Cognitive Learning Styles and Their Relation to Air Traffic Control Screening and Training

The purpose of this study was to show a relationship between the type of cognitive learning style that an individual possesses and their subsequent success at simulated air traffic control practical exercises. Kolb\u27s Learning Style Inventory was utilized to determine dominant learning styles of 30 college students enrolled in a laboratory-based air traffic control course. The instrument was administered during the first day of classes in the Fall of 1990. Students were placed in one of four groups for statistical purposes according to learning style. The scores of simulated micro-computer based air traffic control practical exercises given at semester\u27s end were used to determine a mean score for each of the four groups. A t-distribution was used to establish significance between the groups. This study will be used as a preliminary step toward identifying and testing for more precise skills that are predictive of success in air traffic control for the purpose of developing a more effective method of screening air traffic control candidates

A Robust Scalable Transportation System Concept

This report documents the 2005 Revolutionary System Concept for Aeronautics (RSCA) study entitled "A Robust, Scalable Transportation System Concept". The objective of the study was to generate, at a high-level of abstraction, characteristics of a new concept for the National Airspace System, or the new NAS, under which transportation goals such as increased throughput, delay reduction, and improved robustness could be realized. Since such an objective can be overwhelmingly complex if pursued at the lowest levels of detail, instead a System-of-Systems (SoS) approach was adopted to model alternative air transportation architectures at a high level. The SoS approach allows the consideration of not only the technical aspects of the NAS", but also incorporates policy, socio-economic, and alternative transportation system considerations into one architecture. While the representations of the individual systems are basic, the higher level approach allows for ways to optimize the SoS at the network level, determining the best topology (i.e. configuration of nodes and links). The final product (concept) is a set of rules of behavior and network structure that not only satisfies national transportation goals, but represents the high impact rules that accomplish those goals by getting the agents to "do the right thing" naturally. The novel combination of Agent Based Modeling and Network Theory provides the core analysis methodology in the System-of-Systems approach. Our method of approach is non-deterministic which means, fundamentally, it asks and answers different questions than deterministic models. The nondeterministic method is necessary primarily due to our marriage of human systems with technological ones in a partially unknown set of future worlds. Our goal is to understand and simulate how the SoS, human and technological components combined, evolve

Journal of Air Transportation, Volume 6, No. 2

No abstract availabl

Simulation de piétons avec génération dynamique de la demande

RÉSUMÉ Le présent mémoire traite des simulations de piétons. Il traite plus particulièrement des "micro-simulations", c’est-à-dire des simulations où chaque piéton est modélisé individuellement (à l’inverse des modèles agrégés), dans les hubs de transport tels que les stations de métro ou les gares de train. Le but de ce travail est de présenter, développer et tester une nouvelle manière d’organiser la simulation pour lui donner une plus grande marge de manoeuvre et ainsi lui permettre de proposer des solutions plus précises, plus réalistes, qu’auparavant. En effet, dans une simulation classique, trois éléments sont nécessaires à son exécution pour obtenir des résultats : une estimation de la demande pour générer des agents, plusieurs modèles pour décrire leur comportement et une représentation de l’infrastructure dans laquelle faire évoluer ces agents. Nous commençons par montrer que la construction même de ce genre de simulation engendre un manque de réalisme dans certains cas : les trois éléments ne peuvent pas dépendre les uns des autres, ils sont générés indépendamment et sont simplement utilisés par la simulation.----------ABSTRACT We present an integrated microsimulation framework to estimate the pedestrian movement over time and space. Mobility hubs such as metro or train stations are particularly studied. The overall aim of this work is to develop, present and test a new way to organize such a simulation. The final goal of it is to give a bigger action radius to the simulation so it can find more accurate and more realistic estimation of a situation. In a classical simulation, three main inputs are needed to obtain a result: an estimation of the demand, several models and a description of the infrastructure. The first generates the agents, that are moved thanks to the second one on the third one. First we show that this organization of a simulation prevents it to adapt them depending on each others. They are independently generated and are considered as exogenous information. This construction leads to a lack of realism

The numbers game : 206 GigaWatts – beam me up Scottie!

Renewable energy in Scotlan

Aircraft System Analysis of Technology Benefits to Civil Transport Rotorcraft

An aircraft systems analysis was conducted to evaluate the net benefits of advanced technologies on two conceptual civil transport rotorcraft, to quantify the potential of future civil rotorcraft to become operationally viable and economically competitive, with the ultimate goal of alleviating congestion in our airways, runways and terminals. These questions are three of many that must be resolved for the successful introduction of civil transport rotorcraft: 1) Can civil transport rotorcraft actually relieve current airport congestion and improve overall air traffic and passenger throughput at busy hub airports? What is that operational scenario? 2) Can advanced technology make future civil rotorcraft economically competitive in scheduled passenger transport? What are those enabling technologies? 3) What level of investment is necessary to mature the key enabling technologies? This study addresses the first two questions, and several others, by applying a systems analysis approach to a broad spectrum of potential advanced technologies at a conceptual level of design. The method was to identify those advanced technologies that showed the most promise and to quantify their benefits to the design, development, production, and operation of future civil rotorcraft. Adjustments are made to sizing data by subject matter experts to reflect the introduction of new technologies that offer improved performance, reduced weight, reduced maintenance, or reduced cost. This study used projected benefits from new, advanced technologies, generally based on research results, analysis, or small-scale test data. The technologies are identified, categorized and quantified in the report. The net benefit of selected advanced technologies is quantified for two civil transport rotorcraft concepts, a Single Main Rotor Compound (SMRC) helicopter designed for 250 ktas cruise airspeed and a Civil Tilt Rotor (CTR) designed for 350 ktas cruise airspeed. A baseline design of each concept was sized for a representative civil passenger transport mission, using current technology. Individual advanced technologies are quantified and applied to resize the aircraft, thereby quantifying the net benefit of that technology to the rotorcraft. Estimates of development cost, production cost and operating and support costs are made with a commercial cost estimating program, calibrated to Boeing products with adjustments for future civil production processes. A cost metric of cash direct operating cost per available seat-mile (DOC ASM) is used to compare the cost benefit of the technologies. The same metric is used to compare results with turboprop operating costs. Reduced engine SFC was the most advantageous advanced technology for both rotorcraft concepts. Structural weight reduction was the second most beneficial technology, followed by advanced drive systems and then by technology for rotorcraft performance. Most of the technologies evaluated in this report should apply similarly to conventional helicopters. The implicit assumption is that resources will become available to mature the technologies for fullscale production aircraft. That assumption is certainly the weak link in any forecast of future possibilities. The analysis serves the purpose of identifying which technologies offer the most potential benefit, and thus the ones that should receive the highest priority for continued development. This study directly addressed the following NASA Subsonic Rotary Wing (SRW) subtopics: SR W.4.8.I.J Establish capability for rotorcraft system analysis and SRW. 4.8.I.4 Conduct limited technology benefit assessment on baseline rotorcraft configurations

An Analysis of 380 V DC Topologies for Mobile Telecom Applications

The mobile telecom industry is expected to undergo substantial growth in the next five years. Cell towers represent close to 80% of the power consumption of a mobile network operator. In developing countries, most sites run on diesel due to a weak or non-existing power grid. Growing concern regarding CO2 emissions, and increasing copper costs over the past 15 years make the efficiency of cell sites with respect to energy and materials an interesting issue to explore. Similar concerns have led the datacenter industry to adopt a more energy efficient topology through the use of 380 V DC. Cell sites and data centers are very different from a mechanical standpoint. However, from an electrical perspective, these two types of facilities are very similar. This thesis presents a quantitative analysis of the benefits of a 380 V DC topology, compared to the current 48 V DC topology. This analysis is based on the simulation of typical telecom distribution configurations, taking into account regulations and best practices currently in use in the telecom industry. A sensitivity study is conducted to assess the strengths and weaknesses of different configurations for varying tower loads and heights. Conclusions about these topologies are finally discussed based on economical and efficiency characteristics

Facilitating social collaboration in mobile cloud-based learning: a teamwork as a service (TaaS) approach

Mobile learning is an emerging trend that brings many advantages to distributed learners, enabling them to achieve collaborative learning, in which the virtual teams are usually built to engage multiple learners working together towards the same pedagogical goals in online courses. However, the socio-technical mechanisms to enhance teamwork performance are lacking. To meet this gap, we adopt the social computing to affiliate learners’ behaviors and offer them computational choices to build a better collaborative learning context. Combining the features of the cloud environment, we have identified a learning flow based on Kolb team learning experience to realize this approach. Such novel learning flow can be executed by our newly designed system, Teamwork as a Service (TaaS), in conjunction with the cloud-hosting learning management systems. Following this learning flow, learners benefit from the functions provided by cloud-based services when cooperating in a mobile environment, being organized into cloud-based teaching strategies namely “Jigsaw Classroom”, planning and publishing tasks, as well as rationalizing task allocation and mutual supervision. In particular, we model the social features related to the collaborative learning activities, and introduce a genetic algorithm approach to grouping learners into appropriate teams with two different team formation scenarios. Experimental results prove our approach is able to facilitate teamwork, while learners’ capabilities and preferences are taken into consideration. In addition, empirical evaluations have been conducted to show the improvement of collaborative learning brought by TaaS in real university level courses