This study is a trial for presenting high attractiveness of shape form in abandoned quarry areas, as well as for indicating social interest in the areas in terms of their attractiveness. For this reason, a procedure of evaluation of the landscape attractiveness of abandoned quarries is suggested, which was created by assigning additional partial criteria, and their comparison with the criteria of already existing methods. Methods used for the research are as follows: the semantic differential technique (also called Osgood's method), the entropy method, and the method of point bonitation. In order to verify the procedure suggested, 10 objects (quarries) located in the area of the Ślęża Landscape Park with its buffer zone were studied. Then, comparative studies were conducted, this time with quarries from Great Britain and Austria, also subject to some forms of environmental protection. The results of the research suggest that the main indicator of a quarries' attractiveness is their uniqueness, aesthetic appeal, interest, and the curiosity they raise, which allows the formation of four classification groups for attractiveness: very attractive, attractive, slightly attractive, and unattractive quarries. The research conducted also indicates that highly attractive quarries may gain a larger number of tourists and the development of hiking, cycling, horse riding, and, in some cases, also qualified tourism (rock climbing or diving) through creating additional side attractions. Additionally, due to their uniqueness and form differentiation, abandoned quarries may be used for common social education, being a didactic place in programmes of touristic trips, science lessons, and ecological education.

The article attempts to classify and standardize the terminology used in the literature related to a postmining land use. The following terms were discussed: restoration, reclamation, rehabilitation, land development and revitalization as well as their explicitness enabling one to understand the essence of a certain process properly. On the basis of the existing methods of post-mining areas development found in the literature on the subject, certain inaccuracies related to the terminology of ways of reclamation and methods of development were shown. This situation enables one to offer a new, developed and flexible classification of ways of reclamation including all the possible forms of post-mining land use. This classification considers methods of reclamation and restoration of utility value to post-mining areas on the basis of 6 general (ngen) and 23 specific ways (nspec), which terminology is unambiguous and leaves no space for doubts as to the interpretation. The essence of the offered classification is a possibility of joining general and specific ways into semantic combinations excluding possible inaccuracies in understanding. A possible form of notation of general and specific ways is as follows: \general.specific [, \gen-eral.specific,specific[ and, possibly, \general ? general. specific ? specific[. This kind of approach enables one to consider each place individually, step out of the box and increase a number of semantic combinations from number n gen to number n gen *n spec . The offered classification may also be successfully used in determining ways of rehabilitation, revitalization or land development.

The historic post-mining objects deserve special attention due to their high cognitive and didactic value. Conducting the revitalization of such facilities is aimed at preserving the mining cultural heritage, and as a result, it will insert attractiveness to the region. The publication attempts to present an approach to the issues of revitalization of post-mining objects and their analysis in Poland, Spain, and UK. In Poland, there is the Revitalization Act, which comprehensively defines stages and ways of conducting revitalization. Spanish legal regulations do not provide for a separate legal act on revitalization, but they are based on mining Law, environmental law, and cultural heritage law. On the other hand, legal regulations in UK do not provide solutions for the revitalization of post-mining areas. However, land leases could incorporate within them, prior to any industrial or mining activities commencement, a requirement for re-stabilization or returning the land to a safe environmental condition on activity completion. Despite the considerable diversity of legal conditions in the described countries, revitalization measures are conducted with positive results, as illustrated by the Gold Mine in Zloty Stok, La Tortilla Mine in Linares, and revitalization of King Edward Mine, an old mining site in Cornwall.

The ribosome is not only a protein-making machine, but also a regulatory element in protein synthesis. This view is supported by our earlier data showing that Arabidopsis mitoribosomes altered due to the silencing of the nuclear RPS10 gene encoding mitochondrial ribosomal protein S10 differentially translate mitochondrial transcripts compared with the wild-type. Here, we used ribosome profiling to determine the contribution of transcriptional and translational control in the regulation of protein synthesis in rps10 mitochondria compared with the wild-type ones. Oxidative phosphorylation system proteins are preferentially synthesized in wild-type mitochondria but this feature is lost in the mutant. The rps10 mitoribosomes show slightly reduced translation efficiency of most respiration-related proteins and at the same time markedly more efficiently synthesize ribosomal proteins and MatR and TatC proteins. The mitoribosomes deficient in S10 protein protect shorter transcript fragments which exhibit a weaker 3-nt periodicity compared with the wild-type. The decrease in the triplet periodicity is particularly drastic for genes containing introns. Notably, splicing is considerably less effective in the mutant, indicating an unexpected link between the deficiency of S10 and mitochondrial splicing. Thus, a shortage of the mitoribosomal S10 protein has wide-ranging consequences on mitochondrial gene expression.

The Lower Silesia area in SW Poland is characterized by a geological structure that is conducive to mining activity. The exploitation of rock raw materials plays an important role in this sector of the economy. By the end of 2017, there were in total approximately 400 current concessions for the exploitation of rock raw materials in the analysed area (Polish Geological Institute, MIDAS database—Management and Protection System of Polish Mineral Resources). The conducted mining activity results in waste, which in the greatest amount occurs in the process of obtaining crushed road and construction aggregates, natural aggregates, carbonate raw materials for the cement and lime industry, as well as stone elements for construction and road engineering. At the end of 2016, the mining plants accumulated 26,569,600 Mg of waste. As part of the European Regions Toward Circular Economy (CircE) project, research was conducted on the volume and composition of the mining waste of rock raw materials in the years 2010–2016 within Lower Silesia. This research used the methods of statistical, descriptive and spatial analysis to identify mining plants with the highest potential for using their wastes. In the course of this study, 6 mining plants with the highest potential of using their waste for industrial production purposes were selected. In order to objectively select these plants, the methodology of qualitative multi-criteria analysis was developed, and 7 criteria were selected for assessing the economic potential of using waste from the mining of rock raw materials. An additional result of this research is a database and graphical presentation of changes in the spatial distribution of generated waste in the Lower Silesia region in the years ranging from 2010 to 2016.

Changes in the functional state of mitochondria have profound effects on other cellular compartments. Genome-wide expression analysis of Arabidopsis rps10 mutants with an RNAi-silenced expression of mitoribosomal S10 protein has revealed extensive transcriptional reprogramming. A meta-analysis comparing expression datasets of 25 mitochondrial perturbations showed a high similarity of the aox1a:rpoTmp mutant , which is defective in the alternative oxidase (AOX1a) and dual-targeted mitochondrial and plastid RNA polymerase (RPOTmp), to rps10 . Both rps10 and aox1a:rpoTmp showed a significantly decreased electron flux through both the cytochrome and the alternative respiratory pathways, and a markedly decreased the expression of nuclear-encoded components of the chloroplast transcription machinery. In line with this, a decreased level of plastid transcripts was observed in rps10 and aox1a:rpoTmp , which was reflected in a reduced rate of chloroplast transcription. Chemical treatment of wild-type seedlings with respiratory inhibitors showed that only simultaneous and direct inhibition of complex IV and AOX activity decreased the level of plastid transcripts. Taken together, both chemical and genetic studies show that the limitation of the activity of two mitochondrial terminal oxidases, complex IV and AOX, negatively impacts chloroplast transcription. Salicylic acid and oxygen are discussed as putative mediators of the signalling pathway between mitochondria, nucleus and chloroplasts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Retrograde signalling from endosymbiotic organelles’.

This publication presents the research results concerning determination of the level of landscape attractiveness of the abandoned quarries. The research focused upon 20 structures located within the area of Poland, Great Britain and Austria. The research used procedures of landscape attractiveness assessment which features three research methods: survey method with the use of the semantic differential, the method of point bonitation and the landscape entropy method. Throughout the analysis conducted, the level of landscape attractiveness of the quarries was determined according to four classification groups: very attractive quarry landscape (I), attractive quarry landscape (II), little attractive quarry landscape (III) and unattractive quarry landscape (IV).

The aim of this publication is to analyze the influence of rock mineral composition and rock geometric properties on the quality of crushed aggregates, from the perspective of selecting an adequate aggregate production technology. This research is based on samples of crushed aggregates from plants processing igneous rocks from four different igneous deposits. In the case of the geometric properties, shape and flakiness indexes were identified and subsequently analyzed along with particle size distribution. The performed tests allowed a conclusion that the shape of the particle is influenced by the mineral composition and size distribution. The grain size analysis demonstrated that flaky and non-cubical particles concentrate in the finest grain fractions, and the least variable shape index is observed for basalt aggregate. Some problems were also observed to exist in relation to the classification of grain shape. In the literature, the notions of regular and irregular grains seem to be used interchangeably with the notions of flaky and non-flaky grains. The performed tests show that flaky grains do not necessarily have to be non-cubical and vice versa. Therefore, this article proposes an approach in which the applied technique is precisely explained and the shape of grains is described with four notions: cubical, non-cubical, flaky, and non-flaky. The article also finally concludes that the next step in the research on selecting an optimal production technology of high-quality aggregates should be to analyze the selection of the fragmentation process while also characterizing the geometric properties of the aggregates.