Ewa Kozień

In recent years, the problem of vandalized graffiti damaging walls, facades, and railway carriages has been growing worldwide. This problem primarily affects users of historic buildings and railways. The article addresses the problems of removing graffiti from railway carriages, which has a significant impact on their exploitation and additional costs. To preserve or limit possible vandalism, special anti-graffiti coatings are used. Several types of coatings are typically available on the market for specific practical applications. This article presents an original, quantitative, easy-to-use, and universal method for determining the best coverage among those considered, taking into account the user-defined essential characteristics that the coating should meet and their importance (weight). The following parameters were chosen: adhesion, nanohardness, hardness, total surface energy, erosion resistance, corrosion rate, and material price. The method's application was demonstrated by comparing four anti-graffiti coatings from two manufacturers.

Due to the costs, the unexpected appearance of graffiti on rail vehicles and the need to remove it is an increasingly serious problem for rail carriers. The use of anti-graffiti protective coatings by rail companies is becoming more and more common. These coatings must meet appropriate quality...

The unexpected appearance of graffiti on rail vehicles and the need to remove it is an in-creasingly serious problem for rail carriers, also due to costs. The use of anti-graffiti pro-tective coatings by rail companies is becoming more and more common. These coatings must meet appropriate quality requirements, in particular regarding their mechanical properties and features, such as: roughness, waviness, adhesion, hardness. The use of an-ti-graffiti coatings is also associated with the technology of their production and removal, taking into account the problem of environmental impact and costs. Some of anti-graffiti coating systems were tested and compared. Anti-graffiti coating systems were character-ized by low parameters of the geometric structure of the surface and good adhesion. Moreover they had good mechanical properties and were free of structural defects as pores or microcracks. Anti-graffiti paint systems were characterized by hydrophobicity, which helps reduce the adhesion of undesirable substances on their surfaces. Also discussed are various aspects of the costs incurred by railway companies due to the existence and re-moval of graffiti from passenger cars. Economic analyses included data from Polish and Spanish national and regional railway companies . Moreover the article proposes an original method of selecting of the anti-graffiti coatings.

This paper analyzes the effective use of a mixture of fly ash (MSWI-FA) and solid waste from flue gas treatment (MSWI-SW), which are by-products of the municipal waste incineration process. MSWI-FA (19 01 13*) and MSWI-SW (19 01 07*) are classified as hazardous waste due to their toxic metal content and leaching potential, and currently lack practical applications, unlike slag and bottom ash (19 01 12). This study tested these wastes as partial substitutes for natural sand within a range of 0–20% of cement mass. Statistical analysis of the experimental results allowed the creation of good quality models predicting the effect of substitution additives on compressive strength and flexural strength (correlation 0.91 and 0.93, respectively). The mixture with the highest share of substitution additives (40% = 20% + 20%) was characterized by a decrease in compressive strength by 1.3% and flexural strength by 25.8%. Cement mortars synthesized with the waste mixture (up to 20% of each component) showed slightly lower consistency and water absorption than the control mortars. After the frost resistance tests (25 cycles), the flexural and compressive strength showed ambiguous behavior, showing both increases and decreases, indicating that the percentage of waste components alone is an insufficient set of factors for predicting these strength properties. The concentration of metal ions, i.e., Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni, Cu, and Cr, in the eluate after the leaching tests did not exceed the legal levels of pollutants introduced into waters, with the exception of barium. However, its content did not exceed the permissible levels required for waste intended for landfill. Using the mixing plant for this waste in the amount of 20% each, we save about EUR 10 in the cost of purchasing sand (which is 13% of the production costs of 1 m³) and EUR 8 in the cost of environmental fees when producing 1 m³ of mortar. The proposed technology is compatible with the objectives of a sustainable economy.

Risk is an issue of interdisciplinary character and accompanies all actions undertaken in companies, e.g. projects. Identification and assessment of risk is an important issue, but at the same time it is particularly difficult in actions of unique character such as projects. This article identifies exogenous and endogenous risk factors that affect successful project implementation. Six risk-generating areas were defined to identify and assess ex-ante risks in the project: project environment, client and contract, suppliers, organization maturity and a project team. Each one of them was assigned analytical criteria and a method for their assessment. Empirical verification was made based on an example of a manufacturing process. The proposed method is a support for project managers in a process of decision-making and for actions undertaken by managers aimed at reduction of risk in a project, especially at a stage of its preparation.

This paper analyzes the effective use of a mixture of fly ash (MSWI-FA) and solid waste from flue gas treatment (MSWI-SW), which are by-products of the municipal waste incineration process. MSWI-FA (19 01 13*) and MSWI-SW (19 01 07*) are classified as hazardous waste due to their toxic metal content and leaching potential and currently lack practical applications, unlike slag and bottom ash (19 01 12). This study tested these wastes as partial substitutes for natural sand within a range of 0–20% of cement mass. Statistical analysis of the experimental results allowed the creation of good quality models predicting the effect of substitution additives on compressive strength and flexural strength (correlation 0.91 and 0.93, respectively). The mixture with the highest share of substitution additives (40% = 20% + 20%) was characterized by a decrease in compressive strength by 1.3% and flexural strength by 25.8%. Cement mortars synthesized with the waste mixture (up to 20% of each component) showed slightly lower consistency and water absorption than the control mortars. After the frost resistance tests (25 cycle), the flexural and compressive strength showed ambiguous behavior, showing both increases and decreases, indicating that the percentage of waste components alone is an insufficient set of factors for predicting these strength properties. The concentration of metal ions, i.e. Zn, Cu, Pb, Ni, Cu, Cr in the eluate after the leaching tests did not exceed the legal levels of pollutants introduced into waters, with the exception of barium. However, its content did not exceed the permissible levels required for waste intended for landfill. Using the mixing plant for this waste in the amount of 20% each, we save about EUR 10 in the cost of purchasing sand and EUR 8 in the cost of environmental fees when producing 1 m3 of mortar). The proposed technology is compatible with the objectives of a sustainable economy.

The traditional perception of business presents a simplistic picture of a business entity focused solely on financial performance and production capacity. This so-called myth of amoral business led to the recognition of the need for some changes in this area, consisting in linking the achievement of economic goals with respect for social interest and the protection of the environment as a resource necessary for the business of the enterprise. Thus was born the concept of corporate social responsibility, the essence of which is such shaping of the relationship between business and its environment, i.e. business objectives and social interest, that the realization of the needs of one party is not necessarily at the expense of the other. Currently, one can see a trend concerning the spread of the idea of corporate social responsibility not only in terms of global changes, but primarily in terms of the importance of local needs. The need to build a relationship of trust between stakeholders and organizations doing business is crucial for socio-environmental-economic development from the perspective of corporate social responsibility. The aim of the article is to assess from the perspective of customers the importance of applying corporate social responsibility practices by manufacturing companies.

The implementation of public projects by organizations requires professionalization of their evaluation methods. The research objective is to identify the key criteria for project evaluation that go beyond the “project triangle.” The following problem was formulated: whether ex post evaluation of the project taking into account parameters of the “design triangle” is not an oversimplification in the context of uniqueness of design solutions that significantly affect civilization and technological development of societies in terms of global. The study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, 109 completed projects were evaluated using the quantitative method. The quantitative method was used to evaluate the projects. In the second stage, on the basis of the project-evaluation results, the key criteria for ex post evaluation of project implementation were analyzed using the Hellwig’s correlation method. It was shown that for the proper ex post evaluation of project implementation, it is necessary to supplement criteria with strategic and societal effects.

Ordoliberalism in contemporary legal orders is frequently associated with democracy or the so-called principle of a democratic state of law. However, in source assumptions of a doctrine of ordoliberalism one can perceive quite different preferred political systems. This paper aims at analysing the assumptions of a doctrine of ordoliberalism, as well as its place and role in a democratic system of contemporary states.

Contemporary production companies operate in a dynamically changing environment and try to strengthen their competitive position. Therefore they take action acting at implementing new ones as well as improving and maintaining existing production processes, using for this purpose knowledge and available tools and methods. For dominant activities undertaken in the scope of improving and maintaining production the pro-quality activities can be included. Quality mainly depends on the efficiency of production processes, therefore manufacturing companies should focus their activities on maintaining and improving them. The methods of technical risk analysis and assessment are effective methods of maintaining production processes, whose application makes it possible to indicate any deviations from accepted standards. Analysis and assessment of the technical risk of the production process makes it possible not only to indicate non-conformities identified in the process, but mainly taking corrective actions. The aim of the article is to formulate of the method used to identify and assessment of the technical risk of the cutting process on the organizational side. The method has qualitative-quantitative type, and is the effective tools for technical risk assessment necessary to maintain the production process. It is assumed that the quality of the cutting process is ensured by the technical condition of the machine.