The problem of financing sacral and ecclesiastical building industry in the period of Polish People’s Republic on an example of the Lodz Diocese

The article describes unknown aspect of financing sacral building industry in the period of PRL (Polish People’s Republic). Presented issue is aimed at filling the gap in the existing historiography. None of the publications that have been published does not addresses the problem, seen from the perspective of the relations state–Church after the year 1945. This work therefore shows the difficulties associated with raising funds for the construction of new temples in the period of inhibition or fighting with any sacred investments by the authorities of Polish People’s Republic. The repressive and discriminatory for the Church legal provisions aimed at obstructing the construction of places of worship, which was also supposed to discourage clergymen from undertaking this type of activity. In turn, the „service-minded” priests were rewarded for their loyal attitude towards those in charge of allocating subsidies for minor construction works from the Church Fund, which was under the control of the Council of Ministers. All these factors meant that the greatest cost of building churches was borne by lay Catholics who organized public collections on their own, thus risking a fine. Also the parish priests also faced difficulties, while gaining money to continue construction works by using foreign contacts.Artykuł opisuje nieznany dotąd aspekt finansowania budownictwa sakralnego w okresie PRL. Prezentowane zagadnienie ma na celu wypełnienie luki w dotychczasowej historiografii. Żadna z powstałych dotąd publikacji nie odnosi się do badanego problemu widzianego z perspektywy stosunków państwo–Kościół po 1945 r. Niniejsza praca ukazuje zatem trudności związane z pozyskiwaniem funduszy na budowę nowych świątyń w okresie hamowania lub zwalczania przez władze tzw. Polski Ludowej wszelkich inwestycji sakralnych. Represyjne i dyskryminujące stronę kościelną przepisy prawne miały na celu utrudnianie wznoszenia miejsc kultu religijnego, co pośrednio miało także przyczynić się do zniechęcenia duchownych do podejmowania tego rodzaju działalności. Z kolei „usłużnych” księży nagradzano za ich lojalną postawę wobec rządzących przydzielaniem na drobne prace budowlane subwencji z powołanego m.in. na ten cel Funduszu Kościelnego, będącego pod kontrolą Rady Ministrów. Wszystkie te czynniki powodowały, że największy koszt budowy kościołów ponosili świeccy katolicy, organizujący na własną rękę zbiórki publiczne, narażając się tym samym na karę grzywny. Trud ponieśli także księża parafialni, którzy wykorzystując zagraniczne znajomości zdobywali pieniądze na kontynuowanie prac budowlanych

Artificial Neural Networks as a Tool for Supporting a Moulding Sand Control System Based on the Dependency between Selected Moulding Sand Properties

The article presents the potential for using artificial neural networks to support decisions related to the rebonding of green moulding sand. The basic properties of the moulding sand tested in foundries are discussed, especially compactibility as it gives the most information about the quality of green moulding sand. First, the data that can predict the compactibility value without the need for testing are defined. Next, a method for constructing an artificial neural network is presented and the network model which produced the best results is analysed. Additionally, two applications were designed to allow the investigation results to be searchable by determining the range of values of the moulding sand parameters

Dawne kolejowe rozkłady jazdy i ich przydatność w badaniach historycznych

The article devoted to other transport timetables, issued in the form of independent prints which were published on Polish territory in the 19th, century and first half of the 20th, century (until 1939). These are rare prints in Poland, even the biggest national libraries, including the specialist ones have modest and incomplete collections (an exception is the National Library in Warsaw, where the considerable collection of timetables from interwar period is situated). Originally, the timetables were issued irregularly, additionally each railway company conducted a separate information policy. Joint publishing ventures were rare. The turn of the 19th, and the 20th century brought the significant change, mainly due to flag carriers who decided to more comprehensive and untypical printing initiatives. In addition to the items aimed at travellers, there were also timetables issued, envisaged for business use. The editions of timetables for particular stations or raliway nodes were rare until 1914. In the period of the Second Republic all known editorial solutions became more popular. New concepts of timetables also appeared. In general, after the World War I, quality and accessibility of the railway timetables on market improved. There were specially created institutions that took care of publishing timetables, some professional editors were also involved in it, for whom the production of timetables constituted the marginal of business and some casual publishers, who were performing other professions every day. Apart from the general characteristics of the source, which was done in the first part of the article, the determination of suitability of timetables in historical research was also done. It is certainly the valuable source material which should be taken by reserchers of different fields, involved not only in railway history.Zarys treści: Artykuł poświęcony jest kolejowym rozkładom jazdy wydanym na ziemiach polskich w okresie XIX i pierwszej połowie XX w. W pierwszej części tekstu ogólnie charakteryzuję źródło (stan jego zachowania, typy rozkładów, przemiany ich formy, częstotliwość wydań, nakład, wydawców, cenę). W dalszej części tekstu, wskazuję przydatność rozkładów jazdy w badaniach historycznych, kładąc nacisk na ich wykorzystanie w szeroko pojmowanych pracach z zakresu historii podróżowania, kolejnictwa, turystyki oraz historii społecznej i gospodarczej.Abstract: The article deals with railway timetables published in Polish lands during the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. The first part of the text is a general characteristic of the source (the state of its preservation, types of schedules, transformations of their forms, editions, publisher, and price). A further part of the article indicates the expediency of railway timetables in historical research, with emphasis placed on their use in widely comprehended studies on the history of travelling and the rail industry, as well as social and economic history

Competition for food in macroplankton animals in the Vistula Lagoon

Competition for food can be observed in the macroplankton community in the Vistula Lagoon (northern Poland) in the spring (April-May-June). This is the time of mass occurrence of early developmental stages of the Baltic Sea herring, the European smelt, perch, and stickleback. Additionally, some quantities of the shrimp Neomysis integer can be found. These species use the same food resources, i.e. small zooplankton, but they occupy different habitats. However, in a very special situation in the Vistula Lagoon (low depth and water mixing by winds), they are living together and compete for food. The purpose of this paper is to find out which species is the superior competitor for food among the macroplankton living in the Vistula Lagoon. Animal size (dry weight Dw), daily consumption rate (C), and coefficients of food assimilation efficiency (U-1), as well as utilization of consumed energy for growth (K1), and utilization of assimilated energy for growth (K2) by individuals of particular species were used as measures of individual success in competition for food. Animal abundance (n m-3), the daily consumption rate of individuals of particular species living in the unit of water volume (J m-3 d-1), and total food consumed by animals of particular species living in the unit of water volume as a percent of the total food available were used as measures of population (or species) success in competition for food. The results do not provide a clear indication of which species is a superior competitor for food. Because competition occurs at the level of individuals rather than populations, a question arises why just Neomysis, despite their lowest food consumption and the lowest daily production rate succeeded in reaching high population numbers and sum of daily food consumption by the population

Exploration of WEB resources in the domain of metal processing technologies

The amount of information contained in the WEB grows in a galloping way, which is caused by the spread of Internet access and lowering the cost of storing and sharing data across the network. The vast amount of data, impossible to be analyzed by human, is the reason why finding and selecting valuable information has become a serious problem. Due to this situation, a highly useful and desired solution would be the development of a system that would allow continuous monitoring of the WEB and finding for the user valuable information from the selected Internet resources. This paper describes the concept of such a system, along with its initial implementation and application to search for information in the field of foundry industry

Zużycie tlenu przez plażę wiślaną. Dobra i usługi ekosystemu

Celem pracy jest ocena roli piaszczystych plaż w procesie  samooczyszczania wód Wisły. Wyniki tej pracy mogą być ważnym głosem w dyskusji o przyszłości Wisły. Proces samooczyszczania polega na usuwaniu zanieczyszczeń wprowadzanych do wody również ze zlewni rzeki. Miarą procesu oczyszczania wody w Wiśle z materii organicznej jest ilość tlenu zużywanego przez piaszczyste plaże w procesach utylizowania tej materii przez psammon podczas oddychania komórkowego. Ilość  materii organicznej, która jest utylizowana przez psammon jest miarą "dóbr i usług ekosystemu" rzeki

Information monitoring based on web resources

The paper summarizes the system for WEB resources monitoring based on defined query. Experiment compares results returned by the proposed system to those provided by Google Search and Google Alert services. Results indicate that the system could be solid base for development and tests of pattern detection and information retrieval mechanism, while providing more data than Google solutions. Drawback of system and further development plans are also presented

Oxygen consumption in the sandy beaches of the Vistula River: Goods and services of the ecosystem

The research aimed to estimate the role of the beach in the process of self-purification of water in the Vistula River. The study could become a very important voice in the debate about the future of the Vistula River. A self-purification process involves the disposal of pollutants entering the water from the catchment of the River. A measure of the Vistula River water purification process of organic matter is the amount of oxygen that is consumed by the beach settlement. That is the amount of utilised organic matter by psammon during cellular respiration. Besides, the calculation of the amount of organic matter, which was worn by psammon can be the measure of “goods and services of the ecosystem” of the river

Rheology of moist food powders as affected by moisture content

Dynamic testing to determine rheological characteristics of moist food powders (semolina, coarse wheat flour, potato starch) was carried out using a powder rheometer of a new construction. The unique feature of the rheometer is that scale of shearing was confined to the thickness of shearing band of powder bed only. It was found that flow pattern of moistened samples was noticeably and diversely affected by both moisture content (varying in the range of 0–15% w/w) and shear rate. The observed changes showed statistical significance p < 0.01 in all trials carried out. What is noteworthy about the conducted research is that at some shear rate values, the shear stress of the bed reached the maximum for specific moisture content levels, irrespective of particle size of the bed. Such behavior may provide an indication of complex interference of different powder shearing mechanisms in the presence of moisture. For beds consisted of larger particles, shear stress values decreased considerably with increasing moisture content. To explain this, modeling of the shearing process with Discrete Element Method (DEM) was performed. The results obtained supported the idea that friction coefficients of particulate material were significantly reduced at higher moisture content of the powder bed in the whole range of shear rates applied

Dispersal and individual variability: laboratory experiments with the woodlouse Porcellio scaber

Laboratory experiments on the dispersal of woodlouse Porcellio scaber showed that the possibility to disperse diminished the intensity of intraspecific competition. The decision to disperse from local habitat to another one didn’t depend on the weight of individual. The only category of individuals that tried to avoid dispersal were females carrying eggs. This can be connected with the Brownian way of movement of woodlouse during penetration of surrounding environment or with the arrangement of the experiment in which the costs of dispersal were low