Integrated Maritime Simulation Complex Management, Quality And Training Effectiveness From The Perspective Of Modeling And Simulation In The State Of Florida, USA (A Case Study)

Naturally, maritime training simulators at all events are valuable instructional and pedagogical tools. Through the history, the maritime simulation was utilized to train prospective maritime apprentices in whom it has filled the gap left by the acute shortage of opportunities for jobs onboard vessels around the globe. However, professional seafarers are the axis of success and competitiveness in the field of maritime training. They are the ones that, who are well trained and have the responsibilities of their work and the surrounding environment. In order to achieve the success along with effective training skills, both maritime companies and seafarers should implement a management of safety onboard ships, which only can be executed through the effective usage of the Bridge Resource Management (BRM) and righteous maritime simulation training. Qualitative upgrading of the maritime training process at higher education levels depends predominantly on the instructive value of the instructors\u27 educational software and the content of these programs which contains advanced and intelligent scenarios that benefit positively in providing effective training in order to, transfer and implement their gained skills from virtual reality to the actual environment with minimal risks and additionally to avoid the unforeseen occurrences at sea. The outcomes of the evaluation have shown the instructional suitability of the maritime educational scheme and significant capabilities, it provides, as well as the domains and frameworks for its instructional development. The above facts are substantial in the refinement and improvement of the current maritime education and growth of the apprentices\u27 capabilities and the professionalism of their skills, along with the farthest purpose of creating more educated marine navigators in the worldwide merchant fleet. This research proposes and demonstrates in details the purpose of the maritime simulation training complexes, the elements that if provided, will lead to an effective maritime simulation training, types of maritime simulation, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), its tools and its power for the effectiveness of the maritime simulation training through different conventions & codes and the future for the maritime simulation training, in order to emphasize and accentuate the interplay between instructors and apprentices in an integrated maritime simulation complex on which a serious maritime event is taking place. The distillation of this thesis draws an attention to the effectiveness of the partnership between maritime apprentices and their instructors across a maritime simulation training complex scheme during a virtual maritime scenario event in an advanced facilities located in the state of Florida, which is armed with modern technology, provides both added stimulation for the apprentice himself and elevates the simulator a degree toward a vessel for practical training and/or sailing

Fire Management on Container Ships. New Strategies and Technologies

Design and construction of container ships follow consolidated requirements, with standard consideration of fire management. Indeed, cargo fires can have important consequence on crewmembers and cargoes, as well as impacting coastal zone and marine environment. Innovative strategies include prevention of events and mitigation of consequences. Digital solutions, providing with situational pictures onboard and around the vessel are fundamental for new fire management solutions, seamless and integrated in o the vessel IT infrastructure, according to IMO regulations and the recent EMSA CARGOSAFE Report. The assessment of these solutions requires theoretical evaluation, validation activities in simulated environment and demonstration activities in real environments, with use cases to prove feasibility and benefits. This paper, after a review of traditional preventing and mitigating solutions against fire and an analysis of container ships fires, proposes applicable innovative technologies and operational measures, emerging problems for their potential implementation and requirements for virtual and real tests design

KILO HŌKŪ: A VIRTUAL REALITY SIMULATION FOR NON-INSTRUMENT HAWAIIAN NAVIGATION

M.S

Taking Immersive VR Leap in Training of Landing Signal Officers

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2016.2518098A major training device used to train all Landing Signal Officers (LSOs) for several decades has been the Landing Signal Officer Trainer, Device 2H111. This simulator, located in Oceana, VA, is contained within a two story tall room; it consists of several large screens and a physical rendition of the actual instruments used by LSOs in their operational environment. The young officers who serve in this specialty will typically encounter this system for only a short period of formal instruction (six one-hour long sessions), leaving multiple gaps in training. While experience with 2H111 is extremely valuable for all LSO officers, the amount of time they can spend using this training device is undeniably too short. The need to provide LSOs with an unlimited number of training opportunities unrestricted by location and time, married with recent advancements in commercial off the shelf (COTS) immersive technologies, provided an ideal platform to create a lightweight training solution that would fill those gaps and extend beyond the capabilities currently offered in the 2H111 simulator. This paper details our efforts on task analysis, surveying of user domain, mapping of 2H111 training capabilities to new prototype system to ensure its support of major training objectives of 2H111, design and development of prototype training system, and a feasibility study that included tests of technical system performance and informal testing with trainees at the LSO Schoolhouse. The results achieved in this effort indicate that the time for LSO training to make the leap to immersive VR has decidedly come

Empirical Comparisons of Virtual Environment Displays

There are many different visual display devices used in virtual environment (VE) systems. These displays vary along many dimensions, such as resolution, field of view, level of immersion, quality of stereo, and so on. In general, no guidelines exist to choose an appropriate display for a particular VE application. Our goal in this work is to develop such guidelines on the basis of empirical results. We present two initial experiments comparing head-mounted displays with a workbench display and a foursided spatially immersive display. The results indicate that the physical characteristics of the displays, users' prior experiences, and even the order in which the displays are presented can have significant effects on performance

How the Manila amendments to the STCW code enhance training in maritime safety and security

This paper shows the changes that have occurred to the Manila Amendments to the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers Code (STCW 2010 Code). In the School of Maritime Engineering of the University of Cantabria with the degrees in Nautical Engineering and Maritime Transport (Deck Officers), Marine Engineering (Engine Officers) and Maritime Engineering (Naval Engineering), we have taken into consideration all these changes and have adapted them to the academic training of the STCW 2010 Code. We recognize the need to train our maritime protection students (future officers, Captains and Chief Engineers of the Spanish Merchant Marine) with the latest and most effective tools and protocols. Thanks to the Maritime Collaborative Website of the Spanish Navy (ENCOMAR) we can complement and ensure the theoretical and practical training of our students to improve their knowledge on Maritime Security.Postprint (published version

Regional Emergency Response Teams: Case Studies in Hampton Roads, Virginia

The majority of local governments lack sufficient resources to respond effectively in an independent manner to a disaster or large-scale emergency. To achieve success, they must work closely with other organizations. The research problem is that regional emergency response relationships are not well understood, which could lead to ineffective or inefficient practices. The research purpose was to describe and analyze regional emergency response in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The research methodology involved a qualitative approach, utilizing interviews and archival research. Organizational leaders of the Hampton Roads Marine Incident Response Team and the Southside Tidewater Regional Hazardous Materials Response Team were interviewed to solicit their perspectives on the manner in which leadership, management and the environment influenced the development and sustenance of regional emergency response teams. Additionally, foundational documents for each team were studied to assess their influence on team administration. The research was based on collaboration theory. A research model identified as the model of regional emergency response was developed from the literature and used as a framework for the study. The findings suggest that regional emergency response teams may take very varied forms, customized to meet individual programmatic needs. These teams may be collaborative in nature, but are more likely to exhibit mixed characteristics, including those associated with coordination or cooperation. In contrast to collaborative endeavors associated with economic development, health care and education, which require the active engagement of the top tiers of an organization, regional emergency teams such as those studied here appear to be developed and operated at much lower levels of an organization, supported, only when needed, by the formal leadership of an organization. The findings also suggested there were four pre-conditions necessary for the development of regional emergency response teams structured to share resources, including the existence of a clear goal, the integration of cost-sharing mechanisms, strong support from individual organizations, and a strict focus on the strategic vision. The findings of this research may be used to encourage or facilitate the development of regional emergency response, thereby making regions better prepared for emergency incidents

A framework based on Gaussian mixture models and Kalman filters for the segmentation and tracking of anomalous events in shipboard video

Anomalous indications in monitoring equipment on board U.S. Navy vessels must be handled in a timely manner to prevent catastrophic system failure. The development of sensor data analysis techniques to assist a ship\u27s crew in monitoring machinery and summon required ship-to-shore assistance is of considerable benefit to the Navy. In addition, the Navy has a large interest in the development of distance support technology in its ongoing efforts to reduce manning on ships. In this thesis, algorithms have been developed for the detection of anomalous events that can be identified from the analysis of monochromatic stationary ship surveillance video streams. The specific anomalies that we have focused on are the presence and growth of smoke and fire events inside the frames of the video stream. The algorithm consists of the following steps. First, a foreground segmentation algorithm based on adaptive Gaussian mixture models is employed to detect the presence of motion in a scene. The algorithm is adapted to emphasize gray-level characteristics related to smoke and fire events in the frame. Next, shape discriminant features in the foreground are enhanced using morphological operations. Following this step, the anomalous indication is tracked between frames using Kalman filtering. Finally, gray level shape and motion features corresponding to the anomaly are subjected to principal component analysis and classified using a multilayer perceptron neural network. The algorithm is exercised on 68 video streams that include the presence of anomalous events (such as fire and smoke) and benign/nuisance events (such as humans walking the field of view). Initial results show that the algorithm is successful in detecting anomalies in video streams, and is suitable for application in shipboard environments

Interface familiarity restores active advantage in a virtual exploration and reconstruction task in children.

Active exploration is reportedly better than passive observation of spatial displacements in real environments, for the acquisition of relational spatial information, especially by children. However, a previous study using a virtual environment (VE) showed that children in a passive observation condition performed better than actives when asked to reconstruct in reality the environment explored virtually. Active children were unpractised in using the input device, which may have detracted from any active advantage, since input device operation may be regarded as a concurrent task, increasing cognitive load and spatial working memory demands. To examine this possibility, 7-8-year-old children in the present study were given 5 minutes of training with the joystick input device. When compared with passive participants for spatial learning, active participants gave a better performance than passives, placing objects significantly more accurately. The importance of interface training when using VEs for assessment and training was discussed