Local service centre, defined as multi-functional public space providing access to everyday services, promoting social integration and building local identity, is an essential hub in the urban service sector. From the public policy perspective appropriate location and furnishing of local service centres is a basic condition for shaping territorial cohesion. This paper synthesises the to-date knowledge on mechanisms determining the development of service sector in cities, including new phenomena such as decentralisation of urban functions, urban shrinkage, remote services provision or commercialisation of lifestyle. Critical literature review enables the confrontation of various research perspectives and leads to distinguishing key factors affecting the development of urban local service centres in the first half of 21st century and defining the current challenges for public policy.

The research issues discussed in the paper concentrate on the participation of the municipal services sector in shaping local development in the commune. The aim of the study is to verify the actual level of involvement of this sector in the development process of the commune, and the thesis is: “The activities of the municipal services sector are one of the factors shaping local development in the commune.” The basic research method is a critical review of domestic and foreign literature and participant observation.

Coal ash produced from thermal power plants as a substitute for conventional construction material has increased considerably in recent years. In the past, studies on partial replacement of soil were carried out with a single type of ash. Because of the insufficient evidence, limited research has been initiated on the productive usage of Fly and Bottom Ashes. This paper aims to study the properties of these materials and investigate their efficacy in road construction. Laboratory investigations were conducted to assess chemical and physical properties and mechanical performance to evaluate both ash types in pavement construction. The rutting factor is calculated for various combinations of coal ash materials with the addition of polypropylene fiber as a reinforcement in increments of 0.1% of its total weight with an aspect ratio of 200. The analytical tool ANSYS is used to validate the service life, vertical strain and quality of reinforced ash materials.

The aim of this paper is the methodology of measurements executed in a radio link for the realization of radiolocation services in radiocommunication networks, particularly in cellular networks. The main results of the measurements obtained in the physical layer of the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) are introduced. A new method for the utilization of the multipath propagation phenomenon to improve the estimation of the distance between the mobile station (MS) and the base station (BS) is outlined. This method significantly increases the quality of location services in systems which use a radio interface with direct sequence code division multiple access (DS CDMA).

The paper presents an analysis of factors affecting the wear of cylinder liners. The effect of the graphite precipitation morphology on the

cylinder liner wear mechanism is presented. Materials used to cast cylinder liners mounted in a number of engines have been examined for

their conformity with requirements set out in applicable Polish industrial standard. A casting for a prototype cylinder liner has been made

with a microstructure guaranteeing good service properties of the part.

There is no information available about the incidence of anestrus and its clinical forms after service in dairy cows in Poland. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of clinical forms of anoestrus after unsuccessful artificial insemination in dairy cows based on ultrasound examination. The study was carried out on 1543 Polish Holstein-Friesian cows in 8 dairy herds in north-east Poland over a three-year period. Cows were examined for pregnancy on day 35 after AI using a Honda 1500 portable ultrasound scanner equipped with a 5 MHz linear-array transducer. Cows diagnosed as pregnant were re-examined on day 45. Of the 1543 inseminated cows, 408 (26.4%) showed no estrus signs and were diagnosed not-pregnant by ultrasonography, 328 (21.3%) returned to estrus within 35 days, and 807 (52.3%) were pregnant via artificial insemination. The incidence of anestrus after service in non-pregnant cows varied among herds from 10.3% to 32.9% of cows (p<0.05). Based on ultrasound examination silent heat was diagnosed in 324 (79.4%), corpus luteum pseudograviditatis in 36 (8.8%), ovarian cysts in 26 (6.4%), and ovarian afunction in 22 (5.4%) of 408 anestrous, non-pregnant cows. The results of this study showed that the incidence of anestrus after service in dairy herds in North-East Poland was high. The most prevalent clinical form of post-service anestrus was silent heat.

Neutralisation of the terrorist explosive devices is a risky task. Such tasks may be carried out by robots in order to protect human life. The article describes chosen design problems concerning the new neutralisation and assisting robot SMR-100 Expert. The robot was to be designed for the use in confined spaces, particularly inside the air-crafts, buses and rail cars. In order to achieve this ambitious plan, new advanced technological designing tools had to be applied. A number of interesting design issues were approached. The successful development of the prototype robot Expert in Poland resulted in the creation of the first intervention robot in the world able to perform all necessary anti-terrorist tasks inside the passenger planes.

High business competition demands business players to improve quality. The Six Sigma

with DMAIC phases is a strategy that has proven effective in improving product and service quality. This study aims to find the consistency of DMAIC phases implementation and

analyze the objective value in Six Sigma research. By using a number of trusted article

sources during 2005 until 2019, this research finds that 72% research in manufacturing industry consistently implemented DMAIC roadmap especially in case study research type

for problem-solving, while service industry pointed out the fewer number (60%). The causes

of variations and defective products in the manufacturing industry are largely caused by

a 4M 1E factor, while in service industry are caused by human behavior, and it’s system

poorness. Both manufacturing & service industry emphasized standardization & monitoring to control the process which aimed at enhancing process capability and organization

performance to increase customer satisfaction.

The scientific goal of this article was to confirm the thesis that efficient complaint management

can be one the company’s competitive advantage elements of in the sphere of logistic

customer service. The theoretical part of the article presents basic foundations related to

complaint management process as an important element of post-trade sales process in customer

service. The research part presents an example of the implementation of efficient

assumptions of the complaint management process on the example of a construction industry

manufacturing company. Guidelines for the design and implementation of an effective

and efficient complaint handling process are presented. An example of process analysis is

done using appropriate quality tools.

The state of development, the existing and emerging forms of development, the intensity and legibility of settlement systems, all this is essential for the living conditions of urban residents, their surroundings and peripheral systems. The purpose of the article is to assess the accessibility to market and public services by estimating the distance to these services from housing facilities in Poland. The use of the residential dispersion ratio (RDR) and an analysis of the spatial distribution of municipalities with the highest values of the coefficient allows to identify areas where accessibility to public and market services is weak.

The purpose of servitization is to provide new business opportunities mainly to manufacturing companies. Companies strive to develop new services through utilizing servitization models, which are required to be applicable in several servitization scenarios. The main objective of this study is to propose a servitization model, known as “end-to-end servitization model” suitable for servitization purposes in companies. The model was developed based on several validated and commonly utilized service design models. Moreover, testing the validity of the model was implemented with the usability survey (usefulness, ease to use, easy of learning and satisfaction) with the Master’s level students, while they were developing new services by utilizing the proposed model. The results of this study indicate that the proposed servitization model can be utilized in different organizations to provide new services. Furthermore, the model can be concluded as useful, easy to use, easy to learn and it is at a satisfactory level based on the empirical evidence.

The issues raised in this paper mainly concern the spatial changes in socio-economic activity in the commercial and service systems of Polish cities, shown on the example of a medium-sized, former voivodship city of Leszno. The results of research on spatial changes in the field of such activities clearly indicate a significant impact of these changes on the quality of life in the city and the effectiveness of protecting its cultural and environmental values. This study is very important in further sustainable planning, both for multifunctional retail and service infrastructure in the functional and spatial structure of housing estates and in the centre of Leszno, as well as for the infrastructure of cities of similar size in Poland and abroad.

The manufacturing industry has been reshaping its operations using digital technologies for a smart production towards a more customized demand. Nevertheless, the flexibility to attend the production plan changes in real time is still challenging. Although the Internet of Services (IoS) has been addressed as a key element for Industry 4.0, there is still a lack of clarity about the IoS contribution for advanced manufacturing. Through a case study, the paper aims to validate the adherence of a theoretical model named Service-Oriented Manufacturing Architecture (SOMA) in two manufacturing companies that have been already engaged in Industry 4.0. As main results, it was concluded that IoS could suit in one case of Industry 4.0 flexible production process but not in a mass production one. Considering the scarcity of research that exemplifies the IoS contribution, the present paper brings an important assessment on a real manufacturing scenario.

The predicted annual growth of energy consumption in ICT by 4% towards 2020, despite improvements and efficiency gains in technology, is challenging our ability to claim that ICT is providing overall gains in energy efficiency and Carbon Imprint as computers and networks are increasingly used in all sectors of activity. Thus we must find means to limit this increase and preserve quality of service (QoS) in computer systems and networks. Since the energy consumed in ICT is related to system load, ]this paper discusses the choice of system load that offers the best trade-off between energy consumption and QoS. We use both simple queueing models and measurements to develop and illustrate the results. A discussion is also provided regarding future research directions.

This paper describes an analysis of the effects of both foreign exchange (FX) risk and interest rate risk on installments of the housing FX loan using classic comparative statics approach. By focusing on sensitivity of annuity with respect to infinitesimal changes of parameters it presents the impact of the interest rate and FX rate on installments in terms of their shares of the total outstanding in foreign currency, and illustrates using values, in Polish zlotys, for three example loans extended during the period when Poland saw its most intensive FX lending. This analysis represents an attempt to answer a question frequently raised in this country of late: does the issue of debt servicing housing FX loans matter for borrowers and therefore could affect banks’ loan portfolio quality?

An available bandwidth at a link is an unused capacity. Its measuring and/or estimation is not simple in practice. On the other hand, we know that its continuous knowledge is crucial for the operation of almost all networks. Therefore, there is a continuous effort in improving the existing and developing new methods of available bandwidth measurement and/or estimation. This paper deals with these problems. Network calculus terminology allows to express an available bandwidth in terms of a service curve. The service curve is a function representing a service available for a traffic flow which can be measured/estimated in a node as well as at an endto- end connection of a network. An Internet traffic is highly unpredictable what hinders to a large extent an execution of the tasks mentioned above. This paper draws attention to pitfalls and difficulties with application of the existing network calculus methods of an available bandwidth estimation in a real Internet Service Provider (ISP) network. The results achieved in measurements have been also confirmed in simulations performed as well as by mathematical considerations presented here. They give a new perspective on the outcomes obtained by other authors and on their interpretations.

The paper puts forward a method of designing and creating a complete computer system for monitoring and diagnosis of business and industrial facilities, as well as for control purposes. The proposed solution represents a computer-network system being a practical tool for communication, control and management of modern plants and enterprises. The applied concept of communication, based on the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), makes a new attempt to solve certain performance problems met when using a (previously developed) Networked Object Monitor (NOM). The principal idea of increasing the performance of NOM lies in employing a common data bus, refereed to as a Diagnostic Service Bus (DSB), in the NOM monitor. The paper also describes a preliminary concept of a network description language (SMOL), which is designed to describe the functions, mechanisms, and network devices and to be a basis for simulation and verification of the NOMmonitor function.

A prototype of a DSP-based instrument for in-service transmitter power measurements is presented. The instrument implements a signal-selective algorithm for power measurements that is suitable for use in wireless environments, where possible uncontrolled interfering sources are present in the radio channel and are overlapped to the signal emitted by the transmitter under test, possibly in both time and frequency domain. The measurement method exploits the principles of cyclic spectral analysis, which are briefly recalled in the paper. Potentialities, as well as limitations of the prototype use are discussed, and the results of experiments with both modulated and unmodulated interfering sources are presented.

In this paper, the distances between pedestrian crossings in twenty one places in the city of Wrocław, together with their evaluation by the researched groups of students, were analyzed. The database created from the collected questionnaires contains a set of two-dimensional variables: the distance between crossings and the rating of the students. The database set was analyzed using a fuzzy data mining approach to create particular clusters. Various numbers of clusters were analyzed, and the division of data into three clusters made it possible to relate the analysis to the LOS methodology. Each variable was enriched with a third dimension representing a membership value. The obtained evaluated distances are similar to values recommended in literature, although the distances highly evaluated by the students do not often occur in reality. This might suggest that there is the need to create new crossings, especially in the city centre, where pedestrian traffic is or should be important.

The article presents numerical analysis of the portion of concrete airport pavement that consists of two concrete panels connected with dowels, subjected to thermal and service loads, in terms of changes in base rigidity, plate thickness and diameters, and spacing of dowels. Modifications of the thickness of the plates, diameter and spacing of dowels, and base rigidity were considered by assessing the level of stress and displacement in the analysed concrete plate, as well as normal and tangential stresses in dowels by using finite element method. On the basis of an analysis of examples, an optimal solution of dowelling connections in concrete plates with established loads was proposed. The results of the calculations were presented as a contour level distributions and comparison tables.

This paper presents novel approach to the Huffman’s asynchronous sequential circuit two valued Boolean switching system design. The algorithm is implemented as software using distributed, service oriented application model with means of the web service component design. It considers method implementation challenges, both towards Moore and Mealy structures with particular respect to the estimation of the Huffman’s minimization algorithm computational complexity. The paper provides implementation details, theoretical model estimation and experimental results that acknowledge the theoretical approach in practice. This paper also examine the multistep design process implementation and its problems inherent in web service based environment both for development and educational purposes.

Since the dawn of the millennium, we have been regularly functioning in two parallel realities at the same time: ”meatspace” and ”cyberspace.”