Early Buddhism was a predominantly spiritual movement which should ideally culminate in Enlightenment. Yet, it was embedded in the specific social environment of ancient India which included a hereditary caste system. Using the Buddhist Pāli texts and non-Buddhist literature from up until the last centuries BCE the article examines the four main hereditary categories (vaṇṇa, jāti, gotta, and kula) and how Early Buddhism related to them. We conclude that the Buddha and Early Buddhism did not oppose but rather confirmed the hereditary systems in society as well as its designations within the monastic community. The Buddha hereby followed the customs of earlier ascetic movements and imposed no specific rules on the monastics to eradicate their former social identity.

The author in his article deals with the role that Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Messiah, the Gebirah, played in the economy of salvation. The title Gebirah means the dignity of the king’s mother and the special power of her influence. Therefore, the Books of Kings almost always mention the name of the king’s mother by introducing the description of each Judah ruler from the Davidic dynasty from which the Messiah was born. The dignity of Gebirah was given to the king’s mother at the time of her son’s enthronement. The king’s mother received the prestigious title of Gebirah (2 Kings 5:3; Jer 13:18), because she gave birth to her son (geber), who became king (2 Sam 23:1). They mention three texts of the Bible about the mother of the Messiah, depicting an important figure of a mother’s role (Genesis 3:15; Jes 7:14 and Mich 5:2). Both the figure of the king and his mother prefigure the Messianic King Jesus (2 Sam 7:10-17) and his mother Mary. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, considered to be a messianic personification of the entire people of Israel, becomes the new Daughter of Zion. Mary as the messianic Gebirah is actually the Mother of the Church.

This study analyzes the conditional structures in the Spoken Arabic of Siirt, focusing on a series of aspects such as the topic of the sentences in such syntactical structures, the conditional markers, the verbal patterns and preverbal particles employed for introducing the conditionals and a compositional analysis of the conditional clause, with focus on the distinction between the real, open, generic, habitual and hypothetical conditionals, among other known types of the structure under study.

This paper presents the results of observations on occurrence of Tetranychidae. During 1995-2001 investigations a total of 10 species, namely Bryobia praetiosa, Eotetranychus carpini, E. cary/i, E. pruni, E. tiliarum, Eurytetranychus buxi, Panonychus ulmi, Schizotetranychus schizopus, Tetranychus viennensis and T. urticae were collected in ornamental nurseries in Poland. The T. urticae was the most frequent species ofmites and it was found on 60 different species of plants belonging to 1 7 families. This species caused severe damage on Spiraea japonica (Rosaceae), Ulmus minor 'Jacqueline Hillier' (Ulmaceae), Magnolia spp. (Magnoliaceae), Buddleja davidii (Buddlejaceae), Sambucus nigra (Caprifoliaceae), Laburnum xwatererii (Fabaceae) and Daphne mezereum (Thymelaceae). Among ocher tetranychids, S. schizopus is also dangerous pest of grafted willows.

Ground temperature measurement results in main ecotopes of the Kaffiöyra coastal plain (Oscar II Land, northwestern Spitsbergen): sea beach, tundra and morainic plateau, are presented and discussed in the paper. The spatial distribution of thermal conditions is discussed with particular regard to temperature of the active surface and vertical gradients of temperature dependent on daytime and weather conditions.

This study discusses results of experiments on hydrodynamic assessment of gas flow through backbone (skeletal) porous materials with an anisotropic structure. The research was conducted upon materials of diversified petrographic characteristics – cokes. The study was conducted for a variety of hydrodynamic conditions, using air. The basis for assessing hydrodynamics of gas flow through porous material was a gas stream that results from the pressure forcing such flow. The results of measurements indicate a clear impact of the type of material on the gas permeability, and additionally – as a result of their anisotropic internal structure – to a significant effect of the flow direction on the value of gas stream. In aspect of scale transfer problem, a method of mapping the flow geometry of skeletal materials has been developed and usefulness of numerical methods has been evaluated to determine pressure drop and velocity distribution of gas flow. The results indicate the compliance of the used calculation method with the result of experiments.

Thermal analysis of a heat and power plant with a high temperature gas cooled nuclear reactor is presented. The main aim of the considered system is to supply a technological process with the heat at suitably high temperature level. The considered unit is also used to produce electricity. The high temperature helium cooled nuclear reactor is the primary heat source in the system, which consists of: the reactor cooling cycle, the steam cycle and the gas heat pump cycle. Helium used as a carrier in the first cycle (classic Brayton cycle), which includes the reactor, delivers heat in a steam generator to produce superheated steam with required parameters of the intermediate cycle. The intermediate cycle is provided to transport energy from the reactor installation to the process installation requiring a high temperature heat. The distance between reactor and the process installation is assumed short and negligable, or alternatively equal to 1 km in the analysis. The system is also equipped with a high temperature argon heat pump to obtain the temperature level of a heat carrier required by a high temperature process. Thus, the steam of the intermediate cycle supplies a lower heat exchanger of the heat pump, a process heat exchanger at the medium temperature level and a classical steam turbine system (Rankine cycle). The main purpose of the research was to evaluate the effectiveness of the system considered and to assess whether such a three cycle cogeneration system is reasonable. Multivariant calculations have been carried out employing the developed mathematical model. The results have been presented in a form of the energy efficiency and exergy efficiency of the system as a function of the temperature drop in the high temperature process heat exchanger and the reactor pressure.

The present paper describes a methodological framework developed to select a multi-label dataset transformation method in the context of supervised machine learning techniques. We explore the rectangular 2D strip-packing problem (2D-SPP), widely applied in industrial processes to cut sheet metals and paper rolls, where high-quality solutions can be found for more than one improvement heuristic, generating instances with multi-label behavior. To obtain single-label datasets, a total of five multi-label transformation methods are explored. 1000 instances were generated to represent different 2D-SPP variations found in real-world applications, labels for each instance represented by improvement heuristics were calculated, along with 19 predictors provided by problem characteristics. Finally, classification models were fitted to verify the accuracy of each multi-label transformation method. For the 2D-SPP, the single-label obtained using the exclusion method fit more accurate classification models compared to the other four multi-label transformation methods adopted.

This article contributes to the growing debate on reintegration and the positioning of returnees in their home societies. Increasingly, studies focus on returnees’ agency in reintegration processes, their practices of mobility in return and their use of social capital and financial and social remittances acquired abroad. Much less analysed is how ethnicity influences such processes of return and experiences of reintegration. In this paper we examine how returnees belonging to different ethnic groups – Germans, Romanians and Roma – reintegrate in a Romanian multi-ethnic context with marked ethnic inequality and lasting segregation. Fieldwork was carried out in a town that has undergone massive changes in the past 30 years due to the combined effects of foreign direct investment and international migration. Economically, the town changed from a poor and decaying context, to one that was poor but developing and finally to one experiencing strong development. Using a modes-of-integration perspective and analysing returnees’ reintegration and mobilities, we show how return evolved as an ethnicised process in different contexts of reception.

The research was intended to develop a biocomposite as an alternative biodegradable material, for the production of, e.g., disposable utensils. The author’s tested thermoplastic maize starch, both without additives and with the addition of crumbled fl ax fi ber in the share of 10, 20 and 30 wt%. The plasticizer added was technical glycerin and the samples were produced by a single-screw extruder. The mechanical strength tests were performed, including the impact tensile test and three-point bending fl exural test. Afterwards, the samples were tested for biodegradability under anaerobic conditions. The methane fermentation process was carried in a laboratory bioreactor under thermophilic conditions with constant mixing of the batch. All samples proved to be highly susceptible to biodegradation during the experiment, regardless of the fl ax fi ber share. The biogas potential was about 600 ml·g-1, and the methane concentration in biogas ranged from 66.8 to 69.6%. It was found, that the biocomposites can be almost completely utilized in bioreactors during the biodegradation process. The energy recovery in the decomposition process with the generation of signifi cant amount of methane constitutes an additional benefi t.

The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of industrial wastewater on the concentration of methanol in the considered section of the Ob River basin, present proposals for the implementation of a new treatment system and analyse the implementation results. On the basis of the results of the analysis of the known methods for reducing the concentration of methanol in water, a new technological scheme for post-treatment of effluents using biological treatment with methylotrophic Methylomonas methanica Dg bacteria was proposed. The calculation of the dilution of treated wastewater using the “NDS Ecolog” program was carried out on the basis of the detailed calculation method of Karaushev, the results of which showed a decrease in the concentration of methanol in the control section to 0.0954 mg∙dm ^–3 (permissible concentration is 0.1 mg∙dm ^–3). During the period of the flood of the Glukhaya channel, it ceases to be a separate water body and, in fact, becomes part of the flood channel of the Ob River. Certain parts of the flooded areas, due to elevation changes, communicate with the channel only during a short period of time when the water level rises, i.e. 3–5 weeks during the flood period, and in fact remain isolated reservoirs for the rest of the time, potentially acting as zones of accumulation and concentration of pollutants.