The main statement of the paper is that the post-truth is expanding at an unprecedented rate, continuously forcing itself into new areas of public life and permeating millions of minds. This phenomenon has not so far been satisfactorily explained by researchers of global-range social phenomena. The paper presents various definitions of post-truth and its interpretations. The argument revolves around what truth means and what it is threatened by, as well as the most important institution that is, by definition, concerned about the truth: the university. The article outlines the functions of the university and contemporary conditions of its functioning, including the threats to the preservation of its mission and axiological foundation: striving towards the truth. The idea of the university, created in Europe at the beginning of the second millennium, has shown to be strong and durable. It has adopted various organisational forms, depending on the period and region. The secret of the universities’ persistence and meaning cannot be considered apart from the history of the European civilisation. However, the phenomenon of post-truth expansion is the most serious threat to this institution. The expansion of post-truth also leads to changes in the quality of the public life, bringing about its degeneration, with considerable contributions of the numerous pathologies of the Internet, distribution of lies and surprisingly quickly growing acceptance of this phenomenon.
The topic of the article is a description of European urbonyms which fulfilled both political and commemorative roles in the past. The city names are presented in chronological order starting from ancient times to the 20th century. The ancient toponyms are related to the expansion of the Roman Empire, and the names of Roman emperors are used as a foundation for these toponyms. Such urbonyms created on the outskirts of the Roman Empire made reference to their new political allegiance and confirmed it. These naming practices therefore played an important role in the process of territorial expansion and the consolidation of political control. This naming model was also present in Byzantium, and became popular on the outskirts of medieval Ruthenia under the influence of the Byzantine Empire. The tradition of commemorating political rulers through toponyms stayed constant in the Eastern Slavic regions, and was continued by the Russian monarchy as well as the USSR. Such naming practices were initially used as a tool for the structural organisation of Kievan Rus’, and later to erase foreign names from these regions of Tsarist Russia. In Communist times, this tradition reaffirmed the new political reality through the use of surnames of political figures in toponyms. In the 20th century there was an increase in surnames featured in urbanonyms (the names of streets, squares, housing estates). This increase was meant to preserve the memory of remarkable individuals in society.
The sodium expansion and creep strain of semi-graphitic cathodes are investigated using a modified Rapoport apparatus. To further understanding of the sodium and bath penetration damage processes, the impact of external stress fluence on the carbon cathode microstructure has been defined with XRD analysis, Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Graphite atoms fracture into smaller fragments that are less directional than the pristine platelets, which allows for a possible filling of the cracks that thus develop by the sodium and bath during aluminum electrolysis. The average microcrystalline size (calculated by Raman spectroscopy) is reduced by the deformation. The decreased intensity and widened ‘G’ and ‘D’ peaks in the analysis indicate the poor order of the sheets along the stacking direction while the consistent layered graphite structure is sustained.
Pot-cored coils are commonly used as probes in eddy current testing. In this paper, an analytical model of such a coil placed over a three-layer plate with a hole has been presented. The proposed solution enables the modelling of both magnetic and non-magnetic conductive plates that contain different types of hole, i.e. a through, a surface, an inner or a subsurface hole. The problem was solved by using the truncated region eigenfunction expansion (TREE) method. The analysis was carried out in a cylindrical coordinate system in which the solution domain was radially limited. With the employment of the filamentary coil, the expressions for the magnetic vector potential, and subsequently for the impedance of the cylindrical coil were obtained. The final formulas were presented in a closed form and then implemented in Matlab. The resistance and reactance values were compared with the results obtained in the experiment and using the finite element method in the Comsol Multiphysics package. In each of the cases, good agreement was obtained.
The properties of expansive concretes made of two types of cement: Portland cement CEM I and blast furnace slag cement CEM III were tested. The expansion of the concrete was caused by using an expansive admixture containing aluminium powder added in an amount of 0.5; 1 and 1.5% of cement mass. It was found that the compressive strength of concrete with CEM I decreased after using an expansive admixture in the amount of more than 0.5% of the cement mass. The compressive strength of concrete with CEM III decrease after addition of admixture in the entire range of dosages used. On the basis of electrochemical measurements, it was found no influence of an expansive admixture on corrosion of reinforcing steel. The use of an expansive admixture causes a slight increase in the effective diffusion coefficient of chloride ions in concrete.