WEEK 4 [02.12 – 08.12.2019] Disabled or Cyborg? How Bionics Affect Stereotypes Toward People With Physical Disabilities.

     This week I would like us to think and discussed about stereotypes in a field that not such a long ago was mentioned only in sf-movies. Modern technology is making a great progress in field of bionic prostheses and other artificial adjustment to treat our disabilities. New developments at the intersection of computer science, engineering, robotics, and medicine include exo-skeletons for people with paraplegia, powered and computer-controlled leg prostheses, fully articulate bionic hands, and cochlear implants for people who are deaf. Beyond the technological aspects of this progress we are also facing the psychological change, German researchers performed a study with hypothesis that increase  in use of bionic technologies (e.g., bionic arm and leg prostheses, exo-skeletons, retina implants, etc.) has the potential to change stereotypes toward people with physical disabilities.

I recommend to you this great TED-Talk on bionic prostheses :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDsNZJTWw0w

And the article: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02251/full

After that please share your thought about:

1. What do you think of such modification of human body? Are you in favor of bionic prostheses?

2. Are you a in favor of a trend of replacing humans organs with artificial ones?

3. What do you think change in our perception of disabilities, that we judge peoples with plastic prostheses as a less competent than those with bionic ones?

WEEK 4 [02.12-08.12.2019] PyParadigm - A Python Library to Build Screens in a Declarative Way

I would like to present you an article about a new Python library – PyParadigm. The library enables the creation of experimental paradigms in experimental psychology. A paradigm consists of different states in which stimuli are displayed and the user has to react to the stimuli and the responds. The aim of the paradigm is to define the user’s behavior in the form of reaction or making decision. Psychologists more often are confronted with computer-based paradigms and creating such paradigms can require IT knowledge. 

PyParadigm is the new library based on declarative approach to build user interfaces. The authors write that the proposed approach requires less code and training than alternative libraries. This library works with 2D objects and uses numpy Python library. The aim of the authors was to achieve ability of writing paradigms with minimum of code and training. The authors have prepared tutorial and several examples of most known paradigms. A user can modify the examples or create his/her own. The author applied the declarative approach to reduce the amount of the code and increase readability. 

The library is divided into four modules: surface_composition, eventlistener, misc, extras. The surafce_composition is used to create and display images on the screen.  The misc enables creating the window and drawing images within the window. The extras module contains functions allowing to use numpy and matplotlib libraries of Python.

The link to the article: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fninf.2019.00059/full

Questions:

1.     What is your opinion about using programming language libraries by people who are not experienced in programming, e.g. by psychologists?

2.     Do you use your own software when you conduct the experiment or you use some publicly available/commercial software? For example, if you created your own library, you could share a link to it.

3.     One can found a lot of libraries for various programming language, e.g., on github. When you look for something and want to use, do you believe, that the library which somebody has uploaded, does not contain mistakes?

4.     How do you think, is it possible that Python language will become the only one useful programming language?

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