The purpose of the paper is to analyze the positioning of Ukraine in the global indices of innovative development and competitiveness, to evaluate the indicators of innovation activity and, based on the outcomes of the research, to determine the place of Ukraine in the global innovation space. The dynamics of innovation activity on an international scale based on the consolidated indicators of the Global Innovation Index are presented. Ukraine’s position in it and progress in achieving goals to better understand the processes that stimulate or constrain innovation are determined. Econometric methods to generalize the positioning of Ukraine in the global innovation space and the DEA method to study the relative individual effectiveness of the innovation environment and innovation activities in Europe are used.

The article presents relationship between history and management. Methodological inspirations between these disciplines have been shown and also the achievements carried out within the history of business and organizational theory have been described. The author has characterized the “historical turn” in organizational researches in the 1990s of XX century. In the subsequent part of the article, three methodological approaches have been characterized, namely: narrative research and storytelling, business history, and historical perspective in organizational research. The achievements of Polish researchers in the distinguished areas of research were taken into account. At the end, barriers to greater interest of using the historical perspective in the research of organizations, conducted by Polish researchers, have been presented. They are as follows: small share of historical knowledge in the education of management adepts, domination of a historical paradigms in organization and management research, the lack of continuity in the development of Polish organizations and scientific reflection on organizations and management in the 20th century and low historical awareness of Polish entrepreneurs and managers.

The presented review discusses recent research on human echolocation by blind and sighted subjects, aiming to classify and evaluate the methodologies most commonly used when testing active echolocation methods. Most of the reviewed studies compared small groups of both blind and sighted volunteers, although one in four studies used sighted testers only. The most common trial procedure was for volunteers to detect or localize static obstacles, e.g., discs, boards, or walls at distances ranging from a few centimeters to several meters. Other tasks also included comparing or categorizing objects. Few studies utilized walking in real or virtual environments. Most trials were conducted in natural acoustic conditions, as subjects are marginally less likely to correctly echolocate in anechoic or acoustically dampened rooms. Aside from live echolocation tests, other methodologies included the use of binaural recordings, artificial echoes or rendered virtual audio. The sounds most frequently used in the tests were natural sounds such as the palatal mouth click and finger snapping. Several studies have focused on the use of artificially generated sounds, such as noise or synthetic clicks. A promising conclusion from all the reviewed studies is that both blind and sighted persons can efficiently learn echolocation.

This is a review article about historical evidences and new methodological proposals presented at the Congress Polish Historians in Olsztyn (2009), edited by Jolanta Kolbuszewska and Rałaf Stobiecki.

The Author discussed in his article the problem of ethic foundations of promoters of psychohistory. He argues that psychotherapeutic inclinations of scholars resulted in the alienation of this approach within historical sciences, what — in the end — did not prevent psychohistorians from becoming active outside the closed circle of the discipline.

The Author discussed in his article the problem of ethic foundations of promoters of psychohistory. He, argues that psychotherapeutic inclinations of scholars resulted in the alienation of this approach within historical sciences, what - in the end - did not prevent psychohistorians from becoming active outside the closed circle of the discipline.

The article discusses the issue of the increase of young researcher's self-awareness. Author points out that young scientists have no awareness of their ignorance. They have insufficient need of self-criticism. The thought „it is possible that I don’t know” is the condition of the increase of self-awareness and courage to be criticized.

The phenolic compounds are known as priority pollutants, even in low concentrations, as a result of their toxicity and non-biodegradability. For this reason, strict standards have been established for them. In addition, chlorophenols are placed in the 38th to 43th in highest priority order of toxic pollutants. As a consequence, contaminated water or wastewaters with phenolic compounds have to be treated before discharging into the receiving water. In this study, Response Surface Methodology (RSM) has been used in order to optimize the effect of main operational variables responsible for the higher 4-chlorophenol removal by Activated Carbon-Supported Nanoscale Zero Valent Iron (AC/NZVI). A Box-Behnken factorial Design (BBD) with three levels was applied to optimize the initial concentration, time, pH, and adsorbent dose. The characterization of adsorbents was conducted by using SEM-EDS and XRD analyses. Furthermore, the adsorption isotherm and kinetics of 4-chlorophenol on AC and AC/NZVI under various conditions were studied. The model anticipated 100% removal efficiency for AC/NZVI at the optimum concentration (5.48 mg 4-chlorophenol/L), pH (5.44), contact time (44.7 min) and dose (0.65g/L). Analysis of the response surface quadratic model signified that the experiments are accurate and the model is highly significant. Moreover, the synthetic adsorbent is highly efficient in removing of 4-chlorophenol.

This research was conducted to study the adsorption of ammonium ions onto pumice as a natural and low-cost adsorbent. The physico-chemical properties of the pumice granular were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Modeling and optimization of a NH4+ sorption process was accomplished by varying four independent parameters (pumice dosage, initial ammonium ion concentration, mixing rate and contact time) using a central composite design (CCD) under response surface methodology (RSM). The optimum conditions for maximum removal of NH4+ (70.3%) were found to be 100 g, 20 mg/l, 300 rpm and 180 min, for pumice dosage, initial NH4+ ion concentration, mixing rate and contact time. It was found that the NH4+ adsorption on the pumice granular was dependent on adsorbent dosage and initial ammonium ion concentration. NH4+ was increased due to decrease the initial concentration of NH4 and increase the contact time, mixing rate and amount of adsorbent.

The paper presents the methodology for designing the teeth conjunction of planetary gears in the planetary roller screw mechanism. A function of the planetary gears is to synchronize an operation of rollers in order to avoid axial displacements. A condition of the correct operation is no axial movement of rollers in relation to the nut. The planetary gears are integral parts of rollers and therefore an operation of the gear transmissions has a direct impact on cooperation of the screw, rollers and the nut. The proper design of gear engagements is essential for reducing slippage on surfaces of the cooperating threaded elements. For this purpose, in a designing method, both the limitations of operation and kinematic conditions of rollers’ operation have to be taken into account.

The article aims to answer the question: what type of humor is the most used in times of crisis? First of all, however, one must realize that humorous discourse analysis is not the task of a single discipline. For this reason, the first part of the article presents the contributions of other scientific disciplines to the methodology used in this study.

The required rail straightness is achieved by straightening with roller straighteners. The consequence of the straightening operation is the introduction of residual stresses to the straightened rail. An excessive level of residual stresses accumulated in the rail during use in the track may lead to its damage or fracture. ArcelorMittal Poland S.A., in cooperation with Łukasiewicz Research Network – Institute for Ferrous Metallurgy, carried out a research project (POI R.01.02.00-00-0167/16) the aim of which was to reduce residual stresses in railway rails by changing the technological parameters of the straightening process. The results of the presented study relate to rails 60E1 and 60E2. The study includes the measurement, testing, calculations and analyses of the obtained results. The conducted research indicates the possibility of obtaining a low level of residual stress in the rails for a system consisting of a 7-roller vertical straightener and a 9-roller horizontal straightener by changing the roller settings, the shape of the rollers, the shape of the rail foot and its curvature.

The article discusses Nicholas Rescher’s metaphilosophical view of orientational pluralism. In his essay Philosophical Disagreement: An Essay towards Orientational Pluralism in Metaphilosophy Rescher explains a substantial difference between philosophy and science—namely, that philosophers—differently than scientists— continuously propose and undermine various solutions to the same old problems. In philosophy it is difficult to find any consensus or convergence of theories. According to Rescher, this pluralism of theoretical positions is caused by holding by philosophers different sets and hierarchies of cognitive values, i.e. methodological orientations. These orientations are chosen in virtue of some practical postulates, they are of axiological, normative, but not strictly theoretical character. Different methodological orientations yield different evaluations of philosophical theses and arguments. This article shows that Rescher’s account does not determine clearly acceptable cognitive values. If there are no clear criteria of evaluation of methodological orientations, then the described view seems to be identical to relativism adopting the everything goes rule. In addition, accepting orientational pluralism it is hard to avoid the conclusion that discussions between various philosophical schools are futile or can be reduced to non-rational persuasion.

Investigating human emotions empirically is still considered to be challenging, mostly due to the questionable validity of the results obtained when employing individual types of measures. Among the most frequently used methods to study emotional reactions are self-report, autonomic, neurophysiological, and behavioral measures. Importantly, previous studies on emotional responding have rarely triangulated the aforementioned research methods. In this paper we discuss main methodological considerations related to the use of physiological and self-report measures in emotion studies, based on our previous research on the processing of emotionally-laden narratives in the native and non-native language, where we employed the SUPIN S30 questionnaire as a self-report tool, and galvanic skin response (GSR) as a physiological measure (Jankowiak & Korpal, 2018). The findings revealed a more pronounced reaction to stimuli presented in the native relative to the non-native language, which was however reflected only in GSR patterns. The lack of correlation between GSR and SUPIN scores might have resulted from a number of methodological considerations, such as social desirability bias, sensitive questions, lack of emotional self-awareness, compromised ecological validity, and laboratory anxiety, all of which are thoroughly discussed in the article.

Removal of mercury(II) (Hg(II)) from aqueous media by a new biosorbent was carried out. Natural Polyporus squamosus fungus, which according to the literature has not been used for the purpose of Hg(II) biosorption before, was utilized as a low-cost biosorbent, and the biosorption conditions were analyzed by response surface methodology (RSM). Medium parameters which were expected to affect the biosorption of Hg(II) were determined to be initial pH, initial Hg(II) concentration (Co), temperature (T (°C)), and contact time (min). All experiments were carried out in a batch system using 250 mL fl asks containing 100 mL solution with a magnetic stirrer. The Hg(II) concentrations remaining in fi ltration solutions after biosorption were analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). Based on the RSM results, the optimal conditions were found to be 5.30, 47.39 mg/L, 20°C and 254.9 min for pH, Co, T (°C), and contact time, respectively. Under these optimal conditions, the maximum biosorbed amount and the biosorption yield were calculated to be 3.54 mg/g and 35.37%, respectively. This result was confi rmed by experiments. This result shows that Polyporus squamosus has a specifi c affi nity for Hg ions. Under optimal conditions, by increasing the amount of Polyporus squamosus used, it can be concluded that all Hg ions will be removed

The AISI 430 stainless steel with ferritic structure is a low cost material for replacing austenitic stainless steel because of its higher yield strength, higher ductility and also better polarisation resistance in harsh environments. The applications of AISI 430 stainless steel are limited due to insignificant ductility and some undesirable changes of magnetic properties of its weld area with different microstructures. In this research, a study has been done to explore the effects of parameters of laser welding process, namely, welding speed, laser lamping current, and pulse duration, on the coercivity of laser welded AISI 430 stainless steel. Vibrating sample magnetometery has been used used to measure the values of magnetic properties. Observation of microstructural changes and also texture analysis were implemented in order to elucidate the change mechanism of magnetic properties in the welded sections. The results indicated that the laser welded samples undergo a considerable change in magnetic properties. These changes were attributed to the significant grain growth which these grains are ideally oriented in the easiest direction of magnetization and also formation of some non-magnetic phases. The main effects of the above-mentioned factors and the interaction effects with other factors were evaluated quantitatively. The analysis considered the effect of lamping current (175-200 A), pulse duration (10-20 ms) and travel speed (2-10 mm/min) on the coercivity of laser welded samples.

In recent years, due to the growing importance of eco-design and tightening EU regulations entrepreneurs are required to implement activities related to environmental protection. It influences the development of methods and tools enabling the implementation of eco-design into practice, which are increasingly used by modern information technologies. They are based on intelligent solutions that allows them to better match the requirements of designers and allows for the automation of processes, and in some cases they are able to do the work themselves, replacing designers. Details are useful in areas that require calculations, comparisons and making choices, which is the process of eco-design. The paper describes methodology of pro-ecological product design oriented towards recycling, based on agent technology, enables the design of environmentally friendly products including recycling. The description of the methodology was preceded by a literature analysis on the characteristics of tools supporting eco-design and the process of its development was presented. The proposed methodology can be used at the design stage of devices to select the best product in terms of ecology. It is based on the original set of recycling indicators, used to evaluate the recycling of the product, ensure the ability to operate in a distributed design environment, and the use of data from various CAD systems, allows full automation of calculations and updates (without user participation).

The article presents the effect of rotational and travelling speed and down force on the spindle torque acting on the tool in Friction Stir Processing (FSP) process. The response surface methodology (RSM) was applied to find a dependence combining the spindle torque acting on the tool with the rotational speed, travelling speed and the down force. The linear and quadratic models with interaction between parameters were used. A better fitting was achieved for a quadratic model. The studies have shown that the increase in rotational speed causes a decrease in the torque while the increase in travelling speed and down force causes an increase in the torque. The tests were conducted on casting aluminium alloy AlSi9Mg. Metallography examination has revealed that the application of FSP process results in a decrease in the porosity in the modified material and microstructure refining in the stir zone. The segregation of Si and Fe elements was evident in the parent material, while in the friction stir processed area this distribution was significantly uniform.

Computational modeling plays an important role in the methodology of contemporary science. The epistemological role of modeling and simulations leads to questions about a possible use of this method in philosophy. Attempts to use some mathematical tools to formulate philosophical concepts trace back to Spinoza and Newton. Newtonian natural philosophy became an example of successful use of mathematical thinking to describe the fundamental level of nature. Newton’s approach has initiated a new scientific field of research in physics and at the same time his system has become a source of new philosophical considerations about physical reality. According to Michael Heller, some physical theories may be treated as the formalizations of philosophical conceptions. Computational modeling may be an extension of this idea; this is what I would like to present in the article. I also consider computational modeling in philosophy as a source of new philosophical metaphors; this idea has been proposed in David J. Bolter’s conception of defining technology. The consideration leads to the following conclusion: In the methodology of philosophy significant changes have been taking place; the new approach do not make traditional methods obsolete, it is rather a new analytical tools for philosophy and a source of inspiring metaphors.

Previous onomastic research into proper names in the Internet has typically been based on traditional and classic onomastic methodology. As a result, researchers have focused on the classification of names, the analysis of their structure, etymology, or function. In this paper, this traditional approach is compared with the new possibilities afforded by medioonomastics, a fast growing method which is combining the onomastic tradition and mediolinguistics. This paper provides only an outline and is only preliminary, although some analysis is also presented. It reviews onomastic techniques and the medioonomastic analysis of the names that function within the various types of texts in the Internet. Some examples are taken from Internet memes, as well as from Facebook profiles. One of these names is the Polish given name, Janusz, which is a brilliant example of the specific new functions, connotations and general semantic values generated by the Internet. This name has gained a new meaning: ‘a typical Polish man’, ‘unfashionable man’, ‘a redneck’. Another name is the title of the Facebook profile Chujowa Pani Domu, based on the TV-series Perfekcyjna Pani Domu, as a kind of semantic and pragmatic re-construction of the latter name. In the conclusion, the necessity of considering not only the type of object-named, but also the medium and especially the Internet, is emphasized. Such studies may offer a correct procedure for analysis which include the new medioonomastic methodology.

The study presents a concept of generation of micro-cracks (or cracks) in metal specimens in order to assess their material with respect to the thermal shock resistance. Both the method of conducting the experiment and the criteria of the assessment of the material resistance to the rapid temperature changes are discussed. The schematic diagram of the research stand used for repeated heating and rapid cooling of specimens, constructed in the Foundry Institute of the Częstochowa University of Technology, is presented. The proposed solution enables to maintain constant conditions of the experiment. The tests were held for flat specimens 70 mm long, 20 mm wide, and 5 mm thick, tapered over a distance of 15 mm towards both ends. The specimens were induction heated up to the specified temperature and then, in response to the signal produced by a pyrometer, dipped in the tank containing the cooling medium. The thermal shock resistance of the material can be assessed on the basis of either the total length of the micro-cracks arisen at the tapered parts of a specimen after a specified number of heating-and-cooling cycles, or the number of such cycles prior to the total damage of a specimen, or else the number of thermal cycles prior to generation of the first crack. The study includes an exemplary view of the metal specimen after the thermal shock resistance tests, as well as the illustrative microstructure of the vermicular cast iron which reveals a crack propagating from the edge towards the core of the material.

In the search for the critical functions of theology, we can find a growing number of dilemmas, which come from the theology itself and from the modern knowledge about the world, which theology has to face, not only offering expected answers, but also formulating its own Christian doctrine proper for contemporary times and consistent with the Tradition of faith. The only way to present such a broad and difficult problem in a short paper is through a general perspective. The key to the systematization of the problem is by observing that the tasks of theology can be seen from four different perspectives, according to the distinction ad extra – ad intra. Astrong emphasis is put on the encounter between theology and science. The attempt to make predictions about the future is based on analysis of the contemporary situation in theology and on the extrapolation of existing trends for the near future.

The paper aims to determine the criteria and sub-criteria for evaluating the contractor’s performance and finalize a master list of the criteria and sub-criteria to be used for evaluating contractor’s performance with their respective weights. The method is incorporated in the framework proposed for the evaluation of the contractor’s performance during the execution phase. An exploratory study has been opted, using a structured, close-ended multiple-choice questionnaire survey approach. The questionnaire survey was conducted in two phases, i.e. validation survey, and reliability survey. Fifteen experts responded to the validation survey, and thirty experts to the reliability survey. The experts were from Government and public sectors in India, working at various senior levels. The weights of criteria and sub-criteria were calculated from data collected in the survey, relative importance was calculated through the relative importance index and criteria were ranked. The paper provides criteria and subcriteria which were finalized through a questionnaire survey by classification of criteria identified in literature and tender review. The respective weights were finalized, which can be measured while evaluating contractors’ performance. The weights assigned to criteria through the survey are; health and safety is 13.19%, followed by finance 11.93%, time 11.93%, quality 13.38%, client satisfaction 12.42%, environmental safety 12.32%, productivity 12.51% and regulation 12.32%. The paper provides the criteria and sub-criteria with their weights needed for evaluating the performance of contractors during the project execution phase. This research can lead to a culture of continuous measurement of performance for the satisfactory completion of projects.

Jolanta Kolbuszewska: Some words about the most recent russian textbook of theory and methodology of history. The article is a presentation of two russian textbook published in Moskwa.