A description of direct simulation of crosswind loads caused by critical vortex excitation and the response of the structure to these loads are presented in this paper. Tower-like structures of circular cross-sections are considered. A proposed mathematical model of vortex excitation has been numerically implemented and a selfserving computer program was created for the purpose. This software, cooperating with the FEM system, allows for a simulation of a crosswind load and lateral response in real time, meaning that at each time step of the calculations the load is generated using information regarding displacements seen beforehand. A detailed description of the mathematical model is neglected in this paper, which is focused on numerical simulations. WAWS and AR methods are used in simulations.

This article is a presentation of the EtymArab© project, a start-up (“zero”) version of an etymological dictionary of Modern Standard Arabic. Taking the etymology of some generosity-related lexical items as examples, the study introduces the reader to the guiding ideas behind the project and the online dictionary’s basic features.

This article is a presentation of the EtymArab© project, a start-up (“zero”) version of an etymological dictionary of Modern Standard Arabic. Taking the etymology of some generosity-related lexical items as examples, the study introduces the reader to the guiding ideas behind the project and the online dictionary’s basic features.

Egyptian writer ʼIhsān ‛Abd al-Quddūs is one of the most prolific contemporary Arab writers and gained great popularity, especially in his country, but also all over the Arab world. The author deals with issues considered by society, including literature, taboos as the relationship between man and woman outside the context of marriage, the description of physical contacts, carnal and passionate love, prostitution, drugs, and the emancipation of women. In his stories he was interested in the feelings of the human being and in his relationship with the society. Al-Quddūs can be regarded as one of the most multifaceted intellectuals in the whole Arab world: in addition to being a writer and journalist of great popularity, he also occupied a prominent place in Egyptian cinema. ʼIhsān ‛Abd al-Quddūs was a provocative artist of great popularity in his time, but little known in the West, because of the scarceness of translated texts. Through the translation and analysis of his works it is possible to open up a wider glimpse into the knowledge of contemporary Arab literature.

Contemporary Arabic literature is slowly approaching a local production of the “fantasy” genre through attempts that can be considered an important starting point for this new genre still being defined in the Arab world. During the last decades the influence exerted by Western countries on the production of this literary genre, that reaches the Arab world around the twentieth century, has been evident mainly through the translations of Western fantasy novels. Among the various genres of fantasy novels which still enjoy international fame and have been translated into Arabic we find: The Lord of the Rings (1954–55) by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien; A Song of Ice and Fire (1996–2005) by Raymond Richard Martin and Harry Potter (1997–2007) by Joanne Kathleen Rowling. The delay in the introduction of the fantasy genre in the Arab countries has begun to be overcome in recent years, in fact many Arab authors have tried to write new fantasy novels. The fantastic tradition of Arab Islamic civilization is also an important part of drawing on the creation of original fantasy works. The study shows a general propensity of the contemporary Arab world to create a local fantasy, in which the Arab authors try to put the accent on the characteristic elements of Middle Eastern culture, though also drawing on the Western fantasy tradition.

The great 13th century scholar Yāqūt al-Hamawī, compiled his well-known geographical dictionary – Mucğam al-Buldān – using an incredibly vast corpus of sources that allowed him to describe the lands lying beyond the realm of Islam. The aim of this paper is to identify the sources he used to describe issues dealing with the Slavs or those peoples and areas thought by Arab writers to belong to or be connected with the Slavs. The results shed some light on the state of knowledge of this area among 13th century inhabitants of the caliphate. At the same time, the author’s analysis of the methods employed to compose the material on the Slavs that appears in the Dictionary helped determine the aim and the role of this work in the caliphate.

The aim of the article is an attempt to reconstruct a description of the image of Arab World on the basis of selected (yet representative) writings from the second half of the 18th century. In that period, due to the trending Enlightenment orientalism understood as a fascination with the Orient and references made to it in the culture, the Arab world appeared among Polish representatives of the Age of Reason. These trends were expressed in art, customs, literature and – in the form of various concepts and images – in social consciousness. These images differed between each other both in terms of content and form. Some of them aimed to depict the Arab world objectively and extensively, whereas the other, on the contrary, were merely delineations focused on particular elements of the Arab world, depicting only one or a few aspects. Some of them, such as the image of Arabia Felix or utopian reminiscences refer to the tradition and update it. Some of them were created for the time being. Nevertheless, each of them reflects the topics, problems and questions which concerned the minds in Enlightenment Poland. Moreover, relatively high correlation between European archetypes and the image of the Arab world which occurs in the writings of the Polish Enlightenment confirms that Poland belongs to the Old Continent cultural group, which was crucial for the promoters of Polish Enlightenment.

This article traces the concept of Place in the poetry of exiled Palestinian poet and literary critic Yūsuf Šihāda,1 now a Polish citizen. The article analyzes Place as the objective correlative through which one can discern the ensemble of the intricate existential relationships in the poetry of this exiled Palestinian intellectual who is torn between its complexities. The Slavic Place and place in general in his poetry constitute the backdrop to understanding the hidden meanings, the existential dilemmas, the entangled human relationships between East and West, and the moral stance the poet reflects in his work. Šihāda’s poetry is based on the poles of open-closed and inside-outside. It reflects loss, wandering, and emotional, intellectual, psychological, humanitarian, and existential alienation. Analysis of the types of place in his poetry – the polar, the intimate, the border, and the utopian - indicates that the poet’s voice has become the voice of the minority, and through the dialectics within the different types of places, he portrays his own crises and those of his people, the various restrictions placed upon them, their dreams of a free, unfettered life, and their yearning to live in an intimate place where they can unite with the universe.

Artificial Intelligence, both as a hope of making a substantial progress, and a fear of the unknown and unimaginable, has its roots in human dreams. These dreams were materialized by means of rational intellectual efforts. We see beginnings of such a process in Lullus’s fancies. Many scholars and enthusiasts participated in the development of Lullus’s art, ars combinatoria. Amongst them, Athanasius Kircher was distinguished. Gottfried Leibniz ended the period in which the idea of artificial intelligence had been shaped, and started a new one when artificial intelligence could be considered a part of science, according to today’s standards.