USMA Digital Commons (United States Military Academy, West Point)
Not a member yet
1355 research outputs found
Sort by
A cohort study to identify and evaluate concussion risk factors across multiple injury settings: findings from the CARE Consortium.
No full textDeliver Me From Food Waste: Model Framework for Comparing the Energy Use of Meal-Kit Delivery and Groceries
No full textThis work shares a model that was developed to compare the energy requirements of meal-kit delivery systems to conventional grocery shopping. Meal-kit services can reduce food waste because the kits pre-portion ingredients for each recipe, thereby saving energy. However, the supply chain and packaging requirements of meal-kit delivery are different than those for grocery stores, potentially offsetting any energetic benefits of reduced food waste. If meal-kit delivery replaces some trips to the grocery store, then transportation-related savings might be significant. The tradeoffs of these competing effects are non-obvious, so mass and energy balances were used to assess embedded energy in both pathways. The model was illustrated under representative operating conditions for a consumer in Austin, Texas using Monte Carlo simulation. Both per-meal and per-week, a meal-kit delivery service meal is more energy intensive than procuring the same meal from conventional grocery stores primarily due to single-use packaging. Consumer transportation to the grocery store was also found to be particularly energy intensive. These results suggest that the energetic requirements of meal-kit delivery services could be reduced such that they are less than conventional grocery shopping if reusable or low-impact packaging is used, and if the delivery services are able to reduce the number of weekly trips to the grocery store
Design and Analysis of a Spin Stabilized Projectile Using Magnetic Resonance Velocimetry
No full textHow the Pentagon can get more innovation from universities
No full textThere is no alternative way to ensure victory in the future fight than to innovate, implement the advances, and scale innovation. To use Henry Kissinger’s words: “The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.”
Innovative environments are not created overnight. The establishment of the right culture is based on mutual trust, a trust that allows members to be vulnerable and take chances. Failure is a milestone to success
Transfer Learning for Early Detection and Classification of Amblyopia
No full textAmblyopia, also known as lazy eye, affects 2-3% of children. If ambylopia is not treated successfully during early childhood, it will persist into adulthood. One of the causes of amblyopia is strabismus, which is a misalignment of the eyes. In this paper, we have investigated several neural network architectures as universal feature extractors for two tasks: (1) classification of eye images to detect strabismus, and (2) detecting the need to be referred to a specialist. We have examined several state-of-the-art backbone architectures for feature extraction, as well as several classifier frameworks. Through these experiments, we observed that VGG19 and random forest classifier offer the overall best performance for both classification tasks. We also observed that when top-performing architectures are fused together, even with simple rules such as a median filter, overall performance improves
Looking for Linux: WSL Key Evidence
No full textMicrosoft released Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in 2016 to much fanfare, but little research into the security implications of installing this feature followed. This lack of research, and lack of documentation, is a problem for the administrators who want to take advantage of its feature set while monitoring their systems for unusual behavior. Native Windows logging can provide visibility into WSL’s behavior, but there has been no research on which logs can provide this visibility, and what exact information they can provide. This paper examines how to monitor a Windows 10 system with WSL installed for common indicators of malicious activity
Dean\u27s Significant Activities Report 11-22-2019
Get PDFThe Dean’s Weekly Significant Activities Report lists all activities conducted within the Departments, Centers & Staff. The Report is provided to the Dean and Directorate personnel for situational awareness.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/sigact/1018/thumbnail.jp
Best (but oft-forgotten) practices: identifying and accounting for regression to the mean in nutrition and obesity research.
No full textBACKGROUND: Regression to the mean (RTM) is a statistical phenomenon where initial measurements of a variable in a nonrandom sample at the extreme ends of a distribution tend to be closer to the mean upon a second measurement. Unfortunately, failing to account for the effects of RTM can lead to incorrect conclusions on the observed mean difference between the 2 repeated measurements in a nonrandom sample that is preferentially selected for deviating from the population mean of the measured variable in a particular direction. Study designs that are susceptible to misattributing RTM as intervention effects have been prevalent in nutrition and obesity research. This field often conducts secondary analyses of existing intervention data or evaluates intervention effects in those most at risk (i.e., those with observations at the extreme ends of a distribution).
OBJECTIVES: To provide best practices to avoid unsubstantiated conclusions as a result of ignoring RTM in nutrition and obesity research.
METHODS: We outlined best practices for identifying whether RTM is likely to be leading to biased inferences, using a flowchart that is available as a web-based app at https://dustyturner.shinyapps.io/DecisionTreeMeanRegression/. We also provided multiple methods to quantify the degree of RTM.
RESULTS: Investigators can adjust analyses to include the RTM effect, thereby plausibly removing its biasing influence on estimating the true intervention effect.
CONCLUSIONS: The identification of RTM and implementation of proper statistical practices will help advance the field by improving scientific rigor and the accuracy of conclusions. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00427193
A Collaborative Visual Localization Scheme for a Low-Cost Heterogeneous Robotic Team with Non-Overlapping Perspectives
Get PDFThis paper presents and evaluates a relative localization scheme for a heterogeneous team of low-cost mobile robots. An error-state, complementary Kalman Filter was developed to fuse analytically-derived uncertainty of stereoscopic pose measurements of an aerial robot, made by a ground robot, with the inertial/visual proprioceptive measurements of both robots. Results show that the sources of error, image quantization, asynchronous sensors, and a non-stationary bias, were sufficiently modeled to estimate the pose of the aerial robot. In both simulation and experiments, we demonstrate the proposed methodology with a heterogeneous robot team, consisting of a UAV and a UGV tasked with collaboratively localizing themselves while avoiding obstacles in an unknown environment. The team is able to identify a goal location and obstacles in the environment and plan a path for the UGV to the goal location. The results demonstrate localization accuracies of 2cm to 4cm, on average, while the robots operate at a distance from each-other between 1m and 4m
Considering Capstone Team Member Roles with a Shared Leadership Framework
No full textManaging student roles and responsibilities in team-based courses often presents challenges for both faculty and students. At the 2018 Capstone Design Conference, a panel discussion specifically addressed the impact of roles and responsibilities on teams in capstone design. This paper summarizes the main discussion points of that panel session and relates these topics to a model of shared leadership and distributed influence in the innovation process. The shared leadership model addressed in this study combines an Input-Process-Output (IPO) model from research on teams with existing leadership behavior literature to link team characteristics and leadership practices to team responses and team effectiveness. The students and faculty that comprised the panel represented diverse areas: engineering practice, military teams, academia, and undergraduate design. Detailed notes from the panel session were analyzed by panel members to identify themes and current practices that emerged from the discussion. These themes and practices were mapped to the existing shared leadership model to situate the phenomena in the larger IPO model and positions the phenomena in current organizational leadership literature. The result of this study is a capstone design-specific adaptation of the existing shared leadership model. This model provides capstone faculty and students a more comprehensive framework in which to consider how team roles and responsibilities may affect team response and effectiveness. Conclusions from this study stress the criticality of capstone design faculty in team formation to foster shared leadership. The framework suggests that shared leadership within the team may elicit positive team response through accountability and responsibility and will lead to greater team effectiveness. Specific recommendations for capstone design courses are offered and recommendations for future research are addressed.Managing student roles and responsibilities in team-based courses often presents challenges for both faculty and students