Quality Analysis of United States Commercial Air Carriers: Airline Quality Rating 2019

Past research regarding major U.S. commercial air carriers and consumer perceptions of airline performance has provided little more than a descriptive “snapshot” of the average air traveler. Using the most recent data and findings, as well as building on the previous 29 continuous years of research with the national Airline Quality Rating (AQR), the present study attempts to move beyond the basic descriptive information by identifying significant changes that have occurred over the previous year. Collectively, changes may influence the way consumers, at varying levels of travel frequency, view the commercial air industry. This research utilizes trend analysis methodology by examining airline data from the most current report. This approach provides a means to track airlines’ progressions and regressions in operational performance and allows for the development of theories in data shifts and trends. The development of this qualitative model also enables industry experts to enhance their understanding of the attitudinal patterns and relationships between airline performance and consumer viewpoints. Additionally, this study attempts outline the measurable results from the Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumers Report and exemplify the formula-driven, weighted averages calculated by the Airline Quality Rating. The most recent findings suggest that the airline industry has improved significantly, and the flying public has noticed this improvement in performance. Kaetlyn Blocker is a Graduate Research Assistant in ERAU Prescott\u27s College of Aviation, Master of Safety Science program

A Longitudinal Analysis on the Cyclical Pattern of the U.S. Airline Industry

The Airline Quality Rating (AQR) is the nation’s most comprehensive study of airline performance and quality for over two decades. AQR provides consumers and industry watchers a means to compare performance quality among different US airlines using objective performance-based data. This research looks to analyze the cyclical patterns present in AQR in order to identify trends and factors contributing to the changes in these results each year. This research utilizes the application of a longitudinal analysis methodology which will provide the correlation between factors identified and the indicators affected

Quality, Performance, and Consumer Perceptions: A National Study of US Airlines

Prior inquiry into consumer perceptions, attitudes, and overall satisfaction regarding commercial mainline passenger carriers in the United States has provided little more than a snapshot of the average air traveler. Building on 28 continuous years of research with the National Airline Quality Rating (AQR), this study attempts to move beyond descriptive information in order to identify relationships and trends in the airline industry’s performance and relate those observations to consumer perceptions. This study will utilize a comparative trend analysis methodology to analyze major United States Airlines\u27 performance and quality over the last 28 years. This methodology provides a means of tracking airline\u27s progressions and regressions in operational performance and allows for the development of theories in data shifts and trends. This study will attempt to exemplify the objective formula-driven weighted averages that constitute the Airline Quality Rating. The development of this qualitative model provides industry leaders with the ability to improve their understanding of airline performance and make adjustments to their operations for continued growth development. The student authors are affiliated with the Department of Safety in the College of Aviation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ. Tori Kobayashi and Kaetlyn Blocker are graduate students in the College of Aviation, MS Safety Science program. Calissa Spooner is an undergraduate student in the Industrial Psychology and Safety program

Advancing functional connectivity research from association to causation

Cognition and behavior emerge from brain network interactions, such that investigating causal interactions should be central to the study of brain function. Approaches that characterize statistical associations among neural time series-functional connectivity (FC) methods-are likely a good starting point for estimating brain network interactions. Yet only a subset of FC methods ('effective connectivity') is explicitly designed to infer causal interactions from statistical associations. Here we incorporate best practices from diverse areas of FC research to illustrate how FC methods can be refined to improve inferences about neural mechanisms, with properties of causal neural interactions as a common ontology to facilitate cumulative progress across FC approaches. We further demonstrate how the most common FC measures (correlation and coherence) reduce the set of likely causal models, facilitating causal inferences despite major limitations. Alternative FC measures are suggested to immediately start improving causal inferences beyond these common FC measures

Airline Customer Satisfaction 2015-2017 Results

Previous research on perceptions, satisfaction, and attitudes regarding the major commercial air carriers in the United States has provided little more than an interesting descriptive representation of the average air traveler. This study moves beyond basic descriptive information of air travelers to identify attitudinal patterns and relationships in the way consumers at varying levels of travel frequency view the commercial air industry. The Airline Passenger Survey (APS) elements developed via the utilization of rigorous scientific methodology, with the intention of capturing the most important data from passengers while reducing confusion or variability in comprehension of questions. APS items are a combination of demographic variables, categorical data, and Likert-type scale responses asking participants to evaluate statements regarding the current state of the airline industry

Chimeric antigen receptors that trigger phagocytosis

Chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) are synthetic receptors that reprogram T cells to kill cancer. The success of CAR-T cell therapies highlights the promise of programmed immunity and suggests that applying CAR strategies to other immune cell lineages may be beneficial. Here, we engineered a family of Chimeric Antigen Receptors for Phagocytosis (CAR-Ps) that direct macrophages to engulf specific targets, including cancer cells. CAR-Ps consist of an extracellular antibody fragment, which can be modified to direct CAR-P activity towards specific antigens. By screening a panel of engulfment receptor intracellular domains, we found that the cytosolic domains from Megf10 and FcRɣ robustly triggered engulfment independently of their native extracellular domain. We show that CAR-Ps drive specific engulfment of antigen-coated synthetic particles and whole human cancer cells. Addition of a tandem PI3K recruitment domain increased cancer cell engulfment. Finally, we show that CAR-P expressing murine macrophages reduce cancer cell number in co-culture by over 40%

Direct Observation of Martensitic Phase-Transformation Dynamics in Iron by 4D Single-Pulse Electron Microscopy

The in situ martensitic phase transformation of iron, a complex solid-state transition involving collective atomic displacement and interface movement, is studied in real time by means of four-dimensional (4D) electron microscopy. The iron nanofilm specimen is heated at a maximum rate of ∼10^(11) K/s by a single heating pulse, and the evolution of the phase transformation from body-centered cubic to face-centered cubic crystal structure is followed by means of single-pulse, selected-area diffraction and real-space imaging. Two distinct components are revealed in the evolution of the crystal structure. The first, on the nanosecond time scale, is a direct martensitic transformation, which proceeds in regions heated into the temperature range of stability of the fcc phase, 1185−1667 K. The second, on the microsecond time scale, represents an indirect process for the hottest central zone of laser heating, where the temperature is initially above 1667 K and cooling is the rate-determining step. The mechanism of the direct transformation involves two steps, that of (barrier-crossing) nucleation on the reported nanosecond time scale, followed by a rapid grain growth typically in ∼100 ps for 10 nm crystallites

A Preparative Method for the Isolation and Fractionation of Dissolved Organic Acids from Bitumen-influenced Waters

The surface mining of oil sands north of Fort McMurray, Alberta produces considerable tailings waste that is stored in large tailings ponds on industrial lease sites. Viable strategies for the detoxification of oil sands process affected water (OSPW) are under investigation. In order to assess the toxic potential of the suite of dissolved organics in OSPW, a method for their extraction and fractionation was developed using solid phase extraction. The method successfully isolated organic compounds from 180 L of an aged OSPW source. Using acidic- or alkaline-conditioned non-polar ENV+ resin and soxhlet extraction with ethyl acetate and methanol, three fractions (F1–F3) were generated. Chemical characterization of the generated fractions included infusion to electrospray ionization ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry (ESI-UHRMS), liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry, gas chromatography triple quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (SFS). Additionally, ESI-UHRMS class distribution data and SFS identified an increased degree of oxygenation and aromaticity, associated with increased polarity. Method validation, which included method and matrix spikes with surrogate and labelled organic mono carboxylic acid standards, confirmed separation according to acidity and polarity with generally good recoveries (average 76%). Because this method is capable of extracting large sample volumes, it is amenable to thorough chemical characterization and toxicological assessments with a suite of bioassays. As such, this protocol will facilitate effects-directed analysis of toxic components within bitumen-influenced waters from a variety of sources

Tailoring the Response of Silicon Photonics Devices

Abstract: Shrinking waveguide dimensions in silicon photonics results in a series of performance enhancements, but at some cost. We analyse the waveguide geometry in optical modulators and filters to address some issues associated with this trend. Silicon photonics has experienced rapid development for the last three years and several significant results have been reported, demonstrating the viability of the technology [e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4]. One of the recent trends in silicon photonics has been the reduction of waveguide dimensions. This reduction facilitates tighter bending radii and therefore a smaller device footprint which in turn, significantly reduces the cost. Furthermore, technical performance of many silicon photonic devices is enhanced. However, there are also some issues with this trend to smaller dimensions, notably increased propagation losses, increased polarisation dependence and difficulty in coupling to/from optical fibres. These issues can be overcome with a careful design of the waveguide and device geometry. We have previously shown that by reducing waveguide dimensions, multi-GHz bandwidth optical modulators can be achieved by utilising a horizontal pn junction in a waveguide with an overall height of 450 nm In order to improve the polarisation performance to approach polarisation independence of the modulator, we propose here a modulator with a pn junction that is a V-shape structure, as shown in Highly doped silicon Silicon dioxide Highly doped silicon Highly doped silico