Mining activities from exploration to final material handling up to shipment pass through various stages where environmental pollution results. Mining method can and should be selected in such a way that their impact on individuals and environmental to be minimized. Until now, different mining specialists have carried out many studies on mining method selection. Unfortunately neither of previous approaches takes into account of the environmental consideration and methodology for assessment of environmental impacts criterion. This paper discusses environmental impacts of mining operations associated with different mining methods. For this purpose, the Folchi approach was modified for environmental impact assessment which associates the mining methods inherently and developed of a procedure to assist a selecting of mining method. Firstly, the general and explanatory information about effects of mining on the environmental pollution are given in the paper. Moreover field and purposes of the study are introduced. The paper presents an environmental assessment for different mining methods. And, secondly, the impacts of each mining methods on environment are focused and discussed. Finally, some concluding remarks are made and the related applications for the mining method selection are discussed by using in a case study. As the main advantage, this new algorithm takes several environmental issues and their interaction takes into consideration for environmental assessment of a mining method selection.

Open pit mining has severe environmental impacts on the environment of mining region. Mined land reclamation procedure in open pit mining contains numerous activities in order to prevent, monitor, control reduce environmental impacts of a project from exploration stage to exploitation, to mine closure and beyond. After mine closure, a permanent Post Mining Land Use (PMLU) should be implemented as an appropriate choice for use of different sections of mined land in an open pit mine. Mined land in open pit mining comprise different sections as pit(s), waste dump(s), tailing pond(s), roads, areas for on site facilities and free land zones which are not mined. The selected PMLU for each section of mined land as the most appropriate alternative based on the different points of view is presented as Optimum Post Mining Land Use (OPMLU). OPMLU for each section of mined land and the specifications of mine site are the most decisive parameters which affect the quality and volume of mine closure procedure, reclamation process and their costs. Furthermore, to define Ultimate Pit Limit (UPL) in open pit mining, consideration of mine closure and reclamation costs is essential as other costs of a mining project. Therefore, defining OPMLU for each section of mined land is essential within planning phase of an open pit mining project. In this paper the applicable alternatives of PMLU, the effective criteria, attributes and sub-attributes for defining OPMLU are presented for pit area amongst different sections of mined land. Pit area amongst different sections of mined land has more significant effects on the adjacent environment and also on defining OPMLU for the other sections of mined land. As there are several alternatives of PMLU, several criteria, attributes and sub-attributes for defining OPMLU, Multi Attribute Decision Making (MADM) methods are efficient techniques to define OPMLU for pit area. Fuzzy sets use a spectrum of numbers instead of using absolute numbers. As well, the nature of the effective parameters for defining OPMLU is same as Fuzzy numbers including incremental changes without definite limits thus the use of Fuzzy MADM modeling can produce more reliable results than the other techniques. As pair-wise comparisons and judgments through Fuzzy numbers have proper consistency with the nature of the effective parameters for defining OPMLU accordingly, a model is developed to attain OPMLU for pit area through Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Processing (FAHP). As a case study the model was implemented in Sungun copper mine in Northwest of Iran. Lumber production was defined as OPMLU for the pit area in this mine. It is finally concluded that using the developed model, OPMLU is defined for pit area as a key parameter to estimate reclamation costs in planning phase of an open pit mining project.

The corporate cost of capital is used by valuators to discount future flows of income from an entity in order to derive a present-day, forward-looking value of that entity. The cost of capital is therefore determined as the weighted cost of the various sources of funding, being typically equity, debt and preference instruments. The tricky and important part is estimating the cost of equity, which usually needs the application of finance models. The study on the texts on mineral valuation or mineral project evaluation demonstrates that the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a general model for estimating the cost of equity. However, according to shortfalls and problems relating to it a relatively similar and simpler model i.e. the single-index market model is proposed. The single index market model is an important tool in contemporary research in finance. Much of the importance of the model follows from its 'beta' parameter which, ideally, measures the sensitivity of returns on a security to changes in a market model. To estimate the cost of equity of the mining and cement companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) The single-index market model is selected because of the shortfalls and problems of the CAPM as well as the lack of commercial services for determining the market premium. The regression analysis as well as the statistical analysis is carried out using Excel spreadsheet. The statistic significance of the model is tested using t and F test statistics. The results showed that the independent variable (the rate of return on the market index) has a genuine effect on the dependent variable (the rate of return for the stock) and there is a statistically significant linear relationship between the two variables at significance level of 5%. Finally, the cost of equity formining and cement companies is estimated 25.0% and 31.0% respectively. Knowing the cost of equity, calculating the discount rate will not be very difficult.

The paper presents a global perspective of the current technologies used for steel production and the steel markets. The iron and steel industry is a very complex sector that is strongly related with the rest of the economy due to the importance of steel products for industries such as construction, automotive, and other manufacturing sectors. Moreover, the iron and steel industry demands significant amounts of raw materials and energy, and most companies producing raw materials are located remote from the areas of highest steel demand. In consequence, both steel products and inputs are traded internationally (mostly by sea) and in large quantities, what additionally complicates analyses of the iron and steel industry. Steel prices depend on several variables, and there is not a single price for steel since there is a great variety of steel products traded. Those prices depend on supply and demand interaction (between steel producers and consumers, but also on interaction with other industries competing for the same inputs), and on transport conditions. As concerns the ownership structure, the steel industry consists of some large firms that operate globally and produce significant output, and many small firms that operate at a lesser scale. Recently, some of those firms have consolidated into large multinationals (such as ArcelorMittal, formed in 2006 by the merger of Arcelor and Mittal Steel, Arcelor being the result of the previous merger of Aceralia (ES), Usinor (FR), and Arbed (LX) in 2002). The results of this article form the basis for further long- and mid-term analyses of the development of the global steel industry. The main conclusion of the paper is that any future analysis of the iron and steel industry should be based on quantitative modelling tools that: (i) properly capture the technological diversity of the industry and the key features of the supply chain, (ii) are able to consider the strategic behaviour of all the key players of the industry, and (iii) consider all those factors at the global scale.

The safe environmental disposal of sulphide-rich copper/zine mine tailings is fast becoming a major economic factor in determining the profitability of mining operations. There have been new approaches and better technologies practised in the recent years which allow the mining industries to reduce and/or eliminate the environmental impacts of harmful mine tailings. One of these approaches is the use of high-density paste backfill (HDPB) which is consisting mainly of a mix of solid particles (with the cement) and water, containing between 70% and 85% by dry weight of solids. The increased use of HDPB has improved the reliability, and has reduced the cost of the preparation and transportation systems. This paper focuses on the potential environmental benefits of using the HDPB when tailings are acid generating, and also provides a case study conducted in an underground copper/zinc mine in northeast Turkey in order to illustrate these benefits.

Acid mine drainage (AMD) is widespread environmental problem associated with both working and abandoned mining operation, resulting from the microbial oxidation of pyrite in presence of water and air, to form an acidic solution containing metal ions. The present study aims to adjust low pH, remove iron, manganese and sulphate from AMD generated at open pit Jiří and depth Jiří, Sokolovská uhelná, Czech Republic. The local AMD is very problematic due to its composition and process taking place in the Water Preparing Plant Svatava (WPPS), where only pH value is adjusted and mainly high concentration of iron and suspended solids are removed.

The paper presents an impact of the metallurgical wastes dumping site on the following parts of the environment: air, soil and surface waters. Some of the methods used to prevent wastes interactions were showed. The results of the metallurgical wastes leachate samples research, in which toxic metal ions have been found, are presented results of examinations performed on water extracts derived from two types of metallurgical wastes were given. The chemical analysis of water extracts indicate exceeded concentration of toxic metals, such as: lead, arsenic, barium and others. Preliminary results of some metals elimination from the water extracts with PUROLITE ion-exchangers were also presented. The utilised acidous cationit with Na+ groups exchanges the Ba2+ ions in almost 90%, similar to S 930 ionit with chelating groups (Table 5 and 7). Whereas the anionit with hydroxyl groups removes the arsenic ions(V) from the solution with the 60% efficacy (Table 7).

A large amount of solid and liquid wastes produced by mines and mills each year needs to be managed and minimized by alternative disposal methods like paste and dry stack. Increasingly strict environmental legislation and cost competitiveness also dictate the utilization of technically suitable, economically viable, environmentally acceptable, and socially responsible techniques. This paper reviews some of these techniques that could potentially reduce large volumes of mine wastes (with a focus on mine tailings and waste rocks) without causing significant environmental hazards. The new emerging techniques such as environmental desulphurization, covers built with sulphide-free tailings, co-disposal of tailings and waste rocks, geotextile tube dewatering, and use of tailings in the cement production and road construction for both industrial and environmental purposes are discussed in terms of waste minimization. The existing methods and approaches for efficient waste treatment and disposal are also discussed in this review paper.

Earth Pressure Balanced shields are currently the most utilized tunnelling machines throughout around the world. The possibility of using conditioning agents that change the mechanical and hydraulic behaviour of a soil, changing it into a plastic paste and thus permitting soil pressure applications at the tunnel face, is the key point to explain the increasing utilization of this technology. Despite its great importance, not much laboratory researches can be registered on soil conditioning, particularly for cohesionless soils. The conditioning criterion is usually defined on the basis of a trial-and-error procedure developed directly at the job sites. A test that is able to simulate the extraction of soil from the bulk chamber with the screw conveyor inclined upwards, as in real machines, can offer a quantitative indication of the conditioned soil behavior for EPB use. The characteristics of the device and the results obtained on many different types of soil are discussed in order to point out the great importance and quality of results that can be achieved using the proposed test device.

Participants in a conversational exchange may express their viewpoints in a number of ways, or put more precisely, they use various ways of expressing their viewpoints. When employing phrases such as It is likely that ..., perhaps ..., actually ..., it is possible that..., and I think that ..., etc., speakers modify the meaning, or the illocutionary force, of the utterances they make. This feature, which has been called ‘modality’, is present, among others, in the genre of political interview and serves various functions. The present contribution offers an inquiry into the linguistic means that politicians utilize to modify their involvement in, or their detachment from, the proposition and in this way they alter the meaning of their statements.

The following article deals with the language of emails. Of particular interest with regard to the linguistic features of emails is the fading distinction between the written medium and the oral conception. In order to receive a valid picture of the language of emails it is necessary to distinguish between formal and private emails (content wise). For this purpose, a corpus of selected emails has been compiled to illustrate language change in concrete examples of German emails. In this article examples of that email corpus have been selected to serve as underpinnings for the argumentations in this paper. Special attention is paid to the fading case marking on nouns, emoticons and syntax. With regard to syntax, the position of the lexical verb in subordinate clauses has been analyzed since in oral language it is often observed that even in a subordinate clause where verb-last is to be expected, we encounter verb-second. These are all indices of a more orally conceptualized language in medially written emails.

The main goal of this article is to describe the occurrence of the verb talk in con-temporary academic spoken English. The analysis proceeds along semantic, syntactic and pragmatic paths, with a focus on accounting for the functions performed by talk in academic spoken English. The occurrence of talk was investigated in small and large lectures in the MICASE corpus, with corpus linguistics constituting the major methodological tool. This article is addressed to linguists, students of linguistics and English philology, as well as to all scholars whose interests revolve around academic English.

Simultaneous interpreting is believed to be the most constrained type of translational activity. Constraints that distinguish simultaneous from other modes of interpreting (i.e. consecutive and liaison), and their written counterpart are manifold. The factors most often referred to in literature are: substantial temporal pressure and limited short-term or working memory capacity. Moreover, owing to virtual simultaneity of the input reception and output production, an interpreter’s receiver and sender roles over-lap in time. Another major problem is the lack of revision phase – an interpreter’s ou-tput is always the fi rst and the only draft of the text. Numerous accounts also stress the potentially adverse effects of the linearity constraint (e.g. Hatim and Mason 1997, Set-ton 1999), an issue we shall explore in the present paper. The discussion is set within the framework of Hatim and Mason’s model of textuality domains in interpreting.

It is undisputable that the James Bond movies constitute the longest and the most successful series in the history of cinema. The titles of particular movies may be treated as specific brand names contributing to the commercial success of the fi lms. Successful brands, in turn, are developed and evaluated with the participation of linguists. The article analyses them from the perspective of the linguistic features of a successful brand name. The analysis focuses on the relationship between the titles and the film plot. It also covers the identification of the lexical and grammatical features of the titles. The author will endeavour to prove that linguistic features have played a vital role in the creation and the promotion of the 007 myth.

The discourse of advertising offers an environment conducive to the exploitation of novelty in language. Novelty can be conceptualised as an opposite of salience (Giora, 2003), being also a graded feature. Giora claims that there exists a specific level of novelty, which evokes pleasurable experience in recipients. She proposes Optimal Innovation Hypothesis, which may be implied in the investigation of various types of discourse marked with high originality. The paper reports on two studies. The initial one, described in Wojtaszek (2011), focused on the appreciation of three alternative versions of Polish and British advertising slogans, while the subsequent one is the attempt to find a relationship between the previous fi ndings and the degree of legibility of the investigated texts. In the appreciation task the plain formulations received the lowest scores, followed by the highly innovative slogans, with the optimally innovative formulations ranking highest. In the task where evaluation of clarity was performed, the plain formulations turned out to be the easiest, the optimally innovative slogans were a bit more diffi cult, and the highly innovative ones the least conspicuous. A number of interesting dependencies were also found, suggesting further developments for the future.

The paper focuses on the semantic analysis of lexical borrowings of English origin used in informal spoken Polish. The study is based on the corpus, collected and analyzed by the present author. First, general information is given about the corpus, followed by the description of the methodological problems associated with studying lexical loans in spoken language. The main part of the paper focuses on the description of the loans found in the corpus. Special attention is paid to the newest borrowings, not noted in the dictionaries of Polish and/or dictionaries of foreign terms.

The aim of the paper is to explore the process of r obstruentisation which can be found in Polish in the ‘trapped’ context, i.e. between two obstruents or at the end of the word after an obstruent. More specifi cally, in order to explain the mechanics of the [r] > [/] shift, the author looks at the phenomenon of sonorant devoicing and some historical facts concerning the development of r. Since r obstruentisation can also be found in a closely related Czech, the data from both languages are confronted and discussed. The solution offered here is based on the analysis of w obstruentisation proposed by Cyran and Nisson (1998).

In our paper we discuss the development of analytical/periphrastic structures in Spa-nish such as the periphrastic passive voice, the periphrastic comparison of the adjec-tictive, and the periphrastic future tense. Moreover, we discuss the process of phonetic attrition within the noun paradigm and the development of the SVO word order from the SOV one. We take into consideration a stretch of time that starts in the pre-Proto-Indoeuropean period and ends in the period of Modern Spanish. One of our conclu-sions is that the development of analytical structures is part of a cyclical process.

The meaning of temporal distributiveness occurs either in situations in which a habi-tual activity is correlated with the recurrent periods of time, or in situations in which the recurrent periods of time are accompanied by an activity. The proposed framework is yet another contribution to a series of papers exploring temporal constructions in Polish that express the meaning of distributiveness. It focuses on the analysis of con-structions with a noun phrase including “the instrumental case without a preposition”, such as uczyć się nocami, which are exponents of the distributive time proper.

Bilingualism has long been observed in Silesia, a part of Poland which lies on the border between three cultures and languages: Polish, Czech and German. Some lin-guists consider Silesian one of the Polish dialects, others think it should be treated as a separate language. During the communist times the inhabitants of Upper Silesia were discouraged from using the local dialect at school or in public institutions. The situation has changed a lot since 1989 with the promotion of regional studies. Short characteristics of Silesian will be presented in the fi rst part of the paper.The main part of the project presents the results of a questionnaire which focuses on young people’s attitudes towards Silesian. The respondents (100 Polish students of English philology) fall into two groups – half of them identify themselves with the region and the other half do not. How many respondents speak Silesian? Where do they use it and how do they evaluate it? What is the linguistic stereotype of a person living in Upper Silesia? These are just a few questions that suggest themselves in the context of the study.

With a plethora of factors at work blurring the notoriously tenuous distinction between active and passive interpretations of verb constructions, one might with good reason express doubt as to whether establishing hard and fast principles for differentiating them is at all a sensible task. After a brief survey of passivum tantum -and basically passive verbs, as well as of chameleon-like, statal and dynamic passives, the author of the present contribution takes it upon herself to closer investigate the verbal or adjectival status exhibited by a series of -ed forms – as cited by various linguists (Stein, Quirk et al, Downing & Locke, Dixon) – with a view to advancing a more rigorous classifi cation of -ed for-ms based on the syntactico-semantic description of their individual behaviour in the various combinations analysed. The table submitted shows -ed forms located on an imaginary scale spanning passivehood from bona fide dynamic passives to copular complementation, with four further partitions in between. In the concluding section the author further glosses the subcategorization proposed, in that she provides the semantico-pragmatic motivation underlying the rather difficult choices made in the process.