Development of a Comprehensive Digital Avionics Curriculum for the Aeronautical Engineer

The purpose of this research was to develop a comprehensive digital avionics curriculum for aeronautical engineering students at AFIT. Due to the closing of the aeronautical engineering program at the Naval Postgraduate School, and the subsequent requirement to establish a digital avionics specialty course sequence at AFIT, a mature avionics curriculum does not yet exist that satisfies the needs of graduates who will serve as aeronautical engineers involved with the development, integration, testing, fielding, and supporting of military avionics systems as part of the overall aircraft system. Research was conducted through a comprehensive literature review and the use of a Delphi Technique survey process. 28 panel members representing the military, academe, and industry participated in a three round survey process that sought to identify the desired attributes of a newly graduated engineer and the specific subject areas of study that should be included within the avionics curriculum. The result of this research was the development of a proposed three course curriculum that will instill the desired attributes within the aeronautical engineers and provide them with the avionics knowledge required at the correct level of proficiency. Recommendations on how to implement the proposed curriculum in an effective and timely manner are presented

Implementing operator-centric cockpit design in the EA-6B ICAP III aircraft

The EA-6B Prowler aircraft was designed and built in the late 1960s by the Grumman Aerospace Corporation for the United States Navy and Marine Corps as a tactical electronic warfare (EW) platform. High losses of U.S attack aircraft to surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in the Southeast Asia theater led to the requirement for a carrier-based tactical aircraft capable of providing EW support in the form of electronic jamming in support of strike aircraft. The EA-6B became the aircraft that fulfilled the EW requirement. The thirty years that have passed since the introduction of the EA-6B has seen many additional weapons system capabilities added to the aircraft. However, the hardware used by the aircrew to employ these additional capabilities has changed little, resulting in operator information overload during combat operations. This thesis investigated the information overload problem associated with operating a complex integrated weapons system using legacy and non-integrated controls and displays. A review of pertinent literature and military standards, coupled with the author\u27s extensive personal experience as an EA-6B Electronic Countermeasures Officer were used as the basis of research An operator-centric cockpit design methodology utilizing human factors engineering and the systems engineering approach to problem-solving was used to identify problems associated with the contractor\u27s proposed cockpit design for the Improved Capability III (ICAP III) EA-6B Prowler aircraft. The problems identified were. (1) critical weapons system failure alerts can go unnoticed by the ECMOs, (2) a limited display area is available for the presentation of weapons system information, (3) a high operator workload is required to monitor the status of the AN/ALQ-99 jammer pods, (4) navigational situational awareness in the rear cockpit is extremely poor, (5) the current rear cockpit pointing devices increase logistical support requirements and enforce negative habit transfer, and (6) alphanumeric character entry into the integrated weapons system is inefficient Once identified, the methodology was employed by the author to develop a proposed cockpit design that will eliminate the problems and improve operator and system performance. If adopted and implemented by the manufacturers of the ICAP III program, the cockpit hardware and layout changes proposed by the author will result in minimal friction at the system interfaces, thus improving overall system performance Specific recommendations that should be included to the ICAP III cockpit design are: Install a synthesized weapons system voice warning system to provide aural alerts to the ECMO 2/3 crew stations in the event of jammer pod degradations during active Electronic Attack operations. Install 8 5 inches wide by 11 inches tall (93 5 m2) color-capable AMLCD Multifunction Displays at each of the ECMO 2/3 crew stations to provide for operator visual interaction with the weapons system. Install 7 5 inches wide by 65 inches tall (48.75 square inches) color-capable AMLCD Pod Status Displays at each of the ECMO 2/3 crew stations to provide an automated real-time simultaneous status display of the ALQ-99 jammer pods Install 3.9 inches wide by 3.3 inches tall (12.87 square inches) Electronic Horizontal Situation Indicators repeaters at each of the ECMO 2/3 crew stations to assist in navigational situational awareness. Install pointing devices on the ECMO 2/3 consoles that are identical to the pointing devices installed in the forward cockpit to provide for operator tactile interaction with the weapons system Install 4.75 inches wide by 5 75 inches tall (27.3 square inches) touch-sensitive data entry keyboards on the ECMO 2/3 pedestals to serve as a primary alphanumeric entry device and secondary tactile interface with the weapons system

Root cause prediction based on bug reports

This paper proposes a supervised machine learning approach for predicting the root cause of a given bug report. Knowing the root cause of a bug can help developers in the debugging process - either directly or indirectly by choosing proper tool support for the debugging task. We mined 54755 closed bug reports from the issue trackers of 103 GitHub projects and applied a set of heuristics to create a benchmark consisting of 10459 reports. A subset was manually classified into three groups (semantic, memory, and concurrency) based on the bugs' root causes. Since the types of root cause are not equally distributed, a combination of keyword search and random selection was applied. Our data set for the machine learning approach consists of 369 bug reports (122 concurrency, 121 memory, and 126 semantic bugs). The bug reports are used as input to a natural language processing algorithm. We evaluated the performance of several classifiers for predicting the root causes for the given bug reports. Linear Support Vector machines achieved the highest mean precision (0.74) and recall (0.72) scores. The created bug data set and classification are publicly available.Comment: 6 page

Employment and Growth in an Aging Society. A Simulation Study for Austria

In this study we use a long run macroeconomic model for Austria to simulate the effects of aging on employment, output growth, and the solvency of the social security system. By disaggregating the population into six age cohorts and modelling sex specific participation rates for each cohort, we are able to account for the future demographic trends. Apart from a baseline scenario, we perform three alternative simulations that highlight the effects of aging from different perspectives. These include (1) purely demographic developments, (2) increasing labour market imperfections, and (3) higher economic growth due to a productivity shock.Economic growth, Aging, Austria

Argumentationssequenzen in Konfliktgesprächen zwischen Müttern und Töchtern

Dieser Beitrag versucht, statistische Regelmäßigkeiten in der Abfolge von Sprecheinheiten Innerhalb von Gesprächen zu ermitteln. Das Augenmerk richtet sich auf die Unterscheidung und Erfassung von argumentativen Kategorien in Konfliktgesprächen zwischen Müttern und ihren jugendlichen Töchtern. Als konfliktäres Argument wird die Begründung einer Person in einer Konfliktsituation bezeichnet, mit der ein Ziel oder ein anderes Argument gestützt oder geschwächt werden soll. Wir betrachten Fakten, Bewertungen, Konnexe, Normen und Präferenzen als Elemente einer Kognition "konfliktäres Argument". Ein Argument kann bezogen auf ein Ziel oder ein anderes Argument stärkenden (stützenden, zusätzlich stützenden), modifizierenden (relativierenden) oder schwächenden (einwendenden, gegenbehauptenden) Charakter tragen. Neben argumentativen Elementen im engeren Sinne werden auch gesprächssteuernde Kategorien betrachtet: Initiativen (Aufforderungen, Fragen) sowie Reaktiven (positive, negative Reaktionen auf Argumente oder Initiativen). Die Art und Qualität der aktivierten und vorgebrachten Argumente wird als abhängig betrachtet von den Motiven der beteiligten Partner. Bei Müttern werden Kontrollmotive, bei Töchtern vor allem Individuierungsmotive an-genommen. Es wird erwartet, daß sich diese Tendenzen in den Mikrosequenzen niederschlagen. Datenbasis sind 60 Gespräche zwischen 30 Müttern und Töchtern im Alter von 12 bis 24 Jahren. Jede Dyade diskutierte zwei aktuelle Konflikte nach freier Wahl. Die transkribierten Gespräche wurden nach dem Mannheimer Argumentations-Kategorien-System, das sich an den o.a. theoretischen Konstrukten orientiert, in Einheiten zerlegt und klassifiziert. Die Kategorien erwiesen sich als ausreichend objektiv und rellabel. Die Auswertungen erfolgten über log-lineare und lag-sequentielle Analysen. Bei den Ergebnissen konnten wir die Phänomene der Zustimmungs-Relativierungs-Sequenz und der Argument-Reihung als In-turn-Sequenzen Identifizieren. Als turn- übergreifende Muster fielen besonders deutlich auf der negative Reaktionszyklus: eine über drei bis vier lags andauernde Folge von negativen Reaktionen auf Argumente. Weiter bezeichneten wir mit Argumentkonfrontation die Tendenz, daß Gegenargumente überzufällig häufig mit Gegenargumenten gekontert wurden. Besonders bei Müttern waren weiter repetitive Phänomene erkennbar. Sie bestanden darin, daß Initiativen, Insbesondere Aufforderungen und Klärungsfragen nach einer Reaktion wiederholt wurden. Wir nennen das "Insistieren" bzw. "Nachhaken". Mit Bezug auf die Dimension der Argumentelemente konnten deutliche Sequenzen von Abfolgen nicht ermittelt werden. Die Partnerinnen neigten dazu, ihre Argumente jeweils auf der gleichen Ebene (Fakten, Bewertungen, Konnexen und Präferenzen) anzusiedeln, was als Hinweis auf kohärent elementbezogenes Argumentieren aufzufassen Ist. Die Ergebnisse bestätigen in großen Teilen die Erwartungen. Die verschiedenen Mikro-Gesetzmäßigkeiten werden unter Bezug auf die von Jones und Gérard (1967) nach der Kontingenz unterschiedenen Typen von Interaktionen interpretiert.In this paper, we focus on the Identification of systematic sequences of verbal units In dialogues. To this aim, we try to distinguish and assess categories of argumentation in the course of verbal conflicts between mothers and their adolescent daughters. Reasons given by a person In a conflict situation to support or weaken a goal or another argument are considered conflictuous arguments. As to cognitions called "conflictuous arguments“, we distinguish facts, evaluations, connexes, norms, and preferences as major elements. An argument may assume different functions with regard to goals or other arguments: supporting (support, additional support), modifying (qualification), weakening (objection, counter argument). Besides argumentative elements, we also consider categories of conversation management: Initiatives (request, question), reactives (positive or negative responses to arguments or Initiatives). The type and quality of arguments which are activated and put forward are seen as dependent on the motivations of the participants In the dialogue. We assume control as a major motivation among mothers, whereas daughters are assumend to rather show motivations of individuation. We expect these to be expressed in micro sequences of mother- daughter dialogues. Our empirical analyses are based on 60 dialogues recorded with 30 dyads of female adolescents who were between ages 12 and 24 and their mothers. Following the Identification of two real everyday conflicts as relevant for a given dyad, the mother and daughter consecutively discussed both issues. The dialogues were tape-recorded and transcribed for further analyses. Units of communication were determined and categorized using the Mannheim Argumentation Category System which closely follows the constructs introduced above. Reliability checks yielded satisfying results for all categories. The data were analyzed using hierarchical tests of log-linear models as well as log-sequential analyses. Agreement- qualification sequences, negative response cycles, i.e., sequences of negative responses to arguments encompassing up to four lags, were particularly salient. Moreover, we observed what we called argument confrontation: Counter-arguments are met by counter-arguments again more often than could be expected by chance. With mothers, in particular, further repetitive sequences could be Identified. A case In point are initiatives, namely requests and clarification questions, which mothers continued to put forward even after the daughter’s response. We have called this insisting. Our analyses focusing on the dimensions of argumentative elements did not provide unequivocal results. There is some evidence for the mothers’ and daughters’ tendency to respond to arguments employing argumentative elements of the same type (fact, evaluation, connex, preference) which may point to element-based coherence as an organizing feature of verbal conflicts. Summarizing, the data provided empirical support for most of our theoretical expectations. The findings concerning regularities of argumentation on the micro-level are discussed drawing upon Jones and Gerard’s (1967) distinction of different types of Interactions