Wzory aktywności krakowskich młodych emerytów w środowisku wielkomiejskim (przykład zastosowania analizy skupień)

Population ageing has drawn increasingly more attention to the question of retirement. On the one hand, the number of retirees increases and retirement becomes a more prominent part of life. As a result, people at present have developed a distinct retirement lifestyle and retirees become more diverse. This study presents how the choices of young retirees (individuals that are retired for no longer than 10 years) in urban environment differ. The empirical material used for this study consisted of 206 interviews conducted with inhabitants of Cracow. Interviews were conducted from June to December 2014. Hierarchical cluster analysis enabled to differ two type of time usage models (traditional and open) and 3 types of young retirees (active retirees residing in districts that have a wide offer dedicated to senior citizens, passive retirees with limited funds and moderately active older young retirees).Tekst prezentuje analizę 206 wywiadów z mieszkańcami Krakowa, którzy przebywają na emeryturze nie dłużej niż 10 lat. Dzięki zastosowaniu hierarchicznej analizy skupień, wyodrębniono dwa modele spędzania czasu przez młodych emerytów w przestrzeni wielkomiejskiej (tradycyjny i otwarty) oraz trzy typy emerytów, które zidentyfikowano w Krakowie (aktywnych młodych emerytów z dzielnic z bogatą ofertą dla osób starszych, biernych emerytów z ograniczonymi możliwościami finansowymi oraz umiarkowanie aktywnych starszych młodych emerytów)

PCDDs/PCDFs and PCBs in Wastewater and Sewage Sludge

The chapter includes the information concerning the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) functioning in respect to polychlorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins (PCDDs)/polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). In particular, the chapter describes the occurrence and fate of PCDDs/PCDFs and PCBs in WWTPs, at different treatment stages, including the tertiary wastewater treatment (e.g. constructed, wetlands biofilters) and factors affecting the removal of these micropollutants during treatment process. Considering the production of growing amounts of sewage sludge as an end product of the wastewater treatment process, the chapter describes also the occurrence and fate of above‐mentioned compounds in sewage sludge and the ways of their utilization with the special emphasis on agricultural uses, bioremediation and phytoremediation processes. With regard to the agricultural use of sewage sludge, the impact of sludge‐born PCDDs/PCDFs and PCBs on plant growth and plant metabolism is described, together with the current state of knowledge on the accumulation and translocation of the studied compounds in plant tissues

Bruton's tyrosine kinase control of cytokine production in Toll‐like receptor signalling

Inappropriate and un-regulated inflammation is the hallmark of a variety of inflammatory diseases including Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). Central to the pathogenesis of this disease is the cytokine Tumour Necrosis Factor α (TNF), a product of activated macrophages. Macrophages are activated by numerous exogenous and endogenous ligands through Toll like receptors (TLR) leading to the activation of numerous protein tyrosine kinases (PTK). These studies have mainly described the LPS pathway and have not focused on endosomal TLRs, which are being increasingly implicated in the pathology of RA. The work presented in this thesis describes the role of Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase (Btk) in TLR8 signalling in human primary macrophages. Using an adenovirus overexpression system and RNAi technology, Btk has been shown to control the production of TNF in R848-stimulated cells. This regulation occurred on a transcriptional level as Btk downregulation decreased the level of the primary TNF transcript at 2h as well as the recruitment of RNA Polymerase II to the promoter of the TNF gene at 1h. This rapid effect of Btk depletion on gene transcription resulted in significantly less TNF protein production at 2h following R848 stimulation. Subsequent analysis of transcription factors potentially involved in the Btk-dependent regulation of TNF transcription revealed that Btk affects both NFkB and AP-1 in TLR8 signalling. In particular, Btk downregulation decreased the binding of NFkB to its consensus site as shown by EMSA as well as the recruitment of p65 to the TNF promoter or 3' enhancer region as shown by ChIP. The regulation of p65 by Btk occurred at the level of p65 phosphorylation on Serine 536 and did not affect the degradation of IkBα. AP-1 activity in EMSA was also decreased under the Btk knockdown conditions, with cJun and ATF-2 but not cFos being involved in Btk signalling. At the same time, Btk did not alter p38, ERK and JNK MAPK activity ruling out their involvement in the Btk-dependent control of AP-1 in R848-challenged macrophages. These data extend current knowledge regarding the involvement of Tec kinases in the regulation of cytokine production under inflammatory conditions by providing a potential mechanism of transcriptional control

First thia-Diels–Alder reactions of thiochalcones with 1,4-quinones

Aryl and hetaryl thiochalcones react smoothly with 1,4-quinones in THF solution at 60 °C yielding the corresponding fused 4H-thiopyrans after spontaneous dehydrogenation of the initially formed [4 + 2] cycloadducts. In general, the yields of the isolated products were high. With 5-chloro-10-hydroxy-1,4-anthraquinone, the thia-Diels–Alder reaction occurred with complete regioselectivity. In the case of the reaction of vitamin K3 (menadione) with diphenylthiochalcone, the initial cycloadduct was isolated in 37% yield

Differences in Self-Reported Somatic Anxiety Symptoms in Rural and Urban Older Adults

The purpose of the study was to examine differences in self-reported anxiety symptoms between older adults living in rural and urban areas. Past research has suggested that stigma of mental illness and the higher prevalence of medical conditions in older adults may affect the presentation of their anxiety symptoms. Further, research suggests that urban populations should display more cognitive symptoms of anxiety, while rural populations should express more somatic symptoms. The reasoning is that due to stigma involving mental health and lower education in rural areas, individuals will be more prone to somaticize their symptoms. One hundred forty-seven older individuals were recruited from senior centers located in urban and rural areas, as classified objectively by Rural-Urban Codes. The subjects were asked to fill out two questionnaires that examine cognitive and somatic symptoms of anxiety, the Trimodal Anxiety Questionnaire (TAQ) and State-Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety (STICSA). The primary hypothesis that rural older individuals would endorse more somatic symptoms on self-report measures of anxiety than urban older individuals was partially supported. Participants from rural areas scored significantly higher on the TAQ somatic subscale than did urban individuals, but no differences in STICSA somatic subscale scores emerged between the two groups. The secondary hypothesis which examined a difference in expression of cognitive symptoms as measured by TAQ and STICSA cognitive subscales was not supported. However, the results raise the possibility that anxiety may be expressed differently between older adults in rural and urban areas, and therefore health service providers may consider unexplained somatic symptoms as potential indicators of anxiety in rural older adults

Zastosowanie metody SERVPERF w ocenie jakości usług rekreacyjnych ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem usług świadczonych przez parki wodne

The aim of the research is to determine whether SERVPERF method used to assess the quality of various services is an appropriate method for analyzing the quality of services provided by the water parks. Among the publications as sources of knowledge in this subject area are the following: Service Marketing and Management [Gilmore, 2003], Measuring Service Quality: SERVQUAL vs. SERVPERF Scales [Jain and Gupta 2004], Application of SERVPERV to assess customer satisfaction [Kucińska and Kołosowski, 2009], Models and methods for measuring the service quality [Stoma, 2012]. Finding the right method that will be used to assess the quality of recreation services is important because it will allow the smooth conduct of such research, and consequently give opportunities to improve the quality of those services, especially now, when we notice a sharp increase in their number, as well as expanding their circle of interested consumers.Celem badań jest sprawdzenie, czy metoda SERVPERF, służąca do oceny jakości usług, jest odpowiednia do analizowania jakości usług rekreacyjnych. Wśród publikacji stanowiących źródło wiedzy w tym obszarze należy wymienić: Service Marketing and Management [Gilmore 2003], Zastosowanie metody SERVPERF do oceny zadowolenia klienta [Kucińska, Kołosowski 2009], Modele i metody pomiaru jakości usług [Stoma 2012]. Poszukiwanie właściwej metody oceny jakości usług rekreacyjnych jest ważne, gdyż pozwoli na sprawne przeprowadzanie takich badań, a w konsekwencji da możliwości poprawy jakości tych usług

The quest for "diagnostically lossless" medical image compression using objective image quality measures

Given the explosive growth of digital image data being generated, medical communities worldwide have recognized the need for increasingly efficient methods of storage, display and transmission of medical images. For this reason lossy image compression is inevitable. Furthermore, it is absolutely essential to be able to determine the degree to which a medical image can be compressed before its “diagnostic quality” is compromised. This work aims to achieve “diagnostically lossless compression”, i.e., compression with no loss in visual quality nor diagnostic accuracy. Recent research by Koff et al. has shown that at higher compression levels lossy JPEG is more effective than JPEG2000 in some cases of brain and abdominal CT images. We have investigated the effects of the sharp skull edges in CT neuro images on JPEG and JPEG 2000 lossy compression. We provide an explanation why JPEG performs better than JPEG2000 for certain types of CT images. Another aspect of this study is primarily concerned with improved methods of assessing the diagnostic quality of compressed medical images. In this study, we have compared the performances of structural similarity (SSIM) index, mean squared error (MSE), compression ratio and JPEG quality factor, based on the data collected in a subjective experiment involving radiologists. An receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Kolmogorov-Smirnov analyses indicate that compression ratio is not always a good indicator of visual quality. Moreover, SSIM demonstrates the best performance. We have also shown that a weighted Youden index can provide SSIM and MSE thresholds for acceptable compression. We have also proposed two approaches of modifying L2-based approximations so that they conform to Weber’s model of perception. We show that the imposition of a condition of perceptual invariance in greyscale space according to Weber’s model leads to the unique (unnormalized) measure with density function ρ(t) = 1/t. This result implies that the logarithmic L1 distance is the most natural “Weberized” image metric. We provide numerical implementations of the intensity-weighted approximation methods for natural and medical images

Thermal [2+2]-cycloadditions of diphenylketene with aryl- and hetaryl-substituted thioketones

The reaction of diphenylketene (1) with aryl- and hetaryl-substituted thioketones (2) gave the corresponding 3,3,4,4-tetraarylthietan-2-ones (3) in good yields. Remarkably, the reactions with bis-hetaryl-substituted thioketones occurred significantly faster compared with those involving the bis-aryl-substituted thioketones. The structure of compound 3c has been established by X-ray crystallography

The response of cucumber plants (Cucumis sativus L.) to the application of PCB-contaminated sewage sludge and urban sediment

Background The increasing production of sewage sludge (SS) engenders the problem of its responsible utilization and disposal. Likewise, urban sediments (SED) are deposited at the bottom of urban reservoirs and sedimentation ponds, and these require periodical dredging and utilization. However, while the SS and SED deposits often contain nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus; however, they also contain a variety of hazardous compounds including heavy metals, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) and microbial pollutants. Fortunately, some species of Cucurbitaceae can accumulate high levels of POPs, such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), in their tissues. Methods SS was collected from the Lodz Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant and SED from the Sokołówka Sequential Biofiltration System. The SS and SED samples were added to soil in flower pots at three concentrations (1.8 g, 5.4 g and 10.8 g per flower pot), and one pot was left as an unamended control (C). Soil PCB concentrations were determined before cucumber planting, and after five weeks of growth. Also, total soluble protein, total chlorophyll content, chlorophyll a/b ratio and degree of lipid peroxidation (TBARS) were examined in the leaves of the cucumber plants (Cucumis sativus L.) cv. Cezar after five weeks. Antioxidative response was assessed by ascorbate peroxidase (APx) and catalase (CAT) assay. Results The initial PCB concentration in soil after application of SS or SED was dependent on the applied dose. After five weeks, PCB concentration fell significantly for all samples and confirmed that the dose of SS/SED had a strong effect. Soil remediation was found to be more effective after SS application. Total soluble protein content in the cucumber leaf tissues was dependent on both the type and the dose of the applied amendments, and increased with greater SS doses in the soil. The total chlorophyll content remained unchanged, and the chlorophyll a/b ratio was slightly elevated only after the application of the highest SS and SED dose. The use of SS and SED did not significantly affect TBARS content. APx activity fell after SS or SED application; however, CAT activity tended to increase, but only in the leaves of plants grown in SS-amended soil. Discussion The cultivation of cucumber plants reduces PCB concentration in soil amended with SS or SED; however, this effect is more evident in the case of SS. SS application also induced more intensive changes in the activity of enzymes engaged in antioxidative response and oxidative stress markers in plant tissues than SED. The levels of PCB in the SS may have triggered a more severe imbalance between pro- and antioxidative reactions in plants. Cucumber plants appear to be resistant to the presence of toxic substances in SS and SED, and the addition of SS and SED not only acts as a fertilizer, but also protects against accelerated aging