REPOSITORY
THE NICOLAUS COPERNICUS UNIVERSITY
IN TORUŃ
is an institutional repository of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. The task of the Repository is to promote scientific achievements and research conducted at NCU and to support teaching.
Recent Submissions
Application of amino acid-based adsorbents for the extraction of antisense oligonucleotides from serum samples
(Elsevier, 2025-10-10) Studzińska, Sylwia; Ostrowska, Karolina; Vosáhlová, Zuzana; Sasim, Kseniya; Bocian, Szymon
Antisense oligonucleotides are synthetic, short, single-stranded nucleic acid analogues used for several years as an active ingredient of drugs for treating genetic diseases. Their effective sample preparation is a topic that still requires in-depth research. Consequently, amino acid-modified silica adsorbents were utilized for the first time in the dispersive solid-phase extraction of antisense oligonucleotides. The impact of the composition of solvents used for adsorption and desorption was tested (pH, salt type, salt concentration, organic solvent type, and content in the solution). Adsorption of oligonucleotides occurred from water or salt solutions with low pH. Increasing the pH cause increase of recovery contrary to increase salt concentration. Moreover addition of methanol or acetonitrile to elution solvent reduce recovery. The developed method is based on weak ion exchange, with pH playing a key role in the extraction procedure. Thus, the adsorption and desorption are driven solely by the change in pH of the ammonium acetate solution. All tested adsorbents allowed for the efficient recovery of oligonucleotides. Nevertheless, adsorbent with bonded methionine showed the highest efficiency. The recovery depended on the structure of the antisense oligonucleotide (the highest for short and modified ones). The recovery also increases with increasing hydrophobicity of the modification. The developed method was successfully applied to oligonucleotide extraction from human serum samples resulting in a recovery of 91±1%. Only a 10 mM ammonium acetate with pH 4 (adsorption) or 11 (desorpion) is used throughout the whole procedure. The developed procedure is simple, efficient, selective, and environmentally friendly.
Development of Novel Semiconductor Scintillators
(2025) Abdellah Bachiri; Winicjusz Drozdowski
This research focuses on the scintillation properties of three types of crystals: pure and doped gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3), Ga-based spinels (MgGa2O4 and ZnGa2O4), and mixed (Zn,Be)Se crystals with Be compositions from 2% to 20%.
The study includes pulse height spectra, scintillation time profiles, and radio- and thermoluminescence measurements. For β-Ga2O3, the pure crystals achieved the highest scintillation yield (~9000 ph/MeV) and the best energy resolution (10.6%) with free electron concentrations of 1016 cm-3. Higher free carrier concentrations led to decreased light yield due to Auger quenching. MgGa2O4 and ZnGa2O4 crystals were also found to scintillate under gamma irradiation, with yields up to 2500 ph/MeV. Mixed (Zn,Be)Se crystals initially showed low scintillation efficiency, but zinc vapor annealing increased the yield to 7700 ph/MeV for Be concentration of 2%. A new method for analyzing scintillation decay curves was developed,
involving recording both the sample and apparatus responses, which were deconvolved and fitted with multi-exponential decay functions. This revealed that the fastest mean decay times were observed for samples with lower scintillation yields. Thus, a balance is needed to achieve both fast and efficient scintillation in β-Ga2O3, MgGa2O4, ZnGa2O4 and (Zn,Be)Se crystals, which is to be found by adjusting selected parameters prior to the crystal growth. Radioluminescence spectra revealed typical bands for all the studied materials, with some negative thermal quenching. Thermoluminescence measurements detected glow peaks in crystals across all categories, which were analyzed quantitatively. Additionally, the temperature dependence of relative light yield was examined, showing significant variation with temperature. For instance, β-Ga2O3 exhibited only 40% of its light yield at room temperature as compared to liquid N2.
Aseksualność w powieściach „Breasts and Eggs” („Natsu Monogatari”) Mieko Kawakami i „Dziewczyna z konbini” („Konbini ningen”) Sayaki Muraty
(Wydawnictwo Naukowe TYGIEL, 2022) Rupińska, Agata
Aseksualność to orientacja seksualna odnosząca się do osób, które nie odczuwają pociągu seksualnego. Mimo zwiększającej się akceptacji oraz świadomości na temat osób LGBT+ społeczna świadomość o aseksualności pozostaje niska. Osoby aseksualne są grupą mało reprezentowaną w kulturze, a postaci aseksualne w literaturze skierowanej do dorosłych należą do rzadkości. Nie znaczy to jednak, że niemożliwe jest znalezienie bohaterów literackich, których można poddać aseksualnej interpretacji. Artykuł składa się z czterech części: wstępu, części dotyczącej najważniejszych zagadnień na temat aseksualności, części interpretacyjnej oraz podsumowania. Wiedza zawarta w podrozdziale pierwszym i drugim umożliwiają przeprowadzenie interpretacji utworów literackich. W podrozdziale trzecim zawarto analizę powieści „Breasts and Eggs” Mieko Kawakami oraz „Dziewczyna z konbini” Sayaki Muraty. Wykorzystano w niej technikę aseksualnego odczytywania tekstu (ang. asexual reading), pochodną queer readingu, czyli analizę i interpretację aseksualnych podtekstów dzieła. Analiza obu tekstów udowadnia, że ich główne bohaterki mają cechy zgodne z orientacją aseksualną. Obie powieści poruszają również problemy, z którymi borykają się osoby aseksualne na co dzień, co może pomóc czytelnikom je zrozumieć.
Asexuality is a sexual orientation describing people who do not experience sexual attraction. Despite growing acceptance and awareness about LGBT+ people, social awareness about asexuality remains low. Asexual people are unrepresented group in media, and asexual characters in literature intended for adult readers remain a rarity. However, this does not mean that it is impossible to find characters that could be interpreted as asexual.
The article consists of four parts: introduction, subchapter dedicated to key knowledge about asexuality, subchapter dedicated to interpretation of the two novels, and summary. The first and second subchapters are dedicated to an overview of asexuality and related issues in order to make the interpretation of the texts possible. The third subchapter is dedicated to the analysis of the novels „Breasts and Eggs” by Mieko Kawakami and „Convenience Store Woman” by Sayaka Murata. This part of the article uses the asexual reading technique, which stems from the practice of queer reading. Asexual reading uses hidden asexual subtexts in the analysis and interpretation of the work. The analysis proves that the main characters of both novels have characteristics in accordance with asexuality. Both texts also touch on problems with which asexuals deal on everyday basis, which might help the readers to understand asexual people.
Nieużytkownicy Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej w Toruniu – badania przyczyn niekorzystania z zasobów i usług bibliotecznych przez studentów Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu
(2023) Kowalska-Chrzanowska, Małgorzata; Marzec, Paweł
Plik zawiera zawiera kwestionariusz ankiety "Nieużytkownicy Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej w Toruniu (badania studentów)". Badanie zostało przeprowadzone w okresie w roku akademickim 2022/2023. Jego celem było ustalenie poziomu korzystania z zasobów i usług oferowanych przez Bibliotekę Uniwersytecką w Toruniu, a także ujawnienie najważniejszych przyczyny niekorzystania z Biblioteki Uniwersyteckiej oraz preferencje studentów w zakresie sposobów pozyskiwania materiałów niezbędnych w procesie nauki i rodzajów najczęściej wykorzystywanych źródeł informacji.
Municipal waste recycling in big cities in Poland in the context of ecologisation
(Nicolaus Copernicus University, 2019) Lewandowska, Aleksandra; Szymańska, Daniela
The goal of the paper is to evaluate and analyse changes in selective municipal collection, recycling level, and recovery, of waste. The article indicates the
Polish legislation currently in force to systematise the organisation of waste management systems. It presents the participation of selective waste collection in the
total municipal waste at the voivodeship scale, as well as changes in the number of individually segregated fractions (i.e. categories of waste segregation) of selec-
tively collected waste in Poland. Moreover, the levels of waste recycling and recovery were analysed for the country’s ten largest cities, while also showing that
the cities implement accepted goals of municipal waste recovery. On the example of Warsaw, the structure of collected waste was discussed and attention was
paid to the problem of quality of collected waste, which results in it being sent to sorting facilities.