The article presents an analysis and evaluation of the accident rate in selected European Union countries. On the basis of available statistical data, the analysis of accidents in various sectors of the European Union economy was carried out. Afterwards, a ranking of countries regarding accidents in the construction industry was developed. For the selected representative countries, analysis of changes in the indicators which characterize the accident rate during the period between 2008 and 2012 was carried out. Conclusions resulting from the conducted research were formulated.

In Poland, it often happens that construction objects are subject to demolition work for different reasons. Demolition, according the Construction Law, is defined as a type of construction works and, as such, represents a particular type of construction project. As in other construction projects, a very important phase, in addition to execution of the works, is to prepare, design and plan demolition works. Some demolition activities are covered by appropriate regulations and can be described as typical. On the other hand the technical side of demolition works depends on many factors such as: the type of building, its age, technical condition, type of construction, etc. This article covers the analysis of the stages and tasks in the preparatory phase of the building demolition. This work will also present a description of the tasks carried out during the demolition works based on the example of a historic tenement house located in Krakow. This analysis aims to identify implementation problems and sources of risk that may occur during this type of construction work.

The article attempts to identify environmental conditions for the development of cogeneration companies in Poland. The article systematizes knowledge about environmental regulations which concern this issue. Within the framework of identified environmental conditions, the authors characterize issues related to national legislation that regulates the operation of cogeneration companies, as well as the requirements resulting from European Union and national regulations in this matter. These regulations, directly and indirectly, affect the long-term future of cogeneration companies and the energy sector as a whole. Undoubtedly, in the current state of environmental regulations in force, the key change for a power company such as a cogeneration company is to meet the requirements for the emission of harmful substances. The change was introduced in 2016 as a result of more stringent emission limits and the adoption of the IED (Industrial Emissions Directive). The implementation of recommendations of the BAT (Best Available Techniques) Conclusions in 2017 additionally tightened the required limits. Undeniably, the key period for cogeneration companies will be 2021 as per the implementation of imposed harmful substances emission’s limits. The article comprehensively discusses the conditions that substantially affect the long-term growth of a cogeneration company and are crucial when making assumptions intended to address strategic development issues in the domestic fuel and power sector.

The article discusses issues related to improving the energy efficiency of heat supply systems. It draws attention to the need to take action not only for large objects and systems, but also for individual buildings and their boiler plants. Heat supply system monitoring allows for the diagnosis of the weakest elements and making decisions leading to the improvement of energy efficiency. In the case of the boiler room where the research was carried out, the results of such monitoring convinced to equip boilers with an additional automatic control system, with an algorithm limiting the number of burner switching cycles and shutdowns. Limiting the number of switching on the burners, as in the case of other combustion and electric devices, has a significant impact on the energy efficiency of the entire system. In addition, it also increases the durability of the devices, and thus reduces costs of servicing and repairs. The simplest control algorithms, often used in controllers installed in the boiler units, do not provide optimization in this respect. The external device used has allowed the number of burners on and off cycles to be limited while maintaining the quality of the heat supply to the heating installation and the heat treatment system.

The material also presents other ways to improve the energy efficiency of the heat supply system in existing multi-family buildings.

The study of emotion regulation constitutes a major area of research for having a complete picture of human emotional experience, and several lines of evidence claim that poor emotion regulation skills are particularly deleterious in different aspects of life. Previous tDCS studies have suggested the beneficial role of DLPFC stimulation to improve emotion processing and regulation. The present study was therefore conducted to confirm and extend the effects of DLPFC stimulation on emotion regulation by including both positive and negative emotional material. In this between subjects study, participants were randomly assigned to receive active or sham stimulation over the left DLPFC. Participants viewed negative, positive, and neutral pictures while attempting to decrease, increase, or not modulate their emotional reactions. Subjective reactions were assessed via on-line ratings. The main results show that anodal tDCS stimulation over the left DLPFC slightly improves the ability to increase emotion perception for positive emotions. More interestingly, the results demonstrate that tDCS enhances the regulation of both positive and negative emotions when the baseline is considered. This study provides additional data on the use of tDCS as a tool to increase emotion regulation not only for negative affective material, but also for positive ones.

The European Water Framework Directive can have enormous consequences for agricul-ture in the Netherlands. In parts of the country agriculture should be taken out of production because the nutrient loads to the surface water system are far too high. This doom scenario is of course unde-sired and a number of source-specific and effect-specific measures are necessary. The fate of nutri-ents in the soil is strongly interrelated with its hydrology. Directly, because nutrients are transported by water and the distribution of the residence time of drainage water is a good measure for the time behaviour of the nutrient loads to the surface water system. Longer residence time in the soil means more of nutrients applied by farmers but also a longer recovery period, after applying source-specific measures. In this paper three promising effect-specific hydrological measures are described buffer strips, retention strips, and controlled drainage.

The purpose of the research is to establish the total number of ponds in Ukraine and to analyse the territorial distribu-tion in the administrative areas, as well as in the river basin districts, as the main hydrographic units of water management. Cadastral data of the State Agency of Water Resources of Ukraine regional offices as of 2019 was used in the research (as to Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions we applied the data as of 2014). According the researches there are 50,793 ponds in Ukraine with a total water table area of 2,92899 ha and the volume of 3,969.4 mln m3 of water in 2019. The quantitative distribution of ponds across Ukraine is unequal. Most of them are concentrated in the central part of the country (10.5% of the total number of ponds in the country are in Vinnytsia region). Least of them are in Luhansk region (0.7%). Almost half of the ponds are located in the Dnieper River Basin (48.5%). The lowest quantity of ponds is in the Black Sea Basin (1.2%). The regulation of river basins districts (the rivers of the Sea of Azov, Crimea and Black Sea Basins) reaches 0.71–0.77. As of 2019, 28% of the ponds are rented out. In order to identify the real status of the ponds (both quantitative and qualitative), their recreational role, the environmental impact and the regulation of the hydrographic network in Ukraine, it is necessary to increase the attention to ponds monitoring.

The aim of the present study was to explore the role of temporal intelligence in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ self-regulation and self-efficacy. To this end, a general temporal intelligence (GTI-S) scale was designed based on the subconstructs of time in the literature. The scale, along with the learning self-regulation questionnaire (SRQ-L) and the English self-efficacy scale was administered to 520 EFL learners. To validate the GTI-S, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was run. The results of Pearson product-moment correlations demonstrated significantly positive relationships between temporal intelligence and controlled self-regulation, automatic self-regulation and self-efficacy (p<.05). Moreover, the findings of multiple regressions revealed that Linearity of Time, Economicity of Time, and Multitasking are the most important subconstructs of time with relation to these variables.

Per- and polyfl uoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are human-invented chemicals that were created in the middle of the 20th century. They were synthesized for the fi rst time in 1949, and because of their exceptional surfactant properties, they have been widely used in many industrial applications and daily life products. The common use of PFASs resulted in their worldwide dissemination in natural environment. PFASs are reported to be ubiquitous in surface and drinking waters, but also may be present in soils, animals, milk and milk-products, plants, food. Contaminated drinking water and food are the most signifi cant exposure sources to these chemicals. Ingested PFASs are bio-accumulative and have adverse eff ect on health of humans as well as animal organisms. This paper reviews the most signifi cant information on the origin, properties, distribution, environmental fate, human exposure, health eff ects, and the environmental regulations on PFASs and summarizes the latest advances in the development of novel methods for the eff ective removal of these chemicals from the aqueous environment. Recognized (reverse osmosis, adsorption on activated carbon) and most promising developing removal methods such as adsorption on biomaterials (plant proteins, chitosan beds), mineral adsorbents (LDHs, hydrotalcite), ionexchange resins, and photocatalytic degradation have been emphasized.

Rare and endemic plant species represent important components of plant biodiversity which require protection to ensure their sustainable conservation. Cerastium banaticum (Rochel) Heuff. is such an endemic and rare species from Romania, for which the genetic variability of two natural populations was studied by SSR markers. Shannon’s information index revealed low levels of genetic diversity in both populations (I = 0.296). As the first attempt in a conservation program a reproducible micropropagation protocol was established starting from seeds, followed by multiplication, rooting, and ex vitro acclimatization. Among the various plant growth regulators tested the highest multiplication coefficient was achieved on a culture medium with 0.5 mg L-1 6-furfurylaminopurine (K) and 1 mg L-1 α-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA). On this PGRs concentration a number of 26.6 shoots/individual explant with a mean length of 7.9 cm for new generated shoots was registered. The highest number of roots/individual initiated shoot was 2.6 and it was recorded on a culture medium with 0.5 mg L-1 2-isopentyl-adenine (2iP) and 0.1 mg L-1 NAA. The outdoor acclimatization was successfully performed in a specially designed rocky area in the ‘Alexandru Borza’ Botanical Garden, Cluj-Napoca (Romania).

Cells of a multicellular organism are genetically identical but differ in structure and function. This heterogeneity is created by several epigenetic mechanisms during the development of the organism. The epigenetic changes- including DNA methylation, histone post-translational modifications, chromatin remodeling and RNA interference have all been shown to control chromatin structure and regulate a plethora of cellular and organismal processes. There is a strong evidence that epigenetics play a crucial role in the development of diseases such as cancer, schizophrenia or metabolic disorders. The epigenetic regulation underlie memory formation or adaptation to external stimuli. The extent to which environmental effects can provoke epigenetic responses represents an exciting area of future research. Here we review the current knowledge about the epigenetic mechanisms and their relation to the human health and disease.