Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A non-iterative cascaded predictive control approach for control of irrigation canals

Irrigation canals transport water from water sources (such as large rivers and lakes) to water users (such as farmers). Irrigation canals are typically very large in nature, covering vast geographical areas, and involving a significant number of control actuators, such as pumps, gates, and locks. The control of such canals is aimed at guaranteeing the adequate delivery of water with minimal water spillage and with minimal control structure usage. To take into account forecasts on, e.g., water consumption and weather, model predictive control (MPC) can be used to determine which actions to take. For large-scale systems, in which different parts of the canal are owned by different parties, distributed MPC control could then be employed. Although iterative distributed MPC approaches proposed earlier in the literature may yield overall optimal performance, the amount of iterations required before achieving this performance may be large, and thus require a significant amount of time. In this paper, the structure of systems consisting of serially interconnected subsystems is exploited to obtain an efficient non-iterative, cascaded MPC scheme. Simulation studies on a 7-reach irrigation canal illustrate the performance of this non-iterative scheme in comparison with an iterative scheme.
Anion channel sensitivity to cytosolic organic acids implicates a central role for oxaloacetate in integrating ion flux with metabolism in stomatal guard cells

Stomatal guard cells play a key role in gas exchange for photosynthesis and in minimizing transpirational water loss from plants by opening and closing the stomatal pore. The bulk of the osmotic content driving stomatal movements depends on ionic fluxes across both the plasma membrane and tonoplast, the metabolism of organic acids, primarily Mal (malate), and its accumulation and loss. Anion channels at the plasma membrane are thought to comprise a major pathway for Mal efflux during stomatal closure, implicating their key role in linking solute flux with metabolism. Nonetheless, little is known of the regulation of anion channel current (ICl) by cytosolic Mal or its immediate metabolite OAA (oxaloacetate). In the present study, we have examined the impact of Mal, OAA and of the monocarboxylic acid anion acetate in guard cells of Vicia faba L. and report that all three organic acids affect ICl, but with markedly different characteristics and sidedness to their activities. Most prominent was a suppression of ICl by OAA within the physiological range of concentrations found in vivo. These findings indicate a capacity for OAA to co-ordinate organic acid metabolism with ICl through the direct effect of organic acid pool size. The findings of the present study also add perspective to in vivo recordings using acetate-based electrolytes.
Closed Form Expressions to Find Radiation Patterns of Rectangular Dielectric Resonator Antennas for Various Modes

A theoretical investigation on radiation patterns of rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (RDRA) is presented. A simple model using magnetic walls (perfect and/or imperfect) and equivalence principle are utilized to predict the radiation patterns for TEmnpy modes. Approximate solution for the eigenfunction is derived. Closed form expressions of radiation patterns are given. New broadside modes are also identified, hitherto unreported. Radiation Q-factor, gain and bandwidth are also described. Results are compared with measured data or data obtained using 3D EM simulator.
H-RRT-C: Haptic motion planning with contact

This paper focuses on interactive motion planning processes intended to assist a human operator when simulating industrial tasks in Virtual Reality. Such applications need motion planning on surfaces. We propose an original haptic path planning algorithm with contact, H-RRT-C, based on a RRT planner and a real-time interactive approach involving a haptic device for computer-operator authority sharing. Force feedback allows the human operator to keep contact consistently and provides the user with the feel of the contact, and the force applied by the operator on the haptic device is used to control the roadmap extension. Our approach has been validated through two experimental examples, and brings significant improvement over state of the art methods in both free and contact space to solve path-planning queries and contact operations such as insertion or sliding in highly constrained environments.
Is the Bible Becoming a Closed Book? British Opinion Poll Evidence

Abstract Opinion poll data from 123 national sample surveys of the adult general population and 35 national and local sample surveys of adult religious populations are used to study changes in the status and influence of the Bible in Britain since the Second World War. The principal measures of ‘Bible-centricism’ comprise Bible ownership, readership, knowledge, literalism, beliefs, and attitudes. The analysis proceeds both at top-line level and by breaks for gender, age, social class, religious denomination, and churchgoing. Twelve broad conclusions are drawn, with declining allegiance to the Bible visible on various fronts, even among regular churchgoers. In an everyday sense, one interpretation could be that Christianity is becoming de-coupled from the holy book on which it is founded. This process, mirroring declines in other religious indicators, is attributed to the waning influence of three principal agencies of religious socialisation (church/Sunday school, state school, parents) which formerly underpinned the Bible’s role in faith and society.
Making a difference: the impact of leadership upon the ethos of sixth form colleges

T he study is based upon research carried out during 2001–2, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and reported in Lumby and Briggs et al (2002), which sought to explore the role of sixth form colleges; to examine the impact of government policy upon them since 1993, and to analyse the colleges’ management of response to changes. Part One of this article considered the curriculum, culture and growth of the sector.
Extreme Learning Machine Ensemble Using Bagging for Facial Expression Recognition

Abstract —An extreme learning machine (ELM) is a recently proposed learning algorithm for a single-layer feed forward neural network. In this paper we studied the ensemble of ELM by using a bagging algorithm for facial expression recognition (FER). Facial expression analysis is widely used in the behavior interpretation of emotions, for cognitive science, and social interactions. This paper presents a method for FER based on the histogram of orientation gradient (HOG) features using an ELM ensemble. First, the HOG features were extracted from the face image by dividing it into a number of small cells. A bagging algorithm was then used to construct many different bags of training data and each of them was trained by using separate ELMs. To recognize the expression of the input face image, HOG features were fed to each trained ELM and the results were combined by using a majority voting scheme. The ELM ensemble using bagging improves the generalized capability of the network significantly. The two available datasets (JAFFE and CK+) of facial expressions were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed classification system. Even the performance of individual ELM was smaller and the ELM ensemble using a bagging algorithm improved the recognition performance significantly.
A synergy-based hand control is encoded in human motor cortical areas

How the human brain controls hand movements to carry out different tasks is still debated. The concept of synergy has been proposed to indicate functional modules that may simplify the control of hand postures by simultaneously recruiting sets of muscles and joints. However, whether and to what extent synergic hand postures are encoded as such at a cortical level remains unknown. Here, we combined kinematic, electromyography, and brain activity measures obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging while subjects performed a variety of movements towards virtual objects. Hand postural information, encoded through kinematic synergies, were represented in cortical areas devoted to hand motor control and successfully discriminated individual grasping movements, significantly outperforming alternative somatotopic or muscle-based models. Importantly, hand postural synergies were predicted by neural activation patterns within primary motor cortex. These findings support a novel cortical organization for hand movement control and open potential applications for brain-computer interfaces and neuroprostheses. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.13420. 001
Affective Responses To Social Comparisons With Extremely Close Others

Abstract Three experiments examined the hypothesis that the assimilation effect in people's responses to social comparisons (i.e., more pleasant responses to comparisons with successful others than to comparisons with unsuccessful others) on highly important dimensions would be strongest when people share an identity relationship with the target of comparison (i.e., an extremely close relationship in which people consider the target to be an important part of their identities). In Experiment 1, participants learned that a comparison target with whom they shared either an identity, unit, or non-unit relationship had succeeded or failed a test in an important ability domain. The assimilation effect was strongest among participants who shared an identity relationship with the target. Experiment 2 revealed that the same pattern of effects was obtained when empathic responses were controlled. Experiment 3 revealed that the assimilation effect occurring among people who share an identity relationship with a tar.
Barttin Regulates the Subcellular Localization and Posttranslational Modification of Human Cl-/H+ Antiporter ClC-5

Dent disease 1 (DD1) is a renal salt-wasting tubulopathy associated with mutations in the Cl-/H+ antiporter ClC-5. The disease typically manifests with proteinuria, hypercalciuria, nephrocalcinosis, and nephrolithiasis but is characterized by large phenotypic variability of no clear origin. Several DD1 cases have been reported lately with additional atypical hypokalemic metabolic alkalosis and hyperaldosteronism, symptoms usually associated with another renal disease termed Bartter syndrome (BS). Expression of the Bartter-like DD1 mutant ClC-5 G261E in HEK293T cells showed that it is retained in the ER and lacks the complex glycosylation typical for ClC-5 WT. Accordingly, the mutant abolished CLC ionic transport. Such phenotype is not unusual and is often observed also in DD1 ClC-5 mutants not associated with Bartter like phenotype. We noticed, therefore, that one type of BS is associated with mutations in the protein barttin that serves as an accessory subunit regulating the function and subcellular localization of ClC-K channels. The overlapping symptomatology of DD1 and BS, together with the homology between the proteins of the CLC family, led us to investigate whether barttin might also regulate ClC-5 transport. In HEK293T cells, we found that barttin cotransfection impairs the complex glycosylation and arrests ClC-5 in the endoplasmic reticulum. As barttin and ClC-5 are both expressed in the thin and thick ascending limbs of the Henle’s loop and the collecting duct, interactions between the two proteins could potentially contribute to the phenotypic variability of DD1. Pathologic barttin mutants differentially regulated trafficking and processing of ClC-5, suggesting that the interaction between the two proteins might be relevant also for the pathophysiology of BS. Our findings show that barttin regulates the subcellular localization not only of kidney ClC-K channels but also of the ClC-5 transporter, and suggest that ClC-5 might potentially play a role not only in kidney proximal tubules but also in tubular kidney segments expressing barttin. In addition, they demonstrate that the spectrum of clinical, genetic and molecular pathophysiology investigation of DD1 should be extended.
A Computational Model for Rule-Based Microtonal Music Theories and Composition

Microtonal music is an influential facet of twentieth and 21st cen tury music composition. Composers that contributed significantly to microtonal music include characters as diverse as Julian Carrillo, Ben Johnston, Harry Partch, Horatiu Radulescu, Karlheinz Stock hausen, James Tenney, Ivan Wyschnegradsky and La Monte Young (in alphabetical order). As microtonal music opens wide areas of uncharted musical territory, computational support can be very helpful for navigating this
Competition and Cooperation in a Public Goods Game: A Field Experiment

We explore the effects of competitive and cooperative motivations on contributions in a field experiment. A total of 10,000 potential political donors received solicitations referencing past contribution behavior of members of the competing party (competition treatment), the same party (cooperative treatment), or no past contribution information (control). We first theoretically analyze the effect of these treatments on the contribution behavior of agents with different social preferences in a modified intergroup public good (IPG) game. Then, we report the empirical results: Contribution rates in the competitive, cooperative, and control treatments were 1.45%, 1.08%, and 0.78%, respectively. With the exception of one large contribution, the distribution of contributions in the competitive treatment first order stochastically dominates that of the cooperative treatment. Qualitatively, it appears that the cooperative treatment induced more contributions around the common monetary reference point, while the competitive treatment led to more contributions at twice this amount. These results suggest that eliciting competitive rather than cooperative motivations can lead to higher contributions in IPG settings. (JEL D72, H41, C93)
Wnt3a Mediates the Inhibitory Effect of Hyperoxia on the Transdifferentiation of AECIIs to AECIs

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of Wnt3a in the transdifferentiation of type II alveolar epithelial cells (AECIIs) to type I alveolar epithelial cells (AECIs) under hyperoxia condition. In the in vivo study, preterm rats were exposed in hyperoxia for 21 days. In the in vitro study, primary rat AECIIs were subjected to a hyperoxia and normoxia exposure alternatively every 24 hr for 7 days. siRNA-mediated knockout of Wnt3a and exogenous Wnt3a were used to investigate the effect of Wnt3a on transdifferentiation of AECIIs to AECIs. Wnt5a-overexpressed AECIIs were also used to investigate whether Wnt3a could counteract the effect of Wnt5a. The results showed that hyperoxia induced alveolar damage in the lung of preterm born rats, as well as an increased expression of Wnt3a and nuclear accumulation of β-catenin. In addition, Wnt3a/β-catenin signaling was activated in isolated AECIIs after hyperoxia exposure. Wnt3a knockout blocked the inhibition of the transdifferentiation induced by hyperoxia, and Wnt3a addition exacerbated this inhibition. Furthermore, Wnt3a addition blocked the transdifferentiation-promoting effect of Wnt5a in hyperoxia-exposed Wnt5a-overexpressed AECIIs. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that the activated Wnt3a/β-catenin signal may be involved in the hyperoxia-induced inhibition of AECIIs’ transdifferentiation to AECIs.
Fitting multiple models to multiple images with minimal user interaction

Utilising the broad range of information which human observers bring to bear when interpreting their visual environment is currently infeasible for artificial vision systems. We propose instead a method for modelling compound structures which intelligently divides this prior information into that which may be applied by the system and that which may not. Models are fitted to the input data on the basis of 2D and 3D image-based measures, but also as directed by a prior which is split between the human and the system. Importantly this split is carried out in a manner which minimises the human input required. The authors would like to acknowledge The Australian Research Council Discovery Grant scheme and EPSRC grant EP/C006631/1(P) for support
Gender roles and organizational citizenship behaviors: effects on managerial evaluations

Purpose – Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are defined as non-required workplace behaviors that have potential positive organizational impact. This study examined gender roles and differences in employee evaluations based on OCB participation. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – College students (n=160) rated male and female managers, who did or did not participate in OCBs, on the evaluation of behaviors and possessed gendered traits (agentic and communal). Additionally, participants rated the gendered nature of OCBs. Findings – OCB participation had a direct effect on managerial ratings and OCBs were perceived to be more feminine than masculine. Gender did not predict differences in ratings; however, women were seen as more likely to participate in OCBs compared to men. Additionally, the gender roles associated with OCBs were measured and OCBs were perceived to be mostly feminine in nature. Research limitations/implications – The results indicated the importan.
Development of patterned carbon nanotubes on a 3D polymer substrate for the flexible tactile sensor application

This study reports an improved approach to implement a carbon nanotube (CNT)-based flexible tactile sensor, which is integrated with a flexible print circuit (FPC) connector and is capable of detecting normal and shear forces. The merits of the presented tactile sensor by the integration process are as follows: (1) 3D polymer tactile bump structures are naturally formed by the use of an anisotropically etched silicon mold; (2) planar and 3D distributed CNTs are adopted as piezoresistive sensing elements to enable the detection of shear and normal forces; (3) the processes of patterning CNTs and metal routing can be easily batch fabricated on rigid silicon instead of flexible polymer; (4) robust electrical routing is realized using parylene encapsulation to avoid delamination; (5) patterned CNTs, electrical routing and FPC connector are integrated and transferred to a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate by a molding process. In application, the CNT-based flexible tactile sensor and its integration with the FPC connector are implemented. Preliminary tests show the feasibility of detecting both normal and shear forces using the presented flexible sensor.
Bringing Science and Technology Studies into Agricultural Anthropology: Technology Development as Cultural Encounter between Farmers and Researchers

The “farmer-back-to-farmer” model of agricultural development, pioneered by Robert Rhoades and Robert Booth, urged technologists to use farmers' knowledge and practices as both the starting point for technological innovations as well as the ultimate measure of the value of innovation. This approach was premised upon close ethnographic study of farmers' livelihoods, especially how technical agricultural practices interacted with household dynamics, community structures, and cultural values. However, the original “farmer-back-to-farmer” approach left the “expert” practice of science and technology as an implicitly practical and apolitical space rather than as a subject of ethnographic study. The increasing and diverse articulation of farmers' livelihood practices with the professional practices of agricultural scientists demands theoretical tools that bring them all into the same frame of analysis. This article proposes that the integration of agricultural anthropology and science and technology studies provides a well-balanced toolkit for analyzing participatory technology development as a space of cultural encounter.
The Tacit Knowledge Problem in Multinational Corporations: Japanese and US Offshore Knowledge Incubators

This paper examines the ‘cognitive’ and ‘societal’ aspects of the tacit knowledge transfer problem in MNCs. Based on a comparative analysis of the overseas R&D labs of US and Japanese MNCs in the UK, it examines how home-based models of learning influence MNCs’ transnational social spaces for learning and their capabilities to address the tacit knowing problem. It illustrates how the US professional ‘networks of practice’ (NoP) and the Japanese organizational ‘communities of practice’ (CoP) approaches to transnational learning unfold in practice. It also examines how divergence between home and host country institutions governing knowledge production inhibits cross-societal tacit knowing.
Nurse–physician collaboration in an academic medical centre: The influence of organisational and individual factors

ABSTRACT Ineffective physician–nurse collaboration has been recognised to adversely impact patient and organisational outcomes, and some studies suggest an underlying factor may be that nurses and physicians have different perceptions of interprofessional collaboration (IPC). The objectives of this study were to evaluate for a difference in the perception of IPC between physicians and nurses and to explore potential contributing factors at the individual and organisational levels to any observed difference. Data including measures of perceptions of IPC were collected from a convenience sample of resident physicians (n = 47), attending physicians (n = 18), and nurses (n = 54) providing care for internal medicine patients in a large tertiary care academic medical centre. Regression analysis revealed significantly lower perceptions of IPC scores for nurses in comparison to the scores of both the resident and attending physician groups (p = .0001 for both). Although demographic and workload factors also differed by profession, only profession and workload remained significant in regression analysis. Given the known relationships between effective physician–nurse collaboration and superior patient and organisational outcomes, better defining the individual and organisational predictors of IPC scores may support development of more effective interventions targeting improvements in IPC.
The role and nature of the cultural dimension in primary modern languages

This paper explores the teaching and learning of cultural awareness and intercultural understanding within modern languages in English primary schools. The data were collected from 40 primary schools over three years using a mixed method research design, including observation of lessons and interviews with teachers and headteachers, and focus group discussions with children. Questionnaires were also administered to children across Key Stage 2 (years 7–11). Findings indicate that the cultural dimension in languages teaching is considered important but, while this is clearly articulated by headteachers and teachers, it is rarely planned for systematically. Without a shared understanding of how to achieve the deeper aspects of cultural learning, their vision of developing respect for multiculturalism, broadening cultural horizons and promoting global citizenship remains only partially realised. While the cultural dimension is referenced within lessons, there are limited opportunities for children to question, explore or reflect upon the impact of culture either on their own lives or on the lives of others. Implications for teacher development and the new curriculum for languages at Key Stage 2 are discussed.