A review of popular technology adoption models identified several factors that are likely to influence Voice Activated Personal Assistant (VAPA) use in public spaces. To inform design decisions of how to make the private use of the VAPA in public spaces more acceptable from the users’ point of view, an online survey was conducted to investigate the likelihood of usage of the smartphone VAPA such as Apple’s Siri (compared to the usage of smartphone keyboard) as a function of location (private vs. public) and type of information (private vs. nonprivate). Responses from participants showed that users were more cautious of transmitting private than nonprivate information. This effect of type of information was amplified in the social context of public locations and when using conspicuous methods of information input such as the VAPA. Participants also preferred using the VAPA in private locations and showed no preference of location for keyboard entries. Correlations between likelihood of usage of VAPA and the social acceptability ratings were positive and predicted similar patterns of smartphone usage.

Objective: To provide an overview of concepts of operation for single pilot operations (SPO) and a synthesis of recently published work evaluating these concepts. Background: Advances in technology have made it possible for a commercial aircraft to be flown by a single pilot under normal conditions, and research is being conducted to examine the feasibility of implementing SPO for commercial aviation. Method: Context leading up to the consideration of SPO for commercial flight is provided, including the benefits and challenges. Recent studies examining issues relating to automation, operations, and communications in the SPO context are presented. Results: A number of concepts have been proposed and tested for SPO, and no one concept has been shown to be superior. Single pilots were able to successfully resolve off-nominal scenarios with either the ground-support or cockpit-automation tools examined. However, the technologies developed in support of these concepts are in prototype forms and need further development. Conclusion: There have been no obvious “show stoppers” for moving toward SPO. However, the current state of research is in its initial stages, and more research is needed to examine other challenges associated with SPO. Moreover, human factors researchers must continue to be involved in the development of the new tools and technologies to support SPO to ensure their effectiveness. Application: The research issues highlighted in the context of SPO reflect issues that are associated with the process of reducing crew members or providing remote support of operators and, more generally, human interactions with increasingly autonomous systems.

The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will revolutionize the air traffic management system in the United States. NextGen will involve human operators interacting with new technologies in a complex system, making human factors and human–computer interaction considerations a major concern. The present study reports data from a human-in-the-loop simulation that evaluated pilot performance, workload, and situation awareness under one of three plausible NextGen concepts of operation. The concepts of operation differed with respect to the allocation of separation responsibility across human pilots and air traffic controllers (ATCs), and automation. Pilots were asked to employ trajectory-based operations to perform weather avoidance maneuvers, an interval management task, and a continuous descent approach. Depending on the concept being tested, they were also given the responsibility of separation assurance (Concept 1) or received conflict resolutions from an ATC (Concept 2) or automated system (Concept 3). Overall, pilot performance on the various flight tasks was worse in Concept 3 than in Concepts 1 and 2. Although pilot workload did not differ across the three concepts, pilot situation awareness was highest in Concept 1, in which the pilots were given the most responsibilities. These findings suggest that keeping pilots engaged in separation assurance tasks may be preferable to having them rely on automation alone.

First-generation college graduates, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds are gravely underrepresented in the health research workforce representing behavioral health sciences and biomedical sciences and engineering (BHS/BSE). Furthermore, relative to their peers, very few students from these underrepresented groups (URGs) earn scientific bachelor’s degrees with even fewer earning doctorate degrees. Therefore, programs that engage and retain URGs in health-related research careers early on in their career path are imperative to promote the diversity of well-trained research scientists who have the ability to address the nation’s complex health challenges in an interdisciplinary way. The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges, lessons learned, and sustainability of implementing a large-scale, multidisciplinary research infrastructure at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) – a minority-serving institution – through federal funding received by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative. The CSULB BUILD initiative consists of developing a research infrastructure designed to engage and retain URGs on the research career path by providing them with the research training and skills needed to make them highly competitive for doctoral programs and entry into the research workforce. This initiative unites many research disciplines using basic, applied, and translational approaches to offer insights and develop technologies addressing prominent community and national health issues from a multidisciplinary perspective. Additionally, this initiative brings together local (e.g., high school, community college, doctoral research institutions) and national (e.g., National Research Mentoring Network) collaborative partners to alter how we identify, develop, and implement resources to enhance student and faculty research. Finally, this initiative establishes a student research training program that engages URGs earlier in their academic development, is larger and multidisciplinary in scope, and is responsive to the life contexts and promotes the cultural capital that URGs bring to their career path. Although there have been many challenges to planning for and developing CSULB BUILD’s large-scale, multidisciplinary research infrastructure, there have been many lessons learned in the process that could aid other campuses in the development and sustainability of similar research programs.