The aim of this article is to examine the influence of the contemporary speculative philosophy on the neo-fantastic fiction (Le monde enfin by J.-P. Andrevon). The speculative philosophy presents the modern world as the source of cosmological horror for the human being. In my analysis, I focus on two anxiety-provoking motifs present both in speculative philosophy and Andrevon’s novel: the end of the anthropocentric world and the beginning of a new, inhuman world, dominated by nature.

The paper presents an analysis of the grammatical function of the German perfect tense form by encoding the “real” times. The theoretical base provides a combination of two separate concepts, i.e. Reichenbach’s and Weinrich’s model, and is an attempt to combine them into one, prototypical model. As an additional criterion, the classification according to Vendler is introduced, because one of the goals of the paper is also to examine the use of auxiliary verbs haben-have and sein-be in verbal periphrases depending on their Aktionsart, or type of activity.

The paper examines the most important Italian historical novel and focuses on its principal migration routes, especially concerning main characters. It also examines a variety of representations of border and frontier (also in a metaphorical sense) in the novel.

After leaving a GDR prison, in the 60s, Erich Loest started to write crime stories under the pseudonym Hans Walldorf. His series of only a few novels finishes with the short story collection entitled Oakins macht Karriere. In his stories, presenting the investigations by a London detective Pat Oakins, Loest did a specific kind of travesty of a classic genre convention, going away from a socialistic-didactic character of crime stories in Eastern Germany.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of maternal and paternal languages on the development of a bilingual child’s language. It is assumed that a mother’s language has the greatest influence on a child’s language. In addition, maternal language is responsible for the largest part of the variety in the language children understand and use as well as the development of bilingualism. We also believe that fathers influence the language of a home and mothers influence the language of a child. In our analysis, the focus is on the quantity and quality of exposure to the given languages, the pattern of language used by parents, the language of formal instruction and the style of parentchild interaction. Over one hundred and fifty case studies were under examination depicting various language constellations, such as e.g. Polish and English, Polish and Russian, Polish and German, Polish and Ukrainian, Polish and Belarusian, Polish and Italian. Hence, with this paper we hope to be able to better understand cross-linguistic influence on bilingual speakers.

The article summarizes the results of sociolinguistic study of the language environment of secondary schools in Ukraine, on the basis of which the conclusion about its bilingualism was made. It is proved that the quality of the language environment does not correspond to the declared school status. Changes in the assessment of the language environment of schools from 2006 to 2017 are identified and it is concluded that it is possible to develop recommendations for improving the legal support of the use of languages in the Ukrainian education.

This research deals with problems of low standardization of words in the Gamo textbooks, an Afroasiatic Omotic language of Ethiopia. Problems of designating one concept in two or more words, using different linguistic forms for the same grammatical function and degeminating and shortening long consonant and vowel segments were observed. These problems reduce the quality of the textbooks and mother tongue education and put pedagogical and cognitive burden on students.

The issue of the morphemic analysis of medical terminology is a crucial factor in terms of translation strategies and compilation of a terminological dictionary. The research was conducted in the context of author’s current lexicographical work called as English-Ukrainian-Russian defining dictionary of dental terms. To provide the user of the dictionary with reliable techniques to construct the meaning of terms, morphemes relative frequency in the area of dentistry have been determined.

The main goal of the paper is to show the value of texts preserved in more than one version for studies aimed at identifying reasons for the demise of words. The data selected is a set of six non-surviving English preterite-present verbs. The analysis of the material shows that mediaeval manuscripts often exhibit orthographic and morphological variation as well as differ in lexemes. Such differences prove to be useful for the search of factors leading to the elimination of the verbs in question.

The term positive psychology has recently entered the field of Second Language Acquisition. The article explains the meaning of the term, presents the definitions of positive psychology, its objectives and history. The key part of the article demonstrates the importance of positive psychology in the second language acquisition presenting many connections between the two fields. The author recommends that positive education is introduced in every school and every foreign language classroom.

The article investigates the level of language awareness manifested by the advanced learners of Polish as a FL (146 students of the Polish Language Course attending the School of Polish Language and Culture at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland). The exact focus is on learning outcomes (areas of language progress and regress), and perception of the Polish language material learnt (including grammar, vocabulary and phonology), an emphasis being put on most problematic issues. Having presented learners’ opinions and reflections on language, implications for teachers including teaching materials raising language awareness are offered.

The Muskingham method uses two formulas to describe the translation of flow surges in a river bed. The continuity formula is the first formula, while the relationship between the reach’s storage, inflow, and outflow is the second formula (the discharge storage formula); these formulas are applied to a portion of the river between two river cross sections. Several methods can be utilized to estimate the model’s parameters. This section contrasts the conventional graphic approach with three numerical methods: Genetic algorithm, Exponential regression, and Classical fourth-order Runge–Kutta. This application’s most noticeable plus point was the need to employ a few hydrological variables, such as intake, output, and duration. The location of the Euphrates entrance to the Iraqi territory in Husaybah city was chosen with its hydrological data during the period (1993–2017) to conduct this study. The goal function is established by accuracy criterion approaches (Sum of squares error and sum of squared deviations). Depending on the simulation findings, the suggested predictive flood routing ideawas highly acceptable with the prospect of adopting the Genetic Expression Programming model as a suitable and more accurate replacement to existing methods such as the Muskingum model and other numerical models, where this method gave results (��2 = 0.9984, SSQ = 1.06, SSSD = 80.75), These results achieved a hydrograph that is largely identical to what was given by the hydrological method called Muskingham.

This article comprises an analysis of the variability of meteorological conditions on Kaffiøyra (NW Spitsbergen, Svalbard) in 2013–2017 in connection with atmospheric circulation and the extent of sea ice. The obtained results were compared with the results of observations made at the Ny-Ålesund station. Due to the situation of the area in the polar region and the large amount of clouds, especially in summer, the annual sum of incoming solar radiation was small, amounting to an average of 2,237.8 MJ.m-2 per year. The mean air temperature in the considered period was -2.0°C. Its extreme values ranged from 15.2°C to -23.8°C. In the annual course, the highest mean temperature occurred in July (6.5°C), and the lowest in March (-7.8°C). The mean relative humidity of air was high (83%). The prevailing wind directions were from south and north sectors and this coincided with the orientation of Forlandsundet. The mean wind speed was 3.6 m.s-1. In the summer season in 1975–2017, a statistically significant air temperature increase was observed, reaching 0.28°C/10 years. The high variability of local weather conditions was caused mainly by atmospheric circulation and the impact of sea ice was much smaller in comparison.

Nothofagaceae fossil leaves and an associated palynoflora from Late Cretaceous sediments of Vega Island, eastern Antarctic Peninsula, are presented. The leaves are described as Nothofagus sp. 1 and Morphotype LDB 1, and come from the Snow Hill Island (late Campanian-early Maastrichtian) and the López de Bertodano (late Maastrichtian) formations, respectively. The palynoflora obtained from levels immediately above and below the Nothofagus sp. 1 and in the same horizon as the Morphotype LDB 1, included terrestrial and marine elements. In the palynoflora associated with Nothofagus sp. 1, conifers are dominant and pollen grains with Nothofagus affinity are represented by four species: Nothofagidites kaitangataensis (Te Punga) Romero 1973 and Nothofagidites senectus Dettmann and Playford 1968, which belong to the ancestral pollen type, as well as Nothofagidites dorotensis Romero 1973 and Nothofagidites sp. of the brassii-type. Cryptogamic spores, marine dinoflagellate cysts and algae, among others, are part of the assemblage. The palynoflora associated with the Morphotype LDB 1 also contains abundant conifer and angiosperm pollen grains with N. dorotensis as the only Nothofagus species recorded. Marine dinoflagellate cysts are scarce while fungi and phytodebris are common elements. The joint presence of marine and non-marine palynomorphs supports a probable nearshore environment at time of deposition for both units. Pollen and spore evidence suggests a mixed conifer and angiosperm forest, with Podocarpaceae and Nothofagus as the main components, and ferns, lycopods, and mosses in the understory. This forest developed under temperate and moist conditions during the middle Campanian-Maastrichtian.

In this paper, the recent ice regime variations in the Kara Sea have been described and quantified based on the high-resolution remote sensing database from 2003 to 2017. In general, the Kara Sea is fully covered with thicker sea ice in winter, but sea ice cover is continuously declining during the summer. The year 2003 was the year with the most severe ice conditions, while 2012 and 2016 were the least severe. The extensive sea ice begins to break up before May and becomes completely frozen at the end of December again. The duration of ice melting is approximately twice than that of the freezing. Since 2007, the minimum ice coverage has always been below 5%, resulting in wide open-waters in summer. Furthermore, the relevant local driving factors of external atmospheric forcing on ice conditions have been quantitatively calculated and analyzed. Winter accumulated surface air temperature has been playing a primary role on the ice concentration and thickness condition in winter and determining ice coverage index in the following melt-freeze stage. Correlation coefficients between winter accumulated temperature and ice thickness anomaly index, the ice coverage anomaly index, duration of melt-freeze stage can approach -0.72, -0.83 and 0.80, respectively. In summer, meridional winds contribute closely to summer ice coverage anomaly index, with correlation coefficient exceeding 0.80 since 2007 and 0.90 since 2010.

Microbes living in the polar regions have some common and unique strategies to respond to thermal stress. Nevertheless, the amount of information available, especially at the molecular level is lacking for some organisms such as Antarctic psychrophilic yeast. For instance, it is not known whether molecular chaperones in Antarctic yeasts play similar roles to those from mesophilic yeasts when they are exposed to heat stress. Therefore, this project aimed to determine the gene expression patterns and roles of molecular chaperones in Antarctic psychrophilic Glaciozyma antarctica PI12 that was exposed to heat stress. G. antarctica PI12 was grown at its optimal growth temperature of 12ºC and later exposed to heat stresses at 16ºC and 20ºC for 6 hours. Transcriptomes of those cells were extracted, sequenced and analyzed. Thirty-three molecular chaperone genes demonstrated differential expression of which 23 were up-regulated while 10 were down-regulated. Functions of up-regulated molecular chaperone genes were related to protein binding, response to a stimulus, chaperone binding, cellular response to stress, oxidation, and reduction, ATP binding, DNA-damage response and regulation for cellular protein metabolic process. On the other hand, functions of down-regulated molecular chaperone genes were related to chaperone-mediated protein complex assembly, transcription, cellular macromolecule metabolic process, regulation of cell growth and ribosome biogenesis. The findings provided information on how molecular chaperones work together in a complex network to protect the cells under heat stress. It also highlights the evolutionary conserved protective role of molecular chaperones in psychrophilic yeast, G. antarctica, and mesophilic yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

The phytotoxic effects of fluoride and its derivatives on the seeds and seedlings of the Colobanthus apetalus and Colobanthus quitensis were studied. This is a first study to evaluate the influence of sodium fluoride (NaF) on the morphophysiological and biochemical processes on two Colobanthus species. The influence of various concentrations of NaF (9 mM, 19 mM, 29 mM) on the germination capacity and germination rate of seeds, seedlings growth and the proline content of plant tissues was analyzed under laboratory conditions (20/10°C, 12/12 h). The seeds of C. apetalus were collected from a greenhouse, whereas the seeds of C. quitensis were collected in Antarctica and in a greenhouse (Olsztyn, Poland). The tested concentrations of NaF did not suppress the germination of C. apetalus seeds, but the germination of C. quitensis seeds was inhibited. Sodium fluoride mainly inhibited root growth of C. apetalus and C. quitensis. In both analyzed species, the free proline content of seedlings increased significantly under exposure to NaF. The results of this study clearly indicate that C. apetalus and C. quitensis are highly resistant to NaF stress.