Toward a Human Performance Standard of Excellence in Air Traffic Management

Air Traffic Management (ATM) is a 24/7 industry that strongly depends on people and needs its frontline staff to be on top performance to maintain safety and efficiency of the air transport system. However, Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) too often downplay the integration of human performance against higher priority operational and business issues. At the same time, human factors experts are sometimes challenged in communicating their tools and methods in ways that are seen as pertinent to ANSP issues. In order to bridge these organizational stove pipes, an international approach is being harmonized for ANSPs to gauge their maturity for how human performance is integrated across ATM system design, development and operation. A Human Performance Standard of Excellence (HPSoE) frames a business case to invest in human performance using three axes and associated assessment scales: Business Vision (appreciation of the role of human performance in the safe delivery of service), Human Performance (focusing on all job-related factors at individual, group, and organizational levels), and Human Factors (applying scientific knowledge to optimize human - system performance)

Photoactivated cell-killing involving a low molecular weight, donor-acceptor diphenylacetylene

Photoactivation of photosensitisers can be utilised to elicit the production of ROS, for potential therapeutic applications, including the destruction of diseased tissues and tumours. A novel class of photosensitiser, exemplified by DC324, has been designed possessing a modular, low molecular weight ‘drug-like’ structure which is bioavailable and can be photoactivated by UV-A/405 nm or corresponding two-photon absorption of near-IR (800 nm) light, resulting in powerful cytotoxic activity, ostensibly through the production of ROS in a cellular environment. A variety of in vitro cellular assays confirmed ROS formation and in vivo cytotoxic activity was exemplified via irradiation and subsequent targeted destruction of specific areas of a zebrafish embryo