Medieval Inspirations in Cyprian Norwid’s Poetry

The author begins with underscoring Norwid’s defence of the intellectual achievements of the Middle Ages in part XII of Rzecz o wolności słowa. It prompts her to speculate about the importance and trajectories of reflections on the Middle Ages in Norwid’s poetry in general. Subsequently, Halkiewicz-Sojak casts the topic against the background concerning the romantic fascination with the Medieval tradition and specifically Polish difficulties in adapting the European (northern) variation of that current. On the one hand, Norwid’s considerations upon Godfred’s attitudes in Tasso’s Jersusalem Delivered and Cervantes’s Don Quixote lead to the conclusion that a nineteenth-century poet can only repeat Cervantes’s character’s gestures; therefore, for the author the Medieval props will be the book and the candle rather than a continuation of chivalrous adventures. On the other hand, Norwid – especially in the early drama mystery plays – conjures up poetic worlds of the Slavic Middle Ages and focuses his attention on the Christian initiation of the Slavdom

Wi-Fi networks in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB)

Wi-Fi is quite a new technology on the market. This paper’s aim was to prove the justifiability and profitability of this technology use in the small and medium-sized businesses sector. Advantages and disadvantages of this kind of network were also shown. An issue connected with data and configuration elements security was also raised. Other wireless technologies were also presented

Did the ancient Romans have double-entry bookkeeping?

Purpose: The main purpose of the article is to establish whether the ancient Romans used double-entry bookkeeping. The secondary aim is to present a wide range of accounting vocabulary used by the Romans, which was later used by Venetian merchants and Luca Pacioli in the 1494 treatise on double-entry bookkeeping and which is still in use today.Methodology/approach: The paper uses a deductive inference method based on an anal-ysis of the economic, legal, and historiographical literature on the accounting vocabulary used in the state and private finances of the Romans. Findings: Although the terminology presented in the article suggests that the Romans had a highly developed accounting system using the principle of double entry, this was not the case. No material evidence of this has been found in accounting documents, such as single accounting records, repeated counter entries or balance sheets. Historians of ac-counting and banking rely on the analysis of secondary historical sources, such as legal literature that documents the course of trials in which account books were the main evidence. One trial that was fully described in the literature was between the partners Fannius and Roscius, in which Cicero was the defender of Roscius. The article demonstrates that Ciceroʼs defense speech does not prove the existence of double-accounting in Rome. Reflecting on the reasons for the absence of double-entry bookkeeping, the author pre-sents de Ste. Croix's arguments, the most important of which was the Roman numerical notation system (I, V, X, L, C, M) did not ’force’ bookkeeping entries into columns. This was only done by the Arabic numeral notation system, which quickly translated into the opposite double notation.Research limitations: The lack of surviving documents and a need to rely on legal litera-ture.Originality/value: The article proves that the double notation – the debit/credit convention – cannot be ascribed to ancient Rome. However, the article informs the reader about the richness of the accounting and financial terminology of Rome at the turn of the era

A fatal case of belief in the possibilities of Venetian accounting in Julian Wieniawski’s humoresque Buchalterya podwójna

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to acquaint readers with Julian Wieniawski’s 1888 humoresque, the title motif of which is double-entry bookkeeping.Methodology/approach: The text is analyzed by interpreting the reasons for the main character’s praise of double-entry bookkeeping and the hopes unfulfilled but placed in it. Inferences are made from the text of the extent of accounting used by the main character and the views on it of the author of the story. Findings: Conjectures on why double-entry bookkeeping failed on the farm.Research limitations: Limitations arise from the nature of the literary work, which is a humoresque in which a perverse ending to earlier expectations is important. Originality/value: The article serves as a cautionary tale against applying a scientific approach to double-entry bookkeeping wherever it is not necessary. The article demonstrates that accounting can be, if not the main then a side plot of literary works. This was the case with Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Cymbeline or Herbert’s Portrait in Black Frames, among others, and it is also the case here

Księgowość w Mezopotamii w trzecim i drugim tysiącleciu przed Chrystusem

The recent, twentieth-century research on the history of the development of book-keeping indicates that it originated with the development of the Sumerian civilization in the third millennium BC. The necessity to control the property of the temple and of the palace, which was entrusted to breeders, farmers, merchants or craftsmen contributed to the creation of a very sophisticated method of documenting the events concerning these possessions. The article aims at identifying the reasons behind the emergence of book-keeping in Mesopotamia, discusses its instances in the form of inscriptions on clay tablets and analyzes examples of settlements concerning entrusted property, which, balancing debts and liabilities, have the characteristics of book-keeping. These settlements are primarily characterized by a personal approach – the one to whom the property has been entrusted is on the debit side. It was already in this period that the balancing method was employed in the case of factory or ‘budget’ book-keeping in redistributing the bala tax, as it is illustrated with examples of settlements concerning cattle breeders, merchants and craftsmen. In this article I refer to such publications as the proceedings of periodic academic conferences (Oxford University, 1998; Columbia University, 1998, British Museum, 2000) on the economy of the ancient Middle East as well as Marek Stępień’s (Warsaw University) works concerning the issues of taxation in Sumerian times.Najnowsze, XX-wieczne, badania nad historią rozwoju księgowości wskazują na to, że powstała ona wraz z rozwojem cywilizacji sumeryjskiej w III tysiącleciu przed Chr. Potrzeby kontroli powierzonego hodowcom, rolnikom, kupcom czy rzemieślnikom majątku świątynnego, pałacowego przyczyniły się do powstania, jak na owe czasy rozwiniętego, sposobu dokumentowania tych zdarzeń. Celem tego artykułu jest wskazanie przyczyn powstania księgowości w Mezopotamii, jej form w postaci zapisów na tabliczkach glinianych oraz przykładów rozliczeń powierzonego majątku, mających cechy rozliczeń księgowych – bilansujących zobowiązania i wierzytelności. W rozliczeniach tych dominuje personalistyczne podejście – winien jest ten, któremu majątek powierzono. W przywoływanych przykładach rozliczeń z hodowcami bydła, kupcami, rzemieślnikami, w przypadku księgowości fabrycznej czy „budżetowej” przy redystrybucji podatku bala stosowano już wówczas metodę bilansową. Przy pisaniu tego artykułu korzystałem z publikacji powstałych przy okazji cyklicznych konferencji naukowych (Oxford University, 1998; Columbia University, 1998, British Museum, 2000) na temat ekonomii antycznego Bliskiego Wschodu oraz z prac Marka Stępnia z Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego dotyczących aspektów podatkowych w czasach sumeryjskich

Retention behavior of conjugated and isolated n-alkadienes. Identification of n-nona- and n-decadienes by capillary gas chromatography using structure-retention correlations and mass spectrometry

The isomerization products of n-C8---C10 a,¿-alkadienes were separated on a high-efficiency squalane column (195 m × 0.25 mm I.D.) with 500,000 effective plates. Of the 102 possible n-C8---C10 dienes with isolated and conjugated double bonds, only nine groups of isomers were not separated. All isomers, except those with cumulated double bonds, were identified (23 octadienes, 33 nonadienes and 46 decadienes). The n-octadienes were identified by matching measured and published retention data. Because of the lack of standards, retention data and mass spectra of n-nona- and decadienes, and because the previously reported identification method for n-dienes up to C8 was succesful, the problem of the identification of C9---C10 n-alkadienes was solved similarly by using structure-retention correlations and combined capillary gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Based on these results, the retention behaviour of the conjugated and isolated n-alkadienes, on squalane stationary phase, is generalized

Obraz postaci historycznych w trylogii rewolucyjnej Teodora Jeske-Choińskiego (na przykładzie Camille’a Desmoulinsa, Georgesa Dantona i Maximiliena Robespierre’a)

In the revolutionary trilogy, Jeske-Choiński uses historical figures to present the cruelties of the events of the end of the 18th century. For this reason, the fictional characters become a background for the actions of historical heroes, whose profiles, in turn, are presented by the author by means of suggesting their moral evaluation. Although it seems coherent – the characters are just as cruel as the world they live in – it makes the reader feel uneasy about the contrast between the historical facts and the characters in the novel. In this work, the representations of historical figures created by Jeske-Choiński will be compared with their real counterparts, described by historians