An Analysis of the Role of Safety Nets in the National Airspace System

Safe operations of aircraft in the National Airspace System (NAS) may be attributed to many factors, including the application of a variety of safety nets (SNs) as a last line of defense. In preparation for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), a review of Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) reports for incidents with positive outcomes was conducted to investigate the importance of current safety nets. The examination of positive outcomes not only shows what went wrong, but also what went right to prevent accidents and save the day. More than 400 incident reports for 2015 from the voluntary ASRS reporting database were studied in detail to create event sequence diagrams (ESDs), illustrating the effectiveness of SNs. The developed ESDs are considered top-level, representative models and are limited with respect to being reliably quantitative because they are based on only reports from a single year. The ESDs could offer insights into human systems integration research, such as strategically using technologies as SNs without human interface or alleviating human workload with new technologies to provide resilient recovery from off-nominal conditions ensuring flight safety

Ground Risk Assessment Service Provider (GRASP) Development Effort as a Supplemental Data Service Provider (SDSP) for Urban Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Operations

NASAs Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project aims to enable the integration of new aviation paradigms such as Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) while providing the necessary infrastructure for future concepts such as On-Demand Mobility (ODM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). In order to do so, the UTM project has developed an architecture to allow communication among UAS operators, UAS Service Suppliers (USS), Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP), and the public. As part of this framework, the Supplemental Data Service Providers (SDSP) are envisioned as model and/or data based services that disseminate essential or enhanced information to ensure safe operations within low-altitude airspace. These services include terrain and obstacle data, specialized weather data, surveillance, constraint information, risk monitoring, etc. This paper highlights the development efforts of a non-participant casualty risk assessment SDSP called Ground Risk Assessment Service Provider (GRASP) which assists operators with preflight planning. GRASP is based on the previously introduced UTM Risk Assessment Framework (URAF) and allows UAS operators to simulate and visualize potential non-participant casualty risks associated with their proposed flight. The risk assessment capability also allows operators to revise their flight plans if the casualty risks are determined to be above acceptable thresholds. GRASP is configured to account for future improvements including servicing airborne aircraft as part of NASAs System-Wide Safety (SWS) project

Changes in Audiovisual Word Perception During Mid-Childhood: An ERP Study

Throughout school-age years, speech perception is an important skill that often relies on the child’s ability to combine both auditory and visual information from the speaker. In order to better understand the development of multisensory speech perception during mid-childhood, we analyzed audiovisual word perception in three groups of participants: 8-9-year olds, 11-12-year olds, and adults. Participants matched visually-perceived articulatory movements with corresponding auditory words. In “congruent” trials, the auditory word matched the subsequently presented silent visual articulation. In “incongruent” trials, the words presented differed on the initial phoneme. From this task, we evaluated specific neural components —the N400 and the Late Positive Complex (LPC) — which index the phoneme and whole word level of audiovisual processing, respectively. The results of this experiment were then related to a real-life behavioral speech perception skill, namely, listening to speech-in-noise. Our results suggest that while the LPC becomes adultlike by the age of 11 or 12, the N400 is not fully matured until later in development. In addition, the relation of the LPC to listening to speech-in-noise is stronger earlier in childhood while the relation of the N400 is stronger during later school years and adulthood. Overall, we show that audiovisual processes related to the whole-word level mature earlier in childhood than processes related to the phonological level