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The issue of inequality in the use of urban transport space is particularly important in today’s car-saturated cities. Increasing the convenience, safety and respect for the rights of vulnerable road users, including in particular pedestrians and cyclists, is emerging as a particular challenge. Grassroots initiatives of city residents, who become cycling advocates and cycling activists, are confronting this problem. Among various forms of activism there is also the organisation of ‘critical masses’, which were originally intended to remind us about the rights of this group of road users through a simultaneous passage of multiple cyclists through the streets of the city. From the late 20th century to the present day, such events have undergone change. The aim of this study was to investigate how today’s critical masses differ from their 1990s prototypes. The research analysed bike critical masses organised in Poland, a country with an underdeveloped cycling culture and low cycling modal share. At one such event, a survey was also conducted to determine why participants chose to attend. The study confirmed that contemporary bicycle critical masses are recreational events promoting cycling.

Inter‐municipal cooperation (IMC) is increasingly becoming a tool municipalities use to achieve development goals and increase public service quality. However, in Central and Eastern Europe countries, including Poland, such a modus operandi is less common due to administrative and legal considerations. This article analyses one bicycle‐sharing project carried out jointly by 14 municipalities of the Gdańsk‐Gdynia‐Sopot metropolitan area in Poland. Based on a series of in‐depth interviews, the study aimed to consider what builds inter‐municipal cooperation at the local level. During the analysis, it proved that the various actors had different levels of commitment to cooperation based on substantive premises. Positive opinions about cooperation in the project resulted from partner and non‐hierarchical relations, fair and equal treatment without domination towards smaller municipalities. The study showed that in addition to the assumed effects of cooperation, the applied cooperation model allowed many added effects to be achieved, beneficial for all project partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) treatment on the enamel of twelve primary teeth (incisors, canines, and molars) collected from six children was examined in order to evaluate the possibility of using the CAP technique in dental applications. A radio-frequency dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma jet operating at a voltage of 3.25 kV using a mixture of helium and oxygen as the working gas was used for the generation of plasma as part of the electro-technological method for the treatment of biological material. The plasma exposure time for the primary teeth was 5, 10, and 20 min. The properties of tooth enamel (color, contact angles, surface roughness, surface topography, elemental composition) were examined before (control) and after the plasma treatment. As shown by the results, the plasma treatment time is a key parameter that can induce desired features, such as whitening or improved wettability. However, with prolonged plasma treatment (20 min), the enamel surface may be permanently damaged. The cold-plasma-treated samples were characterized by a higher value of the brightness L* parameter and thus a lighter color, compared to the CAP-untreated teeth. It was also evidenced that the plasma treatment increased the hydrophilicity of tooth surfaces, and the contact angles effectively decreased with the time of the CAP treatment. The tooth surface also became much more heterogeneous and rough with much greater amplitudes in heights. The surface of the primary teeth after the CAP treatment lost its homogeneity, as evidenced by the SEM micrographs. The analysis of the elemental composition revealed only minor changes after the plasma process, which may suggest that the observed morphological changes in the enamel surface are mainly physical and are not a consequence of chemical reactions between the enamel and the reactive components of the cold plasma. Plasma treatment of teeth opens up new possibilities of using this method as an alternative to whitening or pre-treatment before other dental procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a procedure for selecting optimal ceramic paste formulations dedicated to the 3D printing process using robocasting technology. This study investigated pastes with varying ceramic powder particle sizes and different proportions of additives, such as ceramic microspheres and nutshells. This selection process allowed for the classification of ceramic mixtures into those suitable and unsuitable for this additive manufacturing technique. Subsequently, the viscosity of the pastes was measured, and extrudability tests were performed to determine the force required for extrusion and evaluate the quality of the extruded material. In the final stage, the setting time of the ceramic pastes was assessed to establish the drying time of the printed elements. It was found that the length of the extruded band of ceramic paste was inversely proportional to the Al₂O₃ content. Moreover, the extrusion force for samples with varying ceramic powder particle sizes (MG1–MG5) ranged from 133 to 166 N, compared to 77 N for the base sample (BM1). The obtained results enable further development in robocasting additive technology, including the development of a rapid and effective method for validating ceramic pastes used in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental pollution in cities is an increasingly popular issue tackled in research. One of the elements with a significant impact on the state of urban ecosystems is transport with its pressure on individual components of the environment. Sustainable urban transport is gaining prominence as a postulate expressed in cities’ strategic documents, constituting an element alleviating the negative effects of anthropopressure. In the light of the need to introduce innovative solutions for clean forms of transport, numerous papers indicate the bicycle as an answer to some of those problems. The article presents a review of literature referring to the socio-economic aspects of using the bicycle in cities as a means of transport for daily commuting. The analysis is based on publications on cyclist safety in road traffic, the perception of the bicycle as a means of transport in cities, and the introduction of innovative solutions, such as bicycle-sharing systems.