendency to perceive and follow nonverbally expressed attitudes toward other people is related to ingroup bias, i.e. the tendency to favor one’s own group over other groups. We examined 175 preschool children (age in months: 61–87; M = 72.6, SD = 6.53) presenting them with a video of a conversation between a message sender and a message recipient. The study was conducted in a minimal group paradigm. We found that children accurately identified the message sender’s attitude toward the recipient and also generalized this attitude to other members of the new group. We also found explicit ingroup bias among children from the message sender’s group. However, no generalization of the sender’s attitude to other ingroup members was found. The results are discussed in reference to previous findings on the role of imitation of adult’s non-verbal behavior for the development of social attitudes among children.

The issue of math attitude and math anxiety in STEM students has been till now overlooked. However, the issue occurring in many countries is students’ falling out of the STEM education system during their studies. One of the reasons for this problem may be high math anxiety and a negative math attitude among students. The present study fills a gap in knowledge about this phenomenon among STEM students. 371 Polish STEM students filled questionnaires of math attitude (MASA) and math anxiety (MAQA, SIMA, AMAS). The results are as follow: The mean results show that STEM students have a very positive math attitude in affective and cognitive dimensions and a rather positive math attitude in the behavioral area; On average, STEM students feel very weak anxiety related to math problem solving, weak general math anxiety and math learning anxiety, and a moderate level of math testing anxiety; Among STEM students there are those who present a very negative/negative math attitude and very strong/strong math anxiety; Women feel more intense anxiety related to math problem solving, but there is no gender gap in general math anxiety, math learning and math testing anxiety, and in math attitude. The results suggest that math attitude and math anxiety of STEM students should be monitored. Indeed, not all STEM students have a positive math attitude and feel no math anxiety. Moreover, proper interventions are recommended to decrease math anxiety and improve positive math attitude that in turn may prevent the students’ dropping out from STEM studies.

The paper presents the most overall project of Hungarian dialectology of the past few decades and deals with the partial result of its sociolinguistic survey. The interviews analysed were recorded in Western Hungary as part of the New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects project between 2007 and 2012. The project, funded by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and organized by the Geolinguistics Research Group of the Eötvös Loránd University, asked the participants about sociolinguistic issues at several data collection sites in the Hungarian language area, in addition to surveying dialectological phenomena. For example: Do you speak dialects here in this town? Do they speak better here than in the neighboring settlements? Do you speak in the same way in a city or official place as at home, in a family circle? Have you ever been mocked because of your dialect speech? Given that tens of thousands of hours of the recordings have not yet been processed in a systematic and comprehensive way, the first half of the study provides numerical and detailed data on how the planned program of the research group was realized in practice regarding, for the time being, the Western Hungarian data collection sites. The second half of the study presents partial results on the language and dialect awareness, attitudes and use of the respondents by analysing the sociolinguistic interviews recorded in this area. The study provides a more accurate description of the specifics in the archive of the New General Atlas of Hungarian Dialects project, as well as what the recorded data reveal on the linguistic mentality of the Western Hungarian speech community in the beginning of the 21st century. This is just one of the numerous research topics offered by the enormous archive.

The paper focuses on two research objectives. First, it aims to critically examine a reductio ad absurdum argument against incompatibilism whose main themes can be found in Peter F. Strawson’s Freedom and Resentment. The doubts raised about the argument are inspired by a thought experiment based on fictitious Ludovico’s technique described in Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange. The second objective consists in outlining a version of the compatibilist stance – the version which is immune to Strawson’s objections against the traditional rendering of compatibilism and enables deeper understanding of various possible interpretations of the controversy between compatibilists and their opponents. The proposed position includes a hypothesis on the function of the attitude of participation and the expressivist explications of the concepts crucial for the practice of ascribing moral responsibility. The important feature of the analyses in question is the central role of the states of mind whose content are plans for reactive moral sentiments.