Professional Crews Research Articles

Accuracy of Volunteer-Derived Data from a Single-Day Inventory Event Built Around a Crowdsourced Tree Mapping Application

Freely available ecosystem service models, like those incorporated in the i-Tree suite of tools, have helped scientists and practitioners estimate the environmental functions and economic benefits associated with their urban forest. Traditionally, professional inventory crews have been used to collect the inventory data needed for these models, but several cities have established crowdsourcing platforms to allow volunteers to map and inventory trees. Students in this study hosted and participated in an Arbor Day inventory collection event, using a newly released crowdsourcing application for mapping trees and estimating ecosystem services. The students located, identified, and measured trees on the University of South Florida campus (Tampa, Florida, U.S.) after a brief training session. After the one-day event, a more rigorously-trained field crew attempted to relocate the inventoried trees to assess the accuracy and variability of the data collected. Of the 339 trees inventoried at the original event, only 57.8% (n = 196) had coordinates that were accurate enough to re-measure. Of the 196 re-measured trees, 91.3% (n = 179) were correctly identified. However, only 47.9% (n = 91) of trees had dbh measurements within a one inch (2.5 cm) threshold for accuracy. Results of this experiment offer insights for communities looking to host special inventorying events to increase participation in crowdsourcing tree inventory initiatives.

How to transform peasants into seamen: The manning of the Swedish navy and a double-faced maritime culture

During the seventeenth century Sweden rapidly changed from a small insignificant country in Europe’s northern periphery to a great military power. The navy was a crucial part of the expansion, but to maintain a standing navy was a demanding task for a comparatively poor and sparsely populated country. One of many difficulties was to recruit skilled and competent seamen. Sweden had no large merchant fleet that could serve the navy with experienced men, and to hire professional crews would have been too expensive. The solution was to recruit poor men from the lower strata of society in coastal villages and towns through what is known as the allotment system (in Swedish: indelningsverket). Those men normally had very little experience of handling large sailing vessels but were soon trained for the task. Once conscripted in the navy they lived two lives. In the summer during the sailing season they were naval seamen. During winter they became farmhands, workers and craftsmen ashore. Thus they constructed a maritime culture of their own, with ideals and values that sometimes were closely linked to a broader maritime culture in Europe and sometimes had more in common with a Swedish rural community culture. This article investigates how this maritime/rural culture was shaped; to what extent the seamen adjusted themselves to a military order and finally what happened when the seamen’s values and ideas collided with the hierarchy and power relations within the navy.

Застосування екіпажами оперативних автомобілів універсальних швидкісних стенограм

Purpose: experimentally to check up possibility and efficiency of application of operative cars of universal speed shorthand records of unknown roads crews. Materials and Methods: theoretical analysis and generalization, pedagogical supervisions, pedagogical experiment, methods of mathematical statistics. In research took part 20 professional crews road patrol State Automobile Inspectorate, in all 40 persons, up-diffused on 2 groups for 10 crews: experimental and control. Results: application of methods of universal speed shorthand record of СД an experimental group allowed to shorten time-of-flight of segment of control distance on 7,37%. Conclusion: the results of pedagogical experiment at participation of professional crews road patrol State Automobile Inspectorate on official cars in the contention terms of the real route testify to possibility and efficiency of application of operative cars of the special setting of universal speed shorthand records of unknown roads crews during their professional activity.

Identifying resilience in proceduralised accident management activity of NPP operating crews

This paper reports a study in which the usage of emergency operating procedures (EOP) in a simulated accident scenario in a nuclear power plant was carefully analysed. The background assumption was that in an accident situation, even within the closely defined envelope of the EOPs, crews may act differently. The empirical findings demonstrate the variance in the operating performance of twelve professional crews all complying with the EOP. The variance was identified by analysing how crews acted in situations and what particular meanings they associated to the situations. Variance was identified in six tasks: information usage, situation identification, dealing with automation, decision making, communication, and leadership. Corresponding habits, the operationalizations of practices, were identified in the analysis. The discovered operating practices in EOP usage were analysed from the point of view of increasing system level resilience. For example, a strong inclination towards connecting operations with process responses will eventually increase the capability of the whole system to adapt to external disturbances. The conclusion is that on a micro-level the activities of crews are different even within EOP following and also, that some practices seem to have more capability produce resilience in the system. A practical implication is that in the training of proceduralized work, attention should be paid to integrating the EOP usage to the operating work, not only to adherence to the procedure. The contribution of the paper is the insight into the role of proceduralized tasks in the construction of resilient emergency operating activity.

Citizen science and observer variability during American pika surveys

AbstractWithin‐ and between‐group observer variability can confound scientific discovery. If observer variability can be quantified and is addressed, data collected by participants with wide ranges of experience and training can yield more reliable inferences. The American pika (Ochotona princeps) is a mammalian sentinel of climate change that has received consideration for listing under the United States Endangered Species Act. As a result, numerous pika monitoring initiatives have been started throughout the mountains in western North America. Some initiatives employ research teams of biological science technicians (professionals), whereas many rely on networks of citizen scientists, or volunteers, for data collection. To date, few studies have quantified observer variability during pika surveys; none have explored the reliability of professional crews or volunteers. We conducted pika surveys in Glacier National Park, Montana, to quantify observer variability. We investigated observer variability 1) among a crew of professionals, 2) among volunteers, and 3) between professionals and volunteers. Professionals were more consistent at identifying pika signs and estimating potential home ranges and consistently found more pika signs than did the volunteers, with the exception of pika sightings. Estimates of pika occupancy were consistent at each site among volunteers conducting sitting surveys. We suggest that sitting surveys conducted by volunteers can reliably detect pika site occupancy. However, data on population dynamics of pikas (e.g., density) should be collected by professionals. Observer variability analyses of this nature should be common practice for wildlife‐resource managers and scientists, especially with observers of varying levels of experience and motivation. © 2012 The Wildlife Society.

A Future for Ethnographic Film?

ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM IS A CONTESTED GENRE, not unlike the documentary. The majority opinion is that an film is any documentary that focuses on non-Western people (see Heider). The adjective ethnographic is used in a very loose manner, similar to the way psychological or historical is applied to a film. Few people expect a psychological film to be a serious rendering of the constructs of psychology or for the maker of the film to be a professionally trained psychologist. As a consequence, many films screened at places such as the American Anthropological Association or the Margaret Mead festival are documentaries made by professional filmmakers who have little or no training in anthropology. I have argued for a more restricted approach-one that confines the genre to the work of academic anthropologists. In my book Picturing Culture, I articulated a fantasy version of this position. To begin ... a moral tale for anthropologists, a fantasy in which an cinema exists-not documentaries about anthropological subjects, but films designed by anthropologists to communicate insights. It is a well-articulated genre distinct from the conceptual limitations of realist documentary and broadcast journalism. It borrows conventions and techniques from the whole of cinema-fiction, documentary, animation and experimental. A multitude of film styles vie for prominence-equal to the number of theoretical positions found in the field. There are general audience films produced for television as well as highly sophisticated works designed for professionals. While some films intended for a general audience are collaboratively made with professional filmmakers, solely professional anthropologists, who use the medium to convey the results of their studies and ethnological knowledge, produce most. University departments regularly teach the theory, history, practice and criticism of communications-verbal, written and pictorial-enabling scholars from senior professors to graduate students to select the most appropriate mode in which to publish their work. There are a variety of venues where these works are displayed regularly and serve as the basis for scholarly discussion. Canons of criticism exist that allow for a critical discourse about the ways in which anthropology is realized pictorially. A low-cost distribution system for all these products is firmly established. Videotapes/CD-ROMs/DVDs are as common as books in the libraries of anthropologists, and the internet and world wide web occupy a place of some prominence as an resource. Needless to say, the fantasy has remained just that. I see no reason to assume things will change much, although with the advent of prosumer three-chip digital cameras and the ease of computer editing, more anthropologists are delving into video production. Having lived through a number of major technological changes, beginning with cable television and sync-sound Super 8mm cameras, which both promised radical departures from the norm, I am not one to put much faith in what might be called techno-salvation. A change in technology will not bring about the kind of changes I am interested in because the problems are not technical. They are conceptual. To accomplish the task I have proposed, anthropologists will have to divorce themselves from the economic realities of the commercial documentary world. Anthropological filmmaking would have to become a scholarly activity with no commercial potential, similar to the way scholars write books published by scholarly publishers. Academics never assume that their publishing efforts will produce a living wage. It is now possible for scholars to experiment without obtaining large grants that require the production of materials designed either for the classroom or for public television, nor are they forced to hire professional crews whose goals are often at odds with those of a scholar. …

An operational approach for aircraft crew dosimetry: the SIEVERT system

The study of naturally occurring radiation and its associated risk is one of the preoccupations of bodies responsible for radiation protection. Cosmic particle flux is significantly higher on-board the aircraft that at ground level. Furthermore, its intensity depends on solar activity and eruptions. Due to their professional activity, flight crews and frequent flyers may receive an annual dose of some millisieverts. This is why the European directive adopted in 1996 requires the aircraft operators to assess the dose and to inform their flight crews about the risk. The effective dose is to be estimated using various experimental and calculation means. In France, the computerised system for flight assessment of exposure to cosmic radiation in air transport (SIEVERT) is delivered to airlines for assisting them in the application of the European directive. This professional service is available on an Internet server accessible to companies with a public section. The system provides doses that consider the routes flown by aircraft. Various results obtained are presented.

A strategy for introducing hydrogen into transportation

Considerable effort is being expended on research and demonstration projects aimed at introducing hydrogen into the transportation sector as a fuel, generally motivated by concerns about carbon dioxide emissions and petroleum imports (or scarcity). In this paper we focus on one aspect of strategy for introducing hydrogen—the choice of transportation mode. Our analysis suggests that cost of introducing hydrogen can be reduced by selecting a mode that uses a small number of relatively large vehicles that are operated by professional crews along a limited number of point-to-point routes or within a small geographic area. In addition, technological innovation in vehicle design will take place most quickly in modes where individual vehicles are produced to order and each receives significant engineering attention (not those manufactured in vast quantities on assembly lines). The immediate environmental benefits of introducing hydrogen fuel will occur in modes that have relatively less stringent pollution regulations applied to them. These insights, suggest that heavy-duty freight modes would be a less costly way to introduce hydrogen as a transportation fuel and a more effective way to advance hydrogen-related technologies so that they could subsequently be used more widely in light-duty vehicles.

Effects of Airborne Data Link Communication on Demands, Workload and Situation Awareness

An airborne air-to-ground data link communication interface was evaluated in a multi-sector-planning scenario using an Airbus A 340 full flight simulator. In a close-to-reality experimental setting, eight professional crews performed a flight mission in a mixed voice/data link environment. Experimental factors were the medium (voice vs. data link), workload (low vs. high) and the role in the cockpit (pilot flying vs. pilot non-flying). Data link communication and the usability of the newly developed communication interface were rated positively by the pilots, but there is a clear preference for using a data link only in the phase of cruise. Cognitive demands were determined for selected sections of en-route flight. Demands are affected mainly by increased communication needs. In the pilots’ view, although a data link has no effect on safety or the possibilities of intervention, it causes more problems. The subjective workload, as measured with the NASA Task Load Index, increased moderately under data link conditions. A data link has no general effect on pilots’ situation awareness although flight plan negotiations with a data link cause a distraction of attention from monitoring tasks. The use of a data link has an impact on air-to-ground as well as intra-crew communication. Under data link conditions the pilot non-flying plays a more active role in the cockpit. Before introducing data link communication, several aspects of crew resource management have to be reconsidered.

Assessing the performance of volunteers in monitoring streams

SUMMARY 1. Citizens are concerned about the quality of water resources and many participate in monitoring activities, though doubts remain about the quality of the data volunteers collect. We trained volunteers to collect benthic macroinvertebrates using professional protocols. Of the seven stream sites sampled by volunteer crews, six sites were also sampled by professional crews. 2. In the laboratory, volunteers used morphological features to identify as many different taxa as possible within the major insect orders; their identification was approximately to family. Volunteers calculated five metrics: total taxon richness, richness of three key groups (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera), and percentage dominance of the three most abundant taxa. All metrics were strongly correlated with (a) the percentage of urbanized area in the catchment and (b) the metrics derived from a more complete taxonomic identification by a professional scientist. Taxon richness metrics declined with urban development, while percent dominance increased. 3. An overall summary multimetric index was used to compare the field and laboratory procedures of volunteers and professionals. Using an ANOVA model, we detected no significant difference between field samples collected by volunteers and professionals. The variance of index values associated with differences between crews was zero. The ability of the index to detect significant differences among sites (statistical power) improved by only 13% for assessments based on professional laboratory identification instead of volunteer laboratory identification. 4. Citizen volunteers, when properly trained, can collect reliable data and make stream assessments that are comparable to those made by professionals. Data collected by volunteers can supplement information used by government agencies to manage and protect rivers and streams.

Assessing the performance of volunteers in monitoring streams

1. Citizens are concerned about the quality of water resources and many participate in monitoring activities, though doubts remain about the quality of the data volunteers collect. We trained volunteers to collect benthic macroinvertebrates using professional protocols. Of the seven stream sites sampled by volunteer crews, six sites were also sampled by professional crews. 2. In the laboratory, volunteers used morphological features to identify as many different taxa as possible within the major insect orders; their identification was approximately to family. Volunteers calculated five metrics: total taxon richness, richness of three key groups (Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera), and percentage dominance of the three most abundant taxa. All metrics were strongly correlated with (a) the percentage of urbanized area in the catchment and (b) the metrics derived from a more complete taxonomic identification by a professional scientist. Taxon richness metrics declined with urban development, while percent dominance increased. 3. An overall summary multimetric index was used to compare the field and laboratory procedures of volunteers and professionals. Using an ANOVA model, we detected no significant difference between field samples collected by volunteers and professionals. The variance of index values associated with differences between crews was zero. The ability of the index to detect significant differences among sites (statistical power) improved by only 13% for assessments based on professional laboratory identification instead of volunteer laboratory identification. 4. Citizen volunteers, when properly trained, can collect reliable data and make stream assessments that are comparable to those made by professionals. Data collected by volunteers can supplement information used by government agencies to manage and protect rivers and streams.