A common observation of everyday life reveals the growing importance of data science methods, which are increasingly more and more important part of the mainstream of knowledge generation process. Digital technologies and their potential for data collection and data processing have initiated the birth of the fourth paradigm of science, based on Big Data. Key to these transformations is datafication and data mining that allow the discovery of knowledge from contaminated data. The main purpose of the considerations presented here is to describe the phenomena that make up these processes and indicate their possible epistemological consequences. It has been assumed that increasing datafication tendencies may result in the formation of a data- centric perception of all aspects of reality, making data and the methods of their processing a kind of higher instance shaping human thinking about the world. This research is theoretical in nature. Such issues as the process of datafication and data science have been analyzed with a focus on the areas that raise doubts about the validity of this form of cognition.

This is a critical reading of two Polish science-fiction novels of the post-Apocalypse subgenre, Cassandra’s Head by Marek Baraniecki and The Old Axolotl by Jacek Dukaj, with the help of concepts borrowed from the philosophical toolkit of Jacques Lacan. Each of the two books envisages an apocalyptic catastrophe and its consequences as well as the subsequent attempts to rebuild human civilization. The action in either novel is shaped by tensions between the Symbolic and the Real. The latter, though suppressed and shut out, keeps resurfacing, usually when it is least expected, leaving an indelible marks in the life of the survivors. An analysis of the handling of this conflict in the two novels offers a number of insights into the way these two fundamental modes (or, Lacanian orders) of human perception are integrated into the worlds of post-Apocalyptic fiction.

The aim of the herein paper is to present the processes of managing science and technology

parks by means of indicating their essence, types and domains of activities. Moreover, the

attributes of these parks were emphasized in the context of the innovative processes. Pilot

research was conducted which concentrated on the institutionalization and functionality of

the science and technology parks which facilitated the formulation of conclusions relating

to the cooperation between enterprises, science and technology parks and the sphere of

science in terms of innovativeness.

Professor Krystyna Chojnicka from the Department of History of Political and Legal Doctrines, Jagiellonian University, talks about respect for female lawyers, the true role of a Byzantine princess, and how a theatrical performance sparked her interest in Russian legal doctrine.

We talk to Prof. Magda Konarska from the Centre of New Technologies at the University of Warsaw about the “spliceosome,” the ongoing need for basic research and the importance of diversity in science.

We talk to Prof. Małgorzata Kossowska from the Institute of Psychology at the Jagiellonian University about whether women are appreciated, the significance of openness and tolerance, and what makes a terrorist.

We talked to Prof. Elżbieta Frąckowiak, Vice President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, about relative sizes of “fishes” and “ponds” and the height of glass ceilings in the research world.

The presence of women in science, methods of supporting them in pursuing careers in science, and the Polish Young Academy’s plans are discussed by Dr. Anna Ajduk of the University of Warsaw, who is chair of the Polish Young Academy, and its three deputy chairs – Assoc. Prof. Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska from the PAS Institute of Slavic Studies, Assoc. Prof. Monika Kędra from the PAS Institute of Oceanology, and Assoc. Prof. Monika Kwoka of the Silesian University of Technology.

Prof. Maria Anna Ciemerych- -Litwinienko and Asst. Prof. Edyta Brzóska-Wójtowicz from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw discuss the position of women in science.

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.

The number of publications inspired by Bruno Latour’s social thought has significantly grown in Poland over the last decade. Among them there are theoretical analyses, research programms as well as projects of social engineering. This situation makes it urgent to examine the credibility of Latour’s vision of science and society. The present article claims that the premises as well as arguments of the French thinker are not only fallacious but also dangerous. A number of absurdities following from the actor-network theory become evident in the works of the Polish followers of Latour. Thus the article focuses on selected examples of them. In the conclusion the author indicates certain advantages for Latour’s readers and formulates several hypotheses about the possible reasons for Latour’s growing popularity.

Focusing on the period of unprecedented infl uence of popular science in Yugoslavia following the Second World War, the article examines a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches to linking science and Marxist philosophy of science against the backdrop of the dramatic political and cultural changes that were taking place in early socialist Yugoslavia.

The report encompasses the activity of the Committee on Ethics in Science in the year 2017.

Popular science magazines published in Poland between 1758 and 1939 are an important resource for all kinds of research including interdisciplinary analysis as well testing new methodological approaches. They provide insights into the changing understanding of science and its social functions, the status of the scientist, models of popularization of science, the channels and forms of communications, techniques of construction of the popular science text enhanced with graphics and illustrations.

In the paper the phenomenon of big data is presented. I pay my special attention to the relation of this phenomenon to research work in experimental sciences. I search for answers to two questions. First, do the research methods proposed within the paradigm big data can be applied in experimental sciences? Second, does applying the research methods subject to the big data paradigm lead, in consequence, to a new understanding of science?

I investigate Husserl’s long-term research on revealing/constructing a proper idea of science. For Husserl this idea was of tremendous importance: it had to be the basis of forming a (the) proper philosophy (phenomenology), that is, a philosophy which was to be an exact science, a new and higher form of science. According to Husserl, the idea of science is not a free project of individual researchers, scientific communities, but the very essence of science—changeless, universal, nontransformable, non-culturally and socially loaded, ahistorical, and non-relativized to scientific praxis. It was attempt to determine a new status of philosophy which led Husserl’s to the consideration of a universal idea of science.