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The paper presents the results of research on the relationship between self-assessed comprehension of physics lectures and final grades of junior high school students (aged 13-15), high school students (aged 16-18) and physics students at the Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland (aged 21). Students' declared level of comprehension was measured during a physics lecture on a prearranged scale of 1-10 with the use of a personal response system designed for the purpose of this experiment. Through the use of this tool, we obtained about 2000 computer records of students' declared comprehension of a 45 min lecture, which we named "the spectrum of comprehension". In this paper, we present and analyse the correlation between students' declared comprehension of the content presented in the lecture and their final learning results. (Contains 7 figures.)

Innovation networks help to create innovation ecosystems by strengthen interactions between government, academia, business, and special institutions. The purpose of the article is to identify the relationship between the local context, i.e., the conditions and environment in which the Local Government Unit operates and their participation in the innovation networks. The analysis is based on a survey of 184 local government authorities in Poland, Local Administrative Unit level 2. The present study examines the hypothesis that the more supportive the local context is in the Polish municipalities and cities on district rights, the greater the engagement of local government authorities in local or regional innovation networks. The supportive local context was defined by a set of institutional, economic, geographical, demographic, cultural, political, managerial, and administrative factors. The research findings indicate that the key factors that influence the engagement of local government in local or regional innovation networks are institutional factors.

Hydroacoustic surveys were performed in an oxbow lake (Lake Laojianghe, China) along the Yangtze River. The study took place during the day and night in October 2012 using the Simrad EY60 split beam echo sounder. A clear day-night difference in fish densities was observed in selected transect areas. The mean density estimate at night was three times higher than during the day, while at night densities were similar in the two adjacent areas. Significantly positive relationships were found between fish density and average depth for the night and daytime transects, however, the regression slope for the daytime density estimates was much smaller than for the surveys at night. Small fish dominated the acoustic size structure during both day and night, but were more accessible at night. The average biomass estimate from the daytime transects was nearly 60% lower than those from the corresponding night transects. These results indicate that an entire lake estimate of a fish population may be severely biased if fish tend to aggregate temporarily in the bottom or littoral zone or display diurnal behaviour. The conclusion is that acoustic sampling in Lake Laojianghe is best done at night. Diel differences in the lake should be further investigated by carrying out additional day-night comparison experiments and also by using control catches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In shallow waters horizontally aimed transducers are used to maximize usable survey volume due to the physical limitations of the environment. However, horizontal acoustic measurements of fish lengths are problematic because in mobile applications there is no way to determine the orientation of the fish relative to the axis of the acoustic beam. The draining of Malta Reservoir in Poland (average depth 3m) provided an unique opportunity to check the accuracy of acoustic estimates of fish biomass. Before draining, detailed investigations of the fish population were performed using standard gillnetting and horizontal echosounding (split beam Simrad EY500, 120kHz). During the draining of the reservoir fish were collected and weighted. Three different methods were used to convert the horizontal measurements of acoustic energy into fish total length and the biomass estimates were compared with the results of the fish census that was performed during the draining of the reservoir. The best agreement between the acoustic estimates and the fish census of 565kgha−1 and 576kgha−1, respectively, was obtained with Method 1, which uses deconvolution to remove the effect of an assumed random distribution of fish aspect angle and a TS–TL relationship derived from a mixed population of European freshwater species (). Deconvolution assumes random distribution of fish orientation, which means this assumption is likely to be valid, at least for Malta Reservoir. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In topical formulations, the rheological parameters and pharmaceutical availability of many active agents have been improved by the addition of modern excipients. This translates into increased interest in the topical use of NSAIDs. The aim of this study was to create series of effective oil in water (O/W) diclofenac sodium cream formulations that differ in the applied fatty phase, utilizing Gelot TM64 (Gattefosse) (a modern non-ionic emulsifier). In the produced prescriptions, estimation was made of the effect of this on the rheological parameters and the pharmaceutical availability of the diclofenac sodium. Herein, the hydrophilic petrolatum-based cream demonstrated the highest rate of release of the active agent, as well as the best set of beneficial rheological parameters.