Photography has a special way of bestowing extraordinary meaning on ordinary subjects – we discuss it with Izabela Łapińska from the Leon Schiller National Film School in Łódź.

The word “sensitivity” has many meanings, ranging from more mundane technical senses, to meanings specific to statistics and machine learning, all the way to the most human understanding of the concept – that of tender emotions.

The object of the present study is to investigate the influence of damping uncertainty and statistical correlation on the dynamic response of structures with random damping parameters in the neighbourhood of a resonant frequency. A Non-Linear Statistical model (NLSM) is successfully demonstrated to predict the probabilistic response of an industrial building structure with correlated random damping. A practical computational technique to generate first and second-order sensitivity derivatives is presented and the validity of the predicted statistical moments is checked by traditional Monte Carlo simulation. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the NLSM to estimate uncertainty propagation in structural dynamics. In addition, it is demonstrated that the uncertainty in damping indeed influences the system response with the effects being more pronounced for lightly damped structures, higher variability and higher statistical correlation of damping parameters.

The influence of ambient solar UV-A or UV-B radiation on growth responses was investigated in three varieties of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) after exclusion of solar UV-A/B radiation: JK-35, IH-63 and Khandwa-2. Cotton plants were grown from seeds in UV-exclusion chambers lined with selective UV filters to exclude either UV-B (280-315 nm) or UV-A/B (280-400 nm) from the solar spectrum under field conditions. Excluding UV-B and UV-A/B significantly increased plant height, leaf area and dry weight accumulation in all three varieties of cotton. The varieties differed considerably in their sensitivity to ambient UV-A/B. Khandwa-2 was most sensitive and JK-35 least sensitive to ambient solar UV. We monitored the activity of the antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD), ascorbic acid peroxidase (APX), glutathione reductase (GR) and guaiacol peroxidase (GPX), as well as the level of the antioxidant ascorbic acid (ASA), in primary leaves of the most UV-sensitive variety (Khandwa-2). The level of UV-B-absorbing substances was significantly decreased by exclusion of solar UV-B and UV-A/B. Exclusion of solar UV decreased the activity of all the antioxidant enzymes monitored and the level of ascorbic acid versus control plants (+UV-A/B) grown under filters transparent to solar UV. Reduction of the antioxidant defense after UV exclusion indicates that ambient solar UV exerts significant stress and induces some reactive oxygen species to accumulate, which in turn retards the growth and development of cotton plants. Ambient solar UV stresses cotton plants, shifting their metabolism towards defense against solar UV. Exclusion of solar UV eliminates the need for that defense and leads to enhancement of primary metabolism.

Neonatal sepsis, defi ned as sepsis occurring within the fi rst 28 days of life, is associated with signifi cant morbidity and mortality. It is undeniable that fi nding and appliance of biomarkers in clinical practice is of great importance, aiming at the early recognition of the impending clinical deterioration and the prompt and targeted therapeutic intervention. Aft er systematic and thorough research of the limited relevant literature, we attempt to present a documented point-of-view on the diagnostic value of TREM-1 and its soluble form both in early and late onset neonatal sepsis.

Four dye-sensitized solar cell devices are designed and fabricated based on natural dyes extracted from Celosia Cristata, Saffron, Cynoglossum, and eggplant peel, as photosensitizers. The UV–vis technique has been served to determine maximum absorption of natural extract and pre-dyed photoanode. The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) was employed to cover the presence of functional groups. The cyclic voltammetry method has been employed to assess the possibility of charge transfer from dried natural dyes to the photoelectrode. The performance of natural-based dye-sensitized solar cells is determined subsequently. The highest power conversion efficiency was ca. 1.38%, which belonged to Celosia Cristata extract. The devices were examined for higher efficiencies, individually, co-sensitized arrangement and/or in tandem with each other.

Since 1999 studies are conducted of specific form of corruption known as ‘state capture’. This term refers to a situation in which individual agents and groups of interests are seeking to shape and affect the process of formulating regulations to their advantage through illicit and non-transparent means. In other words, state capture is an attempt of a group of interest to change institutionalized rules of the market game in a way favorable for them in order to gain political rents. This paper is a reconstruction of economic studies on phenomenon of state capture. The first part of paper is devoted to presentation of state capture in context of other forms of corruption. It focuses mainly on series of survey studies known as Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) conducted by World Bank and EBRD. The second part of the paper is a critical analysis of state capture conception and methodology. The text points out limitations of economical research procedures in domain of corruption analysis. Methodological difficulties and restrictions of conception of state capture are discussed on an example of chosen political affair – Buchacz triangle. The paper ends with sociological reinterpretation of conception of state capture.

Blockchain technology may soon profoundly transform the economic, financial, and legal reality of entire societies and even systems of government. But is this new financial instrument (a new form of ”tender,” in the sense of money offered for payment) sensitive only to the rules of free-market economics, or also to human rights and sensibilities? Whose needs will determine the direction of change: those of ordinary people, or the financial elite?

In this paper, the sensitivity analysis of the elliptic filters realized by using biquadratic structures was carried out. The influence

of spread the structure parameter values on the shape of the frequency characteristic of the filter transmittance modulus was analyzed. The analysis was limited to the case of even order low-pass filter. Defining the proper class of the sensitivity coefficients, the changes influence of individual structure parameters on the deviation of basic parameter values of the characteristic was considered. The considerations were illustrated by the numerical example.

The study deals with stability and dynamic problems in bar structures using a probabilistic approach. Structural design parameters are defined as deterministic values and also as random variables, which are not correlated. The criterion of structural failure is expressed by the condition of non-exceeding the admissible load multiplier and condition of non-exceeding the admissible vertical displacement. The Hasofer-Lind index was used as a reliability measure. The primary research tool is the FORM method. In order to verify the correctness of the calculations Monte Carlo and Importance Sampling methods were used. The sensitivity of the reliability index to the random variables was defined. The limit state function is not an explicit function of random variables. This dependence was determined using a numerical procedure, e.g. the finite element methods. The paper aims to present the communication between the STAND reliability analysis program and the KRATA and MES3D external FE programs.

Predicted climate change may have negative impact on many environmental components including vegetation by increase of evapotranspiration and reduction of available water resources. Moreover, a growing global population and extensive use of water for irrigation and industry result in increasing demand for water. Facing these threats, quantitative and qualitative protection of water resources requires development of tools for drought assessment and prediction to support effective decision making and mitigate the impacts of droughts. Therefore, the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, National Research Institute has developed and implemented a set of tools for the operational drought hazard assessment. The developed tools cover drought indices estimation, assessment of sensitivity to it formation and drought hazard prediction. They are streamlined into an operational scheme combined with data assimilation routines and products generation procedures.

A drought hazard assessment scheme was designed to be implemented into the platform of a hydrological system supporting the operational work of hydrological forecast offices. The scheme was launched to run operationally for the selected catchments of the Odra River and the Wisla River basins. The crucial resulting products are presented on the website operated by IMWM-NRI: POSUCH@ (Operational System for Providing Drought Prediction and Characteristics) (http://posucha.imgw.pl/). The paper presents the scheme and preliminary results obtained for the drought event which began in August 2011.

This paper studies the assessment of sensitivity to land degradation of Deliblato sands (the northern part of Serbia), as a special nature reserve. Sandy soils of Deliblato sands are highly sensitive to degradation (given their fragility), while the system of land use is regulated according to the law, consisting of three zones under protection. Based on the MEDALUS approach and the characteristics of the study area, four main factors were considered for evaluation: soil, climate, vegetation and management. Several indicators affecting the quality of each factor were identified. Each indicator was quantified according to its quality and given a weighting of between 1.0 and 2.0. ArcGIS 9 was utilized to analyze and prepare the layers of quality maps, using the geometric mean to integrate the individual indicator map. In turn, the geometric mean of all four quality indices was used to generate sensitivity of land degradation status map. Results showed that 56.26% of the area is classified as critical; 43.18% as fragile; 0.55% as potentially affected and 0.01% as not affected by degradation. The values of vegetation quality index, expressed as coverage, diversity of vegetation functions and management policy during the protection regime are clearly represented through correlation coefficient (0.87 and 0.47).

The paper presents investigations related to solving of a direct and inverse problem of a non-stationary heat conduction equation for a cylinder. The solution of the inverse problem in the form of temperature distributions has been obtained through minimization of a functional being the measure of the difference between the values of measured and calculated temperatures in M points of the heated cylinder. The solution of the conduction equation was presented in the convolutional form and then numerically integrated approximating one of the integrand with a step function described with parameter Θ ∈ (0, 1]. The influence of the integration parameter Θ on the obtained solution of the inverse problem (including a number of temperature measurement points inside the heated body) has been analyzed. The influence of the parameter Θ on the sensitivity of the obtained temperature distributions has been investigated.

Accurate force and torque calculations are fundamental to being able to predict the operation of an electromechanical device or system. The Maxwell stress tensor and the virtual work principle are the two major theories for force and torque calculation. However, if local distributions of torque are needed to couple to structural and vibration analyses, the conventional Maxwell stress approach cannot provide this easily. A recently developed approach based on sensitivity analysis has the capability to deliver local stress and torque as well as accurate global results. In addition, this approach divides the total torque into different components which are essential to the design of electrical devices. This paper includes several numerical examples of torque calculations of different electrical machines. The results are verified by a commercial software package using the Maxwell stress based force calculation.

The paper presents definitions and relative measures of the system sensitivity and sensitivity of its errors. The model of a real system and model of an ideal measuring system were introduced. It allows to determine the errors of the system. The paper presents also how to use the error sensitivity analysis carried out on the models of the measuring system to the correction of the nonlinearity error of its static characteristic. The corrective function is determined as a relation between the input variable of the tested system and its chosen parameter. The use of the proposed method has been presented on the example of a phase angle modulator. The obtained results have been compared with the results of analytic calculations. The idea of a phase angle modulator is also presented.

A new soft-fault diagnosis approach for analog circuits with parameter tolerance is proposed in this paper. The approach uses the fuzzy nonlinear programming (FNLP) concept to diagnose an analog circuit under test quantitatively. Node-voltage incremental equations, as constraints of FNLP equation, are built based on the sensitivity analysis. Through evaluating the parameters deviations from the solution of the FNLP equation, it enables us to state whether the actual parameters are within tolerance ranges or some components are faulty. Examples illustrate the proposed approach and show its effectiveness.

Wild ruminants are an interesting topic for research because only limited information exists regarding their microbiota. They could also be an environmental reservoir of undesirable bacteria for other animals or humans. In this study faeces of the 21 free-living animals was sampled (9 Cervus elaphus-red deer, adult females, 12 Capreolus capreolus-roe deer, young females). They were culled by selective-reductive shooting during the winter season of 2014/2015 in the Strzałowo Forest District-Piska Primeval Forest (53° 36 min 43.56 sec N, 21° 30 min 58.68 sec E) in Poland. Buttiauxella sp. is a psychrotolerant, facultatively anaerobic, Gram-negative rod anaerobic bacte- rial species belonging to the Phylum Proteobacteria, Class Gammaproteobacteria, Order Entero- bacteriales, Family Enterobacteriacae and to Genus Buttiauxella. Buttiauxella sp. has never previ- ously been reported in wild ruminants. In this study, identification, antimicrobial profile and sensitivity to enterocins of Buttiauxella strains were studied as a contribution to the microbiota of wild animals, but also to extend knowledge regarding the antimicrobial spectrum of enterocins. Five strains were identified using the MALDI-TOF identification system (evaluation score value was up to 2.224) and allotted to the genus Buttiauxella including the species Buttiauxella gaviniae,

B. ferragutiae, B. agrestis. Strains were DNase negative, and they hydrolysed esculin; fermentation of L-arabinose, D-mannitol and D-mannose was positive. Dulcitol, inositol reaction, urea and indol were negative. Buttiauxella strains did not form biofilm. They were resistant to at least one of the 13 antibiotics tested. B. agrestis 2/109/1 was resistant to amdinocillin, clindamycin and pen- icillin. However, Buttiauxella strains were sensitive to the enterocins used (inhibition activity ranged from 100 to 25 600 AU/ml).

The purpose of the present research relates to the sensitivity analysis of road vehicle comfort and handling performances with respect to suspension technological parameters. The envisaged suspension being of semi-active nature, this implies first to consider an hybrid modeling approach consisting of a 3D multibody model of the full car - an Audi A6 in our case - coupled with the electro-hydraulic model of the suspension dampers. Concerning parameter sensitivitie, the goal is to capture them for themselves - and not necessarily for optimization purpose - because their knowledge is of a great interest for the damper manufacturer.

An important issue of the research is to consider objective functions which are based on complete time integrations along a given trajectory, the goal being - for instance - to quantify the sensitivity of the carbody rms acceleration (comfort) or of the vehicle overturning character (handling) with respect to suspension parameters. On one hand, the accuracy of the various partial derivatives computation can be greatly enhanced thanks to the symbolic capabilities of our ROBOTRAN multibody program. On the other hand, the computational efficiency of the process also takes advantage of the recursive formulation of the multibody equations of motion which must be time integrated with respect to both the generalized coordinates and their partial derivatives in case of the so-called direct method underlying sensitivity analysis.

The first order variation of critical loads of thin-walled columns with bisymmetric open cross-sectiondue to some variations of the stiffness and location of bracing elements is derived. The con-siderations are based on the classical linear theory of thin-walled beams with non-deformablecross-section introduced by Vlasov [1]. Both lateral braces and braces that restraint warping andtorsion of the cross-section have been taken into account. In the numerical examples dealing withI-column, the functions describing the influence of location of the braces with unit stiffness on thecritical load of torsional and flexural buckling are derived. The linear approximation of the exactrelation of the critical load due to the variation of the stiffness and location of braces is determined.