Measuring the unseen: a situational awareness scoring framework for cyber range training

Cyber Range has become a very important means to support tasks such as network security technology validation, network weapon testing, training of network attack and defense and network risk assessment. However, Cyber Ranger faces many security threats from internal and external environments. In order to establish an adaptive security protection system, threat modeling is needed to analyze potential threats and provide security solutions. In this paper, we present a novel threat modeling method for Cyber Range. Based on ontology and knowledge graph, our research focuses on the design of threat ontology, knowledge base, and unified description specification. Typical cases are given to demonstrate our approach. This study could serve as groundwork for further Cyber Range researches including security architecture, situation awareness and intelligent decision-making.

Human-robot collaboration (HRC) in construction primarily aims at supporting human workers in performing demanding tasks. In human-robot teams, maintaining proper situational awareness is a key element of successful collaboration. In this context, one effective approach is to incorporate visual cues (i.e., explicit visual aids) into HRC through novel visualization technologies. To that end, this study investigates the impact of visual cues on workers’ situational awareness during HRC at construction jobsites. Visual cues, mainly related to the safe distance of working with autonomous robots, were embedded into an immersive virtual environment. An experiment then was conducted in which participants performed a brick-laying task in collaboration with an autonomous material lift enhancer robot with and without provided visual cues. Participants’ situational awareness in each condition was measured using electroencephalogram (EEG) signals during the task performance. Beta-band activity in specific brain regions was used as an indicator of situational awareness status. The Mann-Whitney U test revealed statistically significant differences between Beta activity in two experimental conditions, indicating higher situational awareness during HRC with visual cues. The findings of this study can pave the path toward effective utilization of visual cues in future human-robot collaboration at construction.

During SAE L3 automated driving, drivers engage in non-driving related tasks (NTRDs), but NTRDs impair situation awareness (SA) and takeover quality. This study aimed to find an NTRD that is interesting but has a minimal negative impact on SA. Given the strong impact of games on cognition, we studied how games affected SA and takeover performance. In the game survey, we investigated the impact of four type of games on driving SA. The results showed that there were some games positively affected SA (situational game). In the formal experiment, we used a realistic simulated driving environment to investigate the effect of games on SA and takeover performance. A 3 (task type: situational game/non-situational game/monitoring) × 4 (attention duration, time between monitoring requests and takeover requests: 4 s/6 s/8 s/10 s) mixed design was used. Results showed that drivers who engaged in the situational game had higher SA, better takeover performance, and required less attention duration than drivers who engaged in the non-situational game. Both groups showed faster takeover time than the monitoring group, indicating higher arousal. Our research results indicate that playing situational games can improve SA and takeover quality in automated driving.

Evaluation of the effect of information integration in displays for ICU nurses on situation awareness and task completion time: A prospective randomized controlled study

This study aims to measure and compare the situational awareness of pedestrians while crossing the road at unsignalized and signalized intersections in real-world conditions. The measurement of situational awareness employs Markov gaze entropy, and the obtained transition probability matrix is used to comprehend gaze transition behavior. This study conducted field experiments at an unsignalized and a signalized intersection with volunteer participants. Situational awareness of pedestrians was analyzed considering six areas of interest: Vehicles, Fellow Pedestrians, Near Path, Focus of Expansion, Road Infrastructure (RI), and Non-Traffic Relevant Objects (NTRO). Results of this study indicate that pedestrians at the signalized intersection exhibited lower situational awareness (i.e., higher entropy) than those at the unsignalized intersection. Additionally, higher crossing initiation times and pedestrian speed were associated with lower situational awareness at an unsignalized intersection. At the signalized intersection, pedestrians initiating crossing in 3 to 6 s exhibited least Markov Entropy, indicating high situational awareness. Furthermore, an increase in pedestrian speed was associated with increased situational awareness. Moreover, pedestrians at the unsignalized and signalized intersections exhibited more gaze transitions from NTRO to vehicles and from vehicles to NTRO. However, the highest average gaze transition probability (i.e., 49.6%) at the signalized intersection was observed between NTRO and vehicles, and the next highest probability (43.1%) was observed between RI and vehicles. Overall, these study findings can help gain insights into how pedestrians visually explore their surroundings and make decisions while crossing the road. This information can be valuable for designing safer and more efficient intersections, thus improving pedestrian safety.

Studies of future airspace design often predict that automated tools will be available to assist the controller and sometimes complete tasks independently of controller intervention. How this redistribution of functions will change the role of the controller needs to be considered, as does its impact on the controller’s awareness of aircraft movement in their sector. In a study of high altitude operations in future airspace where aircraft were equipped with different levels of data communications capabilities, it was found that about half of the participants positively attributed the contribution of the automation as assisting their own level of situation awareness (SA) – and hence perceived themselves as being in a better position in terms of SA under more automated / equipped conditions. Whereas the other half of the participants, who did not consider the automation to assist their situation awareness, perceived themselves as having higher SA under conditions that were closer to the current day. With increased reliance on automation and higher expected traffic volume in the future, controllers will need to rethink what constitutes as their SA since they will no longer be able to have a complete awareness of their airspace as they do now. Insights into new SA strategies that can factor automation’s contribution and integrate it into controllers’ awareness could be helpful in future training and tool design.

The risk of major occupational accidents involving tripping hazards is commonly underestimated with a large number of studies having been conducted to better understand variables that affect situation awareness: the ability to detect, perceive, and comprehend constantly evolving surroundings. An important property that affects situation awareness is the limited capacity of the attentional system. To maintain situation awareness while exposed to tripping hazards, a worker needs to obtain feedforward information about hazards, detect immediate tripping hazards, and visually scan surroundings for any potential environmental hazards. Despite the importance of situation awareness, its relationship with attention remains unknown in the construction industry. To fill this theoretical knowledge gap, this study examines differences in attentional allocation between workers with low and high situation awareness levels while exposed to tripping hazards in a real construction site. Participants were exposed to tripping hazards on a real jobsite while walking along a path in the presence of other workers. Situation awareness was measured using the situation awareness rating technique, and subjects’ eye movements were tracked as direct measures of attention via a wearable mobile eye tracker. Investigating the attentional distribution of subjects by examining fixation-count heat maps and scan paths revealed that as workers with higher situation awareness walked, they periodically looked down and scanned ahead to remain fully aware of the environment and its associated hazards. Furthermore, this study quantitatively compared the differences between the eye-tracking metrics of worker with different situation awareness levels (low versus high) using permutation simulation. The results of the statistical analysis indicate that subjects did not allocate their attention equally to all hazardous areas of interest, and these differences in attentional distribution were modulated by the workers’ level of situation awareness. This study advances theory by presenting one of the first attempts to use mobile eye-tracking technology to examine the role of cognitive processes (i.e., attention) in human error (i.e., failure to identify a hazard) and occupational accidents.

Level of automation effects on performance, situation awareness and workload in a dynamic control task

Future-facing cities increasingly integrate smart and autonomous objects for their smooth functioning and operations, which ultimately benefit city dwellers and the ecosystem at large. In such highly complex and digital environments, the increased situational awareness is very important for the safety of road participants. In this paper, we propose a new bandwidth-aware framework that maximizes the situational awareness of a given region, using mobile digital boxes and 360° cameras, mounted on connected vehicles, taking into account the constrained uplink capacity. The proposed framework leverages the multi-view spectral clustering approach and the K-Means++ algorithms to ensure efficient clustering of vehicles based on their GPS coordinates. The clustering step is crucial for larger spatial coverage and, thus, higher situational awareness. Vehicle selection and video quality attribution, under limited uplink constraints, are then performed per cluster to fairly cover the region. Extensive simulations and comparisons against state-of-the-art solutions have been conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed framework, in terms of region coverage rate and normalized mutual information score, at both small- and large-scale deployments. The results obtained demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach.

Core trainee boot camp, a method for improving technical and non-technical skills of novice surgical trainees. A before and after study

Managing obstetric shoulder dystocia requires swift action using correct maneuvers. However, knowledge of obstetric teams' performance during management of real-life shoulder dystocia is limited, and the impact of non-technical skills has not been adequately evaluated. We aimed to analyze videos of teams managing real-life shoulder dystocia to identify clinical challenges associated with correct management and particular non-technical skills correlated with high technical performance. We included 17 videos depicting teams managing shoulder dystocia in two Danish delivery wards, where deliveries were initially handled by midwives, and consultants were available for complications. Delivery rooms contained two or three cameras activated by Bluetooth upon obstetrician entry. Videos were captured 5 min before and after activation. Two obstetricians assessed the videos; technical performances were scored as low (0-59), average (60-84), or high (85-100). Two other assessors evaluated non-technical skills using the Global Assessment of Team Performance checklist, scoring 6 (poor) to 30 (excellent). We used a spline regression model to explore associations between these two score sets. Inter-rater agreement was assessed using interclass correlation coefficients. Interclass correlation coefficients were 0.71 (95% confidence interval 0.23-0.89) and 0.82 (95% confidence interval 0.52-0.94) for clinical and non-technical performances, respectively. Two teams had low technical performance scores; four teams achieved high scores. Teams adhered well to guidelines, demonstrating limited head traction, McRoberts maneuver, and internal rotation maneuvers. Several clinical skills posed challenges, notably recognizing shoulder impaction, applying suprapubic pressure, and discouraging women from pushing. Two non-technical skills were associated with high technical performance: effective patient communication, with teams calming the mother and guiding her collaboration during internal rotational maneuvers, and situation awareness, where teams promptly mobilized all essential personnel (senior midwife, consultant, pediatric team). Team communication, stress management, and task management skills were not associated with high technical performance. Videos capturing teams managing real-life shoulder dystocia are an effective tool to reveal challenges with certain technical and non-technical skills. Teams with high technical performance are associated with effective patient communication and situational awareness. Future training should include technical skills and non-technical skills, patient communication, and situation awareness.

Non-technical skills in oral and maxillofacial and head and neck surgery: systematic review

Robot-assisted surgery is expanding worldwide. Most research in this field concentrates on surgeons' technical skills and patient outcome, but research from open and laparoscopic surgery shows that teamwork is crucial for patient safety. Team composition is changed in robot-assisted surgery with the surgeon placed away from the bedside, potentially altering teamwork and workflow in the operating theatre. This scoping review aimed to explore how factors affecting workflow as well as team members' social and cognitive skills during robot-assisted surgery are reported in the literature. A systematic search was performed in the databases Medline, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Web of Science. Reports were screened according to the Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis for Scoping Review guidelines. Inclusion criteria were robot-assisted surgery, multi-professional teams, and workflow, flow disruptions, or non-technical skills. A total of 12,527 references were screened, and 24 articles were included in the review. Articles were heterogeneous in terms of aim, methods and focus. The studies concentrated on two main fields: flow disruptions and the categorization of their causes and incidences; and non-technical skills describing the challenges of communication and effects on situation awareness. Many studies focused on flow disruptions and found that communication, coordination, training, and equipment/technology were the most frequent causes. Another focus of studies was non-technical skills-primarily communication and situation awareness. Future studies could focus on how to prevent the most harmful flow disruptions and develop interventions for improving workflow.

BackgroundMany training curricula were introduced to deal with the challenges that minimally invasive surgery (MIS) presents to the surgeon. Situational awareness (SA) is the ability to process information effectively. It depends on general cognitive abilities and can be divided into three steps: perceiving cues, linking cues to knowledge and understanding their relevance, and predicting possible outcomes. Good SA is crucial to predict and avoid complications and respond efficiently. This study aimed to introduce the concept of SA into laparoscopic training.MethodsThis is a prospective, randomized, controlled study conducted at the MIS Training Center of Heidelberg University Hospital. Video sessions showing the steps of the laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) were used for cognitive training. The intervention group trained SA with interposed questions inserted into the video clips. The identical video clips, without questions, were presented to the control group. Performance was assessed with validated scores such as the Objective Structured Assessment of Technical Skills (OSATS) during LC.Results72 participants were enrolled of which 61 were included in the statistical analysis. The SA-group performed LC significantly better (OSATS-Score SA: 67.0 ± 11.5 versus control: 59.1 ± 14.0, p value = 0.034) and with less errors (error score SA: 3.5 ± 1.9 versus control: 4.7 ± 2.0, p value = 0.027). No difference in the time taken to complete the procedure was found. The benefit assessment analysis showed no difference between the groups in terms of perceived learning effect, concentration, or expediency. However, most of the control group indicated retrospectively that they believed they would have benefitted from the intervention.ConclusionThis study suggests that video-based SA training for laparoscopic novices has a positive impact on performance and error rate. SA training should thus be included as one aspect besides simulation and real cases in a multimodal curriculum to improve the efficiency of laparoscopic surgical skills training.

Trainee pilots are expected to be thoroughly trained on both technical and nontechnical skills. Technical skills are relatively easy to evaluate. However, non-technical skills are hard to monitor and assess. This study investigates the feasibility of providing a smart evaluation technique that can generate feedback on trainee pilots’ instrument scan behavior. The authors conducted gaze monitoring experiments with a number of trainee pilots while operating a flight simulator in order to isolate patterns of behavior associated with Situation Awareness (SA). Recorded data on eye movements are then processed and transitions are extracted using a state transition model. The sequence of transitions are then processed to retrieve repeated instrument scan pattern. The results are verified using chart visualizations.