<p>This study presents the first national-scale spatial inventory of relict charcoal hearths (RCHs) in Poland, based on high-resolution LiDAR data and digital terrain analysis. Using a combination of manual interpretation, GIS-based feature extraction, and <span class="inline-formula"><i>K</i></span>-prototypes clustering, we identified and classified 634 815 RCHs across forested regions of the country. Each feature was georeferenced and categorized by size, morphological characteristics, slope position, and environmental context, including current and potential vegetation and soil types. Spatial analyses revealed significant regional differences in hearth density, with the highest concentrations found in western and south-central Poland, particularly in the Lower Silesian, Stobrawa, and Świętokrzyskie forests. Cluster analysis distinguished three major types of RCHs, differing in their environmental settings and spatial organization: (1) lowland pine-dominated clusters on gentle terrain, (2) isolated features on steep slopes in mixed forests, and (3) high-density hearth groups in elevated areas. Although large portions of the country appear devoid of RCHs, we argue that this reflects limitations in preservation and detection – due to long-term agricultural activity in lowlands and erosion in mountainous areas – rather than an actual absence of charcoal production. The resulting ReCHAR database offers a unique, open-access tool for interdisciplinary research on<span id="page494"/> forest history, human–environment interactions, and early industrial landscapes. Its modular design supports further expansion, including links to historical settlements and industries reliant on charcoal, such as metallurgy, glassmaking, and tar or potash production. The data set is available at <a href="https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15630690">https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15630690</a> (Słowiński et al., 2025).</p>
This paper frames calculus as a global, centuries-long development rather than a subject that began only with Newton and Leibniz. Drawing on ideas from Greek, Indian, Islamic, and later European mathematics, it highlights how concepts like infinity, area, motion, and continuous change slowly evolved through solving problems and cultural exchange. I argue that bringing this history into the classroom helps students see calculus as more than a set of procedures: it becomes a story of human creativity and persistence. By revisiting the questions early mathematicians struggled with, students can better appreciate and better understand the core ideas behind the formulas they use today.
This paper demonstrates the symbiotic, real bond between the existence of the state, culture and religion, through which a person living in a national community can strive to achieve Aristotelian eudaimonia. The expression of this bond can be found, among other things, in the solemn Preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland of April 2, 1997, in which the Constituent Assembly, establishing the very foundation of the state’s order, referred to God, emphasizing the importance of Poland’s Christian heritage. This heritage draws its identity not from a cultural vacuum, but from the achievements of Latin civilization, which served as the building blocks that formed the long history of the Piast State, beginning in the tenth century. This paper is therefore intended to answer the question of whether the Third Republic, in the twenty-first century, is also a continuation of the great cultural heritage of Latin civilization.
This paper provides an overview of recent historical research regarding scientifically-informed challenges to the idea that the stars are other suns orbited by other inhabited earths -- an idea that came to be known as "the Plurality of Worlds". Johannes Kepler in the seventeenth century, Jacques Cassini in the eighteenth, and William Whewell in the nineteenth each argued against "pluralism" based on what in their respective times was solid science. Nevertheless, pluralism remained popular despite these and other scientific challenges. This history will be of interest to the astronomical community so that it is better positioned to avoid difficulties should the historical trajectory of pluralism continue, especially as it persists in the popular imagination.
W 1886 r. na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim powstał tajny Związek Młodzieży Polskiej „Zet” (ZMP). Do wybuchu I wojny światowej utworzył on sieć placówek nie tylko w polskich środowiskach akademickich w trzech zaborach, ale także w głębi Rosji oraz w Europie Zachodniej. Program „Zetu” wzywał do walki o niepodległą, demokratyczną, sprawiedliwą społecznie oraz tolerancyjną narodowościowo i religijnie Rzeczpospolitą. Walkę tę zetowcy rozumieli zarówno jako pracę samokształceniową, jak i czyn zbrojny. Związek tworzył i inspirował inne organizacje studenckie, uczniowskie, młodzieży robotniczej i chłopskiej. Dzieje ZMP stały się przedmiotem badań historyków, jednak do problemów słabiej rozpoznanych należy nadal jego działalność w okresie zaborów w głębi Rosji. Przedmiotem niniejszego artykułu jest próba przedstawienia genezy, działalności, orientacji politycznej i wpływów „Zetu” w latach rozbiorów i I wojny światowej w Kijowie – mieście stanowiącym ważne skupisko ludności polskiej na ziemiach Ukrainy wcielonych do Rosji. Na Uniwersytecie Kijowskim od schyłku XIX w. polscy studenci skupiali się w niepodległościowo-socjalistycznej „Korporacji” i „Zecie”, który stał się ośrodkiem kierowniczym narodowo-niepodległościowej organizacji „Polonia”. „Zet” kijowski w odróżnieniu od ZMP w Królestwie Polskim, Galicji i na zachodzie Europy, który odchodził od współpracy z Ligą Narodową na rzecz wsparcia obozu polskiej irredenty, utrzymał związki z obozem i programem narodowym. Obok działalności samokształceniowej i politycznej w środowisku akademickim, usiłował oddziaływać na uczniów polskich szkół (tajnych, a w latach I wojny światowej działających legalnie w Kijowie i na Ukrainie). W okresie Wielkiej Wojny „narodowa” większość kijowskich zetowców angażowała się w organizowanie środowiska polskich studentów i polskiego szkolnictwa na Kijowszczyźnie. Mniejszość, która wsparła obóz irredenty, należała do kijowskiej tajnej szkoły wojskowej i miejscowej komórki Polskiej Organizacji Wojskowej. Studia nad dziejami „Zetu” na wschodzie mogą przynieść dokładniejsze rozpoznanie tej konspiracji i przyczynić się do pogłębienia wiedzy o losach i aktywności polskiej inteligencji.
The article examines the canonical legitimacy of imposing the punishment of prohibition of wearing ecclesiastical dress in the case of crimes <i>contra sextum minore</i> committed by clergy. They were included by the universal legislator among the most serious crimes reserved for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. It should be considered inevitable and necessary to impose expiatory penalties in the case of committing such crimes, and among the penalties that can be applied, the legislator lists the prohibition on wearing ecclesiastical dress. Although this punishment may not seem too burdensome at first glance, it nevertheless has a deep doctrinal justification, as the author shows by invoking canonical arguments. It also draws attention to the legitimacy of this penalty in the light of the principle of giving absolute priority to those who have been harmed. This principle should always be considered when imposing penalties for offences against the dignity of minors.
W historii polskiej kartografii można wskazać momenty, kiedy pod wpływem zewnętrznego impulsu, zazwyczaj wywołanego sytuacją społeczno-polityczną, znacząco rosła liczba twórców map i ich wydawców. Nie był to stan długotrwały, epizodyczni autorzy próbujący wpłynąć na konkretne wydarzenie nie wiązali się długofalowo z kartograficzną formą przekazu, a oficyny poszerzały swoją ofertę o mapy wyłącznie z potrzeby chwili. Jednym z takich momentów był przełom XIX i XX w. Celem artykułu jest scharakteryzowanie map wydanych z myślą o kształtowaniu wiedzy o dawnych ziemiach polskich masowego odbiorcy z tych terenów w końcu XIX i na początku XX w. przechowywanych w Archiwum Narodowym w Krakowie. Postawiono tezę, że mapy tematyczne, których treść wychodziła poza oficjalny, narzucony przez zaborców schemat myślenia społecznego, wpływały na lepsze rozumienie przez mieszkańców dawnych ziem polskich idei i procesu kształtowania polskiej państwowości. Podejmując próbę potwierdzenia tej tezy, odniesiono się do faktu, że mapa jako jedna z form komunikacji wizualnej z jednej strony obrazuje zasięg geograficzny i relacje przestrzenne, z drugiej pomaga podtrzymać poczucie tożsamości narodowej, kiedy przedstawienie granic i obszaru, z którym dana społeczność się identyfikuje, jest niemożliwe lub niejednoznaczne. W artykule wykorzystano źródła kartograficzne pochodzące z kolekcji kartograficznej systematycznie gromadzonej przez Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie.
Maps outside social thinking. A few thoughts after an inquiry in the cartographic collection of the National Archives in Krakow
In the history of Polish cartography, it is possible to indicate moments that, under external influences, usually created by the social-political situation, there was a significant increase in the number of map creators and publishers. This was not a long-lasting state, as the authors trying to influence particular events were not connected with cartography in the long term, and publishers extended their offers with maps exclusively for the needs of the moment. One such moment was the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The aim of the article is to characterize the maps issued at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century with the idea of shaping knowledge of the masses regarding former Polish lands, stored in the National Archives in Krakow. It presents the thesis that thematic maps, with content outside the official line of social thinking imposed by the partitioning powers, led to a better understanding by inhabitants of former Polish lands of the idea and process of shaping the Polish state. Attempting to confirm this thesis, reference is made to the fact that a map as a form of visual communication depicts the geographical range and spatial relations on one hand, while on the other it helps to maintain a feeling of national identity when presenting borders and regions, which a given society identifies with, is impossible or inconclusive. The article uses sources from the cartographic collection systematically gathered by the National Archives in Krakow.
KEY WORDS: history of cartography, old maps, propaganda maps, independent Poland, National Archives in Krakow
While preparing the Operation Barbarossa the Nazi Germany did not originally consider participation of other countries apart from Romania and Finland that had territorial demands against Soviet Union. German military planners considered for some time the possibility to appoint two Slovak infantry divisions with security tasks in the rear, and in May 1941 there were voices calling for the utilization of two Slovak divisions to enforce the 17th Army of the Army Group South even despite open distrust of Adolf Hitler towards Slavs. Since the preparations were taking place on the Slovak territory as well, Slovak Minister of Defence Gen. Ferdinand Čatloš, in a conversation with German military attaché, Lt. Col. Heinrich Becker, stated that in case of Hungarian participation Slovakia would like to take part in the campaign as well. Germans, at first, pointed out an overall unreadiness of the Slovak Armed Forces but finally – only shortly before June 22nd, 1941 – Hitler declared his wish that the “Slovak Army attended some prospective action”. With the goal to show more loyalty than Hungarians, Slovak politicians and especially the Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka acted proactively without waiting for the Germans to specify their requirements. The paper analyses the circumstances of Slovak entry into the war against the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, and summarizes the latest findings of Slovak historiography.
Kyivan Rus’ had extensive political, economic and cultural connections with other European states. Knowledge of foreign languages, the Latin language in particular, was in demand to maintain these connections. The article outlines the context in which the Latin literature in medieval Kyiv emerged and also the spheres where the Latin language was used. The history of one ruling family, Prince Iziaslav of Kyiv, Princess Gertruda of Kyiv, their son Prince Yaropolk and daughter-in-law Cunigunda, is preserved in texts and artefacts. Primary and secondary sources as well as the sphragistic data, related to international contacts of the family with Pope Gregory VII, the Papal legates, Duke Bolesław II the Bold of Poland and King of Germany Heinrich IV, provide facts of usage of Latin by the Kyivan royals. The article analyses usage of Latin in foreign relations of Kyiv and in literature of the second half of the 11th century. The Latin language was used in Kyivan Rus’ in the second half of the 11th century in literature (prayers, religious poetry and chants), votive inscriptions, in administration (seals) and ecclesiastic and foreign correspondence.
Discourse analysis, Computational linguistics. Natural language processing
Marko S. Sabovljević, Gordana Tomović, Georgi Kunev
et al.
This paper presents new records and noteworthy data on the following taxa in SE
Europe and adjacent regions: brown alga Heribaudiella fluviatilis, red alga Batrachospermum skujae, saprotrophic fungus Gnomonia geranii-macrorrhizi, mycorrhizal fungi Amanita alseides and Russula griseascens, liverwort Ricciocarpos natans, moss Blindia acuta, Leucodon sciuroides var. morensis and Pseudostereodon procerrimus, monocots Allium ampeloprasum, Carex ferruginea and Carex limosa and dicots Convolvulus althaeoides, Fumana aciphylla, Hieracium petrovae, Lamium
bifidum subsp. bifidum and Ranunculus fontanus are given within SE Europe and
adjacent regions
John Clark was inventor of the Eureka machine to generate hexameter Latin verse. He labored for 13 years from 1832 to implement the device that could compose at random over 26 million different lines of well-formed verse. This paper proposes that Clark should be regarded as an early cognitive scientist. Clark described his machine as an illustration of a theory of "kaleidoscopic evolution" whereby the Latin verse is "conceived in the mind of the machine" then mechanically produced and displayed. We describe the background to automated generation of verse, the design and mechanics of Eureka, its reception in London in 1845 and its place in the history of language generation by machine. The article interprets Clark's theory of kaleidoscopic evolution in terms of modern cognitive science. It suggests that Clark has not been given the recognition he deserves as a pioneer of computational creativity.
The article focuses on the background of the pamphlet ‘Falsifiers of History. An Historical Note’ issued by the Soviet Information Bureau in 1948. The book was personally edited and largely hand-written by Joseph Stalin. His involvement was not fully known until now. In this paper, the authors deciphered, translated and compared the text of the published pamphlet. It shows Stalin’s guidelines in the official interpretation of the causes of World War II and the reasons for the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Throughout the post-war period the official Soviet narrative regarding the origins of the of World War II were largely based on a set of guidelines contained in a pamphlet ‘Falsifiers of History’. Currently, the neo-Stalinist historical narrative concerning the origins of World War II is promoted by the Russian officials. Nevertheless, not all Russian historians share these views, and many assess the Hitler-Stalin Pact in a much more critical way.
This article continues a theme recently raised in this journal by Małek (2019) and Krzyworzeka-Jelinowska (2019). It analyses the activism of Polish women living abroad, as headteachers, teachers and parents at Saturday schools, and demonstrates that Polish migrants are not as socially passive as sometimes assumed. We define civil society as ‘a society of active citizens, associating together and working for the collective good’. Our study of seven schools suggests that the Covid-19 lockdown stimulated some schools to broaden their activities as civil society organisations. Although some local links were weakened, for example because Polish Clubs were shut, the schools’ online activities expanded: more networking took place between headteachers UK-wide, and the schools reached out to a range of Polish and non-Polish organisations: locally; elsewhere in the UK; in Poland; and in third countries. Within the schools, the pandemic represented an opportunity to teach children about their civic responsibilities and involve parents more directly in children’s education. However, the lockdown also raised difficulties for all Saturday schools, not just Polish ones, when their credentials as ‘educational’ organisations seemed challenged by both UK government policy and some mainstream schools.
Piotr Błaszczyk, Konrad Klimczak, Adam Mahdi
et al.
We propose a novel methodology for estimating the epidemiological parameters of a modified SIRD model (acronym of Susceptible, Infected, Recovered and Deceased individuals) and perform a short-term forecast of SARS-CoV-2 virus spread. We mainly focus on forecasting number of deceased. The procedure was tested on reported data for Poland. For some short-time intervals we performed numerical test investigating stability of parameter estimates in the proposed approach. Numerical experiments confirm the effectiveness of short-term forecasts (up to 2 weeks) and stability of the method. To improve their performance (i.e. computation time) GPU architecture was used in computations.
The Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), a premier autonomous research institute under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has a legacy of about seven decades with contributions made in the field of observational sciences namely atmospheric and astrophysics. The Survey of India used a location at ARIES, determined with an accuracy of better than 10 meters on a world datum through institute participation in a global network of Earth artificial satellites imaging during late 1950. Taking advantage of its high-altitude location, ARIES, for the first time, provided valuable input for climate change studies by long term characterization of physical and chemical properties of aerosols and trace gases in the central Himalayan regions. In astrophysical sciences, the institute has contributed precise and sometime unique observations of the celestial bodies leading to a number of discoveries. With the installation of the 3.6 meter Devasthal optical telescope in the year 2015, India became the only Asian country to join those few nations of the world who are hosting 4 meter class optical telescopes. This telescope, having advantage of geographical location, is well-suited for multi-wavelength observations and for sub-arc-second resolution imaging of the celestial objects including follow-up of the GMRT, AstroSat and gravitational-wave sources.
The article explores the differences between a legal definition of minorities and membership require- ments presented by possible members of the German minority. The issue is investigated through Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) of narrative interviews of people of German heritage from the Opole region (Upper Silesia, Poland). The analysis is followed by a comparison of the findings with the minority definition of the Polish Minority Act. The MCA of the statements made by the respondents shows that the characteristics and activities associated with members of the German minority are structured to varying degrees along the topics: membership in minority associations, age, language skills, reflection on the (unofficial) family history, nationality and regionality, as well as the individual decision to belong. Accordingly, the aspects of membership, the individual decision as well as the regional affiliation identified in the statements made by the respondents are added to the Minority Act definition. The original value of the article is threefold. Firstly, the article represents a change of perspective in researching the German minority by applying the concept of belonging. Instead of assuming a homogeneous identity of a person or group, belonging is perceived as heterogeneous (related to the collective) and multidimensional (related to the individual). Accordingly, the article analyses statements made by people of German heritage, instead of using an ethnic categorization prior to analysis. Secondly, MCA is applied from the perspective of belonging, thus making discrepancies, contradictions and overlaps of belonging visible. Thirdly, the results of the analysis are put into practice by comparing them with the definition in the Polish Minority Act. The presentation of the differences and similarities of the definitions of people of German heritage themselves, in comparison to the national legislation, provides important impulses for the adaptation of minority and language policy at the national, regional, and internal level of the minority organisations.
This paper discusses the relation between the decoherent histories approach to quantum mechanics that is based on coarse-grained decoherent histories of a closed system, and the approximate quantum mechanics of measured subsystems, as in the Copenhagen interpretation. We show how the a classical world used in such formulations is not to something to be postulated but rather explained by suitable sets of alternative histories of quasiclassical variables. We discuss the general definition of measurement, the collapse of the wave function, and irreversibility from the perspective of decoherent histories quantum theory..