Static Var Compensator (SVC) is a popular FACTS device for providing reactive power support in power systems and its placement representing the location and size has significant influence on network loss, while keeping the voltage magnitudes within the acceptable range. This paper presents a Firefly algorithm based optimization strategy for placement of SVC in power systems with a view of minimizing the transmission loss besides keeping the voltage magnitude within the acceptable range. The method uses a self-adaptive scheme for tuning the parameters in the Firefly algorithm. The strategy is tested on three IEEE test systems and their results are presented to demonstrate its effectiveness.

In this study the authors minimise the total process cost for the heating of solid particles in a horizontal fluidised bed by an optimal choice of the inlet heating gas temperature profile and the total gas flow. Solid particles flowed along the apparatus and were heated by a hot gas entering from the bottom of the fluidised apparatus. The hydrodynamics of the fluidised bed is described by a two-phase Kunii - Levenspiel model. We assumed that the gas was flowing only vertically, whereas solid particles were flowing horizontally and because of dispersion they could be additionally mixed up in the same direction. The mixing rate was described by the axial dispersion coefficient. As any economic values of variables describing analysing process are subject to local and time fluctuations, the accepted objective function describes the total cost of the process expressed in exergy units. The continuous optimisation algorithm of the Maximum Principle was used for calculations. A mathematical model of the process, including boundary conditions in a form convenient for optimisation, was derived and presented. The optimization results are presented as an optimal profile of inlet gas temperature. The influence of heat transfer kinetics and dispersion coefficients on optimal runs of the heating process is discussed. Results of this discussion constitute a novelty in comparison to information presented in current literature.

A large amount of solid and liquid wastes produced by mines and mills each year needs to be managed and minimized by alternative disposal methods like paste and dry stack. Increasingly strict environmental legislation and cost competitiveness also dictate the utilization of technically suitable, economically viable, environmentally acceptable, and socially responsible techniques. This paper reviews some of these techniques that could potentially reduce large volumes of mine wastes (with a focus on mine tailings and waste rocks) without causing significant environmental hazards. The new emerging techniques such as environmental desulphurization, covers built with sulphide-free tailings, co-disposal of tailings and waste rocks, geotextile tube dewatering, and use of tailings in the cement production and road construction for both industrial and environmental purposes are discussed in terms of waste minimization. The existing methods and approaches for efficient waste treatment and disposal are also discussed in this review paper.

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 predictive current controller of the DC/AC converter is presented in the article. The new expected converter current vector’s

locations can be evaluated due to the possibility of predicting the current vector’s change directions. An original method for the converter control was developed basing on the current vector changes analysis presented in this paper. This method enables to minimize the current vector error area and decrease the mean switching frequency. One of the advantages of the proposed control method is the possibility of the realization of the controller in the look-up table controller form. The results of laboratory tests proved the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

While working on the oeuvre of P.F. Strawson (1919–2006), and especially on his metaphysics, I had a unique opportunity to exchange ideas with this eminent exponent of Oxford philosophy. Those exchanges, of which some have been reflected in private correspondence and in a published reply to one of my papers, were focussed on various interpretative questions. Three threads of those discussions seem especially pertinent for grasping the gist of Strawson’s philosophy and its general orientation. The first one concerned the nature of philosophical analysis, or to be more precise, the connective model of it, favoured by Strawson, and its relationship with the idea of concept presupposition. The second thread had to do with the position taken by the Oxford philosopher in the realism debate on three levels: semantic, epistemological, and metaphysical. Strawson made every effort to take a realist stand in this debate and avoid antirealism in any of its forms; however, his realism is in many respects very moderate and not so distant from antirealism. Similarly moderate was his stand in the traditional debate about universals, constituting the topic of the third thread of the exchanges with Strawson. He claimed that universals exist, but at the same time emphasized that they are objects of pure thought alone and as such do not form a part of the spatiotemporal world in which we live. One cannot also say much about the relation of exemplification in virtue of which universals manifest themselves in the world as particular instances. Presentation and elaboration of these three threads has led to the conclusion that although Strawson was a deeply systematic thinker, he avoided wide-ranging and ambitious statements and radical views. In characteristically minimalist way he dispelled some questions, and the ultimate resolution of many crucial and fundamental issues were for him choice and taking a particular attitude or stance.

In the skeptical tradition self-consciousness was transparent and it served as a basis for expressing doubts and developing arguments leading to certainty. After the linguistic and naturalistic turns, contemporary philosophy developed skeptical arguments against certainty and epistemic priority of the data of self-consciousness (both reflective and pre-reflective). Self-reflection reports on the stream of consciousness ex post, but the reports are meager and dependent on subject’s conceptual scheme, while the pre- -reflective data is unclear. Two contemporary skeptical hypotheses have been developed: H. Putnam’s content externalism hypothesis and so-called Kripkenstein’s quus hypothesis. I put forth the question what kind of self is immune to erroneous misidentification. The immunity seems to be limited to the contentless self, reducible to the pre-discursive feeling of one’s own existence. There is no guarantee that any content whatsoever can be attributed to self without error. I cannot negate that I exist any more than I can negate that something external exists, but any description of either is fallible. So the content of self-consciousness is not in an epistemically better position than the content of external perception.

The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.

Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.

Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.

Conventional field-orientated Induction motor drives operate at rated flux even at low load. To improve the efficiency of the existing motor it is important to regulate the flux of the motor in the desired operating range. In this paper a loss model controller (LMC) based on the real coded genetic algorithm is proposed, it has the straightforward goal of maximizing the efficiency for each given load torque. In order to give more accuracy to the motor model and the LMC a series model of the motor which consider the iron losses as a resistance connected in series with the mutual inductance is considered. Digital computer simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and also simulation results have confirmed that this algorithm yields the optimal efficiency.

This paper proposes a methodology based on installation cost for locating the optimal position of interline power flow controller (IPFC) in a power system network. Here both conventional and non conventional optimization tools such as LR and ABC are applied. This methodology is formulated mathematically based on installation cost of the FACTS device and active power generation cost. The capability of IPFC to control the real and reactive power simultaneously in multiple transmission lines is exploited here. Apart from locating the optimal position of IPFC, this algorithm is used to find the optimal dispatch of the generating units and the optimal value of IPFC parameters. IPFC is modeled using Power Injection (PI) model and incorporated into the problem formulation. This proposed method is compared with that of conventional LR method by validating on standard test systems like 5-bus, IEEE 30-bus and IEEE 118-bus systems. A detailed discussion on power flow and voltage profile improvement is carried out which reveals that incorporating IPFC into power system network in its optimal location significantly enhance the load margin as well as the reliability of the system.

The radial distribution system is a rugged system, it is also the most commonly used system, which suffers by loss and low voltage at the end bus. This loss can be reduced by the use of a capacitor in the system, which injects reactive current and also improves the voltage magnitude in the buses. The real power loss in the distribution line is the I2R loss which depends on the current and resistance. The connection of the capacitor in the bus reduces the reactive current and losses. The loss reduction is equal to the increase in generation, necessary for the electric power provided by firms. For consumers, the quality of power supply depends on the voltage magnitude level, which is also considered and hence the objective of the problem becomes the multi objective of loss minimization and the minimization of voltage deviation. In this paper, the optimal location and size of the capacitor is found using a new computational intelligent algorithm called Flower Pollination Algorithm (FPA). To calculate the power flow and losses in the system, novel data structure load flow is introduced. In this, each bus is considered as a node with bus associated data. Links between the nodes are distribution lines and their own resistance and reactance. To validate the developed FPA solutions standard test cases, IEEE 33 and IEEE 69 radial distribution systems are considered.

The paper describes the construction, operation and test results of three most popular interpolators from a viewpoint of time-interval (TI) measurement systems consisting of many tapped-delay lines (TDLs) and registering pulses of a wide-range changeable intensity. The comparison criteria include the maximum intensity of registered time stamps (TSs), the dependency of interpolator characteristic on the registered TSs’ intensity, the need of using either two counters or a mutually-complementing pair counter-register for extending a measurement range, the need of calculating offsets between TDL inputs and the dependency of a resolution increase on the number of used TDL segments. This work also contains conclusions about a range of applications, usefulness and methods of employing each described TI interpolator. The presented experimental results bring new facts that can be used by the designers who implement precise time delays in the field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA).

The performance of majority engineering systems made of composite laminates can be improved by increasing strength to weight ratio. Variable thickness approach (VTA), in discrete form, used in this study is capable of finding minimum laminate thickness in one stage only, instead of two stage methodology defined by other researchers, with substantial accuracy for the given load conditions. This minimum required laminate thickness can be used by designers in multiple ways. Current study reveals that effectiveness of VTA in this regard depends on ply thickness increment value and number of plies. Maximum Stress theory, Tsai Wu theory and Tsai Hill theory are used as constraints, while ply angles, ply thicknesses and number of plies in discrete form are used as design variables in current simulation studies. Optimization is carried out using direct value coded genetic algorithm. The effect of design variables such as ply angles, ply thicknesses and number of plies in discrete form on optimum solution is investigated considering Uniform Thickness Approach (UTA) and Variable Thickness Approach (VTA) for various load cases.

Bogusław Wolniewicz, inspired by his formal ontology of situations, has put forward a question on semilattices with a unit (A question about joinsemilattices, Bulletin of the Section of Logic 19/3, 1990). The present paper is entirely devoted to this problem in the formulation given by Wolniewicz. First, the meaning of the question is analyzed and its lattice-theoretical and Boolean algebraic contents are exhibited. Second, set-theoretical and topological counterparts of the question are formulated and commented upon.