The Cyrilka Cave-the longest crevice-type cave in Czechia: structural controls, genesis, and age

The Cyrilka Cave is the second longest pseudokarst cave and the longest crevice-type cave in Czechia. Developed within the headscarp area of a deep-seated landslide, the cave became a focus of scientific research in recent years when new passages were discovered. Structural analysis provided a general tectonic plan of the cave, as well as more detailed data on geometry and kinematics of the relaxed rock massif. The primary structure of NNE- to ENE-striking bedding is broken by a system of NNE-striking fissures interconnected by two continuous ENE-striking dextral fracture zones. Abundant signs of recent sinistral strike-slips within the rock massif represent a bold structural feature of the cave. Along with DEM imaging and a detailed survey of the cave, 2-D and 3-D ERT measurements completed an image of the main predispositions and revealed the internal structure of the slope deformation. These measures also detected unknown crevices above the existing headscarp, which indicate the retrograde evolution of the landslide. Methodologically, we used the 3-D electrical resistivity tomography in the incoherent sedimentary flysch rocks for the first time. Based on radiocarbon dating of the stalactite core, the minimum age of the cave is up to 19,900 +/- 280 cal BP, which is the oldest age detected in the area of the Outer Flysch Carpathians so far; we thoroughly discuss further indirect evidence indicating a probable Late Pleistocene age of the cave.Web of Science47339237

The Origin And Development Of Social Geography In Poland, With Special Emphasis On The Centre Of Geographical Studies In Łódź

Published in: Society and Space in Contemporary Poland in Łódź University Geographical Research, edited by T.MarszałThe formation of social geography in Poland should be considered with reference to internal and external determinants of its development. Contemporary research problems, the treatment of research methodologies and theoretical concepts are undoubtedly closely related to the models stemming from the Anglo-Saxon geography. However, it is worth noting that while social geography abroad is part of extensive ideological and evaluative discussions, Polish social geography represents the behavioural trend under string influence of neo-scientistic methodology, which is caused by both the cognitive conservatism of the researchers and the prevailing social structure of Polish scientific community. The existing consensus based on models accepted in early 1980s and motivated by concession (selective) access to information is still hard to overcome. The dominance of quantitative methods and the lack of a broader theoretical (philosophical) reflection maintain mental clichés cause the research problems of social geography, both in theoretical sense and in the number of active researchers, to be taken over by other branches of science that are stronger in terms of theory, such as sociology, social anthropology or economics. The current reorientation of socio-economic geography towards spatial economy and management is, in our opinion, a kind of return to the known cognitive and methodological contents characteristic to the old economic geography in a new packaging and using modern research technologies (computers). The simultaneous lack of willingness to perform in-depth theoretical reflections (also characteristic of the entire Polish socio-economic geography) and the failure of social geographers to undertake major research challenges could lead to a crisis of this discipline in the institutional structure, followed by the regression in research, both in Poland and Łódź. We should hope that over the years, when the political, social and economic transformation is at last completed in Poland, full openness to ideas and free exchange of thoughts between geographers with various views will finally emerge. It seems that it could become an impulse to undertake new theoretical and methodological challenges and to solve the growing socio-spatial problems in the country

Learning a morphological system without a default: the Polish genitive

The acquisition of the English past tense inflection is the paradigm example of rule learning in the child language literature and has become something of a test case for theories of language development. This is unfortunate, as the idiosyncratic properties of the English system of marking tense make it a rather unrepresentative example of morphological development. In this paper, I contrast this familiar inflection with a much more complex morphological subsystem, the Polish genitive. The genitive case has three different markers, each restricted to a different subset of nouns, in both the singular and the plural. Analysis of the spontanous speech of three children between the ages of 1;4 and 4;11 showed that they generalized, and overgeneralized, all three singular endings. However, error rates were extremely low and there is no evidence that they treated any one ending as the ‘default’. The genitive plural, on the other hand, showed a strikingly different pattern of acquisition, similar to that seen in English-speaking children learning the past tense. It is argued that in the latter two cases, the default-like character of one of the affixes is attributable to the properties of the relevant inflectional subsystems, not to the predispositions that children bring to the language-learning task