Exposing the Roots of Low Self-Efficacy for Math: A Multi-Case Study of Students in an Urban Middle School

This multi-case study of historically low-performing 7th grade students in a math class at an urban middle school employed a theoretical framework based upon Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory to discover the causes of low self-efficacy for math. The study utilized a cross-case analysis of four students who demonstrated varying degrees of self-efficacy. To serve students similarly situated, Christian teachers need to know what these students are experiencing and an understanding of the causes of low self-efficacy can inform their professional practice. Christian teacher educators can also benefit from understanding the context into which teachers of such students will serve so as to aptly prepare them for effective practice

Onboard Decision-Making for Nominal and Contingency sUAS Flight

This study presents an onboard decision-making architecture for small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS). The decision-maker is part of NASA's SAFE50 project that is working under the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) Technical Capability Level (TCL) 4 to provide autonomous point-to-point UAV flight in BVLOS, high-density urban environments. The decision-maker monitors various metrics to determine the safety and feasibility of the mission and categorizes flight states as Nominal, Off-Nominal, Alternate Land, and Land Now in a finite state machine. Changes in the monitored metrics serve as transitions in the state machine and trigger replanning. Navigation degradation and communication failure are simulated to show the feasibility of the decision-maker framework in appropriately switching the flight state

Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) Communication for Collision Avoidance for Multi-Copters Flying in UTM -TCL4

NASAs UAS Traffic management (UTM) research initiative is aimed at identifying requirements for safe autonomous operations of UAS operating in dense urban environments. For complete autonomous operations vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communications has been identified as an essential tool. In this paper we simulate a complete urban operations in an high fidelity simulation environment. We design a V2V communication protocol and all the vehicles participating communicate over this system. We show how V2V communication can be used for finding feasible, collision-free paths for multi agent systems. Different collision avoidance schemes are explored and an end to end simulation study shows the use of V2V communication for UTM TCL4 deployment

Defining self-sufficiency in the United States Marine Corps

The purpose of this project is to define self-sufficiency as it relates to the Marine Corps, identify the primary elements of self-sufficiency, and describe the interrelationships among these elements. Upon reviewing applicable literature, we have found three primary elements of self-sufficiency to be environment, time, and supply chain. Upon analyzing these elements and their interrelationships, we present a framework of self-sufficiency that (1) Marine Corps units can apply to internally increase their self-sufficiency, and (2) others can use to conduct further in-depth research on how to increase or optimize Marine Corps units self-sufficiency.http://archive.org/details/definingselfsuff1094538886Captain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

19. ON THE EVOLUTION AND PHYLOGEOGRAPHY OF THE SOUTHEASTERN SPECIES OF THE GENUS DALEA (FABACEAE) USING A MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETIC APPROACH.

Dalea (Fabaceae) is a genus of small, herbaceous, perennial dicots that consists of approximately 160 species with a few species being geographically widespread, and most of the genus being endemic to restricted areas with calcareous substrates containing high levels of calcium carbonate. A previous study (McMahon and Hufford, 2004) looked at the phylogeny and genetic makeup of the tribe which Dalea belongs to, Amorpheae, and one other phylogenetic study (Diggs, 2013) has been conducted on the genus itself. This study focuses on the phylogeny and phylogeography of Dalea species from the Gulf Coastal Plain of Florida, including D. carnea, D. carthagenesis var. floridana, D. feayi, D. pinnata var. pinnata,D. pinnata var. trifoliata, D. adenopoda, D. mountjoyae, and D. albida. Phylogeny for Dalea will determined by DNA sequences amplified through Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) of the chloroplast trnK/matK intron, and the nuclear ribosomal introns ITS1, 5.8S, and ITS2, and compared to sequences obtained from previous phylogenetic studies of Dalea. Currently, no results have been ascertained, but samples have been collected and the DNA extracted. Key words: Dalea; Amorpheae; Fabaceae; ITS; phylogeny; phylogeography; trnK/matK; Gulf Coastal Plain; calcareous substrate

The Effects of Spatial Interpolation on a Novel, Dual-Doppler 3D Wind Retrieval Technique

Three-dimensional wind retrievals from ground-based Doppler radars have played an important role in meteorological research and nowcasting over the past four decades. However, in recent years, the proliferation of open-source software and increased demands from applications such as convective parameterizations in numerical weather prediction models has led to a renewed interest in these analyses. In this study, we analyze how a major, yet often-overlooked, error source effects the quality of retrieved 3D wind fields. Namely, we investigate the effects of spatial interpolation, and show how the common practice of pre-gridding radial velocity data can degrade the accuracy of the results. Alternatively, we show that assimilating radar data directly at their observation locations improves the retrieval of important dynamic features such as the rear flank downdraft and mesocyclone within a simulated supercell, while also reducing errors in vertical vorticity, horizontal divergence, and all three velocity components.Comment: Revised version submitted to JTECH. Includes new section with a real data cas