COVID-19 AND SICKNESS INSURANCE BENEFITS (SELECTED ISSUES)

The Act of 2 March 2020 on special solutions related to the prevention, counteraction and combating of COVID‑19, other infectious diseases and crisis situations caused by them introduced a preferential sickness allowance for certain insured persons (i.e. insured persons who are employed in medical entities; insured persons who are employed in social assistance organisational units providing twenty-four-hour services, night shelters and other facilities providing twenty-four-hour care to persons with disabilities, the chronically ill or the elderly; insured persons carrying out the tasks of a member of the voluntary fire brigade). The article analyses the changes made to the legal regulation and the differences between them (e.g. right to sick pay and sickness allowance or only to sickness allowance). The article also draws attention to certain irregularities in the practical application of these provisions.

THE RIGHT TO TERMINATE NON-COMPETITION AGREEMENTS DURING THE STATE OF EPIDEMIC EMERGENCY OR STATE OF EPIDEMIC, ANNOUNCED ON GROUNDS OF COVID-19. COMMENTS DE LEGE LATA AND DE LEGE FERENDA

In Art. 15 gf of the Act of 2 March 2020 on special solutions relating to the prevention, counteraction and combatting COVID-19, other infectious diseases and the resulting crisis situations, the legislator introduced a right to terminate non-competition agreements. The purpose of this article is to examine if that right does not interfere excessively with the interests of employees, mandatories and contractors, and if it does not disturb the balance between the parties to non-competition agreements. The research problem is analysed on several levels. The constitutional approach is adopted (in terms of compatibility with: the principle of a democratic state ruled by law; principle of proportionality; principle of equality before the law). Also, interpretation of the examined provisions is presented and complexities it may trigger in practice. Conclusions of the performed analysis are a basis for the presented amendment proposals intended to mitigate the negative consequences of the examined provisions.

Introduction of Art. 276a of the CCP as a Result of the Impact of the SARS-CoV–2 Pandemic on the Criminal Trial

One of the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic (SARS-CoV–2) in the context of the impact on the Polish criminal trial was the introduction to the Code of Criminal Procedure of a new preventive measure related to the protection of medical personnel, specified in the new editorial unit – Art. 276a of the CCP. This measure was introduced by the Act of March 31, 2020, amending the Act on special solutions related to the prevention, counteraction, and combating of COVID-19, other infectious diseases and the crisis situations caused by them, and some other acts, and is a novelty in the Polish criminal procedure. The purpose of this article is to investigate a new preventive measure defined in Art. 276a of the Code of Criminal Procedure in terms of the legitimacy of its introduction to the Polish Code of Criminal Procedure. Three research problems will be analysed. The first concerns the extent to which the introduction of the new preventive measure under Art. 276a of the Code of Criminal Procedure was necessary in terms of the need to provide special protection to medical personnel in Poland. The second research problem concerns the extent to which the application of the new preventive measure under Art. 276a of the Code of Criminal Procedure corresponds to the assumptions of the Polish legislator and what is the ratio legis of the analysed regulation. The third research problem boils down to the extent to which the amendment to Art. 276a of the Code of Criminal Procedure corresponds to the rules of legislative technique.

Lie Symmetries and Solutions of Reaction Diffusion Systems Arising in Biomathematics

In this paper, a special subclass of reaction diffusion systems with two arbitrary constitutive functions Γ(v) and H(u,v) is considered in the framework of transformation groups. These systems arise, quite often, as mathematical models, in several biological problems and in population dynamics. By using weak equivalence transformation the principal Lie algebra, LP, is written and the classifying equations obtained. Then the extensions of LP are derived and classified with respect to Γ(v) and H(u,v). Some wide special classes of special solutions are carried out.

New optical soliton solutions via two distinctive schemes for the DNA Peyrard–Bishop equation in fractal order

The deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) dynamical equation, which emerges from the oscillator chain known as the Peyrard–Bishop (PB) model for abundant optical soliton solutions, is presented, along with a novel fractional derivative operator. The Kudryashov expansion method and the extended hyperbolic function (HF) method are used to construct novel abundant exact soliton solutions, including light, dark, and other special solutions that can be directly evaluated. These newly formed soliton solutions acquired here lead one to ask whether the analytical approach could be extended to deal with other nonlinear evolution equations with fractional space–time derivatives arising in engineering physics and nonlinear sciences. It is noted that the newly proposed methods’ performance is most reliable and efficient, and they will be used to construct new generalized expressions of exact closed-form solutions for any other NPDEs of fractional order.

Controlling Canard Cycles

Canard cycles are periodic orbits that appear as special solutions of fast-slow systems (or singularly perturbed ordinary differential equations). It is well known that canard cycles are difficult to detect, hard to reproduce numerically, and that they are sensible to exponentially small changes in parameters. In this paper, we combine techniques from geometric singular perturbation theory, the blow-up method, and control theory, to design controllers that stabilize canard cycles of planar fast-slow systems with a folded critical manifold. As an application, we propose a controller that produces stable mixed-mode oscillations in the van der Pol oscillator.

Hamiltonian Aspects of Three-Layer Stratified Fluids

The theory of three-layer density-stratified ideal fluids is examined with a view toward its generalization to the n-layer case. The focus is on structural properties, especially for the case of a rigid upper lid constraint. We show that the long-wave dispersionless limit is a system of quasi-linear equations that do not admit Riemann invariants. We equip the layer-averaged one-dimensional model with a natural Hamiltonian structure, obtained with a suitable reduction process from the continuous density stratification structure of the full two-dimensional equations proposed by Benjamin. For a laterally unbounded fluid between horizontal rigid boundaries, the paradox about the non-conservation of horizontal total momentum is revisited, and it is shown that the pressure imbalances causing it can be intensified by three-layer setups with respect to their two-layer counterparts. The generator of the x-translational symmetry in the n-layer setup is also identified by the appropriate Hamiltonian formalism. The Boussinesq limit and a family of special solutions recently introduced by de Melo Viríssimo and Milewski are also discussed.

Recombinant DNA and Genome-editing Technologies: Embodied Utopias and Heterotopias

Recombinant DNA technology is an essential area of life engineering. The main aim of research in this field is to experimentally explore the possibilities of repairing damaged human DNA, healing or enhancing future human bodies. Based on ethnographic research in a Czech biochemical laboratory, the article explores biotechnological corporealities and their specific ontology through dealings with bio-objects, the bodywork of scientists. Using the complementary concepts of utopia and heterotopia, the text addresses the situation of bodies and bio-objects in a laboratory. Embodied utopias are analyzed as material semiotic phenomena that are embodied by scientists in their visions and emotions and that are related to potential bodies and to future, not-yet-actualized embodiments. As a counterpart to this, the text explores embodied heterotopias, which are always the other spaces, like biotechnological bio-objects that are simulated in computers or stored in special solutions.