Air traffic control

J. M. Clinch, Study of Reduction of Glare, Reflection Heat and Noise Transfer in Air Traffic Control Tower Cab Glass, FAA-RD-72-65, AD747069, NTIS, Springfield, Va., 1972. 

From the 1960s onward, there was a greater interest in psychological issues, dominated by the concept of the human as a single-channel processor of information. This stimulated research into a number of areas. Studies of mental workload were concerned with the ability of humans to cope with extremely high levels of information in situations such as air traffic control. Vigilance studies, which focused on the human s role in situations with very low levels of stimulation such as radar monitoring, represented the other extreme of human performance that was considered. 

The element revealed itself through spectacular violet-colored flames and several red spectral lines. The metal melts at 38 °C, is very soft, and extremely reactive (burns in air and reacts violently with water). Rubidium is stored under mineral oil. It is suitable as a scavenger (oxygen capture) in vacuum tubes, where it is deposited on the glass as a mirror. It can also be found in photocells and phosphors for screens (for example, for air-traffic controllers. Not physiologically important. The radioactive rubidium-87 is useful for age determination in geochronology (half-life ca. 50 billion years). 

Planes travel at different speeds and different heights. A traffic controller has the responsibility of keeping the planes a safe distance from one another. Air traffic control is just another opportunity for Pythagoras to be of assistance. 

Fig. 3. Scientist Donald L. Miller holds an integrated circuit chip comprising a high-resolution superconducting analog-to-digital converter. The one-square-cen timeter chip, known as a counting converter, holds promise as an unprecedented combination of high resolution and low power consumption, as needed in future air traffic control radar and infrared space-tracking applications. The 12-bit circuit (Josephson junction) has a resolution of 1 part in 40CK). (Westinghouse Electric Corporation)...

Several studies have examined the total sleep times obtained by air traffic controllers (ATC) in different settings. In one Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) study of shift schedules, results showed that controllers averaged about 8 hr of sleep prior to an afternoon or midday shift (20) and about 7.5 hr of sleep before a day shift. The study also showed that controllers obtained a total of about... 

FAA Air Traffic Control Shiftwork Survey Results. Alexandria, VA Human Resources Research Organization, 2001. 

Luna TD, French J, Mitcha JL. A study of USAF air traffic controller shiftwork sleep, fatigue, activity, and mood analyses. Aviat Space Environ Med 1997 68 18-23. 

Cruz C, Della Rocco P. Investigation of sleep patterns among air traffic control specialists as a function of time off between shifts in rapidly rotating work schedules. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, 2, 974-979, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, April 24—27, 1995. 

Rhodes W, Szlapetis I, Hahn K, Heslegrave R, Ujimoto KV. A study of the impact of shiftwork and overtime on air traffic controllers. Phase I. Determining appropriate research tools and issues. Final report TP 12257E, Transportation Development Centre, Transport Canada, 1994. 

Luna TD. Air traffic controller shiftwork What are the implications for aviation safety A review. Aviat, Space Environ Med 1997 68 69-79. 

CHIRP (Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme) is a clear example of a successful voluntary near miss reporting system, run by the UK s RAF s Institute of Aviation Medicine. Each year about 200 pilots and air traffic controllers report to CHIRP, not anonymously but in complete confidence, about mistakes they have made in the air and why they believe they made them (Greene, 1990). 

He was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration in 1985, and he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution, and a research fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum (Sciences Center) Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Social Research, Cologne. He has been a member of the Board on Radioactive Waste Management and panels of the Committee on Human Factors and the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. He served on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Department of Energy, and chaired its Task Eorce on Radioactive Waste Management, examining questions of institutional trustworthiness. He was a member of the National Research Council s panel on Human Eactors in Air Traffic Control Automation and the Technical Review Committee for the Nuclear Materials Technology Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Belleoud L, Leluan D, Boyer Y. Study on the effects of anthocyanin glycosides on the nocturnal vision of air traffic controllers. Rev Med Aeronaut Spatiale 1966 18 3-7. 

Today, we understand many aspects of the behavior of the cell and many fragments of the network, but not how it all fits together. We particularly do not understand the stability of life and of the networks that compose it. Our experience with other very complicated networks (e.g. the global climate, air-traffic-control systems, the stock market) is that they are puzzlingly unstable and idiosyncratic. But unlike these and other such networks, life is stable - it is able to withstand, or adapt to, remarkably severe external jolts and shocks and its stability is even more puzzling than the instability of the climate. We have a hard enough time understanding even simple sets of coupled chemical reactions. And we have, at this time, no idea how to understand (and certainly not how to construct) the network of reactions that make up the simplest cell. 

U.S. Department of Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA, formerly DARPA), and the advancements under this program are being rapidly commercialized. It is expected that commercial applications will exceed military ones early bythe end of the decade. Applications areas include personal communications, and air-traffic control radar. Several companies have begun the transition from military to commer-... 

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