A method for precise sound sources detection and localization in interiors is presented. Acoustic vector sensors, which provide multichannel output signals of acoustic pressure and particle velocity were employed. Methods for detecting acoustic events are introduced. The algorithm for localizing sound events in the audience is presented. The system set up in a lecture hall, which serves as a demonstrator of the proposed technology, is described. The accurracy of the proposed method is evaluated by the described measurement results. The analysis of the results is followed by conclusions pertaining the usability of the proposed system. The concept of the multimodal audio-visual detection of events in the audience is also introduced.

The article presents the development of industrial cities: Zabrze, Bytom and Gliwice regarding the background of historical changes, the influence of endogenous and exogenous factors. The development of these cities was connected with trade, hard coal mining and heavy industry. These cities were interconnected administratively, communicatively and economically. They changed their nationality and joined other towns. The different concepts of authorities regarding urban spaces and the profile of a given city were implemented. The influence of various factors, taking place even historically distant time, related to the city’s development concepts and shaping their centers, has become one of the challenges that cities are trying to meet. The activity of various entities in the city center is a measure of the attractiveness of the city itself. Examples of cities: Zabrze, Bytom and Gliwice show the diff erence in the situation in which each of these cities is located.

Who owns the city? Do the inhabitants of modern cities have a reflection on their place of everyday life? Do they treat the city as commons? Do they feel co-responsible for the directions of development of their cities? Answers to the above questions have far-reaching consequences for urban development policy. They are the basis for assessing the ongoing democratization processes in the local government sphere. They also reveal important aspects of the condition of civil society. Although, on the basis of various indicators the trend is positive, it seems that the awareness of the role of the citizen versus the ordinary resident is poorly rooted in the attitudes of the Polish people. And the lesson of citizenship is still an undisrupted task for a large part of the inhabitants of our country. The greatest hopes lie in the generation of young and educated Poles who, through the development of participative management mechanisms, are becoming more aware of the possibilities of citizens’ influence on urban policy. The article is an attempt to answer the above questions based on literature review, current press articles and empirical studies conducted among a group of students.

This article presents results of investigations of the angle of directional hearing acuity (ADHA) as a measure of the spatial hearing ability with a special emphasis on people with hearing impairments. A modified method proposed by Zakrzewski has been used - ADHA values have been determined for 8 azimuths in the horizontal plane at the height of the listeners' head. The two-alternative-forced-choice method (2AFC), based on a new system of listeners' responses (left - right instead of no difference - difference in location of sound sources) was the procedure used in the experiment. Investigations were carried out for two groups of subjects: normal hearing people (9 persons) and hearing impaired people (sensorineural hearing loss and tinnitus - 9 persons). In the experiment different acoustic signals were used: sinusoidal signals (pure tones), 1/3 octave noise, amplitude modulated 1/3 octave noise, CCITT speech and traffic noises and signals corresponding to personal character of tinnitus for individual subjects. The results obtained in the investigations showed, in general, a better localization of the sound source for noise type signals than those for tonal signals. Inessential differences exist in ADHA values for particular signals between the two groups of subjects. On the other hand, significant differences for tinnitus signals and traffic noise signals were stated. A new system of listeners' responses was used and appeared efficient (less dispersion of results compared to the standard system).

Sound localization problems are usually tackled by the acquisition of data from phased microphone arrays and the application of acoustic holography or beamforming algorithms. However, the number of sensors required to achieve reliable results is often prohibitive, particularly if the frequency range of interest is wide. It is shown that the number of sensors required can be reduced dramatically providing the sound field is time stationary. The use of scanning techniques such as “Scan & Paint” allows for the gathering of data across a sound field in a fast and efficient way, using a single sensor and webcam only. It is also possible to characterize the relative phase field by including an additional static microphone during the acquisition process. This paper presents the theoretical and experimental basis of the proposed method to localise sound sources using only one fixed microphone and one moving acoustic sensor. The accuracy and resolution of the method have been proven to be comparable to large microphone arrays, thus constituting the so called “virtual phased arrays”.

Available methods for room-related sound presentation are introduced and evaluated. A focus is put on the synthesis side rather than on complete transmission systems. Different methods are compared using common, though quite general criteria. The methods selected for comparison are: Intensity Stereophony after Blumlein, vector-base amplitude panning (VBAP), 5.1-Surround and its discrete-channel derivatives, synthesis with spherical harmonics (Ambisonics, HOA), synthesis based on the boundary method, namely, wave-field synthesis (WFS), and binaural-cue selection methods (e.g., DiRAC). While VBAP, 5.1-Surround and other discrete-channel-based methods show a number of practical advantages, they do, in the end, not aim at authentic sound-field reproduction. The so-called holophonic methods that do so, particularly, HOA and WFS, have specific advantages and disadvantages which will be discussed. Yet, both methods are under continuous development, and a decision in favor of one of them should be taken from a strictly application-oriented point of view by considering relevant application-specific advantages and disadvantages in detail.

This paper presents the comparison of filtering methods – median filtration, moving average Kalman filtration and filtration based on a distance difference to determine the most accurate arm length for circular motion, as a model of wind turbine propellers movement. The experiments have been performed with the UWB technology system containing four anchors and a tag attached to 90cm arm that was rotated with speed up to 15.5 rad/s (as a linear speed of 50km/h). The trilateration concept based on the signal latency has been described in order to determinate the position of an object on circular trajectory. The main objective is the circle plane rotation (parallel and perpendicular) with respect to the anchors plane reference system. All research tasks have been performed for various cases of motion schemes in order to get the filtration method for object in motion under best accuracy goal. Filtration methods have been applied on one of two stages of the positioning algorithm: (1) on raw data got from the single anchor-tag (before trilateration); (2) on the position obtained from four anchors and tag (after trilateration). It has been proven that the appropriate filtering allows for higher location accuracy. Moreover, location capabilities with the use of UWB technology – shows prospective use of positioning of objects without access to other positioning forms (ex. GPS) in many aspects of life such as currently developing renewable, green energy sources like wind turbines where the circular motion plays an important role, and precise positioning of propellers is a key element in monitoring the work of the whole wind turbine.

The article presents empirical material obtained in sociological surveys conducted in the Wejherowo area in the year 2014. The purpose of the survey was to record the residents’ opinions on the needs and problems relating to selected functioning aspects of the town and its downtown district, the perception and valuation of the area, the town’s revitalization investments, both planned and in progress, and the perception of the changes taking place in selected spheres of the town’s life. The survey reveals that the dwellers of Wejherowo are capable of responding to the problems the town faces in intellectual and personal dimensions, they follow the postulates related to the ideas and concepts of a creative town more or less consciously, and have a preference for the town ensuring access to the broadly construed culture and entertainment. This encapsulates a vision of developing town cultures, with the focal point evidently shifted from the concept of a town as a place accumulating specimens of architecture and a symbolic space to the town construed as a complex of better facilities and solutions which make everyday life more convenient. More frequently than ever before, town identity becomes the function of negotiations between what is local and what is global. The quality of town life and the features of its ‘town-like character’ appear to be the outcome of continuous and subtle dialectics between the residents and the physical form in which they live, i.e. the town.

The subject of the article is the occurrence of dialectal features in Internet nicknames. The analysis was carried out on the basis of about 2500 nicknames that contained dialectal features. The names were obtained within the years 2012–2015. In the analysis, linguistic areas were indicated in which we may notice the influence of local dialects on that layer of the Internet anthroponymy. The influence of local dialects is visible in the fact that the Internet users reach for traditional folk names as well as name models related to the folk manner of identifying a human being, e.g. Jagatka, Jantecek, Janielka od Genowefy, Cesiek z Tuchowa. Apart from references to folk anthroponymy, the Internet nicknames reflect the influence of local dialect lexis (e.g. gzub, graślok, fusyt), phonetics (janioł, Carownica, łokrutny łoptymista), inflection (Śpisok z Łapsóf, ciupaga łod tater) and word-formation, e.g. (rzemyszek, cwaniuk).

The article describes the relationship between the local community and the primary school considered as “place” within the meaning derived from the book by yi-Fu Tuan “Space and place: The perspective of experience”. The article compares the cases of two schools in the city of bielsko-biała (the city has a population of 175 thousands inhabitants). One school is overcrowded, yet its future existence has been secured. The second school, however, was first transferred to another location and it eventually went into liquidation in 2012. The article demonstrates then underlying reasons and consequences of losing the school as place. Moreover, it indicates potential problems emerging in such cases altogether with a set of possible solutions.

This paper presents a synthesis of research in the field of social activity in development of urban public spaces. Interest in social participation in which many groups sees a remedy to the problems of the city - including spatial chaos - has many causes. One of them is the lack of trust in the social side to the profession of architecture. The article indicates the possible cause of this state for which it was flawed legislation and the planning system, which in practice is not conducive to the formation of order, harmony and beauty, but facilitate the implementation of the narrow groups of interests, bringing the rank of designer as creator of the role of the investor's decision executor.

In this paper, the computer modelling application based on the modal expansion method is developed to study the influence of a sound source location on a steady-state response of coupled rooms. In the research, an eigenvalue problem is solved numerically for a room system consisting of two rectangular spaces connected to one another. A numerical procedure enables the computation of shape and frequency of eigenmodes, and allows one to predict the potential and kinetic energy densities in a steady-state. In the first stage, a frequency room response for several source positions is investigated, demonstrating large deformations of this response for strong and weak modal excitations. Next, a particular attention is given to studying how the changes in a source position influence the room response when a source frequency is tuned to a resonant frequency of a strongly localized mode.

We are observing an increase in development activity of the cities with poviat rights nowadays. It is visible especially in the area of obtaining European funds, financial policy, infrastructure or entrepreneurship. Those matters, especially experience of cities with poviat rights as the main beneficiaries became an interesting research area now. The aim of the article is to assess the competitiveness and development level of the cities with poviat rights in voivodships of Eastern Poland. For the purposes of this article, a synthetic measure has been used. Taking into account the availability and comparability of data as well as statistical criteria, the variables describing: financial situation, economy and infrastructure in the system of cities with poviat rights in voivodships of Eastern Poland were adopted. Data from the Local Data Bank of the Central Statistical Office for 2008, 2012 and 2016 were the main source of the article.

Formation the local identity in the “thematic” Rural Renewal, The article aims to determine the main conditions for the development of rural thematic areas in the context of Rural Renewal. Against this background, the authors attempt to explain the mechanisms governing the discussed process and their effects. In view of the above, the focus was on presenting mechanisms for the development of processes that lead to the flowering of this idea (an anatomy of success – the case of the village of Sierakowo Sławieńskie) and those that slow down or completely limit this development (anatomy of failure – the case of the village of Lubcza).

The article is part of the trend of research on revitalization. It presents the methodology of the process of diagnosis and separation of the degraded area from the revitalized one, for the needs of the Local Revitalization Program. The article describes the stages of the process, the examples of used measures, as well as problems appearing at diff erent stages of the study. The methodology is presented on the example of the small town of Wojkowice from the Śląskie Province.