Perceptions of Principles toward the Leadership Behaviors of Superintendents

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the College of Education at Morehead State University by Nicholas G. Carter on March 26, 2018

Human Perambulation as a Self Calibrating Biometric

This paper introduces a novel method of single camera gait reconstruction which is independent of the walking direction and of the camera parameters. Recognizing people by gait has unique advantages with respect to other biometric techniques: the identification of the walking subject is completely unobtrusive and the identification can be achieved at distance. Recently much research has been conducted into the recognition of frontoparallel gait. The proposed method relies on the very nature of walking to achieve the independence from walking direction. Three major assumptions have been done: human gait is cyclic; the distances between the bone joints are invariant during the execution of the movement; and the articulated leg motion is approximately planar, since almost all of the perceived motion is contained within a single limb swing plane. The method has been tested on several subjects walking freely along six different directions in a small enclosed area. The results show that recognition can be achieved without calibration and without dependence on view direction. The obtained results are particularly encouraging for future system development and for its application in real surveillance scenarios

Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis in an Adolescent

We present a case of a 17 year old male who presented with altered mental status and worsening hallucinations. Past medical history includes PTSD, ADHD, and pineal gland germinoma status post radiofrequency ablation. Presentation was remarkable for slow, dysarthric speech, mental disorientation, and delayed movements upon simple commands. Otherwise, vitals, baseline labs, imaging (Brain MRI), and diagnostics (EEG) were unremarkable. A multidisciplinary team decided to initially undergo psychiatric therapeutic intervention, focused on benzodiazepines and anti-psychotics, however patient’s status worsened, demonstrating catatonia, dystonia, and explosive agitation. Further laboratory investigation ruled out electrolyte disturbances, uremia/hepatic encephalopathy, thyroid storm, drug overdose/withdrawal, eventually settling on a working diagnosis of catatonic depression. Given his deteriorating mental status throughout admission and prior oncologic history, a lumbar puncture was performed to rule out other causes of encephalopathy, with CSF studies remarkable for the presence of NMDA encephalitis autoantibodies, most likely sequelae from his existing pineal gland germinoma. Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis is an autoimmune disease associated with antibodies against N-methyl-D-aspartate (NDMA) receptors, which control electrical impulses in the brain. These autoantibodies can variably be associated with tumors and possibly responsive to immunotherapy. Initial treatment consisted of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), methylprednisolone and therapeutic plasma exchange. After minimal success, patient received rituximab and sirolimus, which resulted in improved psychomotor symptoms. Diagnosing Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis can be quite challenging, particularly with its variable presentation in the setting of prior psychiatric diagnoses. Classically, Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis demonstrates hyperkinetic movements (e.g. dystonia, dyskinesia, chorea, seizures); however, catatonic movements do occur, and can be a severe and life-threatening state. Being cognizant of the overlapping psychiatric and psychomotor symptoms, including catatonic features, can prompt the clinician to suspect and rule out Anti-NMDA encephalitis prior to settling on a primary psychiatric diagnosis

Patterns of anxiety symptoms in toddlers and preschool-age children: Evidence of early differentiation

The degree to which young children’s anxiety symptoms differentiate according to diagnostic groupings is under-studied, especially in children below the age of 4 years. Theoretical (confirmatory factor analysis, CFA) and statistical (exploratory factor analysis, EFA) analytical methods were employed to test the hypothesis that anxiety symptoms among 2–3-year-old children from a non-clinical, representative sample would differentiate in a manner consistent with current diagnostic nosology. Anxiety symptom items were selected from two norm-referenced parent-report scales of child behavior. CFA and EFA results suggested that anxiety symptoms aggregate in a manner consistent with generalized anxiety, obsessive–compulsive symptoms, separation anxiety, and social phobia. Multi-dimensional models achieved good model fit and fit the data significantly better than undifferentiated models. Results from EFA and CFA methods were predominantly consistent and supported the grouping of early childhood anxiety symptoms into differentiated, diagnostic-specific categories

An Ecological Risk Model for Early Childhood Anxiety: The Importance of Early Child Symptoms and Temperament

Childhood anxiety is impairing and associated with later emotional disorders. Studying risk factors for child anxiety may allow earlier identification of at-risk children for prevention efforts. This study applied an ecological risk model to address how early childhood anxiety symptoms, child temperament, maternal anxiety and depression symptoms, violence exposure, and sociodemographic risk factors predict school-aged anxiety symptoms. This longitudinal, prospective study was conducted in a representative birth cohort (n=1109). Structural equation modeling was used to examine hypothesized associations between risk factors measured in toddlerhood/preschool (age=3.0 years) and anxiety symptoms measured in kindergarten (age=6.0 years) and second grade (age= 8.0 years). Early child risk factors (anxiety symptoms and temperament) emerged as the most robust predictor for both parent-and child-reported anxiety outcomes and mediated the effects of maternal and family risk factors. Implications for early intervention and prevention studies are discussed

THE EFFECT OF HARASSMENT BY DOGS ON GROUND-NESTING BIRDS IN AIRFIELDS

Ground-nesting birds like lapwings and sandpipers constitute a major hazard at airports. Preliminary observations with the Israeli Air Force showed that stone curlew (Burhinusoedicnemus, (Burhinidea)) were involved in 33% of all bird strikes in 2003 at Hatzor Air Force base in central Israel, most of which occurred during the nesting season. The ultimate reduction of curlew populations near the runways is dependent upon understanding the effect of predation risks on the curlew nesting behavior. In theory, true predation and artificial predation should have the same effect on bird behavior. We studied the effect of egg collection vs. egg collection complemented with “predation” by Border collies to determine if the harassment by the dogs resulted in a higher or faster rate of abandonment of nests on airfields, by placing the disappearance of a ground-nesting bird’s eggs into the context of predation. Harassment by Border collies on most other ground-nesting species actually avoids the entire problem associated by nesting on the airfield by quickly and effectively eliminating the presence of the ground-nesting species, precluding any nesting behavior in the first place. However, the limitations of the habitat of IAF airbases and the superb camouflaged nature of stone curlews result in the delayed discovery of nests on IAF airfields. The limitation a female curlew has on the number of eggs it can lay each season may ultimately have two contradictory results on nest abandonment. If the amount of eggs is small and fixed, harassment with dogs coupled with egg removal would be expected to yield a shorter nesting season. On the other hand, if the amount of eggs is high, harassment might actually increase the total number of clutches per nesting pair and prolong the nesting season (and hence the time spent on the airfield). We discovered that the amount of eggs female curlews can lay in a season is at least twice higher than reported in literature and varies tremendously between individuals. Nevertheless, harassed curlews abandoned nests at significantly higher rates compared with curlews that lost eggs by strict removal

SMS and Bird/Wildlife Management Programs

As ICAO implements the new SMS (Safety Management Systems) requirements for all international airports with its amended Annex 14 and the FAA moves to a more formally delineated requirement to implement SMS at all Part 139 airports, airport managers will soon have to face the development of full-fledged SMS programs for their airports. As an integral part of an airfield’s SMS, bird and wildlife management will also need to be incorporated into the SMS. With a dearth of literature on SMS and wildlife management and without an abundance of long-term experience at North American airfields, airport managers will not have a ready resource from which to draw and will face the difficulty of instituting programs they may not be fully prepared to undertake. ICAO in general, and several South and Central American airports in particular, have led the way in the development of comprehensive SMS at airfields. CARSAMPAF (Comité Regional CARSAMPAF de Prevención del Peligro Aviario y Fauna) strives to assists those airports in its region, as well as other airports around the world, in developing and implementing SMS through lessons learned (both good and bad) with existing SMS at South and Central American airports. This presentation will examine how North American airports can integrate bird and wildlife management into a comprehensive SMS in compliance with Annex 14 or the FAA’s SMS requirements. We will examine the basic features of SMS with relation to bird and wildlife management at airfields: safety culture, data collection and review, reporting, risk analysis, gap analysis, and performance indicators and discuss how these fit in to an airport’s overarching SMS

Pediatric Listening Effort Pilot: Gaze vs Dilation

Listening effort (LE) is a critical element of communication and quality of life. An objective way to measure LE is through pupil dilation, or pupillometry, via an eye tracker. As cognitive demands increase, the nervous system responds by increasing pupil dilation. In the case of a listening task, pupil dilation changes can be used to infer LE (Zekveld, Kramer, & Festen, 2010). While many studies test this methodology in adults, few studies have been done in children. This may be due to the increased activity/movement of children, as accurate pupil dilation measures are dependent on limited subject movement. Another eye tracking measure used to quantify cognitive effort is gaze duration (Pavlovic & Jensen, 2006; Meghanathan, van Leeuwen, & Nikolaev, 2015). Gaze duration relies less on limited subject movement and may provide a more efficient method for measuring LE in children. Another study consideration is the participant\u27s subjective perception of LE. Some studies report correlations between objective and subjective measures of LE, although other investigations failed to find a relation (Picou et al., 2011). It is hypothesized that gaze duration will be more effective than pupil dilation for measuring LE in the pediatric population, and that subjective effort will positively correlate with duration of fixation as well as negatively correlate with accuracy (i.e., harder conditions will increase gaze duration and subjective ratings of effort but decrease accuracy). This study had adults aged 18+ with normal hearing and vision listen and repeat back sentences in competing noise while maintaining visual contact with a computer screen. The sentences were played at three different levels of listening difficulty (noise levels set at+15 SNR [Signal to Noise Ratio], +9 SNR, +3 SNR). After each sentence list, the participant was asked to subjectively rate their mental effort and fatigue. The SR Research Eyelink 1000+ eye tracker was connected to the computer and recorded pupil dilation and gaze duration of the participant during the listening task. Data analysis is ongoing and will be completed at the end of March

Lost Toy? Monsters Under the Bed? Contributions of Temperament and Family Factors to Early Internalizing Problems in Boys and Girls

This study was designed to examine the contribution of multiple risk factors to early internalizing problems and to investigate whether family and ecological context moderated the association between child temperament and internalizing outcomes. A sample of 1,202 mothers of 2- and 3-year-old children completed a survey of child social-emotional functioning, family environment, and violence exposure. Child temperament, maternal affective symptoms, and family expressiveness were associated with child anxiety and depression problems. Violence exposure was related only to child anxiety. When maternal affective symptoms were elevated, inhibited girls but not boys were rated as more anxious and youngsters with heightened negative emotionality were rated as more depressed. Family expressiveness moderated the association between inhibited temperament and anxiety symptoms