On the narrative form of simulations.

Understanding complex physical systems through the use of simulations often takes on a narrative character. That is, scientists using simulations seek an understanding of processes occurring in time by generating them from a dynamic model, thereby producing something like a historical narrative. This paper focuses on simulations of the Diels-Alder reaction, which is widely used in organic chemistry. It calls on several well-known works on historical narrative to draw out the ways in which use of these simulations mirrors aspects of narrative understanding: Gallie for "followability" and "contingency"; Mink for "synoptic judgment"; Ricoeur for "temporal dialectic"; and Hawthorn for a related dialectic of the "actual and the possible". Through these reflections on narrative, the paper aims for a better grasp of the role that temporal development sometimes plays in understanding physical processes and of how considerations of possibility enhance that understanding

Detect the unexpected: a science for surveillance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline a strategy for research development focused on addressing the neglected role of visual perception in real life tasks such as policing surveillance and command and control settings. Approach – The scale of surveillance task in modern control room is expanding as technology increases input capacity at an accelerating rate. The authors review recent literature highlighting the difficulties that apply to modern surveillance and give examples of how poor detection of the unexpected can be, and how surprising this deficit can be. Perceptual phenomena such as change blindness are linked to the perceptual processes undertaken by law-enforcement personnel. Findings – A scientific programme is outlined for how detection deficits can best be addressed in the context of a multidisciplinary collaborative agenda between researchers and practitioners. The development of a cognitive research field specifically examining the occurrence of perceptual “failures” provides an opportunity for policing agencies to relate laboratory findings in psychology to their own fields of day-to-day enquiry. Originality/value – The paper shows, with examples, where interdisciplinary research may best be focussed on evaluating practical solutions and on generating useable guidelines on procedure and practice. It also argues that these processes should be investigated in real and simulated context-specific studies to confirm the validity of the findings in these new applied scenarios

Animation From Instructions

We believe that computer animation in the form of narrated animated simulations can provide an engaging, effective and flexible medium for instructing agents in the performance of tasks. However, we argue that the only way to achieve the kind of flexibility needed to instruct agents of varying capabilities to perform tasks with varying demands in work places of varying layout is to drive both animation and narration from a common representation that embodies the same conceptualization of tasks and actions as Natural Language itself. To this end, we are exploring the use of Natural Language instructions to drive animated simulations. In this paper, we discuss the relationship between instructions and behavior that underlie our work and the overall structure of our system. We then describe in some what more detail three aspects of the system - the representation used by the Simulator, the operation of the Simulator and the Motion Generators used in the system

The application of human factors in wake vortex encounter flight simulations for the reduction of flight upset risk and startle response

The current top safety risk concern for commercial air travel in Europe is known as “Flight Upset”. This term, also known as “Loss of Control in Flight”, entails the flight crew suddenly finding themselves in an unexpected, complex, and even confusing situation that if not resolved quickly can lead to a major accident. Accidents such as AF447 and the two B737 Max accidents fall into this category. An undesirable aspect of such events is known as the “startle response”, wherein one or both flight crew, finding themselves in dire and dangerous conditions, may experience ‘startle’, which temporarily affects their cognitive functioning. This may only last half a minute, but its effect can have a severe impact on the survivability of such events. A Horizon 2020 research project called SAFEMODE, which aims to integrate Human Factors techniques into a unified framework for designers in aviation and maritime domains, is exploring the use of state-of-the-art flight simulation facilities to measure pilot performance in severe wake turbulence events, which can induce the startle effect. This is part of a broader use case within SAFEMODE to validate the design of a new Wake Vortex Air Traffic Alert for the Cruise phase of flight. A tactical short-term alert to the Flight Crew, ahead of the wake encounter, is seen as beneficial to reduce the startle effect and support the appropriate management of these conflicts. The envisaged risk-alerting logic relies on a ground-based predictor, connected to the Air Traffic Control system, displaying an alert to the En-route Air Traffic Controllers, who can then provide a cautionary advisory to the Flight Crew so they can take appropriate actions.The cockpit flight simulations involve type-rated flight crews in realistic and representative cruise flight conditions, using a Type VI Boeing 737-800 full flight motion-based simulator (also used for Upset Prevention and Recovery training programs). During the simulation runs, pilots are exposed to simulated wake vortex encounters, corresponding to a strong wake-induced upset (between 30 and 40 degrees of bank), with or without prior ATC wake caution, and varying the initial direction of roll between left and right to limit the simulation training effect.Human Factors measurements include workload, situation awareness, trust, acceptability-based user feedback, as well as psychophysiological measures such as eye-tracking and Electro-Dermal Activity (EDA). In particular, eye-tracking is expected to support the refined determination of the sequence of actions before and after detection, and the reaction of flight crews to the en-route ATC Wake alert.A cockpit flight simulation, via combining the analyses of psychophysiological measures, flight parameters, expert observations and subjective pilot feedback, enables evaluation of Flight Crews performance in preparing for, managing or avoiding wake encounter upsets with the new ATC wake alerts, showing the net safety benefits. Early results indicate that the simulations can indeed induce startle effect, and that repeated exposure enables flight crew to overcome it and manage the situation in a more measured and controlled fashion

Structuring information through gesture and intonation

Face-to-face communication is multimodal. In unscripted spoken discourse we can observe the interaction of several “semiotic layers”, modalities of information such as syntax, discourse structure, gesture, and intonation. We explore the role of gesture and intonation in structuring and aligning information in spoken discourse through a study of the co-occurrence of pitch accents and gestural apices. Metaphorical spatialization through gesture also plays a role in conveying the contextual relationships between the speaker, the government and other external forces in a naturally-occurring political speech setting