Twenty five years ago John Ziman formulated the thesis that academic science and industrial science merge into one system of post-academic and at the same time post-industrial science, in which the Mertonian norms of academic science expressed by the acronym CUDOS ( communism, universalism, disinterestedness, organized scepticism) give way to the norms of industrial science expressed by the acronym PLACE ( proprietary, local, authoritarian, commissioned, expert). In this article, I defend the thesis that this system has evolved into a system of academic industrial science, the norms of which can be expressed with the acronym PRICE: patron relevant, innovative, competitive, econometrical. Thus, reforming academic science is also its re-norming in terms of both ethics and the organization of research. The ethics of scientific research is transformed into the ethics of knowledge production. Scientific institutions are seen as producers of knowledge which is an “epistemic commodity.” A particular of knowledge is needed when it satisfies the needs of “consumers.” Scientists are then „elements” of the knowledge production process, and the process itself is subject to market calculations. This does not undermine the epistemic value of a given research project and its results, but it leads to controversial consequences, including fragmentation and aspectualization of knowledge, linking research directions with the interests of social powers, and ignoring transformative criticism. As a result, sometimes what was treated in the Mertonian science as a threat or an offense against the ethos of science turns out to be the rational behavior of an entrepreneur operating on the market of epistemic goods and services. Academic industrial science is also unable to fulfil non-instrumental roles in society (shaping worldviews, supporting social rationality, providing independent experts) that academic science performed. Attempts to prevent these problems or threats will be doomed to failure in advance, because countermeasures are based on a different understanding of knowledge itself.

Until the early 1990s, the domestic power industry was a natural monopoly. This was caused by the specificity of the operation of the electricity transmission and distribution sub sectors, technical challenges of coordinating the operation of generating units and transmission networks, requirements regarding long-term forecasting of the industry development, and returns to scale. In view of the above, the objective of the presented paper is to assess the economic situation of energy companies operating in a competitive electricity market. The article analyses the main areas of activity of the energy companies, i.e.: the areas of production, transmission, distribution, and sales. In addition, the market shares of the various energy companies, in terms of generating capacity and the amount of the energy produced, were analyzed. Furthermore, the technical and economic situation of enterprises operating in the power sector was also subjected to analysis. The mentioned analysis has revealed that the profit received from the main activity of the enterprises (i.e. the sale of electricity) has decreased in recent years. What is more, the energy sector must adapt to legal and regulatory changes related to the intensification of the decarbonization policy pursued by the European Commission. Therefore, national energy should focus on developing skills in the areas of innovation, such as: electro mobility, energy storage, energy management, etc.

The exploitation and processing of lignite in the Bełchatów region is connected with the formation of various mineral waste materials: varied in origin, mineral and chemical composition and raw material properties of the accompanying minerals, ashes and slags from lignite combustion and reagipsum from wet flue gas desulphurisation installations. This paper presents the results of laboratory tests whose main purpose was to obtain data referring to the potential use of fly ashes generated in the Bełchatów Power Plant and selected accompanying minerals exploited in the Bełchatów Mine in the form of self-solidification mixtures. The beidellite clays were considered as the most predisposed for use from the accompanying minerals , due to pozzolanic and sorption properties and swelling capacity. Despite the expected beneficial effects of clay minerals from the smectite group on the self-settling process as well as the stability of such blends after solidification, the results of physical-mechanical tests (compressive strength and water repellence) were unsatisfactory. It was necessary to use Ca (OH)2, obtained from the lacustrine chalk as an activator of the self-settling process It was necessary to use lacustrine chalk as an activator of the self-solidification process. The presence of calcium will allow the formation of cement phases which will be able to strongly bond the skeletal grains. Also, the addition of reagipsum to the composition of the mixture would contribute to the improvement of the physico-mechanical parameters. The elevated SO4 2– ion in the mixture during the solidification allows for the crystallization of the sulphate phases in the pore space to form bridges between the ash and clay minerals. The use of mixtures in land reclamation unfavourably transformed by opencast mining in the Bełchatów region would result in measurable ecological and economic benefits and would largely solve the problem of waste disposal from the from the operation and processing of lignite energy.

The article aims at presenting the philosophy and model of the development vehicle to be understood as a new concept and tool to investigate and program local and regional development processes. The practical issues covered by the article include the identification and discovery of development vehicles, the elements of which can be observed in Polish metropolitan areas and agglomerations.

Władysław Łuszczkiewicz was an art historian, artist, pedagogue, an outstanding personality of nineteenth-century Krakow, active in many fields. He was a professor at the Cracow School of Fine Arts, and in the years 1857–1873 and 1893–1895 he was the headmaster of this school. He was a teacher of many artists, of which it is enough to mention only the greatest — Jan Matejko, Stanisław Wyspiański, Józef Mehoffer and Artur Grottger. In 1883, Łuszczkiewicz was appointed the director of the National Museum in Krakow. He managed this institution until his death, that is until 1900.

Among the oldest source materials belonging to the Archive of the National Museum in Krakow, we can find the correspondence of former students of the School of Fine Arts addressed directly to their former teacher — Professor Łuszczkiewicz, who was at this time the director of the National Museum in Krakow. Based on selected letters, the article presents their interesting subject matter and presents the issues in which the students wrote to their Master. The attempt to describe the relation between former students and their master revealed in letters will be made.

We propose the time slot routing, a novel routing scheme that allows for a simple design of interconnection networks. The simulative results show that the proposed scheme demonstrates optimal performance at the maximal uniform network load, and for uniform loads the network throughput is greater than for deflection routing.

This paper aims to characterize and interpret the trends in reserves, resources, and mine production of diatomite in the Czech Republic in last two decades. With more than 2.4 million tonnes of total reserves, 1.6 million tonnes of exploitable (recoverable) reserves, and average annual production of 35 kt, diatomite is not one of the key industrial minerals of the Czech Republic, which ranks among the top 10 European producers. Historical diatomite deposits were situated within the Cheb Basin, where the Holocene Hájek diatomite deposit was abandoned in 1955 because of the establishment of the Soos National Natural Monument. The group of Tertiary diatomite deposits situated in the Central Bohemian Upland ceased extraction when the last deposit (Kučlín) was abandoned in 1966 after depletion of reserves. The last group of diatomite deposits is located within the Southern Bohemian basins, where the last productive deposit, Borovany-Ledenice, is situated. Miocene diatomites are extracted by open pit mining there. Production of crude diatomite varied from 0 to 83 kt, with an average of 35 kt, between 1999 and 2018 according to stockpiles. Raw diatomite is classified into two groups according to the chemical-technological properties. Better-quality diatomite (SiO2 ≥ 72%, Al2O3 ≤ 15%, Fe2O3 < 2.4%, bulk density 450 kg/m3, loss on ignition < 8%) is processed for filtration in the food industry (brewery, wine, and raw fruit juices). Material with lower quality is used in combination with bentonite to prepare cat litter products.

The conversion of a waste heat energy to electricity is now becoming one of the key points to improve the energy efficiency in a process engineering. However, large losses of a low-temperature thermal energy are also present in power engineering. One of such sources of waste heat in power plants are exhaust gases at the outlet of boilers. Through usage of a waste heat regeneration system it is possible to attain a heat rate of approximately 200 MWth, under about 90°C, for a supercritical power block of 900 MWelfuelled by a lignite. In the article, we propose to use the waste heat to improve thermal efficiency of the Szewalski binary vapour cycle. The Szewalski binary vapour cycle provides steam as the working fluid in a high temperature part of the cycle, while another fluid – organic working fluid – as the working substance substituting conventional steam over the temperature range represented by the low pressure steam expansion. In order to define in detail the efficiency of energy conversion at various stages of the proposed cycle the exergy analysis was performed. The steam cycle for reference conditions, the Szewalski binary vapour cycle as well as the Szewalski hierarchic vapour cycle cooperating with a system of waste heat recovery have been comprised.

The paper presents an analysis of relations describing entropy generation in a condenser of a steam unit. Connections between entropy generation, condenser ratio, and heat exchanger effectiveness, as well as relations implied by them are shown. Theoretical considerations allowed to determine limits of individual parameters which describe the condenser operation. Various relations for average temperature of the cold fluid were compared. All the proposed relations were verified against data obtained using a simulator and actual measurement data from a 200 MW unit condenser. Based on data from a simulator it was examined how the sum of entropy rates, steam condenser effectiveness, terminal temperature difference and condenser ratio vary with the change in the inlet cooling water temperature, mass flow rate of steam and the cooling water mass flow rate.

In the paper presented is an idea of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) operating with supercritical parameters and so called dry fluids. Discussed is one of the methods of improving the effectiveness of operation of supercritical cycle by application of internal regeneration of heat through the use of additional heat exchanger. The main objective of internal regenerator is to recover heat from the vapour leaving the turbine and its transfer to the liquid phase of working fluid after the circulation pump. In effect of application of the regenerative heat exchanger it is possible to obtain improved effectiveness of operation of the power plant, however, only in the case when the ORC plant is supplied from the so called sealed heat source. In the present paper presented is the discussion of heat sources and on the base of the case study of two heat sources, namely the rate of heat of thermal oil from the boiler and the rate of heat of hot air from the cooler of the clinkier from the cement production line having the same initial temperature of 260 oC, presented is the influence of the heat source on the justification of application of internal regeneration. In the paper presented are the calculations for the supercritical ORC power plant with R365mfc as a working fluid, accomplished has been exergy changes and exergy efficiency analysis with the view to select the most appropriate parameters of operation of the power plant for given parameters of the heat source.

This paper presents mathematical modelling and numerical analysis to evaluate entropy generation analysis (EGA) by considering pressure drop and second law efficiency based on thermodynamics for forced convection heat transfer in rectangular duct of a solar air heater with wire as artificial roughness in the form of arc shape geometry on the absorber plate. The investigation includes evaluations of entropy generation, entropy generation number, Bejan number and irreversibilities of roughened as well as smooth absorber plate solar air heaters to compare the relative performances. Furthermore, effects of various roughness parameters and operating parameters on entropy generation have also been investigated. Entropy generation and irreversibilities (exergy destroyed) has its minimum value at relative roughness height of 0.0422 and relative angle of attack of 0.33, which leads to the maximum exergetic efficiency. Entropy generation and exergy based analyses can be adopted for the evaluation of the overall performance of solar air heaters.

In this paper, numerical results of modeling of acoustic waves propagation are presented. For calculation of the acoustic fluctuations, a solution of the full non-linear Euler equation is used. The Euler equations are solved with the use of a numerical scheme of third-order accuracy in space and time. The paper shows a validation process of the described method. This method is suitable also for an aerodynamic noise assessment on the basis of unsteady mean flow field data obtained from a CFD calculations. In such case this method is called a hybrid CFD/CAA method. The proposed method is numerically decoupled with CFD solution, therefore the information about the mean unsteady flow field can be obtained using an arbitrary CFD method (solver). The accuracy of the acoustic field assessment depends on the quality of the CFD solutions. This decomposition reduces considerably the computational cost in comparison with direct noise calculations.

The presented Euler acoustic postprocessor (EAP) has been used for modeling of the acoustic waves propagation in a cavity and in the flow field around a cylinder and an aerodynamic profile.

The current study was aimed to evaluate the industrial effl uents biodegradation potential of an indigenous microorganism which reduced water pollution caused by these effl uents. In the present study biodegradation of three textile industrial effl uents was performed with locally isolated brown rot fungi named Coniophora puteana IEBL-1. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was employed under Box Bhenken Design (BBD) for the optimization of physical and nutritional parameters for maximum biodegradation. Quality of treated effl uents was checked by study of BOD, COD and analysis through HPLC. Three ligninolytic enzymes named lignin peroxidase, manganese peroxidase and laccase were also studied during the biodegradation process. The results showed that there was more than 85% biodegradation achieved for all three effl uents with decrease in Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) below the recommended values for industrial effl uent i.e. 80 mg/L for BOD and 220 mg/L for COD after optimization of nutritional parameters in the second stage. Analysis of samples through HPLC revealed the formation of less toxic diphenylamine, 3-methyldiphenylamine and N-methylaniline after treatment. The ligninolytic enzymes assays confi rmed the role of lignin peroxidase (LiP), manganese peroxidase (MnP) and laccase in biodegradation process. Lignin peroxidase with higher activity has more contribution in biodegradation of effl uents under study. It can be concluded through the results that Coniophora buteana IEBL-1 is a potential fungus for the treatment of industrial effluents.

This paper presents the results of the floristic investigation conducted - during two vegetation seasons 2000 and 2001 - on selected spoil heaps, the remnants of zinc and lead smelting works that existed in Ruda Śląska until the 1930's. A list of all recorded species was made. Every species was characterized with respect to its abundance in specified sites of the spoil heaps, the relative participation in the range of the geographicalhistorical groups as well as in ecological groups. The following characteristics were taken into account: life forms according to Raunkiaer classification, Grime CSR strategies and selected ecological indicator values (light, temperature, moisture, reaction and nitrogen content). A total of 166 species of vascular plants occur the surveyed spoil heaps. These belong to 45 different families. The most numerous is the Asreraceae family. The native species make approximately 85% of the flora. The spoil heaps are dominated by ruderal and meadow species, while the forest species are less abundant. Hemicryptophytes are the dominant group. Therophytes and phanerophytes are less abundant. These results may suggest that the sites be quite stabilized. The analysis of the ecological indicator values of the flora shows that the spoil heaps differ in terms of the species content (only 38% flora in common) and their floras demonstrate very close ecological requirements. The spoil heaps are the best habitat for the species which prefer full light and significant warmth though most of them do not stand too dry substrate conditions. The species show a wide range of requirements in respect to the nitrogen content and pH of the substrate. Grasses are the main component of the plant cover; these seem to be pioneer and very expansive species. The most abundant are Festuca ovina, Agrostis capillaris, Agrosris gigantea, Calamagrostis epigeios and Arrhenatherum elarius.

Plastik jest obecny wszędzie. Co się z nim dzieje i jaki ma wpływ na otaczający nas świat?

Rekonstruktorzy to nie tylko pozytywni wariaci, lecz także miłośnicy historii chcący się z niej uczyć, mówi dr hab. Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska z Instytutu Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk w Warszawie.

Będzie albo zrównoważony rozwój, albo żaden, ostrzega prof. dr hab. Bogusław Fiedor z Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego we Wrocławiu oraz przewodniczący Komitetu Nauk Ekonomicznych Polskiej Akademii Nauk.

Czy oglądali Państwo ,,Grawitację"? Szczątki starego satelity uszkadzają stację kosmiczną. W wyniku kolizji powstają nowe kosmiczne śmieci, które niszczą kolejne satelity. Przestaje działać system GPS oraz internet. Świat jest o krok od chaosu. Ten kinowy hit 2013 roku to film science fiction, ale przedstawia sytuację, która w każdej chwili może zdarzyć się na ziemskiej orbicie. Jak tego uniknąć?

Rozmowa z Kazimierą Szczuką o prof. Marii Janion – wizjonerce humanistyki, rewolucjonistce romantyzmu, skromnej mistrzyni swoich uczniów.

Eksponaty w Muzeum Ewolucji przedstawiają najważniejsze etapy ewolucji. Warto o nich opowiedzieć przy okazji przypadającej w tym roku 150. rocznicy publikacji teorii ewolucji Darwina.

O swojej pracy i życiu opowiada małżeństwo naukowców prof. dr hab. inż. Przemysław Perlikowski, który zajmuje się inżynierią mechaniczną oraz dr hab. n. med. Renata Perlikowska, której specjalnością są peptydy opioidowe mające zastosowanie w medycynie.