Enhancing learning through self-explanation

Self-explanation is an effective teaching/learning strategy that has been used in several intelligent tutoring systems in the domains of Mathematics and Physics to facilitate deep learning. Since all these domains are well structured, the instructional material to self-explain can be clearly defined. We are interested in investigating whether self-explanation can be used in an open-ended domain. For this purpose, we enhanced KERMIT, an intelligent tutoring system that teaches conceptual database design. The resulting system, KERMIT-SE, supports self-explanation by engaging students in tutorial dialogues when their solutions are erroneous. We plan to conduct an evaluation in July 2002, to test the hypothesis that students will learn better with KERMIT-SE than without self-explanation

Evolution, present status and issues concerning small tank systems in Sri Lanka [Small tanks in Sri Lanka: evolution, present status and issues]

Tank irrigationHydrologyWater qualityIrrigation managementWater managementWater distributionWatershedsIrrigation designMaintenanceFarming systemsGovernmental interrelationsSmall scale systemsVillagesHistory

Evolution, present status and issues concerning small tank systems in Sri Lanka [Small tanks in Sri Lanka: evolution, present status and issues]

Tank irrigationSmall scale systemsHistoryIrrigation systemsDesignMaintenanceHydrologyPollutionIrrigation managementCultivationFarming systemsWells

Balanced Truncation Model Reduction of a Nonlinear Cable-Mass PDE System with Interior Damping

We consider model order reduction of a nonlinear cable-mass system modeled by a 1D wave equation with interior damping and dynamic boundary conditions. The system is driven by a time dependent forcing input to a linear mass-spring system at one boundary. The goal of the model reduction is to produce a low order model that produces an accurate approximation to the displacement and velocity of the mass in the nonlinear mass-spring system at the opposite boundary. We first prove that the linearized and nonlinear unforced systems are well-posed and exponentially stable under certain conditions on the damping parameters, and then consider a balanced truncation method to generate the reduced order model (ROM) of the nonlinear input-output system. Little is known about model reduction of nonlinear input-output systems, and so we present detailed numerical experiments concerning the performance of the nonlinear ROM. We find that the ROM is accurate for many different combinations of model parameters

Reflective Experiential Learning: Using Active Video Watching for Soft Skills Training

Learning by watching videos has become the dominant way of learning for millennials. However, watching videos is a passive form of learning which usually results in a low level of engagement. As the result, video-based learning often results in poor learning outcomes. One of the proven strategies to increase engagement is to integrate interactive activities such as quizzes and assessment problems into videos. Although this strategy increases engagement, it requires changing existing videos and therefore substantial effort from the teacher. We have developed the Active Video Watching (AVW) system that enables the teacher to use existing videos from YouTube without modifications. The teacher is required to define a set of aspects for videos, which serve as reflective scaffolds in order to increase engagement and focus learners’ thinking. AVW provides a Personal Space for individual learners to link their personal experiences while watching videos. The comments collected can be used by the individuals to reflect on their own thoughts or to be shared with other learners in the Social Space. We conducted a study with postgraduate students on presentation skills. The results show that the level of engagement with AVW was high, and that the aspects were effective as reflection prompts. We plan to conduct further studies related to other types of soft skills, and also to further extend AVW to provide individualized feedback to students

Ergodic theorems for transient one-dimensional diffusions

For one-dimensional diffusions X that drift off to + ∞ we give conditions on a set B and the drift and diffusion coefficients of X for (1/t)∫t0 IB(X(u))du to converge w.p.l as t → ∞

Supporting Constructive Video-based Learning: Requirements Elicitation from Exploratory Studies

Although videos are a highly popular digital medium for learning, video watching can be a passive activity and results in limited learning. This calls for interactive means to support engagement and active video watching. However, there is limited insight into what engagement challenges have to be overcome and what intelligent features are needed. This paper presents an empirical way to elicit requirements for innovative functionality to support constructive video-based learning. We present two user studies with an active video watching system instantiated for soft skill learning (pitch presenta-tions). Based on the studies, we identify whether learning is happening and what kind of interaction contributes to learning, what difficulties participants face and how these can be overcome with additional intelligent support. Our findings show that participants who engaged in constructive learning have improved their conceptual understanding of presentation skills, while those who exhibited more passive ways of learning have not improved as much as constructive learners. Analysis of participants’ profiles and experiences led to requirements for intelligent support with active video watching. Based on this, we propose intelligent nudging in the form of signposting and prompts to further promote constructive learning

Holistic assessment of call centre performance

In modern call centres 60–70% of the operational costs come in the form of the human agents who take the calls. Ensuring that the call centre operates at lowest cost and maximum efficiency involves a trade‐off of the cost of agents against lost revenue and increased customer dissatisfaction due to lost calls. Modelling the performance characteristics of a call centre in terms of the agent queue alone misses key performance influencers, specifically the interaction between channel availability at the media gateway and the time a call is queued. A blocking probability at the media gateway, as low as 0.45%, has a significant impact on the degree of queuing observed and therefore the cost and performance of the call centre. Our analysis also shows how abandonment impacts queuing delay. However, the call centre manager has less control over this than the level of contention at the media gateway. Our commercial assessment provides an evaluation of the balance between abandonment and contention, and shows that the difference in cost between the best and worst strategy is £130K per annum, however this must be balanced against a possible additional £2.98 m exposure in lost calls if abandonment alone is used

Towards a scalable routing approach for mobile ad-hoc networks

The Internet is evolving towards a two-fold architecture that will comprise of traditional infrastructure based networks as well as emerging self organised autonomic peripheral networks. Such Internet peripheral networks are being termed as the Internet of things (IoT) whereby smart objects and devices will be connected together in a fully distributed fashion to provide ubiquitous services through pervasive networking. Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) is regarded as one of the pervasive self-organised networks that will play a major role in autonomic future internet communication. There are several well- known challenges to be addressed in order to enable MANET deployments of large islands of interconnected smart devices. Therefore, in this paper, we present a mathematical model based analysis of various well-known routing protocols for MANETs in order to determine the scalability of these protocols. This paper analyses the scalability of the routing protocols with respect to routing overhead required by approaches while also considering the packet delivery latency, which is an important Quality of Service (QoS) metric