Depression\u27s Influence on Involvement

Depression is a major issue among college students. Research is clear that depression is an increasing problem in college; approximately half of all college students will experience at least one period of depression during their college experience (Kadison & Digeronimo, 2004, p. 240; Westfield & Furr, 2001). Further, higher education literature emphasizes the importance of student involvement in regards to key issues including academic performance, retention, and personal development (Astin, 1999; Cress et al., 2001; Abrahamowicz 1988). This research sought to identify how a student\u27s level of depression influences the extent to which a student is actively involved in the college experience. In order to gain these results, 412 senior students who completed the College Senior Survey (CSS) were studied to compare their level of depression to their level of involvement in three major categories: 1) academic involvement; 2) faculty student interaction; 3) extra-curricular involvement. Consistent with current research, 55.3% of students experienced depression during their college experience. Interestingly, the relationship between depression and involvement was not significant for any of the three types of involvement, indicating depression had little influence on student involvement. However, the sex of the student significantly influenced the level of academic involvement (female students were significantly more involved). Also consistent with research, female students were more likely to experience depression

Keynote Address: Bringing the Pieces Together

Dave is an award winning safety leader and the founder of Downey Aviation Services. Dave’s aerospace experience includes civil certification, flight operations and safety/risk management. He is a published author and international public speaker on aviation and leadership. Mr. Downey most recent role was as President, North America, at Aerosafe Risk Management. Prior to that role he was a Vice President at Bell Helicopter where he was responsible for Systems Engineering, Engineering Operations, Flight Test Operations, Flight Safety, the Bell Organization Delegation Authorization and the Product Safety Board. He streamlined processes and developed leadership training. Prior to joining Bell, Mr. Downey was a member of the FAA Senior Executive Service where he served as the Manager, FAA Rotorcraft Directorate in Fort Worth, Texas. He provided strategic direction on all aspects of rotorcraft and tilt-rotor policy/certification. In this position he was also responsible for all FAA experimental flight test policy, training and administration. He was a Team Leader on the FAA Safer Skies Commercial Aviation safety program. As Co-Chair of the International Helicopter Safety Team, Dave achieved a 33% reduction in the number of U. S. fatal helicopter accidents. He has FAA engineering and manufacturing experience with engines, propellers, APUs, UAVs and airplanes. He has also worked closely with the NTSB and international Aviation Authorities such as TCCA, EASA, CAAC and ICAO. Dave began his career as a U. S. Army Pilot. He has military experience as an instructor pilot, instrument flight examiner, maintenance test pilot, and experimental test pilot. He served as an Exchange Officer to the United Kingdom as a Senior Test Pilot. His aviation experience includes over 4000 hours of fixed and rotary wing accident-free flying on 125 different models. He holds an FAA Airline Transport Pilot rating as well as: single/multi engine land/seaplane and helicopter commercial pilot, and CFI ground. Dave graduated from the University of Tennessee Space Institute with an MS and earned his BS from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. He also graduated from the US Navy Test Pilot School. Dave is the 2010 Society of Experimental Test Pilots Tony LaVier Flight Safety Award for life time achievement in Flight Safety

Just Add Functions: A Neural-Symbolic Language Model

Neural network language models (NNLMs) have achieved ever-improving accuracy due to more sophisticated architectures and increasing amounts of training data. However, the inductive bias of these models (formed by the distributional hypothesis of language), while ideally suited to modeling most running text, results in key limitations for today's models. In particular, the models often struggle to learn certain spatial, temporal, or quantitative relationships, which are commonplace in text and are second-nature for human readers. Yet, in many cases, these relationships can be encoded with simple mathematical or logical expressions. How can we augment today's neural models with such encodings? In this paper, we propose a general methodology to enhance the inductive bias of NNLMs by incorporating simple functions into a neural architecture to form a hierarchical neural-symbolic language model (NSLM). These functions explicitly encode symbolic deterministic relationships to form probability distributions over words. We explore the effectiveness of this approach on numbers and geographic locations, and show that NSLMs significantly reduce perplexity in small-corpus language modeling, and that the performance improvement persists for rare tokens even on much larger corpora. The approach is simple and general, and we discuss how it can be applied to other word classes beyond numbers and geography.Comment: Preprint of paper accepted for AAAI-202

Alien plant invasions and native plant extinctions: a six-threshold framework

CITATION: Downey, P. O. & Richardson, D. M. 2016. Alien plant invasions and native plant extinctions : a six-threshold framework. AoB PLANTS, 8:1-21, doi:10.1093/aobpla/plw047.The original publication is available at https://academic.oup.com/aobplaBiological invasions are widely acknowledged as a major threat to global biodiversity. Species from all major taxonomic groups have become invasive. The range of impacts of invasive taxa and the overall magnitude of the threat is increasing. Plants comprise the biggest and best-studied group of invasive species. There is a growing debate; however, regarding the nature of the alien plant threat—in particular whether the outcome is likely to be the widespread extinction of native plant species. The debate has raised questions on whether the threat posed by invasive plants to native plants has been overstated. We provide a conceptual framework to guide discussion on this topic, in which the threat posed by invasive plants is considered in the context of a progression from no impact through to extinction. We define six thresholds along the ‘extinction trajectory’, global extinction being the final threshold. Although there are no documented examples of either ‘in the wild’ (Threshold 5) or global extinctions (Threshold 6) of native plants that are attributable solely to plant invasions, there is evidence that native plants have crossed or breached other thresholds along the extinction trajectory due to the impacts associated with plant invasions. Several factors may be masking where native species are on the trajectory; these include a lack of appropriate data to accurately map the position of species on the trajectory, the timeframe required to definitively state that extinctions have occurred and management interventions. Such interventions, focussing mainly on Thresholds 1–3 (a declining population through to the local extinction of a population), are likely to alter the extinction trajectory of some species. The critical issue for conservation managers is the trend, because interventions must be implemented before extinctions occur. Thus the lack of evidence for extinctions attributable to plant invasions does not mean we should disregard the broader threat.https://academic.oup.com/aobpla/article/2609604/Alien-plant-invasions-and-native-plant-extinctions?searchresult=1Publisher's versio

Steady-state evoked potentials possibilities for mental-state estimation

The use of the human steady-state evoked potential (SSEP) as a possible measure of mental-state estimation is explored. A method for evoking a visual response to a sum-of-ten sine waves is presented. This approach provides simultaneous multiple frequency measurements of the human EEG to the evoking stimulus in terms of describing functions (gain and phase) and remnant spectra. Ways in which these quantities vary with the addition of performance tasks (manual tracking, grammatical reasoning, and decision making) are presented. Models of the describing function measures can be formulated using systems engineering technology. Relationships between model parameters and performance scores during manual tracking are discussed. Problems of unresponsiveness and lack of repeatability of subject responses are addressed in terms of a need for loop closure of the SSEP. A technique to achieve loop closure using a lock-in amplifier approach is presented. Results of a study designed to test the effectiveness of using feedback to consciously connect humans to their evoked response are presented. Findings indicate that conscious control of EEG is possible. Implications of these results in terms of secondary tasks for mental-state estimation and brain actuated control are addressed

MIS versus Computer Science: An Empirical Comparison of the Influences on the Students’ Choice of Major

A history of declining enrollments in university Management Information Systems (MIS) and computer science (CS) departments in the U.S. considerably impacts both college departments and business organizations that hire graduates. In order to reverse the enrollment trend, an understanding of the important similarities and differences that shape a student’s decision to major in MIS or CS will allow departments to better promote their major, formulate more effective strategies for reaching interested and undecided students, and enhance the fit between student and career. This study directly compared important influences on choice of major for 205 MIS and CS majors at four US universities. Results indicate that the most important influences for both MIS and CS students are interest in technology and monetary compensation. MIS majors, however, are significantly more influenced by others, especially college instructors, parents, friends, and the desire to interact with others. They are also more interested in business and business organizations. CS majors, on the other hand, are more interested in the technology itself and tend to choose CS as a major either in high school or shortly thereafter. Based on these findings, recommendations are provided to aid college departments in attracting and retaining appropriate majors

Continuous Flow Metal Recovery System Using Magnetic Nanocomposites for Contaminated Waters

Many natural water sources and industrial wastewaters contain low concentrations of metals and other contaminants. Therefore, an effective and economical approach is needed for contaminant removal and recovery. The purpose of the research is to improve and modify a continuous flow metal recovery system, that was originally developed for acid mine drainage treatment, for expansion to a variety of non-industrial applications, including removal metal ions from the Upper Clark Fork River Watershed. The system employs an electromagnet to collect magnetically susceptible nanoscale particles, which in turn adsorb metal ions. Metal ion capture has been examined using natural magnetite nanoparticles (Fe3O4 NPs), silica-coated Fe3O4 NPs, and chitosancoated Fe3O4 NPs. Current research is focused on particle synthesis and maximizing contaminant capture efficiency. Preliminary results indicate that silica-coated NPs are more effective than magnetite and chitosancoated NPs for copper recovery from surrogate solutions at low copper concentrations

Higher Education Exchange: 2008

This annual publication serves as a forum for new ideas and dialogue between scholars and the larger public. Essays explore ways that students, administrators, and faculty can initiate and sustain an ongoing conversation about the public life they share.The Higher Education Exchange is founded on a thought articulated by Thomas Jefferson in 1820: "I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."In the tradition of Jefferson, the Higher Education Exchange agrees that a central goal of higher education is to help make democracy possible by preparing citizens for public life. The Higher Education Exchange is part of a movement to strengthen higher education's democratic mission and foster a more democratic culture throughout American society.Working in this tradition, the Higher Education Exchange publishes interviews, case studies, analyses, news, and ideas about efforts within higher education to develop more democratic societies