The research reported in this paper is a continuation of the experimentation on the articulation of the Polish /r/ in the intervocalic and postconsonantal positions (cf. Stolarski 2013a and 2013b, respectively). According to Biedrzycki (1978: 83-84), in these two phonetic contexts the rhotic happens to be articulated as a tap. Such an assumption stands in contrast to the widely accepted view that the Polish rhotic is generally realised as a trill. The results reported in Stolarski (2013a) and (2013b) amply prove that in these two environments tapping of the Polish /r/ is extremely frequent. In this article the articulation of the Polish rhotic is examined in the preconsonantal and word-final phonetic contexts. Biedrzycki’s account suggests that in these environments /r/ should be realised as a trill. The results obtained in the current research, however, indicate that even in such contexts the rhotic is mostly tapped. The conclusion which must be drawn from these findings is that the basic allophone of the Polish /r/ is the tap, and not the commonly assumed trill.

The height of the fundamental frequency (F0) is frequently cited as the major acoustic feature that distinguishes the female voice from the male voice. Women tend to have a signifi cantly higher mean F0 than men. Some studies have indicated that the variability of the fundamental frequency also differs between the two genders and women’s voices may involve higher prosodic explicitness than men’s voices. This study investigates the way in which these features are utilised in rendering the voice of male and female characters in the reading aloud of fiction. To achieve this aim, a representative sample of dialogues selected from audiobooks was analysed acoustically. The results reveal that the reader’s F0 tends to slightly increase in fragments with female characters, but other predictions have not been confirmed. There is no decrease of F0 in dialogues with male characters and, in general, the reader’s variability of F0 seems not to be influenced by the character’s gender.

Dr. Marcin Stolarski is radio communication manager in the team responsible for Poland's first scientific satellites BRITE-PL. He is also involved in other projects, such as the Solar Orbiter satellite and the development of new radio systems based on software defined radio (SDR) technologies. He won the national Famelab competition and made it into the international final. He is currently at the University of California, attending a two-month training course for "Top 500 Innovators" organized by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

An analysis of the dynamic load - carrying capacity of rectangular reinforced concrete deep beam considering the physical nonlinearities of structural materials: concrete and reinforcing steel, is the aim of the paper. The model of the elastic/visco-perfectly plastic material including dynamic yield criterion was applied for the reinforcing steel. The non-standard model of dynamic deformation, regarding the dynamic strength criterion and material softening was applied for the concrete. The method for description of deformation parameters of high strength concrete was included in the model. The method of structure effort analysis was developed using the finite element method. The comparative analyses of the obtained results for three different values of high strengths of concrete and one value of high yield stress for reinforcing steel were carried out in relation to the numerical results obtained for ordinary concrete and steel in case of dynamic loading. In these cases, the significant differences in behavior of reinforced concrete deep beams have been observed and described in detail. The effectiveness of the method analysis and computational algorithms for the problems of numerical simulation of reinforced concrete deep beam dynamic behavior was indicated in the paper.

This paper outlines a method of determining the deformation and strength parameters for a hypothetical, homogeneous, substitute material which approximates the properties of heterogeneous materials in reinforced concrete elements. The model of the substitute material creates a concrete reference model, in which the static - strength - deformation parameters were modified on the basis of the homogenizing function with the homogenization coefficient assumed as the effective reinforcement ratio of the reinforced concrete structural elements. The results of the comparative analysis of the numerical models using the hypothetical substitute material with experimental results for statically loaded beams and deep beams taken from the literature are presented.

Solitary corals of the genus Flabellum are described from the Lower Oligocene glaciomarine strata of the Polonez Cove Formation of King George Island, West Antarctica. This is the oldest record of the genus from Antarctica.

One of the key parameters determining detection properties of silicon PIN detector structures (p⁺-ν-n⁺ or n⁺-ν-p⁺) is minority carrier diffusion length in p-n junction regions p-n (p⁺-ν or n⁺-ν). The parameter concerned strongly depends on quality of the starting material and technological processes conducted and has a significant impact on detector parameters, in particular dark current intensity. Thus, the parameter must be determined in order to optimise the design and technology of detectors.

The paper presents a method for measuring the spatial distribution of effective carrier diffusion length in silicon detector structures, based on the measurement of photoelectric current of a non-polarised structure illuminated (spot diameter of 250 μm) with monochromatic radiation of two wavelengths λ₁ = 500 nm (silicon penetration depth of around 0.9 μm) and λ₂ = 900 nm (silicon penetration depth of around 33 μm). The value of diffusion length was determined by analysing the spatial distribution of optical carrier generation and values of photoelectric currents.

This paper outlines effect of the mix composition on mechanical properties of high–strength concrete based on aggregate size like in of Reactive Powder Concrete (RPC) but without fiber reinforcement. The main purpose which guided the authors choosing proportion of water and superplasticizer (SP) was to achieve a similar consistency in the test slump for various concrete mix. Test results for 3 groups of superplasticizers, designated as D – with chemical base – acrylic polymer, V – with chemical base – polycarboxylate ether, P – with chemical base – modified polycarboxylates, two cement groups, designated as Cem A – with fineness Blaine 3980 cm ²/g, Cem B – with fineness Blaine 4430 cm ²/g and 2 types of aggregate: basalt and granite were presented. After curing for 1, 7 and 28 days samples were tested for compressive strength and flexural tensile strength. The article also presents the study of the elemental composition and structure of the SP with the use of the SEM electron microscope. The amount of solid particles in the SP was also determined by the water vaporization. The assumption of the paper was to maintain the consistency of the mixture at the S2 level according to the Eurocode standard. The paper proposes a method based on SEM analysis in order to select a superplasticizer with the best ductility parameters, and the best results of the compressive and flexural tensile strength of concrete samples were obtained. The best results for compressive strength after 28 days are obtained for concrete series with the polycarboxylate ether superplasticizer and modified polycarboxylate ether superplasticizer in combination with the use of type A cement and it is greater than for the concrete series with type B cement by 11.7%.