Speaking is one of the most important skills to be developed and enhanced as means of effective communication. Speaking skill is regarded one of the most difficult aspects of language learning. Many language learners find it difficult to express themselves in spoken language. They are generally facing problems to use the foreign language to express their thoughts effectively. They stop talking because they face psychological obstacles or cannot find the suitable words and expressions. The modern world of media and mass communication requires good knowledge of spoken English. This paper aims at establishing the need to focus on the factors affecting on language learners’ English speaking skill. This review paper traces out the body of research concerning the term speaking, the importance of speaking, characteristics of speaking performance, speaking problems, and factors affecting speaking performance. According to the review of literature, appropriate speaking instruction was found to be the learners’ priority and a field in which they need more attention. This study can be useful to teachers and researchers to consider their language learners’ speaking needs in English language teaching and learning context.
This study, among other things, examined the extent of Akwa Ibom residents’ awareness of the dangers of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sales and vending outlets within residential areas, as well as the influence of The Customer Protection Council’s Campaigns on Akwa Ibom residents’ awareness of the dangers of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sales and vending outlets in residential areas. This study adopted the survey research design. The study’s population comprised 7,200,000 residents of Akwa Ibom State. The sample size of 400 was determined using Yard’s formula, and the multistage sampling technique was used to select the respondents for the study. The instrument for data collection was a self-developed structured questionnaire designed with a 4-point Likert scale structure. The data were analysed using frequency distribution and simple percentages. The findings of the study showed that residents of Akwa Ibom State are significantly aware of the dangers of Compressed Natural Gas sales and vending around residential areas. The study also showed that the Customer Protection Council’s campaigns on the risks of CNG residential area sales and vending have a significant positive influence on residents’ awareness and attitudes. Recommendations were made that to further enhance awareness, the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) should intensify community-based awareness campaigns, incorporating local influencers, grassroots organisations, and vernacular communication methods. This will address varying levels of awareness and ensure that critical safety messages reach underserved and vulnerable populations.
Masikini Lugoma, Abel Omphemetse Zimbili, Masengo Ilunga
et al.
This study uses Random Forest algorithm to model students' final year mark in an engineering technology module taught by the University of South Africa. The algorithm uses a supervised learning classification technique to map the different assessment marks and the final mark. Hence, the latter are labelled instances whereas the former constitute the features. Random Forest (RF) has been applied to Structural Analysis 3, which takes into consideration the graduate attribute concept or level of competence as far as assessments are concerned. Firstly, the RF is subjected to imbalanced binary classes, then balanced classes are achieved by Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) and class weights adjustment techniques. The results showed that SMOTE brought an improvement in accuracy of 3%. It was also revealed that an increase of 4, 15 and 9% in precision, recall and F1-Score were observed in predicting non-competent students. An increase of 4 and 3% was noticed in the case of the precision and F1-Score respectively in predicting competent students, whereas the recall did not display any change. Despite the RF with SMOTE overperformed standard RF and RF class weights adjustment, all three algorithms were good candidates in the prediction of student performance. RF-SMOTE could be suggested as a guiding instrument when dealing with imbalanced data.
Beyond diagonal intelligent reflecting surface (BD-IRS) is a new promising IRS architecture for which the reflection matrix is not limited to the diagonal structure as for conventional IRS. In this paper, we study a BD-IRS aided uplink integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) system where sensing is performed in a device-based manner. Specifically, we aim to estimate the unknown and random location of an active target based on its uplink probing signals sent to a multi-antenna base station (BS) as well as the known prior distribution information of the target's location. Multiple communication users also simultaneously send uplink signals, resulting in a challenging mutual interference issue between sensing and communication. We first characterize the sensing performance metric by deriving the posterior Cramér-Rao bound (PCRB) of the mean-squared error (MSE) when prior information is available. Then, we formulate a BD-IRS reflection matrix optimization problem to maximize the minimum expected achievable rate among the multiple users subject to a constraint on the PCRB as well as the lossless and reciprocal constraints on the BD-IRS reflection matrix. The formulated problem is non-convex and challenging to solve. To tackle this problem, we propose a penalty dual decomposition (PDD) based algorithm which can find a high-quality suboptimal solution with polynomial-time complexity. In addition, we propose and optimize a time-division multiple access (TDMA) based scheme which removes the sensing-communication mutual interference. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of the proposed designs and provide useful design insights such as the optimal choice of multiple access scheme.
This study presents an unsupervised method to infer discreteness, syntax and temporal structures of fruit-bats vocalizations, as a case study of graded vocal systems, and evaluates the complexity of communication patterns in relation with behavioral context. The method improved the baseline for unsupervised labeling of vocal units (i.e. syllables) through manifold learning, by investigating how dimensionality reduction on mel-spectrograms affects labeling, and comparing it with unsupervised labels based on acoustic similarity. We then encoded vocalizations as syllabic sequences to analyze the type of syntax, and extracted the Maximal Repetitions (MRs) to evaluate syntactical structures. We found evidence for: i) associative syntax, rather than combinatorial (context classification is unaffected by permutation of sequences, F 1 > 0.9); ii) context-dependent use of syllables (Wilcoxon rank-sum tests, p-value < 0.05); iii) heavy-tail distribution of MRs (truncated power-law, exponent α < 2), indicative of mechanism encoding combinatorial complexity. Analysis of MRs and syllabic transition networks revealed that mother-pupil interactions were characterized by repetitions, while communication in conflict-contexts exhibited higher complexity (longer MRs and more interconnected vocal sequences) than non-agonistic contexts. We propose that communicative complexity is higher in scenarios of disagreement, reflecting lower compressibility of information.
Sohyeon Hwang, Sophie Rollins, Thatiany Andrade Nunes
et al.
Decentralizing the governance of social computing systems to communities promises to empower them to make independent decisions, with nuance and in accordance with their values. Yet, communities do not govern in isolation. Many problems communities face are common, or move across their boundaries. We therefore propose designing for "inter-community governance:" mechanisms that support relationships and interactions between communities to coordinate on governance issues. Drawing from workshops with 24 individuals on decentralized, community-run social media, we present six challenges in designing for inter-community governance surfaced through ideas proposed in workshops. Together, these ideas come together as an ecosystem of resources, infrastructures, and tools that highlight three key principles for designing for inter-community governance: modularity, forkability, and polycentricity. We end with a discussion of how the ideas proposed in workshops might be implemented in future work aiming to support community governance in social computing systems broadly.
The conversion of dynamic systems from impediments to strategic advantages has long played a substantial role in the US military’s technological research and development. From signal interpretation with remote sensing systems to telecommunciations to algorithms, media and information theory, and the weather, the unintended consequences of both dynamic systems in nature and technological attempts to control them led to innovations and accidents, developments and prediction advances that furnish large swaths of our current global sensorial domain. The role of randomness within complex dynamic systems accounts for the opportunities and impediments these systems offer. A consistent logic of micro-slicing of dynamic environmental systems connects different historical periods of military weather interventions, a windowing procedure to find a signal in the noise, and possibly an advantageous one. An example of this can be found in a current military system for soldiers to model and predict low-atmosphere turbulence in the field. This article undertakes a brief examination of the role of nuclear technologies in relation to military meteorology, an overview of how control is found within the aleatory, followed by a section on military meteorology’s fundamental role in window modelling that reveal the logics and technics that detect signal from noise when none seems possible, before closing with military prediction of wind turbulence and a short cumulative refrain on wind and radiation exposure, with further links to the various sections.
Jonas Ney, Patrick Matalla, Vincent Lauinger
et al.
In this work, we present a high-throughput field programmable gate array (FPGA) demonstrator of an artificial neural network (ANN)-based equalizer. The equalization is performed and illustrated in real-time for a 30 GBd, two-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM2) optical communication system.
Masoud Shokrnezhad, Hamidreza Mazandarani, Tarik Taleb
et al.
In the context of emerging 6G services, the realization of everything-to-everything interactions involving a myriad of physical and digital entities presents a crucial challenge. This challenge is exacerbated by resource scarcity in communication infrastructures, necessitating innovative solutions for effective service implementation. Exploring the potential of Semantic Communications (SemCom) to enhance point-to-point physical layer efficiency shows great promise in addressing this challenge. However, achieving efficient SemCom requires overcoming the significant hurdle of knowledge sharing between semantic decoders and encoders, particularly in the dynamic and non-stationary environment with stringent end-to-end quality requirements. To bridge this gap in existing literature, this paper introduces the Knowledge Base Management And Orchestration (KB-MANO) framework. Rooted in the concepts of Computing-Network Convergence (CNC) and lifelong learning, KB-MANO is crafted for the allocation of network and computing resources dedicated to updating and redistributing KBs across the system. The primary objective is to minimize the impact of knowledge management activities on actual service provisioning. A proof-of-concept is proposed to showcase the integration of KB-MANO with resource allocation in radio access networks. Finally, the paper offers insights into future research directions, emphasizing the transformative potential of semantic-oriented communication systems in the realm of 6G technology.
In this work we present a full-duplex (FD) underwater acoustic (UWA) communication system simultaneously transmitting and receiving acoustic signals in the same frequency bandwidth. To simplify the FD hardware, the system exploits a recently designed two-element transducer capable of simultaneously transmitting and receiving signals. The key challenge of implementing an FD system is to cancel the strong self-interference (SI) from the near-end transmitter. By using advanced adaptive filtering algorithms providing high accuracy channel estimates, a high level of SI cancellation can be achieved when the far-end signal is absent. However, the SI channel estimation performance is limited in FD scenarios since the far-end signal acts as an interference. In this paper, we propose an FD UWA communication system which alternates between the SI cancellation and far-end data demodulation. An adaptive Rake combiner with multipath interference cancellation is implemented to improve the demodulation performance in time-varying multipath channels. The performance of the FD UWA system is evaluated in lake experiments. The proposed adaptive Rake combiner with multipath interference cancellation significantly outperforms the conventional Rake combiner in all the experiments. With the new Rake combiner, the detection performance of the proposed FD UWA system is comparable with that of the half-duplex system.
Introduction. The relevance of the study is explained by the necessity to preserve Frenchspeaking culture and language on the territory of Canada in the conditions of globalization, the spread of American mass culture and the significant impact of English as a global language. The purpose of the work is to describe and analyze the sociolinguistic particularities of the existence of the French language in the English-speaking competitive environment in Canada.Methodology and sources. During the study, the following sociolinguistic methods were used: descriptive method, comparison method, continuous sampling method, sociolinguistic analysis method, quantitative data processing method, questionnaire survey. The research is based on the material of Сanadian media, legislative acts regulating the state's language policy, data obtained through surveys of Canadian citizens, and 5,234 inscriptions in five Canadian cities which were selected to examine the country's linguistic landscape.Results and discussion. Under Canadian laws, French and English have equal status in parliamentary readings, in public services and in everyday life, as well as in education, radio and television. However, English is the dominant language and has great prestige throughout Canada. All of the evidence collected shows the decisive superiority of English as the primary means of communication in media, advertising and politics. Existing legislation to protect and promote the use of both official languages is not fully enforced, as evidenced by numerous complaints from Canadians to the Commissioner of Official Languages.Conclusion. In Canada, a multi-component exoglossic linguistic situation has developed with two official languages – English and French, which is characterized by the existence of natural bilingualism. Linguistic minorities, such as Anglophones in Quebec and Francophones outside Quebec, may experience linguistic discrimination, creating tensions between residents of the same country. French is significantly influenced by the majority English and immigrant languages that dominate the linguistic landscape of Canadian cities.
Following the recent success of Machine Learning tools in wireless communications, the idea of semantic communication by Weaver from 1949 has gained attention. It breaks with Shannon's classic design paradigm by aiming to transmit the meaning, i.e., semantics, of a message instead of its exact version, allowing for information rate savings. In this work, we apply the Stochastic Policy Gradient (SPG) to design a semantic communication system by reinforcement learning, separating transmitter and receiver, and not requiring a known or differentiable channel model -- a crucial step towards deployment in practice. Further, we derive the use of SPG for both classic and semantic communication from the maximization of the mutual information between received and target variables. Numerical results show that our approach achieves comparable performance to a model-aware approach based on the reparametrization trick, albeit with a decreased convergence rate.
Objective To map the state of the existing literature evaluating the use of social media in patient and caregiver populations. Design Scoping review. Data sources Medline, CENTRAL, ERIC, PubMed, CINAHL Plus Full Text, Academic Search Complete, Alt Health Watch, Health Source, Communication and Mass Media Complete, Web of Knowledge and ProQuest (2000–2012). Study selection Studies reporting primary research on the use of social media (collaborative projects, blogs/microblogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual worlds) by patients or caregivers. Data extraction Two reviewers screened studies for eligibility; one reviewer extracted data from relevant studies and a second performed verification for accuracy and completeness on a 10% sample. Data were analysed to describe which social media tools are being used, by whom, for what purpose and how they are being evaluated. Results Two hundred eighty-four studies were included. Discussion forums were highly prevalent and constitute 66.6% of the sample. Social networking sites (14.8%) and blogs/microblogs (14.1%) were the next most commonly used tools. The intended purpose of the tool was to facilitate self-care in 77.1% of studies. While there were clusters of studies that focused on similar conditions (eg, lifestyle/weight loss (12.7%), cancer (11.3%)), there were no patterns in the objectives or tools used. A large proportion of the studies were descriptive (42.3%); however, there were also 48 (16.9%) randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Among the RCTs, 35.4% reported statistically significant results favouring the social media intervention being evaluated; however, 72.9% presented positive conclusions regarding the use of social media. Conclusions There is an extensive body of literature examining the use of social media in patient and caregiver populations. Much of this work is descriptive; however, with such widespread use, evaluations of effectiveness are required. In studies that have examined effectiveness, positive conclusions are often reported, despite non-significant findings.
Due to societal trends, such as digitalisation, platformisation, and active and co-creative audiences, new organisational practices have surfaced. This study examines how communication practitioners experience their changing work in a new communication environment in which participatory cultural norms are becoming standard in strategic communication. I argue that the requirements to produce audience engagement affect the communication work and the communication workers. This study uses the popular music industry as a case, and is based on interviews with communication practitioners as well as on the qualitative text analysis of reports and newsletters from the music marketing firm Music Ally to the music industry. The study shows that communication practitioners within the industry experience a duty to create audience engagement—an engagement imperative. Although the practitioners are highly skilled in digital communication and social media, they often see the development of digital promotional culture as a challenge and express a lack of a deeper understanding of engagement. This study highlights implications for their professional roles, competences, and identities as well as ethical implications regarding the exploitation of audiences in communication work.
The width for the mu decay is calculated in the V-A theory leaving open the possibility of non zero neutrino masses. It is shown that not only the agreement with the experimental data is kept, but the smallness of the experimental error allows to improve the constraint of nu mass (muon based) down to 0.021 MeV, provided that nu mass (electron based) is as low as indicated by the 3H beta decay. An analogous constraint for the nu mass (tau based) is not possible since in this case the decay width has a larger experimental error.
The researcher set out to determine the Abia Audience perception of the portrayal of women in television Advertising. The fundamental reason behind the study is to ascertain the way Abia audiences, especially the women are portrayed in television advertising; two theories were used as theoretical framework; they are reception analysis theory and constructivism theory. The researcher adopted the survey research design, employing the questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. A population of 138,570 was used out of which a sample size of 400 respondents was studied. Findings from the respondents show that women are not happy about the way they are presented in television advertising. Also, findings show that women are generally found in advertisements for home products, baby items, cosmetics and food items. They are also generally portrayed stereotypically in the advertisement of entertainment, clothes, and cosmetics but are portrayed non-stereotypically in ads for tobacco, travel, food and financial services. Based on the conclusion, the researchers recommend advertisements where women were treated merely as an object to sell, need to be abandoned and women need to come up openly and boldly against their degrading presentation.
Coral Hernandez-Fernández, José Antonio Alcoceba Hernando
Este artículo se centra en el análisis de los procesos de virtualización de las compras de bienes de uso personal, profundizando en los grados con los que los españoles han trasladado sus compras desde el espacio físico al virtual, así como en los perfiles sociodemográficos más proclives a virtualizar dichos procesos de compra. Los resultados parten de una encuesta representativa de la población española realizada en 2016 a 2800 internautas, y han sido posteriormente actualizados y complementados a través de fuentes secundarias. El estudio evidenció que la compra online estaba estrechamente vinculada a la existencia de una categoría social de “cosmopolitas digitales urbanos”, compuesta por individuos jóvenes, con buena situación económica y altos niveles de educación, que conciben el medio online como expresión y símbolo de estatus. Por contra, los más reacios a la virtualización de las compras se caracterizan por estar sometidos a una doble brecha digital y socioeconómica.
Communication. Mass media, Social sciences (General)
Driven by the vision of intelligent connection of everything and digital twin towards 6G, a myriad of new applications, such as immersive extended reality, autonomous driving, holographic communications, intelligent industrial internet, will emerge in the near future, holding the promise to revolutionize the way we live and work. These trends inspire a novel technical design principle that seamlessly integrates two originally decoupled functionalities, i.e., wireless communication and sensing, into one system in a symbiotic way, which is dubbed symbiotic sensing and communications (SSaC), to endow the wireless network with the capability to "see" and "talk" to the physical world simultaneously. Noting that the term SSaC is used instead of ISAC (integrated sensing and communications) because the word ``symbiotic/symbiosis" is more inclusive and can better accommodate different integration levels and evolution stages of sensing and communications. Aligned with this understanding, this article makes the first attempts to clarify the concept of SSaC, illustrate its vision, envision the three-stage evolution roadmap, namely neutralism, commensalism, and mutualism of SaC. Then, three categories of applications of SSaC are introduced, followed by detailed description of typical use cases in each category. Finally, we summarize the major performance metrics and key enabling technologies for SSaC.