ACADEMIA - The magazine of the Polish Academy of Sciences

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.

We talk to Roman Topór-Mądry, MD, chairman of the PAS Committee on Public health, and Tomasz Zdrojewski, MD, from the Jagiellonian University’s Public Health Institute, coauthors of the first Report on Diabetes in Poland, about counting the number of diabetics and data-gathering techniques.

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.

We talk to Dr. Mikołaj Kunicki, an Oxford historian specializing in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe, about the past and present of Polish nationalism.

For every highest spiritual matter, there is a corresponding key on the keyboard of the body.

Zofia Nałkowska,

“Count Emil”

To retain our cultural identity in the modern world and sensibly think about the future, we need to thoroughly study the past,” says Prof. Marek Figlerowicz from the PAS Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, who leads the project “The Dynasty and Society of Piast-Era Poland in the Light of Integrated Historical, Anthropological, and Genomic Research.”

The conviction that hate speech is somehow acceptable in online communication may have disastrous consequences, threatening to turn us into a hostile society devoid of empathy or even basic manners.

Empathy is one of the traits that make us human. In exploring the origins of empathy disorders, however, we can learn a lot by studying animals.

Dr. Magdelana Markowska from the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Biology explains where emotions come from and why negative emotions are not the only ones that are problematic for the body.

Shale gas mining is mainly viewed as an industrial and economic issue. But we can also look at it from the scientific perspective. Why should we?

Prof. Roman Cieślak from the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities talks about the emotional challenges of pursuing a career in science.

Why is it that people can end up interpreting what is being said to them in such different ways? A lot depends on whether they happen to be in a good or bad mood.

Prof. Ewa Rondio from the National Center for Nuclear Research (NCBJ) explains the nature of neutrinos, the measurements taken by the Super-Kamiokande detector, and the involvement of Polish scientists in the project.

Antarctica is home to numerous relatively young volcanoes from the Cenozoic era. According to one hypothesis, their activity was one of the factors driving the continent’s glaciation.

Małgorzata Godlewska from the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities defines intuition, explains how it works and what stimuli help us tap into its potential.

The experimental pharmacologist Prof. Stanisław Jerzy Czuczwar, Vice President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, tells us about how he got into medical research, about the search for new epilepsy treatments, and how pharmaceuticals are in a way akin to cell phone towers.

Mapping storm activity across the globe at time scales ranging from minutes to years is an important element of measuring and forecasting climate change. The WERA system is being used to verify models of the influence of various types of solar activity on the lower layers of the ionosphere. We hope that one day it can also be used on Mars.

We talk to Prof. Jan Marcin Węsławski from the PAS Institute of Oceanology in Sopot about how scientists work with members of the public and the benefits it brings.

There is no way that having the United Kingdom, such an important element in the Old Continent’s system of science, leave the EU will fail to have serious consequences affecting the other EU states.

A small team working in the depths of a primeval forest studies the past and present challenges faced by nature, striving to ensure a better future.

Whatever can be conceived, sooner or later can be done.