Aviation Maintenance Safety Management Challenges : Thematic Analysis

Aircraft maintenance is a fundamental and necessary element in any aviation operation. In order to be considered safe and airworthy, operators must be diligent in the way aircraft are maintained and how employees are performing. A safety management system (SMS) is an organized approach by management to include every employee of a company that standardizes the procedures a company will follow to improve safety. The structure of SMS was designed by the International Civil Aviation Organization in order to be standardized across different countries and types of operations. Currently, only part 121 U.S. commercial airlines are mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration to have a safety management system in place

Financial production and the subprime mortgage crisis

The causes of the 2007-8 subprime crisis continue to be the subject of much debate, with explanations ranging from de-regulation and fraudulent behavior to global imbalances and rising inequality. However, a comprehensive analysis of the endogenous forces that made the crisis inevitable has yet to be presented. This paper offers a ‘structural’ interpretation of the crisis by synthesising insights from conventional financial economics and the Minskyian and Schumpeterian literature. While highlighting the innovative character of US financial firms evolving from credit providers to producers of financial commodities, we stress the key features of their path towards financial fragility. We contend that financial institutions were able to achieve progressively unsustainable positions due to the ‘enforced indebtedness’ of US households, which played a functional, albeit secondary, role in the development of the crisis

Peer Victimization and Child Physical Health: The Moderating Role of Pessimism

Objective—Involvement in peer victimization has been associated with numerous negative consequences, including poor physical health. The purpose of this study is to improve on previous research evaluating the victimization– health relationship by examining the health (i.e., health-related quality of life [HRQoL], medical service utilization) of both victims and aggressors and examining individual variation in this relationship through the moderating effect of pessimism. Method—Sample included 125 ethnically diverse youth aged 8–11 years recruited from a low-income medical practice. Child-report of involvement in peer victimization and pessimism was assessed along with parent-report of HRQoL. 2-year medical service utilization was extracted from medical records. Results—Although not all hypotheses were supported, victims and aggressors were found to be at increased risk for certain poor health outcomes, which were exacerbated by high levels of pessimism. Conclusion—Findings expand on research into peer victimization and health and provide important implications for identification, prevention, and intervention strategies with at-risk youth

Peer Victimization and Child Physical Health: The Moderating Role of Pessimism

Objective—Involvement in peer victimization has been associated with numerous negative consequences, including poor physical health. The purpose of this study is to improve on previous research evaluating the victimization– health relationship by examining the health (i.e., health-related quality of life [HRQoL], medical service utilization) of both victims and aggressors and examining individual variation in this relationship through the moderating effect of pessimism. Method—Sample included 125 ethnically diverse youth aged 8–11 years recruited from a low-income medical practice. Child-report of involvement in peer victimization and pessimism was assessed along with parent-report of HRQoL. 2-year medical service utilization was extracted from medical records. Results—Although not all hypotheses were supported, victims and aggressors were found to be at increased risk for certain poor health outcomes, which were exacerbated by high levels of pessimism. Conclusion—Findings expand on research into peer victimization and health and provide important implications for identification, prevention, and intervention strategies with at-risk youth

High Consequence Safety Research and Policy: The US Airline Application

The implementation of safety programs in Flight Operations has been successful since the Federal Aviation Administration formally introduced Safety Management Systems (SMS) procedures in 2000. The addition of safety programs like SMS into aviation organizations has been confirmed to improve safety culture, communication, and overall hazard mitigation. This research explores the changes and improvements that are made in maintenance programs where an SMS is formally implemented. In the United States it is legal for children under the age of twenty-four months to fly in commercial aircraft on the lap of a parent or guardian, while being unsecured or unrestrained. Throughout the history of aviation safety there have been no improvements, regulations, or laws put in place to ensure the safety of our Nation’s youngest fliers. The Policy Research Construct (PRC) will be used as a proposal for the development of advocacy for regulatory change. Through Policy Research, recommendations can be made to improve safety and create formal regulatory changes to make SMS mandatory in all aviation maintenance programs operating within the United States. 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 is a graduate student in the MS Safety Science program. Calissa Spooner is an undergraduate student in the Industrial Psychology and Safety program

Flight Data Analysis: A Mixed Methodology Construct

This exploratory study utilizes large data sets emanating from flight data recorders on a fleet of general aviation training aircraft. These flight data sets reveal and provide potential correlations between pilot experience levels and in-flight engine events within a flight school environment. The origin of this research comes from the collection of flight data that is produced during a flight school aircraft operation and analyzed by an Aviation Safety staff at a major flight training university. These data were collected over a period of six calendar months during the calendar year 2018. The raw data is analyzed through a Flight Data Management program created and used by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. The results will be de-identified, as the focus of the research utilizes a grounded theory model to conceptualize results from the flight data recorders. The results will be presented with a mixed methodological construct that provides outcomes for flight safety enhancement. Results are not yet defined and will only be presented to flight management

Human Following Using Kinect V2

With the emergence of continuously improving imaging and image processing technologies comes the challenge of applying those technologies to create robots that can make navigational decisions based on visual inputs. In this project, a human-following robot is designed and implemented using the Microsoft Kinect v2 system for PC. This system feeds the robot both color and depth information from the environment in front of it, allowing it to navigate obstacles and follow a specific user. The Kinect is used to find the user’s location with respect to the robot, based primarily on what the user is wearing and where the user was last seen. This information is fed to the on-board PC, which uses it to make path-planning decisions and drive the robot’s wheels through communication with a PIC18 microcontroller. This system could be used in a variety of applications, such as shopping carts, airport luggage carriers, or even robotic pets

ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN CLINICAL AND PERFORMANCE TESTS IN SOCCER ATHLETES

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between selected Functional Movement Screen (FMS™) scores, quadriceps and hamstrings strength, and vertical jump performance to see if there is consistency between clinical and performance testing. Records for twelve NCAA-I female soccer players were selected for this study. The isolated scores from the hurdle step and deep squat portions of the FMS™ test were extracted, left and right peak knee extension and flexion torques from isokinetic tests at 60, 180, and 300 °/sec, and vertical jump heights were recorded. Bivariate correlations and a multiple regression analysis were conducted to explore relationships among variables. The results from this study indicated that the FMS™ test was a poor predictor of vertical jump height, but peak extension and flexion torques were related to the vertical jump in a complex relationship

Daily Bidirectional Relationships Between Sleep and Mental Health Symptoms in Youth With Emotional and Behavioral Problems

Objective The present study examined the daily, bidirectional relationships between sleep and mental health symptoms in youth presenting to mental health treatment. Methods Youth aged 6 to 11 (36% female, 44% European American) presenting to outpatient behavioral health treatment (N = 25) were recruited to participate in the study. Children and parents completed daily questionnaires regarding the child’s sleep, mood, and behavior for a 14-day period, while youth wore an actigraph watch to objectively measure sleep. Results Examining between- and within-person variance using multilevel models, results indicate that youth had poor sleep duration and quality and that sleep and mental health symptoms were highly related at the daily level. Between-person effects were found to be most important and significant bidirectional relationships exist. Conclusions Identifying and addressing sleep problems in the context of mental health treatment is important, as poor sleep is associated with increased symptomology and may contribute to worsened mental health

Carbon assimilation strategies in ultrabasic groundwater: clues from the integrated study of a serpentinization-influenced aquifer

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Seyler, L. M., Brazelton, W. J., McLean, C., Putman, L. I., Hyer, A., Kubo, M. D. Y., Hoehler, T., Cardace, D., & Schrenk, M. O. . Carbon assimilation strategies in ultrabasic groundwater: clues from the integrated study of a serpentinization-influenced aquifer. mSystems, 5(2), (2020): e00607-00619, doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00607-19.Serpentinization is a low-temperature metamorphic process by which ultramafic rock chemically reacts with water. Such reactions provide energy and materials that may be harnessed by chemosynthetic microbial communities at hydrothermal springs and in the subsurface. However, the biogeochemistry mediated by microbial populations that inhabit these environments is understudied and complicated by overlapping biotic and abiotic processes. We applied metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and untargeted metabolomics techniques to environmental samples taken from the Coast Range Ophiolite Microbial Observatory (CROMO), a subsurface observatory consisting of 12 wells drilled into the ultramafic and serpentinite mélange of the Coast Range Ophiolite in California. Using a combination of DNA and RNA sequence data and mass spectrometry data, we found evidence for several carbon fixation and assimilation strategies, including the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle, the reverse tricarboxylic acid cycle, the reductive acetyl coenzyme A (acetyl-CoA) pathway, and methylotrophy, in the microbial communities inhabiting the serpentinite-hosted aquifer. Our data also suggest that the microbial inhabitants of CROMO use products of the serpentinization process, including methane and formate, as carbon sources in a hyperalkaline environment where dissolved inorganic carbon is unavailable.We thank McLaughlin Reserve, in particular Paul Aigner and Cathy Koehler, for hosting sampling at CROMO and providing access to the wells, A. Daniel Jones and Anthony Schilmiller for their advice regarding metabolite extraction and mass spectrometry, Elizabeth Kujawinski for her guidance in metabolomics data analysis and interpretation, and Julia McGonigle, Christopher Thornton, and Katrina Twing for assistance with metagenomic and computational analyses