The rheological properties of self-compacting concrete are closely influenced by temperature and the time. Previous studies which aim was to research the effect of temperature on self-compacting concrete workability, showed that the behaviour of fresh SCC at varying temperatures differs from that of normal vibrated concrete. The paper presents the study of rheological properties of fresh self-compacting concrete mixtures made with portland, blast furnace and component cement. Two types of superplasticizers were used. It was proven that temperature has a clear effect on workability; it can be reduced by selecting the appropriate superplasticizer and cement.

The ecological agencies have begun sounding the alert to stop the accumulation of "poisonous" electronic scrap, by introducing new lead-free materials for soldering, plus legal regulations to ban the use of lead-bearing materials.

This paper addresses an interesting issue in name theory, specifically the relationship between toponyms and spatial representations, as well as the cultural differences manifesting themselves in connection with these. Studies have shown that the name model (a general knowledge of names) created based on the mental representation of names is partly language and culture dependent. Thus, the knowledge of the speaker on how reliably the toponyms correlate with the actual features of the landscape or whether they should only be considered as labels identifying an area is culturally determined. This, in turn, influences the extent to which name-users may rely on them in structuring space and in creating a cognitive map.

Though current conservation policy in Poland refl ects world trends and approaches to action, compliance with all of its assumptions would entail the Polish authorities remodelling both the system and the methods by which natural resources are managed. On the one hand this requires a change of approach to the management of natural resources from the traditional, purely nature-related one, to a more modern inter-disciplinary one that takes in social and economic conditioning. On the other hand, a system need to be put in place to allow these ideas to be introduced in practice. The work described here deals with the participation of different stakeholder groups in nature management, with this regarded as a method of increasing the latter’s effi ciency. The many examples (of good practice) presented by the author well illustrate the wisdom of the approach, which often seems to achieve success where it is attempted.

The present article combines some reflections on the late Prof. Janusz Symonides’ most interesting book on the concept and role of effectiveness in international law (Zasada efektywności w prawie międzynarodowym, UMK, Toruń: 1967), with reflection over the anniversaries of the most important Polish-German treaties which not only constituted the basis for bilateral relations between Poland and Germany, but were also of importance for East-West relations. The analysis that follows deals mostly with the significance of effectiveness in the context of boundaries and their recognition, as well as with nationality. The article shows that most of the concepts and ideas of Prof. Symonides still remain actual today.

The structural economic problems of Turkey have led to the significant challenges for the development of the country, especially in the postcoronavirus economy. One of such challenges is the achievement of the sustainable development imperatives in combination with the preservation of the competitive advantages of the Turkish economy. The loss of the major drivers of the economy of the country, including tourism and logistics, in complex with the economic deterioration of the monetary system of the country are the major components of the current crisis. This controversy is analyzed in the paper along with the search for the best options of the energy sphere development in Turkey. This search covers economic aspects of the current situation in the country. The authors put forward and prove a hypothesis that Turkey energy system can be more influential on its economic development. This proof is based on the energy mix analysis and on the thorough review of the potential of the country for the green energy development and its economic effectiveness for the country. The key findings of the article include the proof that the sustainable development and the green energy development in Turkey are quite different processes, which are on intention divided by political measures, the proof that Turkey has serious issues in development of the energy sector due to its low influence on the economic development in its current state, the developed recommendations for the better structuring of the energy sector development.

The author discusses the world-wide regulation of international disputes against the background ofarticle 33 of the United Nations Charter, the UN Convention on the law of the sea from 1982, and other international legal documents. International custom plays a separate role in the determination of international disputes. In a further part of the article, the author interprets among other matters: the character of maritime disputes and the procedure for arbitration; international maritime disputes against the background of the UN Convention on the law of the sea from 1982; the settling of maritime disputes related to property through arbitration.

Current practice of waste generation and management in Ukraine has led to an increase in the area of landfills and a loss of the beneficial potential of waste. Today, territorial communities in Ukraine have received enormous new powers within the framework of decentralization, in particular, waste management is now under their jurisdiction. In order to implement the National Waste Management Strategy in Ukraine 2030 and the National Waste Management Plan 2030, communities need to activate the areas of effective disposal of household solid waste (HSW), and for this purpose it is necessary to take into account European norms and standards in this area, as well as share successful Ukrainian and foreign experience. The aim of the study is to analyze a successful case of waste management of a separate community in Ukraine (Illintsi United Territorial Community) as an example for other communities, as well as to develop guidelines for bioenergy recycling of waste in the community under the study with the production of RDF fuel and biogas in order to provide energy resources and improve the condition of the environment. To achieve this goal, there were used the following methods: monographic, deductive, inductive, analysis and synthesis, economic analysis, graphic and tabular, statistical, as well as the case-study method. The conducted research confirmed the growth of waste generation volumes in Ukraine and their limited beneficial use. The developed recommendations on the improvement of the household solid waste management based on the successful case of Illintsi Territorial Community and proposals for organizing the production of RDF fuel and biogas can become a strong basis for the development of communities on the basis of sustainability.

Ensuring access to sustainable, affordable and clean energy sources is a top priority of the global energy agenda. It is reflected in the seventh goal of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda with the three dimensions of economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection. The seventh goal is aimed at providing the sustainable development of energy systems whilst taking into account these dimensions. To assess the development trends of national energy systems within the framework of the global energy agenda, certain methods of quantitative measurement have acquired particular relevance. Approaches to assessing energy security mainly depend on the interpretation of the “energy security” concept. The main methods for the integrated assessment of the energy security of states are generally compiled by international organizations. An important indicator for the measurement of the sustainable development of energy systems is the Energy Trilemma Index, built within the framework of the “energy trilemma” concept. It allows quantifying the ability of states to ensure energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability, taking into account the national context.
Special attention is paid to the analysis of the energy systems of Russia, Kazakhstan and Armenia through the Energy Trilemma Index 2022. The studied countries actively participate in the integration processes in the Eurasian and post-Soviet space. Thus, the analysis of the Energy Trilemma Index 2022 allows us to become acquainted with the main trends of the energy sector development in the Eurasian space, exploring the conjuncture of energy markets and their main challenges. The study of the energy systems of Russia, Kazakhstan and Armenia through the energy trilemma index enables the identification the methodological significance of the index for assessing the sustainable development of national energy systems. The practical relevance of the index in the formation of the state energy policy for the sustainable development of the energy systems has also been emphasized.

Researchers have paid significant attention on hyperjerk systems, especial hyperjerk ones with chaos. A new hyperjerk system with seven terms and two parameters is analyzed. Chaotic attractors as well as coexisting attractors are displayed by the hyperjerk system. Thus it is a new multi-stable chaotic hyperjerk system. Further properties of the proposed hyperjerk system such as circuit design and backstepping-based control and synchronization are reported.

Differential geometry is a strong and highly effective mathematical subject for robot gripper design when grasping within the predetermined trajectories of path planning. This study in grasping focuses on differential geometry analysis utilizing the Lie algebra, geodesic, and Riemann Curvature Tensors (RCT). The novelty of this article for 2RR robot mechanisms lies in the approach of the body coordinate with the geodesic and RCT. The importance of this research is significant especially in grasping and regrasping objects with varied shapes. In this article, the types of workspaces are clarified and classified for grasping and regrasping kinematics.
The regrasp has not been sufficiently investigated of body coordinate systems in Lie algebra. The reason for this is the difficulty in understanding relative coordinates in Lie algebra via the body coordinate system. The complexity of the equations has not allowed many researchers to overcome this challenge. The symbolic mathematics toolbox in the Maxima, on the other hand, aided in the systematic formulation of the workspaces in Lie algebra with geodesic and RCT.
The Lie algebra se(3) equations presented here have already been developed for robot kinematics from many references. These equations will be used to derive the followingworkspace types for grasping and regrasping. Body coordinate workspace, spatial coordinate workspace with constraints, body coordinate workspace with constraints, spatial coordinate workspace with constraints are the workspace types. The RCT and geodesic solutions exploit these four fundamental workspace equations derived using Lie algebra.

The paper addresses the problem of constrained pole placement in discrete-time linear systems. The design conditions are outlined in terms of linear matrix inequalities for the Dstable ellipse region in the complex Z plain. In addition, it is demonstrated that the D-stable circle region formulation is the special case of by this way formulated and solved pole placement problem. The proposed principle is enhanced for discrete-lime linear systems with polytopic uncertainties.

Pyrite is a sulfide mineral and is widely distributed in nature. Pyrite may transform into pyrrhotite when heated at high temperatures. In order to support processing engineering techniques and industrial applications of pyrite and pyrrhotite, it is necessary to investigate synthetic pyrrhotite, which is formed by heating pyrite in air, based on existing research. In this work, the mineralogical characteristics and stability conditions of synthetic pyrrhotite formed by heating pyrite at elevated temperatures were studied. The possible formation pathway was verified using a solid-phase reaction. X-ray-diffraction results revealed that synthetic pyrrhotite differs from natural pyrrhotite in the paragenetic association of minerals. Natural pyrrhotite and magnetite coexist in the natural pyrrhotite sample. Synthetic pyrrhotite formed by heating pyrite at 700℃ for 1 h has the paragenetic association with hematite and a small amount of pyrite and magnetite. All pyrrhotite samples were monoclinic pyrrhotite-4C (Fe7S8) and exhibit minimal differences in terms of lattice parameters. Synthetic pyrrhotite-4C was stable under 0.5–2 h of heating at 700℃ in air. It had the highest relative content by heating for 1 h. It was eventually transformed into hematite with heating periods exceeding 3 h, as was the case for pyrite and magnetite. In air, synthetic pyrrhotite-4C is mainly formed via two pathways: (1) pyrite → pyrrhotite-4C and (2) pyrite → magnetite → pyrrhotite-4C. Pathway (1) is more favorable than pathway (2). This transformation cannot be achieved by the reaction between hematite and sulfur.

The authors established the chemical and phase compositions of grain fractions of the magnesia carbon scrap disintegrated using industrial cone crushers. The investigations included chemical and XRD analyses and optical investigations. The contents of admixtures: SiO2, CaO, Fe2O3 and Al2O3 increase with the decreasing size of the scrap grain fractions, whereas the C/S ratio decreases in finer and finer fractions due to changes of the phase composition. These relations are caused by the presence of low-fusible silicate phases, characterized by their cleavage and brittleness. Such phases were mainly derived from the graphite ash containing a high silica content. The scrap after removing its finest grain fractions can be recycled and utilized for producing the magnesia-carbon refractory materials. However, the finest grain fractions may be used, e.g. as a component of gunite mixes. Many years of experience collected by the ArcelorMittal Refractories Ltd., Krakow, Poland in the field of refractory scrap utilization has also been presented.

We examine Turing’s intriguing claim, made in the philosophy journal Mind, that he had created a short computer program of such a nature that it would be impossible “to discover by observation sufficient about it to predict its future behaviour, and this within a reasonable time, say a thousand years” (Turing, 1950, p. 457). A program like this would naturally have cryptographic applications, and we explore how the program would most likely have functioned. Importantly, a myth has recently grown up around this program of Turing’s, namely that it can be used as the basis of an argument—and was so used by Turing—to support the conclusion that it is impossible to infer a detailed mathematical description of the human brain within a practicable timescale. This alleged argument of Turing’s has been dubbed “Turing’s Wager” (Thwaites, Soltan, Wieser, Nimmo-Smith, 2017, p. 3) We demonstrate that this argument—in fact nowhere to be found in Turing’s work—is worthless, since it commits a glaring logical fallacy. “Turing’s Wager” gives no grounds for pessimism about the prospects for understanding and simulating the human brain.

This part of the paper presents particular case of Msplit estimation called a squared Msplit estimation whose target function is based on convex squared functions. One can find here theoretical foundations and algorithm of the squared Msplit estimation as well as some numerical examples.

Modelling quasigeoid with centimetre accuracy requires taking into account irregularities of topography in the vicinity of a gravity station. i.e. the terrain correction w surveyed gravity. Accuracy of determination of the terrain correction affects quality of quasi geoid model determined. It depends on the resolution and accuracy of terrain data that usually is provided in the form of a digital terrain model DTM. Investigations were conducted with the use of the Digital Terrain Elevation Data - DTED2 model developed for Poland according to the NATO-STANAG 3809 standard, as well as global models SRTM3 and SRTM30 (The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission). Also height data from the gravity database was considered. The prism method of determination of terrain corrections was applied in majority of numerical tests. Practical method for determining the optimum radius of the integration cap considering roughness of topography as well as required accuracy of terrain corrections was developed. The effect of vertical and horizontal uncertainty of a DTM as well as its resolution on the quality of the terrain corrections was investigated. The terrain corrections obtained using a prism method were also compared with the respective ones calculated using the FIT approach. The usefulness of the available topography data for precise terrain correction computation in Poland was discussed. The results of the investigations were used to determining the strategy of computation of the terrain corrections to point gravity data in the gravity database for Poland. The "2005" terrain correction set calculated for I 078 046 gravity stations contributes to the increase of precision of gravimetric quasigeoid models developed for Poland.

Hope is often treated as a priceless human value anchored in goal-related cognitions. The experiment aimed to investigate whether current hopeful thinking is related to problem-solving performance and how induced goal-oriented thinking influences this problem-solving process. Participants (N = 410) were asked to recall and describe their successful or unsuccessful goal pursuit and complete a scale assessing current hopeful thinking. Subsequently, participants were instructed to (1) think about actions that would be taken to solve the societal problem (i.e., an insufficient number of volunteers in Social Welfare Centers) and (2) describe these actions. In general, people who recalled successful events felt more hopeful than those who recalled unsuccessful events. State Hope was positively correlated with both the quantity (i.e., the total number of solutions) and quality (i.e., usefulness) of participants’ offered solutions. No interaction between State Hope and type of conditions with solution quantity or solution quality was found. State hope, however, interacted with the type of recalled goal pursuit when sex differences were considered. More hopeful women had a better solution quality when they recalled an unsuccessful goal pursuit. For men, a similar pattern was found when they recalled a successful goal pursuit. Lastly, the findings were discussed in light of Snyder’s Theory of Hope.

The study aims to examine the role of Self-Forgiveness in shaping the Human Flourishing of the adults. Two hundred fourteen participants (18 to 30 years) comprising 100 males (Mean Age = 22.15(1.61)) and 114 females (Mean Age = 22.00(1.95)) were chosen for the study. Self-forgiveness (Mudgal & Tiwari, 2017a) and Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (Keyes, 2005) were used as the tools. Self-forgiveness comprises Realization & Reparation, Guilt, Attribution and overall self-forgiveness (sum of the first three) while Human Flourishing consists of Hedonic and Eudaimonic (Social plus Psychological) Well-Being. The aggregate of Hedonic and Eudaimonic is overall Human Flourishing. The findings suggested no gender differences in Self-Forgiveness of the participants. Conversely, gender differences were observed in all the dimensions of Human Flourishing in favour of males. Irrespective of gender, Realization & Reparation was positively correlated with Hedonic, Social, Psychological and Eudaimonic Well-Being as well as Human Flourishing except for Guilt and Attribution that showed small positive or negative correlations. Irrespective of gender, Overall Self-Forgiveness correlated positively with all the dimensions of Flourishing. Gender and Realization & Reparation emerged as the significant predictors accounting for significant variance in all the dimensions of Flourishing while Guilt and Attribution did not. The findings suggested that remorse, easy acceptance of wrongdoing, repairing the relationship with self and others, ability to minimize negative emotions towards self, monitoring others’ positive behaviours and acknowledgements of valued and close relationships were the psychological mechanisms that may underlie the predictive strengths of self-forgiveness in regulating flourishing.

The Laplace operator is a differential operator which is used to detect edges of objects in digital images. This paper presents the properties of the most commonly used third-order 3x3 pixels Laplace contour filters including the difference schemes used to derive them. The authors focused on the mathematical properties of the Laplace filters. The basic reasons of the differences of the properties were studied and indicated using their transfer functions and modified differential equations. The relations between the transfer function for the differential Laplace operator and its difference operators were described and presented graphically. The impact of the corner elements of the masks on the results was discussed. This is a theoretical work. The basic research conducted here refers to a few practical examples which are illustrations of the derived conclusions.We are aware that unambiguous and even categorical final statements as well as indication of areas of the results application always require numerous experiments and frequent dissemination of the results. Therefore, we present only a concise procedure of determination of the mathematical properties of the Laplace contour filters matrices. In the next paper we shall present the spectral characteristic of the fifth order filters of the Laplace type.

The paper discusses the results of a study into almost 2000 corrections found in the Old English gloss to the fi rst 50 Psalms of the Eadwine Psalter, a post-Conquest manuscript produced in mid-twelfth century. It contains the three Latin versions of the Psalter translated by St. Jerome, each accompanied by a gloss: the Gallicanum – Latin, the Romanum – Old English, and the Hebraicum – Anglo-Norman. The exact purpose behind the production of this psalter, its role, as well as the reason for introducing extensive corrections to the Old English gloss remain unknown. By making the corrections the focal point of the study, the present paper builds a case for identifying Thomas Becket (or his associates) as the patron of the Eadwine Psalter, which seems to provide comprehensive answers to some baffl ing questions concerning this manuscript.

The present paper deals with the synchronic variation of the phoneme /ʁ/ in the unstressed word final syllable onset in modern German spontaneous speech. Our research task was to determine the phonetic context, in which the phoneme /ʁ/ undergoes modifications in the above-mentioned position and to establish, whether the intensity and the type of modifications (vocalization or elision of the phoneme /ʁ/) could correlate with the part of speech and with the combinatorial conditions of sound realization. The data collected are based on the acoustic analysis of spontaneous speech (interviews in the media) of 20 German scientists (10 men and 10 women) from the Central and Southern Germany. Our results showed that the phoneme /ʁ/ undergoes intense modifications mainly in the word final position "stressed long vowel + ʁ + schwa vowel + nasal" in various parts of speech: verbs, plural forms of nouns, adjectives, participles, substantivized verbs, possessive pronouns and prepositions.
The type of modification of the phoneme /ʁ/ in the relevant position correlates with the sound context. After high and mid vowels [iː], [yː], [uː], [eː], [ɛː], [øː], [oː] vowel realizations as unsyllabic [ɐ̯] clearly dominate over the consonantal as [ʁ], leading to the emergence of centralizing secondary diphthongs [iːɐ̯], [yːɐ̯], [uːɐ̯], [eːɐ̯], [ɛːɐ̯], [øːɐ̯], [oːɐ̯]. In the position after the long [aː] an elision of the allophones of the phoneme /ʁ/ is predominant, which can lead to an overlong articulation of the preceding low vowel as [aːː].

This study focuses on the diachronic development of the discourse marker after all in English. Unlike other approaches by Traugott (1997) or Lewis (2007), the present analysis suggests that the uses of after all are not contingent on conventionalization, whereby stable meaning-form pairings emerge. The alternative proposed here is that the justificative and concessive uses of this and similar expressions follow naturally from the meanings of the individual lexical items found in these expressions. Thanks to the intuitive connection between the original meaning and the newly acquired uses, this discourse marker does not require as much consolidation as in the case of grammaticalized forms where the connection is less obvious.

Nasal consonants feature in phonological systems of both Polish and Welsh, yet, apparently, they are active in a different manner and to a different degree. The paper aims first at establishing the ‘players’ – the prototypical segments and their nonprototypical variants. The relevant inventories seem to be comparable, however, the contextually and non-contextually dependent realizations vary considerably in the two systems. Polish nasal consonants do not appear to have terribly complex phonology, their occurrence and phonotactics seems to be dictated through use (Bybee, 2001). Nasal segments in Welsh, on the other hand, are actively involved in the alternation of Initial Consonant Mutation, where they occur as strengthened equivalents of plosives through (possibly) assimilation (Buczek, 1995). It remains to be discovered whether nasals in general (and the so-called voiceless nasals in particular) are independent categories or rather, additionally they feature as nonprototypical variants of plosives. There is, indeed, substantial overlap here. Secondly, the paper looks at certain instances of what appears to be sonorant lenition in Welsh, where nasals [m] and [n] are broken into complex consonantal diphthongs [mh] and [nh] respectively (Pilch, 1975). In its entirety, this paper examines the two systems, hinting at the similarities and exploring the points of difference, especially in cases where the similar phonetic realizations possibly result from different categorical membership.