Polish Association of Social Work Schools in the first decade: anniversary study

Polish Association of Social Work Schools in the first decade: anniversary study ABSTRACT The subject of the article is an analysis of the first ten years of the activity of the Polish Association of Social Work Schools (PSSPS) from the point of view of the process of becoming and sharing experiences in various areas and during critical events interpreted in the context of a historical generation. The documentary reference is the timeline of activities systematically updated on the PSSPS home page and personal experience of the author who has participated in the events.

Hitting Times of Some Critical Events in RNA Origins of Life

Can a replicase be found in the vast sequence space by random drift? We partially answer this question through a proof-of-concept study of the times of occurrence (hitting times) of some critical events in the origins of life for low-dimensional RNA sequences using a mathematical model and stochastic simulation studies from Python software. We parameterize fitness and similarity landscapes for polymerases and study a replicating population of sequences (randomly) participating in template-directed polymerization. Under the ansatz of localization where sequence proximity correlates with spatial proximity of sequences, we find that, for a replicating population of sequences, the hitting and establishment of a high-fidelity replicator depends critically on the polymerase fitness and sequence (spatial) similarity landscapes and on sequence dimension. Probability of hitting is dominated by landscape curvature, whereas hitting time is dominated by sequence dimension. Surface chemistries, compartmentalization, and decay increase hitting times. Compartmentalization by vesicles reveals a trade-off between vesicle formation rate and replicative mass, suggesting that compartmentalization is necessary to ensure sufficient concentration of precursors. Metabolism is thought to be necessary to replication by supplying precursors of nucleobase synthesis. We suggest that the dynamics of the search for a high-fidelity replicase evolved mostly during the final period and, upon hitting, would have been followed by genomic adaptation of genes and to compartmentalization and metabolism, effecting degree-of-freedom gains of replication channel control over domain and state to ensure the fidelity and safe operations of the primordial genetic communication system of life.

Critical Events as Factors Shaping Life Experiences

The article presents the life story of an elderly woman, the sense of the quality of her life, the critical events that shaped her life, and the lessons learned from her experiences. The study adopted a biographical paradigm, which explains the importance of individual biographies in the education process and indicates the need to study the history of life as a source of knowledge about man and his learning. The main aim of the undertaken research was to recognise the meanings that the respondent gives to critical events in shaping the quality of her life. The biographical method was used, and, within it, an autobiographical narrative interview. The most significant events assessed as positive were the births of her children. The negative events were in particular: the deaths of close ones, a failed marriage and an accident. In coping with suffering, the woman was helped by: help from others, faith, strength, optimism, activity, activities for the benefit of others, and her value system. Lessons emerged from the subject’s history, helpful in her life, which can also inspire others. The narrator tried to live in harmony with her conscience and the accepted principles, which gave her satisfaction. Biographical research has an educational function. Life stories can teach what is important in life, what is worth living for, and they can lead to reflections.

Emerging critical events in creative processes involving music, dance and mathematics in the school

The development of creative processes within the framework of music and dance constitutes an opportunity to promote and integrate learning from different subject areas. In these activities, the moments of knowledge transfer between the different parts of the curriculum emerge as key moments in the process. This article identifies and analyses the critical events that arise when carrying out group work based on the integrated learning of music, dance and mathematics around the concept of symmetry. For this purpose, and within an action-research framework, a 20-hour didactic sequence was designed and implemented, which focused on the creative processes followed with students in the last year of primary school (11–12 years old) at a center near Barcelona. The data obtained through classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with the students brought to light the critical events that occurred in this creative, interdisciplinary context. The results show that the use of different forms of expression and the changes that students introduce when using one or another language to express their own ideas or knowledge are key moments in the advancement of joint creative activities and also of learning in itself.

Locomotion Mode Transition Prediction Based on Gait-Event Identification Using Wearable Sensors and Multilayer Perceptrons

People walk on different types of terrain daily; for instance, level-ground walking, ramp and stair ascent and descent, and stepping over obstacles are common activities in daily life. Movement patterns change as people move from one terrain to another. The prediction of transitions between locomotion modes is important for developing assistive devices, such as exoskeletons, as the optimal assistive strategies may differ for different locomotion modes. The prediction of locomotion mode transitions is often accompanied by gait-event detection that provides important information during locomotion about critical events, such as foot contact (FC) and toe off (TO). In this study, we introduce a method to integrate locomotion mode prediction and gait-event identification into one machine learning framework, comprised of two multilayer perceptrons (MLP). Input features to the framework were from fused data from wearable sensors—specifically, electromyography sensors and inertial measurement units. The first MLP successfully identified FC and TO, FC events were identified accurately, and a small number of misclassifications only occurred near TO events. A small time difference (2.5 ms and −5.3 ms for FC and TO, respectively) was found between predicted and true gait events. The second MLP correctly identified walking, ramp ascent, and ramp descent transitions with the best aggregate accuracy of 96.3%, 90.1%, and 90.6%, respectively, with sufficient prediction time prior to the critical events. The models in this study demonstrate high accuracy in predicting transitions between different locomotion modes in the same side’s mid- to late stance of the stride prior to the step into the new mode using data from EMG and IMU sensors. Our results may help assistive devices achieve smooth and seamless transitions in different locomotion modes for those with motor disorders.

Changes in values and well-being amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland

COVID-19 caused a global change in the lifestyles of people around the world. It provided a unique opportunity to examine how external circumstances impact two crucial aspects of functioning relating to "who I am" (values) and "how I feel" (well-being). Participants (N = 215) reported their values and subjective and eudaimonic well-being, nine months before the first lockdown in Poland and two weeks and four weeks into the first lockdown. We observed increased valuing of self-direction, security, conformity, humility, caring, and universalism and a decrease in valuing hedonism. Individuals experienced decreased subjective and eudaimonic well-being, with women responding with stronger negative affect intensity relative to men. Finally, we identified that individuals who were more open to change before the COVID-19 pandemic responded with higher eudaimonic well-being two weeks into lockdown relative to their less open to change peers. This study is unique in that it shows that well-being and individually held values are flexible and adaptive systems that react to external circumstances such as global critical events.

Role of Peripheral Vision in Brake Reaction Time During Safety Critical Events

The criticality of a rear end event depends on the brake reaction time (BRT) of the driver. Therefore, distracted driving poses greater threat in such events. Evidence accumulation model (EAM) that uses looming of the lead vehicle as main stimuli has shown significant success in estimating drivers’ BR Ts. It is often argued that drivers collect evidence for braking through peripheral vision, especially during off-road glances, and transition to forward. In this work, we have modeled evidence accumulation as a function of gaze eccentricity for off-road glances while approaching safety critical events. The model is tested with real world crash and near crash event data from SHRP2 naturalistic study. Our model shows that linear relation between gaze eccentricity and evidence accumulation rate during off road glances helps to improve EAM estimation in predicting BRT. We have also shown that brake-light onset does not influence EAM in presence of active looming.