Digital Commons Network^™

Accident Rates, Phase Of Operations, And Injury Severity For Solo Students In Pursuit Of Private Pilot Certification (1994–2013), Douglas Boyd, Peter Dittmer

Publications

Flight training accidents constitute 14% of general aviation accidents. Herein we determined the rates, injury severity, and phase of flight for primary student solo accidents/incidents (mishaps) in Cessna 172 aircraft. Mishaps over the period spanning 1994–2013 were identified from the NTSB database. Student population data were from the FAA. Statistics employed proportion tests, Poisson distribution, and Mann-Whitney tests. Across the study period, 598 mishaps were identified. While the mishap rate increased nearly two-fold between 1994/1997 and 2002/ 2005, a 35% decline was evident thereafter. Nevertheless, no statistical difference in mishap rates was evident between the initial and current periods. Over …

Characterizing Teaching Assistants’ Knowledge And Beliefs Following Professional Development Activities Within An Inquiry-Based General Chemistry Context, Lindsay B. Wheeler, Jennifer L. Maeng, Brooke A. Whitworth

Publications

The purpose of this investigation was to explore changes in undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants’ (TAs’) content knowledge and beliefs about teaching within the context of an inquiry-based laboratory course. TAs received professional development (PD), which was informed by the TA training literature base and was designed for TAs implementing a guided inquiry approach to general chemistry laboratory instruction. TAs engaged in ∼20 h of presemester PD and ∼30 h of weekly follow-up PD during the semester. The study utilized a multiple-methods approach within a social constructivist framework to assess changes in the TAs. Participants included eight graduate TAs and …

Approximate Time To Steady-State Resting Energy Expenditure Using Indirect Calorimetry In Young, Healthy Adults, Collin J. Popp, Jocelyn J. Tisch, Kenan E. Sakarcan, William C. Bridges, Elliot D. Jesch

Publications

Indirect calorimetry (IC) measurements to estimate resting energy expenditure (REE) necessitate a stable measurement period or steady state (SS). There is limited evidence when assessing the time to reach SS in young, healthy adults. The aims of this prospective study are to determine the approximate time to necessary reach SS using open-circuit IC and to establish the appropriate duration of SS needed to estimate REE. One hundred young, healthy participants (54 males and 46 females; age = 20.6 ± 2.1 years; body weight = 73.6 ± 16.3 kg; height 172.5 ± 9.3 cm; BMI = 24.5 ± 3.8 kg/m^{2 …}

A Complex Systems Framework Approach Towards Multidisciplinary Tumor Boards, Rahul Salla, Robert Pahle, Ashish Amresh

Publications

Multidisciplinary tumor boards (MTBs) are universally recommended and have been used in treatment of late stage cancers. Tumor boards have the advantage of including all the stakeholders in the decision making process and improving quality of care, however several studies have pointed to their lack of efficiency and tend to be lackluster while not producing the desired benefits for the participants. In this paper we present the design of a web based immersive framework for collaborative decision making that has the potential to improve several inefficiencies in conducting tumor boards and improve overall clinical outcomes. We present the design of …

Improved Analysis Of Gw150914 Using A Fully Spin-Precessing Waveform Model, B. P. Abbott, K. Gill, B. Hughey, M. J. Szczepańczyk, M. Zanolin, Et Al.

Publications

This paper presents updated estimates of source parameters for GW150914, a binary black-hole coalescence event detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in 2015 [Abbott et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102 (2016).]. Abbott et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 241102 (2016).] presented parameter estimation of the source using a 13-dimensional, phenomenological precessing-spin model (precessing IMRPhenom) and an 11-dimensional nonprecessing effective-one-body (EOB) model calibrated to numerical-relativity simulations, which forces spin alignment (nonprecessing EOBNR). Here, we present new results that include a 15-dimensional precessing-spin waveform model (precessing EOBNR) developed within the EOB formalism. (See article for remainder of abstract.)

Magnetic Reconnection With A Fast Perpendicular Sheared Flow, Xuanye Ma, Antonius Otto, Peter A. Delamere

Publications

Magnetic reconnection at the Earth's low‐latitude magnetopause near the flank region is likely associated with a large sheared flow, being frequently quasi‐perpendicular to the antiparallel magnetic field components. The magnitude of a fast sheared flow can be super‐Alfvénic and even overcome the local fast mode speed. A scaling analysis implies a contradiction between the Walén relation and the balance of the total pressure for magnetic reconnection with a supercritical perpendicular sheared flow. This study uses one‐ and two‐dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations to demonstrate that the traditional reconnection layer violates the Walén relation but still maintains the total pressure balance in …

Impact Of Economic Trends And Disparities On South Carolina Children’S Health And Well-Being: An Analysis Of The 2016 Kids Count Profile, Arelis Moore De Peralta, Bonnie Holaday

Publications

There are many approaches to conceptualizing and measuring the well-being of children. These indices vary considerably depending on the goal of the scale. However, all of these indices share similar characteristics in that they are multi-dimensional and take into account the complexity of children’s lives. One of the best known of these measures is the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s national KIDS COUNT Data Book (http://www.aecf.org/resources/the-2016-kids-countdata-book/). Each year since 1990 the Casey Foundation has released the KIDS COUNT Data Book. This data provides key information about dimensions of child well-being in the following areas: health, education, economic well-being and family and …

Obstacle Filtering Alogrithm For Control Of An Autonomous Road Vehicle In Public Highway Traffic, Qian Wang, Beshah Ayalew

Publications

This paper presents an obstacle filtering algorithm that mimics human driver-like grouping of objects within a model predictive control scheme for an autonomous road vehicle. In the algorithm, a time to collision criteria is first used as risk assessment indicator to filter the potentially dangerous obstacle object vehicles in the proximity of the autonomously controlled vehicle. Then, the filtered object vehicles with overlapping elliptical collision areas put into groups. A hyper elliptical boundary is regenerated to define an extended collision area for the group. To minimize conservatism, the parameters for the tightest hyper ellipse are determined by solving an optimization …

Evaluating The Mechanisms Of Erosion For Coarse-Grained Materials, Maureen K. Corcoran, Ghada Ellithy, Michael K. Sharp, Johannes L. Wibowo

Publications

Efforts are currently underway by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to perform a risk assessment of all dams and levees within their portfolio. The vast majority of that portfolio is earthen structures. Findings from the assessments have shown that the major risk drivers for these earth structures are related to erosion (internal and external), overtopping, poorly designed and constructed intrusions (such as pipe crossings), and other factors to a lesser degree (such as burrowing animals). Therefore, the USACE is currently investigating several of these failure modes with emphasis on internal and external erosion. This paper will highlight efforts …

Video-Mediated Opportunities For Self-Directed Learning In Undergraduate Research Methodology Courses, Debra T. Bourdeau, Donna Roberts, Thomas E. Sieland, Beverly Wood

Publications

No abstract provided.

Design, Implementation And Evaluation Of A Game-Based Intervention Targeting Latino Children For Improving Obesity Outcomes, Ashish Amresh, Rahul Salla, Madhumita Sinha, Rebecca Birr

Publications

This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a hybrid clinic plus home based intervention targeting Latino children to improve obesity outcomes. The intervention applies motivational game based learning and behavior change theories during design. Latino American children are the main target group for this study as they have significantly high obesity rates due to socio-economic conditions and lack of awareness. There have been several interventions that have targeted game based strategies in the clinic to promote health outcomes and some have even targeted obesity problems, however to our knowledge this is the first effort that adds an inhome …

Exact Analytical Solution Of Viscous Korteweg-Devries Equation For Water Waves, Shahrdad G. Sajjadi, Timothy A. Smith

Publications

The evolution of a solitary wave with very weak nonlinearity which was originally investigated by Miles [4] is revisited. The solution for a one-dimensional gravity wave in a water of uniform depth is considered. This leads to finding the solution to a Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation in which the nonlinear term is small. Also considered is the asymptotic solution of the linearized KdV equation both analytically and numerically. As in Miles [4], the asymptotic solution of the KdV equation for both linear and weakly nonlinear case is found using the method of inversescattering theory. Additionally investigated is the analytical solution …

Book Review: The International Atlas Of Mars Exploration: From Spirit To Curiosity: V.2: 2004 To 2014, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of The International Atlas of Mars Exploration: from Spirit to Curiosity : V.2: 2004 to 2014 by Philip J. Stooke. 444p bibl index, 9781107030930 $145.00, 9781139344470 LC Call Number: 1000

The Wrecks Of Lake Champlain, Gary C. Kessler

Publications

Despite the dozens of historically significant wrecks in the lake, only nine are open for diving as part of the Lake Champlain Underwater Historic Preserve. For visitors to the area, five of the wrecks are easily accessible from Burlington, with four being in the immediate vicinity of Burlington Bay. This article will focus on these five wrecks.

Selecting Effective Examples To Train Students For Peer Review Of Open‐Ended Problem Solutions, Matthew Verleger Dr., Kelsey J. Rodgers Dr., Heidi Diefes-Dux

Publications

Background Students conducting peer review on authentic artifacts require training. In the training studied here, individual students reviewed (score and provide feedback on) a randomly selected prototypical solution to a problem. Afterwards, they are shown a side-by-side comparison of their review and an expert’s review, along with prompts to reflect on the differences and similarities. Individuals were then assigned a peer team’s solution to review.

Purpose This paper explores how the characteristics of five different prototypical solutions used in training (and their associated expert evaluations) impacted students’ abilities to score peer teams’ solutions.

Design/Method An expert rater scored the prototypical …

Dynamics Of Orographic Gravity Waves Observed In The Mesosphere Over Auckland Islands During The Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment (Deepwave), Stephen D. Eckermann, Dave Broutman, Jun Ma, James D. Doyle, Pierre-Dominique Pautet, Michael J. Taylor, Katrina Bossert, Bifford P. Williams, David C. Fritts, Ronald B. Smith

Publications

On 14 July 2014 during the Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment (DEEPWAVE), aircraft remote sensing instruments detected large-amplitude gravity wave oscillations within mesospheric airglow and sodium layers at altitudes z ~ 78–83 km downstream of the Auckland Islands, located ~1000 km south of Christchurch, New Zealand. A high-altitude reanalysis and a three-dimensional Fourier gravity wave model are used to investigate the dynamics of this event. At 0700 UTC when the first observations were made, surface flow across the islands’ terrain generated linear three-dimensional wave fields that propagated rapidly to z ~ 78 km, where intense breaking occurred in a narrow …

Anisotropic Cubic Curvature Couplings, Quentin G. Bailey

Publications

To complement recent work on tests of spacetime symmetry in gravity, cubic curvature couplings are studied using an effective field theory description of spacetime-symmetry breaking. The associated mass-dimension-eight coefficients for Lorentz violation studied do not result in any linearized gravity modifications and instead are revealed in the first nonlinear terms in an expansion of spacetime around a flat background. We consider effects on gravitational radiation through the energy loss of a binary system and we study two-body orbital perturbations using the post-Newtonian metric. Some effects depend on the internal structure of the source and test bodies, thereby breaking the weak …

Directly Comparing Gw150914 With Numerical Solutions Of Einstein's Equations For Binary Black Hole Coalescence, B. P. Abbott, K. Gill, B. Hughey, M. J. Szczepańczyk, M. Zanolin, Et Al.

Publications

We compare GW150914 directly to simulations of coalescing binary black holes in full general relativity, including several performed specifically to reproduce this event. Our calculations go beyond existing semianalytic models, because for all simulations—including sources with two independent, precessing spins—we perform comparisons which account for all the spin-weighted quadrupolar modes, and separately which account for all the quadrupolar and octopolar modes. Consistent with the posterior distributions reported by Abbott et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 241102 (2016)] (at the 90% credible level), we find the data are compatible with a wide range of nonprecessing and precessing simulations. Follow-up simulations performed …

Bayesian Analysis Of Two Stellar Populations In Galactic Globular Clusters – Iii. Analysis Of 30 Clusters, R. Wagner-Kaiser, D. C. Stenning, A Sarajedini, Ted Von Hippel, D. A. Van Dyk, E. Robinson, W. H. Jefferys

Publications

We use Cycle 21 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations and HST archival ACS Treasury observations of 30 Galactic globular clusters to characterize two distinct stellar populations. A sophisticated Bayesian technique is employed to simultaneously sample the joint posterior distribution of age, distance, and extinction for each cluster, as well as unique helium values for two populations within each cluster and the relative proportion of those populations. We find the helium differences among the two populations in the clusters fall in the range of ∼0.04 to 0.11. Because adequate models varying in carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen are not presently available, we …

Noncrossing Partitions, Toggles, And Homomesies, David Einstein, Miriam Farber, Emily Gunawan, Michael Joseph, Matthew Macauley, James Propp, Simon Rubinstein-Salzedo

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We introduce n(n−1)/2 natural involutions (“toggles”) on the set S of noncrossing partitions π of size n, along with certain composite operations obtained by composing these involutions. We show that for many operations T of this kind, a surprisingly large family of functions f on S (including the function that sends π to the number of blocks of π) exhibits the homomesy phenomenon: the average of f over the elements of a T -orbit is the same for all T -orbits. We can apply our method of proof more broadly to toggle operations back on the collection of independent sets …

Situating Computer Simulation Professional Development: Does It Promote Inquiry-Based Simulation Use?, Amanda L. Gonczi, Jennifer L. Maeng, Randy L. Bell, Brooke A. Whitworth

Publications

This mixed-methods study sought to identify professional development implementation variables that may influence participant (a) adoption of simulations, and (b) use for inquiry-based science instruction. Two groups (Cohort 1, N = 52; Cohort 2, N = 104) received different professional development. Cohort 1 was focused on Web site use mechanics. Cohort 2 was situated in nature and provided three additional elements: (a) modeling simulation use within inquiry-based instruction; (b) collaboration; and (c) provision of content-relevant lesson planning time. There was no difference in the extent of simulation use between cohorts, χ2(1) = 0.878, p = .349, φ = −0.075. Results …

Book Review: How Do You Find An Exoplanet?, T. D. Oswalt

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This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of How Do You Find an Exoplanet? by John Asher Johnson. Princeton, 2016 178p bibl index afp, 9780691156811 $35.00, 9781400873999

Systems Modeling To Improve The Hydro-Ecological Performance Of Diked Wetlands, Omar Alminagorta, David E. Rosenberg, Karin M. Kettenring

Publications

Water scarcity and invasive vegetation threaten arid-region wetlands and wetland managers seek ways to enhance wetland ecosystem services with limited water, labor, and financial resources. While prior systems modeling efforts have focused on water management to improve flow-based ecosystem and habitat objectives, here we consider water allocation and invasive vegetation management that jointly target the concurrent hydrologic and vegetation habitat needs of priority wetland bird species. We formulate a composite weighted usable area for wetlands (WU) objective function that represents the wetland surface area that provides suitable water level and vegetation cover conditions for priority bird species. Maximizing …

Investigating The Influence Of The Level Of Inquiry On Student Engagement, Emily K. Faulconer

Publications

Previous studies investigating student-generated questions in a laboratory class compared inquiry to a traditional approach without characterizing the inquiry level. This study investigated the influence of inquiry level on the quantity and quality of student-generated questions over one semester in a General Chemistry course with 356 participants. The researchers studied two types of inquiry in labs: structured inquiry and open inquiry. Quantity and quality of student-generated questions were analyzed and student attitudes were measured using a LIKERT survey while content knowledge was assessed via post-test. A close relationship was not found between the level of inquiry and the quantity or …

On Safety Assessment Of Novel Approach To Robust Uav Flight Control In Gusty Environments, Vladimir Golubev, Petr Kazarin, William Mackunis, Sherry Borener, Derek Hufty

Publications

In a follow-up to our previous study, the current work examines the gust-induced “cone of uncertainty” in a small unmanned aerial vehicle’s (UAV) flight trajectory addressed in the context of safety assessments of UAV operations. Such analysis is a critical facet of the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS), particularly in terminal airspace. The paper describes a predictive, robust feedback-loop flight control model that is applicable to various classes of UAVs and unsteady flight-path scenarios. The control design presented in this paper extends previous research results by demonstrating asymptotic (zero steady-state error) altitude regulation …

Ermakov Equation And Camassa-Holm Waves, Haret C. Rosu, S.C. Mancas

Publications

From the works of authors of this article, it is known that the solution of the Ermakov equation is an important ingredient in the spectral problem of the Camassa-Holm equation. Here, we review this interesting issue and consider in addition more features of the Ermakov equation which have an impact on the behavior of the shallow water waves as described by the Camassa-Holm equation.

New Halo White Dwarf Candidates In The Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Kyra Dame, A. Gianninas, Mukremin Kilic, Jeffrey A. Munn, Warren R. Brown, Kurtis A. Williams, Ted Von Hippel, Hugh C. Harris

Publications

We present optical spectroscopy and near-infrared photometry of 57 faint (g = 19–22) high proper motion white dwarfs identified through repeat imaging of ≈3100 deg² of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey footprint by Munn et al. We use ugriz and JHphotometry to perform a model atmosphere analysis, and identify 10 ultracool white dwarfs with T_eff < 4000 K, including the coolest pure H atmosphere white dwarf currently known, J1657+2638, with T_eff = 3550 ± 100 K. The majority of the objects with cooling ages larger than 9 Gyr display thick disc kinematics and constrain the age of the thick disc to ≥11 Gyr. There are four white dwarfs in our sample with …

‘Project Spraoi’: A Randomized Control Trial To Improve Nutrition And Physical Activity In School Children, Tara Coppinger, Seán Lacey, Cian O'Neill, Con Burns

Publications

Background

Recent evidence predicts that by 2030, Ireland will have the highest rate of obesity in Europe. Consequently, there are concerns that health problems associated with this condition will present in childhood. Studies have shown that interventions based on increasing physical activity (PA) levels, reducing sedentary lifestyles and improving nutritional habits all pose protective mechanisms against obesity and its related disorders in youth. Yet, to date, there are no interventions being delivered in Ireland that concurrently target PA, nutritional habits and sedentary time amongst school children.

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to implement and evaluate an intervention that …

Combined Search For Lorentz Violation In Short-Range Gravity, Cheng-Gang Shao, Yu-Jie Tan, Wen-Hai Tan, Shan-Qing Yang, Jun Luo, Michael Edmund Tobar, Quentin G. Bailey, Et Al.

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Short-range experiments testing the gravitational inverse-square law at the submillimeter scale offer uniquely sensitive probes of Lorentz invariance. (See article for remainder of abstract.)

Vision & Change: Why It Matters, Anneke M. Metz, Jacqueline Mclaughlin

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The 2011 AAAS "Vision and Change" report has been inspiring undergraduate biology educators nationwide to rethink their educational approach, favoring active learning strategies to better prepare today's students for a complex, data-rich future. Here, we consider the history of the movement, its place in the greater arena of STEM education. and the reasons why this new approach has never been more critical. We encourage all biology educators to consider becoming agents of change, and focus on helpful resources and practical suggestions to help ABT readers take the plunge (or at least get their feet wet) into the welcoming waters of …