The significance of the famous Shannon's publication "A mathematical theory of communication" is discussed. The author states that this theory was a breakthrough for the times it was created. The present-day communications is so highly developed, that some old maxims should be up-dated, particularly the definition of the lower bound of signal reception. The author claims that this bound is no longer a constant value, ln(2), as the Shannon's theory states, but depends on many factors such, as the ratio of bandwidth-to-information transmission rate, the class of a receiver (adaptive, cognitive, MIMO1), the kind of reception system (on-line or off-line), and - of course - on the characteristics of noise, including entropy. Then, an absolute limit (Eb/N0)abs = 0 is suggested. An example of an advanced adaptive system approaching this bound is given.
Arnold Zweig (1887–1968) is one of the most respected and read German-speaking writers of the 20th century, which only a few Germanists remember today, whose works surprise with a very current pronunciation. The article addresses the issue of scientific and social interest in the works of this German-Jewish writer over several decades, while looking at the national and ideological conditions of this reception in terms of historical experience.
The aim of the study was to determine the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) for young persons with normal hearing. The following three tests available for Polish language were used: the New Articulation Lists (NAL-93) version of 2011, the Polish Sentence Test (PST) and the Polish Sentence Matrix Test (PSMT). When using PST and PSMT the masking signal was babble noise made of the language material contained in the test. For NAL-93 the masking signal was speech noise. The speech reception threshold (SRT) was found to be (−6:8 ± 1.1), (−4:8 ± 1.6), (−3:5 ± 1.8) and (−3:4 ± 2.0) dB SNR for PST, PSMT, NAL-93 (constant stimuli method) and NAL-93 (short method), respectively. The values of SRT depend on semantic redundancy of the language material. Differences in SRT were statistically non-significant only for NAL-93 (constant stimuli method) and NAL-93 (short method). Moreover, it was shown that the time needed for presentation of a single word list (NAL-93, short method) or single sentence list (PST, PSMT) was comparable and equal to 2–3 minutes. The most uniform SRT values were obtained for PST. The PSMT was the least demanding for the listener, experimenter and equipment.
If the characterization of avant-garde proposed once by Henri Saint Simon, and later maintained by Daniel Bell as well as Lidia Burska in the book entitled Awangarda i inne złudzenia. O pokoleniu ‘68 w Polsce (“The avant-garde and other illusions. On the ’68 generation in Poland”) is adopted, the philosophical revisionism inside Polish Marxism (the Warsaw school of the history of ideas) may be considered a phenomenon analogous to the artistic avant-garde which gained prominence in the middle of the 1950s. In Burska’s understanding, the significant trait of avant-garde is effective impact on the state of consciousness, stances and choices of the public. This essential factor highlights the connection between avant-garde and revisionism, due to the fact that, as it was commonly believed in Poland, the Warsaw school played a major role in the formation of the Polish post-war humanities. The purpose of the paper is to propose an understanding of the impact exerted by the Warsaw school of the history of ideas. In relation to this problem, the author refers to the testimonies of people who constituted that milieu, and he focuses on some topics from the hermeneutics of H.-G. Gadamer (the concept of the efficacy of history; the concept of application) and from the philosophy of H.R. Jauss (the concept of the horizon of expectations).
The authors of this paper examine the ancient concepts of translatio, imitatio and aemulatio. The text goes over some problems of the heritage of antiquity and its reception in European culture of the early modern period. These questions were discusssed during the international conference “Heredes et scrutatores. Attitudes towards Antiquity in the Renaissance and in the Early Modern Period”, which was held on 19–20 May 2016 at the University of Warsaw. It celebrated the 200th anniversary of classical studies at this university. The conference seeked to explore the changing attitudes towards the heritage of classical antiquity in post-classical European culture. The scholars participating in the meeting tried to (re)examine the diversity of these attitudes in the period between the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Times and to reflect on a number of related problems, among which were the theoretical viewpoints that had been suggested to describe this diversity. One of them, which gave its name to this conference, distinguishes between two general approaches: that of the “users”, concentrated on adapting the classical legacy by means of procedures inherited from the ancient Romans, and that of the “researchers”, which replaced the former procedures with ones typical of scholarly cognition. The participants discussed theoretical issues and concrete cases illustrating the ways that the intellectuals of the Renaissance and Early Modern Times approached the Greek and the Roman legacy. The connections between past and present attitudes towards antiquity have also been be the subject of the debate.
This article deals with the issue of home-country receptivity towards social remittances from the pro-fessional diaspora. Social remittances from the highly skilled depend on a favourable context for knowledge and skills transfer in their home countries, a context that could be summarised by the term ‘country receptivity’. This article is based on the case of Lithuania. The data comes from a series of semi-structured interviews with members of the skilled diaspora and representatives of institutions that are involved in programmes targeted at the diaspora. The analysis reveals several groups of obstacles to successful knowledge and skills transfer that may be understood as issues of country receptivity: mistrust of government by diaspora members, expressed as a belief that it is not interested in results and thus involvement of the diaspora, but rather in pursuing particular political objectives; lack of openness towards other experiences (unwillingness of institutions at different levels and in various fields to open up to new opinions, approaches and experiences brought by Lithuanians from abroad); bureaucratic and institutional impediments (inability of institutions to adapt their procedures in the interests of co-operation; slowness and ineffectiveness when dealing with requests or reacting to initiatives from the diaspora); and a perceived negative opinion (unwelcoming attitude) in society towards Lithuanians from abroad. The interviews also provide some tentative evidence of a ‘feedback loop’, through which the involvement of the diaspora causes changes in the home-country institutions. In the discussion part of the article, possible causes and implications of these obstacles are considered.
This article is historical and philosophical in nature. Its purpose is to outline the most important trends and problems in the 19th-century Spanish philosophy. This philosophy has not yet been the subject of deeper analyses, especially in Polish literature on the subject. This is a major oversight, because the nineteenth century is the time of the impressive growth of modern social, political, legal, moral and intelectual structures in Spain. An important role in their development was played by Spanish philosophers and their reception of modern European philosophy and science. The reception was accompanied by numerous disputes and discussions about the condition of the Spanish culture and its possible development directions.
The main goal of the research was to obtain a set of data for ability of speech in noise recognition using Polish word test (New Articulation Lists – NAL-93) with two different masking signals. The attempt was also made to standardise the background noise for Polish speech tests by creating babble noise for NAL-93. Two types of background noise were used for Polish word test – the babble noise and the speech noise. The short method was chosen in the study as it provided similar results to constant stimuli method using less word material. The experiment using both maskers was presented to 10 listeners with normal hearing.
The mean SRT values for NAL-93 were −3.4 dB SNR for speech noise and 3.0 dB SNR for babble noise. In this regard, babble noise provided more efficient results. However, the SRT parameter for speech noise was more similar to values obtained for other Polish speech tests. The measurement of speech recognition using Polish word test is possible for both types of masking signals presented in the study. The decision as to which type of noise would be better in practice of hearing aid prosthetics remains an open-end question.
Under the pretext of a discovery of a newspaper allegedly published in 1974 this article discusses reception selection research conducted at the Cracow Press Research Center in the second half of the 20th century.