USMA Digital Commons (United States Military Academy, West Point)
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Effectiveness of the Veteran X peer-led mental health recovery program: A quasi-experimental study
No full textObjective: The inclusion of peer-delivered services in organizations providing behavioral health care has significantly increased in recent years, and substantial resources are being directed toward implementing recovery-oriented mental health services using peer-provided programs. Previous research found that participants in such programs have improved recovery outcomes. While there are demonstrated positive associations between recovery outcomes and peer-provided services, there is limited research on the effectiveness of specific peer-provided interventions. Veteran X is a peer-led program developed in the Department of Veterans Affairs in which participants serve as a recovery team for a fictitious Veteran who faces numerous social and mental health issues. This study compared the effectiveness of the Veteran X program with treatment as usual on measures of recovery wellbeing, symptoms and functioning, and risk and protective factors for substance use disorders. Methods: Participants were recruited (N = 80) over a period of ten months, and had self-selected into treatment as usual (TAU, N = 37), or treatment as usual plus Veteran X (N = 43). Results: No baseline differences were found on the pretest measures. Both groups improved on all measures after 60 days of participation, however Veteran X participants improved significantly more than TAU participants on the measures of recovery wellbeing and symptoms and functioning. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: The results of this study appear to support the positive contribution of the Veteran X program in improving recovery wellbeing and symptoms and functioning among participating veterans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved
Improving Reward Functions in robots Playing Capture the Flag Using Q-Learning
No full textThis paper builds on previous work that used Q-Learning to teach simulated marine robots to play capture the flag against an unintelligent enemy robot. This paper will focus on the improvement of reward functions to achieve two goals: make the attacking robot more tactical in its approach to the flag, and rid the attacking robot of its indifference to the enemy’s location (which often leads to the attacking robot being captured). This paper alters reward function components (dependent on the distance from the attacking robot to the nearest boundary, enemy, and enemy flag) and contributes two new components (dependent on the robot’s angle to the enemy flag and the robot’s angle to the enemy’s heading, known as the deviation angle). This paper then trains four models with variations of reward function components to improve capture the flag behavior of the attacking robot. The models were successful in finding more efficient approaches to the flag than the previous project, although the attacking robot did not capture the flag as many times as the previous project. However, the findings give potential to follow-on work to achieve better results than the parent project. This paper will be continued in hopes of finding more efficient reward functions to increase the intelligence of the attacking robot’s approach. Future work will focus on teaching multi-robot teams to capture the flag from an intelligent adversary
Regulatory Focus and (Un)ethical Behavior Within an Organization
No full textResearch on regulatory focus and morality has largely focused on judgments or discrete behaviors in the laboratory, leaving the relationship between the promotion and prevention focus and actual long-term ethical and unethical behavior relatively unexamined. In our study, we explored the role of regulatory focus on desired and undesired behaviors in an ethically charged organizational context: the United States Military Academy. Specifically, we examined the relationship between regulatory focus and over two years of observed behavioral conduct. Across this time period, the promotion focus was associated with higher frequencies of observed ethical behavior, with no relationship to observed unethical behavior. In contrast, the prevention focus was associated with both higher levels of observed ethical behavior and lower levels of observed unethical behavior. The theoretical implications of these findings for regulatory focus and morality are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved
Teaching and Learning the West Point Way: Educating the Next Generation of Leaders
No full textTeaching and Learning the West Point Way is a unique compendium of the best teaching and learning practices from one of the most celebrated and storied undergraduate teaching and learning environments and institutions in America – the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, USA.
Drawing on the broad academic curriculum that the students follow at West Point – in addition to military leadership, character development, and competitive athletics – this book describes proven and effective undergraduate pedagogy across a number of academic disciplines. Case studies, strategies and techniques, empirical teaching and learning research results, syllabi, and assignments developed and deployed by West Point faculty are included, which faculty in other higher education institutions can adapt and apply to their own programs and courses. An accompanying companion website provides videos of classroom, laboratory, and fieldwork teaching and learning activities, as well as additional syllabi, course guides, lesson plans, and PowerPoint activity and lecture slides.
This is an opportunity to gain an in-depth insight into the programs and practices inside one of the world’s premier leadership development and educational institutions. It should appeal to new and experienced faculty and administrators interested in course creation and syllabus design across a wide range of disciplines in educational institutions and military academies across the globe
Teaching and Learning the West Point Way
Get PDFThis book chapter is an articulation of the course syllabus of an entrepreneurship course taught at the United States Military Academy.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/books/1046/thumbnail.jp
Status-Based Stereotyping Effects on Military Team Performance
Get PDFWork teams are often touted as a way to increase or enhance organizational performance[1] and yet, both research[2] and anecdotal evidence suggest that they often fail to do so. While there are several reasons why teams may not succeed in producing optimal performance, one particularly salient issue is the underutilization of team members’ knowledge and skills.[3] Indeed, it is well documented that team members are often unable to fully capitalize on the team’s collective know-how due to members’ inability to see beyond their own demographic, be it gender, race or social status, to leverage one another’s task-relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities.[4] Unfortunately, this oversight can leave much of the team’s talent untapped, potentially hindering the team’s performance.[5] The cost of this oversight can be significantly deleterious to military operations.
[1] Addison & Haig, 2012 ; Pentland, 2012 ; Devaraj & Jiang, 2019.
[2] Thatcher & Patel, 2011 ; van Dijk et al., 2012 ; Malik et al., 2019.
[3] Hackman, 2002 ; Bachrach et al., 2019.
[4] Foschi et al., 1985 ; Randolph, 2019.
[5] Kochan et al., 2003 ; Austin, 2003 ; Hochberg, 2020.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/books/1053/thumbnail.jp
A Permutation Representation of Covering Arrays
No full textTesting a large-scale system requires understanding how each of the components interact with each other, which is the subject of interaction testing. Covering arrays are a well-studied object, but “traditional” representations of these arrays in the context of genetic algorithms has not yielded much success. We propose a new representation of covering arrays based on a permutation of the rows considered. Preliminary results for reducing the mean-time-to-failure of these arrays are given
Key Factors Influencing Purchasing of Dietary Supplements Among Female Service Academy Cadets
No full textContrary to popular opinion, the results of this survey indicated that social and print media played the least important role in dictating dietary supplement purchasing decisions among female service academy cadets. An abundance of literature exists regarding the efficacy, or lack thereof, regarding the role of dietary supplements on both physical performance and aesthetics. The results of this investigation indicate that the participants are taking the time to conduct independent investigations into individual dietary supplements rather than being influenced by the media, social or otherwise
Corrosion Evaluation of a Navy MK50 Weapon Station Friction Brake Assembly
Get PDFThe presence of corrosion on or within structures is of major concern as corrosion reduces the integrity of the materials which could potentially result in large-scale failures of structures and equipment. The United States Navy is an organization that actively works to prevent large equipment failure due to corrosion. One such problem is the corrosion of the friction brake assembly on the MK50 Weapon Station, which has recently been experiencing corrosion between the friction brake and its set screw preventing it from operating correctly. The friction brake was known to be stainless steel; however, the set screw was of unknown composition. Through elemental analysis it was determined that the MK50 Weapons Station friction brake set screw was similar in composition to commonly available black oxide coated steel screws. Electrochemical polarization measurements of the friction brake assembly components revealed that the set screw and the friction brake were electrochemically dissimilar metals which resulted in the galvanic corrosion of the assembly when out at sea. The electrochemical polarization measurements of a stainless steel screw showed a corrosion potential similar to that of the friction brake; therefore, replacing the current set screw with a stainless steel screw would decrease the galvanic potential difference between the set screw and the friction brake. This proposed solution is expected to slow or prevent further corrosion of the MK50 Weapon Station ensuring the combat readiness of the equipment
Electromagnetic Pulse Preparedness – Homeland Security Challenges and DoD Opportunities,
No full textThe threat from high-intensity, electromagnetic disturbances – commonly referred to as electromagnetic pulses (EMP) – is not new. Modern observations of naturally occurring EMPs date as far back to the so-called “Carrington Event” of 1859 when a naturally occurring coronal mass ejection (CME) induced intense terrestrial electromagnetic fi elds and disrupted what little electrical devices existed – telegraphs.¹ Manmade EMPs are also not new. The 1962 U.S. nuclear test known as Starfi sh Prime illuminated the phenomenon by unanticipatedly disrupting civilian and military electronics in Hawaii, over 1,300 kilometers away.² However, what has changed since these events is the ubiquity of civilian and government dependence on electronics. To this end, the U.S. military has assessed the threat of EMP eff ects against military targets for several decades.³ Overlooked in this analysis is the U.S. military’s increasing dependance on civilian infrastructure which presents new EMP related homeland security challenges. Therefore, while an EMP poses a clear homeland security threat, it is in the interest of the Department of Defense (DoD) to promote homeland EMP resiliency to preserve its own strategic readiness. Put another way, a domestic EMP event presents an imminent homeland security threat whose second and third order eff ects may compromise the DoD’s ability to execute national defense at home and abroad