Factors Affecting Passengers’ Acceptance of Single Pilot Operations: A Qualitative Study conducted in Greece

Single Pilot Operations (SPO) have drawn significant attention during the last years, as a result of the increased dual flight crew expenses, and as a remedy to the impending pilot shortage which is estimated to manifest itself in the following years. The main objective of this study was to explore the factors that influence the Greek passengers’ acceptance of SPO. To that end, 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed through Thematic Analysis by combining both a priori and inductive coding procedures. Qualitative findings of this process revealed seven factors influencing passengers’ intention to accept and fly with a SPO aircraft. The three predominant factors were the reputation of the airline company, the degree of passengers’ knowledge regarding SPO safety, and the track record of successful SPO over time. Furthermore, four additional factors were found to influence passengers’ intention such as the urgency to travel, the price of the SPO tickets, the social pressure, and the duration of the flight. By drawing on the current study’s findings, specific recommendations are proposed in the case of SPO implementation, especially from the industry’s perspective. Finally, it is advised for any future SPO marketing strategy to take into consideration such factors that can eventually result in a smoother transition to single-piloted flights

Single Pilot Operations and Public Acceptance: A Mixed Methods Study conducted in Greece

The airline industry is moving towards Single Pilot Operations (SPO), as a result of the increased training and salary cost of pilots, and also as a remedy to the impending pilot shortage which is estimated to manifest itself in the years to follow. The main objective of this study was to explore whether the Greek public is willing to accept only one pilot onboard, what are the factors that affect this decision, and which is the preferred method of replacing the second pilot by choosing between an array of alternative options proposed by the industry. Based on the qualitative findings of previous research, a close-ended scale was developed to explore the attitudes of the public quantitatively (N=414) through exploratory factor analysis and inferential statistics. Results showed a fairly negative attitude of the public towards SPO (mean score of 3.61 on a differential scale of 1-7). Also, the result of the exploratory factor analysis included three factors, namely, the inherent concerns of the passengers, the degree of passenger’s safety awareness and the reputation of the airline company. Lastly, the participants of this study showed a preference for combining highly-sophisticated technology such as advanced automation with a permanent ground operator as the optimum solution to replacing the second pilot. It is recommended that an integrated marketing strategy should be implemented at this time, so as to facilitate a smoother transition to SPO. This strategy should take into serious consideration the factors that affect the public’s intention to accept SPO. Finally, despite the overall conservative attitude of the passengers, there was no evidence of an impending failure of this innovation to diffuse into the market

Electrical Vehicles: Current State of the Art, Future Challenges, and Perspectives

The goal of the study presented in this article is to provide a general overview of the various aspects related to electric vehicles (EVs), along with all associated emerging challenges and perspectives. In this context, the basic types of EVs and the corresponding charging technologies are analyzed. Since EVs are expected to be a key component of future smart electrical grids (SEG), connection to the grid issues, along with advanced charging techniques (i.e., wireless power transfer), are analyzed as well. To this end, the main features, the requirements of vehicle to grid (V2G) communications, as well as future developments and scenarios of electrification, are also presented and analyzed. Moreover, integration issues with currently deployed fifth generation (5G) mobile wireless networks are also outlined, in order to ensure optimum transmission and reception quality in V2G communications and improved user experience. This integration is also expanded in autonomous vehicles (AVs) technology (self-driving objects), since optimized information processing from various diverse sources is required in order to ensure advanced traffic management aspects. Document type: Articl

Spectrophotometric analysis of crown discoloration induced by MTA- and ZnOE-based sealers

Crown discoloration can be induced by root canal sealer remnants following root canal treatment. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate chromatic alterations in human tooth crowns induced by a Mineral Trioxide Aggregate-based sealer (MTA Fillapex®) and a commonly used ZnOE-based sealer (Roth-811). The tested null hypothesis was that the application of the materials did not induce clinically perceptible crown discoloration (Ho: CIE color difference Δ

Integrating multi-disciplinary discussion in clinical practice

Interstitial lung diseases are very heterogeneous. We present a case of usual interstitial pneumonia pattern on high resolution computed tomography of the chest that was diagnosed successfully after multi-disciplinary discussion. Pulmonologists should be aware of the pitfalls in the diagnostic management of interstitial lung diseases, especially in cases with atypical clinical presentation and systemic signs and symptoms

Antivascular Endothelial Growth Factor Agents for Neovascular Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of severe visual loss and blindness over the age of 50 in developed countries. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is considered as a critical molecule in the pathogenesis of choroidal neovascularization (CNV), which characterizes the neovascular AMD. Anti-VEGF agents are considered the most promising way of effectively inhibition of the neovascular AMD process. VEGF is a heparin-binding glycoprotein with potent angiogenic, mitogenic and vascular permeability-enhancing activities specific for endothelial cells. Two anti-VEGF agents have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of neovascular AMD. Pegaptanib sodium, which is an aptamer and ranibizumab, which is a monoclonal antibody fragment. Another humanized monoclonal antibody is currently off-label used, bevacizumab. This paper aims to discuss in details the effectiveness, the efficacy and safety of these three anti-VEGF agents. New anti-VEGF compounds which are recently investigated for their clinical usage (VEGF-trap, small interfering RNA) are also discussed for their promising outcomes

A case of subretinal neovascularization treated with intravitreal ranibizumab in a patient with idiopathic juxtafoveal retinal telangiectasis

A 65-year-old lady presented with decreased vision in her left eye (LE). Best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) was 1/20. Complete examination showed idiopathic juxtafoveal retinal telangiectasis associated with subretinal neovascularization and she was treated with intravitreal ranibizumab every month for three months in the LE. After four months, her BCVA increased to 3/10. Fluorescein angiography (FA) showed minimal leakage and optical coherence tomography (OCT) confirmed absence of intra- or subretinal fluid in the macula. Examinations were repeated monthly for another 12 months and showed no recurrence. Intravitreal ranibizumab showed promising results for subretinal neovascularization due to idiopathic juxtafoveal retinal telangiectasis. A prospective study with large series of patients and controls may be necessary in order to determine the effectiveness of this treatment

Partially Oblivious Neural Network Inference

Oblivious inference is the task of outsourcing a ML model, like neural-networks, without disclosing critical and sensitive information, like the model's parameters. One of the most prominent solutions for secure oblivious inference is based on a powerful cryptographic tools, like Homomorphic Encryption (HE) and/or multi-party computation (MPC). Even though the implementation of oblivious inference systems schemes has impressively improved the last decade, there are still significant limitations on the ML models that they can practically implement. Especially when both the ML model and the input data's confidentiality must be protected. In this paper, we introduce the notion of partially oblivious inference. We empirically show that for neural network models, like CNNs, some information leakage can be acceptable. We therefore propose a novel trade-off between security and efficiency. In our research, we investigate the impact on security and inference runtime performance from the CNN model's weights partial leakage. We experimentally demonstrate that in a CIFAR-10 network we can leak up to $80\%$ of the model's weights with practically no security impact, while the necessary HE-mutliplications are performed four times faster.Comment: P. Rizomiliotis, C. Diou, A. Triakosia, I. Kyrannas and K. Tserpes. Partially oblivious neural network inference. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Security and Cryptography, SECRYPT (pp. 158-169), 202