Formation of critical thinking related to the energetic efficiency of applied physics processes of civil engineering works

Current problems associated to contamination and climate change claim for urgent solutions to make real a sustainable development of modern societies. To answer that call, the efficiency of applied physics processes must be continuously evaluated. Particularly, engineering programs are called to strengthen the training offer related to basic and applied physics sciences considering energetic transformation and transferring processes. In the civil engineering field, design, construction, functioning, and final disposition of buildings can be understood as applied physics processes. This work proposes an approach for defining and studying possible variables related to energetic processes and their mutual relationship. Such variables must be able to describe the processes of energetic changes which can occur during construction of civil works. To do so, qualitative analysis of mathematic expressions is done to promote the formation of abstract mental connections made of sensitivity and logical thinking. The methodology is based on four moments: (a) students’ brainstorming related to a particular issue, (b) identification of main topics related to energy transformation, (c) variable operationalization, (d) proposal of mathematical expressions. This proposal is expected to facilitate the construction of concepts related to sustainable development and help students to trust themselves when taking well thought out risks.

Psycholinguistic Studies of Chinese Worldview Fragments

At present, fragments of the Chinese worldview are studied on the basis of theoretical and practical research developed by the Moscow Psycholinguistic School. In Russian and Chinese psycholinguistics, sufficient material has been accumulated to determine the main advantages of the free associative experiment. The problems of identifying stimulus words and interpreting reactions reflecting the Chinese picture of the world are also obvious. The free associative experiment allows us to determine the deep mental connections of the phonetic and graphic appearance of the Chinese word, represented by graphemes different from those of the Russian language, the latter having their own lexical and additional “graphic” meaning. The difficulties in learning languages of different typological systems are associated with the problems of compiling a vocabulary of stimulus words and the possibility of a multivalued interpretation of Chinese recipients’ reactions, reflecting the images of the Chinese consciousness. For this reason, it is unacceptable to transfer the “reification” of fragments of the Russian worldview to the fragments of the Chinese worldview. When compiling a vocabulary of stimulus words, one should take into account the structural and grammatical features of the Chinese word, the structure of Chinese characters and their origin, the frequency in the speech of native speakers, etc. To interpret the reactions of a free associative experiment, in addition to bilingual dictionaries, it is advisable to use various dictionaries of the Chinese language, including etymological ones. Based on the established tradition of analyzing the results of associative experiments, the author typologizes the reactions of Chinese speakers, which allows to establish the dynamics of the Chinese worldview.

Gamification Approaches for Education and Engagement on Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Searching for Best Practices

Education is a key factor to respond to the threat of climate change, increasing not only knowledge but also encouraging changes in attitudes and behaviors to adopt sustainable lifestyles. Scholars and practitioners in the field of education call for innovative ways of engaging youth—a reason why gamification has gained more attention in recent years. This paper aims at exploring the role of gamification in affecting pro-environmental behavioral change and searching for best practices for educational purposes. For that aim, pro-environmental gamification platforms are identified and analyzed by applying two different frameworks: the Octalysis Framework and the Climate Change Engagement through Games Framework. After scanning 181 cases, a final sample of six is analyzed and two of them are selected as best practices with higher potential to engage users in pro-environmental behavioral change: SaveOhno and JouleBug. Meaning, ownership, and social influence, as well as achievability, challenge, and credibility, are seen as core elements that can increase the success of gamification platforms. In conclusion, the more attributes are enclosed in the gamification design, the stronger physical and mental connections it builds up with participants. Insights from this study can help educators to select best practices and gamification designers to better influence behavioral change through game mechanics.

Colonialism and the colonization of childhoods

In order to gain a concept of childhoods in the Global South, it is necessary to understand the connections between colonialization and childhood. This chapter conceptualizes childhood as a form of being and engages in a discourse on the same. It shows how the history of childhood is closely intertwined with changes in the modes of production and reproduction of societies. Particularly with the development of the capitalist mode of production in the modern European era and the rise of the bourgeoisie to the ruling class. In the first part, this chapter discusses the mental connections between the emergence of the European bourgeois childhood pattern and the colonialization of foreign continents. In this context, it traces the dialectic of education or literacy and power in the colonial and postcolonial relations. In the second part, this chapter explains how, in the 1960s and 70s, the discourse on the colonization of childhood arose and finally was linked with post- and decolonial theories. In conclusion it sheds light on some ambivalences of European-bourgeois childhood constructions with regard to colonialization and decolonization.

Toward a Continuous Field: Folded Subjectivities and Control in the Affective Networks of Upstream Colour

Shane Carruth's 2013 film Upstream Colour provides a model for considering identity and subject formation in what Steven Shaviro calls the “network society.” Shaviro argues that our contemporary mode of experience, at least as rendered through popular media, is characterized by “flows of affect” produced to hail us at every turn. Carruth's film offers the possibility that living in the network society means not only that we are subject to such flows, but that individuals are subject to invasive modes of fragmentation and commodification as producers of their own affect (in this case, memory and experience). Building on Shaviro's own definition of a network, I focus on how the mental connections forged between characters represent the nodal connections Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker say characterize network formation and behavior, and how the access rendered over those characters by the primary antagonist (referred to as The Sampler) works as a kind of “protocological control.” I then turn to Deleuze's theorization of the fold to discuss how new modes of subjectivity and relationality are modeled in the characters' phenomenological experience of these mental connections, in which distinctions of personal subjectivity and memory begin to blur and overlap. Finally, I return to Shaviro for implications of this model of experience, and to show how absorption in and by the network poses new possibilities for connection as well as potential for fragmentation and commodification.

Interpreting Idea Maps: Pairwise Comparisons Reveal What Makes Ideas Novel

Assessing similarity between design ideas is an inherent part of many design evaluations to measure novelty. In such evaluation tasks, humans excel at making mental connections among diverse knowledge sets to score ideas on their uniqueness. However, their decisions about novelty are often subjective and difficult to explain. In this paper, we demonstrate a way to uncover human judgment of design idea similarity using two-dimensional (2D) idea maps. We derive these maps by asking participants for simple similarity comparisons of the form “Is idea A more similar to idea B or to idea C?” We show that these maps give insight into the relationships between ideas and help understand the design domain. We also propose that novel ideas can be identified by finding outliers on these idea maps. To demonstrate our method, we conduct experimental evaluations on two datasets—colored polygons (known answer) and milk frother sketches (unknown answer). We show that idea maps shed light on factors considered by participants in judging idea similarity and the maps are robust to noisy ratings. We also compare physical maps made by participants on a white-board to their computationally generated idea maps to compare how people think about spatial arrangement of design items. This method provides a new direction of research into deriving ground truth novelty metrics by combining human judgments and computational methods.

Unpacking Subjective Creativity Ratings: Using Embeddings to Explain and Measure Idea Novelty

Assessing similarity between design ideas is an inherent part of many design evaluations to measure novelty. In such evaluation tasks, humans excel at making mental connections among diverse knowledge sets and scoring ideas on their uniqueness. However, their decisions on novelty are often subjective and difficult to explain. In this paper, we demonstrate a way to uncover human judgment of design idea similarity using two dimensional idea maps. We derive these maps by asking humans for simple similarity comparisons of the form “Is idea A more similar to idea B or to idea C?” We show that these maps give insight into the relationships between ideas and help understand the domain. We also propose that the novelty of ideas can be estimated by measuring how far items are on these maps. We demonstrate our methodology through the experimental evaluations on two datasets of colored polygons (known answer) and milk frothers (unknown answer) sketches. We show that these maps shed light on factors considered by raters in judging idea similarity. We also show how maps change when less data is available or false/noisy ratings are provided. This method provides a new direction of research into deriving ground truth novelty metrics by combining human judgments and computational methods.

Von den operativen und erinnerungsgeschichtlichen Dimensionen eines Raumes. Die Schlacht von Tannenberg 1914 als Paradebeispiel räumlicher Inszenierung

Tannenberg is still the cipher for a mythical memory space that interweaves German, Polish, Lithuanian and Russian sites of memory to each other, their temporal and political contexts, however, goes beyond. For the battle of 1914, the master narrative still follows the detailed descriptions of the Kriegsarchiv from the interwar period. These want to have found the key to success in the exemplary use of the geographic area by German generalship. Nevertheless, this battle has multidimensional perceptions, of the factual meaning of the space up to the imaginary. It is also an example of how clearly the topography of an area can determine the military capabilities, such as the importance of personal and mental connections to the competitive space. After the military occupation of East Prussia terrain the victorious commander Hindenburg conquered even the site of memory - with the Reichsehrenmal quite vividly. In the overall analysis of the Battle of Tannenberg therefore the access of the different concepts and dimensions of the room proves as purposeful and productive.