Autonomous Capabilities for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems Conducting Radiological Response: Findings from a High-fidelity Discovery Experiment

This article presents a preliminary work domain theory and identifies autonomous vehicle, navigational, and mission capabilities and challenges for small unmanned aerial systems (SUASs) responding to a radiological disaster. Radiological events are representative of applications that involve flying at low altitudes and close proximities to structures. To more formally understand the guidance and control demands, the environment in which the SUAS has to function, and the expected missions, tasks, and strategies to respond to an incident, a discovery experiment was performed in 2013. The experiment placed a radiological source emitting at 10 times background radiation in the simulated collapse of a multistory hospital. Two SUASs, an AirRobot 100B and a Leptron Avenger, were inserted with subject matter experts into the response, providing high operational fidelity. The SUASs were expected by the responders to fly at altitudes between 0.3 and 30 m, and hover at 1.5 m from urban structures. The proximity to a building introduced a decrease in GPS satellite coverage, challenging existing vehicle autonomy. Five new navigational capabilities were identified: scan, obstacle avoidance, contour following, environment-aware return to home, andreturn to highest reading. Furthermore, the data-to-decision process could be improved with autonomous data digestion and visualization capabilities. This article is expected to contribute to a better understanding of autonomy in a SUAS, serve as a requirement document for advanced autonomy, and illustrate how discovery experimentation serves as a design tool for autonomous vehicles

Affordances and Safe Design of Assistance Wearable Virtual Environment of Gesture

Safety and reliability are the main issues for designing assistance wearable virtual environment of technical gesture in aerospace, or health application domains. That needs the integration in the same isomorphic engineering framework of human requirements, systems requirements and the rationale of their relation to the natural and artifactual environment.To explore coupling integration and design functional organization of support technical gesture systems, firstly ecological psychologyprovides usa heuristicconcept: the affordance. On the other hand mathematical theory of integrative physiology provides us scientific concepts: the stabilizing auto-association principle and functional interaction.After demonstrating the epistemological consistence of these concepts, we define an isomorphic framework to describe and model human systems integration dedicated to human in-the-loop system engineering.We present an experimental approach of safe design of assistance wearable virtual environment of gesture based in laboratory and parabolic flights. On the results, we discuss the relevance of our conceptual approach and the applications to future assistance of gesture wearable systems engineering

Strategies for Identifying and Selecting Performance Measures of Effectiveness for Nonprofit Organizations

There is a growing demand for accountability of nonprofit organizations, and nonprofit business leaders are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate operational effectiveness. The problem is that some business leaders of nonprofit organizations lack strategies for identifying and selecting actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using the plan-do-study-act conceptual framework, this single case study of a nonprofit organization located in the mid-Atlantic region of United States was conducted to explore strategies that 3 of its business leaders used to identify and select actionable performance measures of operational effectiveness. Using thematic analysis of data collected from semistructured interviews, documents, and public sources, emergent themes included: (a) usefulness of measures, (b) customer experience, and (c) workforce education. The findings of this study may have implications for social change by helping nonprofit business leaders achieve consensus on measures of effectiveness beyond financial measures. Additionally, the findings could support the usefulness of transparency in reporting performance outcomes, encourage a shift in focus from program spending and ratios to effectiveness, and prompt external stakeholders to expect performance measures that demonstrate effectiveness in nonprofit program operations

Developing Infrastructure Adaptation Pathways to Combat Hurricane Intensification: A Coupled Storm Simulation and Economic Modeling Framework for Coastal Installations

Climate change projections suggest intensification of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, is expected throughout the 21st century. This will lead to increased destruction for coastal military bases unless infrastructure resiliency and adaptation measures are implemented. This research focuses on examining the simulation of probabilistic, climate-intensified hurricane events at Eglin Air Force Base. FEMA Hazus models are combined with climate projections for wind Intensity, tide, and sea-level rise to produce an assessment of losses to the installation. Damage estimates and hurricane intensity outputs are downscaled to the facility-level so that climate adaptation signals can be identified. The facility losses and climate signals are used as inputs for a dynamic adaptation pathway model. Utilizing a variety of infrastructure investment strategies, the pathway model is used to calculate the expected benefits, risks, and costs associated with adaptation. Such pathways can be used to inform campus and installation master plans and are vital to reducing coastal bases vulnerability to future hurricane events

Towards the Development of a Defensive Cyber Damage and Mission Impact Methodology

The purpose of this research is to establish a conceptual methodological framework that will facilitate effective cyber damage and mission impact assessment and reporting following a cyber-based information incidents. Joint and service guidance requires mission impact reporting, but current efforts to implement such reporting have proven ineffective. This research seeks to understand the impediments existing in the current implementation and to propose an improved methodology. The research employed a hybrid historical analysis and case study methodology for data collection through extensive literature review, examination of existing case study research and interviews with Air Force members and civilian personnel employed as experts in cyber damage and mission impact assessment of Air Force networks. Nine respondents provided valuable first-hand information about the current implementation cyber damage and mission impact assessment. This research identified several critical impediments to current mission impact assessment efforts on Air Force networks. Based upon these findings, a proposal is made for a new operations-focused defensive cyber damage and mission impact methodology. The methodology will address the critical impediments identified and will result in profound benefits in other areas of cyber asset protection. Recommendations for conceptual implementation and operationalization are presented and related future research topics are discussed