Browse

The Black Sea is referred to as a continental or semi-enclosed sea being connected with the Mediterranean Sea by Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and with the Azov Sea by Kerch Strait. The volume of water exchanged with the Mediterranean Sea is modest; thus the waters under 100 m depth are known as anoxic, and a high concentration of H2S is present. Taking into account its particular situation is a piece of evidence that even small slicks of oil discharged from operational purposes or by accident seriously affect ...

Among different types of hazards associated with underground mining in Polish copper mines, one of the most dangerous is rock burst hazard. Having in mind that the depth of exploitation is getting deeper, this problem will likely get worse in the near future. This kind of hazard is connected inherently with seismic events. Controlled group blasting within a potentially unstable roof stratum is considered as an active method of rock burst prevention. A number of recorded seismic events can be clearly and directly e...

The basic influence is consisted from the value chain of products and services which is expanding globally. Business collaboration requires the security of electronic communications in an open and distributed environment. In this respect, electronic documents are required as proof of business communication, in the meantime requiring legal evidence or legal force. At present, even if electronic documents are properly communicated in commercial transactions, the final data about property transaction must be on paper...

The key objective of modern vision systems is the problem of a signal class determining since the signal features are completely determined by the type of underlying surface relative to which the observation is made. In spite of the fact that at present there are a huge number of analytic methods for the solving the indicated problem, in the vast majority of tasks based on natural images, capacities of solving it are characterized by the probabilities of erroneous and proper decisions. The exact analytic probabili...

There are many potential pollution sources for contamination of farmed tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) along with the production chain. Sex reverse hormone practices for production monosex tilapia is the dominant procedures done in the field. The efficiency of cultivation with brackish water was investigated in the base of tissue fine elements and fry production. Results showed that, no significant differences between harvested sex reverse females were found for different water resources. The cultured tissues of b...

In general, the impact of the construction material base on the cost of construction is questionable. Wooden houses are becoming more common because of meeting the sustainable construction aspects and thanks to shorter construction time compared to brick houses. In the Czech Republic, it is still questionable whether wooden houses also bring lower investment costs, as the wooden house market hasn?t fully developed yet. The aim of the article is to define the impact of the material base of the houses on the market ...

The research regarding some technological links took place in the Oravita Depression, located in south-western Romania, between 2016 and 2018. The records from the Oravita Meteorological Station show that the average annual rainfall in the area is 736 mm, and the average annual temperature is 10°C. The climate of this area falls within the climatic formula c.f.b.x. according to Koppen, namely in the moderate continental temperate climate. The soil type on which the experiments were performed was stagno-gleyic prel...

Potato is the world's fourth largest food crop, being cropped in 140 countries on an area of 19 million hectares, with a total annual production of 322 million tons and an average production of 40 tons per hectare. Perennial dicotyledonous weeds represent a real danger to potato culture because they cannot be controlled after the potato has emerged. Such weeds are: Canadian thistle (Cirsium arvense), field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis ) and hoary cress (Cardaria draba). Herbicides that are applied upon the soil ...

Since the 1990s Green Public Procurement (GPP) is a voluntary environmental policy promoting in EU low-impact goods and service markets; according to these more general objectives, contracting authorities should ?buy green? i. e. environmentally friendly products and services. This has been translated into a short-term objective: to reach over than 70% of recycled materials from C&D waste by 2020 (CCE No 397 of 16 June 2008). Within this European framework, each Member State has proposed its own vision/strategy, a...

CAD/CAE analysis of the work of a spring conical spacer in the ignition block of solid-fuel gas generator applied in oil fields to restore the flow rate (production) of the wells has been carried out. Three-dimensional models of the generator's elements were developed in the CAD software SolidWorks on the base of drawings of gas generator laboratory sample developed in D. Mendeleyev University of Chemical Technology of Russia (MUCTR). The purpose of the strength calculation and deformation analysis is the choice o...

Nowadays, it is important to pay attention to soil contamination with heavy metals, especially in agricultural soils, because heavy metals taken up by crop plants can affect human health. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of substrate contamination on cadmium and lead accumulation in field bean (Vicia faba L.) and to specify changes in root anatomical structures. The vegetation experiment was carried out under controlled conditions. Changes to the above mentioned parameters were investigated at 0...

The calcareous nannoplankton represents a group of major components of the oceanic phytoplankton, situated at the base of the trophic chain. The evolution pattern of these organisms is relevant in the past geological record and nowadays, for several research fields, such as: marine biology, marine geology, biogeochemistry, micropaleontology, biostratigraphy as well as paleogeographic and paleoclimatic reconstructions, including the paleoenvironmental ones. Taking into account that the calcareous nannoplankton spec...

A nationwide project is under taken since a few years with the purpose to upgrade the geodetic infrastructure by setting up a wide real-time GNSS/CORS (Global Navigation Satellite System/Continuously Operating Reference Stations) network. In this perspective, a study is achieved in the setting of this assignment with the purpose to select eligible sites of the network infrastructure. The technical selection criteria were based essentially on the assessment of GNSS data received by permanent sites under experiment....

The problem of intersection capacity is a constantly discussed topic in the field of traffic engineering. Uncontrolled intersections have the lowest capacity, roundabouts and controlled intersections follow, and grade-separated interchanges have the highest capacity. However, in many cases, a grade-separated interchange cannot be built (mainly for spatial or financial reasons). In these cases, it is necessary to look for solutions to increase the capacity of other types of intersections. The paper deals with capac...

In the paper has been analyzed the state of the tropical forests in Central African Region. The trends and causes of deforestation are revealed, and the associated decrease in the ecosystem function of tropical forests CO2 sequestration by atmosphere. Model calculations based on the Spatial Model of the Global Carbon Cycles in Atmosphere - Plants ? Soil System (APS) represent the response of vegetation to an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air and quantitatively determine the parameters of t...

The article deals with issues related to the use of a universal multi-subject mapping method belonging to the technology of visualization of educational information in the preparation of bachelors. The cartographic method of teaching is characteristic in that it allows you to visualize both the geographic proper and any simulated space, to investigate, first of all, its spatial structural patterns of the structure (the form often determines the content). In the process of learning, the use of the cartographic meth...

In order to protect the Belgian coast, knowledge on natural sand dynamics is essential. Monitoring sand dynamics is commonly done through sediment budget analysis, which relies on determining the volumes of sediment added or removed from the coastal system. These volumetrics require precise and accurate 3D data of the terrain on different time stamps. Earlier research states the potential of permanent long-range terrestrial laser scanning for continuous monitoring of coastal dynamics. For this paper, this methodol...

In today?s world, with high demanding of energy, heavy oil and bitumen are important hydrocarbon resources that play progressively significant roles in the worldwide economy. Due to the diminishing of conventional oil resources, getting energy from unconventional resources becomes a tremendously outstanding process. Recently, metal oxide catalysts have shown promising applications and effects in different thermal enhanced oil recovery processes. These metal oxide catalysts have been chosen due to their exclusive p...

The recovery of heavy, extra heavy oils and bitumens has been challenging for the world oil industry. In-situ combustion (ISC) has been proved to be effective method for the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) of these heavy crudes. However, the wide application of ISC is still limited due to the difficulty in ignition and unstable combustion front, etc. In order to address these difficulties, catalysts have been proposed for improving the combustion behavior of crude oils in ISC process. This study is aimed to identify t...

The problem of oil spills during the marine transportation of oil products is still urgent today. The pollution fate and self-purification of the local ecosystem rates are still insufficiently studied. The article presents data on concentration of chloroform-extractable substances, oil hydrocarbons and the number of anaerobic bacteria in the sea bottom sediments of the Kerch Strait after the vessel?s accident in November 2007 for period of 2007 ? 2009. Chloroform-extractable substances concentration in the bottom ...

The gigantic fragmentation of land ownership in Slovakia is a consequence of historical development. The application and compliance of the Hungarian inheritance system principles up to present caused that in Slovakia at the end of the year 2018 was more than 8.4 million property plots, over 4.4 million land owners, 100.7 million co-owner relations. The average number of co-owners per plot is 11.93 and the average number of plots per owner is 22.74. This is a fact which increasingly creates problems that are also c...

The subject of this article is a two-storey, detached residential building. The building's structure is characterized by concrete sealing?s, load bearing walls made of brick and basements. The building has been deflected from the vertical as a result of a multiple underground exploitation which in the hard coal beds has been conducted. It is planned a continuation of mining exploitation in the area of the building. Use of a deflected object is connected with many inconveniences. Moreover, its market value falls do...

Ratei Cave, with its 7,224 m length, provides a good opportunity to investigate the geology and tectonics of Leaota Mountains, the eastern end of the South Carpathians. The geological observations reveal that Ratei Cave is mainly developed in Upper Jurassic limestones, but siliciclastic and metamorphic rocks are encountered in different locations along the cave passages. The stratigraphic succession on the 69 m elevation range, which represents the positive vertical extent between the entrance and the cave end, co...

Cement is the second most-consumed resource in the world, with more than 4 billion tonnes of the material produced globally every year. The cement production is considered to be one of major polluters regulated by Best Available Techniques (BAT) both in Europe and the Russian Federation. At the same time, cement industry generates greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions both of the ?energy? and ?process? origin. In Russia, climate legislation is just being formed, but operators of cement installations have already begun ...

The positive effect of mineral additions in cementitious materials (concrete, mortars, composite materials), proven by several studies along time, encouraged a complex research at NIRD ?URBAN-INCERC? Cluj-Napoca Branch regarding the potential valorisation of mineral wastes or by-products, generated by Romanian local industry, in new innovative cementitious materials for the construction industry. The central focus of the research was targeted towards fly ash and its potential use in reliable, high performance ceme...

Radiation factors in the areas of mineral deposit extraction are often rather intense, and they require a detailed study. One of such areas is the Taimyr Dolgan-Nenets District of the Krasnoyarsk Region, Russia, the administrative center of which is located in the town of Dudinka where at present the water supply system is being upgraded. This study is focused on investigation of the radiation factors on the territory under upgrade. In the framework of engineering and environmental surveys the gamma background and...

This article describes the research aimed at analyses of the present state of indoor environment in historical building of State Theatre in Kosice. The representative building of the State Theatre was built in a Neo-baroque style according to projects of Adolf Lang during the years 1879-1899. The goal of research is to take measure the level of indoor air quality, improve the energy performance of building and its HVAC systems. The one of many partial tasks is also the analyses of air temperature stratification in...

In Poland there exist legal regulations concerning the protection of agricultural and forest land. The paper aims to investigate the changes in the area of agricultural and forest land in Poland since the accession to the European Union in the year 2004. The study was based on statistical data for the years 2004-2017 provided by Statistics Poland. Paper presents: (i) changes in the land area by land type, (ii) changes in the fallow land area, (iii) changes of agricultural land area resulting from land designation ...

The article examines the peat samples found in Tomsk Oblast. The peat samples were divided into two groups. The first group includes the samples of terrestrial, transition, and fen peat. The peat samples of the second group were thermally treated in order to alter their composition and properties. All peat samples were investigated by elemental, functional, and group analysis. The obtained data reveal the changes in such characteristics of samples as type and decomposition degree. According to the comparative anal...

The Kupa River, located in the west-central part of Croatia, is a 294 km long tributary of the Sava River, belonging to the Danube watershed. An extreme barium anomaly in sediments of Kupica and Kupa rivers was discovered during 2003 by Franciskovic-Bilinski. It originates from an abundant barite mine in Homer-Lokve area, from where it penetrated to Kupica River source. From there the Ba-anomaly in sediments was followed more than 120 km downstream along both rivers. This discovery has a big potential to be used i...

Landscape structure is the result of a process that continually taking place in the landscape during of historical development. The city of Kezmarok has held a very significant position in terms of settlement structure of the Poprad basin or the greater region beneath the High Tatras from the very beginnings of its development. The area demarcated by the current cadaster limits was witness to many changes to the landscape structure conditioned by a wide range of factors and conditions, out of which human involveme...

In millions of years, nature has created huge energy reserves in the form of fossil fuels, consumption of which is constantly increasing. The depletion of energy reserves stored in fossil fuels is becoming real. For this reason, as well as for the protection of the environment, it is necessary to look for and utilize the renewable energy sources that we encounter in everyday life. Such a source of energy is, for example, biomass, which has been used as a fuel by many generations before us. The combustion of biomas...

On 18/19 June 2016, the manifestation of two severe supercell thunderstorms in the northern half of Moldavia caused unexpected losses exceeding 14 mil. EUR. Radar estimated hail sizes over 10 cm were recorded over large areas. On the ground level there was recorded hailstones with a diameter greater than 5 cm in some areas. This day?s situation was exceptional due to the synoptic context. There was a strong link between the low-pressure area centered over Southeastern Europe and the formation of a trough (a fusion...

During the experimental and theoretical studies of the sea surface in the infrared range, it was proved that the microbubble air layer of the sea surface discovered earlier can be used as an indicator of the magnitude of the heat flux on the border of the sea-atmosphere. The result was obtained by developing a method for the simultaneous determination of the reflection coefficients, temperature and wave state of the sea surface measuring the radiation of the sea surface and atmosphere in the infrared range in a wi...

Cut-off low altitude cyclones (COLs) are characterized by the presence of small cold air masses detached from the polar vortex as a consequence of Rossby waves development. Their displacement at a lower latitude is capable to induce higher atmospheric instability and they have a great influence on the amount of precipitation over Romania between April and September. This paper is based on the analysis from a synoptic point of view of the days when the precipitation amount was greater than 10 mm between 1961 and 20...

In 2015, zoobenthos communities in the river Yenisei (upper and middle course) and in its tributaries (rivers Abakan, Mana, Kan, Agul, Kungus) was studied. All watercourses are mountain rivers, in the bottom fauna of which lithoreophilic organisms predominate, populating stony soils in a large current, at low water temperatures and favorable oxygen conditions. In zoobenthos, 231 species of macroinvertebrates were found, widely distributed in the Palaearctic and Holarctic regions. Dominant complexes were characteri...

The health resort Duszniki-Zdroj is located in the south-western part of Poland in the Sudety Mountains. The southern part of the city ? the Spa area ? contains medicinal waters intakes. What is interesting, all of them are flowing wells. The spa part of Duszniki Zdroj is located at the northern edge of the Orlica-Bystrzyca Metamorphic Complex. At present, there are nine boreholes with medicinal waters, three of which are exploited. The total discharge from these intakes is 31.96 m3/year. The mean discharge over m...

Magnesium-based materials are very attractive as hydrogen storage media, due to their high hydrogen absorption capacity (theoretically, 7.6 wt.% H2) and low price. Some drawbacks of these materials, like slow hydrogen sorption kinetics and high absorption-desorption temperatures, can be overcome using different additives and high energy ball milling. In this study, the hydrogen sorption characteristics of the Mg-Ni-C composites, prepared by ball milling under Ar atmosphere, are investigated. Polyolefin wax (POW, a...

Thermal analysis is the sum of investigation methods in which the physical or chemical properties of a substance or mixture of substances are measured as a function of temperature or time. In order to perform these determinations, the temperature of the product is changed after a well-established and controlled program. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FT-IR) is a non-destructive technique that involves low analytical costs and fast responses. Thus, some physical phenomena such as melting, boiling, sublima...

Mushroom production generates a considerable amount of spent mushroom substrate, difficult to utilize at the site of production. The high amount of organic matter and nutrients in the waste justifies its environmental use. However, waste entering the environment undergoes transformations, the direction and intensity of which depend on, among other things, environmental conditions. Extreme environmental conditions (such as very low or high pH) can significantly change the properties of introduced material and, as a...

Static electricity as a result of friction and induction loading mechanisms is a phenomenon that occurs frequently in the industry, most of the time accidentally and unwanted. The electrostatic charges accumulated by workers during various activities may lead to electrostatic discharges, which, in the presence of an explosive atmosphere, cause explosion and / or fire risk. Theoretical and practical studies regarding the occurrence, formation and accumulation of electrostatic charges in the charging process with el...

In 2017, on the order of the Regional Directorate for Environmental Protection in Katowice, the study entitled "Identification of pollution sources affecting the chemical composition of water in the area of Natura 2000 The Cieszyn Tufa Springs PLH240001" was prepared. The unique karst area "The Cieszyn Tufa Springs" is located in the Western Carpathians, in the watershed of the Vistula and the Oder. The studied subslope, descending springs, with the discharge of 0.001-2.5 dm3/s (2017), drain the first aquifer, ass...

The physicochemical properties and the state of the microbial communities of the buried soils of the loess strata of the Khasavyurt plain (Eastern Ciscaucasia, Russia) were studied. The thickness of loess deposits was about 50 m. An exposed surface dark chestnut soil (Kastanozem) had a thickness of about 0.5 m, the next 3-3.5 m were almost pure light yellow loess. Buried soils were observed in the upper part of the loess. Palaeosol 1 at a depth of 5-10 m and a thickness of about 2 m was morphologically similar to ...

The compositions of polymer biodegradable films based on polyhydroxybutyrate and chitosan, cross-linked with calcium chloride, have been developed. New materials, which are promising for use in the field of medicine as wound coverings, suture materials and tissue engineering, have been obtained by casting method. The effect of prescription parameters such as the content of plasticizer and calcium chloride on the physic-chemical properties of polymer compositions has been studied. It is shown that by varying the co...

A promising source of Rare-Earth Metals (REM) is the mine refuses of Obukhov deposit?s zircon concentrate, which contain 3.53% of the sum of REM oxides. Chlorination is an effective method for transferring metals from crude ore to chlorides convenient for subsequent separation, purification and production of marketable products. The advantage of such method is absence of sewage and discharge of harmful substances into the atmosphere, which is an effective measure for environmental protection. The paper performs a ...

Forest value depends on multiple factors, as well as on prevailing market conditions. It is measured in natural units. The most popular approach in calculating the economic value of a forest is the discounted cash flow method. The most influential factor is an discount rate, since the value determination is based on the assumption that a forest life cycle is 120 years. Therefore, the overall aim of the present research is to evaluate an optimal discount rate for long-term forest management. The research showed tha...

Chromium spinel is identified as macrocrystals and rock-forming mineral of groundmass in kimberlites, composing the Manchary and the Aprelskaya pipes of the Khompu-May kimberlite field (Central Yakutia). Spinel assemblage of every pipe is individual. Chromospinellides of mesostasis of the Manbchary pipe crystallized in two stages. At the first stage, groundmass spinel crystallized until phlogopite was formed, at the second stage ? at the same time with mica, removing aluminum and magnesium form the melt. Kimberlit...

The modern world is characterized by significant economic and environmental inequality. Income inequality of population and the predominance of rich people in the consumption over others cause certain ecological and economic problems with negative impact to sustainable development. One of the main global problems according to Sustainable Development Goals is poverty. And the most challenging kind of poverty from an economic and ecological point of view is chronic poverty. It is reproduced systematically in several...

In 2050 more than 66% of the world?s population will live in urban areas. Some cities feature an extremely high growth rate, dense population and often a low level of management and economic development. Traditional economic theory fails to consider the positive and negative externalities arising from the interaction of economic, ecological and social city spheres. Externalities arise at interaction of economic and ecological, economic and social, and ecological and social components. The choice between environmen...

The article discusses the concepts and principles of the functioning of the Cittaslow small town network. Particular attention was devoted to its functioning in Poland. The concept of slow cities was formulated with the promotion of the assets of small cities and towns (urban centres with a population count of up to 50 000) in mind and is meant to use their unique local potential. The slow living lifestyle has found proponents in over 200 cities and towns all around the world, leading to the formation of national ...