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Search for inexpensive and efficient methods of critical raw materials recovery is of great importance across the world due to growing demand for green technologies. Formation and detailed characterization of new Pb- and Light Rare Earth Elements (LREE)-containing phosphates, compared to already described Pb- or LREE-containing phosphates, was described in this work. These phases were precipitated at experimental conditions similar to these used in a newly proposed coprecipitation route for REE recovery from aqueous solutions. The formation of La, Ce, Pr and Sm phosphates from aqueous solutions proceeded differently in the presence of Pb than in its absence. No rhabdophane group minerals, (REE,Ca,Th)(PO4)·nH2O were formed, which were the product of crystallization in the absence of Pb, as evidenced by the PXRD analysis of the control LREE phosphates. Instead, a new, distinct phase was formed, which is neither a ‘phosphoschultenite’, PbHPO4, with La, Ce, Pr or Sm substitution nor a rhabdophane with Pb substitution. This showed that PbHPO4 structure did not accept isomorphic substitutions of LREE elements and rhabdophane structures are reluctant to accept Pb substitutions. At the same time, the formation of a hitherto unknown crystalline phase was found to be a mixed (LREE,Pb)-phosphate. A lower pH caused higher crystallinity of phases, as confirmed by SEM and PXRD. FTIR spectroscopy showed the hydrous nature of the obtained phases, which was additionally confirmed by thermal analysis. Decreasing pH of the reaction solution resulted in a higher crystalline water content. Moreover, La-bearing phases contained more chemically bound water than other phases. A combined EDS analysis and ICP-OES led to the chemical composition of new Pb phases with La, Ce, Pr and Sm that can be expressed as La2Pb3(PO4)4·3.5H2O, Ce2Pb3(PO4)4·3.3H2O, Pr2Pb3(PO4)4·3.1H2O and Sm2Pb3(PO4)4·3.3H2O, respectively. These results give a better understanding of potential novel recovery pathways of REE from phosphate mineral sources or wastes.

The article focuses on a study that analyses the survival and value of prognostic factors in patients with Stage I and II endometrial carcinoma (EC). EC has become the most common disease of the females of Western countries. The five-year overall survival rate in the observed group was 17 percent and Cox multivariate analysis demonstrated that the only independent prognostic factor was the site of recurrence. If the recurrence is traced it can be cured with aggressive surgery or radiotherapy.

The article considered the influence the various types of land use on microbial activity of soils and thus using this parameter as a universal test of soil quality. Samples for soil respiration studies were taken from agricultural areas, meadows, forests and urban areas (estate cottages). All samples were subjected to the same analytical procedure and the method of measurement was followed by a Substrate-Induced Respiration (SIR) method. Since all the samples were from neighbouring regions and were characterized by similar soil parameters, the obtained results allowed to assess the quality of the soil environment of the surveyed area and to evaluate the total rating of whole area. The obtained results allowed to observe slight divergences between soil samples taken from areas of different use. And although statistically, in this case, these differences were not significant, the characteristics of the respiration curves clearly indicate that there is a dependency between the form of use and the size and rate of soil respiration. In addition, the results have shown that single family housing does not exhibit as much anthropopression to the soil environment as it might seem.

Dense road network change the landscape as well as in many different ways affect the environment and living organisms. The works on reducing the exposures to traffic pollutants carried out all around the world. In the last decade, noise barriers in large numbers began to appear along the main streets and became a common feature of urban architecture in Poland. Besides being barriers to the spread of the noise on the neighboring areas these constructions might also contribute to reducing the spread of air pollution, especially road dust particles with associated trace metals (Cd, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn).

The article presents the results of attempts to use adaptive algorithms for classification tasks different soils units. The area of study was the Upper Silesian Industrial Region, which physiographic and soils parameters in the form of digitized was used in the calculation. The study used algorithms, self-organizing map (SOM) of Kohonen, and classifiers: deep neural network, and two types of decision trees: Distributed Random Forest and Gradient Boosting Machine. Especially distributed algorithm Random Forest (algorithm DRF) showed a very high degree of generalization capabilities in modeling complex diversity of soil. The obtained results indicate, that the digitization of topographic and thematic maps give you a fairly good basis for creating useful models of soil classification. However, the results also showed that it cannot be concluded that the best algorithm presented in this research can be regarded as a general principle of system design inference.

Oryginality and objective – Research on the pricing of stocks listed on developed markets shows inexplicable deviation from the pricing that could be observed with CAPM validity. A similar anomaly is found on the Polish market. Reasons for inconsistent pricing with CAPM are unknown, and they are the main objective of this research.