Writing preparation outlines for public speaking in tertiary classrooms

This research aims to provide some ideas on the process of writing an outline for speech communication by undergraduate students at Universiti Utara Malaysia. Students face numerous problems in writing the outlines for their speaking task. Their initial hurdle is on the selection of an appropriate topic. Before selecting a topic, students would have to take into consideration the demographic factors of the target audience, their attitude and interest before writing the outlines. Besides, students need to determine the general purpose, specific purpose and the central idea of their speech. They should decide whether they are speaking to inform or to persuade their audience, and to write the outline that corresponds with the specific purpose of their speech. Students gather appropriate materials from various sources including surveys and interviews before they begin drafting their outlines. Although students are adept in collecting materials, there is an acute tendency in them to commit plagiarism. Apart from that, students should ensure that the materials gathered corroborate their stand on the topic. They should attempt to provide suitable examples, statistics and testimonies to convince their audience. Finally, they will have to decide on the organizational method that best fits their speech before writing the outlines

Structured program for the development of compact jet engines for unmanned vehicles

A case is made out for embarking upon an ab-initio design of expendable but compact jet engine gas turbine. Application areas in defence sector are explored and the timely need for this developmental programme is established. The basic gas turbine to be built around a single stage centrifugal compressor would be a technology demonstrator of modern concepts. A structured programme for a family of derivatives arising out of the basic engine is shown to be technically viable and cost effective

Considerations in development of expert systems for real-time space applications

Over the years, demand on space systems has increased tremendously and this trend will continue for the near future. Enhanced capabilities of space systems, however, can only be met with increased complexity and sophistication of onboard and ground systems. Artificial Intelligence and expert system techniques have great potential in space applications. Expert systems could facilitate autonomous decision making, improve in-orbit fault diagnosis and repair, enhance performance and reduce reliance on ground support. However, real-time expert systems, unlike conventional off-line consultative systems, have to satisfy certain special stringent requirements before they could be used for onboard space applications. Challenging and interesting new environments are faced while developing expert system space applications. This paper discusses the special characteristics, requirements and typical life cycle issues for onboard expert systems. Further, it also describes considerations in design, development, and implementation which are particularly important to real-time expert systems for space applications

Self-Paced Multitask Learning with Shared Knowledge

This paper introduces self-paced task selection to multitask learning, where instances from more closely related tasks are selected in a progression of easier-to-harder tasks, to emulate an effective human education strategy, but applied to multitask machine learning. We develop the mathematical foundation for the approach based on iterative selection of the most appropriate task, learning the task parameters, and updating the shared knowledge, optimizing a new bi-convex loss function. This proposed method applies quite generally, including to multitask feature learning, multitask learning with alternating structure optimization, etc. Results show that in each of the above formulations self-paced (easier-to-harder) task selection outperforms the baseline version of these methods in all the experiments

Chain models and the spectra of tridiagonal k-Toeplitz matrices

Chain models can be represented by a tridiagonal matrix with periodic entries along its diagonals. Eigenmodes of open chains are represented by spectra of such tridiagonal $k$-Toeplitz matrices, where $k$ represents length of the repeated unit, allowing for a maximum of $k$ distinct types of elements in the chain. We present an analysis that allows for generality in $k$ and values in $\mathbb{C}$ representing elements of the chain, including non-Hermitian systems. Numerical results of spectra of some special $k$-Toeplitz matrices are presented as a motivation. This is followed by analysis of a general tridiagonal $k$-Toeplitz matrix of increasing dimensions, beginning with 3-term recurrence relations between their characteristic polynomials involving a $k^{th}$ order coefficient polynomial, with the variables and coefficients in $\mathbb{C}$. The existence of limiting zeros for these polynomials and their convergence are established, and the conditioned $k^{th}$ order coefficient polynomial is shown to provide a continuous support for the limiting spectra representing modes of the chain. This analysis also includes the at most $2k$ eigenvalues outside this continuous set. It is shown that this continuous support can as well be derived using Widom's conditional theorems (and its recent extensions) for the existence of limiting spectra for block-Toeplitz operators, except in special cases. Numerical examples are used to graphically demonstrate theorems. As an addendum, we derive expressions for $O(k)$ computation of the determinant of tridiagonal $k$-Toeplitz matrices of any dimension