The paper addresses the problem of solving overdetermined systems of linear equations by means of methods of robust estimations, which eliminate the effect of outliers on the estimation results. The process of estimating a vector of parameters was accomplished by means of circular in structure neural networks. Formulating the problem in the aspect of a method for estimating parameters requires formulating an energy function (objective function) whose form was modified by means of a determined weighting function. In the final part of the paper the effectiveness of the methods described was evaluated in terms of controlling and diagnosing a geodetic observation system. The article is merely an introduction to a broadly understood problem of geodetic uses of robust estimators.

This article analyzes an unusual document in the Arabic dialect of the marshlands of southern Iraq. Written by a Jewish Iraqi poet, who arrived in Israel from the city of ʿAmāra in the late 1940s, this document consists of two monologues, each repeated twice: first in Hebrew letters and then again in Arabic script. While the writer evidently spoke a qǝltu dialect as his mother tongue, the monologues demonstrate the gilit dialect of the southern Iraqi marshes, and include several idiosyncrasies of that region. The document thus provides linguistic evidence from a dialect area so far documented only partially and insufficiently. We have been able to identify significant differences between the Arabic and Hebrew versions, which led us to view the former as a more reliable attestation of the linguistic reality of the Iraqi marshlands, and the latter as a version produced at a later stage. The writer’s intention was apparently to demonstrate the close inter-communal relations between the Jews of southern Iraq and the Marsh Arabs, yet his attempt to reproduce a text in the marshland’s dialect reveals a more complex picture: While the marshland gilit dialect was known to the qǝltu speakers of the area, the shift between the varieties remained challenging, as is often the case in co-territorial communal dialects.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous abuses of labour rights of seafarers have been reported within international community. Seafarers’ rights, stipulated in Maritime Labour Convention of 2006, were violated by bans on going ashore in harbours, as well as by abandonment by seafarers’ employers after the end of contracts, partly as a result of national lockdowns. The Convention, aimed at creating a comprehensive regulation on maritime labour issues, including medical care and health protection, proved to be insufficient to safeguard proper working conditions of seafarers. Consequently, it is necessary to evaluate implementation of the Convention in the period of pandemic, for the purpose of taking into account knowledge and best practice developed in this period in further amendments to the Convention.

This work presents an application possibility of sorption refrigerators driven by low temperature fluid for air conditioning of buildings. Thermodynamic models were formulated and absorption LiBr-water chiller with 10 kW cooling power as well as adsorption chiller with silica gel bed were investigated. Both of them are using water for desorption process with temperature Tdes = 80 °C. Coefficient of performance (COP) for both cooling cycles was analyzed in the same conditions of the driving heat source, cooling water Tc = 25 °C and temperature in evaporator Tevap = 5 °C. In this study, the computer software EES was used to investigate the performance of absorption heat pump system and its behaviour in configuration with geothermal heat source.

The theme of the article focuses on the description of the tactile sphere selected for the presentation of Russian literary prose figures from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The term “homo hapticus” is understood in the article as a characterization of a figure expressed through touch. At the same time, haptics, representative of the physical, biological side of the characters’ functioning in the world, is closely related to their spiritual sphere and can be referred to types of saintly characters. These dependencies are expressed by both the touching and the touched subject, and in particular by the body elements involved in the haptic turn – in my examples these are the hands and the mouth. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the haptics of the analysed characters abolishes the binary between the material and spiritual worlds. He points out that touch reflects not only a specific physical action, but is closely related to the Russian cultural context, primarily the religious. It is the haptics of the figures who act as healers that allows them to be called righteous men – expressing a loving Christian attitude towards their fellow man.