In former coal-mining areas, unseen underground fires can pose a significant danger to people’s health. Careful observation of changes in plant cover can offer an important early warning of such threats.

This paper proposes a microfounded model featuring frictional labor markets that generates procyclical R&D expenditures as a result of optimizing behavior by heterogeneous monopolistically competitive firms. This allows to show that business cycle fluctuations affect the aggregate endogenous growth rate of the economy. Consequently, transitory shocks leave lasting level effects. This mechanism is responsible for economically significant hysteresis effects that significantly increase the welfare cost of business cycles relative to the exogenous growth model. I show that this has serious policy implications and creates ample space for policy intervention. I find that several static and countercyclical subsidy schemes are welfare improving. Importantly, I find that due to labor market frictions subsidizing incumbent firms generates large and positive welfare effects.

The article is a review of the current theoretical achievements in the context of the discussion on the shape and validity of the property tax reform in Poland, indicated in the endogenous development of municipalities. The conclusions contained in the article are an attempt to join in a scientifi c discussion on the subject of property taxation. They constitute a proposal of formulated recommendations necessary from the point of view of legitimacy of collecting property taxes and the implementation of the new system of ad valorem tax.

The concept of endogenous development assumes the use of specifi c resources of the region, difficult to copy, to its development, and even to gain a competitive advantage in a wider dimension. This concept has been used in the provisions of the Regional Innovation Strategy of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship for 2014-2020 for smart specialization (RIS3), especially in relation to leading smart specialization the quality of life, in the areas of: production and processing of ecological, regional and traditional food; renewable energy and distributed energy; agrotourism and ecotourism. It was targeted at the development of the entire region, not only the leading urban centers. The special role of the food economy lies in the need to guarantee food security and food sovereignty in the region. This issue is of strategic importance.

Coal waste stockpiles – as artificial formations being a result of the exploitation of underground coal deposits – are constantly influenced by external factors, such as rock mass movements affecting the stability of the stockpile body and changing weather conditions, leading to a cycle of aerological phenomena which intensify the self-heating of the deposited material. Together with the occurrence of external factors, the stored material is also characterised by a set of internal features (also called genetic) that have a direct impact on the kinetics of the self-heating reaction.

The paper focuses mainly on the issue of external factors such as the inclination angle of the stockpile, erosion of the slopes and thermal insulation of the layers of the stored material, which affect the phenomenon of self-heating of the material. Studies of impact of these factors on the thermal stability of coal waste stockpiles are important in the aspect of secondary exploitation of the stockpiles as well as during their reclamation or revitalisation. The numerical solutions presented in the paper should be treated as guidelines that define the directions of analysis for specific cases.

The motion planning problem consists in finding a control function which drives the system to a desired point. The motion planning algorithm derived with an endogenous configuration space approach assumes that the motion takes place in an arbitrary chosen time horizon. This work introduces a modification to the motion planning algorithm which allows to reach the destination point in time, which is shorter than the assumed time horizon. The algorithm derivation relies on the endogenous configuration space approach and the continuation (homotopy) method. To achieve the earlier destination reaching a new formulation of the task map and the task Jacobian are introduced. The efficiency of the new algorithm is depicted with simulation results.

A correlation measuring tool for an endogenous pulsed neutron source experiment is developed in this work. Paroxysmal pulses generated by a bursts of neutron chains are detected by a 10-kbit embedded shift register with a time resolution of 100 ns. The system is implemented on a single reprogrammable device making it a compact, cost-effective instrument, easily adaptable for any case study. The system was verified experimentally in the Esfahan heavy-water zero power reactor (EHWZPR). The results obtained by the measuring tool are validated by the Feynman-α experiment, and a good agreement is seen within the boundaries of statistical uncertainties. The theory of the methods is briefly initiated in the text. Also, the system structure is described, the experimental results and their uncertainties are discussed, and neutron statistics in EHWZPR is examined experimentally.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the pilot experiments demonstrating proof of concept of three-dimensional strain elastography, based on freehand ultrasound for the assessment of strain induced by endogenous motion. The technique was tested by inducing pulsatility in an agar-based tissue mimicking phantom with inclusions having different stiffness and scanning the 1D array with an electromagnetic position sensor. The proof of concept is explored with a defined physical phantom and the adopted algorithm for strain analysis. The agar-based phantom was manufactured with two cylindrical inclusions having different stiffness (7 kPa and 75 kPa in comparison to the background 25 kPa) and scattering properties. The internal strain in the phantom was introduced by mimicking a pulsating artery. The agar mixture displacements were estimated by using the GLUE algorithm. The 3D isosurfaces of inclusion from rendered volumes obtained from the B-mode image set and strain elastograms were reconstructed and superimposed for a quantitative comparison. The correspondence between the B-mode image-based inclusion volume and the strain elastography-based volume was good (the Jaccard similarity coefficient in the range 0.64–0.74). The obtained results confirm the 3D freehand endogenous motion-based elastography as a feasible technique. The visualization of the inclusions was successful. However, quantitative measurements showed that the accuracy of the method in volumetric measurements is limited.

Platelet aggregation contributes to the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. After activation it leads to dense granule secretion and 5-HT release. The question arises; how platelet aggregation is endogenously controlled during blood circulation. In preliminary studies, we observed that human plate-lets aggregate more rapidly when suspended in buffer as compared to those suspended in plasma (PRP). These observations point to the presence of an endogenous substance that may inhibit arachidonic acid– induced platelet aggregation. An analysis of plasma Cohn fractions demonstrated that most of the plasma inhibitory activity was associated with albumin–rich and α-globulin rich protein fractions. The identity of plasma endogenous inhibitors of platelet aggregation (EIPA) was established by affinity chromatography on Cibacron Blue F3G-A for specific removal of albumin. The association of α-globulins to EIPA activity was recognized as due to haptoglobin by affinity chromatography on a column of hemoglobin-sepharose. In addition, we also found that the distribution of EIPA activity varies according to sex and physiological state. These findings reveal that EIPA may act by modulation of arachidonic acid metabolism or seques-tering the fatty acid substrate.