Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biped Walking by Variations of Knee Lengths and Attitude Control of a Body and its Frequency Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to realize a kind of more natural and efficient walking of a biped robot. In the beginning of paper, we discuss methods of walking based on passive dynamic walking mechanism and naturalness of walking. Next, we introduce some kinds of walking using variable length knees with constraint control of a body. Finally, our biped called Prototype Biped Emu IV (PBEmu-IV) is introduced, some experimented results are shown to verify the effectiveness of our strategy for biped walking, and the frequency analysis is introduced for walking. As the results, walking frequencies only depended on frequencies of knee length variations, and walking is excited around the characteristics frequency of legs. That is to say, some effective frequencies for biped walking are appeared in the sense of high walking gains.
Information and Winning: Evidence from the 3-month Canadian Treasury Auctions ∗

We investigate the role of pre-bidding sessions and see whether pre-biddings help the convergence in opinions among bidders in the 3-month Canadian treasury auction markets. We also test the hypothesis of the size effect, i.e., whether large bidders behave differently from small bidders. The empirical analysis shows that the pre-bidding arrangement facilitate the convergence in opinion among bidders and it has similar predictive power on winning outcomes as that of the official bidding. Specifically, the competition level during the pre-bidding session has a strong positive impact on the number of winning bidders and winning bids; more bidders posting bids during the pre-bidding session induces a larger number of winning bidders. We also provide estimates on the probabilities of participating and winning. A higher percentage winning quantity from the previous auction encourages bidders making more official bids and the current competition during the official bidding reduces the probability of winning. The potential profitability implied by the official bids has a negative effect on the probability of participating as well as the probability of winning. Furthermore, our empirical results suggest that there exists bid synchronization among large bidders and the profit potential for large bidders is statistically significant while it is not for small bidders.
The Impact of Open Textbooks on Secondary Science Learning Outcomes

Given the increasing costs associated with commercial textbooks and decreasing financial support of public schools, it is important to better understand the impacts of open educational resources on student outcomes. The purpose of this quantitative study is to analyze whether the adoption of open science textbooks significantly affects science learning outcomes for secondary students in earth systems, chemistry, and physics. This study uses a quantitative quasi-experimental design with propensity score matched groups and multiple regression to examine whether student learning was influenced by the adoption of open textbooks instead of traditional publisher-produced textbooks. Students who used open textbooks scored . 65 points higher on end-of-year state standardized science tests than students using traditional textbooks when controlling for the effects of 10 student and teacher covariates. Further analysis revealed statistically significant positive gains for students using the open chemistry textbooks, with no significant difference in student scores for earth systems of physics courses. Although the effect size of the gains were relatively small, and not consistent across all textbooks, the finding that open textbooks can be as effective or even slightly more effective than their traditional counterparts has important considerations in terms of school district policy in a climate of finite educational funding.
Late Miocene to Holocene glacial history of East Antarctica revealed by sediments from Sites 745 and 746

The sediments recovered at ODP Sites 745 and 746 in the Australian-Antarctic Basin are characterized by cyclic facies changes between clayey diatom oozes and diatomaceous clays ranging in age from late Miocene (about 10 Ma) to Quaternary.The gravel and terrigenous sand content of the sediments is used as an indicator of the intensity of ice rafting through time. Maxima are recorded at 8.7-7.9, 6.6-6.0, 5.0-4.4, and 4.0-3.2 Ma. The maxima in more recent times are much less pronounced and occur at 2.4-1.6 and 1.4-1.0 Ma. All sand- and gravel-sized terrigenous sediment particles are of gneissic or granitic origin and originated from the East Antarctic continent. The maxima of ice rafting recorded at Sites 745 and 746 do not appear to represent local phenomena. Rather they document major advances and decays of the Antarctic ice shelves and glaciers and therefore represent events of great importance for the reconstruction of the paleoceanography of the Southern Ocean and the glacial history of Antarctica. In general, ice rafting was pronounced in the late Miocene and early Pliocene epochs, which are characterized by repeated ice advances and retreats. Ice rafting was less intensive during the late Pliocene to Quaternary time period, when ice shelves remained relative stable.The clay minerals indicate the fluctuating influence of different source areas on the delivery of fine-grained terrigenous sediment components. Part of this material may have been delivered from the Permian Amery Formation or from equivalents of this formation.
How social shopping retain customers? Capturing the essence of website quality and relationship quality

Social shopping as a result of the advancement of social media applications is increasing considerably in e-commerce. As a consequence of the multi-faceted phenomenon of social shopping, website managers encounter a lot of challenges in providing their quality website experience to satisfy their customers’ needs and in developing relationships among participants, and community. In short, providing excellent quality website experience is crucial to support online customers. Therefore, it is necessary to offer further theoretical conceptualizations as well as detailed empirical evidence for such phenomena in which social shopping are supported and enabled. Thus, this paper attempts to investigate the factors affecting purchase intention of social shopping including two constructs: website quality (i.e., system, information, and service quality) and relationship quality (i.e., satisfaction, commitment, and trust). Additionally we aim to identify the mediating roles of commitment and trust. The empirical results show that the perceived system and service quality are important antecedents of customer satisfaction, but not for the effect of perceived information quality on customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it shows that customer satisfaction significantly influences commitment, trust, and purchase intention, and trust in turn significantly affect commitment. Our empirical results confirm that commitment and trust partially mediate the relationship between satisfaction and purchase intention in social shopping context.
The application of group consensus theory to aid organisational learning and sustainable innovation in manufacturing SMEs

Abstract This paper investigates the exploring of situated knowledge within manufacturing organisations, with employees from a four-tier supply chain utilising a form of Group Consensus Theory (GCT). The implementation of GCT through focus groups as well as individual interviews with participants and observation of group dynamics allowed the authors to characterise the dynamics of learning and application of innovation projects and, identifies the types of innovation strategies in relation to organisational dynamics and knowledge. The aim of the work is to identify the underpinning issues relating to organisational dynamics and organisational learning in relation to innovation. Direct feedback from the SMEs will inform the analysis of how and in what way manufacturers can meet the challenge of increasing the attitudes towards improving innovative activities in companies. This paper extends the theoretical development around organisational learning towards understanding how companies within supply chains learn and innovate. This work therefore focuses upon inter-company learning and innovation which is largely under-developed from a research viewpoint. The method developed is practical, and may be used by organisations for themselves to aid the development of group as well as individual reflection, to stimulate the consideration of change. The results suggest that a clear connection exists between how companies are managed and led and, the resulting organisational learning capabilities of the collaborative team.
Some new fixed point results on intuitionistic fuzzy metric spaces

Abstract Fuzzy set theory originated from the fact that reasoning is not crisp and admits degree. This theory plays a leading role in ample field of Science and Technology. In this paper, by utilizing the concept of E.A. and common (E.A) property, we prove new common fixed point theorems on intuitionistic fuzzy metric spaces. Moreover, we extend the main result for finite number of mappings and integral-type contractive condition on intuitionistic fuzzy metric spaces.
Pointwise Constraints in Vector-Valued Sobolev Spaces with Applications in Optimal Control

We mention that such sets C appear, e.g., in the study of vector-valued evolution variational inequalities, see [Krejčí, 1999, Section 7], and in vector-valued obstacle problems, see, e.g., [Hildebrandt, Widman, 1979; Dal Maso, Musina, 1989; Mancini, Musina, 1989]. Note that the latter case also includes phasefield models in which the concentrations of the phases belong to the simplex C = {x ∈ R : x ≥ 0, ∑m i=1 xi ≤ 1}. In this work, we are going to characterize the tangent and normal cone to the set C. Finally, we prove the polyhedricity of C in case that C is described by affine constraints which satisfy the linear independence constraint qualification (LICQ). We recall that C is called polyhedric if
The study of plasma homocysteine level as a risk factor for ischemic strokes in young patients

Background: According to the WHO, stroke is second leading cause of death for people above the age of 60 years & fifth leading cause in people aged 15 to 59 years old. Each year, nearly six million people worldwide die from stroke. One in six people worldwide will have a stroke in their lifetime. Approximately one-quarter of 45-year-old men will have a stroke before they reach the age of 85. Stroke is also important condition in young people and can occur at any age, including in utero, neonatal period (it is the major cause of cerebral palsy), childhood and young adult life. One-quarter of all strokes occur in people below the age of 65. Methods: This prospective observational case control study was carried on 30 young ischemic stroke patients with 30 control match persons over a period of 20 months, from December 2011 to August 2013 at Tertiary Care Hospital Grant Government Medical College and Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, Mumbai, India. Results: Total plasma fasting homocysteine level in case group was 30.10±14.8 µmol/L and control group was 13±5.3 µmol/L, (p=0.001). Elevated fasting homocysteine level was found in 76.66. 0% of ischemic stroke cases and in 10% of healthy controls (p=0.001). Serum homocysteine levels were higher in subjects having risk factors such as dyslipidemia (p value 1). Conclusions: The present study revealed that hyperhomocysteinemia appears to be an important risk factor for young ischemic strokes. It is therefore important to use serum homocysteine level as an important tool to investigate all cases of young ischemic strokes and also in those who are at risk of developing it. Significant correlation has been found between homocysteine concentration and young ischemic strokes.
Use of the entomopathogenic fungi Metarhizium anisopliae, Cordyceps bassiana and Isaria fumosorosea to control Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Psyllidae) in Persian lime under field conditions

The Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri Kuwayama is a destructive insect pest in citriculture, because it is an efficient vector of the proteobacteria ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’ (Las), ‘Ca. L. africanus’ (Laf) and ‘Ca. L. americanus’ (Lam). These bacteria cause the ‘huanglongbing’ disease or ‘greening’ or ‘yellow dragon’ disease. The disease kills the plant and reduces fruit production. This insect pest is susceptible to entomopathogenic fungi, and we report the use of different strains of Metarhizium anisopliae, Cordyceps bassiana and Isaria fumosorosea against the nymphs and adults of D. citri under field conditions. The fungi were applied four times using a concentration of 2 × 1013 conidia/ha with a time interval of 15 days between applications. The percentage of control of Cb 108, Ma 65, Ma 14 and Ifr 4 was 60, 50, 40 and 35% in nymphs, and 50, 50, 42 and 22% in adults, respectively. Metarhizium anisopliae, C. bassiana and I. fumosorosea applied on Persian lime groves are more effective in reducing higher density of nymphs than adults of D. citri.
Knowledge management as a strategic management tool at a South African enterprise

The primary aim of this article was to explore the role of a knowledge management strategy to achieve a South African technology-oriented enterprise’s business strategy. The linking between knowledge management and the business strategy was viewed as the crux for successful knowledge management in any enterprise. Knowledge plays a crucial role in the competitive nature of enterprises and hence constitutes a critical component of enterprise strategy. The purpose of the empirical survey was to determine the relationship between the knowledge management function and the business strategy at the enterprise. A questionnaire survey was conducted and 355 employees were randomly selected to form the sample. The majority of the respondents were of the opinion that knowledge management plays an important role in the enterprise’s strategies, policies and practices. When implementing a knowledge management strategy, the prioritisation of knowledge management activities, as well as their integration with other business processes, should be an important management focus area and steps for the successful implementation of a knowledge management strategy were recommended.
The political economy of trade-related regulatory policy: environment and global value chain

This paper proposes a selective review of the political and economics literature on non-tariff measures (NTMs), with special emphasis on the so-called behind-the-border measures, such as environmental and food standards. We focus on both theory and existing empirical evidence. The complex issue of international trading rules over domestic regulatory standards, as well as the emerging role of outsourcing and global value chains, is also considered.
GMRT 610-MHz observations of the faint radio source population – and what these tell us about the higher radio-frequency sky

The GMRT is run by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. IHW thanks the Science and Technologies Facilities Council for a studentship. IHW and MJJ acknowledge support from the Square Kilometre Array South Africa. IHW thanks the South African Astronomical Observatory, where some of this work was carried out.
DETERMINATION OF RADON ACTIVITY CONCENTRATION IN HOT SPRING AND SURFACE WATER USING GAMMA SPECTROMETRY TECHNIQUE (Penentuan Kepekatan Aktiviti Radon Di dalam Air Panasdan Air Permukaan Dengan Menggunakan Teknik Spektrometri Gama)

Naturally occurring radionuclides in water such as, 222 Rn which emit gamma radiation through its decaying process could reach to human. Water samples were chosen to present ground and surface water. The groundwater samples were collected from, Perak, Selangor, Kelantan and Sembilan. The surface water samples were collected from Perak, Kelantan, and Pahang. In this study, the surface doses rate measurements were done in-situ using LUDLUM rate meter, and the radioactivity concentration levels were done by counting the water samples using gamma spectrometer with HPGe detector. The activities are ranged from (0.29-1.41 Bq/l).
The Relationship between Knowledge Management and Organizational Performance of Malaysian Private Colleges: A Mediating Role of Managing Talent Practices

Knowledge management plays a vital role in sustaining organizational performance of private academic institutions over time. Nonetheless the linkage between knowledge management, managing talent practices and organizational performance is not adequately addressed. This study therefore is aimed to investigate the relationship between knowledge management and organizational performance of Malaysian private colleges and whether managing talent practices, namely managing talent development and talent retention mediate the relationship between knowledge management and organizational performance of Malaysian private colleges. PLS-SEM technique is deployed to test the hypothesized relationships in the model. Data to all variables of interest studied is collected through a survey using structured questionnaires. A total of 785 sets of questionnaires was distributed to academic and non-academic staff above the executive level from 157 selected private colleges in Malaysia, out of which 243 (31%) of them were valid and useable to this study. Empirical findings in this study highlight that knowledge management has a significant positive relationship with organizational performance of private colleges. Managing talent development rather than talent retention is found to have a significant direct positive influence on organizational performance of private colleges. In addition, knowledge management is predicted to have a significance positive influence on talent development and talent retention respectively. The mediation effects of talent development is statistically significant and in this regard, talent development is shown to have partially mediated the relationship between knowledge management and organizational performance of Malaysian private colleges. Both limitations and managerial implications are also highlighted in this paper.
INNOVATION BY TAIWANESE BUSINESS GROUPS, 1981-2000: THE IMPACT OF STRATEGIC SCOPE AND MARKET DEVELOPMENT ON LOCAL SEARCH ARISING FROM INTRA-GROUP BUYER-SUPPLIER TIES

Business groups are important sources of innovation in emerging economies, but there is substantial heterogeneity in the amount of innovative activity by groups, both across groups and over time. Variation in the density of intra-group buyer-supplier ties that are common linkages among group affiliates may help explain the heterogeneity: Such ties create benefits for group innovativeness by offering resource recombination opportunities, but also may constrain group innovativeness by creating an emphasis on local search. No research has examined how buyer-supplier ties affect group innovativeness, whether directly or conditional on factors that influence when local search will impose particularly strong constraints on group innovativeness and when any constraints will be less important. We draw on evolutionary economic theory to study how internal group structure and external market context affect the local search constraints of intra-group buyer-supplier ties. First, we argue that greater strategic scope of a group's senior leadership structure will relax the local search constraints that closely- linked intra-group operations create. Second, we argue that increased market development of the institutional environment will increase the opportunity costs of local search. Our empirical contribution lies in demonstrating that strategic scope and market development affect the innovative impact of intra- group buyer-supplier ties through the local search mechanism, thereby increasing our understanding of business group innovativeness in an emerging market, both across groups and over time. Our conceptual contribution applies most centrally to the evolutionary economics literature, by identifying strategic scope as a means of escaping the constraints of local search and in examining how the institutional environment shapes the opportunity costs of local search.
Thorn apple (Datura stramonium L.) allelopathy on cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata L.) and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) in Zimbabwe

Datura stramonium extracts have allelopathic properties. The study was conducted to investigate the allelopathic effects of D. stramonium weed on seed germination, early seedling growth and dry biomass of crop plants (Triticum aestivum and Vigna unguiculata). Laboratory and greenhouse trials were arranged as completely randomised design and the field pot experiment was arranged as a randomised complete block design. Aqueous leaf extracts of D. stramonium at 2, 4, 6 and 8% concentrations were applied to determine their effects on seed germination, early seedling growth of crops under laboratory, field and greenhouse conditions. Distilled water (0%) acted as a control. Results from the study indicated that germination, shoot length and dry weight significantly decreased proportionally (p<0.001) as the concentration increased from 2 to 8%. The results showed that D. stramonium has allelopathic effects on wheat and cowpeas, hence cannot be used as a bio herbicide to control Tagetes minuta and Amaranthus hybridus on the selected crops since it is non selective to the crops studied. There is therefore need for further research on screening of arable crops against the allelopathic effects of D. stramonium. This will help to identify arable crops which are not negatively affected by allelochemicals from D. stramonium weed so that it can be used as a selective bio herbicide against other weeds. Key words: Allelopathy, aqueous leaf extract, Datura stramonium, Triticum aestivum, Vigna unguiculata.
PROOF COMPLEXITIES OF SOME PROPOSITIONAL FORMULAE CLASSES IN DIFFERENT REFUTATION SYSTEMS 1

In this paper the proof complexities of some classes of quasi-hard determinable ( n Tsgf ) and hard determinable ( n ψ ) formulas are investigated in some refutation propositional systems. It is proved that 1) the number of proof steps of n Tsgf in ) (lin R (Resolution over linear equations) and + ' GCNF permutation (cut- free Gentzen type with permutation) systems are bounded by p( n Tsgf 2 log ) for some polynomial p(), 2) the formulas n ψ require exponential size proofs in + ' GCNF permutation. It is also shown that Frege systems polynomially simulate + ' GCNF permutation and any Frege system has exponential speed-up over the + ' GCNF permutation.