The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.

Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.

Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.

Truly ensuring equal opportunities for men and women will require a profound change in how the humanities are perceived, together with a reversal of the tendency to belittle achievements in the field.

When a certain Buddhist monk was once setting out on a long, difficult journey, he chose as his traveling companion a servant who was known for having a rebellious and quarrelsome nature. When asked why, he replied that he wanted to practice patience and humility. One might say that the three years when I headed the international CHIHE project were a similar lesson in virtues.

Diatoms are responsible for around one-fifth of all photosynthetic processes around the globe. Each year, they generate as much organic carbon in the oceans as all the planet’s rainforests put together. In modern-day oceans, diatoms are the most successful organisms among phytoplankton.

Over the last 20 years, Polish society’s attitude towards people with disabilities has changed for the better. However, we still have not completely rid ourselves of prejudices, fears, and stereotypes.

In 2014 the Jagiellonian University celebrated its 650th anniversary. The description of the university’s history on the jubilee website, however, makes no mention of the first female students – even though it was the first Polish university to welcome women.

We’ve all heard of these mysterious objects capable of entrapping anything – even light.

Sylwia Bedyńska, PhD, from the Institute of General Psychology at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, explains how negative stereotypes affect gifted women and their education choices.

Prof. Maria Anna Ciemerych- -Litwinienko and Asst. Prof. Edyta Brzóska-Wójtowicz from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw discuss the position of women in science.

We talk to Prof. Maria A. Olech from the Laboratory of Antarctic Biology at the PAS Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

With Teodozja I. Rzeuska, Anetta Łyżwa-Piber and Katarzyna Molga from the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Cultures, Polish Academy of Sciences, who have published a book (in Polish) on harems as described in the memoirs of Polish travelers, pilgrims, vagabonds and expatriates, we discuss the lives of women in the nineteenth-century Middle East.

Apart from the commonly known minerals, nature also provides certain very rare varieties discovered only relatively recently. Some, due to their unique physical characteristics, can be utilized in various industries, while others may be used as inspiration for developing new synthetic materials.

Is dark matter real or just a convenient hypothesis? Although it was first proposed almost a century ago, physicists have yet to uncover its true nature. Scientists from the Nicolaus Copernicus University are investigating the phenomenon using atomic clocks.

The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.

Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.

Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.

We talk to Assoc. Prof. Anna Bajer from the Department of Parasitology at the University of Warsaw, about ticks and how they transmit Lyme disease.

Professor Krystyna Chojnicka from the Department of History of Political and Legal Doctrines, Jagiellonian University, talks about respect for female lawyers, the true role of a Byzantine princess, and how a theatrical performance sparked her interest in Russian legal doctrine.

We talk to Prof. Magda Konarska from the Centre of New Technologies at the University of Warsaw about the “spliceosome,” the ongoing need for basic research and the importance of diversity in science.

The Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences: Technical Sciences (Bull.Pol. Ac.: Tech.) is published bimonthly by the Division IV Engineering Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences, since the beginning of the existence of the PAS in 1952. The journal is peer‐reviewed and is published both in printed and electronic form. It is established for the publication of original high quality papers from multidisciplinary Engineering sciences with the following topics preferred: Artificial and Computational Intelligence, Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology, Civil Engineering, Control, Informatics and Robotics, Electronics, Telecommunication and Optoelectronics, Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Material Science and Nanotechnology, Power Systems and Power Electronics.

Journal Metrics: JCR Impact Factor 2018: 1.361, 5 Year Impact Factor: 1.323, SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 2017: 0.319, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) 2017: 1.005, CiteScore 2017: 1.27, The Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education 2017: 25 points.

Abbreviations/Acronym: Journal citation: Bull. Pol. Ac.: Tech., ISO: Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci.-Tech. Sci., JCR Abbrev: B POL ACAD SCI-TECH Acronym in the Editorial System: BPASTS.

Professor Agnieszka Chacińska from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology talks about her research on mitochondrial proteins and their association with neurodegenerative diseases and metabolic disorders.

This paper investigates the life cycle profiles of income and consumption and relative income mobility in Poland – a transition economy facing rapid structural economic and social changes. According to my results, and in line with the empirical evidence for advanced economies, the age-profiles of average income and consumption in Poland exhibit a hump. The inequality of income over the life cycle is found to flatten relatively quickly in Poland, which contrasts with the approximately linear shape observed in the US. When individual income process is fitted to match the Polish inequality profile, it exhibits less persistence than in the US. Past earnings turn out to affect current income more strongly for the group of more educated individuals. Moreover, and in contrast to the permanent income hypothesis as well as findings for other economies, no evidence of an increase in consumption inequality for households older than 30 years is found. Finally, the obtained estimates of relative income mobility in Poland are higher than those for developed countries.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) have been long considered as independent forms of international capital flows. This paper analyzes the mutual relationship between FDI and FPI and attempts to answer the question whether they complement or substitute for each other from a foreign investor’s point of view. The paper describes the main characteristics of FDI and FPI in terms of their volatility and profitability. We analyze the long-run and short-run relationships between FDI and FPI using vector error correction (VEC) regressions on data for Poland as it is the largest country in Central and Eastern Europe and receives the lion’s share of these two forms of capital in the region. Our investigation suggests that FDI and FPI may be regarded as substitutes. In economically stable periods FDI tends to dominate over FPI but during insecurity and economic distress FPI starts to gain importance.

The general aim of the paper is to indicate the key role played by banks in Schumpeterian innovative evolution. It includes formal modelling of innovative evolution of financial subsystem of an economy which goes beyond routine behavior of banks deprived of innovative, financial strategies. Moreover this paper studies an impact of innovations in financial sphere of modified Debreu monetary economy on its real sector and, specifically, on social welfare. Thus the paper main aims are to prove that pro-innovative banks may intensify innovative evolution and to specify the sufficient conditions to guarantee the preservation of the rules of circular flow for a consumption sector within the innovative changes in banks behavior.

Atena. Jej domeną była sztuka i sprawiedliwa wojna. A także mądrość. Dziś wykorzysta ją, by badać gorący Wszechświat. W pracy pomoże jej zespół uczonej z Polski.