Decision support system for in-flight emergency events

Medical problems during flight have become an important issue as the number of passengers and miles flown continues to increase. The case of an incident in the plane falls within the scope of the healthcare management in the context of scarce resources associated with isolation of medical actors working in very complex conditions, both in terms of human and material resources. Telemedicine uses information and communication technologies to provide remote and flexible medical services, especially for geographically isolated people. Therefore, telemedicine can generate interesting solutions to the medical problems during flight. Our aim is to build a knowledge-based system able to help health professionals or staff members addressing an urgent situation by given them relevant information, some knowledge, and some judicious advice. In this context, knowledge representation and reasoning can be correctly realized using an ontology that is a representation of concepts, their attributes, and the relationships between them in a particular domain. Particularly, a medical ontology is a formal representation of a vocabulary related to a specific health domain. We propose a new approach to explain the arrangement of different ontological models (task ontology, inference ontology, and domain ontology), which are useful for monitoring remote medical activities and generating required information. These layers of ontologies facilitate the semantic modeling and structuring of health information. The incorporation of existing ontologies [for instance, Systematic Nomenclature Medical Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT)] guarantees improved health concept coverage with experienced knowledge. The proposal comprises conceptual means to generate substantial reasoning and relevant knowledge supporting telemedicine activities during the management of a medical incident and its characterization in the context of air travel. The considered modeling framework is sufficiently generic to cover complex medical situations for isolated and vulnerable populations needing some care and support services

Seafloor characterization using airborne hyperspectral co-registration procedures independent from attitude and positioning sensors

The advance of remote-sensing technology and data-storage capabilities has progressed in the last decade to commercial multi-sensor data collection. There is a constant need to characterize, quantify and monitor the coastal areas for habitat research and coastal management. In this paper, we present work on seafloor characterization that uses hyperspectral imagery (HSI). The HSI data allows the operator to extend seafloor characterization from multibeam backscatter towards land and thus creates a seamless ocean-to-land characterization of the littoral zone

Human Research Program Space Human Factors Engineering (SHFE) Standing Review Panel (SRP)

The Space Human Factors Engineering (SHFE) Standing Review Panel (SRP) evaluated 22 gaps and 39 tasks in the three risk areas assigned to the SHFE Project. The area where tasks were best designed to close the gaps and the fewest gaps were left out was the Risk of Reduced Safety and Efficiency dire to Inadequate Design of Vehicle, Environment, Tools or Equipment. The areas where there were more issues with gaps and tasks, including poor or inadequate fit of tasks to gaps and missing gaps, were Risk of Errors due to Poor Task Design and Risk of Error due to Inadequate Information. One risk, the Risk of Errors due to Inappropriate Levels of Trust in Automation, should be added. If astronauts trust automation too much in areas where it should not be trusted, but rather tempered with human judgment and decision making, they will incur errors. Conversely, if they do not trust automation when it should be trusted, as in cases where it can sense aspects of the environment such as radiation levels or distances in space, they will also incur errors. This will be a larger risk when astronauts are less able to rely on human mission control experts and are out of touch, far away, and on their own. The SRP also identified 11 new gaps and five new tasks. Although the SRP had an extremely large quantity of reading material prior to and during the meeting, we still did not feel we had an overview of the activities and tasks the astronauts would be performing in exploration missions. Without a detailed task analysis and taxonomy of activities the humans would be engaged in, we felt it was impossible to know whether the gaps and tasks were really sufficient to insure human safety, performance, and comfort in the exploration missions. The SRP had difficulty evaluating many of the gaps and tasks that were not as quantitative as those related to concrete physical danger such as excessive noise and vibration. Often the research tasks for cognitive risks that accompany poor task or information design addressed only part, but not all, of the gaps they were programmed to fill. In fact the tasks outlined will not close the gap but only scratch the surface in many cases. In other cases, the gap was written too broadly, and really should be restated in a more constrained way that can be addressed by a well-organized and complementary set of tasks. In many cases, the research results should be turned into guidelines for design. However, it was not clear whether the researchers or another group would construct and deliver these guidelines

The long-term impact of social mixing policies on neighbourhood reputations:a comparative study between Ponte Lambro in Milan and the New Deal for Communities area in Bristol

The fight against neighbourhood effects has been led by urban renewal policies through ethnicity, income and tenure mixing as well as demolition and poverty deconcentration strategies. These saw in the (perceived) homogeneity of the working-class social housing neighbourhood the spatialisation of deviance and disadvantage. While the existing literature has been critical in evaluating the impact of social mixing policies, particularly focusing on community cohesion, social mobility and wellbeing, studies have focused on short-term outcomes, neglecting longer-term assessments, especially in Europe. This thesis explores the impact of two government-led social mixing schemes (New Deal for Communities, Bristol; Contratto di Quartiere, Milan) by examining whether there have been improvements in the long run in internal and external neighbourhood reputations - as aspired by the policies - through a comparative and longitudinal qualitative analysis of discourse. The internal neighbourhood reputation is informed by focus groups and interviews, alongside remote Participatory Photo Mapping, with residents of the inner-city NDC area in Bristol and of Ponte Lambro, peripheral neighbourhood in Milan. Whereas the evolution of the external neighbourhood reputation in both contexts is investigated through the Critical Discourse Analysis of local newspaper articles mentioning the two urban areas before and after the implementation of the social mixing policies. Research findings demonstrate that local interventions involving community participation and long-term plans do not automatically correspond to positive reputations and that territorial stigmas can persist in contexts of urban divide and socio-economic inequalities. Although, in both contexts, reputations have not significantly improved, the neighbourhood of Ponte Lambro is still experiencing mainly negative discourse from both media and the local community of residents; whilst the reputations of Bristol’s NDC area appear to clash more substantially, as the increased negative external reputation does not meet the more mixed or balanced perceptions of participants. By offering case study recommendations based on the research findings, this thesis concludes that both comparative and longitudinal approaches in qualitative urban research should be prioritised to provide an integrated picture of policy aims and impacts over time, at both the neighbourhood and the city levels

Exploring the Impact of Disaster Response Preparedness by the New York State Military Forces to the World Trade Center September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks

The problem identified in this study concerned the impact of disaster response preparedness (DRP) from the past, present, and future perspectives. The study explored the experiences of four survivors from the 1993 WTC bombing, the effectiveness of seven New York State Military Forces (NYSMF) deployed to Ground Zero (GZ), and perspectives of five Emergency Medical Services (EMS) professionals on DRP operations going forward from 9/11. Following an explorative heuristic research approach, the study utilized a qualitative and content analysis methodology (both qualitative and quantitative aspects) to investigate the problem using published archival interviews from the informants. Minimally, hypothesis testing, and descriptive and inferential statistics formed part of the data analysis. The results showed that the survivors of 1993 attack on the WTC experienced no interaction with first responders and were without DRP guidance. The NYSMF informants responded within 24 hours of the 9/11 WTC attacks, but were instructed to play a determinate role, as military force was deemed not appropriate to the situation on the ground. NYSMF augmented the roles of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and other first responders by conducting perimeter security at GZ. The EMS informants developed and implemented contingency plans to study DRP, and trained organizations and municipalities in the preparation for future disasters

Protecting the image of a nation: Jim Crow propaganda

This project investigates how the United States Information Agency (USIA) functioned as a propaganda machine on behalf of the United States government at the dawn of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. Drawing from literature on propaganda, public relations, and public diplomacy, this thesis connects 20th century American propaganda to its roots in public relations, communication studies, and psychology. The Civil Rights movement exposed the cultural inertia of white supremacy in America for the world to see while American foreign policy makers sought to crystallize a cultural hegemony fashioned after American political, cultural, and economic systems. Although the cultural and political systems in America were in a state of radical flux as the Cold War and the Civil Rights movements affected one another. Thus, as the voice of America abroad, USIA was pushed to negotiate the psychological and cultural tensions experienced in America for foreign audiences. Using a discursive constructivist methodology, this study explores how American Cold War propaganda was developed by USIA to tell America’s story abroad. By critically examining USIA’s actions between 1953-1965 this study explores how USIA framed the image of the American race relations at the nexus of the Cold War and the US Civil Rights Movement. By analyzing propaganda disseminated by USIA regarding civil rights, examining US national security reports, US State Department memos, and supporting national intelligence community documents this project aims to answer the following research questions: RQ 1: How did the USIA frame the American race relations throughout the Campaign for Truth?, RQ 2: How did USIA bolster US prestige/soft power from 1953-1963?. RQ 3: How did USIA use communication and public relations to effectively mask the ugliness of the Civil Rights Movement? American propaganda integrated new forms of mass media communications technology with a sophisticated variety of strategies and tactics to manipulate public opinion around the world. Blending traditional message broadcasting with interpersonal forms of advocacy (cultural exchanges) in imaginative campaigns which coopted the Civil Rights Movement to affirm America’s strength as a political, moral, and economic leader