The proposed paper discusses the design and characterization of a soft miniature Magneto-Rheological (MR) shock absorber. In particular, the final application considered for the insertion of the designed devices is a controllable variable stiffness sole for patients with foot neuropathy. Such application imposes particularly challenging constraints in terms of miniaturization (cross-sectional area ≤ 1.5 cm2, height ≤ 25 mm) and high sustainable loads (normal loads up to 60 N and shear stresses at the foot/device interface up to 80 kPa) while ensuring moderate to low level of power consumption. Initial design considerations are done to introduce and justify the chosen novel configuration of soft shock absorber embedding a MR valve as the core control element. Successively, the dimensioning of two different MR valves typologies is discussed. In particular, for each configuration two design scenarios are evaluated and consequently two sets of valves satisfying different specifications are manufactured. The obtained prototypes result in miniature modules (external diam. ≤ 15 mm, overall height ≤ 30 mm) with low power consumption (from a minimum of 63 mW to a max. of 110 mW) and able to sustain a load up to 65 N. Finally, experimental sessions are performed to test the behaviour of the realized shock absorbers and results are presented.

This paper presents an algorithm for restoring telescope images corrupted by turbulence effects and readout noise of a telescope system in order to determine centroid positions of stars, especially the position of a reference star. A computation method employing an accurate centroid estimation algorithm reconstructing a point spread function (PSF) from the recorded astronomical images has been used. Minimisation of turbulence effects and telescope control system noise in long exposure images acquired and recorded by the ground telescope is proposed. As a solution of the distortion error a minimisation signal is dedicated to GoTo calibration procedures built in control mechanisms of the electromechanical telescope system. The proposed method has been verified in the Matlab environment for real deep sky images recorded by the ground telescope system.

In 2006 Maria Janion wrote in The Uncanny Slavdom that “the new narrative of the humanities can tell the story of our culture differentlyˮ. Since that time such 'new narratives' have multiplied literally right in front of our eyes. While in the late 2000s the existence of a distinct Slavic fantasy subgenre was a matter of controversy, hotly debated by both authors and academics, today its presence and popularity is too conspicuous to leave any room for doubt. Each year the market is flooded with dozens of new Slavic fantasy books, which are then discussed in countless blogs, vlogs, discussion groups, and podcasts. The growth of interest in Slavic fantasy is phenomenal and seems to be part of a larger trend gaining ground not just in Poland but also in other Slavic nations. This gives rise to a number of questions which this article tries to address: What is Slavic fantasy? What place does it occupy in modern popular culture? What effects, beneficial or less so, will it have?