ATC-lab: An air traffic control simulator for the laboratory

Air Traffic Control Laboratory Simulator (ATC-lab) is a new low- and medium-fidelity task environment that simulates air traffic control. ATC-lab allows the researcher to study human performance of tasks under tightly controlled experimental conditions in a dynamic, spatial environment. The researcher can create standardized air traffic scenarios by manipulating a wide variety of parameters. These include temporal and spatial variables. There are two main versions of ATC-lab. The medium-fidelity simulator provides a simplified version of en route air traffic control, requiring participants to visually search a screen and both recognize and resolve conflicts so that adequate separation is maintained between all aircraft. The low-fidelity simulator presents pairs of aircraft in isolation, controlling the participant’s focus of attention, which provides a more systematic measurement of conflict recognition and resolution performance. Preliminary studies have demonstrated that ATC-lab is a flexible tool for applied cognition research.     

ATC-lab: an air traffic control simulator for the laboratory.

Air Traffic Control Laboratory Simulator (ATC-lab) is a new low- and medium-fidelity task environment that simulates air traffic control. ATC-lab allows the researcher to study human performance of tasks under tightly controlled experimental conditions in a dynamic, spatial environment. The researcher can create standardized air traffic scenarios by manipulating a wide variety of parameters. These include temporal and spatial variables. There are two main versions of ATC-lab. The mediumfidelity simulator provides a simplified version of en route air traffic control, requiring participants to visually search a screen and both recognize and resolve conflicts so that adequate separation is maintained between all aircraft. The low-fidelity simulator presents pairs of aircraft in isolation, controlling the participant's focus of attention, which provides a more systematic measurement of conflict recognition and resolution performance. Preliminary studies have demonstrated that ATC-lab is a flexible tool for applied cognition research.     

Automation and cognition in air traffic control: An empirical investigation

Several investigators have expressed concern that the imminent automation of air traffic control may have negative consequences on cognitive functioning, and ultimately on performance. We investigated these possibilities empirically by comparing normal, conventional air traffic control with an experimental condition designed to resemble an extreme version of automation. Overall, measures of performance were comparable between conditions. Most of the cognitive measures (attentional demands, visual search, recall of flights, recall of flight data) were not impaired by the automation analogue. Instead, two prospective measures (prospective memory, planning) showed improved performance. The prospective memory advantage is particularly surprising given that the automation-analogue group was unable to manipulate external memory aids. Possible reasons for the prospective memory advantage include a reduced workload, which allows the controller to get the necessary information in other ways, and a change in the nature of the task resulting from the “automation” of the strip management module.     

Structural realism versus standard scientific realism: the case of phlogiston and dephlogisticated air

The aim of this paper is to revisit the phlogiston theory to see what can be learned from it about the relationship between scientific realism, approximate truth and successful reference. It is argued that phlogiston theory did to some extent correctly describe the causal or nomological structure of the world, and that some of its central terms can be regarded as referring. However, it is concluded that the issue of whether or not theoretical terms successfully refer is not the key to formulating the appropriate form of scientific realism in response to arguments from theory change, and that the case of phlogiston theory is shown to be readily accommodated by ontic structural realism.     

Human factors in air traffic control: problems at the interfaces

The triangular ISIS model for describing the operation of human factors in complex sociotechnical organisations or systems is applied in this research to a large international air traffic control system. A large sample of senior Air Traffic Controllers were randomly assigned to small focus discussion groups, whose task was to identify problems occurring at the interfaces of the three major human factor components: individual, system impacts, and social. From these discussions, a number of significant interface problems, which could adversely affect the functioning of the Air Traffic Control System, emerged. The majority of these occurred at the Individual-System Impact and Individual-Social interfaces and involved a perceived need for further interface centered training.     

Nature,Red in Tooth and Claw<Superscript>1</Superscript>

“Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw” explores Adorno’s ideas about our mediated relationship with nature. The first section of the paper examines the epistemological significance of his thesis about the preponderance of the object while describing the Kantian features in his notion of mediation. Adorno’s conception of nature will also be examined in the context of a review of J. M. Bernstein’s and Fredric Jameson’s attempts to characterize it. The second section of the paper deals with Adorno’s Freudian account of internal nature. While arguing against Joel Whitebook’s view that Adorno needs a concept of sublimation, I contend that Adorno’s genetic account of the relationship between nature and mind enables him to respond to the Freudian injunction to displace the id with the ego with a view to fostering autonomy. In the final section of the paper, problems with Adorno’s ideas about external and internal nature are briefly discussed. In Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000) p. 195, John Bellamy Foster remarks on this line from Alfred Lord Tennyson ’s In Memoriam, claiming that it was widely known for “anticipating ”Darwinian’ ideas,’’ including much-maligned and heretical (at the time) materialist doctrines.     

Meaning and Method in the Social Sciences<Superscript>1</Superscript>

Academia’s mathematical metaphysics are briefly explored en route to an elaboration of the qualitatively rigorous requirements underpinning the calibration and unambiguous interpretation of quantitative instrumentation in any science. Of particular interest are Gadamer’s emphases on number as the paradigm of the noetic, on the role of play in interpretation, and on Hegel’s sense of method as the activity of the thing itself that thought experiences. These point toward and overlap with (1) Latour’s study of the metrological social networks through which technological phenomena are brought into language as modes of being that can be understood, and (2) the way that Rasch’s models for measurement comprise a potential beginning for metaphysically astute, qualitatively and quantitatively integrated, mathematical methods in the social sciences. The paper closes with observations on the general problem that is philosophy, the need to remain open to multiplicities of meaning even as clear understandings are sought and obtained.     

A COMMENT ON RCC: FROM RCC TO RCC<Superscript>++</Superscript>

The Region Connection Calculus (RCC theory) is a well-known spatial representation of topological relations between regions. It claims that the connection relation is primitive in the spatial domain. We argue that the connection relation is indeed primitive to the spatial relations, although in RCC theory there is no room for distance relations. We first analyze some aspects of the RCC theory, e.g. the two axioms in the RCC theory are not strong enough to govern the connection relation, regions in the RCC theory cannot be points, the uniqueness of the operation in the theory is not guaranteed, etc. To solve some of the problems, we propose an extension to the RCC theory by introducing the notion of region category and adding a new axiom which governs the characteristic property of the connection relation. The extended theory is named as RCC⁺⁺. We support the claim that the connection relation is primitive to spatial domain by showing how distance relations, size relations are developed in RCC⁺⁺. At last we revisit a sub-family of un-intended models in RCC theory, argue that RCC⁺⁺ is more suitable than RCC with regards to its original intended model, and discuss the representation limitation of the RCC, as well as RCC⁺⁺.     

Historical Examination of United States Intentional Mass School Shootings in the 20<Superscript>th</Superscript> and 21<Superscript>st</Superscript> Centuries: Implications for Students,Schools, and Society

The deadliest U.S. school shooting to date, occurring on February 14, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida serves as a powerful reminder that school violence is ever present. Addressing school violence, however, has been an elusive endeavor. The purpose of this review is to provide a historical examination of United States intentional mass school shootings in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. In addition, implications for students, schools, and society are discussed in light of policy and legislative initiatives as well as school-based prevention and intervention tiered models of support, such as positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS).     

Trauma and Contemporary Forms of Subjectivity: Contributions of Argentine Psychoanalysis<Superscript>*</Superscript>

This paper offers arguments to justify the relevance of psychoanalysis—psychoanalyses—in present-day Argentina and reflects on the stance taken by psychoanalysts with different theoretical perspectives in the face of the havoc wreaked by state terror (1976–1983). To this end, the author focuses on the pioneers’ traits, the significance of the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association in the 1950s and 1960s, and the impact of the departure of the Plataforma Group in 1971. The establishment of the latter opened the way for the development of a psychoanalysis tied to popular movements, sensitive to social conflict, and close to human rights organizations. The author explores both on psychoanalysts’ intervention to address the social trauma resulting from the theft of babies during the dictatorship, and on their relationship with Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.     

Clinical Praxis and the Place of the Analyst: A Chilean Perspective<Superscript>*</Superscript>

Since its inception, psychoanalytic theory has considered that, conceptually, it is impossible to maintain the division between the individual and society and that the constitution of one necessarily involves the other. Despite this clear legacy of Freudian thought, followed by most of the first and second generations of psychoanalysts, analytic clinical practice started to change almost exclusively into private practice by later generations of psychoanalysts. As a result, a space for information, data gathering, and theoretical production has been gradually configured that is structured in a slanted way. An analytic working environment has thus developed in Chile that tends to eschew contributions from other disciplines that could both enrich and challenge psychoanalytic theoretical–technical developments.     

Buddhist logic and apologetics in 17<Superscript>th</Superscript> century China: An analysis of the use of Buddhist syllogisms in an anti-Christian polemic

Conclusion A glimpse of the new application of Buddhist logic in the seventeenth century leads us to reflect about our approach to logic in a given religious tradition: Should we isolate a logical system from the very context that has given rise to the genesis and development of such an intellectual apparatus? Methodologically, we do have the legitimate right to approach Buddhist logic from a purely logical point of view. However, when we study the actual use of Buddhist logic in the seventeenth-century anti-Christian polemic, an analysis of its intentional application allows us to conclude that Buddhist logic in the context of controversy is primarily apologetic. Therefore, with a methodological concern, I suggest that philosophers and logicians should reconsider the apologetic nature of logic in any given religious tradition.     

Statistical power analyses using G<Superscript>*</Superscript>Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses

G^*Power is a free power analysis program for a variety of statistical tests. We present extensions and improvements of the version introduced by Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, and Buchner (2007) in the domain of correlation and regression analyses. In the new version, we have added procedures to analyze the power of tests based on (1) single-sample tetrachoric correlations, (2) comparisons of dependent correlations, (3) bivariate linear regression, (4) multiple linear regression based on the random predictor model, (5) logistic regression, and (6) Poisson regression. We describe these new features and provide a brief introduction to their scope and handling.     

The Enigma of Extreme Traumatism: Trauma,Exclusion and their Impact on Subjectivity<Superscript>*</Superscript>

My aim is to discuss the immediate effects of extreme trauma and to speculate on its long term effects. The formulations associated with the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome generate an overly medicalized view of trauma, grossly underestimating its devastating impact. Catastrophic traumatic experience rips a hole in the representational continuity of psychic life; neither representations nor narrations are generated. Instead, a representational emptiness occurs, such that what has taken place cannot be shared or transmitted. The cathartic word becomes a robotic mocking of the interchange between human beings. There is no internalization, no ability to make the experience subjective. The resulting deep splitting in the psyche is characteristic of extreme traumatism, and its balance or perpetual working through is elaborated in this paper.     

Clinical Effectiveness of the LE<Superscript>3</Superscript>AN Program: A Military Healthy Lifestyle Program

For several decades, obesity has been a major health concern within the general population of the United States as well as within the unique military population. Unlike the civilian sector, military service requires individuals to meet weight and body fat standards. In order to assist overweight military personnel return to standards, Tripler Army Medical Center initiated the LE³AN Program. LE³AN is a one-week, day-treatment, cognitive-behavioral weight management program coupled with 12 months of weekly follow-up. Baseline data was collected on 387 consecutive participants. Despite physical fitness training and required standards in each military service, the average BMIs for men and women were in the obese range, with male participants’ BMIs significantly higher than women’s (34.3 vs 31.9, p<.005). One year outcome data was collected from 167 participants, i.e. 43.2% of treatment initiators. Among participants who completed treatment, men maintained a 6.56% loss of their initial weight while women maintained a 7.35% loss. Over a quarter, 26.6%, of those who started the program (but did not complete it) maintained at least a 5% weight loss at one year, while 61.6% of treatment completers maintained 5% weight losses. The opinions expressed in this article reflect the views of the authors and not those of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Army.