Wideband Nine-Port Reflectometer

The paper presents a wideband nine-port reflectometer realized as a cascade connection of six- and five-port reflectometers. It is shown that such a solution allows for a convenient adjustment of circuits’ parameters in order to provide significantly reduced measurement uncertainty with respect to other reported reflectometers. Simultaneously, the proposed network features a simple and flexible design. For the experimental verification, the proposed nine-port reflectometer has been manufactured and incorporated into the system intended for reflection coefficient measurements within the frequency range 2.5 – 3.5 GHz. The obtained results are in an excellent agreement with the values measured using a commercial VNA

Plasma centrifugation does not influence thrombin-antithrombin and plasmin-antiplasmin levels but determines platelet microparticles count

Introduction: Centrifugation is an essential step for plasma preparation to remove residual elements in plasma, especially platelets and platelet-derived microparticles (PMPs). Our working hypothesis was that centrifugation as a preanalytical step may influence some coagulation parameters. Materials and methods: Healthy young men were recruited (N = 17). For centrifugation, two protocols were applied: (A) the first centrifugation at 2500 x g for 15 min and (B) at 2500 x g for 20 min at room temperature with a light brake. In protocol (A), the second centrifugation was carried out at 2500 x g for 15 min, whereas in protocol (B), the second centrifugation involved a 10 min spin at 13,000 x g. Thrombin-antithrombin (TAT) and plasmin-antiplasmin (PAP) complexes concentrations were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. PMPs were stained with CD41 antibody and annexin V, and analyzed by flow cytometry method. Procoagulant activity was assayed by the Calibrated Automated Thrombogram method as a slope of thrombin formation (CAT velocity). Results: Median TAT and PAP concentrations did not differ between the centrifugation protocols. The high speed centrifugation reduced the median (IQR) PMP count in plasma from 1291 (841-1975) to 573 (391-1010) PMP/µL (P = 0.001), and CAT velocity from 2.01 (1.31-2.88) to 0.97 (0.82-1.73) nM/min (P = 0.049). Spearman’s rank correlation analysis showed correlation between TAT and PMPs in the protocol A plasma which was (rho = 0.52, P < 0.050) and between PMPs and CAT for protocol A (rho = 0.74, P < 0.050) and protocol B (rho = 0.78, P < 0.050). Conclusion: Centrifugation protocols do not influence the markers of plasminogen (PAP) and thrombin (TAT) generation but they do affect the PMP count and procoagulant activit

Compact Broadband Rat-Race Coupler in Multilayer Technology Designed with the Use of Artificial Right- and Left-Handed Transmission Lines, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2012, nr 2

The paper presents a compact broadband rat-race coupler for the first time designed and realized in a multilayer microstrip technology. To achieve both broad operational bandwidth and a compact size the 270◦ transmission line of a conventional rat-race, coupler has been replaced by a –90◦ left-handed transmission line realized with the use of a quasi-lumped element technique. Moreover, to achieve better compactness of the resulting coupler, all 90◦ right-handed transmission lines have been realized with the use of the same technique. It has been also proved that simple LC approximation of a left-handed transmission line can be successfully used for the design. Moreover, it has been shown that when appropriately chosen, the multilayer dielectric structure allows for realization of structures designed with the use of this simple approximation, for both right-handed and left-handed transmission lines, without loosing too much of a performance

ATP and its N6-substituted analogues: parameterization, molecular dynamics simulation and conformational analysis

In this work we used a combination of classical molecular dynamics and simulated annealing techniques to shed more light on the conformational flexibility of 12 adenosine triphosphate (ATP) analogues in a water environment. We present simulations in AMBER force field for ATP and 12 published analogues [Shah et al. (1997) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94: 3565–3570]. The calculations were carried out using the generalized Born (GB) solvation model in the presence of the cation Mg2+. The ion was placed at a close distance (2 Å) from the charged oxygen atoms of the beta and gamma phosphate groups of the −3 negatively charged ATP analogue molecules. Analysis of the results revealed the distribution of inter-proton distances H8–H1′ and H8–H2′ versus the torsion angle ψ (C4–N9-C1′–O4′) for all conformations of ATP analogues. There are two gaps in the distribution of torsion angle ψ values: the first is between −30 and 30 degrees and is described by cis-conformation; and the second is between 90 and 175 degrees, which mostly covers a region of anti conformation. Our results compare favorably with results obtained in experimental assays [Jiang and Mao (2002) Polyhedron 21:435–438]

The compensation responsibility of the Federal Republic of Germany in the 21st century - An attempt to describe

Poland’s Law and Justice Party (PiS) is considering whether to seek further reparations from German Federal Republic for the massive losses inflicted during WWII. PiS head Kaczynski described the move as a “historical counteroffensive.” World War II (WW II), which began with the German invasion of Poland in 1939, killed nearly 6 million Polish citizens and inflicted huge material losses, including the destruction of cultural treasures, industry and entire cities. Those crimes carry not only a moral price, but a material one as well: In 2004, Warsaw’s then-mayor, Lech Kaczynski, calculated that the Deutsche Bundesrepublik was liable for reparation payments of some $45 billion dollars (38 billion dollars) for the destruction of Warsaw alone. If one were to extrapolate the amount to include the whole of Poland, one would certainly arrive at a figure 10 to 20 times higher. That would be a sum that could only be paid out over decades and across generations. When one considers that German Federal Republic’s (GFR) final reparation payments to France and Belgium for the First World War were not made until 2010, one gets an idea of the dimensions of such a demand. Shortly after the PiS regained power in 2916 its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, announced that Poland and the GFR had outstanding accounts to settle from the WW II. He went on to say that the issue of war reparations between the neighboring countries had never been resolved. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, GFR’s foreign minister at the time, answered Kaczynski’s claims with a letter stating that Poland had no legal basis for demanding such damages. He reminded Kaczynski of Poland’s relinquishment of reparations in 1953. Poland’s government did indeed waive its right to war reparations from its western neighbor at the time – yet that neighbor was the German Democratic Republic (GDR). A few other interesting points. The GFR has paid billions of dollars over the years in compensation for III Reich crimes, primarily to polish survivors, and acknowledges the country’s responsibility for keeping alive the memory of III Reich atrocities. After WW II, both GFR and GDR were obliged to pay war reparations to the Allied governments, according to the Potsdam Conference. Other Axis nations were obliged to pay war reparations according to the Paris Peace Treaties, 1947 an early plan for a post-war GFR was the Morgenthau plan with terms that would have essentially transformed the GFR to an agrarian society... This position was completely changed by the London Agreement on German External Debts, so called the London Debt Agreement. As a consequence of aggression by the III Reich much of Poland was subjected to enormous destruction of its industry (62(16.7$640 billion in 2004 exchange values. As of 2012, the GFR had paid a total of $89 billion in compensation to victims of the war, in Poland and beyond, and GFR officials continue to meet regularly to revise and expand the guidelines for compensation. All in all, after WW II 17$850 billion, not including human losses. In 2004, Kaczynski’s late twin brother Lech, as mayor of Warsaw, put the damages to the capital city alone at $45.3 billion. Poland is the biggest net beneficiary of the bloc’s 140 billion-euro ($164 billion) annual budget, having been granted more than 250 billion dollars since entry. The monstrosity of III Reich crimes, not only against Polish Jews but also others, including the 150,000 civilians butchered during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, will forever remain a disgrace and an unforgettable injustice. It is all the more so given that hardly any of those Germans responsible for the deeds were ever brought to account. In 2004 a special commission estimated that damages incurred by the Polish capital alone during WW II amounted to more than $45 billion (38 billion dollars). The commission was convened by Lech Kaczynski, then Warsaw’s mayor. The topic has routinely strained German-Polish relations since the national-conservative party PiS returned to power in 2016. On 23 August 1953, the Communist People’s Republic of Poland under pressure from the Soviet Union announced it would unilaterally waive its right to war reparations from the German Democratic Republic on 1 January 1954, with the exception of reparations for III Reich oppression and atrocities. The GDR in turn had to accept the Oder-Neisse border, which gave around 1/4 of GDR’s historic territory to Poland and the USSR. Poland’s former communist government, agreed in 1953 to not to make any further claims on GDR. Poland’s former Communist government waived its right to German post-war compensation back in 1953, as part of its commitment to “contribute to solving the GDR question in the spirit of democracy and peace.” However, many argue that the agreement was unlawful since the government at the time was under pressure from the Soviet Union, and following the reunification of the GFR in the 1990s the matter has faced new scrutiny. As to the GFR the federal government has claimed that its duty to compensate Poland was denounced in the 1950s but insists that it continues to stand by its moral and financial duties to the victims of the war. The GFR hadn’t paid reparations to non-Jewish recipients for the damage inflicted in Poland. The agreement signed by Mr. Gierek and Mr. Schmidt in 1975 in Warsaw, stipulated that 1.3 billion DM will be paid to Poles who, during Nazi occupation, had paid into GFR’s social security system without receiving pension. After German reunification, Poland demanded reparations again, as a reaction to claims made by German refugee organizations demanding compensation for property and land repossessed by the new Polish state that they were forcibly deported from as a stipulation of the Potsdam Agreement and the mentioned Oder-Neisse border. In 1992, the Foundation for Polish-German Reconciliation was founded by the Polish and GFR governments, and as a result GFR paid Polish sufferers ca. 4.7 billion PLN. There is still an ongoing debate among international law experts if Poland still has the right to demand war reparations, with some arguing that the 1954 declaration wasn’t legal. According to a statement made by the German government in 2017, the reparations issue was resolved in 1953 as Poland declined receiving any payments from the GFR. However, it’s worth remembering that in 2004, the Polish government reaffirmed that decision when, in return, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder promised that the GFR’s government would not support demands for damages lodged by expellees against the Polish government. The decision came about dueto the fact that the GFR had relinquished former eastern territories to Poland as compensation for III Reich war crimes. Poland’s ruling officials are stepping up calls to demand compensation from the GFR for damages caused in WW II, potentially deepening a divide between the European Union’s largest eastern member and the bloc’s biggest economy. Between the collapse of communism in 1989 and 2004 when Poland joined the EU, subsequent governments declared the issue of war reparations from the GFR closed, based on a declaration of the 1953 communist administration in Warsaw and treaties from 1970 and 1990 with the GFR. Presently the Polish parliament’s research office is preparing an analysis of whether Poland can legally make the claim and will have it ready by Aug. 11, 2017 according to Deputy Arkadiusz Mularczyk, a lawmaker with the ruling Law and Justice party who requested the report. One of the reasons that the government is reopening the question may be to demonstrate it isn’t intimidated by the EU’s criticism for democratic backsliding. The bloc has opened an unprecedented probe into Poland over the rule-of-law that’s centered on a government push to strip the judiciary of its independence by giving politicians greater control over the courts. In response to the Poland’s new demand Ulrike Demmer, deputy spokeswoman for the GFR government, said that, while the GFR assumed political, moral and financial responsibility for the WW, the question of restitution was closed. The deputy spokeswoman added, that the GFR has made significant reparations for general war damage, including to Poland, and is still paying significant compensation for III Reich wrongdoing. Further it is stated that the federal government has paid billions over the years in compensation, namely to Polish survivors, for war crimes committed during WW II. The country has also acknowledged its responsibility for keeping alive the memory of atrocities committed by the III Reich. As far as German lawyers and scholars are concerned, the issue was resolved years ago and are not afraid of any possible lawsuit in the International Court of Justice. In 2004, Jochen Frowein, an expert on international law and the former director of the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, along with a Polish historian, came to the conclusion that no such demand by Poland had any chance of being upheld in a court of law – and that remains the case today. In his opinion the question has been “legally resolved and definitively settled.” He also points to the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to the GFR, known also as the Two plus Four Agreement. The agreement, signed in 1990, paved the way for German reunification and also made clear that the GFR would not be responsible to pay any further reparations stemming from WW II. Frowein refutes Polish Defense Minister Senor Antoni Macierewicz’s claim that Poland’s 1953 waiver is invalid because communist Poland was not a sovereign state. “Poland’s 1953 renunciation of reparations claims against the GFR remains valid even today. The fact that the constitutional situation in Poland has changed and that it is no longer a communist state does nothing to change the validity of that declaration. Many other treaties that Poland signed at the time have also remained in effect

Overview and analysis of the benefits using project management software including the aspect of human resource management and support of collaboration

Przedmiotem niniejszej pracy jest przegląd i analiza korzyści zastosowania oprogramowania do zarządzania projektami. Poruszono również zagadnienia związane z zarządzaniem zasobami ludzkimi oraz wykorzystaniem takiego oprogramowanie do wsparcia pracy grupowej. W pierwszej części pracy przedstawiono teoretyczne podstawy zarządzania projektami oraz zarządzania zasobami ludzkimi w kontekście pracy grupowej: budowania zespołu i komunikacji. Następnie opisano sposób wyboru odpowiedniego narzędzia informatycznego do realizacji tych celów. Dalsza część pracy stanowi charakterystykę konkretnych aplikacji do zarządzania projektami, m.in: Microsoft Project i Primavery.The subject of this thesis is to review and analyze the benefits of project management software. Also raised issues related to the management of human resources and the use of such software to support group work. In the first part of the thesis presents the theoretical foundations of project management and human resource management in the context of group work: team building and communication. Then describes how to select the right IT tool to achieve these goals. The rest of the work is the characterization of specific applications for project management, e.g.: Microsoft Project and Primavera

German made Dieselgate

This paper analyses the regulatory approach adopted by the US federal courts and agencies and the EU with regard to control of emissions from cars and environmental responsibility. Volkswagen A.G. (hereinafter referred to as VW) appeared as one of the most responsible car-maker according to sustainability index rating. Despite a well-established code of conduct was in place, the company has been exposed to the biggest pollution scandal, which unveiled many shortcomings of emissions tests which involve several car makers, certification companies, the US and the EU regulatory authorities. However, it’s worth remembering that in May of 2014, after a group of researchers from West Virginia University and the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) found discrepancies in the actual emissions levels of VW cars compared to their stated levels, California and federal authorities ordered VW to fix the problem. The company falsely claimed it had improved. VW, the world’s largest car maker, admitted in September 2015 to using so-called “defeat device” software to cheat regulatory nitrogen oxides1 emissions tests in some 11 million cars worldwide. The devices allowed the cars to spew up to 40 times the permissible limits of nitrogen oxide during normal driving, but this was hidden during emissions testing. Nevertheless, other car manufacturers, including Fiat, Renault, Mercedes, Opel, and Ford, were subsequently also found to have been “optimizing” test results, with on-the-road nitrous oxide emission levels 5-10 times higher than legal limits permit, exposing European citizens to dangerously high levels of pollution. Additionally, VW faces an array of legal challenges in Germany and worldwide relating to the software, installed mainly in own-brand vehicles, but also in cars made by Audi, Skoda and Seat, among its stable of 12 brands. Only in the US German manufacturer was charged with deceiving U.S. regulators in order to obtain the necessary certificates to sell the Subject Vehicles and the Porsche Vehicles in the US as well as with selling the Subject Vehicles and the Porsche Vehicles in the US know that these vehicles did not meet U.S. emissions standards. Also the company was deceiving VW’s U.S. customers by marketing the Subject Vehicles and the Porsche Vehicles as “clean diesel” and environmentally friendly knowing that the diesel vehicles were intentionally designed to detect, evade and defeat U.S. emissions standards; and was concealing these facts from U.S. regulators and U.S. customers. This paper proceeds in three parts. Part I details the VW scandal and emissions testing in the United States, the U.S. vehicle certification process, and the U.S. treatment of defeat devices. Part II argues that VW’s emissions-test trickery is illegal under the US law in the context of criminal and civil settlements. The next part I discuss the EU regulations at issue for VW, Europe’s diesel pollution problem. Furthermore, it analyzes the consequences of deeming VW’s cheating legal in Europe, and recommends ways to improve the EU’s auto regulatory systemIt is worth to remember that in the Germany the official investigations that have taken place in the meantime – especially in the case of Audi – and the recent decision of the Stuttgart Regional Court on judicial procedures of capital market communication), it is relevant that VW itself admitted the use of the manipulation software on September 3, 2015

Assesment of the International Court of Justice judgment to 2012 and the Supreme Court judgment in Poland to 2010

The article concernes the issue of foreign courts’ jurisdiction and their relations with the particular states’ legal systems in the context of sovereign state’s immunity and its temporary limited interpretation. several cases are analyzed, from midwar period, through the Cold War era, up to the end of the first decade od XXi century, including assesement of not only international Court of Justice and Polish supreme Court but also sereral examples of assesement of European and American courts

SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS SELECTED ISSUES

Sovereign wealth funds (called later SWF) have attracted a lot of attention in the beginning of the new century as many countries from Arab world open funds and invest in the European Union (EU), including new state members such as Poland. This has given way to a rising concern over SWF investments’s influence have on the european economy. Taking into consideration that all sovereign wealth funds combined to hold more than $5 trillion in assets in 2012 and they will exceed the annual economic output of the U.S. by 2015 and that of the EU by 2016, it is important to understand exactly what sovereign wealth funds are and what are the potential benefits and risk involved. Due to their long-term strategic outlook, SWF might contribute to the stability of the international financial markets in the US and EU. It should build more precise and effective institutional framework of sovereign wealth funds’ policy rules, and accountability and transparency mechanisms. SWF can be managed and regulated in order to avoid protectionist measures on the part of the recipients of inward foreign direct investment (FDI), in turn it could greatly benefit bilateral economic relations between EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council GCC

Grexit as a Challenge to the European Integrity

The paper analyzes the prospect of Greece exit know as “Grexit” from EU, whereas the Treaties have a specific legal regime on withdrawing – Article 50 TEU which was added to the Treaties by the Treaty of Lisbon. It confirms the possibility to leave the EU that many (but not all) legal observers believed existed beforehand. No fully-fledged Member State has in fact left the EU before or after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, although some parts of Member States have done so. Before the Treaty of Lisbon, this was accomplished by means of Treaty amendment. One of the important question is whether would it be possible for Greece to withdraw a notification to leave the EU? In the article an argument will be raised that other Member States and the EU institutions are arguably legally obliged to refuse debt relief for Greece, in accordance with the Treaties’ no bail-out rule