Week 4 [02-08.12.19] Traditional and online learning - comparison of ephets

Week 3 [18-24.11.19] CO2 Storage in Minerals

While searching through articles from Frontiers, I found the article titled "An Overview of the Status and Challenges of CO2 Storage in Minerals and Geological Formations"

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fclim.2019.00009/full

  

      We have heard a lot lately about the climate crisis and ideas on how to prevent it. According to the Paris agreement, all countries should reduce CO2 emissions so that in 2100 the world temperature would rise by only 2°C, which is the most optimistic scenario. In the above article, the authors describe the method of CO2 storage in minerals and geological formations. Most of the carbon dioxide contained in the atmosphere must, unfortunately, be constantly stored, only a part can be converted into e.g. fuel. Carbon dioxide storage technology is constantly being studied on a laboratory and experimental stage. "Globally, coal mineralization in these rock types has a sequestration potential of up to 60,000,000 GtCO2 if the resource is economically available and ultimately completely saturated with carbon dioxide."

      There are different methods of coal mineralization: (1) ex-situ, where the source of alkalinity is transported to the CO2 capture site, grounded to small particles and combined with CO2 in a high temperature and pressure reaction vessel, (2) surficial where diluted or concentrated CO2 reacts with a source of alkalinity on the surface (e.g. mine tailings, smelter slag) and (3) in situ, where CO2 carrier fluids circulate in subsurface porosity in geological formations.

       Such CO2 storage methods are long-term and non-toxic, and can also help mitigate health and environmental hazards in specific contexts. In addition, because CO2 is converted to a stable carbonate form, it is the safest storage mechanism in terms of minimizing leakage.

1. What do you think about the methods of CO2 storage in minerals and geological formations mentioned by the authors? Maybe you've heard about other ways to store CO2?
2. Do you think that with the current economy and human activities we have a chance to meet the conditions of the Paris Agreement and limit the rise in world temperature to only 2°C until 2100?
3. What do you think technological solutions (even abstract at the moment) could help prevent climate change?

Week 3 [18-24.11.19] Write-A-Video

A global team of computer scientists, from Tsinghua and Beihang Universities in China, Harvard University in the US and IDC Herzliya in Israel, have developed "Write-A-Video", a new tool that generates videos from themed text. Using words and text editing, the tool automatically determines which scenes or shots are chosen from a repository to illustrate the desired storyline. The tool enables novice users to produce quality video montages in a simple and user-friendly manner that doesn't require professional video production and editing skills

1. What do you think about this idea, does it have a chance to be used more widely or is it just a curiosity?
2. Do you think Artificial Intelligence will be able to support or replace film editors in the future?
3. Do you have experience in video processing? Don't you think that learning the basics will be easier than creating the described video database?
4. Are you familiar with other projects that make it easier to work with video processing? If so, tell us about it.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/afcm-csd111419.php

A video illustrating the project can be seen here:
https://vimeo.com/357657704

Full article:
http://miaowang.me/papers/a177-wang.pdf:

Week 2 [4-10.11.2019] Man versus machine.

While searching for curiosities about face recognition, I found the following study.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0150036
Face recognition is used to confirm a person's identity. Research shows that artificial intelligence is better at this task than people. The English have found and selected people who do it much better than AI.
Please read the material, especially the tests and their results. And answer the questions ...

1) Do you still think that AI is much more effective than human?
2) Is it reasonable to invest in such people?
3) Maybe, however, invest in machines and further improve them?

Week 2 [04-10.11.2019] Blended learning

Hello everybody,

today I would like to raise topics related to blended learning, because I believe that each of us has or had contact with such a teaching method. Please read the article and give a short answer to the following questions.

1. What is blended learning?
2. Give the advantages and disadvantages of this teaching method?
3. What examples do you know (other than in the article) of using blended learning?
4. What could be the future of teaching and learning? Will information technologies dominate teaching so that teachers become unnecessary?

Link to the article:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Feifei_Han/publication/327947654_Han_F_Ellis_R_A_2018_Identifying_consistent_patterns_of_quality_learning_discussions_in_blended_learning_environments_Internet_and_Higher_Education_Doi_101016jiheduc201809002/links/5d351f2fa6fdcc370a54868b/Han-F-Ellis-RA-2018-Identifying-consistent-patterns-of-quality-learning-discussions-in-blended- learning-environments-Internet-and-Higher-Education-Doi-101016-jiheduc201809002.pdf