Orwell w realu, czyli o systemie Echelon z perspektywy polskiego prawa

„Freedom and privacy ofcommunication is guaranteed. The restrictions may be imposed only in cases specified in the Act and in the manner specified therein.” This pronounced and clear declaration, being not only a legal guarantee is included in paragraph 49 of Constitution of the Republic of Poland. We look at it from the hindsight, which was created by a system of global invigilation of communication, not only electronic one, called Echelon. It was widely known before Edward Snowden was heard in Hong Kong. Echelon was talked, written about and discussed not only in European Parliament but also at other formal forum. Yet, in our country this phenomenon did not arouse much interest either of lawyers, ministers, senators, government or politicians. There is probably the first attempt of assessing the consequences of Echelon from the view of Polish law. We limit ourselves intentionally to the point which was reachable for everyone before Snowden. We believe that it has a particular meaning: it illustrates that in our country there is a dramatic implementation of the constitutional right to democratic rule of law. It makes us realize where we live and what we can

A clustering approach to detect faults with multi-component degradations in aircraft fuel systems

Accurate fault diagnosis and prognosis can significantly increase the safety and reliability of engineering systems and also reduce the maintenance costs. There is very limited relative research reported on the fault diagnosis of a complex system with multi-component degradation. The Complex Systems (CS) problem, which features multiple components simultaneously and nonlinearly interacting with each other and corresponding environment on multiple levels, has become an essential challenge in system engineering. In CS, even a single component degradation could cause misidentification of the fault severity level and lead to serious consequences. This paper introduces a new test rig to simulate multi-component degradations of the aircraft fuel system. A data analysis approach based on machine learning classification of both the time and frequency domain features is then proposed to detect and identify the fault severity level of CS with multi-component degradation. Results show that a) the fault can be sensitively detected with an accuracy > 99%; b) the severity of fault can be identified with an accuracy of 100%

A machine learning-based clustering approach to diagnose multi-component degradation of aircraft fuel systems

Accurate fault diagnosis and prognosis can significantly reduce maintenance costs, increase the safety and availability of engineering systems that have become increasingly complex. It has been observed that very limited researches have been reported on fault diagnosis where multi-component degradation are presented. This is essentially a challenging Complex Systems problem where features multiple components interacting simultaneously and nonlinearly with each other and its environment on multiple levels. Even the degradation of a single component can lead to a misidentification of the fault severity level. This paper introduces a new test rig to simulate the multi-component degradation of the aircraft fuel system. A machine learning-based data analytical approach based on the classification of clustering features from both time and frequency domains is proposed. The scope of this framework is the identification of the location and severity of not only the system fault but also the multi-component degradation. The results illustrate that (a) the fault can be detected with accuracy > 99%; (b) the severity of fault can be identified with an accuracy of almost 100%; (c) the degradation level can be successfully identified with the R-square value > 0.9

Opioids in clinical practice

The treatment of pain improves quality of life. Opioids are commonly prescribed painkillers. The side effectsof opioids depend on the route of administration, dosage, drug metabolism, comorbid diseases and thepatient’s general condition. Despite many beneficial effects, opioids can lead to increased mortality in heartfailure, myocardial infarction, pulmonary oedema, and COPD. This article reviews specific uses of opioidmedications. Opioids induce immunosuppression, and may undergo drug-drug interactions, especiallyduring polytherapy or polypragmasia

Decavanadate effects in biological systems

Vanadium biological studies often disregarded the formation of decameric vanadate species known to interact, in vitro, with high-affinity with many proteins such as myosin and sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium pump and also to inhibit these biochemical systems involved in energy transduction. Moreover, very few in vivo animal studies involving vanadium consider the contribution of decavanadate to vanadium biological effects. Recently, it has been shown that an acute exposure to decavanadate but not to other vanadate oligomers induced oxidative stress and a different fate in vanadium intracellular accumulation. Several markers of oxidative stress analyzed on hepatic and cardiac tissue were monitored after in vivo effect of an acute exposure (12, 24 h and 7 days), to a sub-lethal concentration (5 mM; 1 mg/kg) of two vanadium solutions (‘‘metavanadate’’ and ‘‘decavanadate’’). It was observed that ‘‘decavanadate’’ promote different effects than other vanadate oligomers in catalase activity, glutathione content, lipid peroxidation, mitochondrial superoxide anion production and vanadium accumulation, whereas both solutions seem to equally depress reactive oxygen species (ROS) production as well as total intracellular reducing power. Vanadium is accumulated in mitochondria in particular when ‘‘decavanadate’’ is administered. These recent findings, that are now summarized, point out the decameric vanadate species contributions to in vivo and in vitro effects induced by vanadium in biological systems

To lift up the hearts and as a warning - The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in chosen texts of polish and hungarian culture and aspects of public life of those countries.

W pierwszej części pracy przedstawiony został zarys historyczny i kulturowyRewolucji Węgierskiej z 1956 roku. Ze szczególną uwagą opisane są przyczyny społeczne iekonomiczne powstania. Pokrótce przedstawione zostały ważniejsze wydarzenia. Po opisierewolucji, wyszczególnione zostały jej skutki. Omówione zostały postaci, które stały sięsymbolami walki z reżimem komunistycznym. W drugiej części pracy zostały omówione teksty kultury, które odwołują się dorewolucji lub bezpośrednio ją opisują. Przedstawione są w każdym przypadku trzy przykładyz tekstów kultury węgierskiej oraz jeden tekst kultury polskiej, sygnalizujący sposóbprzedstawiania lub odnoszenia się do rewolucji w Polsce. Teksty kultury występujące w tejpracy to wiersze, literatura, filmy, fotografie oraz utwory muzyczne. Trzecia część pracy przedstawia upamiętnienia rewolucji w dzisiejszych mediach orazprzestrzeni publicznej. Praca skupia się na tym, jak na przestrzeni lat rewolucja była przedstawiana wtekstach kultury oraz jak nawiązywano do jej wydarzeń. Przedstawia również dzisiejszesposoby podtrzymywania pamięci o rewolucji w mediach i przestrzeni publicznej,z uwzględnieniem obchodów rocznicowych oraz miejsc pamięci.The first section of this paper describes both the cultural and historical outline of the1956 Hungarian Revolution. The socioeconomic causes were tackled with utmost attention.The focal points of the Revolution are described briefly. The aftermath of each of those pointsis listed as well. The ending portion of the first section of this paper contains profiles of themost important characters from the Revolution, who became symbols of fighting againstcommunism. The second section of this paper elaborates on texts of culture describing theHungarian Uprising. For every type of text of culture there are four examples, three fromHungarian and one from Polish culture. This is to drawing attention to how were these eventsreferred to, or described, in Polish culture. The types of texts of culture included in this paperare poems, other literature, film, photography, as well as music. The focus of the third and final section of this paper is to present how the HungarianRevolution is commemorated in the present day both in the media and in public spaces. This paper’s focus is not only on the ways of presenting the Hungarian Uprising incultural texts over the years but also on how the authors were referring to those events.Descriptions of many ways in which the Revolution is commemorated nowadays in the mediaand in public spaces (e.g. memorials and anniversary commemorations) are included in theending section of the paper

Exploration of Lean Management Methods Used in Shared Services Centers, Drivers and Barriers to Process Selection for Improvements in the Light of Risk Management and ESG Reporting

This paper aims to study how processes are selected for improvements in shared services centers (SSCs), and if the risk management aspect is considered during process improvements. Lean management has become a highly regarded platform for process improvement within organizations with the focus being on waste reduction and value added at the customer level. As a leading destination of SSCs, Poland has been seen implementing this approach since at least 2015 with the main benefit being cost reduction. This philosophy opens the door to identifying potential waste reduction and ongoing efficiencies of processes that have been migrated to SSCs. With the identification of the research need, firstly, a targeted literature review on tools and models of process selection for improvements was performed. The second step entails in-depth interviews with lean management experts, surveys with detailed questions in the area of lean management implementation, and finally a case study on measurements of testing the effectiveness of applying lean management methodology. The findings present drivers and barriers to selecting of processes subject to lean management. Although lean management activities are strongly supported by risk management experts, there is no synergy between the two streams causing the need for further research in SSCs