Engineering Commons^™

Towards Agile Academia: An Approach To Scientific Paper Writing Inspired By Software Engineering, Tyler Procko

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The construction of scientific papers is performed in service of the greater scientific community. This iterative process is, in effect, an academic economy, where all members benefit from well-written papers. However, many published scientific papers are poorly written; they often lack sufficient detail to allow replication, there is improper usage of citations or a lack of regard to relevant work, reporting is vague or without linked empirical data to allow verification, figures do not correspond to text or are non-sensical, literary elements, e.g., bulleted lists, are used ineffectively, formatting renders certain sections unreadable, and grammatical errors abound. The issues of …

Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Operator Workload And Situation Awareness Utilizing First Person View Techniques, Ross Lucas Stephenson Jr

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The small, unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) sector within the aviation industry is experiencing unprecedented growth. However, the regulatory guidance for the safe integration of sUAS into the National Airspace System (NAS) has not kept pace with this technological growth within the market. Current regulatory limitations of line-of-sight operations may have an impact on the establishment of an equivalent level of safety for sUAS operations as maintained by manned aircraft. The focal point of the discussion of line-of-sight operations has been the ability of the sUAS pilot to see and avoid all obstacles and other aircraft in a safe and timely …

Intention To Complain About Unmanned Aircraft System Noise: A Structural Equation Analysis, Robert Brents

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Aircraft noise has a long and documented history as a source of public annoyance and a driver of noise complaints. The impending large-scale use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)s could expose a broader cross-section of the public to a new type of aircraft noise. Recent research notes some reactions to UAS noise, but no rigorous analyses of public intention to complain about UAS noise have been found.

Due to the potential proliferation of UASs and their attendant noise, understanding public reaction could advise both government and industry. Governments at all levels could apply the results to inform policies related to …

The Effects Of At-Home Remote Work Environments On Human Cognitive Performance And Work Task Performance Based On Current Societal Conditions, Angela Arias

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Home-based remote work systems present a unique set of cognitive performance and work task performance challenges to employees without remote work experience. The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies into transforming their work system structures, and their employee roles, without the preparation or education of the dynamics that surround home-based remote work systems. This thesis benefits the Human Factors community by investigating the effects of at-home remote-based work environments on cognitive performance, and work task performance, of employees who currently work remotely from home. A multimethod approach was employed to carry out this research. A survey was administered to home-based remote employees, …

The Effects Of Carry-On Baggage On Aircraft Evacuation Efficiency, Sang-A Lee

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The most frequent obstacle of an aircraft evacuation is the passengers carrying baggage while evacuating. Passengers who insist on taking their carry-on baggage during an emergency evacuation not only slow down the evacuation process but also act as a significant risk to the safety of other passengers. This study investigated the factors that affect passengers’ behavioral intention to evacuate with carry-on baggage and the effects of evacuating with carry-on baggage on the total evacuation time. Overall, two studies were conducted to provide an outline of the factors that affect and affected by carry-on baggage.

Study 1 used an agent-based model, …

Assessment Of Evacuation Network Performance Under Different Evacuation Scenarios: The Florida Keys, Erika Shellenberger

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The goal of this research is to better understand the evacuation of a coastal community, the Florida Keys. This will aid in the planning, mitigation, response, and recovery of this community when a hurricane threatens to destroy their homes. To achieve this, a model of the Florida Keys was built in VISSIM, a microscopic traffic flow simulation software, to experiment with different improvement strategies. This process included collecting data about the Florida Keys, building the roadway network of the Florida Keys, calibrating and validating the model, modeling recommendations, and analyzing the outputs when imploring the different improvement strategies. In addition …

An Investigation Of Factors That Influence Passengers’ Intentions To Use Biometric Technologies At Airports, Kabir Olaseni Kasim

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Biometric technologies use the characteristics and measurements from humans to establish or verify their identity. Within an airport setting, biometric technologies can be used to hasten passenger processes such as airport check-in, baggage drop-off or pick-up, and aircraft boarding, thus enhancing the overall passenger experience.

This research investigated the factors that influence passengers’ intentions to choose the use of biometrics over other methods of identification. The current study utilized a quantitative research method via an online survey of 689 persons from Amazon ® Mechanical Turk ® (MTurk) and employed structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques for data analysis. The study utilized …

How Does Robotic Surgery Influence Communication, Leadership, And Team Outcomes? A Multimethod Examination., Jordan E. Rogers

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The practice of delivering surgical care has evolved to be less invasive to the patients undergoing surgery. Minimally-invasive surgery can be practiced through traditional laparoscopic methods as well as with robotic technology that displaces the surgeon from the operating table. Robotic surgery has been cited to be safer and more effective than traditional laparoscopic surgery; however, little research has endeavored to investigate the role of surgical modality upon aspects of teamwork. This dissertation contributes to the human factors and teamwork literature by evaluating how surgical modality may influence communication, shared leadership, and team outcomes. Multiple methods were employed to study …

Pilot Acceptance Of Personal, Wearable Fatigue Monitoring Technology: An Application Of The Extended Technology Acceptance Model, Rachelle Lynne Strong

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The research problem of pilot fatigue has been referenced as a causal factor for aircraft accidents in many United States National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports; however, the United States Code of Federal Regulations 14 CFR Part 117, Flight and Duty Limitations and Rest Requirements for Flight Crew Members, does not provide a tangible means of measuring fatigue for aircraft crew members. This problem is relevant to the airline industry and the travelling public because pilot fatigue is preventable as a causal factor in aviation accidents, and pilots need an accurate way to measure it. Adoption of a …

Identifying Criteria To Predict Army Rifle Marksmanship Proficiency, Katlin Makina Anglin

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The United States Army requires each Soldier to develop marksmanship proficiency in an effort to achieve combat readiness. Soldiers currently develop marksmanship proficiency through Basic Rifle Marksmanship (BRM) training, but significant skill deficiencies are apparent at the end of training. These skill deficiencies remain throughout training because instructors rarely assess Soldiers objectively before the final qualification, reducing the opportunity for instructors to diagnose skill deficiencies until it is too late. Therefore, the goal of the current research is to identify individual differences and sensor-based performance measures for inclusion in a formative assessment during BRM training. The results of the current …

Gender Difference In Situation Awareness When Receiving Wayfinding Direction By Landmarks And Headings, Ziyi Dong

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In aviation, situation awareness (SA) is a fundamental requirement for effective flying and air traffic control. This skill has greatly been associated with pilot and air traffic controller performance. Previous studies in aviation and other fields have shown that gender differences exist in SA performance. Four hypotheses were tested in this study: women navigate better from landmark cues; men navigate better from headings cues; women have better SA performance than men when receiving landmark directions; and men have better SA when receiving cardinal directions. Thirty-eight participants drove a driving simulator twice. While driving, participants were asked SA questions to assess …

Human Factors Contributing To Unstabilized Approaches And Landings In Commercial Aviation Incidents: An Analysis Of Asrs Reports, Garrin E. Ross

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the human factors reported as contributing to operational incidents of unstabilized approaches and landings in United States-based commercial aviation. While previous aviation safety studies have analyzed aviation incident data when investigating the human factor influences during commercial aviation operations and incidents, unstabilized approaches and landings have not been explicitly examined using similar methods. Informed by the findings and recommendations of the Flight Safety Foundation’s Approach and Landing Accident Reduction Task Force, this study examined and analyzed the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) incident report data from unstabilized approach and landing events. The …

Modeling The Use Of An Airborne Platform For Cellular Communications Following Disruptions, Stephen John Curran

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In the wake of a disaster, infrastructure can be severely damaged, hampering telecommunications. An Airborne Communications Network (ACN) allows for rapid and accurate information exchange that is essential for the disaster response period. Access to information for survivors is the start of returning to self-sufficiency, regaining dignity, and maintaining hope. Real-world testing has proven that such a system can be built, leading to possible future expansion of features and functionality of an emergency communications system.

Currently, there are no airborne civilian communications systems designed to meet the demands of the public following a natural disaster. A system allowing even a …

The Effect Of Generation On Retention Of Women Engineers In Aerospace And Industry, Kristine Maria Kiernan

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the nature and extent of differences between generational cohorts regarding the effect of family factors on retention of women in engineering, with an emphasis on women in the aerospace industry. While 6% of the aerospace workforce is made up of aeronautical engineers, an additional 11.2% of the aerospace workforce is drawn from other engineering disciplines. Therefore, the analysis included all engineering sub-disciplines. In order to include women who had left the workforce, women in all industries were used as a proxy for women in aerospace.

Exits to other fields were modeled separately …

The Effects Of Safety Culture And Ethical Leadership On Safety Performance, Kevin O’Leary

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This dissertation investigated the effects of safety culture and ethical leadership on safety performance in Fractional jet pilots in the United States. The primary objective was to develop a well-fitted model linking these constructs. A composite survey instrument was developed from instruments previously validated in the literature.

There were 305 complete and valid responses from Fractional pilots. The hypothesized factor structure consisted of seven factors. The exogenous factor of safety culture was made up of four sub-factors. The endogenous factors included ethical leadership, pilot commitment, and safety performance. Safety performance was a second order factor consisting of errors and attitudes …

Psychological Health Outcomes Within Usaf Remotely Piloted Aircraft Support Career Fields, Kris Anthony Ostrowski

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Remotely piloted aircraft are now commonplace in modern warfare. Enlisted intelligence personnel in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) who support these activities have reported personal accounts of posttraumatic stress and fatigue, possibly due to viewing high-definition, full-motion-video, remote warfare. Rates of mental health diagnoses and counseling are unknown in this population. Incidence rates of 12 specific mental health outcomes were calculated for all enlisted active duty USAF Intelligence Specialists in the 1N1 and 1N0 career fields from 1 January 2006 through 31 December 2010, while considering various demographic and military variables. The incidence rates were compared to RPA sensor operators …

Economic Interrelationships And Impacts Of The Aviation/Aerospace Industry In The State Of Florida Using Input-Output Analysis, Kelly A. Whealan-George

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The study provided a detailed description of the interrelatedness of the aviation and aerospace industry with principal industries in Florida and Volusia County (VC) using Input-Output (IO) analysis. Additionally, this research provided an economic impact analysis of the creation of a university research park in Daytona Beach (DB). The economic impact measures included not only direct economic output and industry employment descriptions but also described the multiplier effects in the form of indirect and induced impacts using data for 2012.

This research concluded the average labor income of the aviation and aerospace industry was higher than average labor income in …

Speaker Dependent Voice Recognition With Word-Tense Association And Part-Of-Speech Tagging, Theodore Philip King Ernst

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Extensive Research has been conducted on speech recognition and Speaker Recognition over the past few decades. Speaker recognition deals with identifying the speaker from multiple speakers and the ability to filter out the voice of an individual from the background for computational understanding. The more commonly researched method, speech recognition, deals only with computational linguistics. This thesis deals with speaker recognition and natural language processing. The most common speaker recognition systems are Text-Dependent and identify the speaker after a key word/phrase is uttered. This thesis presents Text-Independent Speaker recognition systems that incorporate the collaborative effort and research of noise-filtering, Speech …

Human Behavior During Spaceflight: Evidence From An Analog Environment, Kenny Mikael Arnaldi

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Spaceflight offers a multitude of stressors to humans living and working in space, originating from the external space environment and the life-support system. Future space participants may be ordinary people with different medical and psychosocial backgrounds who may not receive the intense spaceflight preparation of astronauts. Consequently, during a mission, a space participant’s mood and behavior could differ from a trained astronaut. This study was an exploratory research project that used an artificial habitat to replicate an orbital environment and the activities performed by humans in space. The study evaluated whether the type of environment affects mood and temperament. Two …

Comparison Of Three Angle Of Attack (Aoa) Indicators: A Usability Study, Camilo Jimenez

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Angle of Attack (AOA) is an important aeronautical concept used to understand the performance status of an aircraft during different flight stages. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has indicated the importance of developing and encouraging the use of affordable AOA based systems to increase inflight safety. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's flight department decided to install AOA indicators in its fleet of Cessna 172S, to increase safety and to help student pilots better understand this important concept. This paper presents a review of AOA, visual display design principles, and usability. This experimental study examined three different AOA indicators provided by the …

The Effects Of Ethical Leadership And Organizational Safety Culture On Safety Outcomes, David Ronald Freiwald

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This dissertation investigated the relationship among ethical leadership, an ethical workplace climate, safety culture, safety behaviors, and measured safety outcomes of workers in the high reliability organizations of aviation and healthcare. The primary objective was to develop a model linking these factors and assess their fit within the model. A secondary objective was to examine differences between the two populations. In this study, a 101-item instrument was used to collect and analyze employee responses on ten factors comprising the model. Structural equation modeling – path analysis was used for testing and evaluating relations using a combination of statistical analysis and …

The Effects Of Sensor Performance As Modeled By Signal Detection Theory On The Performance Of Reinforcement Learning In A Target Acquisition Task, Nate Quirion

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) today are fulfilling more roles than ever before. There is a general push to have these systems feature more advanced autonomous capabilities in the near future. To achieve autonomous behavior requires some unique approaches to control and decision making. More advanced versions of these approaches are able to adapt their own behavior and examine their past experiences to increase their future mission performance. To achieve adaptive behavior and decision making capabilities this study used Reinforcement Learning algorithms. In this research the effects of sensor performance, as modeled through Signal Detection Theory (SDT), on the ability of …

Comparison Of Voice And Text Atc Communications In The Cockpit For Esl Pilots, Shannon Marie Cummings

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Throughout the course of any flight, pilots and air traffic control (ATC) are in constant radio communication regarding the position and route of the aircraft. Effective pilot-ATC communication helps to increase safety by increasing the situation awareness of both the pilot and controller. In the current pilot-ATC communication system, auditory messages are sent back and forth between the pilot and controller. The nature of these auditory messages makes them highly susceptible to memory and information processing limitations. This effect is magnified when dealing with pilots who have learned English as a second language (ESL) as people have more difficulty processing …

A Naturalistic Study Of Long-Term Working Memory Capacity For Meaningful Visual And Auditory Stimuli, Joseph M. Jaworski

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore long-term working memory in experts in an information-rich, dynamic domain. Of particular interest were strategies experts use to enhance long-term working memory capacity when working with verbal versus aural information. Three air traffic control instructors participated in four complex air traffic control scenarios, two radar scenarios in which information was presented visually and two non-radar scenarios in which information presentation was purely aural. Participants recalled traffic situation information at two points during and at the end of each scenario. Recall data for each scenario type were assessed in terms of evidence about …

Spatial Cognition Differences Between Men And Women In Spatial Cue Environments During Flight Simulation, Heidi Crystal Kim

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Ground reference maneuvers are an important component of pilot training. In order to perform these maneuvers, pilots rely on cues from the environment to determine where their aircraft is in relation to objects on the ground. This process requires a high degree of spatial cognition, which refers to the cognitive processes used to orient oneself in space. Two factors that can influence spatial cognition in the context of aviation ground reference maneuvers are the availability of spatial cues and the biological sex of the pilot. Research suggests spatial cues aid in the identification of potentially dangerous objects. In the context …

Analyzing Communication Performance: A Comparison Of Native-English Speakers And Non-Native English Speakers, Tami Marie Gibbs

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to research how well native and non-native English speakers proficiently communicated using learned Air Traffic Control (ATC) phraseology, and how well they communicated using plain phraseology. The participants in this study were Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) flight students at the Daytona Beach campus. This study used a sample of students from English-speaking countries and a sample of students from non-English speaking countries. A quantified study of the types of communication errors was conducted by listening to a pre-defined amount of voice communications between the Daytona Beach International Airport tower facility and ERAU flight student …

Pre-Exposure Training As A Means To Reduce Vection Induced Symptoms Of Motion Sickness, Nicholas James Stapleton

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The focus of this study was designed to empirically examine the effect of inducing mild motion sickness as an ameliorative to a more severe motion sickness exposure. Twenty-seven participants were selected for this study based upon their susceptibility to motion sickness, that is, only people who were determined to be motion susceptible were tested. All participants were exposed to a motion sickness-inducing environment. Eighteen participants were trained to adapt to motion sickness by exposure to a milder motion sickness-inducing environment, ending either 6 hours or 24 hours prior to the more severe motion test environment.

Participants during the pre-exposure experimental …

Effects Of Oxygen Deprivation On Pilot Performance And Cognitive Processing Skills: A Pilot Study, David Francis Shideler

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations, pilots flying above 14,000 ft. are required to use supplemental oxygen. The purpose of this study was to examine how oxygen deprivation below 14,000 ft. affects pilot performance using the Frasca Mentor Advanced Aviation Training Device (AATD), and cognitive processing skills using the Automated Neuropsychological Assessment Metrics (ANAM(TM)) cognitive test. The study was conducted in a Normobaric High Altitude Laboratory at simulated altitudes of 5,000 ft. and 14,000 ft. In this pilot study, only five participants were tested; non-significant results of the analysis were anticipated; however, as oxygen levels decreased and time of …

The Effects Of Familiarity And Persuasion On Risk Assessment, Casey L. Smith

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Cognitive biases influence decisions and the analyses of risk. They are often derived from two separate processes: bias based on familiarity (familiarity bias) and bias as the result of influences from outside sources (persuasion bias). Research suggests that familiarity-based bias may lead to acceptance of an activity's drawbacks and a leniency of its risks.

In addition, research has tried to measure and analyze different types of biases individually, but few have compared the interactions of more than one bias at once. Because different biases may derive from different mental phenomena it is important to tease out the distinctions, and observe …

The Effects Of Expertise And Information Location On Change Blindness Detection Within An Aviation Domain, Dinorah Zárate

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Change blindness is a phenomenon where the viewer fails to detect change in an object or scene during a visual disturbance. During a flight, a pilot samples multiple displays for information about the task at hand. It is imperative that the changes in the displays are being correctly viewed by pilots to ensure a safe flight. However, it is unknown how much change blindness affects pilots or if pilot expertise plays a role in change detection.

A change blindness experiment was performed with twenty four participants divided into two groups based on expertise. Expert pilots were defined as instructor pilots …