The GSE journal was, by the decision of the Council for Science, Research and Innovation after an update in 2010, added to the list of peer reviewed periodicals published in the Czech Republic
RSSMonitoring and Analysis of Surface Changes from Undermining
Vlastimil Kajzar, Hana Doležalová
It is well known that the exploitation of mineral deposits negatively affects the environment. In the case of underground mining, there are usually the most serious effects which are associated with mining activities: movements and surface deformations lead to the creation of subsidence depressions.
The determination of the actual state of surface changes by conventional surveying methods is technically exacting, time-consuming and very expensive. With the development of geo-information technologies, new approaches arise and they can be applied to resolving this issue. These resources seem to be suitable not only for providing the necessary spatial information on ongoing processes, but also for their subsequent processing and comprehensive evaluation.
The presented paper deals with the possibilities of applying geo-information technologies for monitoring and evaluating the effects of underground mining on surface, summarizes the actual state of this research at ICT, and offers alternatives for their use in the future.Membrane Processes for Industrial Wastewater Treatment – Demineralization Station
Jitka Hajduková, Jan Thomas, Petra Malíková, Veronika Matúšková
The paper deals with treatment of wastewater produced by the energy industry using a membrane processes (electrodialysis). Prior to application of this technology, the influence of wastewater on the chosen type of membranes is solved. Specifically, it means eliminating the influence of formation soluble (insoluble) salts which could negatively affect water treatment by the chosen technology. The paper also summarizes the results of laboratory tests of electrodialysis with the aim to acquire treated wastewater of such quality meeting legislative limits for discharges to surface water (i.e. total dissolved solids below 1g.l-1).
Research on Petrophysical Properties of Chosen Samples from The Point of View of Possible CO2 Sequestration
Martin Klempa, Michal Porzer, Petr Bujok, Ján Pavluš
Man-made CO2 emissions (the so called anthropogenic CO2 emissions) and their increasing trend can be, by some scientists, considered a serious menace for the sustainable development of mankind, and their reduction a prerequisite for the environment protection. Carbon dioxide is one of the most important gases that cause a greenhouse effect which warms up the earth surface as a consequence of a different heat flow between the earth and the atmosphere. Our laboratory measurements determined the porosity, permeability and grain density for clastic sedimentary rock samples which were drilled from an underground gas storage facility. Additionally, our results showed a reduction in porosity and permeability after a confining pressure was applied. We assume that this effect is caused by internal structure changes due to the repeatedly increased and decreased net pressure applied to the samples.
Effect of Chemical Activation on Sorption Characteristics of Selected Wood Samples
Nikola Smatanová, Ivan Koutník, Marek Večeř
Two samples of hardwood, beech and a mixture of beech and oak were pyrolyzed by continuous chemical activation with K2CO3. Two final temperatures were tested on activated samples (550 °C, 750 °C). In the same temperature regime, also non-activated original samples were pyrolyzed. The sorption for carbonaceous material was measured with a high-pressure thermal analyzer (TGA-HP50) in the presence of nitrogen and the carbon dioxide atmosphere in the range of pressure from 0,03 to 4,5 MPa, respectively from 0,03 to 2 MPa. The sorption experiments were carried out at three different temperatures – 20, 30 a 40 °C. The tests indicate that the final temperature of activation and sorption conditions (pressure, temperature) have significant impact on sorption properties of material.
Evaluation of Surfactant Performance for Enhanced Oil Recovery
Michal Porzer, Petr Bujok, Martin Klempa, Petr Pánek
This paper focuses on the field of enhanced oil recovery by means of a chemical flooding of oil deposit especially a surfactant flooding method. The main objective is the application of the aforementioned method at the Czech oil deposit Ždánice – Miocene which bears the crude oil of significant viscosity and gravity that does not allow conventional production methods to be used. We evaluated the performance of various surfactants in the laboratory environment by simulating oil recovery processes.
The First Test of the New Neutron Generator at the VŠB - Technical University of Ostrava
Petr Alexa, Radim Uhlář
The compact neutron generator MP320 (Thermo Scientific Inc.) operating on the principle of a deuterium-tritium reaction was tested before its planned application as the neutron source for the purpose of Fast Neutron Activation Analysis applications. Plates made from Al, Fe, Sn and Si were irradiated by a 14 MeV neutron beam and typical neutron induced reactions were identified.
Determination of Elevator Shaft Uprightness Applying the Terrestrial Laser Scanning Method
Ľudovít Kovanič
This paper presents the results obtained from geodetic measurements and processing the data with the objective to determine geometrical parameters of an elevator shaft applying classical as well as modern approaches for obtaining the measured data. The intention was to verify the possibility to apply the terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) method as a suitable, efficient and precise method for collecting spatial data.
Comparison of the Method of Least Squares and the Simplex Method for Processing Geodetic Survey Results
Silvia Gašincová, Juraj Gašinec
The present paper is devoted to the use of the simplex method in the processing of results from geodetic measurements as compared with the standard used method of least squares. Using the simplex method, a minimization problem is usually solved in a standard tabular form by rearranging lines and columns in order to find an optimal solution. The paper points out the simpler, more stable and more efficient way to solve a problem of linear programming through a matrix of relations.
Application of GPR During Investigation Concerning Causes of Pavement Failure and Road Subgrade Quality in Granitoid Massif Near Simtany
Luděk Kovář, Pavel Pospíšil
The survey of damaged engineering buildings is in many cases very demanding in terms of the selection of a right exploration method in relation to the results obtained for subsequent engineering works, time for survey implementation, and violations arising from survey activities. Heterogeneity of materials of a natural and anthropogenic origin is a fundamental axiom which can subsequently lead to either a distortion or a failure threatening statically the existence of a building structure. On the test object of a pavement, after some time of its use, severe deformations became evident whose causes and future evolution were not known. Within the design of survey techniques being able to quickly and efficiently uncover the causes of failures, the GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) investigation was included which as an indirect, non-destructive survey method very quickly helped to clarify he causes of failures of the building structure.
Risk Assessment in Mining-Related Project Management
Michal Vaněk, Yveta Tomášková, Alena Straková , Kateřina Špakovská, Petr Bora
Risk assessment is an integral part of the assessment of an investment project. Underestimating risks may lead to erroneous conclusions with negative impacts on the economy of the project. With regard to the level of investments and the time factor under mining company conditions, the issue of risk gains importance. The evaluation of existing practical experience shows that managers of mining companies more often approach to the risk assessment based on intuition, than through exact methods. The article is devoted to the risk assessment itself whose procedure is illustrated on a model example of assessing continuous and discontinuous alternatives of exploitation of loose overburden materials during large-scale coal mining operations in progress at pit quarries.
Changes in Mollusc Species Composition in the Mining Landscape on the Exemple of the Extinct Pond System Territory
Jiří Kupka, Hana Švehláková, Kamila Kašovská
The development of the industry in last two centuries, and especially intensive coal mining activities definitely changed the local landscape character. It led to the destruction of indigenous biotopes with natural flora and fauna communities. Many ecological studies use a group of molluscs as indicators of changes in the landscape. The advantage of this group is a relatively small number of taxa, relatively simple determination and very good knowledge of ecological requirements and distribution of individual species. The territory of Loucké ponds represents an interesting area in the industrial landscape of Karvinsko, where based on the above aspects of malacocenosis, it is possible to use and compare historical data of their incidence as well as to compare the data with current research. The pond system affected by the declension has an important function in the landscape today. The first malacological researches in the Loucké ponds territory were conducted in 1954 and 1955 (Brabenec, 1954, Ložek, 1964). Detailed survey was conducted by Macha (1978, 1979) who found 29 aquatic species (12 Bivalvia and 17 Gastropoda) and 19 land species of molluscs. This research was followed by the authors' survey in 2006, 2007 and 2013 which confirmed the presence of 48 molluscs species altogether (42 Gastropoda and 6 Bivalvia), from which 21 species were aquatic molluscs and 27 species were land molluscs.
Occupational Competence for Improving Industrial Enterprise Competitive Standards
Lucie Krčmarská, Igor Černý, Michal Vaněk
Success of enterprises is usually measured by their achievements. This success results from the competence of people working for the company. The employee competence can be understood as the sum of their actual performance and their latent abilities. Both is essential and provides for the competence completeness. Missing or inadequate occupational competences cause problems in running industrial enterprises, and thus a continuous improvement process of competence levels is a must. If a company is aware of the importance of people competences in relation to success or failures and strives to develop them, it is able not only solve current problems, but also remove causes of future problem incidences. This paper focuses on the assessment of the occupational competences and competence models as an important tool in the management of human resources.
Filling Mixtures and Legislative Aspects of their Application for the Disposal of Mine Workings
Alena Orlíková
The paper deals with the legislative aspects of the use of filling mixtures during the remediation of mining activities. The enterprises, carrying out the disposal of mine workings, buy filling mixtures within public procurement and need the quality of the products to be guaranteed. The requirements laid down in the technical guidelines for the certification of specified construction products raise doubts about the safety of products in terms of hygiene, protection of health and the environment. Currently, legislative development is underway in this area, striving for the implementation of the REACH Regulation into technical guidelines and thus to achieve the filling mixture to be produced and used in a safe manner.
Estimation of Avalanche Hazard in the Settlement of Magurka Using Elba+ Model
Martin Bartík, Matúš Hríbik, Miriam Hanzelová, Jaroslav Škvarenina
In our study we focused on advanced software applications to allow simulation of an avalanche. We used the model ELBA+, by which we tried to assess the vulnerability of mountain environments around the old mining settlement called Magurka (1036 m a.s.l.), which lies below the main ridge of Low Tatras at the end of Ľupčianská valley. The avalanche in the Ďurková valley released on 14th March 1970 went down in history because it is still one of the largest avalanches recorded in Slovakia. Using archived data of the Avalanche Prevention Centre in Jasná, we tried its most faithful reconstruction. Then we tried to simulate an avalanche in the Viedenka valley using the same amount of snow in the release zone as it was supposed to be in 1970. Because a part of the Magurka settlement is situated at the mouth of this valley, which has more direct and shorter terrain than the valley of Ďurková, we examined the possibility of intervention by the avalanche.
Evaluation of the Data Quality of Digital Elevation Models in the Context of Inspire
Radoslav Chudý, Martin Iring, Richard Feciskanin
The contribution deals with the evaluation of the quality of geographic information in accordance with the ISO standards from the family of ISO 19100. The quality assessment was carried out on a sample of the data of the digital elevation model of the Slovak republic – DMR3. The selected data quality elements and sub-elements were evaluated using measures defined in the INSPIRE data specification for Elevation.
Modelling The Uncertainty of Slope Estimation From a Lidar-Derived Dem: a Case Study from a Large-Scale Area in the Czech Republic
Ivan Mudron, Michal Podhoranyi, Juraj Cirbus, Branislav Devečka, Ladislav Bakay
This paper summarizes the methods and results of error modelling and propagation analyses in the Olše and Stonávka confluence area. In terrain analyses, the outputs of the aforementioned analysis are always a function of input. Two approaches according to the input data were used to generate field elevation errors which subsequently entered the error propagation analysis. The main goal solved in this research was to show the importance of input data in slope estimation and to estimate the elevation error propagation as well as to identify DEM errors and their consequences. Dependencies were investigated as well to achieve a better prediction of slope errors. Four different digital elevation model (DEM) resolutions (0.5, 1, 5 and 10 meters) were examined with the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) rating up to 0.317 meters (10 m DEM). They all originated from a LIDAR survey. In the analyses, a stochastic Monte Carlo simulation was performed with 250 iterations. The article focuses on the error propagation in a large-scale area using high quality input DEM and Monte Carlo methods. The DEM uncertainty (RMSE) was obtained by sampling and ground research (RTK GPS) and from subtraction of two DEMs. According to empirical error distribution a semivariogram was used to model spatially autocorrelated uncertainty in elevation. The second procedure modelled the uncertainty without autocorrelation using a random N(0,RMSE) error generator. Statistical summaries were drawn to investigate the expected hypothesis. As expected, the error in slopes increases with the increasing vertical error in the input DEM. According to similar studies the use of different DEM input data, high quality LIDAR input data decreases the output uncertainty. Errors modelled without spatial autocorrelation do not result in a greater variance in the resulting slope error. In this case, although the slope error results (comparing random uncorrelated and empirical autocorrelated error fields) did not show any statistical significant difference, the input elevation error pattern was not normally distributed and therefore the random error generator realization is not a suitable interpretation of the true state of elevation errors. The normal distribution was rejected because of the high kurtosis and extreme values (outliners). On the other hand, it can show an important insight into the expected elevation and slope errors. Geology does not influence the slope error in the study area.
Geographic Information Systems in Developing Countries – What Are the Ethical Issues We Need to be Aware of?
Jiří Pánek
IThe use of GIS in developing countries has been coined as an oxymoron for several reasons, but mainly due to the fact that the historical burden of maps is to have been used as a tool of control and technological dominance. Participatory approaches in mapping and GIS allow to bring a greater degree of social responsibility and ethics in research and visualisation of local spatial knowledge. The article focuses on the description of selected reasons that led to the sceptical attitude towards GIS, and to identify the basic ethical issues of collection and interpretation of spatial information in developing countries on an example of mapping water resources in the village Koffiekraal in South Africa.
Reducing Carbon Dioxide Emissions By Underground Storage in An Abandoned Coal Mine - An Initial Study
Josef Chovanec, Jaroslav Závada, Tomáš Bouchal, Vladislav Blažek, Kamil Ožana
This article is a basic study dealing with the issues of underground storage of carbon dioxide generated from different kinds of activities. Carbon dioxide can be stored underground as a free gas; gas dissolved in water, or can be adsorbed in the rock mass and in the remaining seams. The technology for processing and storage of carbon dioxide is known as carbon capture & storage (ccs). The article focuses on the possibility to store co2 underground at the paskov mine in the czech republic.
An analysis of The Use of Eu Structural Assistance To Improve The Quality of Business Environment in The Moravia-Silesian Region
Igor Černý, Markéta Rolčíková, Lucie Krčmarská, Richard Böhm
The article deals with business environment in the moravia-silesian region, which is very various, dynamic and complex. It is influenced by many factors, which can have positive or negative impacts on corporations. The objective of the article is to determine the structural assistance from the operational programmes in the programming period 2007 – 2013, which can reinforce the factors influencing this business environment, and this way improve the quality of this environment, and to evaluate mutual relationships among the operational programmes and the factors. The article defines these factors, the structural assistance of the european union, finds and analyses their mutual relationships.
Analysis of Social and Health Reimbursements for Miners in Tems of The Decline of Mining Activity in The Czech Republic Funded from The State Budget
Jana Magnusková, Jana Bartoňová, Lucie Krčmarská, Dagmar Létavková
The present article deals with the area of social and health welfare of former and current employees of the abolished, privatized or otherwise affected by reorganization mining enterprises in connection with the decline of uranium, ore and coal mining industry in the country. It describes a thorough analysis of the legislation governing the given area from the start of the decline in mining activity in 1990 to the present. Subsequently, relying on real data from practice, the article shows elaborated overviews of trends in the number of beneficiaries of all kinds of provided mandatory and decline-based social and health reimbursements in the years 2001-2012, including the total cost financed in a form of subsidies from the state budget. The forecast of trends of these monitored indicators, processed by the age of beneficiaries of compensations, type of work and other practice-verifiable data, suggests a sharp reduction in the number of recipients of mandatory compensations in the year 2015, the complete termination of payment of a special health benefit for miners by 2025, compensations of accidents at work, occupational diseases and allotments of coal and wood by the year 2035. The payment of the special benefit to miners, a claim for which occurred after 31 december 1992, will have finished by the year 2040.
Geodetic Determining of Stockpile Volume of Mineral Excavated in Open Pit Mine
Slavomír Labant, Hana Staňková, Roland Weiss
In the contemporary geodetic practice it is practically a must to use modern geodetic apparatuses and a variety of the cad (computer aided design) software for processing and visualising spatial data. The present paper deals with geodetic surveying of kecerovce open pit mine to determine, for the purpose of mine reopening and commencing with mining of andesite, the volume of non-extracted volumes of andesite. The open pit mine is situated on the foot of slanské vrchy mountain range. Determining of the auxiliary survey control points and the quarry vicinity was performed by gnss technology and rtk method. Detailed surveying of the open pit mine was performed through an electronic total station. by measurements attained spatial data were processed by pertinent proprietary software. Subsequently, the determined spatial coordinated were imported into the graphic-calculating softwares for further processing and visualisation. These graphical-calculating applications make possible not only 3d modelling and visualising of surfaces but also their analysing, especially then determining the volumetric data that represent various aspects necessary to assess as activities within the related branches so possible future development.