Zoekresultaten

Introduction of ramp-LOSA at KLM Ground Services

Airline ground operations are subject to the conflicting demands of short turn-around times and safety requirements. They involve multiple parties, but are less regulated than airborne processes. Not surprisingly, more than a quarter of all aircraft incidents occur on the ground. These incidents lead to aircraft damage and associated costs, risk of injuries, and can potentially impact in-flight safety. KLM Ground Services has targeted platform safety performance as an area for improvement. However, existing safety awareness programs have had limited effect. A direct link between safety culture surveys and safety performance has not been established, and therefore these are insufficient to give adequate feedback on interventions. Newly developed by the Texas University are the Line Operations Safety Assessments (LOSA), first targeted at cockpit operations. Variants are available since October 2010 for the platform and maintenance environments. The research group for Aviation Engineering at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences has used the original platform LOSA material and tailored these to the specific circumstances at KLM. Results to date show that with these modifications, platform LOSA is a useful tool to quantify safety performance and to generate trend data. The effect of safety interventions can now be monitored. Referentie de Boer, R.J., Koncak, B., Habekotté, R., & van Hilten, G.J. (2011), Introduction of ramp-LOSA at KLM Ground Services , Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, Leeds, United Kingdom

Finding common ground

Many coastal communities worldwide are facing challenges caused by increasing sea levels. However, urban development, population growth and industrialisation in low-lying delta regions persist. This includes the Netherlands and British Columbia, Canada. Both regions explore new and innovative flood risk and adaptation strategies by initiating nature-based solutions (NBS) pilot projects and integrating research and community initiatives. The aim of this paper is to learn from the experiences with these NBS pilots and support practitioners with insights and knowledge about the prospectives and implementation process of NBS. Our study takes a bird's eye view by diving into four NBS case study projects that try to enhance flood defence and quality of life while considering ecosystems and community values simultaneously. To better understand current initiatives on NBS, we first describe the historical trajectories of flood risk management and climate adaptation policy in both countries. Then we analyse two urban and two suburban case studies to identify and compare enablers and barriers that surround the implementation of NBS. We use the Pilot Paradox as a framework to reflect on the enablers and barriers, and to formulate recommendations for barriers that are common ground. We found that upscaling of the pilots forms an important challenge in both countries. We also found that Canada is interested in exchanging technical knowledge, experiences, and insights with other countries through the involvement of international researchers, consultants, and students in projects. Such collaboration between countries, communities, practitioners, and academics could accelerate the development of innovative climate adaptation strategies worldwide.

Head in the clouds, feet on the ground

Throughout the last three decades, mathematics educators have expressed high expectations of the benefits of using digital technology in mathematics education. In retrospect, however, we admit that this integration has not always been as successful and as smooth as we hoped for. What were the main phases in this period of drastic changes with respect to tool development and availability, theoretical foci and frameworks, and classroom implementation? To answer this question, I will attempt to summarize relevant publications in the field over the past decades, with a bias towards publications by the main person in this book. I will try to identify main trends, and to synthesize what we have learnt so far, both from an academic “head-in-the-clouds” perspective and from a “feet-on-the-ground” classroom teaching perspective. As an overall conclusion, the claim is that a successful integration of digital tools in mathematics education is a still promising, but subtle matter. Tool use in mathematics education is still waiting for its full exploitation, which will require close collaboration between teachers and researchers.

Seeking Higher Ground

Facility management has recently met several inflection points that call for new working methods; therefore, IFMA must foster and facilitate discussions to help set a new course for the industry. FM should build upon a history of innovation and use the field's complexity and multidisciplinarity to its advantage. By understanding current and emergent end-user needs and societal requirements, FM practitioners can identify new opportunities for future development. By understanding how building layers interact across disparate time scales, facility managers can enact systemic change for the benefit of end users, organizations and communities. Facility managers have an opportunity to be at the forefront of transformative change and lead the industry to higher ground.

Notes from the other ground

Grounding practices

From the article: Research through Design projects in the health domain often involve collaborations of design and healthcare researchers. All partners have their own ideas and expectations with regard to what they consider valid ways to support their work. The evidence-based approach that dominates healthcare research differs from the ways that are common in design research, in which more iterative approaches are applied with focus on developing solutions to fit to the users and their context. The question that we address is twofold: a) How do differences in grounding approaches manifest themselves in projects where design and healthcare researchers collaborate? And b) How do project teams deal with these differences? We analyzed the grounding practices within ten Dutch research projects that address the development of e-health applications to support people as they grow older. All projects are collaborations of design and healthcare researchers and practice partners. We applied a multiple case study research approach in two series of interviews, with a cross-case interpretation after the first series of interviews to direct the second series. Differences in grounding approaches in the projects manifest themselves on four themes, each representing a spectrum: time, structure, control and position. These differences provided challenges, but were also used to strengthen the project.