Convenient human-computer interaction is essential to carry out many exhausting and concentration-demanding activities. One of them is cyber-situational awareness as well as dynamic and static risk analysis. A specific design method for a multimodal human-computer interface (HCI) for cyber-security events visualisation control is presented. The main role of the interface is to support security analysts and network operators in their monitoring activities. The proposed method of designing HCIs is adapted from the methodology of robot control system design. Both kinds of systems act by acquiring information from the environment, and utilise it to drive the devices influencing the environment. In the case of robots the environment is purely physical, while in the case of HCIs it encompasses both the physical ambience and part of the cyber-space. The goal of the designed system is to efficiently support a human operator in the presentation of cyberspace events such as incidents or cyber-attacks. Especially manipulation of graphical information is necessary. As monitoring is a continuous and tiring activity, control of how the data is presented should be exerted in as natural and convenient way as possible. Hence two main visualisation control modalities have been assumed for testing: static and dynamic gesture commands and voice commands, treated as supplementary to the standard interaction. The presented multimodal interface is a component of the Operational Centre, which is a part of the National Cybersecurity Platform. Creation of the interface out of embodied agents proved to be very useful in the specification phase and facilitated the interface implementation.

In the paper, the problem of isothermic DNA sequencing by hybridization, without any errors in its input data, is presented and an exact polynomial-time algorithm solving the problem is described. The correctness of the algorithm is con.rmed by an enumerative proof.

In order to understand commands given through voice by an operator, user or any human, a robot needs to focus on a single source, to acquire a clear speech sample and to recognize it. A two-step approach to the deconvolution of speech and sound mixtures in the time-domain is proposed. At first, we apply a deconvolution procedure, constrained in the sense, that the de-mixing matrix has fixed diagonal values without non-zero delay parameters. We derive an adaptive rule for the modification of the de-convolution matrix. Hence, the individual outputs extracted in the first step are eventually still self-convolved. This corruption we try to eliminate by a de-correlation process independently for every individual output channel.

The results presented here are twofold. First, a heuristic algorithm is proposed which, through removing some unnecessary arcs from a digraph, tends to reduce it into an adjoint and thus simplifies the search for a Hamiltonian cycle. Second, a heuristic algorithm for DNA sequence assembly is proposed, which uses a graph model of the problem instance, and incorporates two independent procedures of reducing the set of arcs - one of them being the former algorithm. Finally, results of tests of the assembly algorithm on parts of chromosome arm 2R of Drosophila melanogaster are presented.

The academic environment of Wrocław emerged and developed in particularly difficult conditions of the post WWII era. Thanks to continuation of the tradition, experience and contributions of leading scientists from the former Jan Kazimier University of Lwów, it quickly achieved an important, internationally recognized position in particular in mathematics and chemistry. Two different sociological concepts of relations within the scientific community have developed simultaneously: (1) partnership between leaders and research team members, (2) hierarchical structure based on authority of a leader. History proved that both may be effective. Wrocław became a modern center of research management comparable to leading western universities. The general approach based on relationship „between master and a follower” has been replaced by the more effective relatioship „between a school and a follower”. Similarly to the Lwów tradition the Wrocław Scientific Society has played an integrative role in relations among scientists of different disciplines.

This article presents a picture of war in Mikhail Shishkin’s novel The Light and the Dark (2010). In the narrative, the author introduces a character who fought on the side of the Russian army during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China (1898–1901). When describing the events of that period, Shishkin relied on numerous archival materials, especially the study by Dmitry Yanchevetsky At the Walls of Immovable China. As a military journalist who participated in the rebellion, this author blamed the Chinese people, disgruntled with the domination of other countries in their country, for the war. Shishkin, abundantly drawing on Yanchevetsky’s factual research, in his book reevaluates the historical events and condemns the aggression of the Eight-Nation Alliance on China. The writer compares this war to the Soviet Union’s attack on Finland in 1939 citing a term from Aleksandr Tvardovsky’s poem: “the infamous war”. Because Russia’s participation in quashing the Boxer Rebellion remains a little-known fact among Russian readers, it becomes a generalized representation of war in the novel: a universal one. Shishkin adopts a pacifist attitude here. He debunks the myth of war, which presupposes a sacralization of killing and a heroic death of soldiers. There are no glorious warriors on the battlefield, only corpses of anonymous soldiers, blood, the smell of rotting bodies, chopped off heads, flies, and dirt. In this novel, war is an evil that alters one’s perception of reality and emotional reactions and destroys elementary moral principles.

In this contribution an optical method of controlling the state of soft biological tissues in real time, exposed to laser radiation is discussed. The method is based on the assumption that the change dynamics of the amplitude of the scattered diagnostic radiation (λ = 635 nm) is compatible with the change dynamics of the tissue inner structure exposed to the Nd:YAG laser radiation (λ = 1064 nm). In this method the measurement of the tissue temperature is omitted. Exemplary results of the laboratory research on this method and an interpretation of the results are presented.

Telemedicine is one of the most innovative and promising applications of technology in contemporary medicine. Telemedical systems, a sort of distributed measurement systems, are used for continuous or periodic monitoring of human vital signals in the environment of living. This approach has several advantages in comparison to traditional medical care: e.g. patients experience fewer hospitalizations, emergency room visits, lost time from work, the costs of treatment are reduced, and the quality of life is improved. Currently, chronic respiratory diseases comprise one of the most serious public health problems. Simultaneously patients suffering from these diseases are well suitable for home monitoring. This paper describes the design and technical realization of a telemedical system that has been developed as a platform suitable for monitoring patients with chronic pulmonary diseases and fitted to Polish conditions. The paper focuses on the system's architecture, included medical tests, adopted hardware and software, and preliminary internal evaluation. The performed tests demonstrated good overall performance of the system. At present further work goes on to put it into practice.