Brian Pagán

Little research has been done on ultralight aviation accidents. A better understanding of accident factors allows for better development of preventive measures. This study analyzes ultralight accidents with respect to significant factors related to active and latent failures, as referred to in Reason's Swiss cheese model of human error. There were 66 National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ultralight accident reports that were examined from 1985-2004. Contextual information about active and latent failures was identified, compiled, and cross-referenced with pilot, aircraft, and accident information for evidence of significant relationships. Pilots with less than 40 make/model-specific flying hours were significantly more likely to crash fatally (chi2 = 9.07; p < 0.005; df=1) than other pilots and/or because of losing control (chi2 = 7.24; p < 0.05; df=1) than other accident causes. In contrast, pilots with 40 or more make/model-specific flying hours were significantly ...

... Brian Pagán University College Maastricht Address: Hoenderstraat 13B, 6211 EL Maastricht, The Netherlands Tel: Weekdays: +31 (0) 61 546 8341; Weekends: +49 (0) 6561 968 619 E-mail: b.pagan@student.unimaas.nl Thanks: I would like to thank Pascal van Gerven of the ...

Changing economies and globalization make it necessary for organizations and their members to be more mobile than ever. Our research reveals that such workers face two major challenges, i.e. disturbance in other time zones and communication fragmentation. The most critical derived user requirements are social acceptability, high ROI (return on investment) of use, and a gentle learning curve.
Our concept, CommUnification, addresses these requirements by combining four main functions into a rich, integrated user experience. These are incoming call handling, unified messaging, subject attachment to voice calls, and one-touch contact information sharing.
To illustrate the concept, use cases and a video prototype were created, which were also used to evaluate the concept. Evaluation revealed that the system is socially acceptable, but the use ROI and learning curve must be studied after further development.

Introduction: Gyroplanes (autogyros) are regarded as a relatively safe and stable type of general-aviation aircraft. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration categorizes them as sport pilot/light sport aircraft, and reports of gyroplane accidents are included in a publicly available database. We hypothesized that issues related to pilot experience and aircraft maintenance would affect the severity of accidents as indicated by aircraft damage and fatalities. Methods: A search of the National Transportation Safety Board database for the period 1985-2005 yielded 223 reports of gyroplane accidents. Information from those reports was compiled and cross-referenced with pilot performance breakdowns and contextual information. The data was then analyzed using the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System. Results: There was a strong effect of pilot experience on crash outcomes; compared to more experienced pilots, crashes involving pilots with less than 40 flight hours in the same make/model gyroplane were five times more likely to involve loss of control, twice as likely to destroy the aircraft, and four times more likely to involve fatalities. On the other hand, crashes involving pilots with more than 40 make/model hours were more likely to be related to perception-based performance breakdown. Maintenance issues were not found to play a significant role in this sample of crashes. Conclusion: The results support the hypothesis that pilot experience is a significant predictor of accident fatality in gyroplanes. Training that is adapted to the experience level of pilots as implemented in new FAA regulations for sport pilot and light sport aircraft (2004) may help to reduce the frequency and seriousness of gyroplane accidents.

Introduction: Little research has been done on ultralight aviation accidents. A better understanding of accident factors allows for better development of preventive measures. This study analyzes ultralight accidents with respect to significant factors related to active and latent failures, as referred to in Reason's Swiss cheese model of human error. Methods: There were 66 National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ultralight accident reports that were examined from 1985-2004. Contextual information about active and latent failures was identified, compiled, and cross-referenced with pilot, aircraft, and accident information for evidence of significant relationships. Results: Pilots with less than 40 make/model-specific flying hours were significantly more likely to crash fatally (χ2 = 9.07; p < 0.005; df = 1) than other pilots and/or because of losing control (χ2 = 7.24; p < 0.05; df = 1) than other accident causes. In contrast, pilots with 40 or more make/model-specific flying hours were significantly more likely to crash as a result of engine failure (χ2 = 9.33; p < 0.005; df = 1). Loss of control as an active failure was usually associated with such latent failures as strong winds and insufficient mission planning, while the engine failure accidents involved inadequate maintenance. Conclusion: In order to reduce accident prevalence, ultralight self-regulation organizations should focus on training in mission planning, aircraft familiarity, and proper maintenance procedures. Further research should concentrate on explaining the prevalence of the active and latent failures shown here and determining the effects of the FAA's new light sport aircraft category.

This paper contrasts contemporary traditional and constructivist educational models to show that constructivist models have invaluable advantages over and are more effective than more traditional models. Bruner’s constructivist theory is discussed, as well as some of its influences, then traditional and constructivist educational models are contrasted point-for-point. The paper then refers to factual examples of successful constructivist education models in practice and suggests methods for using constructivist theory to improve traditionally designed curricula.

The ideas and technology behind ubiquitous computing and the IoT are changing our world, little by little. Moving forward, we need to make sure we’re providing things to people that have meaningful value. It’s quite simple, though…

Be meaningful by satisfying people’s needs.

We can furthermore use behavioral science to guide people towards better choices and storytelling to engage them emotionally.

We create things for other people. When we feel what others are feeling, we understand them and connect much more deeply than with just market research or personas. Empathy allows us to forge these deep connections by understanding people on a personal level. This talk discusses why empathy is important as well as how we can feel empathy ourselves, how we can help others feel it, and how we can create things that help people empathize with each other.

A user-centric focus is important for developing any product or service, but especially for mobile websites or applications. This is because the varying screen real estate and inefficient user input allow only a limited set of features. People tend to use these mobile devices virtually everywhere (e.g. sitting in a bar, walking on the street, at home with Wi-Fi connection). In the face of this fragmentation in devices and the contexts in which they are used it makes sense to be user-centric.

Unfortunately, well-established user-centered methods often go forgotten when developing for mobile due to tight budgets and fast development cycles.

Luckily, many light-weight UCD techniques exist that are both easy to adapt to your development process and quick to deliver insights into your users' needs. Our presentation will introduce a number of these techniques. For example:

> Quick & dirty prototyping: prototyping allows you to get early feedback from the users and other stakeholders. Paper prototyping for example works great as a start!
> Informal user testing: “Test early and often” to get the most out of the gathered insights. Testing with friends, family, or colleagues is allowed!

Arm yourself with some light-weight UCD techniques and achieve a great user experience for your mobile product, without breaking the bank or deadline. Join ¡La Revolución!

Young children use tablets in ways they do not use mobile phones and computers. Tablets reside in the living room, leaving kids almost no barriers to interact with technology and the internet. Case reports show children moving into the powerful roles of consumer and designer, and we need to accommodate them in playing those roles.

As consumers, tablets easily engage young children because of the previously mentioned social space in which tablets are used. The increased real estate better suits kids’ motor skills, and tablets’ presence in social, family contexts make them effective gateways for children. An increasing number of apps is made for children, but the app world has far to come in its child-centric offering. For example the current qualification of apps is sub-optimal at best (Apple App Store) or non-existent at worst (Android Market).

In addition, children can become professional app designers. Bubble Ball, by 14 year old Robert Nay, is a great example of a child-developed app that competes with corporate-developed ones. Instead of competing against children as designers, we need to collaborate with them, listen to them, and ultimately support them in their development ventures. How strange this may sound, the successful cases involve children as decision makers to successfully leverage their creativity.

This presentation provides app designers some guidelines for working with children and helping them write the next chapter in the history of computing.

Little accident research has been done on recreational aviation. Most ultralights and gyroplanes are indeed privately owned, homebuilt kits, used only for recreational purposes. Since this type of aviation does not generate as much revenue as commercial aviation there is less interest in spending time and money for research to make it safer. Furthermore, controlling recreational aviation the way commercial aviation is controlled would be impractically inexpensive. However, 30% of reported ultralight accidents and 40% of reported gyroplane accidents
since 1984 have been fatal (National Transportation Safety Board, 2006; Pagán, de Voogt, & van Doorn, In Press). A better understanding of accident factors would allow for better
development of preventive measures to make recreational aviation safer. This study analyzes ultralight and gyroplane accidents in the US with respect to significant factors
related to active and latent failures, as referred to in Reason (1990). James Reason (1990) defines active errors as those, whose effects manifest almost immediately. On the other hand, latent errors are those, whose effects lie dormant for some
time and manifest in conjunction with other factors (Reason, 1990; Shappell & Wiegmann, 2000). While Reason’s distinction here applies only to human error, the authors of this study
apply this distinction to human error and other accident factors, such as mechanical failure. Because of this difference, this study refers to this distinction with the word failure in place of
error. This slight terminology difference exists only to signify that this study uses these concepts to refer to more things than Reason does. Even with this difference in terminology,
the basic premise stays the same, i.e. examining only active failures while ignoring latent failures is like treating the symptoms and not the disease.