The δ18O and δD isoscapes of recent groundwater in Poland

Considering the country’s development and quality of life, recognition of the water cycle mechanism is of great importance. A significant contribution to this comes from the isotopic composition of particular elements of the water cycle. However, a weak point is that in Poland only one element of the water cycle, precipitation, is sampled and measured over more than 312 thousands km2 at a single station. It is therefore necessary to seek extension of or alternatives for these rare data. Such an alternative is the sampling of groundwater containing tritium in the national monitoring network of groundwater bodies that is maintained by the Polish Geological Institute. Based on such data we have constructed δ18O and δD isoscapes (i.e., maps of δ18O and δD values) of recent groundwater. These data provide spatial distribution of δ18O and δD values which can be used as input to hydrogeological models

Obraz, nieobecność i moment krytyczny (Uwagi o pewnej frazie Jaspera Johnsa)

The experience of Minimal Art tells us that a visual object can confront us with absence. The minimal objects are absent - they do not recall any past, they do not refer to any story that might be their source. At least this is the very first impression...But this situation does not make all the utterances concerning these objects impossible. It is rather the opposite - the absence of story, the negation of history is the beginning of another way of writing about art.The experience of Minimal Art tells us that a visual object can confront us with absence. The minimal objects are absent - they do not recall any past, they do not refer to any story that might be their source. At least this is the very first impression...But this situation does not make all the utterances concerning these objects impossible. It is rather the opposite - the absence of story, the negation of history is the beginning of another way of writing about art

Współczesne studia nad kulturą wizualną: poststrukturalistyczne klisze i krytyka anachroniczna

The article investigates the discourse of contemporary visual culture studies informed by the paradigmatic  shift in the field of humanities,  known as pictorial turn.  Drawing upon  the  concepts  outlined  by William J. Mitchell and Mieke Bal, the  author  argues against the  possibility of ahistorical  simplifications that  might occur when thinking in terms of pictorial turn comes into a growing prominence  within the discipline. Certain comparison  is drafted  as a warning; employing the  field of visuality as the  universal theoretical  basis, without taking into account the specificity of the historical experience, would be parallel to the poststructuralist  hegemony of textuality. Similar argument addresses the examples of discourse on visuality built upon models of primarily textual analysis. Therefore,  the  author  emphasizes  the  necessity to  reach  out  to  the  earlier modern theory on visual culture proposed  by Aby Warburg and Walter Benjamin, who were investigating the themes (or emplying the methods) that has been largely overlooked and / or shifted to the margins

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Postkrytyka. Poczucie wyczerpania i korekta kursu projektu krytycznego

Artykuł dotyczy prominentnego w humanistyce ostatnich lat zjawiska postkrytyki. Autor dowodzi, że - wbrew dominującym tendencjom do interpretowania postkrytyki jako zerwania z tradycją krytyczną, a nawet zagrożenia misji humanistyki - jest ona w istocie kontynuacją tej tradycji, reakcją na jej kryzys i związane z nim poczucie wyczerpania, a także próbą korekty jej kursu.The article focuses on the prominent phenomenon of post-criticism in the humanities in recent years. The author argues that – contrary to the dominant tendencies to interpret postcritique as a break with the critical tradition or even a threat to the mission of the humanities – the critique project actually continues the very tradition, reacts to its crisis and the associated sense of exhaustion, as well as attempts to correct its course

An application of the NSGA-II algorithm in Pareto joint inversion of 2D magnetic and gravity data

Joint inversion is a widely used geophysical method that allows model parameters to be obtained from the observed data. Pareto inversion results are a set of solutions that include the Pareto front, which consists of non-dominated solutions. All solutions from the Pareto front are considered the most feasible models from which a particular one can be chosen as the final solution. In this paper, it is shown that models represented by points on the Pareto front do not reflect the shape of the real model. In this contribution, a collective approach is proposed to interpret the geometry of models retrieved in inversion. Instead of choosing single solutions from the Pareto front, all obtained solutions were combined in one “heat map”, which is a plot representing the frequency of points belonging to all returned objects from the solution set. The conducted experiment showed that this approach limits the problem of equivalence and is a promising way of representing the geometry of the model that was retrieved in the inversion process

The comparison of using satellite SAR and optical data in the process of urban growth monitoring.

The aim of this project was to monitor the temporal growth of the urban areas, on the example of the Krakow city (Poland). In recent years more frequent use of satellite data in environmental monitoring can be observed. Definitely the optical data are the most popular type of it.  This kind of data are commonly used in many applications like land cover change detection, biomass study and in the map preparation process. Despite their many advantages they are very sensitive on the weather conditions. Thus they can not be gathered in cloudy or rainy day. This case doesn’t occur when the satellite SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) system are used. The ability of SAR and optical systems in monitoring the temporal growth of the urban areas were presented in the past (Opido 2015, Al Rawashdeh 2006). In these projects SAR and optical satellite systems were compered.            The presented here study were performed on fifty archival SAR and optical images acquired between years 1992 and 2010. The images were grouped into five two-year time intervals.  Each interval contain data stack of eight SAR and 2 Landsat images. For each group the analysis of land cover were performed. Each optical image was classified into the three classes: water, urban and green areas. The study of SAR data were based on the analysis of coherent scatterers (Porzycka-Strzelczyk 2015). The most common used methods of coherent scatterer’s identification were tested: dispersion of amplitude, Log-Cumulant (Nicolas 204), Signal-to-cluter ratio (Ulander 2010) and coherency method (Touzi 1999).            The growth of urban area was calculated by studying changes in the number of coherent scatterers on the SAR images. For the Landsat images the changes in area of the urban class were analyzed. Furthermore, the regions of most and least intensive urban growth were detected. The next step of the project is to compare the presented results with new ESA (European Space Agency) satellites. Sentinel-1 provides SAR images with a much better spatial resolution than ERS-1, ERS-2 and Envisat satellites. Sentinel-2 has better spatial resolution and more spectral bands than Landsat-8 (Masek 2015). This will allow to achieve more precise maps of coherent scatterers. 

Analysis of annual temperature distribution inside the experimental embankment

The aim of this paper is analysis of temperatures distribution inside experimental embankment from August 2015 to September 2016. Analysis was carried out in order to interpretation of the results of the flood experiments performed on the experimental embankment. The reference for year temperature changes in the embankment at various depths was obtained. A simplified model of temperature changes depending on the depth was made. The model parameters which can be used for modelling the temperatures in the embankment during the experiments were estimated

A Big Data processing strategy for hybrid interpretation of flood embankment multisensor data

The assessment of flood embankments is a key component of a country’s comprehensive flood protection. Proper and early information on the possible instability of a flood embankment can make it possible to take preventative action. The assessment method proposed by the ISMOP project is based on a strategy of processing huge data sets (Big Data). The detection of flood embankment anomalies can take two analysis paths. The first involves the computation of numerical models and comparing them with real data measured on a flood embankment. This is the path of model-driven analysis. The second solution is data-driven, meaning time series are analysed in order to detect deviations from average values.Flood embankments are assessed based on the results of model-driven and data-driven analyses and information from preprocessing. An alarm is triggered if a critical value is exceeded in one or both paths of analysis. Tests on synthetic data demonstrate the high efficiency of the chosen methods for assessing the state of flood embankments