88 research outputs found
Criminal sociolect in the criminal trilogy by Sergiusz Piasecki
No full textThe author of the article aims at reconstructing the criminal sociolect of the North-Eastern Borderlands in 1918-1919, based on The Criminal Trilogy by Sergiusz Piasecki. The plot of the novels takes place in Minsk Litewski, which, at that time, was full of thieves from all regions of Poland. In the novels, Piasecki recreated the sociolect of thieves living in the North-Eastern Borderlands, using the authentic criminal lexis. The authenticity of this sociolect is confirmed both by the materials provided by Piasecki himself (preface, footnotes and vocabulary of thieves’ language) and by their comparison with other lexicographic scientific descriptions concerning criminal vocabulary from the first half of the twentieth century
Unofficial anthroponyms in the prose of Sergiusz Piasecki
No full textArtykuł dotyczy funkcjonowania nieoficjalnych antroponimów w trylogii złodziejskiej Sergiusza Piaseckiego. Autorka wyekscerpowała z powieści 49 antroponimów i podzieliła je na kategorie motywacyjne i słowotwórcze. Analiza wykazała, że antroponimy nieoficjalne pełnią różne funkcje w trylogii złodziejskiej, m.in.: identyfikacyjno-dyferencjacyjną, pragmatyczną, socjologiczną, werystyczną.The article deals with the functioning of unofficial anthroponyms in Sergiusz Piasecki’s criminal trilogy. The author collected 49 anthroponyms. The analysis included assigning the anthroponyms into categories on the basis of their motivation and word formation. The present paper demonstrated that unofficial anthroponyms perform several functions in the prose of Sergiusz Piasecki, including: identification and differentiation of characters, pragmatic and social functions
The Image of the Criminal in the Prose of Sergiusz Piasecki
No full textTwenty years of personal experience in crime-related field that furthermore inspiredreflection on the reasons of crime made a Polish writer, Sergiusz Piasecki, interestingfor forensic sciences. His life started with a turbulent and difficult childhood, hematured among the turmoil of the Soviet Revolution and joined the guerrillas fightingBolsheviks, finally to graduate from the School of Infantry Cadets in Warsaw and beassigned to the Lithuanian-Belarusian Division in Vilnius. After the Bolshevik War,being a decommissioned soldier, Piasecki painfully experienced life in poverty. Thiswas when he began to earn his sustenance by smuggling. He later entered a few-yearlongcooperation with the 2nd Division of the High Command of the Polish Army andbecame an intelligence agent. In 1926, being unemployed again, he robbed a suburbantrain. In accordance with the law in force, the summary court sentenced him to death.However, the President of the Republic Ignacy Mościcki pardoned Pia secki, exchangingthe penalty to 15 years in prison. Piasecki served 11 years of his sentence in the prisonsof Lida, Nowogódek, Rawicz, Mokotów, Koronowo, and finally in the toughest prisonof the Second Republic – at Święty Krzyż (the Holy Cross) near Kielce. The 20 yearsfrom 1917 to 1937 were the period decisive for the writing realism and thoroughnessof descriptions of the criminal world and presented protagonists, as well as analysesof psychological and social circumstances that lead individuals to the path of crime.Beginning with Piasecki’s first published book Kochanek Wielkiej Niedźwiedzicy (Lover of the Greater Bear, aka Lover of the Ursa Major) whose author enjoyed a quite uniquestatus of criminal prisoner, and which presented the facts of life of smugglers onthe Polish-Soviet fringe in 1922–1924, the precious study of the criminal world wascontinued in the trilogy Jabłuszko, Spojrzę ja w okno, and Nikt nie da nam zbawienia(Apple, Shall I Look into the Window, and No One is to Redeem us). In Żywot człowiekarozbrojonego (Life of the Human Disarmed), the protagonist moves through all the levelsof conflict with the law, and the reader follows the process of his reflections to becomefamiliar with the impact of the external world on the dramatic choices made.The work of Piasecki follows the current of prose keen on social environmentof the 1930s, based on authenticity and autobiographic experience, and whose cog -nitive values result among others from the personal involvement of the author, whocorroborates knowledge based on experience and direct contact. It is a specific typeof participatory observation: a method of researching criminal phenomena wherethe observer is part of the criminal world.The goal of the writer, which he actually frequently emphasised, was the eagernessto share the knowledge on criminals with the society, with the provision thatthe criminal world he portrayed was multidimensional rather than just a separate,specific social group, standing out from among the “normal” people. He also paidspecial attention to the life’s circumstances that can “make” anyone a criminal. It is alsocharacteristic of Piasecki to juxtapose criminals against people who are “mechanically”honest. In examining the writer’s views on crime, such a ploy demolishes the positivistdivision of the society into criminals and decent people. Honest by default, manya decent citizen proves to be a bad man. On the other hand, many derailed outcastsfrom the society are in fact good and truly honest. Some stories presented by Piaseckiare quite precise illustrations of theories in the crime sciences. In his descriptionsof the demimonde of the Minsk thieves, Piasecki described them in terms very closeto those presented by Edward Sutherland in The Professional Thief, a book writtenby a professional thief with Sutherland’s sociological commentary.The history of literature knows many writers whose works were based on the introspectionof their respective authors, and whose content allows delving into the socialreality of a given time and an insightful analysis of criminal personalities, as well as anattempt at defining the factors that influence criminal behaviours. Such a knowledgeof the human/the criminal is especially well articulated in realistic prose (Balzac,Zola, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Marquez, Remarque, Piasecki, Nachalnik, Wiskowski, Mironowicz).Certainly, the belles-lettres play a special role in this context, providinga source of knowledge, especially if by the virtue of the vicissitudes of his or her life andthoughts the author can convey information helpful in explaining and understanding the assessment of the phenomena investigated by criminal sciences
Holistic Flood Risk Assessment In Coastal Areas: The PEARL Approach
No full textCoastal floods are one of the most dangerous and harmful natural hazards affecting urban areas adjacent to shorelines. The present paper discusses the FP7-ENV-2013 EU funded PEARL (Preparing for Extreme And Rare events in coastaL regions) project which brings together world leading expertise in both the domain of hydro-engineering and risk reduction and management services to pool knowledge and practical experience in order to develop more sustainable risk management solutions for coastal communities focusing on present and projected extreme hydro-meteorological events. The PEARL approach draws upon the complexity theory and the use of complex adaptive system (CAS) models as tools to identify root causes of vulnerabilities and their multi-stressors and to analyze risk and the behavior of key actors
Modelling Of Thermal Energy Balance In Sewer Systems
No full textRecent studies have indicated that wastewater contains relatively large amounts of thermal energy. Recovering this thermal energy can be used to decrease the CO2 footprint of the water cycle. This paper describes the development of a model to simulate the heat balance and predict the temperature in a sewer system. The model can be used to estimate the recoverable thermal energy and its dynamics. The model was verified with field data. It was concluded that the model is a powerful and accurate tool to simulate the heat balance of a sewer system at the urban district level. It was found that the recoverable heat show highly dynamic patterns, directly related to water consumption patterns. The recoverable heat depends on technical aspects as well as regulations for maximum acceptable temperature differences due to heat abstraction
Prediction Of Hydrological Models’ Uncertainty By A Committee Of Machine Learning-Models
No full textIn the MLUE method (reported in Shrestha et al. [1, 2]) we run a hydrological model M for multiple realizations of parameters vectors (Monte Carlo simulations), and use this data to build a machine learning model V to predict uncertainty (quantiles) of the model M output. In this paper, for model V, we employ three machine learning techniques, namely, artificial neural networks, model tree, locally weighted regression which leads to several models results. We propose to use the simple averaging method (SA) and the weighted model averaging method (WMA) to form a committee of these models. These approaches are applied to estimate uncertainty of streamflows simulation in Bagmati catchment in Nepal. Tests on the different data sets show that WMA performs a bit better than SA.Water Resource
Precipitation Sensor Network Optimal Design Using Time-Space Varying Correlation Structure
No full textDesign of optimal precipitation sensor networks is a common topic in hydrological literature, however this is still an open problem due to lack of understanding of some spatially variable processes, and assumptions that often cannot be verified. Among these assumptions lies the homoscedasticity of precipitation fields, common in hydrological practice. To overcome this, it is proposed a local intensity-variant covariance structure, which in the broad extent, provides a fully updated correlation structure as long as new data are coming into the system. These considerations of intensity-variant correlation structure will be tested in the design of a precipitation sensor network for a case study, improving the estimation of precipitation fields, and thus, reducing the input uncertainty in hydrological models, especially in the scope of rainfall-runoff models.Water Resource
Effect Of Different Hydrological Model Structures On The Assimilation Of Distributed Uncertain Observations
No full textThe reliable evaluation of the flood forecasting is a crucial problem for assessing flood risk and consequent damages. Different hydrological models (distributed, semi-distributed or lumped) have been proposed in order to deal with this issue. The choice of the proper model structure has been investigated by many authors and it is one of the main sources of uncertainty for a correct evaluation of the outflow hydrograph. In addition, the recent increasing of data availability makes possible to update hydrological models as response of real-time observations. For these reasons, the aim of this work it is to evaluate the effect of different structure of a semi-distributed hydrological model in the assimilation of distributed uncertain discharge observations. The study is applied in the Brue catchment, located in UK. The first methodological step is to divide the basin in different sub-basins according to topographic characteristics. Secondly, two different structures of the semi-distributed hydrological model are implemented in order to estimate the outflow hydrograph. Then, synthetic observations of uncertain value of discharge are generated as a function of the observed and simulated value of flow at the basin outlet, and assimilated in the semi-distributed models using a Kalman Filter. Finally, different spatial patterns of sensors location are assumed to update the model state as response of the uncertain discharge observations. The results of this work pointed out that different model structures can provide different improvements of model performances, and, different optimal location of the sensors.Water Resource
Overview Of Coupling Of Data, Models And Information Through The Web Using Existing Standards
No full textAssessment of environmental status and integral safety requires combination of information from many sources, coming from either databases or increasingly via live model (scenario) simulations. Many of these models require input from one another, sometimes unidirectional, but more and more two-directional as well. Many protocols and frameworks are available for model coupling, often based on open standards and implementations. Previous overviews of coupling protocols have focused on data exchange volume, data complexity, invasiveness into existing models and support for specific programming languages. We extend the overview using recent developments in web-based protocols and focus on the suitability for internet-based data exchange. We also extend the focus of previous reviews by also taking the coupling with aggregated information products for end-users into account. We propose a hierarchical ordering of all standards for specific types of end-users.Coastal EngineeringEnvironmental Fluid Mechanic
Committees Of Specialized Conceptual Hydrological Models: Comparative Study
No full textSingle hydrological model or model calibrated on single objective function often cannot capture all components of a water motion process. One possibility is building several specialized models each of which responsible for a particular sub-process (e.g., high flows or low flows), and combining them using dynamic weights – thus forming a committee model. In this study, we test two different committee models: one uses fuzzy memberships function andanother one - weights calculated from hydrological states. Specialized models are calibrated using Adaptive Cluster Covering Algorithm with different objective functions. The performances of the two different committee models are illustrated and compared.Water Resource
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