The research of the soil quality was made in Markowice, the district of Racibórz, the town situated in the South of Poland. The soils of Racibórz were expected to be contaminated with heavy metals after the heavy flood in 1997, which devastated great part of Poland, especially the town. The assays covered macroand microcomponents, contents of total calcium, iron, manganese, sulphur, bioavailable magnesium, potassium and phosphorus, contents of heavy metals (lead, cadmium, zinc, chromium, nickel and copper), electrolytic conductivity, pH of soil, and finally organic matter content in soil. The research showed that soils of the district of Racibórz have a natural content of heavy metals, but the soils have the deficiency of macrocornponcnts, such as phosphorus, magnesium and calcium.

The most important criteria for evaluation of building engineering is the state of indoor climate and energy consumption. Increase of the rate of energy saving resulted not only in the use of better barriers, but also building elements, such as windows, having low air leakage values. Simultaneously, in the design of new buildings and the retrofit of existing buildings, traditional structures of natural ventilation are used. In these cases, the ventilation is an important tool for a dcsiderable realization of all environmental and energy requirements. The paper presents selected results of a long-term research work. These results were obtained by questionnaires, measurements and simulations of ventilation processes in typical detached houses, blocks of flats and office buildings. The main objective of the presented paper is to demonstrate investigations and summarize a large number of results which describe the airtightness and natural ventilation on indoor environment.

Processes applied for preliminary treatment of wastewater from refineries and petrochemical plants create the oily sludge, containing high percentage of water and only a bit less of hydrocarbons. This sludge is collected in storage tanks, because no application for it can be found. Our researches had as a first step the aim to convert this fluid sludge into solid substance (product) by adding of quicklime and then utilize the product in the road construction as a bottom layer of the road. The product should be added in the amount of a few percent comparing to the rest of soil. The second step of the research was an assessment of an impact of the product used for construction of experimental sections of roads and squares on environment by monitoring of surface and ground water quality in their vicinity. If the contribution of the product in total amount of the road material is less than 8% the influence is kept under limits.

The methods arc described for determinations of Al, Fe, Ca, Mg, Ba, Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd, V and Sr in botanical, coal fly ash and soil samples by flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS), and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (!CP-AES). Special attention has been paid to sample preparation, an important stage at which a sample is explored to contaminants. Results of the analysis of all samples arc discussed.

This paper deals with the acceptability (AKC) and perceived concentration of pollutants (D) emitted by occupants in relation to the specific enthalpy (h) and relative humidity (qi) of indoor air. Measurements of AKC/D/, described by semilogarithmic function depend significantly on both In h and In (jl. The equation fits to the data published in the literature in a reasonably good way. Therefore, it indicates that the linear function between AKC and h which is commonly used in literature yields rough approximations. The proposed equation allows for the validation of the indoor mieroclimatc and brings an idea how to make measurements of the perceived air quality instrumentally and how to control the air conditioning process.

In the article, results of the air-quality experiment in a Nowy Sącz area have been presented. The experiment combining both calculations and measurements was done in July 1993. Its goal was to assess the capability of the ,,box-model" method for simulation time-series of ozone and other pollutants in the lowest layer of the atmosphere. The numeric calculations' results were verified by the measurements from the airquality monitoring network. The model's prognostic capacity was assessed by the qualitative and quantitative data analysis. For analyzed episode, the error of calculated maximum ozone concentrations did not exceed ±22% of measured maximum values. The calculated daily-average ozone concentrations were 29% lower comparing to measured values. TI1c errors of calculations were most probably due to the errors in distribution of depth of the mixing layer, assumed for the calculations.

Lcachates from municipal solid waste landfills should be included in the group of strongly contaminated industrial wastewaters. This results form the presence of highly concentrated various organic and inorganic compounds, which frequently have toxic properties. Therefore, the proper purification of the leachates prior to their discharging to the environment is of great importance. One of the chemical methods that can be used for the purification of leachates is coagulation. The main objective of the experiments presented in the current study was to determine the effect of coagulation, combined with sedimentation, on the physicchemical and toxicological characteristics of leachates from one of a municipal solid waste landfill in Poland. Standard .jar-test" experiments were employed for coagulation. Polyaluminum chloride and ferric chloride were used as coagulants. Raw leachates as well as those after coagulation were tested for toxicity using a battery of tests embracing algal growth inhibition test, microbiotests and IQ Toxicity Tests with crustaceans and bacterial luminescence inhibition test (LUM!Stox). The studies carried out demonstrated that ferric chloride (0.92 g Fc3·/CODc, removed) is more effective technologically in the removal of organic compounds from lcachates than polyaluminum chloride (1.22 g AP'/CODc, removed). For optimal doses of coagulants the most advantageous coagulation effects were achieved at pH 6.5-6.6, adjusted with the use of NaOH. Coagulation conducted under optimal conditions allows for reducing the content of organic compounds, as expressed by CODc, values, from 40 to 84%. This effect of organic compound removal from leachatcs in the process of coagulation did not result in significant decrease of their toxicity, For the above reasons the coagulation process can be useful only as one of the clements· of a technological setup for the purification of leachates from municipal solid waste landfills. The battery of tests used in the studies proved usefulness for the evaluation of the toxicity of leachatcs with varied degree of contamination as well as at various stages of their purification.

The paper presents research on using natural zcolitc modified for cleaning municipal sewage thoroughly. The research was carried out in laboratory scale in system composed of Sequencing Batch Reactors and filter bed with zeolitc modified with manganese ions. Synthetic sewage prepared on the basis of organic and mineral components was used for cleaning process. After biological treatment with activated sludge in the reactor, the sewage was directed to filtration column. Due to the fact that reactor was operating in cycles; the sewage was treated on the bed in portioned way and kept submerged. The research was carried out in a few stages: without regeneration of the bed, with periodic regeneration and cyclical after cach cycle of SBR reactor operation. Obtained results of nitrogen, phosphorous and carbon compounds removal were verified on real sewage. For that purpose biologically treated sewage was directed in a continuous way to a filtration column from secondary settling tank of sewage treatment plant, regenerating bed with different methods after exhausting its catalytic properties. Verification showed great effectiveness of used configuration for removal ammonia nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous compound from sewage. Decrease in electrical conductivity of sewage and a slight increase of nitrate nitrogen concentration was observed. The research showed great effectiveness of proposed filtration configuration for sewage treatment and a possibility of bed regeneration with keeping its work effectiveness.

The aim of the present study was to determine the content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in relation to the intensity and type of soil management. Two types of soil were selected for the present studies, i.e.: Haplic Phaeozem developed from loess and Eutric Fluvisol originating from silty formations. Five objects were chosen in cach of the soils included in the present study, i.e.: apple orchards, hop gardens, arabic fields, grassland and natural forest ecosystems. Samples were collected from the depth of 0-1 O, I 0- 20 and below 35 cm. In the study material obtained, the content of 16 PAHs was determined by means of the HPLC-UV method. The content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons clearly depended both on the soil type and soil management method. Only in the case of two objects (hop garden and grassland plot) both the Haplic Phaeozem and the Eutric Fluvisol were characterized by the highest PAH content. The influence of soil management method on both the PAH sum and the content of individual compounds was more clearly marked in the Haplic Phaeozem than in the Eutric Fluvisol. PAH migration deeper into the soil profile similarly to their content depended on the soil type and soil management method. However, both in the Eutric Fluvisol and in the Haplic Phaeozem, an increase in naphthalene share was observed with a decrease in depth. Nevertheless, the effect of pollutant leaching deeper into the soil profile was more clearly marked in the case of Eutric Fluvisol.

As nonlinear optimization techniques are computationally expensive, their usage in the real-time era is constrained. So this is the main challenge for researchers to develop a fast algorithm that is used in real-time computations. This work proposes a fast nonlinear model predictive control approach based on particle swarm optimization for nonlinear optimization with constraints. The suggested algorithm divide and conquer technique improves computing speed and disturbance rejection capability, demonstrating its suitability for real-time applications. The performance of this approach under constraints is validated using a highly nonlinear fast and dynamic real-time inverted pendulum system. The solution presented through work is computationally feasible for smaller sampling times and it gives promising results compared to the state of art PSO algorithm

In this paper, the performance of the Bayesian Optimization (BO) technique applied to various problems of microwave engineering is studied. Bayesian optimization is a novel, non-deterministic, global optimization scheme that uses machine learning to solve complex optimization problems. However, each new optimization scheme needs to be evaluated to find its best application niche, as there is no universal technique that suits all problems. Here, BO was applied to different types of microwave and antenna engineering problems, including matching circuit design, multiband antenna and antenna array design, or microwave filter design. Since each of the presented problems has a different nature and characteristics such as different scales (i.e. number of design variables), we try to address the question about the generality of BO and identify the problem areas for which the technique is or is not recommended.