Computers

The focus of this ninth volume is on human/technology issues that arise from the design, development, application, operation, evaluation, and maintenance of advanced systems with regard to training in complex environments. Areas covered include: a user-oriented design analysis of a virtual environment training system, a cognitive task analysis technique for virtual environment training, advanced embedded team training, human centered automation for air traffic control, human performance modelling in system design, and scenario-based training.

We live in an ever complex, dynamic and technological-based world. A world where industries, businesses and agencies rely ever increasingly on automated systems to maintain efficiency, increase productivity, minimize human error or gain a competitive edge. Moreover, automation is now seen by many organizations as the solution to human performance problems. These organizations continue to invest significant resources to implement automated systems wherever possible and there is no doubt that automation has helped such organizations manage their sophisticated, information-rich environments, where humans have limited capabilities. Therefore, automation has helped to improve industrial and commercial progress to the extent that organizations now depend upon it for their own benefit. However, new and unresolved problems have arisen as more individuals, groups and teams interact with automated systems. Hence, the need and motivation of this volume. The chapters contained in this volume explore some of the key human performance issues facing organizations as they implement or manage automated systems. Dealing with a range of topics, from how to design optional use, avoiding misuse, to creating training strategies for automated systems, this volume also explores which theories may help us understand automation better and what research needs to be conducted. This publication attempts to illustrate how human performance research on automation can help organizations design better systems and also hopes to motivate more theoretically-based but practically-relevant research in the technological-based world of the 21st century.

"Research in Philosophy and Technology: Volume 19" advances philosophical reflections on technology through a focus on metaphysical and epistemological issues. The contributors employ the resources of both the phenomenological and analytical traditions of contemporary philosophy in their work. Contributions include general proposals for the reform of the philosophy of technology; examinations of the work of major philosophers including Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Jonas, Ihde, and Merleau-Ponty; an extended argument for a more careful delineation of the difference between science and technology; a new analysis of the concept of efficiency; extended studies of the fate of skill in the information age and the place of the body in virtual reality. Themed review essays and general reviews complement the chapters.