The guidelines in the White Book regarding the development of transport confirmed the conclusions reached by the European Council in Gothenburg regarding, on the one hand, the necessity of optimization, and, on the other, compliance with principles of sustainable development. The second issue, in particular, lays out the conditions for the creation of a contemporary transportation system that will equalize economic results with social costs and the environmental pollution. The expectations are that cabotage transport will become an alternative to ground transport. Cabotage transport between the European ports has not developed to the extent anticipated. The White Book reveals that the development of short distance marine transport, which is currently a priority in EU maritime policy, will stimulate undertakings in the Baltic and North seas regions. The expansion of the European Union should lead to significant possibilities for the further development of cabotage transport. The European Commission anticipates that the Baltic region will be the fastest developing European region in 2002-2010. This provides opportunities but also sets out challenges for Polish vessel owners and seaports, which, as instruments of growing economic exchange, will contribute to the economic development of the country.

We are exploring the relationship between accents and expression in piano performance. Accents are local events that attract a listener's attention and are either evident from the score (immanent) or added by the performer (performed). Immanent accents are associated with grouping (phrasing), metre, melody and harmony. In piano music, performed accents involve changes in timing, dynamics, articulation, and pedalling; they vary in amplitude, form, and duration. We analyzed the first eight bars of Chopin Prelude op. 28 n. 6. In a separate study, music theorists had marked grouping, melodic and harmonic accents on the score and estimated the importance (salience) of each. Here, we mathematically modeled timing and dynamics in the prelude in two ways using Director Musices (DM) - a software package for automatic rendering of expressive performance. The first rendering focused on phrasing following existing and tested procedures in DM. The second focused on accents - timing and dynamics in the vicinity of the accents identified by the theorists. In an informal listening test, 10 out of 12 participants (5 of 6 musicians and 5 of 6 non-musicians) preferred the accent-based formulation, and several stated that it had more variation of timing and dynamics from one phrase to the next.

A metrological verification of a high precision digital multimeter was made by the laboratory of calibration of programmable electrical multifunction instruments of the National Institute of Metrological Research (INRIM) in order to verify its accuracy and stability. The instrument had been tested for a period of six months for five low-frequency electrical quantities (DC and AC Voltage and Current and DC Resistance). Its stability and precision were compared with the accuracy specifications of the manufacturer. As a new approach, a performance index of the DMM was introduced and evaluated for each examined measurement point. The DMM showed a satisfactory agreement with its specifications to be considered at the level of other top-class DMMs and even better in some measurements points.

The beam elements, which are widely used in the absolute nodal coordinate formulation (ANCF) can be treated as isoparametric elements, and by analogy to the classical finite element analysis (FEA) are integrated with standard, spatial Gauss-Legendre quadratures. For this reason, the shape of the ANCF beam cross section is restricted only to the shape of rectangle. In this paper, a distinct method of integration of ANCF elements based on continuum mechanics approach is presented. This method allows for efficient analysis of the ANCF beam elements with circular cross section. The integration of element vectors and matrices is performed by separation of the quadrature into the part that integrate along beam axis and the part that integrate in the beam cross section. Then, an alternative quadrature is used to integrate in the circular shape of the cross section. Since the number of integration points in the alternative quadrature corresponds to the number of points in the standard Gaussian quadrature the change in the shape of the cross section does not affects negatively the element efficiency. The presented method was verified using selected numerical tests. They show good relatively agreement with the reference results. Apart from the analysis of the beams with the circular cross section, a possibility of further modifications in the methods of the element integration is also discussed. Due to the fact that locking influence on the convergence of the element is also observed, the methods of locking elimination in the proposed elements are also considered in the paper.

The investigation presented in this work concerned one-dimensional modelling of transient flow in an axial turbine stage. Because of the compound motion in the rotor-blade channels, the model of this flow path element was considered the most difficult to solve. The basic modelling approaches and the usefulness of the Euler and Lagrange methods for mathematical description are discussed. Relevant applied model based on the Lagrange method is described. Results of a successful numerical simulation of transient flow in a turbine stage are presented. This success opens the opportunity to build and solve one-dimensional models of dynamic flows in turbine cascades and entire flow paths.