University of Lincoln

About: University of Lincoln is a education organization based out in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Higher education. The organization has 2341 authors who have published 7025 publications receiving 124797 citations.

Children Reading to Dogs: A Systematic Review of the Literature.

Abstract: Background Despite growing interest in the value of human-animal interactions (HAI) to human mental and physical health the quality of the evidence on which postulated benefits from animals to human psychological health are based is often unclear. To date there exist no systematic reviews on the effects of HAI in educational settings specifically focussing on the perceived benefits to children of reading to dogs. With rising popularity and implementation of these programmes in schools, it is essential that the evidence base exploring the pedagogic value of these initiatives is well documented. Methods Using PRISMA guidelines we systematically investigated the literature reporting the pedagogic effects of reading to dogs. Because research in this area is in the early stages of scientific enquiry we adopted broad inclusion criteria, accepting all reports which discussed measurable effects related to the topic that were written in English. Multiple online databases were searched during January-March 2015; grey literature searches were also conducted. The search results which met the inclusion criteria were evaluated, and discussed, in relation to the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine levels of evidence; 27 papers were classified as Level 5, 13 as Level 4, 7 as Level 2c and 1 as Level 2b. Conclusion The evidence suggests that reading to a dog may have a beneficial effect on a number of behavioural processes which contribute to a positive effect on the environment in which reading is practiced, leading to improved reading performance. However, the evidence base on which these inferences are made is of low quality. There is a clear need for the use of higher quality research methodologies and the inclusion of appropriate controls in order to draw causal inferences on whether or how reading to dogs may benefit children’s reading practices. The mechanisms for any effect remain a matter of conjecture

Magic bullets for insomnia? Patients' use and experiences of newer (Z drugs) versus older (benzodiazepine) hypnotics for sleep problems in primary care.

Abstract: Background Little is known about patients' perceptions of newer hypnotics. Aim To investigate use, experience, and perceptions of Z drug and benzodiazepine hypnotics in the community. Design of study Cross-sectional survey of general practice patients who had received at least one prescription for a Z drug or benzodiazepine in the previous 6 months. Setting Lincolnshire, UK. Method Self-administered postal questionnaire. Results Of 1600 surveys posted, 935 (58.4%) responses were received, of which 705 (75.4%) were from patients taking drugs for insomnia. Of those 705 patients, 87.9% (n = 620) were first prescribed a hypnotic by their GP, and 94.9% (n = 669) had taken a sleeping tablet for 4 weeks or more. At least one side effect was reported in 41.8% (n = 295); 18.6% wished to come off hypnotic medication; and 48.5% had tried to stop treatment. Patients on Z drugs were more likely to express a wish to stop (22.7% versus 12.3%; odds ratio [OR] = 1.67, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.13 to 2.49), or to have attempted to come off medication, than those on benzodiazepines (52.4% versus 41.0%; OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.12 to 2.12). The two groups did not differ significantly in respect of benefits or adverse effects. Conclusion There were no significant differences in patients' perceptions of efficacy or side-effects reported by those on Z drugs compared to patients taking benzodiazepines. Side-effects were commonly reported, which may have contributed to a high proportion of responders, particularly patients on Z drugs who were wishing to stop, or who had previously tried to stop taking this medication. Reported prescribing practices were often at variance with the licence for short-term use.

Urban Australians Using Recycled Water for Domestic Non-Potable Use — An Evaluation of the Attributes Price, Saltiness, Colour and Odour Using Conjoint Analysis

Abstract: Recycled water use in urban areas is viewed as one part of the solution to Australia’s water shortage. The effectiveness of policies designed to promote recycled water systems depends on the acceptance by the community of the price, colour, odour and salt content of the recycled water. In Australia and other countries, limited research has been conducted that investigates community attitudes to and willingness to pay for recycled water, especially in urban settings. Community acceptance of recycled water and the economic feasibility of such projects have not been widely evaluated, even though the long-term feasibility of many projects is dependent on such information. This paper examines the attitudes of an urban Australian community living at Mawson Lakes in South Australia, to using recycled water for non-potable domestic purposes. Conjoint analysis (CA) was used to evaluate participant’s (n = 136) preferences for various attributes of recycled water (colour, odour, salt content and price) for various uses (garden watering, toilet flushing and clothes washing). The analysis was used to estimate the respondent’s willingness to pay (WTP) for quality increases for each of the attributes. Differences in WTP were investigated according to various demographic variables including income and education. Results indicate that for garden watering having 'low salt levels' is the most important attribute of recycled water, for clothes washing 'colourless' is the most important attribute, and for toilet flushing a ‘low price’ was the most important attribute. Respondents were willing to pay for increases in the quality of recycled water. The amount they were willing to pay varied depending on applied use and the attribute in question. Respondents were most willing to pay for an increase in quality of recycled water when used for clothes washing (willing to pay Australian dollars (A$) 0.07/cubic meter (m3) for removal of colour, A$0.065 per cubic meter for an increase in quality of recycled water from 'salty' to 'low salt,' and A$ 0.06/m3 for removal of odour (1A$ = 0.75US$ and 0.62h, August 24, 2005)). Segmentation of the price attribute by demographic sectors reveals that those in the higher income bracket, higher education sector, middle age group, and who are male, had a higher marginal valuation on price. The results of this study provide important information for recycled water retailers and water policy developers, helping achieve greater economic feasibility for future recycled water projects, to the satisfaction of the communities involved.

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Swarm Systems

Abstract: Recently, deep reinforcement learning (RL) methods have been applied successfully to multi-agent scenarios. Typically, these methods rely on a concatenation of agent states to represent the information content required for decentralized decision making. However, concatenation scales poorly to swarm systems with a large number of homogeneous agents as it does not exploit the fundamental properties inherent to these systems: (i) the agents in the swarm are interchangeable and (ii) the exact number of agents in the swarm is irrelevant. Therefore, we propose a new state representation for deep multi-agent RL based on mean embeddings of distributions. We treat the agents as samples of a distribution and use the empirical mean embedding as input for a decentralized policy. We define different feature spaces of the mean embedding using histograms, radial basis functions and a neural network learned end-to-end. We evaluate the representation on two well known problems from the swarm literature (rendezvous and pursuit evasion), in a globally and locally observable setup. For the local setup we furthermore introduce simple communication protocols. Of all approaches, the mean embedding representation using neural network features enables the richest information exchange between neighboring agents facilitating the development of more complex collective strategies.

Trust formation processes in innovative collaborations: networking as knowledge building practices

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the practices and processes of trust building and use in collaborative networking for product innovation and to compare face to face with virtual networkingDesign/methodology/approach – Guided by a literature review and preliminary participant observation, 16 open ended interviews collected data about the processes in 11 small biotech firms These data were inductively analysed by the constant comparative method to develop explanatory themesFindings – Trust was seen as a requirement for successful collaborative innovation, but the paper identified how different dimensions of trust are located in the trust building processes Trust works by creating a platform of confidence that fosters flows of information and the exchange of tacit knowledge Two types of trust relationships, the technical and the social, work in different ways to produce different, but complementary, types of trust Virtual environments suit technical trust building but are less suited