Evolution of UAS policy in the wake of Taylor v. Huerta

The U.S. Court of Appeals recently ruled that the Federal Aviation Administration exceeded their statutory authority in requiring model aircraft and hobbyist UAS operators to register their aircraft in a national database. The ruling represents a significant blow to the agency’s credibility in leading UAS integration into the National Airspace System. The paper points to several possible outcomes of the Taylor v. Huerta decision and its impact on the FAA’s ability to continue to lead change in the burgeoning UAS field

How Law Enforcement Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Could Improve Tactical Response to Active Shooter Situations: The Case of the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting

Using a case study methodology, this paper assesses the unique tactical challenges faced by law enforcement officers responding to the October 1, 2017, Las Vegas active shooter incident. The authors assessed the tactical strengths of the assailant, Stephen Paddock, and challenges faced by law enforcement personnel. The authors present several proposed applications of unmanned aircraft systems that could have potentially mitigated the active shooter’s tactical advantages

Examining Unmanned Aerial System Threats & Defenses: A Conceptual Analysis

The integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the already complex global aviation system presents new and unique hazards. While many studies have addressed the potential safety concerns of UAS integration, little research has been dedicated to the potential security implications. This study sought to identify potential uses and adaptations of civil UAS systems as weapons of terrorism or crime and potential UAS defenses. Researchers examined 68 academic studies, unclassified government reports, and news articles using Conceptual Analysis to systematically capture and categorize various threats. Using the collected data, researchers developed a UAS threat model for categorically evaluating potential threats. Evaluating UAS defense methodologies, researchers developed a five-layer, defense-in-depth model for protecting assets and individuals from UAS threats

UAS Pilots Code: Tools to Advance UAS Safety & Professionalism

As unmanned aircraft operations become more ubiquitous in the National Airspace System, one of the key remaining challenges is instilling the precepts of safety culture, aviation professionalism, airmanship, and effective aeronautical decision-making among these non-traditional aviators. To address these challenges, researchers codified best practices and operational recommendations from across the UAS industry, collectively publishing them in a compendium titled the UAS Pilots Code (UASPC). Guidance for the UASPC was informed by material assembled from leading governmental and industry organizations including: FAA, AEA, AMA, AOPA, ASTM, AUVSI, CANSO, EAA, EASA, EUROCAE, ICAO, ISO, JARUS, NBAA, RTCA, SAE, UVS, and others. Extensive recommendations, guidance, and ongoing peer review feedback was integrated from 60 aviation and UAS industry professionals. Divided into seven sections, the UASPC highlights the general safety responsibilities of UAS pilots, imparts methods to avoid creating hazards to manned aircraft operations and people on the surface, recommends training and proficiency benchmarks, encourages practices to ensure security and protect personal privacy, promotes environmental responsibility, guides the use of technology and automation, and advocates means of advancing the overall professionalism of the UAS industry. The UASPC contains 36 core safety principles supported by 180 sample recommended practices. The UASPC is not designed to merely establish minimum standards of practice, but rather to encourage continual safety improvement and excellence through self-regulation and responsibility. The UASPC was created as a collaborative venture between the Aviators Code Initiative and the University Aviation Association as a volunteer, public service to enhance aviation safety

Rabies Surveillance Identifies Potential Risk Corridors and Enables Management Evaluation

Intensive efforts are being made to eliminate the raccoon variant of rabies virus (RABV) from the eastern United States and Canada. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services National Rabies Management Program has implemented enhanced rabies surveillance (ERS) to improve case detection across the extent of the raccoon oral rabies vaccination (ORV) management area. We evaluated ERS and public health surveillance data from 2006 to 2017 in three northeastern USA states using a dynamic occupancy modeling approach. Our objectives were to examine potential risk corridors for RABV incursion from the U.S. into Canada, evaluate the effectiveness of ORV management strategies, and identify surveillance gaps. ORV management has resulted in a decrease in RABV cases over time within vaccination zones (from occupancy (ψ) of 0.60 standard error (SE) = 0.03 in the spring of 2006 to ψ of 0.33 SE = 0.10 in the spring 2017). RABV cases also reduced in the enzootic area (from ψ of 0.60 SE = 0.03 in the spring of 2006 to ψ of 0.45 SE = 0.05 in the spring 2017). Although RABV occurrence was related to habitat type, greater impacts were associated with ORV and trap–vaccinate–release (TVR) campaigns, in addition to seasonal and yearly trends. Reductions in RABV occupancy were more pronounced in areas treated with Ontario Rabies Vaccine Bait (ONRAB) compared to RABORAL V-RG®. Our approach tracked changes in RABV occurrence across space and time, identified risk corridors for potential incursions into Canada, and highlighted surveillance gaps, while evaluating the impacts of management actions. Using this approach, we are able to provide guidance for future RABV management

Creating Communities of Practice to Promote Sustainability: A Framework for Organizational Change

Everything necessary for human survival depends on our ability to establish stewardship practices that preserve critical resources and foster conditions to ensure long-term protection of Earth’s natural environment for future generations. Sustainability practices rely upon individuals to adhere to conscientious principles to establish a reasonable balance between environmental, social, and economic influences. This presentation seeks to establish a candid dialogue about how to identify opportunities for sustainability, how to implement policies that reinforce sustainability practices, and encourage the formulation of a community of practice to reinforce accountability and continuous improvement of sustainability efforts. Identifying sustainability practices requires a keen understanding of business unit practices, including: What resources are used? How are they expended? What factors influence employee behavior or decision-making regarding resource use? What policies or practices encourage or incentivize employees to support sustainable alternatives? Are sustainable alternatives safe, efficient, and socially acceptable? Are sustainable alternatives economically feasible and reasonable? Using this proposed framework for organizational change, companies can leverage stakeholders to make meaningful and measurable efforts toward enhancing sustainability. As with any business practice, organizations should be prepared to monitor, track, and report the effectiveness and impact of sustainability practices. Engaging a collaborative team can aid organizations in identifying opportunities for sustainability improvement and soliciting possible alternatives. By creating a community of practice, organizations can better integrate sustainability practices and make them a part of the accepted corporate culture. Finally, effective sustainability practices will often generate organizational economic benefits, positive employee rapport, and enhanced community goodwill

The Uniform Basis Rules and Terminating Interests in Trusts Early

The resolution of income tax issues that may arise for trust beneficiaries who dispose of temporal interests in trusts remains relatively obscure. Additional issues exist for subsequent interest holders; the methods that the Code and Regulations prescribe for establishing, maintaining, and potentially recovering basis for successor owners of interests in a trust are not well developed.In some instances, the trust instrument creating a temporal interest will supply a suitable path for early termination and distribution of assets. In those cases, Sub-chapter J of the Code typically governs the transaction and provides that terminating the trust and distributing its assets be treated as nonrecognition events. However, one must look beyond the confines of Sub-chapter J when trust beneficiaries participate in the disposition without a settlor-provided power to do so. The Internal Revenue Service has consistently applied in letter rulings a different tax regime other than the income tax rules provided in Sub-chapter J of the Code; gain may be realized and recognized under section 1001, which often brings into play the uniform basis rules.The uniform basis rules reflect the concept that property acquired by gift or from a decedent has a single or uniform basis, whether multiple persons receive an interest in the property and whether directly or through a trust, and the individual interests have a basis that it is a proportional part of the uniform basis. The uniform basis rules of section 1001(e)(1) often deny the seller of a life or term interest in a trust any recovery of basis unless all interests in the trust are transferred to a third party for consideration. On the other the hand, the uniform basis rules permit a remainder beneficiary to recover basis in a sale, whether or not the life or term interest is also transferred. Besides these two basic rules, there are many nuances to the tax consequences of uniform basis rules and some interesting issues to evaluate when considering the sale of an interest in a trust, or the commutation or early termination of a trust, and how holders of transferred interests are treated for income tax purposes

Editorial: Special Issue “Innovative Techniques and Approaches in the Control and Prevention of Rabies Virus”

Rabies is an ancient lethal scourge that has plagued humankind for centuries. Globally, 60,000 human deaths are estimated to occur each year from rabies virus (RABV) transmission in domestic dogs, mostly affecting children. While rabies is recognized as a neglected disease, there is cause for optimism in the context of growing global recognition, collaboration and commitment to advance a tripartite agenda to eliminate human deaths transmitted from rabid dogs by 2030, also known as “Zero By Thirty” (ZBT). Nevertheless, the ZBT goal must also confront competing challenge(s) of tracking and mitigating human morbidity and mortality during a global pandemic caused by a viral zoonosis with likely origins from one or more wildlife reservoirs. In this context, the concept of One Health has never been more relevant and symbolic as demonstrated with prevention, control and elimination to end human rabies deaths through the mass vaccination of domestic and wild animal reservoir populations

A fast scintillator Compton telescope for medium-energy gamma-ray astronomy

The field of medium-energy gamma-ray astronomy urgently needs a new mission to build on the success of the COMPTEL instrument on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. This mission must achieve sensitivity significantly greater than that of COMPTEL in order to advance the science of relativistic particle accelerators, nuclear astrophysics, and diffuse backgrounds, and bridge the gap between current and future hard X-ray missions and the high-energy Fermi mission. Such an increase in sensitivity can only come about via a dramatic decrease in the instrumental background. We are currently developing a concept for a low-background Compton telescope that employs modern scintillator technology to achieve this increase in sensitivity. Specifically, by employing LaBr3 scintillators for the calorimeter, one can take advantage of the unique speed and resolving power of this material to improve the instrument sensitivity while simultaneously enhancing its spectroscopic and imaging performance. Also, using deuterated organic scintillator in the scattering detector will reduce internal background from neutron capture. We present calibration results from a laboratory prototype of such an instrument, including time-of-flight, energy, and angular resolution, and compare them to simulation results using a detailed Monte Carlo model. We also describe the balloon payload we have built for a test flight of the instrument in the fall of 2010