Equilibrium transition study for a hybrid MAV

Wind tunnel testing was performed on a VTOL aircraft in order to characterize longitudinal flight behavior during an equilibrium transition between vertical and horizontal flight modes. Trim values for airspeed, pitch, motor speed and elevator position were determined. Data was collected by independently varying the trim parameters, and stability and control derivatives were identified as functions of the trim pitch angle. A linear fractional representation model was then proposed, along with several methods to improve longitudinal control of the aircraft

Detecting Sequential Genre Change in Eighteenth-Century Texts

Machine classification of historical books into genres is a common task for NLP-based classifiers and has a number of applications, from literary analysis to information retrieval. However it is not a straightforward task, as genre labels can be ambiguous and subject to temporal change, and moreoever many books consist of mixed or miscellaneous genres. In this paper we describe a work-in-progress method by which genre predictions can be used to determine longer sequences of genre change within books, which we test out with visualisations of some hand-picked texts. We apply state-of-the-art methods to the task, including a BERT-based transformer and character-level Perceiver model, both pre-trained on a large collection of eighteenth century works (ECCO), using a new set of hand-annotated documents created to reflect historical divisions. Results show that both models perform significantly better than a linear baseline, particularly when ECCO-BERT is combined with tfidf features, though for this task the character-level model provides no obvious advantage. Initial evaluation of the genre sequence method shows it may in the future be useful in determining and dividing the multiple genres of miscellaneous and hybrid historical texts.Peer reviewe

Distinguishing discourses : A data-driven analysis of works and publishing networks of the Scottish Enlightenment

Peer reviewe

Sustainability indicators for improved assessment of the effects of agricultural policy across the EU: Is FADN the answer?

peer-reviewedPolicy reform of the CAP and society’s expectations of agriculture have resulted in a growing need for improved information on the effectiveness of policy in achieving high-level objectives for more sustainable practice in agriculture. This is a high priority given its importance for consumers, public policy and private industry. Data collection programmes will need to adapt their scope if their information is to adequately address new information needs about high-level objectives. Assessment of sustainability at the farm level is hindered by the lack of data with which to derive appropriate, meaningful, and relevant indicators. This is particularly problematic for assessment of agricultural sustainability across the European Union (EU). Various databases exist at the EU scale regarding agricultural data sources and we identify one of these, the EU Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), as having considerable potential to assess farm-level sustainability at EU level. We critique several examples of published work that has attempted to assess agricultural sustainability using: FADN data alone; FADN data in combination with data from supplementary surveys, and; FADN data in combination with data from other EU databases. We conclude that the FADN would need to broaden its scope of data collection if it is to address the new information needs of policy, and we discuss the challenges in expanding FADN with a view towards wider farm-level assessment of sustainability. These include careful selection of indicators based on various criteria, the representativeness of the FADN, and the need to include new themes to address environmental, social, and animal welfare effects of policy.This work was partly funded by the FLINT project under the EU Seventh Framework Programme grant number 613800

Accessing Improbable Foldamer Shapes with Strained Macrocycles.

The alkylation of some secondary amide functions with a dimethoxybenzyl (DMB) group in oligomers of 8-amino-2-quinolinecarboxylic acid destabilizes the otherwise favored helical conformations, and allows for cyclization to take place. A cyclic hexamer and a cyclic heptamer were produced in this manner. After DMB removal, X-ray crystallography and NMR show that the macrocycles adopt strained conformations that would be improbable in noncyclic species. The high helix folding propensity of the main chain is partly expressed in these conformations, but it remains frustrated by macrocyclization. Despite being homomeric, the macrocycles possess inequivalent monomer units. Experimental and computational studies highlight specific fluxional pathways within these structures. Extensive simulated annealing molecular dynamics allow for the prediction of the conformations for larger macrocycles with up to sixteen monomers

Explainable Publication Year Prediction of Eighteenth Century Texts with the BERT Model

In this paper, we describe a BERT model trained on the Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) dataset of digitized documents. The ECCO dataset poses unique modelling challenges due to the presence of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) artifacts. We establish the performance of the BERT model on a publication year prediction task against linear baseline models and human judgement, finding the BERT model to be superior to both and able to date the works, on average, with less than 7 years absolute error. We also explore how language change over time affects the model by analyzing the features the model uses for publication year predictions as given by the Integrated Gradients model explanation method.Peer reviewe

Rasch analysis of exams: A way to document graduate outcomes to employers?

This presentation reports of a Rasch analysis (Rasch, 1960) performed on two final exams for first year, service taught, chemistry subjects. These subjects targeted students of vastly different educational backgrounds, but the exams were designed and proofed by the same team of academics. Using this approach, we were able to assess the performance of students as well as that of the exam questions (Bond and Fox, 2007). Importantly, we were pleased that for both exams, the performance of students correlated well with their grades. For each subject a number of important topics and categories of material exist as learning outcomes for the students. Analysis of the exam questions within these topics and categories allows a quantified measure of how each student does on each topic. This talk will briefly examine a sample of students’ information based upon these categories. It will suggest such information could be provided by students to employers in order to evidence the student’s mastery of a discipline, as defined in the subject(s) learning outcomes and along a scaffolded continuum (from first year to final year). Bond, T. G. and C. M. Fox (2007). Applying the Rasch Model. Fundamental Measurements in the Human Sciences. Mahwah, New Jersey, Routledge. Rasch, G. (1960). Probabilistic models for some intelligence and attainment tests. Copenhagen, Danmarks Paedagogiske Institut. Proceedings of the Australian Conference on Science and Mathematics Education, The University of Queensland, Sept 28th to 30th, 2016, page X, ISBN Number 978-0-9871834-4-6

Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Computational Approaches to Historical Language Change

In this paper, we describe a BERT model trained on the Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) dataset of digitized documents. The ECCO dataset poses unique modelling challenges due to the presence of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) artifacts. We establish the performance of the BERT model on a publication year prediction task against linear baseline models and human judgement, finding the BERT model to be superior to both and able to date the works, on average, with less than 7 years absolute error. We also explore how language change over time affects the model by analyzing the features the model uses for publication year predictions as given by the Integrated Gradients model explanation method

Accessing Improbable Foldamer Shapes with Strained Macrocycles

The alkylation of some secondary amide functions with a dimethoxybenzyl (DMB) group in oligomers of 8-amino-2-quinolinecarboxylic acid destabilizes the otherwise favored helical conformations, and allows for cyclization to take place. A cyclic hexamer and a cyclic heptamer were produced in this manner. After DMB removal, X-ray crystallography and NMR show that the macrocycles adopt strained conformations that would be improbable in noncyclic species. The high helix folding propensity of the main chain is partly expressed in these conformations, but it remains frustrated by macrocyclization. Despite being homomeric, the macrocycles possess inequivalent monomer units. Experimental and computational studies highlight specific fluxional pathways within these structures. Extensive simulated annealing molecular dynamics allow for the prediction of the conformations for larger macrocycles with up to sixteen monomers