COMPETENCIES AND INNOVATIONS LABS: HUMANITIES IN ENGINEERS’ HIGH-EDUCATION

The contemporary system of science, research and high education need a new approach concerning engineers’ education because of the accelerated technological development. One of the main task remains the reinvention of education which shall make a new strategy for development (Arciszewski, 2009). At the beginning of the 21st century the new age of creativity and innovation is broken out (Prahalad, Krishnan 2010). And the new creative and innovative attitude concerns also the new destination of knowledge and education and the new definition of the essential outcomes of science, research and education in the future. One of the most important subject in this context is the necessity to elaborate a new orientation concerning the question of competencies’ formation adequately to the new forms and structures of the informational and knowledge-based society. In particular this applies to the key or core competencies as an expression of the ability to self-realization and selfimprovement, to the social integration and employment, but also to the attitude as an active citizen. In according to the recommendation of the European Parliament (2006) concerning the key and core competencies the process of lifelong learning bases on the development of the informational, technological and engineer’s, but also on the formation of the communicative, social and civil competencies as the components of the ability to implement the idea of lifelong learning.The other principal question concerns the importance of innovations. The knowledge-based society and economy suppose a permanent process of development and implementation of innovations, which are at the same time the decisive and determinant element of social, economic, technological and cultural development. This interdependence concerns the principal – connected and dependent to each other – areas of the modern society and culture: economy, medias and science from the one, and education, social supporting and social communication from the other hand. The degree or level of innovations but also the innovations deficit in these areas has directly a bearing on the condition and function of the whole system. These assumptions demarcate the stages in the following analysis but also the works in the two different basic-research projects elaborated at the Humanities’ Department the Wroclaw University of Technology in form of two humanistic laboratories on the point of junction between humanities, social science, culture studies, pedagogics and engineering science: “Competencies’ Lab” and “Innovations’ Lab”. The both – competencies and innovations – complement and condition each other with regard to the improvement of the creative potentiality in research and teaching/learning process, and with the high education herself as an interdisciplinary subject of research and studies (Kwiek 2010). KEYWORDS: key and core competencies; humanities and engineers high education; transdisciplinary / comparative education and researc

Simple fractal method of assessment of histological images for application in medical diagnostics

We propose new method of assessment of histological images for medical diagnostics. 2-D image is preprocessed to form 1-D landscapes or 1-D signature of the image contour and then their complexity is analyzed using Higuchi's fractal dimension method. The method may have broad medical application, from choosing implant materials to differentiation between benign masses and malignant breast tumors

Shrinking binary and planetary orbits by Kozai cycles with tidal friction

At least two arguments suggest that the orbits of a large fraction of binary stars and extrasolar planets shrank by 1-2 orders of magnitude after formation: (i) the physical radius of a star shrinks by a large factor from birth to the main sequence, yet many main-sequence stars have companions orbiting only a few stellar radii away, and (ii) in current theories of planet formation, the region within ~0.1 AU of a protostar is too hot and rarefied for a Jupiter-mass planet to form, yet many "hot Jupiters" are observed at such distances. We investigate orbital shrinkage by the combined effects of secular perturbations from a distant companion star (Kozai oscillations) and tidal friction. We integrate the relevant equations of motion to predict the distribution of orbital elements produced by this process. Binary stars with orbital periods of 0.1 to 10 days, with a median of ~2 d, are produced from binaries with much longer periods (10 d to 10^5 d), consistent with observations indicating that most or all short-period binaries have distant companions (tertiaries). We also make two new testable predictions: (1) For periods between 3 and 10 d, the distribution of the mutual inclination between the inner binary and the tertiary orbit should peak strongly near 40 deg and 140 deg. (2) Extrasolar planets whose host stars have a distant binary companion may also undergo this process, in which case the orbit of the resulting hot Jupiter will typically be misaligned with the equator of its host star.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; 18 pages, 10 figure

New ephemeris of the ADC source 2A 1822-371: a stable orbital-period derivative over 30 years

We report on a timing of the eclipse arrival times of the low mass X-ray binary and X-ray pulsar 2A 1822-371 performed using all available observations of the Proportional Counter Array on board the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, XMM-Newton pn, and Chandra. These observations span the years from 1996 to 2008. Combining these eclipse arrival time measurements with those already available covering the period from 1977 to 1996, we obtain an orbital solution valid for more than thirty years. The time delays calculated with respect to a constant orbital period model show a clear parabolic trend, implying that the orbital period in this source constantly increases with time at a rate $\dot P_orb = 1.50(7) \times 10^{-10}$ s/s. This is 3 orders of magnitude larger than what is expected from conservative mass transfer driven by magnetic braking and gravitational radiation. From the conservation of the angular momentum of the system we find that to explain the high and positive value of the orbital period derivative the mass transfer rate must not be less than 3 times the Eddington limit for a neutron star, suggesting that the mass transfer has to be partially non-conservative. With the hypothesis that the neutron star accretes at the Eddington limit we find a consistent solution in which at least 70% of the transferred mass has to be expelled from the system.Comment: Published by A&

Four ultra-short period eclipsing M-dwarf binaries in the WFCAM Transit Survey

We report on the discovery of four ultra-short period (P<0.18 days) eclipsing M-dwarf binaries in the WFCAM Transit Survey. Their orbital periods are significantly shorter than of any other known main-sequence binary system, and are all significantly below the sharp period cut-off at P~0.22 days as seen in binaries of earlier type stars. The shortest-period binary consists of two M4 type stars in a P=0.112 day orbit. The binaries are discovered as part of an extensive search for short-period eclipsing systems in over 260,000 stellar lightcurves, including over 10,000 M-dwarfs down to J=18 mag, yielding 25 binaries with P<0.23 days. In a popular paradigm, the evolution of short period binaries of cool main-sequence stars is driven by loss of angular momentum through magnetised winds. In this scheme, the observed P~0.22 day period cut-off is explained as being due to timescales that are too long for lower-mass binaries to decay into tighter orbits. Our discovery of low-mass binaries with significantly shorter orbits implies that either these timescales have been overestimated for M-dwarfs, e.g. due to a higher effective magnetic activity, or that the mechanism for forming these tight M-dwarf binaries is different from that of earlier type main-sequence stars.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures, 3 tables Accepted for publication in MNRA