Battery With a Sensor

Polish engineers from the Delphi Technical Center in Cracow took part in an international research project to develop a new sensor for car batteries. The device extends the battery's life and helps reduce fuel consumption. It accurately measures the current, temperature and voltage, the key parameters for determining a battery's condition.

The sensor can improve fuel economy as it turns off the alternator once the latter is fully charged, reducing the mechanical load on the engine. For data and diagnostic communication, the sensor features a Local Interconnect Network (LIN) or Controller Area Network (CAN) interface. It is designed for use in both passenger and commercial vehicles, and can also be adapted for use in hybrids and sea vessels.


Giant Sailboat on the Drawing Board

Zygmunt Choreń, an engineer from Gdańsk with a degree from the Gdańsk University of Technology, is working to design a huge sailing vessel, larger than any sailboat that has ever plied the seas. The boat will be 210 meters long, and its highest mast will be 53 meters tall. Each mast will carry a rectangular sail depicting one of the five continents. The ship will be fitted with an additional triangular sail between the bow and the front mast, and the sails will be hoisted (in five minutes) and lowered (in one minute) automatically. The total sail surface will be 2,870 square meters. The boat will take 416 people on board, including a crew of 122. Its maximum speed under sail will be 18 knots (33.3 kph).

Choreń has designed 17 giant sailboats, including the 133-meter-long Royal Clipper, currently the world's largest sailboat, as well as the Dar Młodzieży, Pogoria and Fryderyk Chopin.


Neural Networks for Everyone

A team of scientists at Cracow's AGH University of Science and Technology and the Cracow University of Technology, headed by AGH professor Ryszard Tadeusiewicz, has written a book and developed software thanks to which any IT enthusiast will be able to use their home or office computer to experiment to their heart's content with what are called neural networks. These are a simplified but working technical model of the human brain. Neural networks are able to learn and generalize their knowledge, at the same time being an intelligent state-of-the-art IT tool.

The software for experiments on neural networks can be downloaded for free from the AGH website, www.galaxy.agh.edu.pl/tad. The AGH has made it available both as ready-to-use software for any computer and as source codes enabling the user to change and expand the software. The software comes with a book in Polish entitled Odkrywanie właściwości sieci neuronowych przy użyciu programów w języku C# (Discovering the Properties of Neural Networks Using Software Written in C#), published by the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences (PAU), explaining how to use the software and what effects to expect.


Poland's Fastest Computer Ready for Launch

In November, the IT center of the Tricity Academic Computer Network (TASK) will launch the country's largest and fastest computer capable of processing 50 trillion operations per second. Named Galera, the computer will use 1,400 Intel Xeon Quad-Core processors. It will be Europe's first ever computer based on quad-core processors, and the fourth fastest on the continent.

The machine's computing power and the projects in which it will be used will have a direct impact on many fields, from medicine and new methods of treating cancer, to increasing air traffic safety. Thanks to this state-of-the-art technology, research results will be available much faster than those obtained through laboratory methods, and time is of the essence in the kind of projects that are involved. As soon as it becomes operational in November, Galera will be put to work on substances that could find application in cancer treatment, and it will also be used in studies of aerodynamics in the aircraft industry. Projects supported by the new computer will include FLIERT, involving computer analyses of air resistance and aircraft aerodynamics, and AITEB-2, which involves analyses of air flow in aircraft engine turbines to improve efficiency and safety.


Neolithic Settlement Unearthed in Cracow

Polish archeologists have discovered traces of a prehistoric Neolithic settlement in the Nowa Huta district of Cracow. The archeologists have found a few flint axes, clay ceramics and even whole dishes. A preliminary assessment suggests that people lived in the area as far back as 6,500 years ago. They mainly cultivated cereals, chiefly barley and rye, and bred cattle, pigs, sheep and goats. They settled in areas with fertile loessial soil in river valleys. They lived mostly in open settlements composed of individual, separate houses.


Medieval Statue Found Near Kętrzyn

While examining an early medieval settlement in the village of Poganowo in the Warmia-Mazuria region in northern Poland, archeologists from the nearby Wojciech Kętrzyński Museum in Kętrzyn have discovered a primitive stone statue that was probably used for religious purposes centuries ago. It is the first such find in this area.

"The statue discovered in Poganowo was a part of a stone ring with a small mound within it," says Izabela Mellin-Wyczółkowska, director of the Kętrzyn museum.

Near the surface, more than 300 pieces of animal bone have been found around the mound. Nearby was a rectangular hearth made of two layers of stones covered with clay. The pieces of ceramics found by the archeologists suggest that the site was used as a place of religious worship somewhere from the 10th-11th centuries to the early 12th century.


Burial Mound Under Scrutiny

Burned human bones, pieces of clay dishes and an iron knife are among the items that have been discovered by archeologists exploring an 8th-9th century burial mound in Międzygórz in Świętokrzyskie province.

The early medieval burial site with 13 mounds was discovered in 2004, but archeologists did not begin to examine it until a year ago. To date they have explored one entire burial mound over 10 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters high, with a few broken dishes found at the foot of the mound. These were probably smashed as part of rituals linked to the cult of the dead. Such rituals were held twice a year: in late October/early November and in spring, at a time corresponding to the Christian feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost). The death rites featured feasts as well as dancing and singing. The remains of the dishes at the site suggest that after the rituals honoring the dead had been completed, the dishes were intentionally broken. This practice was probably related to the belief of the ancient Slavs that all things, both animate and inanimate, had souls, so in order to give the dead person an object such as a dish, you first had to "kill" it by breaking it into pieces so that the freed soul of the object could serve the soul of the departed person.

Compiled by Tadeusz Belerski