Shipboard Crisis Management: A Case Study.

The loss of the "Green Lily" in 1997 is used as a case study to highlight the characteristics of escalating crises. As in similar safety critical industries, these situations are unpredictable events that may require co-ordinated but flexible and creative responses from individuals and teams working in stressful conditions. Fundamental skill requirements for crisis management are situational awareness and decision making. This paper reviews the naturalistic decision making (NDM) model for insights into the nature of these skills and considers the optimal training regimes to cultivate them. The paper concludes with a review of the issues regarding the assessment of crisis management skills and current research into the determination of behavioural markers for measuring competence

The neighbourhood physical environment and active travel in older adults : a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Perceived and objectively-assessed aspects of the neighbourhood physical environment have been postulated to be key contributors to regular engagement in active travel (AT) in older adults. We systematically reviewed the literature on neighbourhood physical environmental correlates of AT in older adults and applied a novel meta-analytic approach to statistically quantify the strength of evidence for environment-AT associations. METHODS: Forty two quantitative studies that estimated associations of aspects of the neighbourhood built environment with AT in older adults (aged ≥ 65 years) and met selection criteria were reviewed and meta-analysed. Findings were analysed according to five AT outcomes (total walking for transport, within-neighbourhood walking for transport, combined walking and cycling for transport, cycling for transport, and all AT outcomes combined) and seven categories of the neighbourhood physical environment (residential density/urbanisation, walkability, street connectivity, access to/availability of services/destinations, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, aesthetics and cleanliness/order, and safety and traffic). RESULTS: Most studies examined correlates of total walking for transport. A sufficient amount of evidence of positive associations with total walking for transport was found for residential density/urbanisation, walkability, street connectivity, overall access to destinations/services, land use mix, pedestrian-friendly features and access to several types of destinations. Littering/vandalism/decay was negatively related to total walking for transport. Limited evidence was available on correlates of cycling and combined walking and cycling for transport, while sufficient evidence emerged for a positive association of within-neighbourhood walking with pedestrian-friendly features and availability of benches/sitting facilities. Correlates of all AT combined mirrored those of walking for transport. Positive associations were also observed with food outlets, business/institutional/industrial destinations, availability of street lights, easy access to building entrance and human and motorised traffic volume. Several but inconsistent individual- and environmental-level moderators of associations were identified. CONCLUSIONS: Results support strong links between the neighbourhood physical environment and older adults’ AT. Future research should focus on the identification of types and mixes of destinations that support AT in older adults and how these interact with individual characteristics and other environmental factors. Future research should also aim to clarify dose-response relationships through multi-country investigations and data-pooling from diverse geographical regions. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12966-017-0471-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Quantum retrodiction in open systems

Quantum retrodiction involves finding the probabilities for various preparation events given a measurement event. This theory has been studied for some time but mainly as an interesting concept associated with time asymmetry in quantum mechanics. Recent interest in quantum communications and cryptography, however, has provided retrodiction with a potential practical application. For this purpose quantum retrodiction in open systems should be more relevant than in closed systems isolated from the environment. In this paper we study retrodiction in open systems and develop a general master equation for the backward time evolution of the measured state, which can be used for calculating preparation probabilities. We solve the master equation, by way of example, for the driven two-level atom coupled to the electromagnetic field.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

Retrodiction with two-level atoms: atomic previvals

In the Jaynes-Cummings model a two-level atom interacts with a single-mode electromagnetic field. Quantum mechanics predicts collapses and revivals in the probability that a measurement will show the atom to be excited at various times after the initial preparation of the atom and field. In retrodictive quantum mechanics we seek the probability that the atom was prepared in a particular state given the initial state of the field and the outcome of a later measurement on the atom. Although this is not simply the time reverse of the usual predictive problem, we demonstrate in this paper that retrodictive collapses and revivals also exist. We highlight the differences between predictive and retrodictive evolutions and describe an interesting situation where the prepared state is essentially unretrodictable.Comment: 15 pages, 3 (5) figure

Retrodiction as a tool for micromaser field measurements

We use retrodictive quantum theory to describe cavity field measurements by successive atomic detections in the micromaser. We calculate the state of the micromaser cavity field prior to detection of sequences of atoms in either the excited or ground state, for atoms that are initially prepared in the excited state. This provides the POM elements, which describe such sequences of measurements.Comment: 20 pages, 4(8) figure

Perceptual Justification and the Cartesian Theater

According to a traditional Cartesian epistemology of perception, perception does not provide one with direct knowledge of the external world. Instead, your immediate perceptual evidence is limited to facts about your own visual experience, from which conclusions about the external world must be inferred. Cartesianism faces well-known skeptical challenges. But this chapter argues that any anti-Cartesian view strong enough to avoid these challenges must license a way of updating one’s beliefs in response to anticipated experiences that seems diachronically irrational. To avoid this result, the anti-Cartesian must either license an unacceptable epistemic chauvinism, or else claim that merely reflecting on one’s experiences defeats perceptual justification. This leaves us with a puzzle: Although Cartesianism faces problems, avoiding them brings a new set of problems

Inferential Justification and the Transparency of Belief

This paper critically examines currently influential transparency accounts of our knowledge of our own beliefs that say that self-ascriptions of belief typically are arrived at by “looking outward” onto the world. For example, one version of the transparency account says that one self-ascribes beliefs via an inference from a premise to the conclusion that one believes that premise. This rule of inference reliably yields accurate self-ascriptions because you cannot infer a conclusion from a premise without believing the premise, and so you cannot infer from a premise that you believe the premise unless you do believe it. I argue that this procedure cannot be a source of justification, however, because one can be justified in inferring from p that q only if p amounts to strong evidence that q is true. This is incompatible with the transparency account because p often is not very strong evidence that you believe that p. For example, unless you are a weather expert, the fact that it will rain is not very strong evidence that you believe it will rain. After showing how this intuitive problem can be made precise, I conclude with a broader lesson about the nature of inferential justification: that beliefs, when justified, must be underwritten by beliefs, when justified, must be underwritten by evidential relationships between the facts or propositions which those beliefs represent

Experiences influencing degree completion articulated by doctoral students in education administration.

Educational literature indicates that approximately half of all doctoral students persist to degree completion. The literature indicates persistence rates among the social sciences are even lower. This study examined factors influencing doctoral student persistence in education administration programs. Tinto\u27s theory of graduate student persistence framed four research questions: Do the demographics of doctoral students persisting to degree completion in education administration differ from those not completing their programs? Do doctoral students in education administration programs articulate experiences of academic integration as influencing their persistence? Do doctoral students in education administration programs articulate experiences of social integration as influencing their persistence? Do doctoral students in education administration programs attribute commitments to external obligations as influencing their persistence? The design of the study was interpretive and exploratory in nature and utilized constant comparative analysis techniques. Survey and interview were used to collect participant views of doctoral student experiences. Participants (N = 30) for the study included those who had completed their dissertations (N = 15) and those who were All But Dissertation (N = 15) and attended two comprehensive research universities in the southeastern United States. The major findings from the study were that (a) no differences existed in demographics reported by degree completers and ABO participants; (b) degree completers described experiences related to academic integration, social integration, and external obligations as having sustaining effects on their perSistence to degree completion; (c) and ABO participants described experiences related to academic integration, social integration, and external obligations as having restraining effects on their perSistence. Findings indicated that students having positive academic and social integration experiences and the ability to negotiate shared responsibility for duties related to external obligations were more likely to complete their programs. Findings also supported that students having negative academic and social integration experiences and an inability to negotiate shared responsibility for duties related to external obligations were less likely to complete their programs