The paper’s authors undertake the reflection on the stages of the evolution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s views on the Church and its role as it is played in the lives of its singular members and in the context of the Reformation’s ethical heritage. One can distinguish among three stages of the Bonhoefferian ecclesiology, deepening his vision of the Church. As far as the first one is considered, the Church is defined as the spiritual community of believers, outside of which salvation is impossible. At the second stage the German theologian accentuates the sinfulness of man as a member of the Church. Its recognition constitutes the basis for the transformation that can take place in the human individual due to accepting Christ into oneself. The third stage is stepping into the world of „before-final” matters in the full responsibility for the choices made by particular members of the ecclesial community. The Church, as Bonhoeffer saw it, was supposed to support itself on strong pillars: on freedom, personal responsibility, imitating Christ, neighbourly love, on sacraments and Gospel. In this aspect Bonhoeffer was the faithful continuator of the Reformation program.

The specificities of the sowing and harvesting campaign of 2022–2023 in Ukraine and its impact on the world energy and food market in the conditions of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation are analyzed in this paper. The purpose of the study is to determine the role of Ukraine in ensuring energy and global food security, to analyse the situation regarding the possibility of conducting a sowing and harvesting campaign in Ukraine in the conditions of hostilities and to provide recommendations on preserving the potential of Ukraine in meeting the energy and food needs of Ukraine and other countries. The provided analysis of data of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the State Customs Service and the State Statistics Service of Ukraine has confirmed the role of Ukraine in ensuring energy and food safety of many countries in the Middle East and North Africa, which are the main importers of agricultural products from Ukraine. It has been found that the 2022–2023 sowing and harvesting campaign in Ukraine is facing a number of problems, including: military operations over a large area, which makes it impossible to conduct agrotechnical activities in a timely manner; a lack of seed material due to its systematic destruction by the Russian military; problems with the supply of fuel and lubricants (systematic shelling and destruction of oil bases throughout Ukraine); problems with the supply of fertilizers; bombing wheat fields and food warehouses; blocking Ukrainian sea ports; mobilization of a significant part of the population in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; logistics problems. The study proposes recommendations to preserve the potential for meeting energy and food needs in Ukraine and for countries importing agricultural products from Ukraine.

Open pit mining has severe environmental impacts on the environment of mining region. Mined land reclamation procedure in open pit mining contains numerous activities in order to prevent, monitor, control reduce environmental impacts of a project from exploration stage to exploitation, to mine closure and beyond. After mine closure, a permanent Post Mining Land Use (PMLU) should be implemented as an appropriate choice for use of different sections of mined land in an open pit mine. Mined land in open pit mining comprise different sections as pit(s), waste dump(s), tailing pond(s), roads, areas for on site facilities and free land zones which are not mined. The selected PMLU for each section of mined land as the most appropriate alternative based on the different points of view is presented as Optimum Post Mining Land Use (OPMLU). OPMLU for each section of mined land and the specifications of mine site are the most decisive parameters which affect the quality and volume of mine closure procedure, reclamation process and their costs. Furthermore, to define Ultimate Pit Limit (UPL) in open pit mining, consideration of mine closure and reclamation costs is essential as other costs of a mining project. Therefore, defining OPMLU for each section of mined land is essential within planning phase of an open pit mining project. In this paper the applicable alternatives of PMLU, the effective criteria, attributes and sub-attributes for defining OPMLU are presented for pit area amongst different sections of mined land. Pit area amongst different sections of mined land has more significant effects on the adjacent environment and also on defining OPMLU for the other sections of mined land. As there are several alternatives of PMLU, several criteria, attributes and sub-attributes for defining OPMLU, Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) methods are efficient techniques to define OPMLU for pit area. Fuzzy sets use a spectrum of numbers instead of using absolute numbers. As well, the nature of the effective parameters for defining OPMLU is same as Fuzzy numbers including incremental changes without definite limits thus the use of Fuzzy MADM modeling can produce more reliable results than the other techniques. As pair-wise comparisons and judgments through Fuzzy numbers have proper consistency with the nature of the effective parameters for defining OPMLU accordingly, a model is developed to attain OPMLU for pit area through Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Processing (FAHP). As a case study the model was implemented in Sungun copper mine in Northwest of Iran. Lumber production was defined as OPMLU for the pit area in this mine. It is finally concluded that using the developed model, OPMLU is defined for pit area as a key parameter to estimate reclamation costs in planning phase of an open pit mining project.

Construction contracts are susceptible to disputes as they regulate very complex multi-party relationships. Previous studies not only fail to aptly outline the distinction between “conflict” and “dispute”, but also fail to adequately study the causes of construction disputes in-light of project delivery systems. The present research aims at assessing the causes and settlement mechanisms of construction disputes in Design-Bid-Build (DBB) and Design-Build (DB) delivery systems with a view to add evidence to the existing knowledge. Accordingly, four most relevant causes of construction disputes identified from previous works of literature were incorporated in a questionnaire survey to determine their frequency of occurrence in the two delivery systems. The Relative Important Index (RII) of the four direct causes of construction disputes computed by SPSS software revealed that, in DBB contracts, the frequency of occurrence of disputable claims (unsettled claims for money/extension of time) has RII = 0.794969/0.777358, project delay has RII = 0.708176, and poor quality of work has RII = 0.469182. In DB contracts, the frequency of occurrence of disputable claims has RII = 0.533333/0.515723, project delay has RII = 0.495597, and poor quality of work has RII = 0.465409. The RII values proved that, DBB projects are significantly prone to disputes than DB projects. Furthermore, qualitative data obtained from road and building project reports exposed that DBB projects are exceedingly prone to disputes because they are frequently vulnerable to an increase in the volume of work due to frequent change orders and design deficiencies. The research further found out that, despite a clear proscription in the laws of the land, there is a routine out of court settlement of public construction disputes in Ethiopia.