Discover the world's scientific knowledge

The importance of green architecture is one of the most effective solutions to global environmental problems, it achieves the most efficient environmental solutions for buildings, as well as it emphasizes the efficient use of energy and seeks to preserve the natural environment and human health.

Hence, the question for discussion here is: How can we activate the strategies of green architecture in our contemporary buildings?

Please, share your suggestions, answers, opinions, comments and reply in this discussion. Regards..

I'm looking for a good tool to extract audio features like Mel-frequency, energy, etc. from a sound file. As my final aim is to extract the emotion of the speaker in the audio, it would be most preferable if I could have a tool that already does basic emotion extraction. I have come across some tools like:

OpenEAR - http://geniiz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/26-TUM-Tools-openEAR.pdf

and

YAAFE - http://yaafe.sourceforge.net/

Which could be useful for this task, but I have found that their user-base is not too much and so the tools themselves do not seem to be too user-friendly. Also, since I have still not started working with them, I wanted to know whether there are any better tools available that do the same task, in a better or easier way.

What a crazy time eh? In the last 4 weeks I have noticed that the work we develop has gone from relative obscurity to intense interest to just another of the mob of people now streaming performance online.

It's like a career has flashed before my eyes.

Not to mind though, art takes time and contemplation and I have certainly had plenty of that over the last 7 years. And as people start to get over the initial burst of enthusiasm about getting performance online they are starting to ask similar questions to my own at the beginning of this journey. 

Recently a friend asked... "are we responding to a need we have sufficiently allowed ourselves to feel and reflect on, or simply manifesting in a different space our deeply ingrained instinct to always be productive?"

Productivity hasn't seemed to require or use much contemplation so far and culturally this is interesting. As nations tentatively discuss returning to regular social distancing how might the frantic productive energy of the moment move on? or will it be forgotten in the scramble to return to 'normal' (sic)?

The current technological revolution known as Industry 4.0 is motivated by the development of the following factors:

- Big Data database technologies,

- cloud computing,

- machine learning,

- Internet of Things,

- artificial intelligence.

On the basis of the development of the new technological solutions mentioned in recent years, the processes of innovatively organized analyzes of large collections of information collected in Big Data database systems dynamically develop.

What other technological improvements, innovative organizational, technical and IT solutions will be developed in the future based on the development of the above-mentioned factors?

What kinds of innovations will be able to be created in the coming years, in the future based on the integration of the above-mentioned main determinants of the development of the current technological revolution known as Industry 4.0?

What kind of new categories of added value may be created in the future if the above-mentioned technological solutions are more involved in the creation of biotechnological, ecological, product and other innovations.

Will new technologies be created in this way, with the help of which it will be possible to generate solutions to the problems of excessive exploitation of Earth resources in the process of civilization development?

Perhaps new innovative technologies for renewable energy sources and the creation of biodegradable substitutes for many non-degradable materials, e.g. plastics, besides the development of biotechnology and energy innovations, etc. will allow major global problems to be solved.

The development of human civilization in the next few decades should give answers to the above questions.

In view of the above, I am asking you with the following question: Has the technological revolution known as Industry 4.0 already achieved its aopgeum of development or is it just the beginning of this revolution?

Please, answer, comments. I invite you to the discussion.

I have often wondered if funded research grants enhance or hinder research. With the five-year grant that I have received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, I have been able to hire research assistants, undertake research with technological support, participate in conferences, and be otherwise productive. However, I have also consecrated enormous energy to the administrative side of the equation, to training and supporting the research assistants, writing updates, reports and evaluations to maintain the grant, and also in developing the grant proposal. Of course, having empirical data is most helpful to publishing the work but I have also been engaged in several other initiatives that were not funded, and I have produced a reasonable amount of publications, collaborations, and other outcomes, such as reports, projects and related work, through these non-funded ventures. A colleague once mentioned to me that he would have never gotten tenure today because he has never received a research grant, and yet he is a well-known international scholar, highly esteemed in his area of expertise with some 50 published books. Thus, I feel the pressure to get grants, which can enhance one's career, and feed into the neoliberal notion of the contemporary university, because of the boxes on evaluation forms but wonder if one might be as productive, creative, conscientious and meaningful without the grant debacle circling overhead. Is there a third way whereby one's contribution might be equally valued and meaningful without the monetary strings being attached?

c-global is Einstein’s most miraculous brainchild, found in response to a discussion held with his senior friend Michele Besso in the spring of 1905. It possesses some formidable properties because it remains valid around everyone, no matter how fast she or he may be moving.

Almost three years later, in December of 1907, the problem of the influence of gravity on c would be addressed by Einstein. His newly proposed “equivalence principle” (between gravity and ordinary constant acceleration) is the most astounding armchair prediction ever made. It entailed the famously familiar gravitational redshift: Light that ascends from the bottom to the tip of Apollo going in full blast in outer space, inevitably shows this redshift. Although the experimental confirmation in Princeton would take 52 years.

However, Einstein in 1907 in addition looked at light that is propagating horizontally downstairs. Here he predicted – of course equally correctly -- that the horizontal light ray looks creeping in parallelism to its reduced frequency, when watched from above. The famous “gravitational redshift” thus was accompanied by the equally startling prediction of a “gravitational slowdown of the speed of light” -- such that the latter speed would retain its universal value of 2 1/2 years before only locally (“c-local”).

Three and a half years of dead silence on the topic of gravitation followed suit in Einstein's work. This obviously because the “axiom” of c-global, made at the outset, entailed the implied “theorem” of c-nonglobal – a logical inconsistency.  

No one took offense. It rather seemed to make sense in the physics community from then on up until to date that c is "creeping" downstairs when observed from above. The disturbing fact that quantum mechanics is violated thereby (because the lower in mass-energy photons downstairs yield lower-mass atoms down there via creation-annihilation, so the latter must be enlarged by the redshift factor) was of course inaccessible in 1907. The latter quantum constraint would then go unnoticed for a century. 

As we saw, the visibly creeping light downstairs was obtained in 1907 as a formal implication of the assumption of c-global – a logical nonsequitur. Can consistency be regained? Einstein later excused himself that he had “seared his mind” by thinking too hard about the situation.

You spot see the resolution? It reads: _{local slantedness downstairs relative to above.} The light ray which is progressing locally horizontally downstairs is at the same time slanted relative to the tip at every point, owing to the bottom's constant falling back relative to the tip. This is the reason why the ray looks slowed!

The implications of this "repair" are far-reaching: The global c gets retrieved just as is logically required. Hence the distance traveled – size – is not actually unchanged downstairs as was always believed so far, but rather is proportionally increased. This jibes with quantum mechanics which demands, via the less energetic photons down there and creation-annihilation, that all atoms downstairs have proportionally less mass and hence are proportionally enlarged in accordance with the Bohr radius formula.

But this fact is unknown? Yes, but this by historical accident. What is the consequence? Indeed, the newly retrieved c-global radically re-scales general relativity. The first scholarly student to write down the repaired full field equations will predictably get nobelized. But what else is it that will follow?

A whole bonanza. For example: "no cosmic expansion any more." And Fritz Zwicky’s dynamical-friction explanation of the cosmological redshift law is suddenly rehabilitated. The 7 Nobel medals in support of the Big Bang require new laudatios. However, as important as all of this looks, it is nothing compared to a collateral blissful fact:

An experiment deemed safe by the scientific community is suddenly maximally dangerous to earth. So as if the whole scientific community has had playdough on its eyes for almost a century. So the ten thousand physicists at CERN cannot be blamed for sharing in this blindness?

This first logic error ever made by the whole physics community is not without its consequences: It entails a so-called survival error by causing “Armageddon risked.”

The whole physics community has currently lost its prestige before the public eye across the planet because it actively ignored the survival-relevant newly discovered  implication of Einstein's equivalence principle: c-global.

On the other hand, the humanities have retrieve their superior status once held in the past: “Think, little babe, don’t you calculate!” For calculating without thinking is deadly, it turns out. And as a bonus for the improved understanding of Einstein’s first superhuman insight, c-global, his second, (nonlocality) likewise proves much more powerful than previously thought. 

c-global is hard to top, though, because of its role as a planet-saver.

September 21, 2017

If so, I invite you on behalf of the organizers (to which I will also belong). Below I quote the invitation that we send to potential participants.

Dear Sir/Madam,

We invite you kindly to take part in the 10th Annual International Scientific Conference entitled “Theoretical and Practical aspects of Distance Learning” DLCC2018 (subtitle “E-learning and Smart Learning Environment for Preparing the Specialists of New Generation". that will be held on the 15th and 16th October 2018 organizes by the Faculty of Ethnology and Sciences of Education in Cieszyn, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland.

Conference partners and co-organizers are:

Ostrava University (OU, Czech Republic),

Silesian University in Opava (SU, Czech Republic),

Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra (UKF, Slovakia),

University of Extremadura (UEx, Spain),

University of Twente (UT, Netherlands),

The Lisbon Lusíada University (LU, Portugal),

Curtin University in Perth (CU, Australia),

Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University (BGKU, Ukraine),

Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, St.Petersburg, (HSPU, Russia)

Dniprodzerzhinsk State Technical University (DSTU, Ukraine),

Ministry of Science and Higher Education, (Republic of Poland),

IADIS – International Association for Development of the Information Society, a non-profit association,

Polish Pedagogical Society, Branch in Cieszyn,

Polish Scientific Society for Internet Education.

The theme of the conference is:

Ecosociety, the knowledge society, the digital society are transforming into an intelligent society. It is built on "smart" work, which is done by "intelligent" government and business representatives, based on "intelligent" infrastructure and "intelligent" citizens, playing a key role in creating intelligent culture. In addition, the priority is the development of such industries as smart transport, smart health, smart energy, smart food, etc., which will eventually lead to the creation of a smart world. SMARTs will play a special role in the preparation of new-generation specialists, in which e-learning and personalized learning will have priority positions. In an intelligent society, technologies, previously based on information and knowledge, are transformed into technologies based on interaction, cooperation, exchange of experiences - smart technologies. Citizens, new generation specialists, turn their activities into "intelligent" and implement innovative changes in management strategies. This means that society needs more creative and open thinking, so that human dignity, based on flexibility and originality, is a priority. The most important issue is the training of staff with creative, creative potential, able to work and think in the new world.

(Smyrnova–Trybulska, E. (2018). Technologie informacyjno-komunikacyjne i e-learning we współczesnej edukacji [Information and communication technologies and e-learning in modern education]. Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego. 572 s. ISSN 0208-6336 ISBN 978-83-226-3070-9 (print version) ISBN 978-83-226-3071-6 (digital version).

The conference topics include the following thematic sections:

1. E-environment and Cyberspace

· E-environment of the University.

· SMART-Universities

· SMART Technology in education

· E-learning in a sustainable society,

· Internet of things

2. Effective development of teachers' skills in the area of ICT and e-learning

· Computer training for prospective and practicing teachers in the area ICT and e-learning,

· Teachers’ and learners’ competences in distance learning and computer science.

· Distance Learning and Lifelong Learning

· Self-learning based on Internet technology

3. E-learning and Intercultural Competences Development in Different Countries:

· Legal, social, human, scientific, technical aspects of distance learning and e-learning in different countries,

· Psychological and ethical aspects of distance learning and e-learning in different countries,

· Collaborative learning in e-learning,

4. E-learning Methodology – Implementation and Evaluation:

· European and national standards of e-learning quality evaluation,

· Evaluation of synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning, methodology and good examples,

· MOOCs – methodology of design, conducting, implementation and evaluation,

· Contemporary trends in world education – globalization, internationalization, mobility.

5. ICT Tools – Effective Use in Education:

· Selected Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 technology,

· LMS, CMS, VSCR, SSA, CSA,

· Cloud computing environment, social media,

· Multimedia resources and didactic materials, Video-tutorial design.

6. Theoretical, Methodological Aspects of Distance Learning:

· Successful examples of e-learning,

· Distance learning in humanities and science,

· Quality of teaching, training programs and assessment,

· E-learning for the disabled.

7. E-learning in the Development of Key Competences:

· Key competences in the knowledge society,

· Use of e-learning in improving the level of students’ key competences,

8. Alternative Methods, Forms and Techniques in Distance Learning:

· simulations, models in distance learning,

· networking,

· distance learning systems,

· m-learning.

The official language of the conference is English.

Conference materials and authors’ paper will be reviewed and published in a monograph entitled “E-learning and Smart learning environment for preparing the specialists of new generation” (notified in ISBN catalogue), 9th vol. of the publishing series on E-learning (notified in ISSN catalogue, ISSN 2451-3644 (print edition) ISSN 2451-3652 (digital edition)), http://weinoe.us.edu.pl/nauka/serie-wydawnicze/seria-e-learning

Series on E-Learning is indexed in the international scientific bibliometric databases, in particular, in:

- Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (Web of Science)

- Journal Factor http://www.journalfactor.org/

- Academic Research Index https://www.researchbib.com/

- JIFACTOR.ORG

- ceon.pl

- Polska Bibliografia Naukowa https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl

- Google Scholar.

It is our plesure to inform you that the 9th International Scientific Conference DLCC2017 monograph (“Effective Development of Teachers’ Skills in the Area of ICT and E-learning”) has been just indexed in the Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (Web of Science).

and in International Journal of Research in E-learning http://weinoe.us.edu.pl/nauka/serie-wydawnicze/international-journal-research-e-learning

Per-reviewed journal

ISSN 2451-2583 (Print) ISSN 2543-6155 (Online)

IJREL indexed in the international scientific bibliometric databases, in particular, in:

- ICI Journals Master List – Index Copernicus (82.36 points)

- ERIH PLUS

- The Central and Eastern European Online Library CEEOL

- Academic Research Index https://www.researchbib.com/

- Google Scholar

- JIFACTOR.ORG

- CEJSH

- BazHum

- Polska Bibliografia Naukowa https://pbn.nauka.gov.pl

- Journal Factor

- CEON

Venue of the conference:

43-460 WISŁA,

ul. Jawornik 52A

Contact for accommodation:

Izabela Sikora

mail i.sikora@hotelstok.pl

phone: +48 33 856 41 24

mobile. +48 692 472 457

In framework of the conference a trip to the Residence of the President of the Republic of Poland in Wisła is planned as well as a walk along the crown of the Czerniańskie Lake dam (the place where Biała and Czarna Wisełka join).

Please find in attached of the Conference Invitation, the Application form for participants and the Guide for authors of a paper.

More detail information about conference you can find on the conference Web-site: www.dlcc.us.edu.pl

Thank you very much in advance for your interest in participating in the conferences. We are looking forward to meet you in this international scientific forum in October.

Sincerely,

Eugenia Smyrnova-Trybulska

Coordinator of the DLCC2015 Conference

In behalf of the Organizational Conference Committee

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact:

DLCC@us.edu.pl, www.dlcc.us.edu.pl,

Eugenia Smyrnova-Trybulska, dr hab., associate prof. – Coordinator of the conference

e-mail: Eugenia.Smyrnova-Trybulska@us.edu.pl

Conference Organizing Committee:

Anna Porczyńska-Ciszewska, dr – Sekretarz konferencji, e-mail: anna.porczynska@us.edu.pl

Małgorzata Bortliczek dr, e-mail: malgorzta.bortliczek@us.edu.pl

Natalia Ruman dr, e-mail: natalia.ruman@us.edu.pl

Andrzej Szczurek mgr. inż., e-mail: andrzej.szczurek@us.edu.pl

Tel: (+ 48) 33-8546-113, (+ 48) 33-8546-224,

Fax: (+ 48) 33-8546-101 , Mobile: (+ 48) 608-655-386

The Faculty of Ethnology and Sciences of Education in Cieszyn, Bielska 62, 43-400 Cieszyn

University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, Bankowa 12, 40-007 Katowice