University of Stirling

About: University of Stirling is a education organization based out in Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Polyunsaturated fatty acid. The organization has 7722 authors who have published 20549 publications receiving 732940 citations. The organization is also known as: Stirling University.

Vibration perception threshold: influence of age, height, sex, and smoking, and calculation of accurate centile values.

Abstract: Vibration perception threshold (VPT) is increasingly used as a measure of large nerve fibre function in studies of patients with diabetes and in other disorders. In order to establish the influence of age, height, sex, and smoking on VPT values in the normal population and to allow the calculation of accurate age-related percentile charts, 1365 healthy volunteers were studied using a biothesiometer. Measurements were made bilaterally on thumbs, great toes, and over medial malleoli. Multivariate regression analysis confirmed age to be the major determinant of VPT levels at all sites (p less than 0.001). Height was a significant factor for toes and ankles (p less than 0.001) but not thumbs. Sex had no overall effect at toe or thumb but there were differences regarding ankle VPT (p less than 0.01). Log transformation of VPT data produced a linear relationship with age at all sites except at the thumbs in elderly females where there was significant deviation from this model (p less than 0.001) and inverse square root transformation was more appropriate. Smoking had no effect on VPT levels. Age-related centile charts were produced for each site and an easy-to-use computer program was developed to calculate centile values based on raw VPT data, age, height, and sex.

Earnings Management in Malaysian IPOs: The East Asian Crisis, Ownership Control and Post-IPO Performance

Abstract: The paper provides general evidence of income-increasing earnings management in Malaysian IPOs but this occurs primarily during a period of severe economic stress (the East Asian crisis). The requirement to provide a profit guarantee appears to reduce rather than encourage earnings management. Within this high ownership concentration market, ownership concerns also appear to constrain IPO earnings management. Owners are willing to forego 'opportunistic' earnings management and signalling opportunities to increase their likelihood of retaining control of the company post-IPO. IPO companies engaging in aggressive earnings management have significantly worse market-based performance than their more conservative counterparts, but only during the economic crisis period.

Fast Biped Walking with a Sensor-driven Neuronal Controller and Real-time Online Learning

Abstract: In this paper, we present our design and experiments on a planar biped robot under the control of a pure sensor-driven controller. This design has some special mechanical features, for example small curved feet allowing rolling action and a properly positioned center of mass, that facilitate fast walking through exploitation of the robot's natural dynamics. Our sensor-driven controller is built with biologically inspired sensor- and motor-neuron models, and does not employ any kind of position or trajectory tracking control algorithm. Instead, it allows our biped robot to exploit its own natural dynamics during critical stages of its walking gait cycle. Due to the interaction between the sensor-driven neuronal controller and the properly designed mechanics of the robot, the biped robot can realize stable dynamic walking gaits in a large domain of the neuronal parameters. In addition, this structure allows the use of a policy gradient reinforcement learning algorithm to tune the parameters of the sensor-driven controller in real-time, during walking. This way RunBot can reach a relative speed of 3.5 leg lengths per second after only a few minutes of online learning, which is faster than that of any other biped robot, and is also comparable to the fastest relative speed of human walking.