Pilot/Controller Coordinated Decision Making in the Next Generation Air Transportation System

Introduction: NextGen technologies promise to provide considerable benefits in terms of enhancing operations and improving safety. However, there needs to be a thorough human factors evaluation of the way these systems will change the way in which pilot and controllers share information. The likely impact of these new technologies on pilot/controller coordinated decision making is considered in this paper using the "operational, informational and evaluative disconnect" framework. Method: Five participant focus groups were held. Participants were four experts in human factors, between x and x research students and a technical expert. The participant focus group evaluated five key NextGen technologies to identify issues that made different disconnects more or less likely. Results: Issues that were identified were: Decision Making will not necessarily improve because pilots and controllers possess the same information; Having a common information source does not mean pilots and controllers are looking at the same information; High levels of automation may lead to disconnects between the technology and pilots/controllers; Common information sources may become the definitive source for information; Overconfidence in the automation may lead to situations where appropriate breakdowns are not initiated. Discussion: The issues that were identified lead to recommendations that need to be considered in the development of NextGen technologies. The current state of development of these technologies provides a good opportunity to utilize recommendations at an early stage so that NextGen technologies do not lead to difficulties in resolving breakdowns in coordinated decision making

Archives, Memory, and Interfaces with the Past

Archival interfaces are criticalnodes in archival systems where archivistsnegotiate and exercise power over theconstitution and representation of archives. Drawing on notions of interfaces from physical,technological, and computer systems, archivalinterfaces are both a metaphor for archivists'roles as intermediaries between documentaryevidence and its readers and a tangible set ofstructures and tools that place archivaldocuments in a context and provide aninterpretative framework. Interfaces in moderninstitutions and technological systems areneither natural nor neutral. In probingarchival interfaces, what may appear as neutraland objective processes are revealed as placeswhere archivists determine what constituteslegitimate evidence of the past and shapesocial memories. The emergence of computerinterfaces as an increasingly common mode ofuser interaction with archives demands thatarchivists confront the interpretative natureof their work and exploit opportunities toplace themselves visibly in the interfaces theyconstruct.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41817/1/10502_2004_Article_5096450.pd

Основы творческой деятельности веб-журналиста. Учебная программа учреждения высшего образования по учебной дисциплине для специальности: 1-23 01 08 Журналистика (по направлениям) направления специальности 1-23 01 08-03 Журналистика (веб-журналистика)

Wildfires pose a serious threat to life in many countries. For police, fire and emergency services authorities in most jurisdictions in North America and Australia evacuation is now the option that is preferred overwhelmingly. Wildfire evacuation modeling can assist authorities in planning evacuation responses to future threats. Understanding residents' behavior under wildfire threat may assist in wildfire evacuation modeling. This paper reviews North American and Australian research into wildfire evacuation behavior published between January 2005 and June 2017. Wildfire evacuation policies differ across the two regions: in North America mandatory evacuations are favored, in Australia most are advisory. Research from both regions indicates that following a wildfire evacuation warning some threatened residents will wish to remain on their property in order to protect it, many will delay evacuating, and some residents who are not on their property when an evacuation warning is issued may seek to return. Mandatory evacuation is likely to result in greater compliance, enforcement policies are also likely to be influential. Self-delayed evacuation is likely if warnings are not sufficiently informative: residents are likely to engage in information search rather than initiating evacuation actions. The wildfire warning and threat histories of a location may influence residents' decisions and actions. The complexities of behavioral factors influencing residents' actions following an evacuation warning pose challenges for wildfire evacuation modeling. Suggestions are offered for ways in which authorities might reduce the numbers of residents who delay evacuating following a wildfire warning. © 2018 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Natur

Decision making, team monitoring and organisational performance. Part three, Team performance monitoring research stream

This research report is a report for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC project: Practical Decision Tools for Improved Decision-Making in Complex Situations. The project plan for this research includes three main research streams: Decision making, team monitoring and organizational performance. The initial work in the project has identified that the three research streams in the project are best treated as interrelated but distinct bodies of work. Each of the research streams has been coordinated by one of the principal researchers in the project and each research stream is thus considered separately. While we have chosen to present the research streams individually there is a large degree of interrelation between the streams, particularly between the team monitoring and organizational performance streams; and both are informed by the decision-making tranche of work. The interdependence of these streams will be emphasized in later phases of the research project. This report presents an overview of the work conducted in each of the three research streams. More information about each of these research streams is contained in three separate reports called respectively: Decision Making, Team Monitoring & Organizational Performance. The overview of research conducted so far is followed by a section that outlines the next stages of the project

Key technology-related human factors issues

Introducing new technology generally has the potential to improve safety and/or efficiency. For example, Positive Train Control is designed to both enhance operations and increase safety. Positive Train Control is designed to protect the train from driver error by applying the brakes if the system thinks the driver will over-speed, pass a signal showing a red aspect or operate outside limits set by train controllers (Wreathall, Woods, Bing and Christoffersen, 2007). This seeks to reduce driver errors that lead to worker injuries, harm to the general public and significant economic losses for the rail operators (Wreathall, Woods et al., 2007). According to Wreathall, Woods et al. (2007), the US National Transportation Safety Board has identified over 100 collisions that could have been avoided by a full-function Positive Train Control system. The installation of a similar system in the UK (known as the Train Protection Warning System, TPWS) that intervenes if the train is predicted to over-speed or fail to stop at a red signal has led to a 22 per cent reduction in signals passed at danger (SPADs) and an estimated 86 per cent reduction in overall risk (Rail Accident Investigation Branch, 2008). This presents an impressive case for the installation of such systems in the rail industry

Improving teamwork

Effective teamwork is vital when managing emergencies. High pressure situations sometimes cause a breakdown in teamwork leading to poor operational response. New research has developed tools to help improve teamwork through better real time identification and resolution of teamwork issues

Factors affecting the decision making of pilots who fly in outback Australia

The objective of this paper is to explore factors that affect the decision making of bush pilots who fly in the Outback Australia. To date, the findings and theories of how pilots make decisions have predominantly been based around large-scale commercial operations. Only a small number of studies have identified factors that affect the decision making of bush Pilots flying small commercial operations. These previous studies have predominantly focused on Alaskan pilots and no studies have considered bush pilots in Australia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve pilots aged between 24 and 63 years. Participants were asked to discuss their experiences of flying in the Australian Outback. Factors that affected pilots’ decision making were extracted from the transcripts using a thematic analysis technique. Factors that affected Australian Outback pilots’ decision making could be categorized into three main themes; organizational, social, and personal factors. Broad similarities exist between these factors and those that affect the decision making of pilots in Alaska, although some unique factors could be identified. This study builds on the literature of factors that can influence the flight-related decision of bush pilots and is the first study to examine this topic in an Australian context. Gaining a better understanding of the factors that can lead bush pilots to make poor decisions will allow initiatives to be developed that provide safety skills for all of the people involved in a flight

Resistance to technology

One of the main questions that people ask about resistance to technology is ‘Why?’ Why are people resistant to the implementation of new technology? There has been limited research in this area in the transportation domain, although researchers from other domains have looked at this question in slightly different ways, yielding a considerable body of literature on this issue. This research is placed into sections in this chapter that provide a partial answer to this question. These sections are: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the technology; perceived impact on the user; individual characteristics; social influences; and organisational factors. While these sections provide a partial answer to the question of why people are resistant to technology, it should be pointed out that resistance to any given technology is likely to be a combination of these reasons for both individuals and groups. It is also important to keep in mind that resistance should not be discounted or ignored as some of the reasons for resistance are justified and could play an important role in ensuring safety and avoiding implementation of costly equipment that has little benefit to the organisation

Making effective use of task analysis to identify human factors issues in new rail technology

Task analysis is an important tool that enables designers to consider the human factors implications of a new technology. This paper details a task analysis for the task of driving long-haul freight trains in Australia and describes how this task analysis was used to evaluate a new in-cab information support technology. This paper then explores similarities and differences between this task analysis and one proposed by Roth and Multer (2009). It is argued that these two task analyses can form the basis for many future task analyses so that we can avoid ‘reinventing the wheel,’ allowing us to focus more on potential interesting differences between operations and geographical locations

A day in the life of a volunteer incident commander errors, pressures and mitigating strategies /

To meet an identified gap in the literature this paper investigates the tasks that a volunteer incident commander needs to carry out during an incident, the errors that can be made and the way that errors are managed. In addition, pressure from goal seduction and situation aversion were also examined. Volunteer incident commanders participated in a two-part interview consisting of a critical decision method interview and discussions about a hierarchical task analysis constructed by the authors. A SHERPA analysis was conducted to further identify potential errors. The results identified the key tasks, errors with extreme risk, pressures from strong situations and mitigating strategies for errors and pressures. The errors and pressures provide a basic set of issues that need to be managed by both volunteer incident commanders and fire agencies. The mitigating strategies identified here suggest some ways that this can be done