The aim of the study was to identify acoustic and structural modes in the spectrum obtained exper-imentally inside an operator's cab in a bulldozer. Measurements were taken inside the operator's cab in a caterpillar-track bulldozer Polremaco TD12NPH2E-2000, designed for work in underground mine enclosures. The acoustic pressure spectrum was obtained for varied rotational speeds of the engine during the free run of the machine. The reverberation time of the cab was determined basing on the pulse-type excited pressure response, followed by identification of the spectral components registered by measurements. Thus, identified frequencies were compared with natural acoustic frequencies registered inside the operator's cab and with frequencies associated with the valves and ignition frequencies due to rotational speed and natural frequencies of structural vibrations of the cab's walls. This study was conducted in an attempt to reduce the noise inside the operator's cab using passive methods

The paper discusses selected topics in moral philosophy of Professor Bogusław Wolniewicz. His overall approach is marked by intellectual independence and analytic treatment of moral issues. The theory of values that he has endorsed can be described as a moderate non-religious absolutism based on weak metaphysical principles. Although in general his normative position can be assimilated to the views of an enlightened liberal, it also clashes with that position insofar as he proclaimed the existence of ontological evil and supported legitimacy of death penalty.

The objectives of the study were to recognize the main motives for engagement in actions beyond basic professional duties among various professional groups and to identify selected properties of the subject and context of activities that contribute to such beyond-duties engagement. A set of questionnaires in electronic or paper form was completed by 209 employees, including 104 representatives of assistance professions and 95 representatives of creative professions, aged between 21 and 67 years (M = 37.54, SD = 9.55). It was established that the main motives for beyondduties engagement in both groups of professionals under study were self-actualization and acting for the benefit of others. With the use of structural equation modelling, subjective and contextual determinants of engagement in actions beyond basic professional duties were identified as self-efficacy and action meaningfulness. The research discusses the phenomenon of engagement in extra activities at work from the perspective of the acting person/employee. The study results can be useful for managers in setting goals of appropriate type and manner to their employees as well as for task assignment.

John Rawls develops and precisely defines the concept of civil disobedience which had emerged from the American tradition of democracy and was already discussed in the 19th century by H.D. Thoreau. It is a part of a theory of ‘justice as fairness’ and it rigidly supports the conditions of resistance to the state employed in the effort to sustain moral order in the practice of democracy. This effort cannot be interpreted as a revolutionary rebellion against the state and law, for it aspires to implement a kind of reform which aims at a restoration of justice whenever it is deeply neglected or violated. In the nub of this theory lies the claim of the importance of the civil conscience as formed by the principles of constitution which reflect the principles of justice without presupposing an extended theory of good. The normative paradigm of ethics, according to which Rawls presents his theory of justice, should be complemented by virtue ethics, argues the author, and points to that the absence of civil virtues manifested deplorably in the present weakness of liberal democracy in the face of the growing pressure from populism.

Considering responsibility as a key anthropological category, Roman Ingarden stresses that it could only be inquired through the lens of a subject that is perceived personally, and not as a ‘pure I’. On the one hand, responsibility determines the nature of personal existence, and on the other hand, personal existence constitutes a space for interrogating about any meanings of the concept of responsibility. What remains problematic, however, is an alternative outlined by Ingarden, which implies that perception of a personal subject must be conducted within either of two perspectives – one that refers to a substantial model of personal subject, or the other that relates to acts of actualising the subject, which unfold in the stream of consciousness. It seems possible to go beyond this contradiction and reconcile the two perspectives – which the modern philosophy of dialogue proposes to do. Ingarden emphasises that the analysis of the concept of responsibility should not be limited to the realm of morality. However, all four scenarios that the philosopher uses as research fields to scrutinise the concept point, or at least imply the necessity of including aesthetic issues. Furthermore, the four fields of analysis – when somebody 1) bears responsibility, 2) takes responsibility, 3) is held responsible, and 4) acts responsibly – should not be perceived as isolated from one another. The link between them is man, who appears as a person in certain situations, while in others, his personal status is unrevealed, although it still remains within a firm horizon of situations and meanings examined herein. Moreover, regardless of the polarisation of the research fields highlighted by Ingarden, moral context constitutes a permanent space of reference for a human person, who not only asks for the sense (meanings) of responsibility, but also determines his/her personal existence through meanings and with their help.

In this interview, conducted at the XXIII International Congress of Historical Sciences in Poznan, Antoon De Baets (emeritus professor of History, Ethics and Human Rights at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands) addresses key issues for historians and other produ-cers of history. His remarks about the scientific status of historiography and the range of different threats to history seem particularly important. He talks not only about the most direct crimes against historians and history, but also about issues like hindsight bias and fake news. The professional duties of historians and the issue of ethical codes for historians are also discussed.

The judgments delivered by the European Court of Human Rights in Al-Nashiri v. Poland and Husayn (Abu Zubaydah) v. Poland highlight the potential tension that may arise between states’ broad reliance on national security grounds to withhold disclosure of secret files and compliance with their obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights. The present article examines the above-mentioned judgments, focusing, in particular, on how (and to what extent) the withholding of secret information may infringe on the right to the truth and, as far as proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights are concerned, the state’s duty to cooperate with it.

The modern cabin of heavy duty machines have to fulfil a number of requirements which deal with operators' work comfort. More and more often, the vibroacoustic and thermal comforts decide about the cabin quality. This paper presents principles of acoustic and thermal calculations as well as their use in combined assessment.

The field of mechanical manufacturing is becoming more and more demanding on machining accuracy. It is essential to monitor and compensate the deformation of structural parts of a heavy-duty machine tool. The deformation of the base of a heavy-duty machine tool is an important factor that affects machining accuracy. The base is statically indeterminate and complex in load. It is difficult to reconstruct deformation by traditional methods. A reconstruction algorithm for determining bending deformation of the base of a heavy-duty machine tool using inverse Finite Element Method (iFEM) is presented. The base is equivalent to a multi-span beam which is divided into beam elements with support points as nodes. The deflection polynomial order of each element is analysed. According to the boundary conditions, the deformation compatibility conditions and the strain data measured by Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG), the deflection polynomial coefficients of a beam element are determined. Using the coordinate transformation, the deflection equation of the base is obtained. Both numerical verification and experiment were carried out. The deflection obtained by the reconstruction algorithm using iFEM and the actual deflection measured by laser displacement sensors were compared. The accuracy of the reconstruction algorithm is verified.

In order to meet the operation requirements of the beam supply with multiworking conditions, multi-modes and high efficiency, a dual-mode hybrid output control method combining phase-shifting and pulse-width dual-mode modulation technology with secondary side series-parallel operation is proposed. In this paper, the structure and working mode of the new dual full-bridge topology are firstly analyzed. Secondly, the main circuit parameters are designed according to the power performance indicators, and the losses under two control modes of phase shift and pulse width are calculated. Finally, comparing the losses of these two control methods, and combining the series-parallel operation mode of the secondary side of the transformer, a dual-mode switching control method of the beam supply is designed. In order to verify the rationality of the dual-mode mixed output control method, a principle prototype with a rated capacity of 2 kW, a rated voltage of 1 800 V and a switching frequency of 50 kHz was used for verification. Experiments show the effectiveness and superiority of the dual-mode hybrid output control method.

This work is complementary with Bogusław Wolniewicz’s text Elzenberg about Milosz. The circumstances surrounding the discovery of Czesław Milosz’s article Duty and Henryk Elzenberg’s polemic are portrayed here. Moreover, in the second part we have attempted to evaluate Joseph Conrad’s novel The Rover.

The continuing efforts for reduction of the torque and flux ripples using Finite Set Model Predictive Direct Torque Control methods (FS-MPDTC) have been currently drowning a great attention from the academic communities and industrial applications in the field of electrical drives. The major problem of high torque and flux ripples refers to the consideration of just one active voltage vector at the whole control period. Implementation of two or more voltage vectors at each sampling time has recently been adopted as one of the practical techniques to reduce both the torque and flux ripples. Apart from the calculating challenge of the effort control, the parameter dependency and complexity of the duty ratio relationships lead to reduction of the system robustness. those are two outstanding drawbacks of these methods. In this paper, a finite set of the voltage vectors with a finite set of duty cycles are employed to implement the FS-MPDTC of induction motor. Based on so-called Discrete Duty Cycle- based FS-MPDTC (DDC-FS-MPDTC), a base duty ratio is firstly determined based on the equivalent reference voltage. This duty ratio is certainly calculated using the command values of the control system, while the motor parameters are not used in this algorithm. Then, two sets of duty ratios with limit members are constructed for two adjacent active voltage vectors supposed to apply at each control period. Finally, the prediction and the cost function evaluation are performed for all of the preselected voltage vectors and duty ratios. However, the prediction and the optimization operations are performed for only 12 states of inverter. Meanwhile, time consuming calculations related to SVM has been eliminated. So, the robustness and complexity of the control system have been respectively decreased and increased, and both the flux and torque ripples are reduced in all speed ranges. The simulation results have verified the damping performance of the proposed method to reduce the ripples of both the torque and flux, and accordingly the experimental results have strongly validated the aforementioned statement.

This paper presents a novel method to overcome problems of finite set-model-based predictive torque control (MPTC) which has received a lot of attention in the last two decades. Tuning the weighting factor, evaluating a large number of switching states in the loop of the predictive control, and determining the duty cycle are three major challenges of the regular techniques. Torque and flux responses of deadbeat control have been developed to overcome these problems. In our method, firstly, the prediction stage is performed just once. Then, both the weighted cost function and its evaluation are replaced with only simple relationships. The relationships reduce torque ripple and THD of stator current compromisingly. In the next step, the length of the virtual vector is used to determine the duty cycle of the optimum voltage vector without any additional computations. The duty ratio does not focus on any relation or criteria minimizing torque or flux ripple. As a result, torque and flux ripples are reduced equally. The proposed duty cycle is calculated by using a predicted virtual voltage vector. Hence, no new computation is needed to determine the proposed duty cycle. Simulation and experimental results confirm both the steady and dynamic performance of the proposed method in all speed ranges.

Tannic acid or tannin, type of phenolic compound contains in kenaf bast fibre. Conventional extraction has certain limitations in terms of time, energy, and solvent consumption. Ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) can extract bioactive components in shorter time, low temperature, with lesser energy and solvent requirement. UAE as alternative extraction technique is better equipped to retain the functionality of the bioactive compounds. In this study, the conditions for ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) of tannic acid from kenaf bast fibre by assessing the effect of sonication time and different duty cycles were optimized. The use of ultrasound to extract tannic acid from kenaf bast fiber was evaluated. Ultrasound-assisted extraction (UAE) was carried out using ethanol as solvent to intensify the extraction efficacy. Phytochemical screening was conducted to identify the presence of tannic acid in extracts. The extracts then were analyzed using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). It was found that 0.2429 mg/mL of tannic acid was obtained under the extraction conditions of extraction temperature of 40℃, sonication time of 20 minutes and duty cycle of 50%. From SEM analysis, it was found that the raw sample demonstrated rough surface and no porous but kenaf bast fibre display smoother surface with less impurities and few pores appeared after the extraction process using UAE. These results indicate that ultrasound-assisted extraction is an efficient method for extracting tannic acid from kenaf bast fibre with the advantages of lower extraction time and higher extraction yield.

This paper deals with the legal aspects of saving life at sea by the Maritime Search and Rescue Service (SAR Service). Depending on the situation, it is possible to provide assistance to a ship in distress at sea and to people on board, either from the sea by another ship, or from the land side, i.e. from the coast by specially prepared services. The effective functioning of the SAR organizational system determines the effectiveness of the SAR action in terms of the number of people saved from danger at sea. In order to provide assistance, SAR services around the world performs distress monitoring, communication, coordination, as well as search and rescue tasks, including the pro-vision of medical advice, initial medical assistance or medical evacuation, through the use of public and private resources, including associated aircraft. The tasks of the SAR services include organizing disembarkation of rescued people.