The Maritime Labour Convention (MLC 2006) is a modern legal document, which amends and integrates 36 International Labour Organization conventions and 1 protocol to a convention. This makes the MLC a global standard equivalent to an international maritime labour code.
The guidelines in the White Book regarding the development of transport confirmed the conclusions reached by the European Council in Gothenburg regarding, on the one hand, the necessity of optimization, and, on the other, compliance with principles of sustainable development. The second issue, in particular, lays out the conditions for the creation of a contemporary transportation system that will equalize economic results with social costs and the environmental pollution. The expectations are that cabotage transport will become an alternative to ground transport. Cabotage transport between the European ports has not developed to the extent anticipated. The White Book reveals that the development of short distance marine transport, which is currently a priority in EU maritime policy, will stimulate undertakings in the Baltic and North seas regions. The expansion of the European Union should lead to significant possibilities for the further development of cabotage transport. The European Commission anticipates that the Baltic region will be the fastest developing European region in 2002-2010. This provides opportunities but also sets out challenges for Polish vessel owners and seaports, which, as instruments of growing economic exchange, will contribute to the economic development of the country.
The Consolidated Convention of the ILO on work at sea was accepted on 23 February 2006, during the Ninety-Fourth session o f the International Labor Conference of the ILO in Geneva. The whole session was dominated by the problems of the maritime sector and conditions of work at sea. Work had been begun in 2001 on the consolidation of the Convention and recommendations connected with this sector. The author discusses the Thirty-fifth Convention of the ILO, but the Maritime Labor Convention “absorbs up to 87 ILO acts. ” It is intended that the MLC be a modern legal instrument that will attain the status of a General Maritime Legal Labor Codex, bringing together all conventions and recommendations accepted since 1919. The incorporation o f the MLC o f2006 into the EU legal system and those of its member states will take place in stages. The EU wishes to identify itself with the MLC’s provisions. Swift ratification - in the opinion of the European Commission - would indicate the EU’s leading position in the international arena, and this would encourage other members o f the ILO to ratify the Convention. The principal aim o f the MLC o f2006 is to achieve and maintain homogeneous labor conditions in the maritime sector, and also to ensure the fairest possible conditions for competition.
Compared to other European countries, Poland has scarce drinking water resources and exhibits
significant variation in annual runoff. On the other hand, the geothermal water resources present in sedimentary/structural basins, mostly in the Polish Lowlands and the Podhale geothermal system, not only provide a
valuable source of renewable energy, which is utilized, although only to a limited extent, but can also be used
for many other purposes. The paper presents the results of studies related to the desalination of low dissolved
mineral content geothermal waters from the Bańska IG-1 well using a dual hybrid system based on ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. The desalination of geothermal waters may be considered a possible solution leading
to the decentralization of drinking water supply. In many cases, using cooled waters for drinking purposes may
be considered an alternative method of disposing of them, in particular for open drain arrangements, i.e. where
cooled water is dumped into surface waters.
A method for frequency-multiplexed multi-sample gas sensing is presented. It enables measuring multiple samples placed simultaneously in the setup, without any optical or mechanical switching. Samples are measured using heterodyne detection and signal from each sensing path is encoded at different carrier frequency. Subsequently, a signal from particular sample is retrieved through heterodyne beatnote demodulation at unique frequency. This technique is particularly suitable for real-time calibration of the sensor through a sequential (or simultaneous) detection of three signals: from unknown sample, reference sample and baseline. Basic setup is demonstrated and proof-of-concept experiments are presented. Very good agreement with spectra measured using standard tunable diode absorption spectroscopy is obtained.
The article reviews European Union case law on ship registration and sea-faring in EU member states. The EU, aside from encouraging ship registration in member states, enacts choice of law rules in order to mandate the EU lawor domestic law of member states as proper law for seafaring. Today, the larger number of major Polish shipowners fly a flag of convenience (such as Greece or Cyprus), which means Polish merchant ships do not carry Poland’s civil ensigns.
A prospective brown coal mine "Legnica" is to be responsible for forming a depression funnel which can cover "Ścinawskie Swamps" where 26 herbaceous plant species forming 7 communities were recognized, among others: Phragmitetum australis, Caricetum gracilis and Acoretum calami. Investigated wetland characterizes changeable level of water which brings about the presence of as many as 30.77% species connected with Molinio-Arrhenatheretea class. The half of taxa belongs to synantropic species, while 50% are non - synantropic ones. The area of "Ścinawskie Swamps" can be assessed as featuring moderately high nature values and, therefore worth further protection as ecological areas.
The paper presents a method of identifying distant emission sources of fine particulate matter PM2.5 affecting significantly PM2.5 concentrations at a given location. The method involves spatial analysis of aggregate information about PM2.5 concentrations measured at the location and air masses backward trajectories calculated by HYSPLIT model. The method was examined for three locations of PM2.5 measurement stations (Diabla Góra, Gdańsk, and Katowice) which represented different environmental conditions. The backward trajectories were calculated starting from different heights (30, 50, 100 and 150 m a. g. l.). All points of a single backward trajectory were assigned to the PM2.5 concentration corresponding to the date and the site of the beginning of trajectory calculation. Daily average concentrations of PM2.5 were used, and in the case of Gdańsk also hourly ones. It enabled to assess the effectiveness of the presented method using daily averages if hourly ones were not available. Locations of distant sources of fine particulate matter emission were determined by assigning to each grid node a mean value of PM2.5 concentrations associated with the trajectories points located within the so-called search ellipse. Nearby sources of fine particulate matter emission were eliminated by filtering the trajectories points located close to each other (so-called duplicates). The analyses covered the period of January-March 2010. The results indicated the different origin of air masses in the northern and southern Poland. In Diabla Góra and Gdańsk the distant sources of fine particulate matter emission are identified in Belarus and Russia. In Katowice the impact of the Belarusian PM2.5 emission sources was also noted but as the most important fine particulate matter emission sources were considered those located in the area of Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine.
There is often a need to improve the taste of mineral water by reducing the sulphate ion content. It was found that for such an effect, nanofiltration (NF) process can be used. In the case, the proposed formula was assumed obtaining a mineral water with reduction of H2S and SO42- content through the following processes: stripping - UF/MF or rapid fi ltration - nanofiltration - mixing with raw water or filtration through calcium bed. The paper shows the results of the tests, with use of mineral waters and nanofiltration. Commercial nanofiltration membranes NF-270 Dow Filmtec and NF-DK GE Infrastructure Water&Process Technologies were applied. NF was carried out for mixed water from both water intakes (1 and 2), recovery of 50%, at transmembrane pressure of 0.8-1.2 MPa in the dead-end fi ltration mode. In addition, the permeate obtained in NF was filtered through a column fi lled with 1.0-3.0 mm limestone rock, in order to improve the composition of mineral water. The tested mineral water is the sulphate-chloride-sodium-calcium-magnesium in nature and contains 991 mg/L of SO42- and 2398 mg/L of TDS, while the permeate after NF showed the chloride - sodium hydrogeochemical type (TDS: 780-1470 mg/L, sulfate 10-202.7 mg/L, calcium 23-39.7 mg/L, magnesium 11-28 mg/L). As a result of water treatment in the NF process, high reduction of SO42- ions was obtained (79-98.7%), while the TDS was reduced in 51-64%. Because the process of NF allows for relatively high reduction of bivalent ions, a significant reduction in calcium ion content (84-88%) and magnesium (84-89%) has been also obtained. Monovalent ions were reduced to a lesser extent, i.e. sodium in 46% and bicarbonates in 39-64.1%. Despite obtaining the positive effect of the sulphate ions content reduction, the NF process significantly changed the mineralogy composition of water. The permeate filtration (DK-NF membrane) on the CaCO3 deposit led to a correction of the hydrogeochemical type of water from chloridesodium to chloride-bicarbonate-sodium. The concentration of calcium ions was increased by 60.5% and was 28.2 mg/L, and bicarbonate ions by 7.78% (increased to 195 mg/L). Based on a morphological assessment of the deposits in the SEM image and their chemical composition, the presence of gypsum crystals was detected on the surface of the NF-270 membrane. The deposits formed on the NF-DK membrane were of a completely different character as aggregations of iron and aluminium oxides/hydroxides were found. Such significant mineralogical differences between the secondary deposits crystallising on the surface of the membranes point to the impact of several factors, including membrane characteristics, concentration polarisation, mass transport mechanisms, etc.