Welcome to Time Capsule, a new part of the website where you can find resources and tips for improving your presentations. You can also read through the abstracts and slides from previous colloquia (from September 2011 onwards), as well as highlights from their feedback, so you can incorporate all the best bits into your own presentations...
If you're struggling with the structure of your talk, try Blueprint, an easy-to-use form which will take you through all the key things you need to include. If you want to do a non-Beamer presentation and need help with your slides, there's also Slidekit, a set of great looking templates (although note that these are currently only available for OpenOffice/LibreOffice Impress).
If you've already finished designing your talk, and want some simple ideas for ways to improve it, try this handy list of Achievements.
Blueprint is based on the book 'Even a
Geek Can Speak' by Joey Asher - well worth a look if you can
find a cheap copy somewhere.
On the free end of the
spectrum, there's also these these
two
slideshows by Jesse Desjardins, and this blog
post by Matt Might.
Compfight: a search
engine for images (select 'Creative Commons' in the
options for images you can use freely in your
presentations...)
Colour Lovers: for
finding colour schemes, a simple way to make your
slides look polished. (Slidekit and
Achievements use Terra.)
SlideShare: flick
through the 'Top Presentations' to see some examples of great
slide design.
Abstract: I will talk about geometry on the surface of a sphere. We will prove (with the help of a football and elastic bands!) formulas for the areas of various spherical shapes. The maths is very appealing, and also close to home: we live on the surface of a sphere.
Abstract: In the research area of large scale optimisation, we define a structured problem as a problem that consists of multiple similar sub-blocks. In this talk, we will present the Multi-commodity Survivable Network Design problem to illustrate what a structured problem looks like. We will compare the problem modelled by AMPL (one of the traditional style algebraic modelling languages) and SML (structured modelling language). We will also provide a brief explanation of how OOPS (a parallel interior point solver) solves a large optimisation problem. We will try to convince you that the problem modelling by SML will speed up the solving time for OOPS by passing the structural information to the solver. At the end, we will demonstrate that by using SML, the problem generation can be easily parallelled on a clustered network for improving the runtime performance.
Abstract: Portfolio optimisation constitutes a classical maximisation problem in financial mathematics. Expected utility theory, which assumes the investors to be fully rational, has been the dominant decision theory. However, empirical experiments have shown that investors behave inconsistently with its axioms. In this talk, we study the optimal portfolio choice problem for such a behavioural investor, while providing necessary and sufficient conditions for the problem to be well-posed.
Abstract: In this talk we will discuss three different algorithms used for in-painting. By definition: in-painting is the process of reconstructing lost or deteriorated parts of images and videos. For instance, in the case of a valuable painting, this task would be carried out by a skilled image restoration artist. In the digital world, in-painting (also known as image interpolation or video interpolation) refers to the application of sophisticated algorithms to replace lost or corrupted parts of the image data (mainly small regions or to remove little defects). This talk will explain how these algorithms work and will also demonstrate their performance on some example pictures.
Abstract: Antennas are everywhere, including in your pocket! In the first part of this talk, we'll go through the basics of antenna theory, and how antennas are designed. Optimisation also has an important role to play in the design of antennas, so in the second part, we'll focus on the optimisation problem of designing antenna arrays for satellite communication.
Abstract: The Fourier transform of an L^1 function is continuous, and is therefore defined everywhere. From L^2 to L^2, however, the Fourier transform is an isomorphism, meaning that the Fourier transform of an L^2 function can only be well-defined up to sets of measure zero. In this talk, we take an introductory look at the interlying L^p spaces, where 1 < p < 2. Which sets, if any, can we meaningfully restrict the Fourier transform to?
Abstract: This talk will include lots of advice for writing and designing presentations, whether for The PG Colloquium or elsewhere. Part One, Content Design, will introduce a simple method for writing an effective and engaging talk. Part Two, Slide Design, will describe how to use basic design principles to create awesome looking slides. Finally, Part Three, Finishing Touches, will feature lots of practical tips for turning a good talk into a great one. Additionally, I'll be describing some of the new tools and features available for speakers during this year's colloquium.
