Flight deck environment and pilot workload: biological measures of workload

The object of this paper is to examine some of the techniques that are being used to study the demands of the work situation upon the individual. While the emphasis throughout the paper is on studies of aircrew workload, the findings have a general applicability to applied ergonomics.     

The training and practice of crew resource management: recommendations from an inductive in vivo study of the flight deck

Abstract

Crew resource management (CRM) is credited with saving 185 lives at Sioux City. While the theory behind CRM is well documented, there are few studies of how CRM manifests on the line. This inductive in vivo study had three objectives. First, to describe how CRM manifests. Secondly, to evaluate the efficacy of CRM vis-à-vis flight safety. Thirdly, to suggest improvements to the CRM training syllabus. The study produced five conclusions: First, CRM is durable under conditions of moderate strain. Secondly, crews embed and refine CRM through reflection and action. Thirdly, CRM facilitates and shapes social relations. Fourthly, mindlessness (Langer 1989 Langer, E. J. 1989. Minding matters: The consequences of mindlessness-mindfulness. In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, edited by L. Berkowitz, New York, NY: Academic Press.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) undermines CRM. Finally, the interruption of flight-deck routines by third-parties poses a threat to flight-safety. The paper recommends multi-profession CRM training as a means of improving communication and co-ordination in and around aircraft. The study’s limitations include a monocultural flight-deck: flights were operated by pilots with European backgrounds. Mindful of Hofstede’s (1980 Hofstede, G. 1980. Culture’s Consequences. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage. [Google Scholar]), Engle's (2000 Engle, M. 2000. “Culture in the Cockpit — CRM in a Multicultural World.” Journal of Air Transportation World Wide 5 (1): 107–114. [Google Scholar]) and Helmreich and Merritt's (2001 Helmreich, R. L., and A. Merritt. 2001. Culture at Work in Aviation and Medicine. Aldershot, England: Ashgate. [Google Scholar]) examination of the relationship between culture and performance, the author suggests the study be repeated with carriers that employ pilots from a variety of cultures.

Practitioner Summary: This in vivo study evaluates the efficacy of CRM vis-à-vis flight safety and supports a critique of the CRM syllabus. The author observed twenty sectors and attended a CRM training day. To improve safety and efficiency, it is recommended that airlines run multi-profession (inclusive) CRM training courses.     

A study of breakdowns and repairs in a computer-mediated communication system

There have been few naturalistic studies of synchronous computer-mediated communication. For two years a telewriting system was used for tutoring students at the UK Open University, connecting up to ten study centres and adding graphic communication to voice-only teleconferencing. This paper presents the findings of a study of the operation of the system, concentrating on breakdowns in communication and the technical and organisational changes needed to overcome them. The paper concludes with recommendations for the design of future telewriting systems and guidelines for the deployment of computer-mediated communication systems as part of working life.     

Cost analysis of a finite capacity queue with server breakdowns and threshold-based recovery policy

This paper analyzes a repairable M/M/1/N queueing system under a threshold-based recovery policy. The threshold-based recovery policy means that the server breaks down only if there is at least one customer in the system, and the recovery can be performed when q (1 ≤ q ≤ N) or more customers are present. For this queueing system, a recursive method is applied to obtain steady-state solutions in neat closed-form expressions. We then develop some important system characteristics, such as the number of customers in the system, the probability that the server is busy, the effective arrival rate and the expected waiting time in the system, etc. A cost model is constructed to determine the optimal threshold value, the optimal system capacity and the optimal service rate at a minimum cost. In order to solve this optimization problem, the direct search method and Newton's method are employed. Sensitivity analysis is also conducted with various system parameters. Finally, we present some managerial insights through an application example.     

Energy management displays: a new concept for the civil flight deck

There exists a strong rationale for an energy management system onboard civil aircraft; this is based on a global move towards greater energy consciousness and more specific reasons relating to safety and efficiency in the airline industry. This paper considers the design of an interface for an energy management system. It reports the development of a number of display designs within the requirements and constraints of the flight deck context. Three designs are evaluated both with student participants and senior airline pilots. It was found that those displays with predictive information elements produced the most accurate decisions concerning aircraft energy states. Further investigation into the function of these predictive elements (within real-time flight scenarios) is required in order to evaluate their efficacy with the end-user group of airline pilots.     

Displacement motion prediction of a landing deck for recovery operations of rotary UAVs

This paper proposes a practical prediction procedure for vertical displacement of a Rotarywing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (RUAV) landing deck in the presence of stochastic sea state disturbances. A proper time series model tending to capture characteristics of the dynamic relationship between an observer and a landing deck is constructed, with model orders determined by a novel principle based on Bayes Information Criterion (BIC) and coefficients identified using the Forgetting Factor Recursive Least Square (FFRLS) method. In addition, a fast-converging online multi-step predictor is developed, which can be implemented more rapidly than the Auto-Regressive (AR) predictor as it requires less memory allocations when updating coefficients. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed prediction approach exhibits satisfactory prediction performance, making it suitable for integration into ship-helicopter approach and landing guidance systems in consideration of computational capacity of the flight computer.     

Adaptive coordination in cardiac anaesthesia: a study of situational changes in coordination patterns using a new observation system

Patient care in hospital settings requires coordinated team performance. Studies in other industries show that successful teams adapt their coordination processes to the situational task requirements. This prospective field study aimed to test a new observation system and investigate patterns of adaptive coordination within operating room teams. A trained observer recorded coordination activities during 24 cardiac surgery procedures. The study tested whether different patterns occur during different phases of and between different types of surgical procedures (two-way multivariate ANOVA with repeated measure). A statistically significant increase was found in clinical and coordination activities in phases of the operation with high task interdependence. The highest level of 'coordination via the work environment' (i.e. an implicit coordination mechanism) was recorded during the actual procedure on the beating heart. These findings prove the sensitivity of the observation system developed and evaluated in this study and provide insight into patterns of adaptive coordination in cardiac anaesthesia. This study furthers our understanding of adaptive coordination as a cornerstone of effective team performance in complex work environments. Using a new observation system, it describes patterns employed by health care professionals in response to changing task demands in an acute patient care setting.     

Dynamic management of capabilities in a network aware coordination language

We introduce a capability-based access control model integrated into a linguistic formalism for modeling network aware systems and applications. Our access control model enables specification and dynamic modification of policies for controlling process activities (mobility of code and access to resources). We exploit a combination of static and dynamic checking and of in-lined reference monitoring to guarantee absence of run-time errors due to lack of capabilities. We illustrate the usefulness of our framework by using it for implementing a simplified but realistic scenario. Finally, we show how the model can be easily tailored for dealing with different forms of capability acquisition and loss, thus enabling different possible variations of access control policies.     

Understanding knowledge-sharing breakdowns: a meeting of the quantitative and qualitative minds

Abstract The rapid advance of distance learning and networking technology has enabled universities and corporations to reach out and educate students across time and space barriers. Although this technology enables structured collaborative learning activities, online groups often do not enjoy the same benefits as face‐to‐face learners, and their instructors often do not have time to actively support and mediate the online collaboration. This article demonstrates our capacity to computationally model, analyse, and support online student interaction, in particular knowledge sharing. A unique combination of qualitative analysis and artificial intelligence methods was designed to (a) recognize when students are having trouble learning the new concepts they share with each other, and (b) understand why they are having trouble, so that we might assist an instructor or intelligent coach in mediating group knowledge‐sharing activities.     

Adaptive coordination development in student anaesthesia teams: a longitudinal study

Although adaptive coordination has been highlighted by several studies, research dealing with how adaptive coordination develops is still rare. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the development of coordination mechanisms and their task-related adaptation in a longitudinal observation of medical simulation-based training of final year students. We recorded six anaesthesia teams during a sequence of four task scenarios, and each scenario comprised of a routine and a complication phase. After trained observers rated sub-tasks within each scenario for explicit and implicit coordination, statistical analysis revealed a statistically significant effect of previous scenarios on coordination development in the routine phases. While the amount of explicit coordination decreased, implicit coordination increased, revealing adaptive coordination as a skill developed through repeated group interaction. We conclude that anaesthesia training should consider cost- and patient safety-benefits of implicit and explicit coordination and focus on adaptive coordination. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: Group coordination is crucial to anaesthesia team performance. Results of this longitudinal observation of six anaesthesia teams during four medical simulation-based training scenarios document that teams develop adaptive patterns of coordination. This study also demonstrates that adaptive coordination is a trainable skill within crisis resource management training.     

"小灵通"基站的自动派障和网络话务分析的实现

本从小灵通系统运行维护的视角，分析了小灵通系统在监控软件平台方面存在的问题，针对这些问题，提出了解决方案。①建立基站管理数据库；②以此为基础，通过软件方法实现基站自动派障和基站障碍历史的查询；③进行全网的话务分析。从而使网络优化工作建立在更合理、更科学的基础上，使小灵通系统的维护工作变被动为主动。     

Yet another tutorial of disturbance observer: robust stabilization and recovery of nominal performance

This paper presents a tutorial-style review on the recent results about the disturbance observer (DOB) in view of robust stabilization and recovery of the nominal performance. The analysis is based on the case when the bandwidth of Q-filter is large, and it is explained in a pedagogical manner that, even in the presence of plant uncertainties and disturbances, the behavior of real uncertain plant can be made almost similar to that of disturbance-free nominal system both in the transient and in the steady-state. The conventional DOB is interpreted in a new perspective, and its restrictions and extensions are discussed.     

How eco-driving training course influences driver behavior and comprehensibility: a driving simulator study

Eco-driving behavior has been treated as one of the most cost-effective way in reducing vehicle fuel consumption and emissions. In this study, the effects of eco-driving training on different driving behaviors in start, stop, speed choice and no-idling from different levels of training, from receiving only static information (EDUCATION) to guided practicing (COACHING after EDUCATION), were thoroughly evaluated and compared. The drivers’ comprehensibility with eco-driving information was examined through eco-driving questionnaire surveys. The results indicated that EDUCATION alone was effective to improve driver’s comprehensibility with the basic concepts of eco-driving, to reduce the percentages of vehicle idling and to help drivers to avoid rapid starts slightly. EDUCATION alone did not significantly improve the driving behaviors of stop and speed choice, while COACHING after EDUCATION was found to enhance the effectiveness of these two elements of eco-driving. COACHING after EDUCATION did not introduce much additional benefit for more fuel-efficient starting pattern. In addition, eco-driving training led to more consistent driving behavior as evidenced by smaller standard deviation values on all measures related to fuel efficiency.     

Dispatching and coordination in multi-area railway traffic management

This paper deals with the development of decision support systems for traffic management of large and busy railway networks in case of severe disturbances. Railway operators typically structure the control of complicated networks into the coordinated control of several local dispatching areas. A dispatcher takes rescheduling decisions on the trains running on its local area while a coordinator addresses global issues that may arise between areas. While several advanced train dispatching models and algorithms have been proposed to support the dispatchers' task, the coordination problem did not receive much attention in the literature on train scheduling. This paper presents new heuristic algorithms for both local dispatching and coordination and compares centralized and distributed procedures to support the task of dispatchers and coordinators. We adopt dispatching procedures driven by optimization algorithms and based on local or global information and decisions. Computational experiments on a Dutch railway network, actually controlled by ten dispatchers, assess the performance of the centralized and distributed procedures. Various traffic disturbances, including entrance delays and blocked tracks, are analyzed on various time horizons of traffic prediction. Results show that the new heuristics clearly improve the global performance of the network with respect to the state of the art.     

Information accuracy and sampling effort: a field study of surgical scheduling coordination

Coordination of dynamic schedules in complex environments requires the sampling of the current status of the system being coordinated. In many such systems that include human components, the requisite status information is unavailable or unreliable. Optimal sampling theory focuses on monitoring a system's status for changes, with limited consideration of future changes or missing information. Models of sampling for coordination and scheduling must consider resolving missing or ambiguous data points. Through field-based observations, we observed that human information-seeking involving this type of sampling balances the need for specific information with the effort required to attain the information, and the accuracy of the information. This paper uses field-based observations of the coordination of operating-room suite activities to demonstrate these factors and discusses communication strategies within the operating room context, as well as implications for technology design to support such work.     

Advances and new directions in plant-wide disturbance detection and diagnosis

This article reviews advances in detection and diagnosis of plant-wide control system disturbances in chemical processes and discusses new directions that look promising for the future. Causes of plant-wide disturbances include non-linear limit cycles in control loops, controller interactions and tuning problems. The diagnosis of non-linearity, especially when due to valve stiction, has been an active area. Detection of controller interactions and disturbances due to plant structure remain open issues, however, and will need new approaches. For the future, the linkage of data-driven analysis with a qualitative model of the process is an exciting prospect. Finally, the paper offers some brief comments about emerging applications.     

Design of simulator training: a comparative study of Swedish dynamic decision-making training facilities

Cognition, Technology & Work - Simulator training is becoming increasingly important for training of time-critical and dynamic situations. Hence, how simulator training in such domains is...     

Collaborative elasticity and breakdowns in high reliability organizations: contributions from distributed cognition and collective mind theory

Collaborative elasticity is the capability of a collective to sustain coherence and sufficient order, even when encountering unexpected and adverse operating conditions. This capability is increasingly important in todays dynamic and time-pressed world. Drawing on distributed cognition and collective mind theory, this conceptual paper presents a taxonomy of six dimensions that determine collaborative elasticity and may explain organizational breakdowns: individual cognition, relating and relationships, repertoire of routines, knowledge for collaboration, organizational roles and communications. The paper focuses on High Reliability Organizations (HRO) where people work with advanced technologies and routinely face potential danger. The objective of this conceptual paper is to explore why these organizations have to operate elastically, and what may cause them to breakdown. The findings support practitioners involved in HROs. For researchers, the study defines and frames the concept of collaborative elasticity using distributed cognition and collective mind theory. The paper concludes with pointers for further research.

From ICT coordination to ICT integration: a longitudinal case study

This study utilizes a school‐improvement perspective to examine the role of curriculum coordination in the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) into primary schools. The nature and impact of this role is examined in seven primary schools in Australia. These seven schools were drawn from a longitudinal intervention that provided additional ICT‐related resources and personnel to the schools. An instrument, referred to as the Learning Outcomes and Pedagogy Attributes (LOPA) measure, was developed and charted for the seven schools over the 4‐year data collection period. The changes in LOPA score over time were then analysed in terms of the conditions at the school with regard to curriculum ICT coordination. The study concludes that the coordinator role and school leadership in general, play critical but varying roles in the complex process of ICT integration into schools. Success appeared to be associated with the support provided for the role, the extent to which the role was connected to school leadership, personal leadership characteristics of those in the role and the strategies employed within the role.