Scientific research on urban and rural layouts should form an important element of studying the history of cities and villages, something which requires a coordination of multiple disciplines. One must make use of source material, yet be able to tell the difference between the source and its interpretation or critique. The importance of source material varies depending on the period and area in question. When investigating Early Medieval Poland, for instance, one should focus on geological and archeological sources. The later periods show a much larger wealth of written sources and accounts. Beginning from the period of founding cities based on German laws in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, city plans and cartographic sources are of increasing value, as they make it possible to perform modular analyses. The role of iconographic source material increases during from the modern period all the way to our times. The method of research here is the correlation of the information gained from these sources onto modern urban layouts. We can interpret the subsequent phases of development based on this. Using modular analysis we can then identify the historical and agricultural conditions of the time. This research should be conducted by a team of academics from various different fields. An example of such a cooperation is the Atlas Miast Polskich (The Atlas of Polish Cities).
The article presents the results of surveys to assess the attractiveness of centralized heat supply systems in comparison with other heat sources. The heat source is an important element of the heat supply system which determines heating costs, comfort and environmental impact. The decision on the choice of the type of heat supply system is usually made by the investor or designer. Sometimes the equipment supplier or contractor has a part in this decision. The choice can be influenced by many different factors, also resulting from the specific location of the building. This is only partly determined by local law in the form of a local spatial development plan. the technical conditions (i.e. availability of heating or gas network), economic and financial, as well as much more subjective factors, such as the designer’s or contractor’s preference are also important. Aversion to district heating is growing, even when there are favorable conditions and the possibility of connecting the building to the heating network. Instead, a gas boiler or electrically powered heat pump is selected. This raises the question of whether such decisions are right and how they can be justified. As a research method, surveys were used, which were conducted among people who already have or will have an impact on design and investment decisions in the near future. The obtained results confirmed a large interest in district heating, appreciating their advantages in comparison with other methods of heat generation. The respondents also had the disadvantages that may lead to the use of an alternative methods of heat supplying in mind.
O najsilniejszym na świecie impulsowym źródle neutronów – cząstek obojętnych elektrycznie.
Martin Heidegger in The Origin of the Work of Art (Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes) developed a whole new way of thinking about art, going beyond traditionally understood aesthetics or even philosophy of art. Some of Heidegger’s thoughts, however, appear to be understated and only signal a huge complexity of both experiencing works of art and the very issue of the origin of the work of art. The analysis of the terms ‘dread’ and ‘eyeblink’ from Time and Being presented in this article complement and develop Heidegger’s ideas included in his essay. Linking art to these two crucial phenomena of fundamental ontological analysis of Dasein casts light on the status of art and its existential significance. The author aims mainly at demonstrating the aletheic connection (based on unclosedness) between the experience of ‘originary source’ of a piece of art and ‘dread’, and also, in conclusion, he points to the ‘event of Being’ as the essential, non-metaphysical origin of art.
Marc Bloch — one of the most distinguished 20th Century historians – is the author of Strange Defeat: A Statement of Evidence Written in 1940. Serving as a staff offi cer, Bloch witnessed the fall of France in 1940 from the front line. This book is so interesting from the methodological point of view, because we are presented here with a historical source created by a historian, who additionally knows how an ideal type of historical evidence ought to be written. This French historian thought that history is also written to give contemporaries lessons on how to avoid the mistakes of the past. This is an important message of Strange Defeat.
This article presents various definitions as well as the object and the method ofspiritual theology in the concept of post Vatican Council II. Referring to Western literature the author manifests various efforts in his attempt to define the essence of spiritual theology propagated by Polish theologians from the time of Vatican Council II. Therefore, it is a kind of synthesis of Polish thought portraying various kinds of concepts in the defining of spiritual theology. This article also shows the unique Polish method in the way of proceeding researchin the field of theoretical and experiential mysticism. The author also refers to the spirituality of the religious and to various aspects of the history of Polish spirituality.
The paper presents an analysis of the influence of the energy generated from renewable sources on an improvement in the energy efficiency of public utility building and households. It also presents the current state of the technologies for the production of electricity from renewable sources, as well as their share in the national power supply system. The conducted analysis concerns both micro, as well as large systems generating electricity. Systems generating power from renewable sources are gaining in popularity. With an increasing awareness in the society of the beneficial influence that renewable power generating systems have on the environment, as well as the support in form of various programs offering subsidies for the construction of new systems, power generation from renewable sources is becoming increasingly popular and common. Although the renewable energy systems are still not widely considered to be a profitable solution, systems using renewable sources of energy are positively perceived and treated as a new trend in the construction of multi or single-family residential buildings. The increasing share of the renewable energy in the national power supply system significantly reduces the demand for energy produced from conventional sources. This obviously translates into a reduced consumption of primary energy, for example, fossil fuels, and, in turn, leads to the reduced exploitation of natural resources, thus contributing to the protection of the natural environment. A reduced consumption of fossil fuels also means a significant reduction in environmental pollution during their processing into electricity or heat. Actions aiming at improving energy efficiency and reducing final energy consumption are being undertaken by many countries all over the world, and by the European Union. In 2012, the European Parliament and the Council issued Directive 2012/27/EU obliging the Member States to initiate actions aiming at a reduction in the consumption of final energy by 1.5% a year. The paper presents the current status of generation of energy from renewable sources during the last 13 years. The ways for using energy from the renewable sources to improve the energy efficiency of facilities were also discussed.
The article will consider the possibility of using sources in modernising the biological study of existence in history on the basis of selected trends of “modern historiography”. The problem of sources is considered in the context of the use of anthropology of knowledge, historical anthropology, microhistory, and chaos theory in historical-medical research. In this process, I see an opportunity to look for new research spaces and, therefore, ask new questions to source messages or to search for new ones. Therefore, it is important not to forget about the need to base the narrative on the source while introducing methodological innovations.
The energy efficiency of photovoltaic modules is one of the most important aspects in energetic and economic aspects of the project related to system installations. The efficiency of modules and the electricity produced by photovoltaic conversion in solar modules is affected by many factors, both internal, related to the module structure itself and its technical and external factors related to the energy infrastructure, which includes: cabling, inverters, climate conditions prevailing at the micro-installation location and the orientation and angle of inclination of the solar modules. The installation of photovoltaic modules should be preceded by an energy efficiency analysis, which will help to indicate the optimal solution adapted to the given conditions. The article presents a comparative analysis of the amount of energy produced under real and simulated conditions. Analyzes were made on the basis of research carried out in the Wind and Solar Energy Laboratory located at the AGH University of Science and Technology, data from solar irradiation data-bases and computer software for estimating energy resources. The study examined the correlation of the solar irradiation on the modules and the amount of electricity generated in the photovoltaic module. The electricity produced by the module was compared under real conditions and simulated based on two sources of data. The comparison and analysis of the amount of energy of the module were also made, taking simulated different angles of the module’s inclination into account.
The future and development of energy is one of the most important problems in both domestic and global politics. Limiting the use of fossil fuels in the energy sector results from new legal conditions related to the protection of the natural environment. These changes require the development of a new energy strategy, taking the limits of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union and the requirements of the Community energy policy into account. One of the documents affecting the structure of Poland’s energy mix is the Directive on renewable energy sources (2009/28/EC). Poland has committed to achieving the goal of a 15% share of energy from renewable sources (RES) in gross final energy consumption by 2020. Current changes in Polish RES support systems – in particular the transition from the system of green certificates to auctions for green energy – may threaten the achievement of the above-mentioned goal. The article analyzes whether Poland will meet renewable energy obligations by 2020 under the current conditions. In addition, the article presents current energy consumption in the world and in the country, legal conditions taken into account when creating the country’s energy mix and forecasts of renewable energy demand.
In spite of technological, logistic and economic difficulties, interest in renewable energy sources in the world is consistently increasing. This trend is also observed in Poland, mainly due to the urgent need to tackle the problem of climate change, which is caused by the increasing concentration of gaseous pollutants in the atmosphere. The paper presents a short script of the issue of estimating renewable energy resources in Poland in the context of creating local low carbon economy plans at the level of municipalities/counties where RES sources should be taken into account. The author proposed an individual approach to estimate the potential of RES, taking the local conditions and the short characteristics of the small and medium companies sector in Poland into account. These companies have a great application potential to increase the share of renewable energies and to improve energy efficiency in their business. The actions, which are taken by the Ministry of Energy in the field of civil energy development, enhancing local energy security and the sustainable development of renewable energy resources support the development of energy clusters covering one district or five municipalities. In the article, the author presents data on the number of companies possessing a concession for generating electricity in RES installations in the power range from 40 kW to 200 kW. These companies can largely be the nucleus for creating a local cluster in which microgrids will be a key element.
This essay contains reflections on the problems of discourse that appear in analyzing written historical sources. The author refers to Krzysztof Gajewski’s book, Reprezentacje komunizmu. PRL z perspektywy badań literackich i kulturowych [The Representation of Communism: The PPR from the Perspective of Literary and Cultural Studies] (2018). The primary findings concern the necessity of taking into account the linguistic framework of the given era.
The large variability and unpredictability of energy production from photovoltaic power microinstallations results from the dependence on the current weather conditions. These conditions depend on a number of factors and are variable over the time. Despite this specificity, photovoltaic micro-installations are becoming more and more popular in the world and in Poland. This is mainly due to the fact that the generation of energy from renewable sources has numerous advantages, the energy is free, renewable in time and ecological, and its production on its own gives partial independence from energy supplies from the power grid. In addition, the observed significant prices decrease of solar modules has further accelerated the development of the use of this energy source. Concern for this method of energy production among households has increased significantly in Poland after introducing the prosumer in the legal framework and the use of administrative and financial support. The implemented prosumer mechanisms allowed, for example, the net balancing of the energy consumed and produced by the micro-installation through storage in the power grid. The article describes the problem of balancing sources using solar energy, based on micro-installation used in the household (the so-called prosumer installation). The conducted analyses compared the load profile of a typical household and the energy generation profile from a photovoltaic installation, determining the real balancing formation level of such a system.