Values define the directions of human activities and are related to people’s motivation to undertake specific activities and roles (Schwartz, 1994; Brown, 2002). Researchers and employers observe differences in motivation to work among representatives of different generations and genders (Twenge, Campbell, & Freeman, 2012; Gursoy & Karadag, 2013). In this research project, the authors asked what motivated contemporary employees, whether the intensity of their motives was different in different generations, what relationships there were between the dominant work motives and employees’ dominant values, and whether there were differences between women and men regarding work motives. To verify the hypotheses, they conducted a study with a sample of 307 professionally active people. They used their own Types of Work Motives Questionnaire designed for the purposes of the study and the Valued Living Questionnaire (VLQ; Wilson & Murrell, 2004). The obtained results indicate that younger employees choose the kind of work that gives them comfort and adequate pay. Regardless of age, however, social security support is the most important for all groups of respondents. For women, security and social security support are important at work. Moreover, the study has shown that there is a relationship between work values and work motives. For example people who appreciate values such as friendship and stability are motivated to work by good relationships and security, those who value recreation and stability are motivated by comfort and salary, those for whom respect and education are crucial are motivated by the possibility of development etc.

In this paper a mathematical model enabling the analysis of the heat-flow phenomena occurring in the waterwalls of the combustion chambers of the boilers for supercritical parameters is proposed. It is a one-dimensional model with distributed parameters based on the solution of equations describing the conservation laws of mass, momentum, and energy. The purpose of the numerical calculations is to determine the distributions of the fluid enthalpy and the temperature of the waterwall pipes. This temperature should not exceed the calculation temperature for particular category of steel. The derived differential equations are solved using two methods: with the use of the implicit difference scheme, in which the mesh with regular nodes was applied, and using the Runge-Kutta method. The temperature distribution of the waterwall pipes is determined using the CFD. All thermophysical properties of the fluid and waterwall pipes are computed in real-time. The time-spatial heat transfer coefficient distribution is also computed in the on-line mode. The heat calculations for the combustion chamber are carried out with the use of the zone method, thus the thermal load distribution of the waterwalls is known. The time needed for the computations is of great importance when taking into consideration calculations carried out in the on-line mode. A correctly solved one-dimensional model ensures the appropriately short computational time.

Evaluation of moisture absorption in foodstuffs such as black chickpea is an important stage for skinning and cropping practices. Water uptake process of black chickpea was discussed through normal soaking in four temperature levels of 20, 35, 50 and 65 °C for 18 hours, and then the hydration kinetics was predicted by Peleg’s model and finite difference strategy. Model results showed that with increasing soaking temperature from 20 to 65 °C, Peleg’s rate and Peleg’s capacity constant reduced from 13.368×10-2 to 5.664×10-2 and 9.231×10-3 to 9.138×10-3, respectively. Based on key results, a rise in the medium temperature caused an increase in the diffusion coefficient from 5.24×10-10 m2/s to 4.36×10-9 m2/s, as well. Modelling of moisture absorption of black chickpea was also performed employing finite difference strategy. Comparing the experimental results with those obtained from the analytical solution of the theoretical models revealed a good agreement between predicted and experimental data. Peleg’s model and finite difference technique revealed their predictive function the best at the temperature of 65 °C.

This paper presents the design, fabrication and testing of an improved thin-film thermal converter based on an electro-thermally excited and piezo-resistively detected micro-bridge resonator. The resonant thermal converter comprises a bifilar heater and an opposing micro-bridge resonator. When the micro-bridge resonator absorbs the radiant heat from the heater, its axial strain changes, then its resonant frequency follows. Therefore the alternating voltage or current can be transferred to the equivalent DC quantity. A non-contact temperature sensing mechanism eliminates heat loss from thermopiles and reduces coupling capacitance between the temperature sensor and the heater compared with traditional thin-film thermal converters based on thermopiles. In addition, the quasi-digital output of the resonant thin-film thermal converter eliminates such problems as intensity fluctuations associated with analogue signals output by traditional thin-film thermal converters. Using the fast-reversed DC (FRDC) method, the thermoelectric transfer difference, which determines the frequency-independent part of the ac-dc transfer difference, is evaluated to be as low as 1.1 · 10−6. It indicates that the non-contact temperature sensing mechanism is a feasible method to develop a high-performance thermal converter.

In this work studies of barrier height local values are presented. Distribution of the gate-oxide EBG(x, y) and semiconductor-oxide EBS(x, y) barrier height local values have been determined using the photoelectric measurement methods. Two methods were used to obtain the local values of the barrier heights: modified Powell-Berglund method and modified Fowler method. Both methods were modified in such a way as to allow determination of the EBG(x, y) and EBS(x, y) distribution over the gate area using a focused UV light beam of a small diameter d = 0.3 mm. Measurements have been made on a series of Al-SiO2-Si(n+) MOS structures with semitransparent (tAl = 35 nm) square aluminum gate (1 x 1 mm2). It has been found that the EBG(x, y) distribution has a characteristic dome-like shape, with highest values at the center of the gate, lower at the gate edges and still lower at gate corners. On the contrary, the EBS(x, y) distribution is of a random character. Also, in this paper, both barrier height measurements have been compared with the photoelectric effective contact potential difference fMS(x, y) measurements. These results show good agreement between distribution of the barrier heights EBG(x, y) and EBS(x, y) measurements and independently determined shape of the effective contact potential difference fMS(x, y) distribution.

In this paper, we establish variation of constant formulas for both Caputo and Riemann- Liouville fractional difference equations. The main technique is the Z -transform. As an application, we prove a lower bound on the separation between two different solutions of a class of nonlinear scalar fractional difference equations.

We define the need for sense-making as the desire to find reliable connections between the objects, situations, and relationships that people encounter. We have proposed and tested that there are possible individual differences in the need for sense-making and that these individual differences are insightful in characterizing individuals and their behaviors. A correlational study (N = 229) showed that need for sense-making was positively related to self-esteem, extroversion, conscientiousness, openness, and sense of control. Additionally, a higher need for sense-making was associated with greater perception of it as an important part of people’s identity. Thus, need for sense-making is relevant to understanding individual differences and can furthermore comprise a significant element of people’s identity. These results break new ground in the study of individual differences in the need for sense-making and can be of great importance in work and organizational psychology.

Each European Union Member State keeps a register of data on properties located in its territory. The number, type and scope of these properties are determined by each Member State’s needs. The INSPIRE Directive enables the scope of data to be harmonised, and the data to be made available for the purpose of assisting legislators in taking decisions and actions likely to have either direct or indirect impact on the environment. The aim of the study was to indicate the basic differences between the data contained in Polish and Latvian cadastres. Unlike other similar studies analysing the content of data in the cadastre, this article pays special attention to the number of available sets of data about the parcel and its surroundings, the ease of access to these data and the possibility for acquiring them by an interested party without incurring additional fees. This is particularly important in activities related to spatial management and the development of an information society. The results show that in both countries, the decision makers have approached the INSPIRE Directive differently. Direct analyses conducted for the cities of Wrocław (Poland) and Riga (Latvia) demonstrated that the information system in Wrocław contains a considerably greater scope of information available free of charge, is easier to use and offers more services. The Latvian Republic’s spatial information system provides a less-developed scope of information about real estate (without fees) that is dispersed on several websites, which slows down and hinders its use.

Currently, the Republic of Kazakhstan is developing a new standard for symmetric data encryption. One of the candidates for the role of the standard is the Qamal encryption algorithm developed by the Institute of Information and Computer Technologies (Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan). The article describes the algorithm. Differential properties of the main operations that make up the Qamal cypher are considered in the questions of stability. We have shown that for a version with a 128-bit data block and the same secret key size for three rounds of encryption it is difficult to find the right pairs of texts with a probability of 2–120, which makes differential cryptanalysis not applicable to the Qamal cypher.

This study examined the relationship between gender role conflict and attitude towards psychological help-seeking. This study involved 120 university students from a university. Gender Role Conflict Scale was used to measure gender role conflict and Attitude towards Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale-Short Form was used to measure attitude towards psychological help-seeking. The results found there is a significant negative relationship between gender role conflict and attitude towards seeking psychological help. The results suggest that it is essential for mental health professionals to recognise the impact of gender roles on the counselling process.

This paper presents the concept of using algorithms for reducing the dimensions of finite-difference equations of two-dimensional (2D) problems, for second-order partial differential equations. Solutions are predicted as two-variable functions over the rectangular domain, which are periodic with respect to each variable and which repeat outside the domain. Novel finite-difference operators, of both the first and second orders, are developed for such functions. These operators relate the value of derivatives at each point to the values of the function at all points distributed uniformly over the function domain. A specific feature of the novel operators follows from the arrangement of the function values as well as the values of derivatives, which are rectangular matrices instead of vectors. This significantly reduces the dimensions of the finite-difference operators to the numbers of points in each direction of the 2D area. The finite-difference equations are created exemplary elliptic equations. An original iterative algorithm is proposed for reducing the process of solving finite-difference equations to the multiplication of matrices.

The study presents the analysis of the effects occurring at the propagation of electromagnetic waves within an area containing non-ideal, non-homogenous and absorbing dielectric. The analysed models are connected with housing constructions and include single and double-layered walls made of clay hollow bricks. The influence of the size of holes, the contained clay mass percentage and conductivity of brick on the distribution of electric field is presented. Double-layered wall causes more heterogeneity in distribution of electric field and numerous maxima and minima to compare with singlelayered construction. The presented results refer to the electromagnetic field generated by a wireless communication system (Wi-Fi), operating within the standard frequencies (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz). A FDTD method was used to the analysis of electric field distribution. Also in this paper all formulations of difference method (FDTD) is presented. The possibilities of modifying the described method are indicated too. The obtained values of electric field intensity allow to determining the attenuation coefficient for different variants of the walls. Detailed analysis of influence of different types of building construction will make it possible to better understand the wave phenomena and counteract local fading at planning of wireless networks systems.

Determination of the phase difference between two sinusoidal signals with noise components using samples of these signals is of interest in many measurement systems. The samples of signals are processed by one of many algorithms, such as 7PSF, UQDE and MSAL, to determine the phase difference. The phase difference result must be accompanied with estimation of the measurement uncertainty. The following issues are covered in this paper: the MSAL algorithm background, the ways of treating the bias influence on the phase difference result, comparison of results obtained by applying MSAL and the other mentioned algorithms to the same real signal samples, and evaluation of the uncertainty of the phase difference.

We present an alternative method to detect and measure the concentration changes in liquid solutions. The method uses Digital Holographic Interferometry (DHI) and is based on measuring refractive index variations. The first hologram is recorded when a wavefront from light comes across an ordinary cylindrical glass container filled with a liquid solution. The second hologram is recorded after slight changing the liquid’s concentration. Differences in phase obtained from the correlation of the first hologram with the second one provide information about the refractive index variation, which is directly related to the changes in physical properties related to the concentration. The method can be used − with high sensitivity, accuracy, and speed − either to detect adulterations or to measure a slight change of concentration in the order of 0.001 moles which is equivalent to a difference of 0.003 g of sodium chloride in solutions. The method also enables to measure and calculate the phase difference among each pixel of two samples. This makes it possible to generate a global measurement of the phase difference of the entire sensed region.

This paper compares numerical solutions of transient two-dimensional unsaturated flow equation by using different averaging schemes for internodal conductivities. Averaging methods such as arithmetic mean, geometric mean, upstream weighting, and integrated mean are taken into account, as well as a recent approach based on steady-state approximation. The latter method proved the most flexible, producing relatively accurate solutions for both downward and upward flow cases.

The paper presents the dynamic behaviour of three-layer annular plates with damaged facings. The plate is composed of thin laminated, fibre-reinforced composite facings and thicker, foam core. Failure of the plate facings is modelled as fibre or matrix cracks. The plate loaded in the plane of facings with quickly increasing radially compressed forces loses its dynamic stability. Evaluation of the critical state of the plate with failures was carried out using both analytical and numerical solutions. The comparison of results between plates with material properties treated as isotropic, quasi-isotropic and composite has been conducted. Presented tables and figures create the image of dynamic responses of examined composite plates with structure failures.