This book concentrates on intelligent technologies as it relates to engineering systems. The book covers the following topics: networking, signal processing, artificial intelligence, control and software engineering, intelligent electronic circuits and systems, communications, and materials and mechanical engineering. The book is a collection of original papers that have been reviewed by technical editors. These papers were presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Technologies and Engineering Systems, held Dec. 13-15, 2012.

This book concentrates on intelligent technologies as it relates to engineering systems. The book covers the following topics: networking, signal processing, artificial intelligence, control and software engineering, intelligent electronic circuits and systems, communications, and materials and mechanical engineering. The book is a collection of original papers that have been reviewed by technical editors. These papers were presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Technologies and Engineering Systems, held Dec. 13-15, 2012.

"English Learning and Teaching in Taiwan: Theory and Practice of Communicative Language Teaching" examined the extent to which the communicative approach is implemented in the English classroom in senior high school in Taiwan. It also investigated senior high school students' attitudes towards English learning at school. This book employed a combination of a dominant quantitative approach and a less-dominant qualitative data aggregation procedure. Data were collected through focus group interviews, classroom observations, and questionnaire. The findings reveal that the traditional approach, which focuses on the teaching of vocabulary, grammar and the explanation of the textbook contents, still prevails in the English classroom. Teachers' classroom practices reflect students' current learning purpose of achieving good exam results. Despite their short-term need of passing exams, the majority of students hold positive attitudes towards more communicative-based language teaching or activities in class. Accordingly, English teaching in school needs to help achieve students' long-term goal, which is to develop the ability to use English in the real situation outside of the classroom.

"School Political Education in Taiwan: Theory and Practice" offers a comprehensive and practical introduction to central themes in the principles and practice of political education implemented in schools in Taiwan. The first part of this book centres on the historical and theoretical perspectives of school political education. It shows how history and theories concerned with the development of the curriculum planning and implementation of school political education. Through focus group interviews and questionnaires, this book explores senior high school students' attitudes towards the knowledge, skills and attitudes/values covered in the curriculum planning and implementation of school political education. The final part of this book seeks to examine whether the rationales, goals, and contents of school political education meet students' learning needs and provides useful recommendations for the improvement of school political education.