A significant therapeutic challenge for people with disabilities is the development of verbal and echoic skills. Digital voice assistants (DVAs), such as Amazon’s Alexa, provide networked intelligence to billions of Internet-of-Things devices and have the potential to offer opportunities to people, such as those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), to advance these necessary skills. Voice interfaces can enable children with ASD to practice such skills at home; however, it remains unclear whether DVAs can be as proficient as therapists in recognizing utterances by a developing speaker. We developed an Alexa-based skill called ASPECT to measure how well the DVA identified verbalization by autistic children. The participants, nine children diagnosed with ASD, each participated in 30 sessions focused on increasing vocalizations and echoic responses. Children interacted with ASPECT prompted by instructions from an Echo device. ASPECT was trained to recognize utterances and evaluate them as a therapist would—simultaneously, a therapist scored the child’s responses. The study identified no significant difference between how ASPECT and the therapists scored participants; this conclusion held even when subsetting participants by a pre-treatment echoic skill assessment score. This indicates considerable potential for providing a continuum of therapeutic opportunities and reinforcement outside of clinical settings.

Hypothetical thought experiments allow researchers to gain insights into widespread moral intuitions and provide opportunities for individuals to explore their moral commitments. Previous thought experiment studies in virtual reality (VR) required participants to come to an on-site laboratory, which possibly restricted the study population, introduced an observer effect, and made internal reflection on the participants’ part more difficult. These shortcomings are particularly crucial today, as results from such studies are increasingly impacting the development of artificial intelligence systems, self-driving cars, and other technologies. This paper explores the viability of deploying thought experiments in commercially available in-home VR headsets. We conducted a study that presented the trolley problem, a life-and-death moral dilemma, through SideQuestVR, a third-party website and community that facilitates loading applications onto Oculus headsets. Thirty-three individuals were presented with one of two dilemmas: (1) a decision to save five lives at the cost of one life by pulling a switch and (2) a decision to save five lives at the cost of one life by pushing a person onto train tracks. The results were consistent with those of previous VR studies, suggesting that a “VR-at-a-distance” approach to thought experiments has a promising future while indicating lessons for future research.

The article presents the analysis of the implementation of selected elements of car transport in the aspect of ecology. The basic issue that affects the protection of the environment (ecology) is the value of energy intensity in the manufacture of products. The elements made in the production process of plastic mouldings were compared. The amount of energy in kJ needed to produce 1 kg of a given product was estimated. Next, the dependencies between the value of computational energy intensity and the emission of gases affecting the environment of CO2, SO2, NOx were presented. As a conversion factor according to GUS data, it was assumed that 1kWh production in Poland causes emission of 800 g CO2, 7 g SO2 i 3 g NOx.

The foundry industry is seeking an ecological alternative to synthetic molding resins. This study evaluates the technological properties of core sands bonded with biodegradable polylactide (PLA). Cores prepared on a 2% quartz sand matrix were subjected to casting processes using two alloys with extremely different pouring temperatures: gray cast iron (approx. 1200 °C) and AK11 silumin (approx. 710 °C). The research methodology included macroscopic assessment, dimensional analysis using 3D scanning (GOM Inspect), and qualitative knock-out assessment supported by numerical temperature field simulation. The results showed that the high crystallization temperature of cast iron leads to complete thermal degradation of the binder, ensuring excellent knock-out properties.