The software-simulated airworld: anticipatory code and affective aeromobilities

This paper is concerned with the way in which airspaces are organised, managed, and understood by virtual representations - software simulations that are tested and used both preemptively and in real time. We suggest that, while airspaces are often understood as simulations themselves - models and blueprints for real-world futuresöthey are among the most mediated of all contemporary social environments, produced not only through code, but based on scenarios which predict and plan for future events - real virtualities that might come true. Drawing on historical and contemporary examples of aeronautical software simulation employed by civilian and military aviation, we explore how code has become increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous in response to the challenges set by the mobilities the simulations model and the affective susceptibility of the corporeal body that uses them. The paper explores how software simulations work to structure and mediate behaviour by producing specific emotional and affective experiences in order to prepare the body for future encounters

The Effects of Serial Position, Evaluation Format, and Behavioral Isolate on Verbal and Nonverbal Clinical Cue Recognition and Performance Ratings

Standardized patients are individuals trained to realistically portray specific physical and psychological symptoms and evaluate healthcare trainees on their patient interaction skills. Prior research suggests that individual differences among standardized patients often result in assessment variance. This study examined the effects of cue serial position and evaluation format on individuals\u27 perceptual awareness and recognition accuracy of verbal and nonverbal clinical cues. It was predicted that implementing periodic evaluations would reduce participant working memory load and permit better awareness and recognition of relevant clinical cues than the traditional post-scenario evaluation format. The concurrent evaluation benefit was also expected to mitigate the well-documented serial position decrement for information occurring in the middle of a scenario. The results suggested that verbal and nonverbal cues appearing early or late in the scenario were generally more salient than those appearing mid-scenario, but observers were better able to recognize both when permitted to offload working memory through periodic evaluation. The study also investigated the impact of a single inconsistent, unprofessional behavior exhibited by the simulated healthcare provider (SHP) on participant ratings of the SHP\u27s clinical competence. The behavioral isolate did not influence participants\u27 overall rating regardless of where it occurred in the scenario. Further, the isolate affected the segmental ratings of both evaluation groups when embedded early in the scenario and also affected the ratings of the concurrent evaluation group when embedded later in the scenario. This implies a reluctance on the part of retrospective participants to integrate new or conflicting information as the scenario progressed and further suggests that a successful SHP performance is unlikely to be negatively impacted by a single isolated act of unprofessionalism

ΚΑΤΑΣΤΑΤΙΚΗ ΕΝΗΜΕΡΟΤΗΤΑ ΣΤΗΝ ΔΙΑΧΕΙΡΙΣΗ ΚΡΙΣΕΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΚΑΤΑΣΤΡΟΦΩΝ: ΘΕΩΡΗΤΙΚΟ ΥΠΟΒΑΘΡΟ ΚΑΙ ΤΕΧΝΟΛΟΓΙΕΣ

Στις μέρες μας καθημερινά ακούμε να γίνεται λόγος για γεγονότα κρίσεων ή καταστροφών που διαταράσσουν την εύρυθμη λειτουργία της κοινωνίας. Οι κρίσεις και οι καταστροφές, μπορεί να είναι αποτέλεσμα των φυσικών μεταβολών του περιβάλλοντος, της κλιματικής κρίσης, της ανθρώπινης δραστηριότητας, των ανθρωπίνων τεχνολογιών αλλά και συνδυασμός αυτών. Ο περιορισμός των κρίσεων και των καταστροφών είναι διαχρονικό θέμα σε πολλούς κρατικούς και διεθνής φορείς, με τις προσπάθειες αντιμετώπισης στο περιβάλλον που δημιουργούν αυτά τα γεγονότα να είναι δυναμικές, σύνθετες και να απαιτείται επίμονη, γρήγορη, συνεργατική και αποτελεσματική εργασία από τους εμπλεκόμενους. Η συγκεκριμένη διπλωματική εργασία είναι μια προσπάθεια να αναδείξει το θεωρητικό και τεχνολογικό υπόβαθρο της Καταστατικής Ενημερότητας (ΚΕ) πάνω στη διαχείριση κρίσεων και καταστροφών. Στην χώρα μας σπάνια ακούγεται ο όρος ΚΕ, αλλά είναι όρος που χρησιμοποιείται και ερευνάται στο εξωτερικό, πάνω από τέσσερις δεκαετίες. Αν και έχουν χρησιμοποιηθεί αρκετοί ορισμοί για τον όρο ΚΕ διακρίνεται ότι χρησιμοποιείται περισσότερο ο ορισμός της Endsley. Η ΚΕ διαδραματίζει σημαντικό ρόλο σε όλες τις φάσεις και τα επίπεδα ανταποκρίσεως στις κρίσεις ή τις καταστροφές. Είναι ο όρος που δίνεται στο επίπεδο επίγνωσης που έχει ένα άτομο, μια ομάδα ή ένα σύστημα για μια κατάσταση ή απλουστέρα η κατανόηση του «τι συμβαίνει». Η δημιουργία και η διατήρηση της ΚΕ είναι σημαντικός παράγοντας στη γρήγορη λήψη σωστών αποφάσεων, ενώ η αποτυχία επίτευξής της μπορεί να οδηγήσει σε καταστροφικές αποφάσεις και εν συνεχεία σε καταστροφικά αποτελέσματα. Η ΚΕ είναι ένας κρίσιμος παράγοντας για τη λήψη αποφάσεων και την αποτελεσματικότητα της ανθρώπινης επέμβασης σε δυναμικά περιβάλλοντα. Στην πραγματικότητα η ΚΕ είναι ένα νοητικό μοντέλο της τρέχουσας κατάστασης του περιβάλλοντος και περιλαμβάνει πολλούς τύπους πολύπλοκων συστημάτων, όπως τα συστήματα που εποπτεύουν καταστάσεις ασφάλειας. Τέλος, η εργασία θα εστιάσει σε τεχνολογίες αιχμής, όπως η Μηχανική Μάθηση, τα Νευρωνικά Δίκτυα, η Σύντηξη Πληροφοριών που είναι σήμερα κύριοι τεχνολογικοί παράγοντες για τη διατήρηση της ΚΕ σε ένα σύστημα που εποπτεύει καταστάσεις ασφάλειας.Nowadays we receive daily information about events of crises or disasters that disrupt the proper functioning of society. Crises and disasters can be the result of natural changes in the environment, climate crisis, human activity, human technologies and a combination of them. Crisis and disaster reduction is a long-standing issue for many government and international bodies, with efforts to address these environmental issues to be dynamic, complex and require persistent, rapid, collaborative and effective work from those involved. This work is an attempt to highlight the theoretical and technological background of Situational Awareness (SA) on crisis and disaster management. In our country the term SA is rarely heard, but it is a term that is used and researched abroad, for over four decades. Although several definitions have been used for the term SA, it is clear that the most widely used is Endsley’s definition. The SA plays an important role in all phases of response to crises or disasters. It is the term given to the level of awareness that an individual, a group or a system has of a situation or simply the understanding of "what is happening". Creating and maintaining a certain level of SA is an important factor in making the right decisions quickly, while, failing to achieve it can lead to disastrous decisions and subsequently disastrous results. SA is a critical factor for decision making and performance of human intervention in dynamic environments. In fact, SA is a mental model of the current state of the environment and involves many types of complex systems, such as systems that monitor security situations. Moreover, the work will focus on cutting-edge technologies, such as Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Information Fusion, which are currently the main technological factors for achieving a high level of SA in a system that monitors security situations. In the present work we study the following points of Situational Awareness: a) Overview and available models b) Specific issues c) Available applications that support the SA d) Machine learning and support of SA Finally, through this work we derive conclusion on the need to create an internet platform that will dynamically support a conceptual model of SA and will be able to meet the needs of SA both individually and collectively. This model will serve the evaluation of situations, by collecting, fusing and disseminating information from the field, while identifying the elements which will increase the confidence to the system. In addition, such a platform will assist with smart techniques the person or persons in charge in decision making, in emergency situations and in all the perspectives of SA (individual, group, system)

Distributed situation awareness: Advances in theory, measurement and application to team work

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Situation Awareness (SA) is critical commodity for teams working in complex sociotechnical systems and is thus a fundamental consideration in collaborative system design and evaluation. Despite this, SA remains predominantly an individual construct, with the majority of models and measures focused on SA from an individual perspective. In comparison, team SA has received much less attention and this thesis argues that further work is required in the area both in relation to the development of theoretical perspectives and of valid measures, and to the development of guidelines for system, training and procedure design. This thesis advances team SA theory and measurement by further investigating a recently proposed model of SA in complex collaborative environments, the Distributed Situation Awareness (DSA) approach, and by testing a new methodology for representing and analysing DSA during real world collaborative activities. A review of SA theory and SA measurement approaches is presented. Following this, the DSA theory and propositional network assessment methodology are outlined and a series of case studies on DSA during real world collaborative activities in the military and civil domains are presented. The findings are subsequently used to explore the concept of DSA and the sub-concepts of compatible and transactive SA. In conclusion, a model of DSA in complex collaborative systems is presented, and a series of system design guidelines for supporting DSA are outlined

Application of neuroergonomics in the industrial design of mining equipment.

Neuroergonomics is an interdisciplinary field merging neuroscience and ergonomics to optimize performance. In order to design an optimal user interface, we must understand the cognitive processing involved. Traditional methodology incorporates self-assessment from the user. This dissertation examines the use of neurophysiological techniques in quantifying the cognitive processing involved in allocating cognitive resources. Attentional resources, cognitive processing, memory and visual scanning are examined to test the ecological validity of theoretical laboratory settings and how they translate to real life settings. By incorporating a non-invasive measurement technique, such as the quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG), we are able to examine connectivity patterns in the brain during operation and discern whether or not a user has obtained expert status. Understanding the activation patterns during each phase of design will allow us to gauge whether our design has balanced the cognitive requirements of the user.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Natural Resources Engineerin

Producing airspace : the contested geographies of Nottingham East Midlands Airport

During the last 100 years, commercial aviation has developed into an established mode of transportation serving millions of passengers every year, but while researchers from other disciplines - most notably sociology, cultui-al history, and anthropology - have begun to appreciate the multiple dimensions of flight, geographers have written surprisingly little on the subject beyond quantitative analyses of airline networks. While perhaps understandable given the present geopolitical climate of passenger (in)security and commercial confidentiality, this nevertheless means many of the industry's significant facets have yet to be adequately charted. Considering geography's rich heritage of examining space, place, and spatial phenomena at a variety of scales, this thesis provides a distinctive contribution to theoretical and empirical knowledge by addressing the multiple geographies of airspace. Set in the context of the ongoing controversy surrounding the reorganisation offlightpaths at Nottingham East Midlands Airport (NEMA) in the United Kingdom, it considers the inherently geographical and often contested nature of airspace production. By detailing the complex interplay between how airspace is produced 'on the ground' by those who oppose its use, and 'in the air' by Air Traffic Controllers and airline pilots, it offers a new perspective for studies of geography and air transport in an age of mass aeromobility.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Cognitive Foundations for Visual Analytics

In this report, we provide an overview of scientific/technical literature on information visualization and VA. Topics discussed include an update and overview of the extensive literature search conducted for this study, the nature and purpose of the field, major research thrusts, and scientific foundations. We review methodologies for evaluating and measuring the impact of VA technologies as well as taxonomies that have been proposed for various purposes to support the VA community. A cognitive science perspective underlies each of these discussions