Eagle Engineering (United States)

Abstract P‐hacking is fishing for statistical significance through repeated testing on massive data. It would lead to spurious findings, misguide social practice and policy making, and thus should be avoided. Teaching about p‐hacking is important, yet challenging. Cartoons are effective edutainment tools to engage students in learning statistical concepts. We created a cartoon and discussed how to use it in teaching about p‐hacking by guiding students to think and answer a list of questions. This cartoon can be helpful with teaching both statistics courses and applied seminar courses in various other disciplines. Students are expected to gain a better understanding of multiple issues related to p‐hacking, including its occurrence due to repeated testing, the problems with using an arbitrary threshold for the P‐value and comparing statistical significance, the distinction between statistical vs scientific significance, the approach for interpreting testing results with a holistic view, and the strategies to avoid p‐hacking.

Environmental isolations of the dimorphic fungus, Blastomyces dermatitidis, the aetiologic agent of blastomycosis are rare, and have usually involved animal innoculation techniques. We report the in vitro isolation of B. dermatitidis from a woodpile in November 1997, from a private property in a highly endemic area of north central Wisconsin, USA. The woodpile was 73 m from the Wisconsin River and 5 m from a kennel which had housed nine dogs over the past 14 years, four of which had been diagnozed with blastomycosis. One of 19 samples from the property yielded B. dermatitidis after 37 °C incubation in a neutral aqueous solution of allantoin, Tween-80, potassium phosphate, magnesium sulphate, penicillin and streptomycin followed by plating on yeast-extract phosphate agar at 20 °C. Refinements of this technique may help further elucidate the ecological niche of B.dermatitidis.

Evidence points to the importance undergraduate students attach to two "big questions"–"What should I do with my life?" and "What does 'higher' education have to do with my life?" Recent changes in American higher education, while individually desirable, have had the unintended cumulative effect of making it more difficult to deal with such questions. These and similar questions are not subjective issues appropriate only for "bull sessions" but require very high order cognitive capacities–post-formal reasoning or reflective judgment. The article ends with five specific suggestions about how such questions can best be addressed in colleges and universities. This paper is based on a presentation given at the 2008 Institute on College Student Values in Tallahassee, Florida.

The Environmental Effects Committee of the ASCE Energy Engineering Division has been developing a report on “Energy Production and Reservoir Water Quality” for publication. The report covers the regulatory framework that dictates much of the procedures for studies related to this topic, the fundamental reservoir hydrodynamics and water quality modeling used in preparing studies, the kinds of studies that can be prepared at different levels of analysis, and a series of applications that illustrate the problems encountered and applications of the various techniques. This study of hydrothermal modeling as applied to examining cooling tower alternatives for an existing steam electric station on a moderately large reservoir is included in this report and is presented here as an illustration of the types of studies included. This particular study subtended the usual steam electric plant cooling water discharge studies that relate to specific regulatory thermal plume size standards, and had to be designed around developing plant and cooling tower operations that would meet specific fisheries requirements for a zone of passage and refuge for fishes throughout the receiving embayment. After being used in developing cooling tower and plant operating details for the designers to work with, it was required that the hydrothermal modeling results be verified under actual tower operating conditions. In addition, it was required that the impact of the combined operations on dissolved oxygen be examined in detail. This paper covers the background to setting up the study, the kinds of statistical comparisons used to verify the hydrothermal studies, and similar studies for the analysis of dissolved oxygen distributions.

A major problem in training device design is specifying the appropriate level of fidelity and required instructional features for learning. This research effort was designed to acquire detailed information about tasks and training device fidelity features. The standard method for developing information about task and fidelity relationships has been to conduct research into training methods using varying degrees of fidelity, or to extrapolate from evaluations of training programs based on newly developed training devices. The rotary-wing operations domain was selected as the basis for gathering detailed relationship data. A Training Device Fidelity analysis was conducted on many of the devices at the Army Aviation School at Ft. Rucker. A survey was then developed that crossed the tasks being trained on the AH-64 CWEPT (Cockpit, Weapons, and Emergency Procedures Trainer) and the UH-1 CPT (Cockpit Procedures Trainer) with the device characteristics present on those training devices. The survey was administered to instructors using the training devices. The survey responses were categorized, and the consensus results are being used in developing expert system rules. The conclusion drawn is that adequate data can be collected using surveys to generate experience-based (versus opinion-based or device evaluation-based) rules for determining necessary and sufficient fidelity aspects for training devices. The method can be used in any training domain that requires training devices, where guidance is inferential and opinion-based, and where those devices are costly and/or need to be very effective.

Two studies are reported that examined the effects of sequence of measurement and wording of the estimation question on estimates of consensus. In both studies estimates of consensus for own choice, and hence the magnitude of false consensus effects, were larger when estimates were generated before making the choice and when individuals estimated consensus for their own choices. It is suggested that sequence of measurement and the wording of the estimation question influence the cognitive availability of the choices used in social projection research. These findings confirm at the level of primary research some subtle determinants of the magnitude of social projection effects that werefirst identified using meta-analytic techniques.

This paper describes current developments in automating the processes to author technical information (TI) and deliver it using microcomputers. It describes desirable characteristics which support the presentation of TI for technicians varying in skill levels. Addressed are human factors issues relating to information access, user acceptance, and display formats. Programming is being done in Smalltalk/V, an object oriented language, on a Zenith 248 computer, which is compatible with the IBM PC/AT. The project emphasizes low cost authoring and delivery of information which traditionally has been contained in paper technical manuals. Our intent is to support the Department of Defense initiative to shift from paper to paperless technical manuals.

Abstract This paper presents a discussion of the selection process for pipeline protective coatings as specified by a design engineering firm. The selection process is rarely the result of utilizing a "standard" system. It is usually an evaluation process where a coating system is specified which specifically meets the requirements of the project.