Repozytorium publikacji - Politechnika Gdańska

Ustawienia strony

english
Repozytorium publikacji
Politechniki Gdańskiej

Pokaż publikacje z roku

Ostatnie pozycje

  • Green, simple analytical method for total biogenic amines content determination in wine using spectrophotometry
    • Kaja Kalinowska
    • Marek Tobiszewski
    2023 Pełny tekst FOOD CHEMISTRY

    A simple, green and equitable procedure for total biogenic amines (BAs) content determination was developed. The scientific novelty lies in the use of commercially available S 0378 dye, the reaction of which with BAs results in a colour change of the solution. Sample preparation and analysis were simplified to make the method suitable for routine analyses even in resource-scarce settings. The optimization of the method was carried out using a Box-Behnken response surface design. The developed method has satisfactory figures of merit for putrescine equivalent determination with R2 in the range of 0.9906–0.9933 and recovery between 99.7 and 101.2 %. The method’s greenness was assessed using AGREEprep. Finally, wine samples were analysed to demonstrate the applicability of the developed method.

  • Greening procedures and analytical parameters. The polychlorinated naphthalenes analysis in complex matrices as proof of concept
    • Natalia Jatkowska
    • Mariusz Marć
    • Miguel De la Guardia
    • Daniel Gallart Mateu
    • Justyna Płotka-Wasylka
    2023 TRAC-TRENDS IN ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

    Due to the complexity of analytical procedures employed for the determination of wide spectrum of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), it is important to consider the green character of the applied protocols and propose the greenest solutions. In this review, the green aspects of several analytical procedures used for the determination of polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs) (as a representatives of POPs) in different types of samples were evaluated using different green analytical tools, the Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI) and the Analytical GREEnness Metric Approach for sample preparation (AGREEprep). A clear differences were observed in the increase in greenness of the various stages of the analytical procedure. The extraction, purification as well as the preconcentration of analytes were identified as the most sensitive and most influential stage in terms of greenness, but also in terms of the quality/reliability of the obtained research results by applying a given analytical procedure.

  • Greenness assessment of analytical methods used for antibiotic residues determination in food samples
    • Khrystyna Vakh
    • Marek Tobiszewski
    2023 TRAC-TRENDS IN ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY

    Food of animal origin plays an important role in ensuring a healthy and sustainable human diet. However, residues of pharmaceuticals, especially antibiotics, can be the cause of many health problems. To protect consumers and improve food quality, analytical methods used to determine contaminants should be simple, selective, and have high throughput and low detection limits. Recently, greenness metric tools have proven useful in evaluating analytical procedures and assessing their impact on the environment and sustainable development. The Analytical GREEnness metric (AGREE) was applied to evaluate the green profile of liquid- and solid-phase extraction procedures used to determine antibiotic residues in food samples. The comparison of the procedures was performed for tetracycline antibiotics, due to their broad application in animal husbandry. The twelve input variables of AGREE were compared for each procedure and the total score was evaluated to show the overall impact into the greenness improvement.

  • Ground lemon and stevia leaves as renewable functional fillers with antioxidant activity for high-density polyethylene composites
    • Mateusz Barczewski
    • Joanna Aniśko
    • Aleksander Hejna
    • Olga Mysiukiewicz
    • Paulina Kosmela
    • Kamila Sałasińska
    • Anna Boczkowska
    • Anna Przybylska-balcerek
    • Kinga Stuper-szablewska
    2023 Pełny tekst Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy

    The development of new sustainable material solutions in the processing of thermoplastic polymers concerns both the application of biopolymers and the use of valorized plant derivatives as fillers and modifiers of petrochemical polymers. Herein, the possibility of using unprocessed raw parts of two commonly used in the food industry leaves, i.e., lemon (LL) and stevia (ST), as active and functional fillers for high-density polyethylene (HDPE) has been verified. The series of composites containing 1, 2, and 5 wt% of ground leaves produced in the melt-mixing process were analyzed for thermal properties (DSC and TGA), and the antioxidant potential of the fillers was evaluated. Verifying the active effect of the ground leaves on the resistance to oxidation in the molten state was carried out by oxygen induction time (OIT by DSC) analysis and oscillatory rheology under steady-state shear conditions combined with spectroscopic (FTIR) carbonyl index (CI) analysis. Studies have shown that the introduction of 5 wt% of both types of leaves allows for a significant increase in the melt oxidation resistance (above 2 times longer OIT concerning HDPE, ~ 35 min) of composites without substantial changes in their crystalline structure and thermal stability. Determined after the long-term rheological measurements in an oxidative atmosphere CI showed 70 and 82% lower values for 5 wt% LL and ST composites compared to unmodified polyethylene.

  • Group 11 complexes with a phosphanylphosphaalkene ligand: preparation and stability study
    • Aleksandra Ziółkowska
    • Natalia Szynkiewicz
    • Jacek Ryl
    • Łukasz Ponikiewski
    2023 DALTON TRANSACTIONS

    The reactivities of two selected phosphanylphosphaalkenes, Ph2C=P-PtBu2 (1a) and (p-MeO-Ph)2C=P-PtBu2 (1b), toward CuCl, AgCl and (tht)AuCl (tht = tetrahydrothiophene) were investigated. As a result, new phosphanylphosphaalkene dimeric and monomeric complexes were formed (Cu and Ag dimeric and Au monomeric). All obtained products were air and moisture stable and light insensitive.

  • GUIDED WAVES IN SHIP STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING – A FEASIBILITY STUDY
    • Emil Roch
    • Beata Zima
    • Krzysztof Wołoszyk
    • Yordan Garbatov
    2023 Pełny tekst Polish Maritime Research

    Ships and offshore structures operate in a severe corrosion degradation environment and face difficulty in providing long- lasting corrosion protection. The Classification Societies recommend regular thickness measurements leading to structural component replacements, to ensure structural integrity during service life. The measurements are usually performed using ultrasonic thickness gauges and such an approach requires multiple measurements of the corroded structural components. Otherwise, the collected data are insufficient to precisely assess the corrosion degradation level. This study aims to perform numerical and experimental analyses to verify the use of guided ultrasonic waves in defining the corrosion degradation level of the corroded structural components of a ship. The study incorporates the fundamental antisymmetric Lamb mode, excited by piezoelectric transducers attached at the pre-selected points on stiffened panels, representing typical structural ship components. The specimens are exposed to accelerated marine corrosion degradation, the influence of the degree of degradation on the wave time of flight being analysed. The study indicates that guided waves are a promising approach for diagnosing corroded structural components. The signals characterised by a high signal-to-noise ratio have been captured, even for relatively long distances between the transducers. This proves that the proposed approach can be suitable for monitoring more extensive areas of ship structures by employing a single measurement

  • H2O˙+ and OH+ reactivity versus furan: experimental low energy absolute cross sections for modeling radiation damage
    • Daniela Ascenzi
    • Ewa Erdmann
    • Paola Bolognesi
    • Lorenzo Avaldi
    • Mattea Carmen Castrovilli
    • Roland Thissen
    • Claire Romanzin
    • Christian Alcaraz
    • Ismanuel Rabadan
    • Luis Mendez
    • Sergio Díaz-Tendero
    • Antonella Cartoni
    2023 Pełny tekst PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL PHYSICS

    Radiotherapy is one of the most widespread and efficient strategies to fight malignant tumors. Despite its broad application, the mechanisms of radiation-DNA interaction are still under investigation. Theoretical models to predict the effects of a particular delivered dose are still in their infancy due to the difficulty of simulating a real cell environment, as well as the inclusion of a large variety of secondary processes. This work reports the first experimental study of the ion–molecule reactions of the H2O+ and OH+ ions, produced by photoionization with synchrotron radiation, with a furan (c-C4H4O) molecule, a template for deoxyribose sugar in DNA. The present experiments, performed as a function of the collision energy of the ions and the tunable photoionization energy, provide key parameters for the theoretical modelling of the effect of radiation dose, like the absolute cross sections for producing protonated furan (furanH+) and a radical cation (furan+), the most abundant products, which can amount up to 200 Å2 at very low collision energies (o1.0 eV). The experimental results show that furanH+ is more fragile, indicating how the protonation of the sugar component of the DNA may favor its dissociation with possible major radiosensitizing effects. Moreover, the ring opening of furanH+ isomers and the potential energy surface of the most important fragmentation channels have been explored by molecular dynamics simulations and quantum chemistry calculations. The results show that, in the most stable isomer of furanH+, the ring opening occurs via a low energy pathway with carbon–oxygen bond cleavage, followed by the loss of neutral carbon monoxide and the formation of the allyl cation CH2CHCH2 +, which instead is not observed in the fragmentation of furan+. At higher energies the ring opening through the carbon–carbon bond is accompanied by the loss of formaldehyde, producing HCCCH2 +, the most intense fragment ion detected in the experiments. This work highlights the importance of the secondary processes, like the ion–molecule reactions at low energies in the radiation damage due to their very large cross sections, and it aims to provide benchmark data for the development of suitable models to approach this low collision energy range.

  • Harmonization and Quality Assurance of Income and Wealth Data: The Case of LIS.
    • Jorg Neugschwender
    • Teresa Munzi
    • Piotr Paradowski
    2023

    Comparability of concepts in survey data harmonization is essential for scientific analyses. LIS – also known as the Luxembourg Income Study or LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg – acquires and harmonizes income and wealth microdata to provide the scientific community with a comparable database that is unique in the world in its growing temporal and geographic breadth. Over many decades, scholars worldwide have used the LIS and Luxembourg Wealth Study (LWS) databases to compare economic and social policies and their effects on outcomes, including poverty, income inequality, employment, gender inequality, and wealth portfolios. Since source data entering LIS differ substantially in terms of collection mode, type of information collected, level of detail, and structure of the data, this chapter elaborates on the various harmonization efforts at LIS, revolving around the ex-post aspect of harmonization. The discussion of core challenges of ex-post harmonization, LIS guiding principle of operational comparability, documentation, software tools, and quality assurance procedures set in place at LIS is enriched with practical examples. The last section concludes with key lessons learned from nearly 40-years of harmonization of microdata, pointing out to other significant factors, such as the importance of interaction with scholars, data providers, and other experts in the field in order to provide reliable data for cross-national, interdisciplinary research.

  • HCI-Based Wireless System for Measuring the Concentration of Mining Machinery and Equipment Operators
    • Jerzy Jagoda
    • Mariusz Woszczyński
    • Bartosz Polnik
    • Przemysław Falkowski-Gilski
    2023 Pełny tekst Applied Sciences-Basel

    Maintaining stable and reliable working conditions is a matter of vital importance for various companies, especially those involving heavy machinery. Due to human exhaustion, as well as unpredicted hazards and dangerous situations, the personnel has to take actions and wisely plan each move. This paper presents a human–computer interaction (HCI)-based system that uses a concentration level measurement function to increase the safety of machine and equipment operators. The system has been developed in response to the results of user experience (UX) analyses of the state of occupational safety, which indicate that the most common cause of accidents is the so-called insufficient concentration while performing work. The paper presents the reasons for addressing this issue and a description of the proposed electroencephalography (EEG)-based solution in the form of a concentration measurement system concept. We discuss in-field measurements of such a prototype solution, together with an analysis of obtained results. The method of implementing a wireless communication interface is also provided, along with a visualization application.

  • HEALTH MONITORING OF A COMPRESSION IGNITION ENGINE FED WITH DIFFERENT LOW-SULPHUR MARINE FUELS BY ENDOSCOPIC IMAGE PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS
    • Zbigniew Korczewski
    2023 Pełny tekst Polish Maritime Research

    This article characterises the methodology for the endoscopic testing of a laboratory diesel engine used for testing marine fuels. The ‘Shadow’ measurement method used in the XLG3 type EVEREST digital endoscope, for quantitative and qualitative identification of detected surface defects, was approximated. Representative endoscopic images of the elements limiting the working space of the research engine are demonstrated, having been recorded during the usable quality testing of newly produced, low-sulphur marine fuels, so-called ‘modified fuels’. The main purpose of the endoscopic examinations was the final verification of the tested fuel’s suitability for feeding full-size marine engines.

  • Healthy financial system of local government on the example of Poland
    • Maria Jastrzębska
    2023 Pełny tekst Financial Law Review

    healthy local government financial system lays the foundation for the ability of local government units (LGUs) to carry out public tasks at the current qualitative and quantitative level and to meet their obligations in the short and long term. A healthy financial system of local government is a system that is adequate, stable, unified, consistent, transparent, diversified, counter-cyclical, guarantees the financial independence of LGUs, and activates to take measures to increase revenues and efficiency of expenditures. The purpose of the article is to answer the question of what are the characteristics of a healthy financial system of local self-government, assess the system operating in Poland, and formulate recommendations for changes aimed at healing this system. Descriptive analysis, comparative analysis, inductive and deductive reasoning, and critical analysis of the national literature on the subject by economists and lawyers were used.

  • Heat transfer enhancement of modular thermal energy storage unit for reversible heat pump cooperation
    • Rafał Andrzejczyk
    • Tomasz Muszyński
    • M. Fabrykiewicz
    • Michał Rogowski
    2023 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THERMAL SCIENCES

    The following article presents experimental comparison research on a hexagonal shelland-tube latent thermal energy storage (TES). Such shape of a shell was deliberately chosen instead of a cylindrical one due to its high modularity and with intent for future applications in automobiles (EV and PHEV) air conditioning systems (HVAC). Two geometries of helical coils, acting as tubes, were studied in this article. One was a simple helical coil with a small pitch. The other one was a helical coil with a larger pitch but enhanced with six longitudinal fins for each corner of the hexagon. Fins were added to study the effects of higher heat transfer area as well as effects of better thermal penetration of the Phase Change Material (PCM). Geometries of coils were matched with intent to occupy the same volume in the storage tank for a better comparison of the results. Results were also compared with previous studies carried out by authors for a copper pipe placed in a cylindrical shell. PCM chosen for this study was RT18HC due to its high value of latent heat and the melting temperature close to 18◦C. Melting temperature value is crucial for applications in vehicle thermal control systems.

  • Heat Transfer of the Multicolor-Laser-Sources-Irradiated Nanoparticles in Reference to Thermal Processes
    • Piotr Radomski
    • Federica Zaccagnini
    • Paweł Ziółkowski
    • Francesca Petronella
    • Luciano de Sio
    • Dariusz Mikielewicz
    2023 Pełny tekst

    Unlike the standard materials, metallic nanoparticles offer enhancing the heat convertion rate which implies the maximum and average temperature boost significantly in the considered system. The work’s purpose is to examine heat transfer in the metallic nanoparticles which have been deposited on a glassy substrate, enabling the nanostructures thermoablation. Furthermore, the functionalized substrate is irradiated with multicolor-laser-sources, with a future perspective to develop a solar model. This is particularly crucial at improving efficiency in solar-collectors-based renewable energy sources. On the other hand, the theoretical investigations which have been previously verified for a single laser source aim to demonstrate the unsteady temperature and entropy increase in selected geometry cross-sections. The produced heat and the appropriate boundary conditions are calculated based on the advanced optics (Mie-Lorentz and Rayleigh-Drude theories) using an analytical approach. On the other hand, the temperature field and entropy production for the case study is being achieved via CFD simulations. The obtained results will be subsequently being applied in order to optimize the appropriate nanoparticle size and shape in operational work conditions.

  • Heterojunction of (P, S) co-doped g-C3N4 and 2D TiO2 for improved carbamazepine and acetaminophen photocatalytic degradation
    • Elvana Çako
    • Szymon Dudziak
    • Paweł Głuchowski
    • Grzegorz Trykowski
    • Marcin Pisarek
    • Agnieszka Fiszka Borzyszkowska
    • Karol Sikora
    • Anna Zielińska-Jurek
    2023 Pełny tekst SEPARATION AND PURIFICATION TECHNOLOGY

    Novel photocatalysts of phosphorus and sulfur co-doped graphitic carbon nitride incorporated in 2D TiO2 structure were successfully fabricated and applied for solar-driven degradation of emerging pollutants from the group of pharmaceuticals not susceptible to biodegradation. The hybrid photocatalysts with different loadings of (P, S)-doped g-C3N4 were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DR/UV–vis), photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The optimum (P, S)-doped g-C3N4/TiO2 (5 %) composite revealed improved photocatalytic activity towards the degradation of carbamazepine and acetaminophen. For CBZ, about 100 % degradation was achieved in less than 30 min of photodegradation, whereas for ACT, the complete removal was observed in 60 min of irradiation under simulated solar light. The multi-anion doped g-C3N4/2D TiO2 composite demonstrated an excellent synergy towards the degradation of CBZ and ACT with a synergy index of 1.35 and 1.62. Moreover, the mineralization efficiency measured as TOC removal was 76 % and 40 % for CBZ and ACT, respectively. The reactive oxygen species responsible for the degradation of selected pharmaceuticals are superoxide (•O2– ) and hydroxyl radicals (HO•), and the kinetics of reactions proved to fit the first-order kinetics with a rate constant of 0.21 min 1 for CBZ degradation and 0.074 min 1 for ACT degradation. Our results suggest that (P, S)-doped g-C3N4/ 2D TiO2 heterostructure is a Z-scheme heterojunction, which can effectively separate photogenerated charge carriers. The emissions and decay times analyzed for single components and the optimal (P, S)-doped g-C3N4/ 2D TiO2 (5 %) composite confirmed interfacial charge transfer between TiO2 nanosheets and (P, S)-g-C3N4 and more effective separation of electron-hole pairs. Identification of carbamazepine and acetaminophen intermediates was performed using LC-MS analysis in combination with additional DFT calculations of the possible by-products formation. Regarding reusability, the photocatalytic activity of (P, S)-doped g-C3N4/ 2D TiO2 (5 %) was stable after subsequent cycles of carbamazepine and acetaminophen degradation.

  • High Isolation Metamaterial-based Dual-band MIMO Antenna for 5G Millimeter-wave Applications
    • Bashar Esmail
    • Sławomir Kozieł
    2023 AEU-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATIONS

    This article presents a high-isolation metamaterial-based dual-band multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna for 5G millimeter-wave communication networks. The proposed antenna is a pentagon-shaped monopole that provides a dual-band response with a wide operating bandwidth at 5G 28/28 bands. The antenna is printed on 0.508-mm-thick Rogers RT5880 substrate of relative permittivity ɛr =2.2. It exhibits a small physical size of 5.5 × 5.4 × 0.508 mm3, excluding the feeding line. The MIMO system is constructed of two symmetric radiating elements arranged adjacently with the mutual coupling of −18.5 dB at both resonant frequencies. The dual-band metamaterial is designed and placed between the two radiators to reduce the mutual coupling. Embedding a 3×1 metamaterial array enhances the isolation to −39 dB and −38 dB at 28 GHz and 38 GHz, respectively. The proposed system is capable of covering both 28/28 5G bands and has the merits of broad bandwidth, low profile, high gain ( > 5 dB), improved isolation (−38 dB), low envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) (< 0.0001) and channel capacity loss (CCL) (< 0.05), and high diversity gain (DG) (> 9.99 dB). The system performance is verified experimentally with good agreement between the simulated and measured data. These properties demonstrate the system applicability for 5G millimeter-wave communication networks.

  • High-Efficacy Global Optimization of Antenna Structures by Means of Simplex-Based Predictors
    • Sławomir Kozieł
    • Anna Pietrenko-Dąbrowska
    2023 Pełny tekst Scientific Reports

    Design of modern antenna systems has become highly dependent on computational tools, especially full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulation models. EM analysis is capable of yielding accurate representation of antenna characteristics at the expense of considerable evaluation time. Consequently, execution of simulation-driven design procedures (optimization, statistical analysis, multi-criterial design) is severely hindered by the accumulated cost of multiple antenna evaluations. This problem is especially pronounced in the case of global search, frequently performed using nature-inspired algorithms, known for poor computational efficiency. At the same time, global optimization is often required, either due to multimodality of the design task or the lack of sufficiently good starting point. A workaround is to combine metaheuristics with surrogate modeling methods, yet a construction of reliable metamodels over broad ranges of antenna parameters is challenging. This work introduces a novel procedure for global optimization of antenna structures. Our methodology involves a simplex-based automated search performed at the level of approximated operating and performance figures of the structure at hand. The presented approach capitalizes on weakly-nonlinear dependence between the operating figures and antenna geometry parameters, as well as computationally cheap design updates, only requiring a single EM analysis per iteration. Formal convergence of the algorithm is guaranteed by implementing the automated decision-making procedure for reducing the simplex size upon detecting the lack of objective function improvement. The global optimization stage is succeeded by gradient-based parameter refinement. The proposed procedure has been validated using four microstrip antenna structures. Multiple independent runs and statistical analysis of the results have been carried out in order to corroborate global search capability. Satisfactory outcome obtained for all instances, and low average computational cost of only 120 EM antenna simulations, demonstrate superior efficacy of our algorithm, also in comparison with both local optimizers and nature-inspired procedures.

  • Highly Occupied Surface States at Deuterium-Grown Boron-Doped Diamond Interfaces for Efficient Photoelectrochemistry
    • Michał Sobaszek
    • Maria Brzhezinskay
    • Adrian Olejnik
    • Vincent Mortet
    • Mahebub Alam
    • Sawczak Mirosław
    • Mateusz Ficek
    • Maria Gazda
    • Zdenek Weiss
    • Robert Bogdanowicz
    2023 Pełny tekst SMALL

    Polycrystalline boron-doped diamond is a promising material for high-power aqueous electrochemical applications in bioanalytics, catalysis, and energy storage. The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process of diamond forma-tion and doping is totally diversified by using high kinetic energies of deu-terium substituting habitually applied hydrogen. The high concentration of deuterium in plasma induces atomic arrangements and steric hindrance during synthesis reactions, which in consequence leads to a preferential (111) texture and more effective boron incorporation into the lattice, reaching a one order of magnitude higher density of charge carriers. This provides the surface reconstruction impacting surficial populations of CC dimers, CH, CO groups, and COOH termination along with enhanced kinetics of their abstraction, as revealed by high-resolution core-level spectroscopies. A series of local densities of states were computed, showing a rich set of highly occupied and localized surface states for samples deposited in deuterium, negating the connotations of band bending. The introduction of enhanced incorporation of boron into (111) facet of diamond leads to the manifestation of surface electronic states below the Fermi level and above the bulk valence band edge. This unique electronic band structure affects the charge transfer kinetics, electron affinity, and diffusion field geometry critical for efficient electrolysis, electrocatalysis, and photoelectrochemistry

  • Highly stable CsFAPbIBr perovskite solar cells with dominant bulk recombination at real operating temperatures
    • Beatriz Romero
    • Silvia Delgado
    • Damian Głowienka
    • Cheng-Tsung Chang
    • Gonzalo Del Pozo
    • Belén Arredondo
    • Diego Martín-Martín
    • Pedro Contreras
    • Yulia Galagan
    2023 Pełny tekst Sustainable Energy & Fuels

    Mixed-cation mixed-halide perovskite solar cells have been characterized in DC at different temperatures (from −20 °C up to 50 °C) and the time evolution of the device efficiency has been assessed using different degradation protocols (indoors and outdoors). The completely planar p–i–n structure is ITO/CuNiOx/PTAA/CsFAPbIBr/PCBM/PEI/Ag. Pristine current–voltage characteristics barely show hysteresis, at any temperature. Open circuit voltage decreases with temperature at a rate of −1.5 mV °C−1, and the obtained PCE temperature coefficient is lower than −0.001% K−1, which is an outstanding value for this emerging photovoltaic technology. Cells have been degraded under different protocols: indoors using different light/dark cycles and outdoors in a high temperature and high irradiation location. Cells show no significant decrease of the efficiency after more than 350 h of indoor light cycling and the estimated T80 obtained for the sample degraded outdoors under high irradiation and high temperature conditions is ∼15 days.

  • Highly-Miniaturized Self-Quadruplexing Antenna Based on Substrate-Integrated Rectangular Cavity
    • Rusan Kumar Barik
    • Sławomir Kozieł
    2023 IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters

    This paper introduces a novel self-quadruplexing antenna (SQA) architecture using a substrate-integrated rectangular cavity (SIRC) for compact size, wide-frequency re-designability, and high isolation responses. The proposed SQA is developed by engraving two U-shaped slots (USSs) on the top conductor of the SIRC. The USSs are excited by employing four microstrip feedlines to achieve self-quadruplexing antenna characteristics. The operating frequencies can be tuned independently according to the assumed targets, with a wide tuning range from 2.3 GHz to 7 GHz. The dimensions of USSs are meticulously chosen to achieve high isolation and compact size. An equivalent circuit is suggested to validate the proposed SQA. Finally, the SQA operating at 2.33, 2.96, 5.43, and 6.15 GHz is fabricated and validated. As compared to the earlier SQAs, the proposed antenna offers competitive performance with a compact size of 0.124λ2 (45.6% smaller than the most compact SQA reported in the literature), high isolation of 32.5 dB, and a wide tunable range from 2.3 GHz to 7 GHz. Its measured gain is 4.31, 3.39, 6.12, and 4.34dBi at 2.33, 2.96, 5.43, and 6.15 GHz, respectively.

  • High-Resolution, Broad-Range Detection Setup for Polarimetric Optical Fiber Sensors
    • Paweł Wierzba
    2023 Pełny tekst Applied Sciences-Basel

    A common-path polarization interferometer using a Wollaston prism and an area detector for the measurement of retardation or optical path difference is presented. Employing a moderate-resolution 1280 by 1024 pixel monochrome camera, it offers a measurement range of approximately 780 radians at 830 nm and 1350 radians at 515 nm while maintaining a high measurement resolution. Retardation introduced by a zero-order waveplate or a Soleil–Babinet compensator was measured to evaluate the performance of the interferometer. Based on the presented measurement results, the resolution of the measurement is estimated to be better than 0.002 rad

  • High-temperature Corrosion of ~ 30 Pct Porous FeCr Stainless Steels in Air: Long-Term Evaluation Up to Breakaway
    • Damian Koszelow
    • Małgorzata Makowska
    • Agnieszka Drewniak
    • Grzegorz Cempura
    • Piotr Jasiński
    • Sebastian Molin
    2023 Pełny tekst METALLURGICAL AND MATERIALS TRANSACTIONS A-PHYSICAL METALLURGY AND MATERIALS SCIENCE

    In this work, a long-term (up to 6000 hours) corrosion evaluation of three porous (~ 30 pct of initial porosity) ferritic iron-chromium alloys with different Cr contents (20, 22, and 27 wt pct of Cr) was carried out at 600 C, 700 C, 800 C, and 900 C in air. Mass gain measurements and SEM analyses revealed that at temperatures above 600 C, all alloys exhibit breakaway corrosion, whereas at 600 C, none of the alloys were heavily oxidized even after 6000 hours. Based on the results, the diffusion character of the corrosion of porous chromia-forming alloys was identified. The microstructure changes at high temperatures in porous alloys containing 22 wt pct of Cr were determined in detail by transmission electron microscopy. The proposed prediction model indicated that the lifetimes of the Fe20Cr and Fe22Cr alloys were determined as 1250 hours (± 535 hours) and 1460 hours (± 640 hours), respectively. It is in agreement with the long-term oxidation experiment. For the Fe27Cr alloy, the deviation between predicted and observed lifetimes occurs. The proposed model allows for qualitative estimation of the porous alloys’ lifetime with experimentally validated accuracy.

  • High-Temperature Tensile Behaviour of GTAW Joints of P92 Steel and Alloy 617 for Two Different Fillers
    • Amit Kumar
    • Sachin Sirohi
    • Shailesh M. Pandey
    • Pradeep Kumar
    • Dariusz Fydrych
    • Chandan Pandey
    2023 Pełny tekst Materials

    This study explores the high-temperature (HT) tensile rupture characteristics of a dissimilar gas-tungsten-arc-welded (GTAW) joint between P92 steel and Alloy 617, fabricated using ER62SB9 and ERNiCrCoMo-1 fillers. The high-temperature tensile tests were performed at elevated temperatures of 550 ◦C and 650 ◦C. An optical microscope (OM) and a field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) were utilized to characterize the joint. The high-temperature test results indicated that the specimen failed at the P92 base metal/intercritical heat-affected zone (ICHAZ) rather than the weld metal for the ERNiCrCoMo-1(IN617) filler. This finding confirmed the suitability of the joint for use in the Indian advanced ultra-supercritical (A-USC) program. The fracture surface morphology and presence of precipitates were analysed using an SEM equipped with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The appearance of the dimples and voids confirmed that both welded fillers underwent ductile–dominant fracture. EDS analysis revealed the presence of Cr-rich M23C6 phases, which was confirmed on the fracture surface of the ER62S-B9 weld (P92-weld). The hardness plot was analysed both in the as-welded condition and after the fracture.

  • Historia kształtowania polskiej terminologii elektrotechnicznej
    • Dariusz Świsulski
    2023 Pełny tekst Przegląd Elektrotechniczny

    Przedstawiono prace nad kształtowaniem języka w zakresie elektrotechniki. Prace te zaczynają od początków wykorzystania elektryczności pod koniec XIX wieku, kończą na dostosowaniu do norm europejskich i tworzeniu słownika internetowego. Omówiono wydarzenia związane z organizacją słowotwórstwa oraz najważniejsze publikacji zawierające słownictwo obowiązujące w danym okresie.

  • Homogeneous nucleation rate of methane hydrate formation under experimental conditions from seeding simulations
    • Joanna Grabowska
    • Samuel Blazquez
    • Eduardo Sanz
    • E. G. Noya
    • Iván M. Zerón
    • Jesús Algaba
    • José Manuel Míguez
    • Felipe J. Blas
    • Carlos Vega
    2023 Pełny tekst JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS

    In this work, we shall estimate via computer simulations the homogeneous nucleation rate for the methane hydrate at 400 bars for a supercooling of about 35 K. The TIP4P/ICE model and a Lennard-Jones center were used for water and methane, respectively. To estimate the nucleation rate, the seeding technique was employed. Clusters of the methane hydrate of different sizes were inserted into the aqueous phase of a two-phase gas–liquid equilibrium system at 260 K and 400 bars. Using these systems, we determined the size at which the cluster of the hydrate is critical (i.e., it has 50% probability of either growing or melting). Since nucleation rates estimated from the seeding technique are sensitive to the choice of the order parameter used to determine the size of the cluster of the solid, we considered several possibilities. We performed brute force simulations of an aqueous solution of methane in water in which the concentration of methane was several times higher than the equilibrium concentration (i.e., the solution was supersaturated). From brute force runs, we infer the value of the nucleation rate for this system rigorously. Subsequently, seeding runs were carried out for this system, and it was found that only two of the considered order parameters were able to reproduce the value of the nucleation rate obtained from brute force simulations. By using these two order parameters, we estimated the nucleation rate under experimental conditions (400 bars and 260 K) to be of the order of log10 (J/(m3s)) = −7(5).

  • Hopf bifurcation in time‐delayed gene expression model with dimers
    • Agnieszka Bartłomiejczyk
    • Marek Bodnar
    2023 MATHEMATICAL METHODS IN THE APPLIED SCIENCES

    We study a mathematical model of gene transcription and protein synthesis with negative feedback. We consider a system of equations taking into account the formation of dimers (i.e., complex formed by two protein monomers), the way in which dimers bind to DNA and time delay in translation process. For the model consisting of three ordinary differential equations with time delay, we derive conditions for stability of the positive steady state and for the existence of the Hopf bifurcation. We check the influence of delay in transcription process on the model dynamics, and we formulate conditions determining the type of the Hopf bifurcation and stability of arising limit cycle.

  • HOSPICJUM CARITAS/OLSZTYN
    • Agnieszka Błażko
    2023 Pełny tekst Architektura-Murator

    Obiekt hospicjum stacjonarnego Caritas dla dzieci w Olsztynie wzbudza pozytywne uczucia nie tylko u mieszkańców miasta, lecz także profesjonalistów. To miejsce całodobowej intensywnej opieki stacjonarnej w ostatnich miesiącach życia dziecka, ale też przestrzeń, w którym rodzina uzyskuje wsparcie i uczy się postępowania w tej trudnej sytuacji. To funkcja bez wątpienia niezwykle potrzebna w wymiarze społecznym, ale jednocześnie działanie bardzo ważne w aspektach architektonicznym i przestrzennym. Odrestaurowany i rozbudowany na potrzeby hospicjum budynek, zlokalizowany w dawnym zespole Starych Koszar Strzelców (1883-1884) przy ulicy Kromera 5 i 7, został oddany do użytku w czerwcu 2022 roku. Autorom przedsięwzięcia udało się nie tylko przywrócić rangę zdegradowanemu obiektowi przez odzyskanie substancji zabytkowej i kulturalne jej uzupełnienie z szacunkiem dla czynnika czasu, ale też uporządkować fragment przestrzeni miasta. W trudnym zagadnieniu integrowania części rozbudowanej z odrestaurowanym obiektem zabytkowym na szczególną uwagę zasługuje mistrzowskie, na pozór rzemieślnicze, a jednocześnie nowoczesne operowanie detalem. Elewację nowej części zrealizowano, wykorzystując dwa rodzaje komponentów: indywidualnie zaprojektowane na potrzeby tego obiektu kształtki ceramiczne i stanowiące szkielet do ich mocowania czarne elementy stalowe o przekroju prostokątnym. Nowoczesne w wyrazie, surowe kształtki wchodzą w dialog z odzyskaną, częściowo uzupełnioną okładziną ceglaną budynku koszar. Dzięki stworzeniu kilku planów w strukturze fasady projektantom udało się uzyskać ciekawe rytmy, poziome i pionowe podziały elewacji rozbudowanej części, a także atrakcyjną grę światła i cienia.

  • How acidic amino acid residues facilitate DNA target site selection
    • Kazi Hossain
    • Mateusz Kogut
    • Joanna Słabońska
    • Subrahmanyam Sappati
    • Miłosz Wieczór
    • Jacek Czub
    2023 Pełny tekst PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

    Despite the negative charge of the DNA backbone, acidic residues (Asp/Glu) commonly participate in the base readout, with a strong preference for cytosine. In fact, in the solved DNA/protein structures, cytosine is recognized almost exclusively by Asp/Glu through a direct hydrogen bond, while at the same time, adenine, regardless of its amino group, shows no propensity for Asp/Glu. Here, we analyzed the contribution of Asp/Glu to sequence-specific DNA binding using classical and ab initio simulations of selected transcription factors and found that it is governed by a fine balance between the repulsion from backbone phosphates and attractive interactions with cytosine. Specifically, Asp/Glu lower the affinity for noncytosine sites and thus act as negative selectors preventing off-target binding. At cytosine-containing sites, the favorable contribution does not merely rely on the formation of a single H-bond but usually requires the presence of positive potential generated by multiple cytosines, consistently with the observed excess of cytosine in the target sites. Finally, we show that the preference of Asp/Glu for cytosine over adenine is a result of the repulsion from the adenine imidazole ring and a tendency of purine–purine dinucleotides to adopt the BII conformation.

  • How Can We Identify Electrophysiological iEEG Activities Associated with Cognitive Functions?
    • Michał Kucewicz
    • Gregory A. Worrell
    • Krishnakant Saboo
    2023

    Electrophysiological activities of the brain are engaged in its various functions and give rise to a wide spectrum of low and high frequency oscillations in the intracranial EEG (iEEG) signals, commonly known as the brain waves. The iEEG spectral activities are distributed across networks of cortical and subcortical areas arranged into hierarchical processing streams. It remains a major challenge to identify these activities in the frequency spectrum, time, and anatomical space, especially during memory and higher-order cognitive functions. Traditionally, this has been done manually by visual inspection of the activities induced in iEEG signals, or semiautomatically by supervised signal detections of computer algorithms. Emerging machine-learning and artificial intelligence tools enable more automated, efficient, objective, and accurate solutions than the traditional expert review. In this chapter, we showcase example applications of features and methods to study cognitive functions and to identify brain areas for therapeutic interventions, including electrical stimulation. These resulted in unexpected findings about the spatiotemporal organization of memory processing and the effects of stimulating the brain. Thus identified iEEG activities offer electrophysiological biomarkers for mapping not only cognitive but also other sensorimotor functions, and are ideally suited for new brain-computer interface approaches to intelligently modulate specific neural processes.

  • How do personality traits influence Open Government Data (OGD) adoption and usage? Investigating the indirect and moderating effects
    • Nina Rizun
    • Charalampos Harris Alexopoulos
    • Stuti Saxena
    • Fernando Kleiman
    • Ricardo Matheus
    2023 Pełny tekst

    Open Government Data (OGD) research has focused for a long on the adoption and usage from the perspectives of users across different contexts. The underlying rationale for this specific focus is that OGD initiatives are undertaken to further citizen engagement with OGD for value generation and innovation purposes. Conceding that usage propensity is different across individuals, it is important to understand the influence of personality traits vis-à-vis OGD adoption and usage. Given that OGD has been regarded as a sophisticated “technology” and the role of personality traits has been considered as important in the adoption and usage of “technologies” in general, therefore, the present study contributes to the extant OGD-focused literature from a novel dimension. The study invokes the adapted model of the Unified Theory of Technology Adoption and Use (UTAUT) alongside the HEXACO-100 inventory constructs for studying the relationships between the constructs with a sample of 530 respondents. The results demonstrate that higher user Openness to Experience contributes to their higher Effort and Performance Expectancy; exposure to Social Influence; an increased level of Trust; and a more positive perception of Facilitating Conditions and Information Quality. Agreeable people are more likely to voluntarily use OGD. An individual's conscientiousness improves their perception of factors related to OGD quality. Excessive emotionality leads to a more critical perception of systems and information quality issues. Our findings also attest to the moderating impact of Honesty-Humility across Information Quality-Behavioral Intention positively; Extraversion across Information Quality-Behavioral Intention negatively and Extraversion across Trust-Behavioral Intention positively. Honesty turns out to be important for considering Information Quality vis-à-vis OGD adoption and usage but whilst extroverts are concerned about Information Quality, i.e. flawless information retrieval via OGD sources, Introverts are concerned about OGD trustworthiness, i.e. credible OGD for its adoption and usage and Extroverts find the OGD reliable and credible. With pointers for further research across the personality traits-OGD adoption and usage theme, the study closes with practitioner implications.

  • How do responsible universities perceive their social engagement? In search of signs of Creating Shared Value by the University
    • Elżbieta Karwowska
    2023 Pełny tekst Journal of Modern Science

    Objectives: University social responsibility still lacks legitimisation and is perceived as a burden that hinders academics from doing research and teaching. Creating Shared Value by the University may serve as a tool to motivate universities to engage in initiatives for society, as this is beneficial for both parties. Yet, some researchers perceive the creation of economic value as inappropriate for academia. Thus, it was interesting to examine how the world's best universities elaborate on this matter. Material and methods: A thematic analysis of textual data published online by universities in the top 30 in THE Impact Rankings 2022 has been conducted to determine if they create shared value and what benefits they create or expect. Results: Signs of indirect Creating Shared Value by the University were observed in the dataset. Some universities create social and economic benefits from the same initiatives, mainly strategic. The observed benefits are both intangible and tangible, but most are related to increasing brand value: receiving recognition and awards, building reputation, strengthening competitive advantage, boosting brand attractiveness, and employer branding. Universities modestly mention that they gain tangible benefits, such as an expansion of research funds, and earned or passive income, which may point out that such values are not perceived as suitable in an academic context yet. Conclusions: The results shed new light on the perception of creating economic value in academia, indicating that CSVU could be a legitimate tool to develop the theory and practice of USR. Still, results suggest that any CSVU framework should focus primarily on intangible benefits.

  • How pesticides affect neonates? - Exposure, health implications and determination of metabolites
    • María José Santoyo Treviño
    • Marina Pereira-Coelho
    • Andrea Guadalupe Rodríguez López
    • Sergio Zarazúa
    • Luiz Augusto dos Santos Madureira
    • Tomasz Majchrzak
    • Justyna Płotka-Wasylka
    2023 Pełny tekst SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT

    This review covers key information related to the effects of pesticides on fetal and child health. All humans are exposed to environmental toxicants, however child's health, due to their high vulnerability, should be of special concern. They are continuously exposed to environmental xenobiotics including a wide variety of pesticides, and other pollutants. These compounds can enter the child's body through various routes, both during fetal life, in the first days of life with breast milk, as well as during environmental exposure in later years of life. Consequently, in the body, some of them are metabolized and excreted with urine or faces, while others accumulate in tissues causing toxic effects. This review will provide information on the types of pesticides, their pathways of uptake and metabolism in children's bodies. Determination of the impact of them on children's organism performance is possible through effective identification of these compounds and their metabolites in children's tissues and biofluids. Therefore, the main procedures for the determination of pesticides are reviewed and future trends in this field are indicated. We believe that this comprehensive review can be a good starting place for the future readers interested in the impact of environmental xenobiotics on the health of children as well as the aspects relates with the analytical methods that can be used for analysis and monitoring of these pollutants in children's tissues and biofluids.

  • How Swiss Watchmaking Brands are Communicating Made in Switzerland
    • Alina Rech
    • Alice Noris
    • Nadzeya Sabatini
    2023

    Country-of-origin indications, also called “made in” labeling [35], are utilized in marketing strategies by companies to distinguish themselves from others, trying to associate their products with positive characteristics [9]. Swiss watchmaking companies have an iconic status that is essential to their reputation - mainly due to their high quality, precision, innovation, and craftsmanship [7]. They are also using country-of-origin information as a competitive advantage in their communication strategies [11]. Although people have become acquainted with the “Swiss-made” label, and numerous studies have been dedicated to diverse Swiss watchmaking field topics [26], a significant research gap exists regarding the understanding of what are the “made in Switzerland” communication strategies and how Swiss watchmaking brands are using them. This study aims to examine how country-of-origin symbols - considering Swiss made related terms - and watchmaking-related words are employed by analyzing the official communication of thirty Swiss watchmaking brands.

  • How the Depths of the Danish Straits Shape Gdańsk's Port and City Spatial Development
    • Karolina Krośnicka
    • Aleksandra Wawrzyńska
    2023 Pełny tekst Urban Planning

    The depths of the Danish Straits limit the drafts of ships entering the Baltic Sea. The largest ships calling the Baltic in a laden condition are called Baltimax. The article presents how the dredging works carried out in the Danish Straits in the 1970s enabled the development of the Port of Gdańsk and consequently also influenced the city, being a residential base for employees of the new port and shipyards. The analysed case proves that, for port cities, overcoming a distant navigational bottleneck by dredging the existing passage or constructing a new channel might lead to a significant change in their development. The article also raises a question on the current development opportunities of the Port of Gdańsk, which is again increasingly limited by the depths of the Danish Straits, as large tankers and bulk carriers have already been entering Gdańsk not fully loaded for some time, and recently the largest container ships also reached the maximum permissible drafts.

  • How to evaluate methods used in chemical laboratories in terms of the total chemical risk? – a ChlorTox Scale
    • Paweł Mateusz Nowak
    • Renata Wietecha-Posłuszny
    • Justyna Płotka-Wasylka
    • Marek Tobiszewski
    2023 Pełny tekst Green Analytical Chemistry

    Reliable assessment of the health and environmental risk associated with the use of chemicals is critical to ob- jectively evaluate the greenness and whiteness of an analytical method. An objective and useful way of risk assessment should take into account all the relevant properties of used substances, their actual amounts needed for application of the method, and quantify the assessment result using a standardized unit. This article presents a relatively simple approach to meet the above requirements, which we call the Chloroform-oriented Toxicity Estimation Scale (ChlorTox Scale). The risk posed by a given substance is expressed by the ChlorTox value, and the sum of the values obtained for all reagents is the overall risk posed by the method (Total ChlorTox). The ChlorTox value is calculated by comparing the hazards for the substance being assessed to the standard – chlo- roform, using the approach selected by the user as optimal, taking into account the amount of a pure substance needed for single analysis. The ChlorTox unit is the equivalent mass of chloroform which reflects the estimated degree of predicted risk. This tool can be used for risk assessment in laboratories of various profiles

  • Human Resource Management Digitalisation in Multidisciplinary Ship Design Companies
    • Piotr Bilon
    • Wojciech Litwin
    2023 Pełny tekst Polish Maritime Research

    The digitalisation in the ship design sector is currently applied to the design process itself and is well defined, partially standardised and practically implemented by both independent design companies and the design departments of shipyards. The situation is similar in other sectors of engineering. However, the requirements for the digitalisation of other processes in design and engineering companies have not previously been studied, and the limited financial resources of ship design companies mean that there is a need for research on the digitalisation needs of multidisciplinary ship design companies. The implementation of building information modelling (BIM) solutions is costly for design companies and generates benefits mainly for shipyards and shipowners. The lack of benefits for design companies leads to the hesitation of managers whenever digitalisation is considered; the scope and scale of the digitalisation, as well as the selected software and BIM level, are defined by the shipyard requirements. The participation and support of management in the digitalisation process is one of the key success factors; the expected benefits caused by digitalisation for the organisation will increase the motivation of managers to invest limited resources in digitalisation. There are no data that indicate the processes with a high potential for digitalisation and the scale of expected improvements in ship design companies; therefore, research in this area was performed with a group of project managers from design and engineering companies. The research focused on collecting the opinions and experiences of the managers related to the manual management of resources and comparing the poll results with the conclusions from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system data analyses. The paper analyses if the digital automation of the resource management process can lead to the substantial improvement of the operations of multi-project, multidisciplinary engineering ship design companies.

  • Hybrid all-cellulose reinforcement in polypropylene matrix biocomposites for injection moulding - influence of particle geometry and volume fraction on hybrid effect
    • P. Franciszczak
    • Jakub Smoliński
    2023 COMPOSITE STRUCTURES

    The presented study is focused on evaluation of influence of reinforcement volume fraction and geometry on the occurrence of positive hybrid effect by the hybridisation of man-made cellulose fibres (rayon viscose) with cellulose microparticle fillers applied in polypropylene matrix. Four volume fractions of reinforcement were used at 1:1 combination of short man-made cellulose fibres with cellulose microfillers of different aspect ratio. The highest volume fraction was applied for a comparison of four types of cellulose microfillers characterised by different aspect ratios. Proportional volume content of compatibiliser to volume of reinforcement and manufacturing conditions were maintained for all composites. Positive hybrid effect present in tensile and flexural performance was found to result from different factors such as: favourable combination of reinforcement owing to their similar stress–strain characteristic, decreased void fraction, slightly improved orientation of short rayon viscose fibres in hybrid and reduced relaxation of stresses during deformation.

  • Hybrydowa koncepcja łagodzenia stromości zmian napięcia du/dt dla wielopoziomowych przekształtników kaskadowych SiC
    • Marek Adamowicz
    • Janusz Szewczyk
    • Zbigniew Krzemiński
    2023 Pełny tekst Przegląd Elektrotechniczny

    W referacie zaproponowano nową hybrydową koncepcję łagodzenia stromości zmian napięcia du/dt w wielopoziomowych przekształtnikach kaskadowych SiC. Proponoana koncepcja polega na wykorzystaniu nietłumionego filtra du/dt, podatnego na rezonans oraz zastosowaniu w algorytmie sterowania PWM dodatkowych impulsów sterujących tranzystorami SiC MOSFET, wymuszających rezonansowe przełączanie napięcia na wyjściu filtra. Efekt zmniejszenia stromości du/dt w przekształtniku wielopoziomowym uzyskuje się przy wykorzystaniu pojedynczego filtra du/dt, wspólnego dla całej gałęzi fazowej, co pozwala uzyskać kompaktową konstrukcję całego przekształtnika.

  • Hydraulic fracturing process in rocks – small-scale simulations with a novel fully coupled DEM/CFD-based thermo-hydro-mechanical approach
    • Marek Krzaczek
    • Andrzej Tejchman-Konarzewski
    2023 Pełny tekst ENGINEERING FRACTURE MECHANICS

    W artykule przedstawiono dwuwymiarową (2D) symulację numeryczną szczelinowania hydraulicznego w małej skali przeprowadzoną w próbkach skał posiadających pojedynczą szczelinę wtryskową. Wykorzystano unikalny model termo-hydro-mechaniczny (THM) w skali porów oparty na DEM/CFD do symulacji dwufazowego laminarnego przepływu płynu (wody i gazu) z przenoszeniem ciepła w nienasyconych materiałach porowatych o niskiej porowatości. Korzystając z metody DEM w pełni połączonej z metodą CFD (w oparciu o sieć przepływu płynu składającą się z kanałów w domenie ciągłej pomiędzy dyskretnymi elementami) i przenoszeniem ciepła w mezoskali, przeprowadzono serię obliczeń numerycznych dla małych spoistych próbek ziarnistych o uproszczonej mezostrukturze z jedną szczeliną wtryskową. Przyjęto dwuosiowe ściskanie w warunkach płaskiego stanu odkształcenia. Zarówno płyn (dyfuzja i adwekcja), jak i połączone cząstki skały (przewodnictwo) wzięły udział w wymianie ciepła. Zbadano szczegółowo w procesie szczelinowania hydraulicznego wpływ lepkości dynamicznej płynu, zawartości fazy gazowej i różnicy temperatur pomiędzy matrycą skalną a wtryskiem płynu na inicjację i propagację pęknięcia. Odkryto, że te efekty wszystkie miały ogromne znaczenie na zachowanie si ępojedynczego pęknięcia hydraulicznego.

  • Hydrazinolysis Products of Selected Sugar Lactones—Crystal Structure and Microbiological Activity
    • Justyna Samaszko-Fiertek
    • Artur Sikorski
    • Barbara Dmochowska
    • Piotr Szweda
    • Janusz Madaj
    2023 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR SCIENCES

    Commercially available lactones, as well as those synthesized by us, turned out to be good substrates for the synthesis of sugar hydrazides. The exception was L-ascorbic acid, whose hydrazinolysis led to the formation of a hydrazinium salt, not the hydrazide as expected. The structure of all compounds was confirmed by NMR and X-ray analyses. The lower durability of hydrazinium L-ascorbate was additionally confirmed by thermogravimetric tests. All products were tested for biological activity against Gram-negative bacteria strains Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853 and against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923 and Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 29213. Their antifungal activity against Candida albicans SC5314, Candida glabrata DSM 11226 SM 11226, Candida krusei DSM 6128, and Candida parapsilosis DSM 5784 was also tested. The most interesting results of microbiological activity were obtained for D-gluconic acid hydrazide and hydrazinium L-ascorbate. The results of the latter encourage more extensive testing.

  • Hydrochar-nanoparticle integration for arsenic removal from wastewater: Challenges, possible solutions, and future horizon
    • Aisha Khanzada
    • Hussein Al-Hazmi
    • Bogna Śniatała
    • Tomy Muringayil
    • Joanna Majtacz
    • Sameer A.M. Abdulrahman
    • Saeed S. Albaseer
    • Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan
    • Zohreh Rahimi-Ahar
    • Sajjad Habibzadeh
    • Jacek Mąkinia
    2023 ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

    Arsenic (As) contamination poses a significant threat to human health, ecosystems, and agriculture, with levels ranging from 12 to 75% attributed to mine waste and stream sediments. This naturally element is abundant in Earth's crust and gets released into the environment through mining and rock processing, causing ≈363 million people to depend on As-contaminated groundwater. To combat this issue, introducing a sustainable hydrochar system has achieved a remarkable removal efficiency of over 92% for arsenic through adsorption. This comprehensive review presents an overview of As contamination in the environment, with a specific focus on its impact on drinking water and wastewater. It delves into the far-reaching effects of As on human health, ecosystems, aquatic systems, and agriculture, while also exploring the effectiveness of existing As treatment systems. Additionally, the study examines the potential of hydrochar as an efficient adsorbent for As removal from water/wastewater, along with other relevant adsorbents and biomass-based preparations of hydrochar. Notably, the fusion of hydrochar with nanoparticle-centric approaches presents a highly promising and environmentally friendly solution for achieving the removal of As from wastewater, exceeding >99% efficiency. This innovative approach holds immense potential for advancing the realms of green chemistry and environmental restoration. Various challenges associated with As contamination and treatment are highlighted, and proposed solutions are discussed. The review emphasizes the urgent need to advance treatment technologies, improve monitoring methods, and enhance regulatory frameworks. Looking outlook, the article underscores the importance of fostering research efforts, raising public awareness, and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to address this critical environmental issue. Such efforts are vital for UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially clean water and sanitation (Goal 6) and climate action (Goal 13), crucial for global sustainability.

  • Hydrogen Production Mechanism in Low-Temperature Methanol Decomposition Catalyzed by Ni3Sn4 Intermetallic Compound: A Combined Operando and Density Functional Theory Investigation
    • Silvia Mauri
    • Gianluca D'Olimpio
    • Corneliu Ghica
    • Luca Braglia
    • Chia-Nung Kuo
    • Marian Cosmin Istrate
    • Chin Shan Lue
    • Luca Ottaviano
    • Tomasz Klimczuk
    • Danil W. Boukhvalov
    • Antonio Politano
    • Piero Torelli
    2023 Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters

    Hydrogen production from methanol decomposition to syngas (H2 + CO) is a promising alternative route for clean energy transition. One major challenge is related to the quest for stable, cost-effective, and selective catalysts operating below 400 °C. We illustrate an investigation of the surface reactivity of a Ni3Sn4 catalyst working at 250 °C, by combining density functional theory, operando X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. We discovered that the catalytic reaction is driven by surface tin-oxide phases, which protects the underlying Ni atoms from irreversible chemical modifications, increasing the catalyst durability. Moreover, we found that Sn content plays a key role in enhancing the H2 selectivity, with respect to secondary products such as CO2. These findings open new perspectives for the engineering of scalable and low-cost catalysts for hydrogen production.

  • Hydrophobic (deep) eutectic solvents (HDESs) as extractants for removal of pollutants from water and wastewater – A review
    • Mateusz Marchel
    • Manoj P Rayaroth
    • Chongqing Wang
    • Lingshuai Kong
    • Javed Khan
    • Grzegorz Boczkaj
    2023 Pełny tekst CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL

    Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are a new generation of solvents that attracted increasing attention in diverse applications. In last years, growing number of studies on hydrophobic (deep) eutectic solvents (HDESs) as an alternative extractants for various chemicals from aqueous environments have been reported. This article provides an overview on the usage of HDESs in liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) of different pollutants from water and wastewater, where purified water tends to be further used or released into the environment. Discussed applications were developed for several emerging organic pollutants, such as pharmaceuticals (including antibiotics – ciprofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole, trimethoprim and vasoprotectant – calcium dobesilate), pesticides (neonicotinoids – imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, nitenpyram, acetamiprid), phenolic compounds, metal ions, among others. The particular attention was given to discuss chemical stability of HDESs after contact with water. On this basis, a matrix of possible water stable DESs was proposed. Furthermore, simple protocols to control HDESs solubility were suggested. Finally, the suggestions and guidelines for future research were provided, with focus on most important physicochemical properties of HDESs playing a key role in presented application. A perspective on their future was discussed suggesting that such HDESs-based LLE should be mainly used for pre-treatment of wastewater with high pollution load, followed by adsorption or biological treatment process for removal of HDES traces. This review also highlights a serious environmental issue related to application of HDESs for sample preparation (microextraction) in analytical chemistry. Waste aqueous samples can contain hazardous – HDES related – substances and their utilization should be done with proper care on this aspect.

  • I love to write and create. Can I earn money doing it? Entrepreneurial process of bloggers
    • Julita Wasilczuk
    • Jarna Heinonen
    2023

    New technologies and a new way of looking at the life of future generations, open up new perspectives of entrepreneurial activities. One of them is to run a blog. Although the first blogs appeared many years ago and earning money from running them is also known to bloggers, little research is devoted to this form of entrepreneurship. The analysis of this phenomenon was carried out using the netnography method, which is not common in research on entrepreneurship. The literature review shows that modern technologies have mobilized researchers to search for new definitions and approaches in the study of entrepreneurship. Opening up to the customer and allowing him to co-create the product is one of the changes that digital entrepreneurship, in particular in connection with social media, has introduced. The latter provide not only a commercial product, but also non-commercial values, which nowadays are of great importance (e.g. emotional support, information, knowledge, sense of belonging to the community). A blogger's entrepreneurial process is very broadly similar to a typical entrepreneurial process, consists of a preparatory phase and an implementation phase. However, this similarity is only superficially similar. A blogger must be credible in the eyes of the community to which he directs his blog, which is not and will not necessarily be his clients. This credibility will help him attract clients, both individual and corporate. Each of these groups is interested in a different product: An individual client will purchase in the blogger's store, and a corporate client will be interested in partner cooperation. That is why the preparatory phase mainly includes the legitimization of the blog and the content on it. The difference between traditional entrepreneurs and blogger entrepreneurs also appears in the area of consumers and the product. The blogger deals with customers who pay and those who do not pay - and the latter are the most numerous. However, they are very important in the entrepreneurial process, as they constitute the basis for the monetization of a blog. And since there are non-paying customers, there is also a free product that is the core of all blogging, blogger's regular entries.

  • Idea zrównoważonego rozwoju
    • Anna Kuczyńska-Łażewska
    2023

    Zrównoważony rozwój to termin bardzo popularny, w ostatnich latach pojawiający się nie tylko w aktach prawnych, statutach i dokumentach strategicznych, lecz także w publikacjach naukowych czy wnioskach grantowych. Dla wielu osób mimo jasności koncepcji i rozumienia przekazu termin ten jest niejednoznaczny i pozwala na dowolną interpretację.

  • Identification of High-Value Dataset determinants: is there a silver bullet for efficient sustainability-oriented data-driven development?
    • Anastasija Nikiforova
    • Charalampos Harris Alexopoulos
    • Nina Rizun
    • Magdalena Ciesielska
    2023

    Open Government Data (OGD) are seen as one of the trends that has the potential to benefit the economy, improve the quality, efficiency, and transparency of public administration, and change the lives of citizens, and the society as a whole facilitating efficient sustainability-oriented data-driven services. However, the quick achievement of these benefits is closely related to the “value” of the OGD, i.e., how useful, and reusable the data provided by public agencies are for creating value for the above stakeholder. This is where the notion of "high-value datasets" (HVD), defined by the European Commission in Open Data Directive, comes, referring to data that can create the most value for society, the economy, and the environment. This is even more so, considering the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) applications in various domains. While there are some efforts in that direction, there is still no available framework for identifying country-specific high-value datasets (and their determinants). The objective of the workshop is to raise awareness and build a network of key stakeholders around the HVD issue, to allow each participant to think about how and whether the determination of HVD is taking place in their country, how this can be improved with the help of portal owners, data publishers, data owners, businesses and citizens, what are and can be determinants to be used for identifying HVDs, whether they are SMART. Our main motivation is that, as members of the dg.o community, we can collaboratively answer the above questions, and those raised during the previous two editions of this workshop at ICEGOV2022 and ICOD2022, forming an initial knowledge base, as well as assessing currently used indicators. In this 3rd edition of the workshop, previously obtained results, which make up a list of the most promising indicators, will be discussed, validated and possibly refined through live discussions with the workshop participants following the DELPHI method.

  • Identification of ship’s hull mathematical model with numerical methods
    • Agnieszka Piekło
    • Paweł Hoffmann
    • Anna Witkowska
    • Tomasz Zubowicz
    2023 Pełny tekst

    The modern maritime industry is moving toward the development of technology that will allow for full or partial autonomy of ship operation. This innovation places high demands on ship performance prediction techniques at the design stage. The researchwork presented in the article is related to the design stage of the ship and concerns methods for prognosis and evaluation of the specific operational condition of the ship, namely the dynamic positioning (DP). The paper is an introduction to a study that seeks to assess the impact of using advanced simulation models on the accuracy of DP capability prediction. To this end, the Potential Theory and methods of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are applied to determine the mathematical model of the ship. The parameters obtained in the course of simulation studies have been compared to those obtained experimentally. The study showed that the proposed method is sufficiently accurate for the purposes of determining the added mass and damping coefficients of the ship. Consequently, it is considered that design offices could improve the accuracy of the DP prediction by using mathematical modeling and numerical methods to estimate selected ship parameters.

  • Impact assessment culture in the European Union. Time for something new?
    • Andrea Saltelli,
    • Marta Kuc-Czarnecka
    • Samuele Lo Piano
    • Máté János Lőrincz
    • Magdalena Olczyk
    • Arnald Puy,
    • Erik, S. Reinert
    • Stefán Thor Smith
    • Jeroen P. van der Sluijs
    2023 Pełny tekst ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & POLICY

    Current approaches and cultures for the economic evaluations of environmental and health policies may suffer from excessive reliance on a standard neoclassic economic toolbox that neglects alternative perspectives. This may prematurely limit the spectrum of available policy options. Here we show how the inclusion of neglected currents of thought such as non-Ricardian economics, bioeconomics and a set of qualitative-quantitative methods from post-normal science leads to richer perspectives for a more inclusive uses of quantitative evidence, and opens the analysis to more possible futures. We also present some case studies in the energy, water, health and climate domains that highlight the point in a practical context for a more policy-oriented audience. We situate our analysis in the context of recent calls in the EU for the inclusion of more perspectives from the social sciences and the humanities in environmental assessment works.

  • Impact of AlphaFold on structure prediction of protein complexes: The CASP15‐CAPRI experiment
    • Marc F. Lensink
    • Guillaume Brysbaert
    • Nessim Raouraoua
    • Paul A. Bates
    • Marco Giulini
    • Rodrigo Vargas Honorato
    • Charlotte van Noort
    • Joao S. Teixeira
    • Alexandre M. J. J. Bonvin
    • Ren Kong
    • Hang Shi
    • Xufeng Lu
    • Shan Chang
    • Jian Liu
    • Zhiye Guo
    • Xiao Chen
    • Alex Morehead
    • Raj S. Roy
    • Tianqi Wu
    • Nabin Giri
    • Farhan Quadir
    • Chen Chen
    • Jianlin Cheng
    • Carlos A. Del Carpio
    • Eichiro Ichiishi
    • Luis A. Rodriguez‐Lumbreras
    • Juan Fernandez‐Recio
    • Ameya Harmalkar
    • Lee‐Shin Chu
    • Sam Canner
    • Rituparna Smanta
    • Jeffrey J. Gray
    • Hao Li
    • Peicong Lin
    • Jiahua He
    • Huanyu Tao
    • Sheng‐You Huang
    • Jorge Roel‐Touris
    • Brian Jimenez‐Garcia
    • Charles Christoffer
    • Anika J. Jain
    • Yuki Kagaya
    • Harini Kannan
    • Tsukasa Nakamura
    • Genki Terashi
    • Jacob Verburgt
    • Yuanyuan Zhang
    • Zicong Zhang
    • Hayato Fujuta
    • Masakazu Sekijima
    • Daisuke Kihara
    • Omeir Khan
    • Sergei Kotelnikov
    • Usman Ghani
    • Dzmitry Padhorny
    • Dmitri Beglov
    • Sandor Vajda
    • Dima Kozakov
    • Surendra S. Negi
    • Tiziana Ricciardelli
    • Didier Barradas‐Bautista
    • Zhen Cao
    • Mohit Chawla
    • Luigi Cavallo
    • Romina Oliva
    • Rui Yin
    • Melyssa Cheung
    • Johnathan D. Guest
    • Jessica Lee
    • Brian G. Pierce
    • Ben Shor
    • Tomer Cohen
    • Matan Halfon
    • Dina Schneidman‐Duhovny
    • Shaowen Zhu
    • Rujie Yin
    • Yuanfei Sun
    • Yang Shen
    • Martyna Maszota-Zieleniak
    • Krzysztof Bojarski
    • Emilia Lubecka
    • Mateusz Marcisz
    • Annemarie Danielsson
    • Lukasz Dziadek
    • Margrethe Gaardlos
    • Artur Gieldon
    • Adam Liwo
    • Sergey A. Samsonov
    • Rafał Ślusarz
    • Karolina ZiĘba
    • Adam Sieradzan
    • Cezary Czaplewski
    • Shinpei Kobayashi
    • Yuta Miyakawa
    • Yasuomi Kiyota
    • Mayuko Takeda-shitaka
    • Kliment Olechnovič
    • Lukas Valancauskas
    • Justas Dapkunas
    • Česlovas Venclovas
    • Bjorn Wallner
    • Lin Yang
    • Chengyu Hou
    • Xiaodong He
    • Shuai Guo
    • Shenda Jiang
    • Xiaoliang Ma
    • Rui Duan
    • Liming Qui
    • Xianjin Xu
    • Xiaoqin Zou
    • Sameer Velankar
    • Shoshana J. Wodak
    2023 Pełny tekst PROTEINS-STRUCTURE FUNCTION AND BIOINFORMATICS

    We present the results for CAPRI Round 54, the 5th joint CASP-CAPRI protein assembly prediction challenge. The Round offered 37 targets, including 14 homodimers, 3 homo-trimers, 13 heterodimers including 3 antibody–antigen complexes, and 7 large assemblies. On average 70 CASP and CAPRI predictor groups, including more than 20 automatics servers, submitted models for each target. A total of 21 941 models submitted by these groups and by 15 CAPRI scorer groups were evaluated using the CAPRI model quality measures and the DockQ score consolidating these measures. The prediction performance was quantified by a weighted score based on the number of models of acceptable quality or higher submitted by each group among their five best models. Results show substantial progress achieved across a significant fraction of the 60+ participating groups. High-quality models were produced for about 40% of the targets compared to 8% two years earlier. This remarkable improvement is due to the wide use of the AlphaFold2 and AlphaFold2-Multimer software and the confidence metrics they provide. Notably, expanded sampling of candidate solutions by manipulating these deep learning inference engines, enriching multiple sequence alignments, or integration of advanced modeling tools, enabled top performing groups to exceed the performance of a standard AlphaFold2 Multimer version used as a yard stick. This notwithstanding, performance remained poor for complexes with antibodies and nanobodies, where evolutionary relationships between the binding partners are lacking, and for complexes featuring conformational flexibility, clearly indicating that the prediction of protein complexes remains a challenging problem.

  • Impact of blending with polystyrene on the microstructural and electrochemical properties of SiOC ceramic
    • Monika Wilamowska-Zawłocka
    • Magdalena Graczyk-Zajac
    2023 Pełny tekst International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology

    In this work, we present the electrochemical behavior and microstructural analysis of silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) ceramics influenced by an addition of polystyrene (PS). Polymer-derived ceramics were obtained by pyrolysis (1000°C, Ar atmosphere) of different polysiloxanes prepared by sol–gel synthesis. This method is very effective to obtain desired composition of final ceramic. Two alkoxysilanes phenylthriethoxysilane and diphenyldimethoxysilane were used as precursors. Before pyrolysis polysiloxanes were mixed with PS using toluene as a solvent. Blending with PS affects the microstructure and free carbon content in the final ceramic material. Free carbon phase has been confirmed to be a major lithium storage host. Nevertheless, we demonstrate here that capacity does not increase linearly with increasing carbon content. We show that the amount of SiO4 units in the SiOC microstructure increases the initial capacity but decreases the cycling stability and rate capability of the material. Furthermore, the microstructure of the free carbon influences the electrochemical performance of the ceramic: More ordered graphitic clusters favor better rate capability performance.

  • Impact of climate change on groundwater recharge in shallow young glacial aquifers in northern Poland
    • Anna Gumuła-Kawęcka
    • Beata Jaworska-Szulc
    • Adam Szymkiewicz
    • Wioletta Gorczewska-Langner
    • Rafael Angulo-Jaramillo
    • Jirka Simunek
    2023 SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT

    We investigated the influence of climate change in the period 1951–2020 on shallow aquifers in the Brda and Wda outwash plains (Pomeranian Region, Northern Poland). There was a significant temperature rise (0.3 °C/10 years), which accelerated after 1980 (0.66 °C/10 years). Precipitation became increasingly irregular – extremely rainy years occurred right after or before extremely dry years, and intensive rainfall events became more frequent after 2000. The groundwater level decreased over the last 20 years, even though the average annual precipitation was higher than in the previous 50 years. We carried out numerical simulations of water flow in representative soil profiles for the years 1970–2020 using the HYDRUS-1D model, developed and calibrated during our earlier work at an experimental site in the Brda outwash plain (Gumuła-Kawęcka et al., 2022). We used a relationship between the water head and flux at the bottom of the soil profiles (the third-type boundary condition) to reproduce groundwater table fluctuations caused by recharge variability in time. The calculated daily recharge showed a decreasing linear trend for the last 20 years (0.05–0.06 mm d−1/10 years), and dropping trends in water table level and soil water content in the entire profile of vadose zone. Field tracer experiments were performed to estimate impact of extremely rain events on water flux in vadose zone. The results suggest that tracer travel times are strongly determined by water content in the unsaturated zone which is determined by precipitation amount in span of weeks, rather than extremely high precipitation events.