The Impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic on Master Graduates’ Employability

The COVID-19 pandemic brought the global economy to a near standstill. The scale of the coronavirus and the associated losses have left many countries facing a humanitarian, social and economic crisis. The main objective of the research presented in this article was to determine to what extent the support provided within the activities of the Motokadra project (2018–2020) within the framework of the Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development, funded by the European Social Fund, enabled its participants to adapt to the labour market conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project participants were full-time Master’s students within the faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Silesian University of Technology. They formed the experimental group. The authors examined changes in the employability of the experimental group in the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods. The students in the experimental group represented several fields of study, which also allowed the authors to analyse which discipline appeared to be more resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and whether the profile of the discipline affected employability. The employability of graduates in the automotive industry was particularly examined. The results of the analyses allow us to conclude that the labour market crisis linked to the COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected the experimental group’s employability level. Furthermore, it has been shown that the study of the automation and robotics discipline increases the chances of finding a job after graduation

Study of Energy Consumption of a Bucket Conveyor in a Jig Concentrator Plant in a Hard Coal Mine

The subject of the discussion is oriented toward limiting the energy consumption of the bucket conveyor used in jig concentrator plants by controlling its speed. A method of predictive control of the bucket conveyor speed is presented. It allows for reducing the energy consumption due to appropriate selection of bucket movement speed to ensure the nominal filling of buckets along the entire length of the conveyor. This approach enables limiting the idling speed of the conveyor, extend its life, and also reduce the electricity consumption of the entire system. Experimental studies, carried out at the “Sośnica” Coal Mine working facility, confirmed that the use of a predictive algorithm for controlling the bucket conveyor speed and adapting the bucket speed to the current load decreased in energy consumption n by 9.6%, with 80% of the filling conveyor

Comparison of the Sustainability and Economic Efficiency of an Electric Car and an Aircraft—A Case Study

This paper discusses an important issue for today’s mobile world striving for sustainable development, namely ecotourism. The major objective of the study presented in this article was to carry out a comparative analysis of the conventional tourist trip along the Kharkov (Ukraine)–Varna (Bulgaria) route in an electric car and by air transport. The main criteria for comparing two variants of tourist trip were cost price, time, mobility, and incidental cost. The authors used the Pareto method and the shortest distance to the target method. Comparative analysis of the travel options “electric car” and “air transport” by the Pareto method and the method of the shortest distance to the target showed that traveling by electric car is almost one and a half times more profitable than traveling by plane