Many academic works fundamental to Polish numismatics, from the earliest time to the modern period, were published in the second half of the 19th century. The subject of the present article is an analysis of the illustration–related aspects of those works as well as some other minor publications. The author describes the most commonly used graphic techniques (across–the–end–grain wood engraving, lithography, copper engraving, etching), mentions the prominent engravers and graphic artists, and presents a number of ateliers/workshops which carried out commissions connected with numismatics. The objective of the text is to identify and describe certain characteristic regularities as well as some special features relating to the field of numismatic printmaking.

The objective of this article is to project from three stories by César Aira certain literary micropoetics towards other discourses (Barcelona magazine and Capusotto’s television program) to make some considerations about humorous semiosis: the simultaneous effect of irritation and derision.

Polish popular-science periodicals have not yet been researched in terms of their overall graphic design and layout. Undertaking an in-depth assessment of this particular aspect was intended to follow the development of graphic design in the periodicals published on the Polish lands throughout the period spanning 1758–1939, with a view to identifying the most characteristic components that stood for overall visual appeal of specific publications, whilst pondering overall aesthetic and educational value of diverse illustrative material they offered to their readership. The article presents an outline of research into the graphic design of fifty such periodicals, highly representative of a popular-science genre. Comprehensive research results along with the accompanying factual material and tabularised data, which might well prove of some consequence in further comparative research, are available in a book format.

Soldiers are the backbone of any armed force. They usually lose their lives due to the lack of medical assistance in emergency situations. Furthermore, army bases face problems due to the inability to track soldiers’ locations in the field. Hence, this paper proposes an interactive graphical user interface module (IGUIM) for soldiers’ bioinformatics acquisition and emergency reaction during combat, a global positioning system (GPS) is used to track soldiers’ locations through a device carried by the soldier. Soldiers’ bioinformatics are gathered using health monitoring biosensors, bidirectional communication between the soldiers and the army base is established via a global system for mobile (GSM). The proposed interactive module aims to enumerate the soldiers on the battlefield within a database that easily facilitates health monitoring, position tracking and bidirectional communication with each soldier through their identification number. The proposed IGUIM will increase the rate of soldiers’ survival in emergencies, which contributes to preserving the human resources of the army during combat.

The Edge detection is a customarily task. Edge detection is the main task to perform as it gives clear information about the images. It is a tremendous device in photograph processing gadgets and computer imaginative and prescient. Previous research has been done on moving window approach and genetic algorithms. In this research paper new technique, Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO) is applied which is galvanized through the social foraging conduct of Escherichia coli (E.coli). The Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO) has been practice by analysts for clarifying real world optimization problems arising in different areas of engineering and application domains, due to its efficiency. The Brightness preserving bi-histogram equalization (BHEE) is another technique that is used for edge enhancement. The BFO is applied on the low level characteristics on the images to find the pixels of natural images and the values of F-measures, recall(r) and precision (p) are calculated and compared with the previous technique. The enhancement technique i.e. BBHE is carried out to improve the information about the pictures.

Tunnel construction survey must be necessary to be very quick so that the results can be known as soon as possible. This aim can be achieved through the intelligent positioning method of tunnel excavation face. In this study, the plane parameters of the tunnel cross-section were transformed into the coordinates of the points on the cross-section to realize the automatic transformation of graphic data. According to the theoretical calculation of the lofting point accuracy, the appropriate measurement control network level and measurement accuracy and the appropriate measurement instruments were selected. The fast and intelligent positioning and setting out of tunnel excavation face was realized base on the technology of data communication between computer and measuring instruments. The intelligent positioning method of tunnel excavation face could greatly reduce the time of measurement and positioning, speed up the project progress, reduce the project risk, shorten the construction period and reduce the project cost.

The article discusses the complex issues related to 19th-century reproductive prints. Its starting point is the oeuvre of Feliks Stanisław Jasiński, a Polish engraver who was mainly active in France. He specialized in reproductive prints of works of art, and is a relatively well- -known and researched figure in the history of Polish graphic arts. Outlining the context for his activities also becomes a contribution to reflections on the place of reproductive prints in 19th century artistic culture, as well as an attempt to define a framework for considering this type of graphic production. In citing various examples of modern reproductive graphics, its diversity is proven. Theses on the primacy of the criterion of “fidelity” and technological determination in the history of reproduction are rejected. Instead, the complex links between this field and various aspects of artistic culture are pointed out. Particular emphasis is placed on the links between the functions, form and production methods of such prints. Chief consideration is given to the type of reproductive graphics made by using traditional metal techniques, which apart from their informative functions, also performed important artistic functions, as evidenced by the described phenomena occurring within this field in the second half of the 19th century, and the accompanying written tradition, formed since the 18th century.

The purpose of the article is to give an overview of two extensive sets of graphics reproductions of European Old Masters painting taken from album publications at the beginning of the 19th century. The first set of prints is a French catalogue-compendium Annales du Musée Napoleon, with illustrations by Charles Normand, the second is an album Kupferstiche von John, containing copper engravings by Friedrich John. The present article was an attempt to characterize both groups of reproduction prints in connection with the ideas of the time on the importance of Old Master schools of painting as well as artistic circles and the artists themselves, then widely used in contemporary publications on European art and the documentation of Old Masters paintings in private and museum collections.

We report on the first application of the graphics processing units (GPUs) accelerated computing technology to improve performance of numerical methods used for the optical characterization of evaporating microdroplets. Single microdroplets of various liquids with different volatility and molecular weight (glycerine, glycols, water, etc.), as well as mixtures of liquids and diverse suspensions evaporate inside the electrodynamic trap under the chosen temperature and composition of atmosphere. The series of scattering patterns recorded from the evaporating microdroplets are processed by fitting complete Mie theory predictions with gradientless lookup table method. We showed that computations on GPUs can be effectively applied to inverse scattering problems. In particular, our technique accelerated calculations of the Mie scattering theory on a single-core processor in a Matlab environment over 800 times and almost 100 times comparing to the corresponding code in C language. Additionally, we overcame problems of the time-consuming data post-processing when some of the parameters (particularly the refractive index) of an investigated liquid are uncertain. Our program allows us to track the parameters characterizing the evaporating droplet nearly simultaneously with the progress of evaporation.

The article discusses two books: a fairy tale novel The Stolen City. 1941 (2017) by Yuliya Yakovleva and a graphic novel Survilo (2019) by Olga Lavrent’yeva. These are projects different in terms of genre and form, resulting from the sense of insufficiency of the methods used so far to talk about the blockade of Leningrad, going beyond the official discourse of historical politics. The works were created by the female representatives of the generation, for whom the reference point in writing about the siege is not the reality of their own biographical experience, but historical sources and the accounts of others. This connected the reflection on the content of the books with the issues of the functioning of individual memory, postmemory and collective memory. The basic task is to check how the authors “tell the siege”, what presentation strategy they choose, what goals it helps to achieve.

Parallel realizations of discrete transforms (DTs) computation algorithms (DTCAs) performed on graphics processing units (GPUs) play a significant role in many modern data processing methods utilized in numerous areas of human activity. In this paper the authors propose a novel execution time prediction model, which allows for accurate and rapid estimation of execution times of various kinds of structurally different DTCAs performed on GPUs of distinct architectures, without the necessity of conducting the actual experiments on physical hardware. The model can serve as a guide for the system analyst in making the optimal choice of the GPU hardware solution for a given computational task involving particular DT calculation, or can help in choosing the best appropriate parallel implementation of the selected DT, given the limitations imposed by available hardware. Restricting the model to exhaustively adhere only to the key common features of DTCAs enables the authors to significantly simplify its structure, leading consequently to its design as a hybrid, analytically–simulational method, exploiting jointly the main advantages of both of the mentioned techniques, namely: time-effectiveness and high prediction accuracy, while, at the same time, causing mutual elimination of the major weaknesses of both of the specified approaches within the proposed solution. The model is validated experimentally on two structurally different parallel methods of discrete wavelet transform (DWT) computation, i.e. the direct convolutionbased and lattice structure-based schemes, by comparing its prediction results with the actual measurements taken for 6 different graphics cards, representing a fairly broad spectrum of GPUs compute architectures. Experimental results reveal the overall average execution time and prediction accuracy of the model to be at a level of 97.2%, with global maximum prediction error of 14.5%, recorded throughout all the conducted experiments, maintaining at the same time high average evaluation speed of 3.5 ms for single simulation duration. The results facilitate inferring the model generality and possibility of extrapolation to other DTCAs and different GPU architectures, which along with the proposed model straightforwardness, time-effectiveness and ease of practical application, makes it, in the authors’ opinion, a very interesting alternative to the related existing solutions.

The Triumphs (Triumphi) by Petrarch is a series of six poems honouring the allegorical figures of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Eternity, who vanquish each other in turn. The Italian poem sequence was virtually unknown in Poland (although a Polish translation of The Triumph of Love appeared c. 1630, only few readers would have read it as it was circulated exclusively in a small number of hand-made copies). The illustrations, however, caught the eye of the printers and became immediately popular. They depicted each of the victorious figures riding on triumphal chariot, followed by procession of captives. This article examines the Polish verses inspired by the illustrations rather than the text of the Trionfi i.e. written in the course of the late 17th and 18th century.

The author of the most remarkable poetic response to the pictorial representations of Petrarch's Triumphs was Samuil Gavrilovich Piotrowski-Sitnianowicz (aka Symeon of Polotsk). As a student of the Academy of Wilno, he came across an emblem book with copperplate engravings of the Triumphs designed by Maarten van Heemskerck in 1565. His Polish verses (composed c. 1650–1653) follow loosely the Latin epigrams (subscriptiones) by Hadrianus Junius (Adriaen de Jonghe). Symeon of Polotsk was the first Polish-language author whose verses reflected in extenso the pictorial representation of the Triumphs (before him verses inspired by Petrarch's allegories had been written by Mikołaj Rej, Maciej Stryjkowski and Stanisław Witkowski).

Wespazjan Kochowski's volume of miscellaneous pieces in verse published in 1674 includes an epigrammatic poem The Triumph of Love, inspired by Plate One of the Triumphs. However, Kochowski's description suggests that he must have seen an engraving showing Cupid's victims under his feet. That iconographic variant appears, among other, in the woodcuts of Bernard Salomon (1547) and the copperplates designed by one of van Heemskerck's pupils (mid-16th century) or Matthäus Greuter (1596).

The following two poems were written about a century later. In 1779 Franciszek Dionizy Kniaźnin published in his second volume of Erotyki [Erotic poems] a song called The Triumph of Love. Its scenic arrangement, inspired by the illustrations of Petrarch's first Triumphus, is adapted to present twenty-one pairs of suitors. The description is stylized in conformity with the current Rococo manner and spiced up with touches of parody. A similar treatment of this subject can be found in some 17th-century paintings, for example in the Triumph of Love by Frans Francken the Younger, or an identically titled picture by the Italian Baroque artist Mattia Preti. The other poem, On the picture of the 'Triumph of Death', can be found in Franciszek Karpiński's Zabawki wierszem i przykłady obyczajne [Diversions in Verse and Moral Exemplars] published in 1780. It names eleven preeminent ancient conquerors and rulers, all cut down by Death personified by a scythe-wielding skeleton. Karpiński's description was no doubt inspired by a copperplate engraving produced by Silvestro Pomarede and designed about 1748–1750 by Gianantonio Buti after Bonifacio de' Pitati. In each of the two prints most of the figures on the ground round the chariot are identified by name. It may also be noted that Karpiński rounds of his poem with two stanzas evoking the last plate in the cycle, The Triumph of Eternity.