Protection of valuable areas of local cultural heritage in sustainable development. Cultural parks in the Lodz Region

Cultural park is one of the forms, in which valuable areas and historical establishments are protected under the Polish law. Protection covers “space” in its entirety with elements of wild nature and man-made structures. Such spaces have been shaped by the history of human interventions into a unique and original cultural landscape, a complex spatial structure consisting of: passages (rivers, channels, roads, and borders), plains (meadows, fields, water reservoirs, and forests), and objects (natural objects and monuments). They ensure sustainability of development processes. In circumstances created by globalisation, investment pressure, and seeking short-term benefits, comprehensive protection of valuable cultural areas acquires special importance from the point of view of sustainable growth. The paper aims to identify valuable areas of local cultural heritage in the context of sustainable development on the example of cultural parks established in the Lodz voivodeship

Plasmon-Enhanced Optical Probes for Sensing of Drug Metabolite

An Au@SiO2 core-shell nanostar structure was synthesized along with CuInS2 quantum dots. The quantum dots display near-infrared fluorescence. In this work, the nanostar structure was functionalized with antibodies and then was utilized as a SERS probe for drug metabolite detection. Drugs are an illicit substance that police, medics, and hospitals need to know if an individual is under the influence of but that individual will not always be willing or able to provide that information. A sensor based on this new probe has been developed for detection of drug metabolites in buffer

Tabu search against permutation based stream ciphers

Encryption is one of the most effective methods of securing data confidentiality, whether stored on hard drives or transferred (e.g. by e-mail or phone call). In this paper a new state recovery attack with tabu search is introduced. Based on research and theoretical approximation it is shown that the internal state can be recovered after checking 252 internal states for RC4 and 2180 for VMPC

Whose Responsibility? The Politics of Sex Education Policy in the United States

Whose responsibility is it—that of the individual, society, or both—to meet the needs of citizens and to what degree, how, when, and why? This article investigates this set of inquiries by examining the ongoing debate over sex education in the United States between advocates for the abstinence-only and the comprehensive approaches, conveyed here through their curricula. The debate reflects a broader ideological struggle over how a democratic political community distributes moral responsibility. Personal responsibility is illustrated by abstinence-only curricula, whereas social responsibility is made evident in the comprehensive approach. These approaches establish a dualistic framework for understanding morality that marginalizes politics, deflecting attention away from the moral assumptions behind the gendered distribution of resources in a political community. Collective responsibility, this article argues, provides an alternative moral groundwork and inclusive conceptual perspective that brings politics and the power dynamics of the distributive function within a community into focus. From a collective perspective, the answer to the question “whose responsibility?” then shifts from either the individual or society to both at the same time

Economic base in urban regeneration process in postindustrial cities

Polish cities are constantly changing, and in view of the rapid socio-economic and political changes are naturally faced with many new problems. As a result of the wave of political and economic changes which took place after 1989, many Polish cities faced not only the challenge of adapt their spaces to the changing conditions and needs of the residents, but also that of adapting their competencies and skills to changing requirements and needs of the labour market. Problems of unemployment, with their associated long-term problems of poverty and social exclusion, as well as a lack of local community engagement in public life worsened the plight of many former industrial cities. Revitalization of the regeneration processes, designed to lead portions or entire cities out of the crisis, seems to be the ideal tool to improve the situation of decaying industrial cities. This article attempts to identify the key components in the revitalization and regeneration processes available to such cities, in particular their economic bases and the opportunities offered by such processes.Polskie miasta ulegają ciągłym przemianom, a w dobie intensywnych przemian społeczno-gospodarczych i politycznych borykają się z wieloma problemami. Wskutek przemian polityczno-gospodarczych po 1989 r. wiele miast poprzemysłowych stanęło przed wyzwaniem dostosowania nie tylko ich przestrzeni do zmieniających się uwarunkowań i potrzeb mieszkańców, ale także przed wyzwaniem dostosowania kompetencji i umiejętności pracowników do zmieniających się wymagań i potrzeb rynku pracy. Problemy bezrobocia, w tym długotrwałego, ubóstwa, marginalizacji społecznej oraz te związane z brakiem aktywności lokalnej społeczności w życiu publicznym powodują trudną sytuację wielu miast poprzemysłowych. Rewitalizacja jako proces naprawczy, wyprowadzający fragmenty lub całe miasta z sytuacji kryzysowej wydaje się idealnym narzędziem poprawy sytuacji miast poprzemysłowych. Niniejszy artykuł stanowi próbę identyfikacji kluczowych związków przemian gospodarki miast poprzemysłowych, szczególnie ich bazy ekonomicznej i procesu rewitalizacji

The adaptation of the harmony search algorithm to the ATSP with the evaluation of the influence of the pitch adjustment place on the quality of results

The paper is an extended version of the conference article, which presents a modification of the Harmony Search algorithm, adapted to the effective resolution of the asymmetric case of the Traveling Salesman Problem. The efficacy of the proposed approach was measured with benchmarking tests and in a comparative study based on the results obtained with the Nearest Neighbor Algorithm, Greedy Local Search and Hill Climbing. The discussion also embraced the study of the convergence of the proposed algorithm and the analysis of the impact of the pitch adjustment place on the quality of the solutions

Tabu Cryptanalysis of VMPC Stream Cipher

In the era of global informatization, transmitting and storing information in digital form it is very important to ensure an adequate level of security of ciphers used. Cryptanalysis deals with studying the level of security, thus exposing the weakness of theoretical and implemented cryptographic solutions. In this paper cryptanalysis of stream cipher VMPC using Tabu Search is shown. From estimates made on a full version of VMPC cipher we concluded that about 2157 possibilities needs to be checked in order to find the proper one, which would be the best attack known so far

Adjustability of a discrete particle swarm optimization for the dynamic TSP

This paper presents a detailed study of the discrete particle swarm optimization algorithm (DPSO) applied to solve the dynamic traveling salesman problem which has many practical applications in planning, logistics and chip manufacturing. The dynamic version is especially important in practical applications in which new circumstances, e.g., a traffic jam or a machine failure, could force changes to the problem specification. The DPSO algorithm was enriched with a pheromone memory which is used to guide the search process similarly to the ant colony optimization algorithm. The paper extends our previous work on the DPSO algorithm in various ways. Firstly, the performance of the algorithm is thoroughly tested on a set of newly generated DTSP instances which differ in the number and the size of the changes. Secondly, the impact of the pheromone memory on the convergence of the DPSO is investigated and compared with the version without a pheromone memory. Moreover, the results are compared with two ant colony optimization algorithms, namely the (Formula presented.)–(Formula presented.) ant system (MMAS) and the population-based ant colony optimization (PACO). The results show that the DPSO is able to find high-quality solutions to the DTSP and its performance is competitive with the performance of the MMAS and the PACO algorithms. Moreover, the pheromone memory has a positive impact on the convergence of the algorithm, especially in the face of dynamic changes to the problem’s definition

Combining an artificial intelligence algorithm and a novel vehicle for sustainable e-waste collection

Mobile collection of waste electrical and electronic equipment is a collection method that is convenient for residents and companies. New opportunities to use mobile apps and internet applications facilitate the ordering of waste pickups from households and preparation of a collection plan for a waste collection company. It improves the secondary raw materials collection in a circular economy approach after recycling waste equipment. This study presents a combined methodology for improving the efficiency of e-waste collection. An online ewaste collection supporting systemuses a Harmony Search algorithm for route optimization of waste collection vehicles. The results of the optimization are better compared to other artificial intelligence algorithms presented in the literature and the number of visited collection points is higher from1.2%–6.6% depending on the compared algorithm. To increase the efficiency ofwaste loading and packing, a novel collection vehicle body construction is presented. The design includes the convenient loading of waste from both sides of the vehicle and the rear side being equippedwith a hydraulic lift. The proposed vehiclemodel can be used for e-waste collection in placeswith limited parking spaces or where the parking time is limited, such as in densely populated city centers. The waste equipment packing efficiency increases and eliminates the necessity of including a container loading problem in the algorithm and allows increasing waste equipment number loaded in a collection vehicle