CSA Environmental Sciences

For the people of Vilnius, it is helpful to consider its image in the eyes of strangers. They reflect the strangeness of Vilnius itself. The concept of strangeness will be developed by considering the related spectrum of these strangers’ acquaintance with the city. We consider images of Vilnius formed by noteworthy Europeans who passed through there or spent some part of their life there, such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Romain Gary, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Lev Tolstoy, Josif Brodsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, Vladimir Toporov, Aron Gurwitsch, and Czesław Miłosz. For some of them (Napoleon, F. Dostoyevsky), Vilnius was strange as a not yet assimilated territory. For others (L. Tolstoy, J. Brodsky), Vilnius was an important point of transition between geopolitical spheres. For some of them (R. Gary, M. Bakhtin), Vilnius was the environment of their maturation and a springboard to other cities. Vilnius has also been a city of studies and science (for J. G. A. Forster, Cz. Miłosz), a city that formed philosophical attitudes (M. Bakhtin, A. Gurwitsch), and a city of heritages: Russian (for F. Dostoyevsky, L. Tolstoy), Polish (Cz. Miłosz), German (A. Döblin, J. G. A. Forster), Jewish (A. Gurwitsch), pagan (V. Toporov). By appealing to the above mentioned images, the paper deals with philosophical aspects of strangeness, regionalism, and urban environments.

A city could be analysed as a place of concentration which a heterogeneous postmodern political society needs for dialog, as an urban space of artistic practice, as an example of touristic practise, as a case of urbanistic narration, as an area of public space, as a consumer society, as the object of a cultural map, and as an environment for cultural communication. The paper deals with studies of Vilnius as a field of transition and of intersection. The analyse the coexistence of different logical discourses, the philosophical aspects of urban strangeness, the ambivalence of sacred and profane, and urban images in socio-realistic photography and video projections have been presented.

The author analyses the ways in which the perspectives of philosophy and sociology interact in the age of visualization and demonstrates how the image-the main object of the relevant academic research-connects them. The mediological approach, analysed as particularly useful for images created with the help of modern technologies, is presented. The analysis focuses on photographs of a crowd marching through the main streets of Vilnius as well as on video projections of augmented reality performed on the most representative buildings of the city. The philosophical and sociological perspectives on represented images are presented and compared; the philosophical approach investigates the phenomenon of mass and modern technologies. Features of Vilnius' public places and its citizens starting from the middle of the twentieth century are reconstructed and analyzed.

Research in logic at Old Vilnius University (1579–1773) is interpreted as exhibiting an integrative, multilayered and multicultural spirit of tolerance in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in Vilnius, in particular. This article focuses on synthetic conceptions of universals and of the object of scientific knowledge as found in the works of Vilnius University professors M. Smiglecki and D. Ortiz. Their conception of universalia was an intermediate variant between realism and nominalism, affirming universal nature to exist in rebus inasmuch as it is cognized by intellect. The object of scientia likewise connected aspects of various epistemological positions. The result of such syntheses was the assertion that, purely theoretically, it is possible to cognize particularity as well as generality in a scientific way, yet practically, the only real object of science is generality. The above-mentioned conception of universals became quite influential in the European context of scholastic logic and philosophy, whereas the conception of the object of science did not receive a great deal of attention.

Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) form an important group of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) affecting troposphere and posing risk to human health. The article examines the Mažeikiai area in the northern part of Lithuania where one of the largest Central European companies and the only oil refinery in the Baltic region (200,000 barrels/day) are close to the Baltic Sea. The research carried out mainly focuses on the following objectives: quantitative assessment of the amounts of BTEX occurring in the impact zone of the oil refinery and transport; estimation of background BTEX concentrations in the region; establishing the main sources of BTEX in the region researched and evaluation of impact of meteorological parameters on BTEX concentrations in different seasons. The passive measurement method was used for analysing VOCs (benzene (C6 H6), toluene (C7H8), ethylbenzene (C8H10)and ortho-, meta- para-xylene (C8H10)). The research was carried out in 2010–2012. Its results showed that the average annual concentration of benzene was below the threshold value of 5μg/m3. Within the measurement period, the average concentration of benzene fluctuated from 1.2 to 2.4μg/m3, that of toluene varied from 1.3 to 3.5 μg/m3, thatofethylbenzene varied from 0.3 to 0.7 μg/m3 and that of xylene (calculated as para-, meta- and ortho-xylene) varied from 1.0 to 2.4 μg/m3. Compared to the established BTEX concentration, the actual background BTEX concentration in the urban area is two times higher. The seasonal analysis suggests that the highest values of benzene concentration are observed in the winter season.