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Predicting Aviation Performance in Rotor-Wing Students
Get PDFA critical shortage of commercial fixed and rotor-wing pilots has elevated the importance of the recruitment, training, and certification of pilots. The U.S. Department of Labor has identified situational awareness, selective attention, and inhibitory function as important and frequently occurring Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) for the job of commercial pilot. Previous research has shown that success in situation awareness training performance predicts future fixed-wing airline pilot performance. In addition, the flanker task, measuring selective attention and inhibitory function, has been shown to predict performance across a variety of professions. The purpose of the current study will be to predict student performance in instrumentality courses of a rotor-wing aircraft program using assessments of situation awareness, selective attention, and inhibitory function. Currently, no research has investigated the predictive ability of situational awareness, selective attention, and inhibitory function in rotor-wing aviation student course performance. The hypothesis for the current study is: Higher student scores on situational awareness, selective attention, and inhibitory function assessments will have a positive relationship with course performance measures. Participants will be rotor-wing aviation students enrolled in instrumentality courses at a local university. Participants will complete a modified version of the Factors Affecting Situation Awareness (FASA) assessment of situational awareness and a modified Flanker task measuring participants\u27 ability to avoid the interference of distractors via reaction time. Scores from each measure will be compared to various student course performance measures collected throughout their Aviation program courses. Results of this research can be used to improve the recruitment and training process of academic and commercial training programs for commercial pilots. The identification of KSAs that predict future pilot performance could be used to improve the training pipeline for commercial pilots, thereby reducing the critical shortage currently impacting the domestic and global markets
Pretty privilege at work: the influence of physical attractiveness on hiring and rating decisions
Get PDFToday, many aspects of life revolve around one’s physical appearance and attractiveness. One’s attractiveness not only has an impact for everyday life, but can also impact other areas in one’s life, especially the workplace (Frieze et al., 1991; Johnson et al. 2010; Nault et al., 2020). My thesis examined whether physical attractiveness of an applicant influences a hiring (and termination) decision through perceived efficacy of the applicant. I found that perceived efficacy significantly mediated the relationship between attractiveness and hiring. However, attractiveness did not influence the firing decision. The purpose of this poster is to further explore the study’s results by examining how attractiveness and hiring choice relate to applicant ratings. RQ 1: Does applicant attractiveness influence ratings of the applicant? RQ 2: Do applicant ratings influence hiring choice? Methods 130 people with experience making hiring decisions were recruited using Prolific and were paid $2.00 for participation. Participants viewed the resume and picture of a job applicant. Participants were randomly assigned to either an attractive or unattractive condition and to either a man or woman condition. Participants rated applicant attractiveness, perceived efficacy, and whether they would hire the candidate. Participants were also asked to rate the candidate on several factors, including if they would recommend the candidate, if the candidate was qualified, how the candidate would perform, how well the candidate would communicate, and the candidate’s ability to get along with coworkers. Participants then viewed a performance review with a picture and a workplace misconduct report of an employee. Participants rated the attractiveness of the employee and whether they would fire the employee. Results To address the research questions, we reviewed the data from applicant ratings that were not included in the original analyses. These results showed that attractiveness was significantly correlated with recommendation, communication, and the ability to get along with a coworker, but not with qualifications or performance (Table 1). Results show that participants think the attractive candidates would have better communication, get along with their coworkers and they would be more likely to recommend hiring this candidate. Implications These findings reveal that one’s physical attractiveness effects how they are perceived and the likelihood they are hired. This has implications for employees and organizations everywhere. These biases, combined or separate, are a disadvantage to both the individual and the workplace. The results of this study highlight the importance of identifying ways to reduce or eliminate the attractiveness bias
An evaluation of the robustness of the natural-adversarial mutual information-based defense and malware classification against adversarial attacks for deep learning
Get PDFIn today’s technology driven world, the use of Machine Learning (ML) systems is becoming ubiquitous, albeit often in the background, in many areas of daily life. ML systems are being used to detect malware, control autonomous vehicles, classify images, assist with medical diagnosis, and block internet ads with high precision. Although the use of these ML systems has become widespread in our society, there is the potential for systems used in high-stakes situations to make faulty predictions that can have serious consequences. Recently researchers have shown that even deep neural networks (DNNs) can be “fooled” into misclassifying an input sample that has been minimally modified in a specific way. These modified samples are known as adversarial examples and have been crafted with the goal of causing the target DNN to modify its behavior. It has been shown that adversarial examples can be crafted even when the attacker does not have access to the training parameters and model architecture of the victim DNN. An attack made under this threat model is known as a black-box attack and is made possible due to the transferability of adversarial examples from one model to another. In this dissertation we first present an overview of DNNs and capsule networks, the current known adversarial example crafting methods, defenses against adversarial examples, and possible explanations for the existence of adversarial examples. Next, we explore a novel technique that was recently developed that aims to use mutual information (MI) as an additional feature for the adversarial training of classification models called natural-adversarial mutual information-based defense (NAMID). We will describe our extensive evaluation of NAMID, as well as introduce our novel method for crafting adversarial examples termed MI-Craft. We will also apply NAMID to the domain of malware classification. We will compare MI-Craft to standard projected gradient descent for the creation of adversarial examples, as well as demonstrate the effectiveness of MI-Craft and NAMID under the CIFAR10 and MalImg datasets
The effect of high course material costs on UTC students
Get PDFThe high cost of course materials has been shown to have a detrimental effect on the educational outcomes of students in higher education. This survey explores how high course materials costs affect UTC students at all levels. Preliminary results will be presented, placing UTC within the context of national surveys which have shown that course material costs are a burden to students and play a significant role in academic decisions. Moreover, the effects of high course materials costs have been shown to have a disproportionate impact on historically marginalized populations
Simulation of Wave Propagation Used for the Detection of Submerged Stone Age Artifacts
Get PDFWith the expansion of industrial digging in the sea for construction of traditional and alternative energy sources, there is a growing need to quickly identify submerged indigenous archeological sites. The two main methods used outside of this research are insufficient: 1) The use of high-frequency (600 – 2000 kHz) sound waves by way of side-scan sonar; 2) Using geophysics to identify landmarks that could have attracted pre-contact (indigenous) people. Morgan Smith and his team are using a sub-bottom profiler (SBP) to more accurately identify submerged cultural artifacts, as the SBP allows for lower-frequency (4 – 24 kHz) sound waves that more closely match resonance frequencies of stone artifacts. In conjunction with experimental data gathered from sea beds in relatively shallow waters, we are using the finite element method to numerically solve a mathematical model based on the elastic wave partial differential equation. Appropriate specification of the parameters in this model allows for the simulation of wave propagation in various media, in particular water as well as layered soil and rock. The success of this collaborative effort will result in a significant increase in the speed at which sites can be cleared for construction and the number of submerged indigenous archeological sites that are preserved
San Salvador Community Garden Initiative
Get PDFThe San Salvador Community Garden Initiative is a project intended to address chronic disease prevalence and nutrition security on a San Salvador, Bahamas. This project contains data analysis, soil microbial analysis, and a project overview
Perceived marginalization, social support, and mental health: The role of parasocial relationships
Get PDFThe purpose of the current study was to extend previous research (Woznicki et al., 2020) to see if parasocial relationships (PSRs) with figures from various social media platforms might be beneficial for those lower in real-life social support. We predicted that there would be a negative relationship between social support and perceptions of marginalization, loneliness, and depression, but that for people who perceived themselves as marginalized, the relationship between social support and loneliness would change depending on the strength of their PSR. In this correlational study, 135 participants took an online Qualtrics survey which assessed social media use, PSR strength, perceived social support, loneliness, depression, and perception of marginalization. Most hypotheses were supported. Participants who perceived less social support reported more loneliness, and people who perceived themselves as more marginalized reported greater feelings of loneliness and depression. Finally, marginalized participants with stronger romantic parasocial feelings were less lonely than participants with weaker romantic parasocial feelings when perceived social support was low. These results support previous research that indicate that parasocial relationships formed via social media may serve a valuable function for people dealing with lack of social support in their offline lives
A computational investigation of predicting wind tunnel results for selected hypersonic wing test structures
Get PDFA CFD methodology for simulating various configurations of three selected wings in Purdue University’s Boeing Air Force Office of Scientific Research Mach 6 Quiet Tunnel (BAM6QT) is presented. The NASA-developed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, FUN3D, is used to calculate forces, moments, and temperature gradients. Wings with an attached elevon are also simulated, and the large wing with elevon case is used to study a moving elevon as well as static elevon deflections. A threshold frequency is found for the moving elevon where the moment imparted by the elevon increases with frequency. An attempt is made to detect unsteadiness around the 12 degree deflected elevon but it is likely more computational resources are needed for this study. Previous work from Alexander Snyder is built upon by attempting to model only the test section of the BAM6QT by using a boundary layer profile inlet condition, but results are not confirmed
The Importance of Health Anxiety and Emotional Reasoning to Understand Vaccine Hesitancy and Safety Behaviors: Implications for Public Health Campaigns in a COVID-19 Era
Get PDFThis study examined the impact of health anxiety and emotional reasoning on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and preventative behaviors, hypothesizing that high anxiety and emotional reasoning would predict lower vaccine hesitancy and higher COVID-19 preventative health behavior after controlling for demographic variables. A large international non-probability convenience sample of 532 individuals consented to an online survey in a cross-sectional period from March through August 2021 (one month following availability of vaccinations in the USA). Participants completed questionnaires online. Findings revealed that health anxiety and general anxiety were significantly correlated with COVID-19 preventative behaviors, including mask wearing and social distancing, and emotional reasoning. General anxiety and emotional reasoning significantly predicted vaccine hesitancy. Results suggest that addressing anxiety and emotional reasoning in public health campaigns may foster compliance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccination recommendations
A narrative review of preschool teacher burnout
Get PDFPreschool teacher burnout is a significant concern, including the lack of professionals in the field, high turnover rates, and understaffed facilities and schools. Burnout in general, has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as preschool teacher stress is at an all-time high. Preschool teachers are an understudied population exiting the workforce at a high rate, and a lot of the focus is on attrition. The majority of literature involving teachers has focused on the K-12 sector, or the higher education population, indicating a significant need to study the pre-school population more in-depth. This narrative serves as a review of the literature in journals and educational organizational sites on burnout among early childhood educators over the last ten years. The current review of literature focused on poor wages, work-family conflict, and lack of support in the classroom. Future research should assess burnout and determine ways to counter stress among this population. The literature on burnout in the preschool and early childhood education professions are scarce, and further research is needed to understand how to combat burnout in this population