Assessing the level of metallurgical and foundry technology in prehistoric times requires the examination of raw material finds, including elongated ingots, which served as semi-finished products ready for further processing. It is rare to find such raw material directly at production settlements, but Wicina in western Poland is an exception. During the Hallstatt period (800-450 BC), this area, situated along the middle Oder River, benefited from its favorable location in the heart of the Central European Urnfield cultures and developed networks for raw material exchange and bronze foundry production. Numerous remnants of casting activities, such as clay casting molds, casting systems, and raw materials, have been discovered at the Wicina settlement. This article aims to provide an archaeometallurgical interpretation of raw material management and utilization by prehistoric communities during the Early Iron Age. To achieve this, a collection of 31 ingots from the defensive settlement in Wicina, along with two contemporary deposits from Bieszków and Kumiałtowice, both found within a 20 km radius of the stronghold, were studied. Investigations were conducted using a range of methods, including optical microscopy(OM), scanning electron microscopy (SE M), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SE M-EDS), X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (ED-XRF), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), AAS and ICP-OES spectrometer. The significance of ingots is examined in the context of increasing social complexity and the rising popularity of bronze products, which necessitated diversified production and a demand for raw materials with different properties and, consequently, different chemical compositions.

In the era of an aging society, age friendly cities planning is gaining in importance. Due to the low mobility of these people, it is important to plan their immediate living environment, ensuring access to facilities and areas that meet the basic needs of this special group of urban space users. The paper analyzes the potential accessibility of older people to green areas, sports and recreation facilities, service and commercial facilities, culture and health care facilities, and public transport stops, in order to delimit problem areas characterized by functional and spatial deficits in this area. In addition, the level and quality of accessibility of older people to the abovementioned elements of development.

What do biological powerhouses look like? How do they work? Why does generating a single “dose of energy” demand a highly complicated process? Why do seeds age? Answers to all these questions are to be found in one of the most complex cellular organelles: the mitochondrion.

Studying ancient human DNA can help us better understand the early histories of states and nations – says Prof. Marek Figlerowicz from the PAS Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry in Poznań.

The variety of forms of Medieval landscapes reflects the political and social situation of European territories in the period between the fifth and the fifteenth century. From a contemporary point of view, we are dealing with a number of distinct types of landscape objects in European areas, such as 1. Medieval fortresses (castles); 2. residential settlements, including cities, towns and villages; 3. abbeys and smaller monasteries; 4. churches in open landscapes and pilgrimage centres; 5. areas of agriculture; 6. garden compositions; 7. specifically Polish relics of the past such as early-Medieval gords.

The aim of this article is to draw attention to the growing phenomenon of working in retirement in the light of active and successful aging concepts. The change in attitudes towards aging, work and retirement among Poles can be seen as a kind of social process that has been ongoing since the early 1990s. Nowadays, more and more people of retirement age, anxious to remain active and independent for as long as possible, are delaying the moment of professional deactivation. The article presents the partial findings of research conducted by the author. The purpose of the qualitative study ”Attitudes towards retirement and type of reflexivity as determinants of positive aging” was to characterize the motivations for career continuation and the benefits of prolonged professional activity among people over 60. The findings—concerning participants considered professionals (n = 20) according to the International Standard Classification of Occupations ISCO-08—suggest that continuing one’s career after reaching retirement age can be considered one of the strategies for achieving successful aging.

The numbers of Curculionoidea showed a growing tendency during the initial four years of alfalfa crop use for green fodder, but in the subsequent years they decreased significantly. The number of species increased with the plantation age.

This article is devoted to the subject of age and the elderly in the Middle Ages, and the manner of viewing elderly people in those times. The author uses Jan Długosz’s Annals, books 9–12, as his basic source. His analysis concentrates on the following questions: Whom did the Polish historian consider worthy of remembrance in his Annals? How did he describe those figures? What words did he use to describe the phenomenon of age or aging? The author analyses the Latin terms used to describe specific older persons, and also presents the perceptions of older women, older men, and elderly people as a group. An attempt is made to answer the question of whether old age was a period of well-being and prosperity in medieval times.

Searching and exploring the motives of continuing in the profession may be an important objective of efforts undertaken by researchers and people directly responsible for the organization and quality of work. Identifying the needs and expectations of the employee is an important element of her/his adaptation in the work environment. Because the age of life is one of the factors affecting the perception of the world and work, in this article motives of continuing professional activity in group of special educators are described in the age of life context.

The chief purpose of this study is to investigate the process of adsorption of heavy metals in sands containing microplastics due to aging and bacterial culture. For this purpose, first, the experiment’s conditions were determined by reviewing previous studies and examining the effects of factors on the duration of bacterial culture and UV radiation. Finally, the test conditions were determined as follows: 25 g of adsorbent in 250 ml solution containing 50 mg/l of lead, cadmium, copper, zinc, chromium, and nickel, 750 micrograms of microplastic, bacterial culture time two days, aging time with UV light 14 days. Results of the study show that the addition of virgin microplastics has little effected on increasing the adsorbent strength, except in the case of nickel whichreduces adsorption strength. The aging process increases the absorption of all studied metals by up to 60%. Bacterial culture without an aging process reduces the absorption of nickel and cadmium. Simultaneous use of bacterial culture and aging increases the adsorption power by up to 80% for all metals.

Humidity is probably the most important abiotic factor influencing life cycles, distribution, survival, and population dynamics of stored product pests. Although most of these pests can complete their life cycles in any given relative humidity, their prolonged development time, as well as decreased emergence rate and fecundity, have been well documented in several previous studies. In the present study, we evaluated the changes in energetic substances (lipids, soluble carbohydrates, glycogen, and proteins) accumulated in different life stages of larvae and adults of Tribolium castaneum in response to different relative humidity levels (5, 12, 22, 30, 45, and 65%). The results showed that young larvae were more susceptible to low relative humidity levels and desiccation stress. Larvae tended to accumulate higher proportions of lipids during earlier stages while their energy content shifted towards proteins with an increase in their age. Adult beetles experienced a significant decrease in their protein content immediately after they initiated reproduction. The importance of these fluctuations in the biology of the red flour beetles was discussed in detail.

Room temperature vulcanized (RTV) silicone rubber is widely used to prevent pollution flashover with its excellent hydrophobicity and hydrophobicity transfer. However, RTV coatings are at the risk of deterioration and failure in heavily polluted operating environment. In this paper, RTV coated insulators with different suspension heights operating in coal ash polluted areaswere sampled. Pollution degree, pollution composition and aging degree of coatings were tested. The result shows that the insoluble pollution contains Al(OH)3 filler precipitated from RTV coating, which indicates the aging of the RTV coating. The top surface coating is more affected by ultraviolet and rainwater than the bottom surface resulting in more serious degradation. As the pollution degree of the lower phase insulator is heavier than that of the upper phase insulator, the erosion effect of pollution on the RTV coating is more intense. The fillers and rubber molecules of RTV continuously precipitate into the pollution layer, leading to further aging. Therefore, the overall aging degree of the lower insulator coating is more serious than that of the upper insulator coating.

The stance of mysticism on language is located in the field of tensions between the fundamental inability to express the essence of God through the medium of language and the imperative, or the need, to talk about it. In the space betwixt and between, there extends mystic silence as a paradoxical, but effective way of communication and insight. Depending on individual mystics, whose selection from the Middle Ages to the Baroque is presented in the text, silence receives also various additional aspects.

This study aims to explore the effects of age across adult groups on selected aspects of language learning. To achieve the aim, a study was conducted at the Open University of University of Warsaw. It focuses on reasons for taking up learning, relative importance of individual skills, major difficulties, individual goals, emotions and self-assessed ability to learn. The assumption that adults represent a single age group is questioned and the results are interpreted in terms of practical implications for course design.

APNB (alkaline phenolic no bake), widely known as Alphaset is one of the major sand binder systems used in foundries to make molds and cores without application of heat or gas. This is a two part system comprising of a phenol-formaldehyde resin in alkaline medium as binder and range of esters of dibasic acids and/or polyhydric alcohols as hardeners.

Resin performance varies depending upon formulations. Major variables in formulations are mole ratio of phenol: formaldehyde, total alkali content, ratio of two alkalis (NaOH & KOH) and molecular weight of polymers i.e. chain length.

In present work, one mole ratio of phenol & formaldehyde has been chosen to prepare 8 resins with following details.

Table 1.

Physical and chemical properties of eight (fresh) resins, A to H

Properties	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
Viscosity at 30°C (mPs-a)	56	47	66	51	39	44	49	52
Na (%)	5.94	3.21	5.94	3.21	nil	2.73	nil	2.73
K (%)	nil	3.31	nil	3.31	7.18	3.87	7.18	3.87
Molecular weight	Low	Low	High	High	Low	Low	High	High
Gel Time at 121°C, mt-sec	27-0	29-30	24-0	30-0	30-0	27-30	26-30	26-0
Moisture (%)	52.43	52.42	53.01	53.75	55.58	54.12	51.61	54.03
Non-volatile Content (%)	48.74	47.25	49.10	49.35	47.63	47.32	48.06	48.29
Specific Gravity	1.182	1.177	1.183	1.180	1.172	1.184	1.178	1.188
Free Phenol (%)	0.47	0.42	0.44	0.43	0.37	0.27	0.41	0.20

Properties of these 8 formulations have been studied for strength and viscosity over a period of 12 weeks in 4 week interval.

Attempt has been made to develop a simple test for simulating hot & retained strength of molds in laboratory. Process followed for chasing hot and retained strength is described under clause 2.

With more and more understanding of the chemistry of alphaset system in last three & half decades it has been possible to identify role of variables contributing towards specific properties vis a vis developing tailor made formulations to fulfill requirements of individual foundries right from mold making to de coring.

Reference intervals (RIs) are one of the essential elements in the procedure of disease diagnosis. This is especially true for feline species in which RI is less available than in canine species. RIs are affected by biological, geographical and instrumental factors, yet published RIs with incomplete background are popularly used. Inappropriate interpretations of RIs may affect classification of disease and subsequent treatment. In this study, we demonstrated the step-by-step establishment of feline RIs following the American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology (ASVCP) reference interval guideline. A total of 51 parameters were examined, including 20 hematology and 31 biochemistry parameters, and the results were compared to one local RI and two foreign RIs. Overall, about 29% (10/35) of tested parameters were different form local RIs and 60% (30/50) were different from the two foreign RIs, highlighting geographical variations. A higher upper reference limit (URL) in red blood cell count (RBC), hematocrit (Hct), Hemoglobin (Hgb), albumin, creatinine and lower URL in potassium and white blood cell count (WBC) were identified, which may impact the interpretation. In addition, statistical analysis of age and gender were factored separately and indicated that 10 parameters were significantly higher in the adult group. For the impact of gender, percentage of basophil and total iron-binding capacity (TIBC) were lower in female and male cats, respectively. In conclusion, we have demonstrated that it is desirable to establish in-house RIs or RIs of local sources. An age specific RI for the geriatric feline population is advisable for better diagnosis and monitoring the disease.

The paper shows the degradation process of the modern austenitic Super 304H (X10CrNiCuNb18-9-3) steel which was subjected to long-term aging for up to 50,000 h at 650 and 700°C. The investigations include microstructure examination (SEM), identification and analysis of the precipitation process, and mechanical properties tests. The Super 304H steel has a structure characteristic of austenitic steels with visible annealing twins and single primary NbX precipitates. Long-term aging in the steel leads to numerous precipitation processes of M23C6, MX carbides, σ phase, Z phase, and -Cu phase. Precipitation processes lead to a decrease in plastic properties and impact energy as well as alloy over aging. Yield strength and tensile strength values after 50,000 h of aging were similar to those as delivered. The yield and tensile strength value strongly depend on the applied aging temperature.

This article addresses the legal aspects of assessing the age of foreign minors. It is a juxtaposition of the development of international legal standards in this area with the law and practice of the Polish authorities. The basic thesis of this analysis is the statement that Polish law in its current form requires fundamental change with respect to at least three elements. First, it is necessary to extend the methods of age assessment to also include non-medical methods. Secondly, the law should clearly define the legal form in which the age of a foreigner is determined and, at the same time, impose an obligation to provide a foreigner with the results of the assessment. Thirdly, a person concerned should have a direct opportunity to appeal.

A brief report on the international congress on Plutarch held online in September 2021.

Control of reaction conditions, short residence times and completely inert surfaces are of major importance when studying aging mechanisms by soot formation. The use of ceramics as reactor material in combination with a special reactor design allows control over industrially relevant reaction conditions (T _max = 1100 °C, t _Residence = 50 ms) and sample shapes while avoiding interfering side reactions. We have successfully tested new ceramic kinetic reactors in two model systems of propane dehydrogenation and reactor coil material. The presented reactor setup allows long-term measurements with industrially relevant material samples under controlled conditions. In both model reactions it was possible to perform studies on regeneration methods by oxidation and to study the effects on the material using different in-situ and ex-situ techniques including 31 ^P MAS NMR measurements.

In the paper, the assessment of safety of the pipelines elements from the heat and power generating plants of Ukraine made of l 2Kh I MF steel has been presented. The SINT AP procedures for failure assessment have been performed assuming two shapes of hypothetical cracks along the straight segments of pipeline. The thermal stresses during the cooling process have been taken into account in the analysis. The analysis has been performed at the first level of SINT AP procedures. Two stages: a) before pipeline operation and b) after 156000 hours of service work have been analyzed. The comparison of results obtained by other assessment method has been made.

According to the finds, Polish and Western European coins reached western Ukraine in two stages: in the 10th / 11th century and in the first half of the 12th century. Some of these coins (but usually without Polish ones) were transported further east, to the vicinity of Kiev. On the other hand, Western European coins flowed into the territories of Northern Rus’ from the north. This text is based on data contained both in the literature (including recent one) and information not yet published, kindly provided by researchers from Ukraine (A. Kryzhanivskiy) and from the Czech Republic (J. Videman).

ABSTRACT:

Forgeries of coins can either be contemporary or modern. Already in the Middle Ages, it was well known that bracteates were considerably more difficult to counterfeit than two-faced coins. The main reason is that bracteates are struck with a more complicated technology originating from goldsmithing. Therefore, most bracteate forgeries have been produced since the eighteenth century. Compared to original bracteates, modern bracteate forgeries often have the following characteristics: 1) an incorrect weight; 2) a lower relief; 3) sharper contours on the reverse; 4) an artistically clumsy design; 5) evidence of being struck with the same die if there are several specimens; and/or 6) empty fields in the background.

When it comes to research into changes which took place in Poland in the 10th and the first half of the 11th century and the emergence of the Piast dynasty’s state, the presence of an ethnically foreign population, its conditioning and effects have not been fully recognised. The few historiographical sources do not devote much attention to the arrival of foreign tribes; the single mentions typically pertain to the representatives of the elites, especially dynasties. Attempts have been made to analyse the phenomena by means of toponomastics and archaeology. Due to their ambiguity and late source confirmations, the results of toponomastic surveys do not allow to resolve the issue of migrations or displacement from the 10–11th centuries independently. However, the archaeological research carried out to date has revealed (beside a number of single historical objects related to the culture of Poland’s southern neighbours) grave fields and strongholds which could be potentially related to the representatives of foreign ethnic groups. The Poznań-Sołacz grave field (2nd half of the 10th century) and the Morawy grave field in Kuyavia (2nd half of the 11th century or possibly earlier) are related to a population from (Great) Moravia. Presence of a Hungarian population is traditionally attributed to the “old Hungarian” grave field in Przemyśl-Zasanie (dating back from the late 9th to the first quarter of the 11th century). On the other hand, the stronghold and the grave field in Niemcza in Silesia (dated back to the 970s and 980s) are connected with a Czech population. Unconfirmed grave fields and a handful of artefacts of Great Moravian origin are typical remains of strongholds in Gilów in Silesia and Czerchów near Łęczyca where presence of foreign warriors has not been ruled out. A question remains to what extent the material determinants of a foreign culture indicate presence of representatives of different ethnic groups and to what extent they are imports or copies. Undoubtedly, in a discussion of a foreign population genetic research may prove helpful, especially in grave fields associated with foreign populations. However, in order to analyse the issue in a comprehensive way, an interdisciplinary approach is required i.e. a combination of the methods of historical, archaeological and genetic research.