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At least 235 records · Page 13
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1997

The Conference Proceedings of the 1997 Air Transport Research Group (ATRG) of the WCTR Society

Topics reported on in the proceedings include: Industrial reform and air transport development in China; the economic effects of airline deregulation and the Open-Sky policy of Korea; Open Skies in India; Japanese domestic air fares under the regulatory regime; the competitive position of airline networks; air transport and regional economic development in the European Union; and corporate dilemmas and strategies of European Airlines.

Oum, Tae Hoon↗
NASA NTRS1997

The Conference Proceedings of the 1997 Air Transport Research Group (ATRG) of the WCTR Society

This paper covers topics such as: Safety and Air Fares; International Airline Safety; Multi-fare Seat Allocation Problem; Dynamic Allocation of Airline Seat Inventory; Seat Allocation on Flights with Two Fares; Effects of Intercontinental Alliances; Domestic Airline Mergers; Simulating the Effects of Airline Deregulation on Frequency Choice; and Firm Size Inequality and Market Power.

Oum, T. H.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Outsourcing as an Airline Strategy

Since the deregulation of the airline industry, carriers have searched for any method to improve their competitive position. At the same time, there has been a growth in the use of Third Party Logistics throughout corporate America. This paper presents an overview of the Third Party Logistics system of outsourcing and insourcing within the airline industry. This discussion generated a number of propositions, possible future scenarios and opportunities for empirical testing.

Rutner, Stephen M.↗
NASA NTRS1999

The Conference Proceedings of the 1999 Air Transport Research Group (ATRG) of the WCTR Society

Issues around direct flights across Taiwan Strait are always one of the hottest topics in eastern Asia transport market. Although the direct links have not been connected yet, they are still highly concerned by different disciplines of politics, laws, and management. Airlines and related business also watch closely to these issues for policy changes will easily affect their interests in Chinese market which the future of the air transportation in eastern Asia is heavily depending on. In the past decades, Hong Kong was the most important hub in this market; it will still be an important one in the future. It is proved, however, traffic on the link between Hong Kong and Taiwan can be shifted to the link between Macau and Taiwan, so can it be shifted to the links across Taiwan Strait. Moreover, outgoing passengers from China transferred in Hong Kong can also find transit services in Taiwan. These movements will possibly cause a big change in eastern Asian air transport system for there are millions of passengers travelling in this area. The uncertainties of direct links across Taiwan Strait are still leaving, some problems unsolved. Whether the direct links will be defined as international routes or domestic' routes are not clear; the selection of hubs and airlines to provide direct services are not yet made; even the type of freedoms and bilateral agreements can also change the market and network quite a lot. A much bigger volume of passengers can also be found if further travelling deregulation for Chinese to travel across Taiwan Strait can be made. All these variables are making issues around direct flights worthy of continuous observant.

Zhang, Anming↗
NASA NTRS1999

Outsourcing as an Airline Strategy

Since the deregulation of the airline industry, carriers have searched for any method to improve their competitive position. At the same time, there has been a growth in the use of Third Party Logistics throughout corporate America, This paper presents an overview of the Third Party Logistics system of outsourcing and insourcing within the airline industry. This discussion generated a number of propositions, possible future scenarios and opportunities for empirical testing.

Brown, John H.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Atmospheric Ionizing Radiation and the High Speed Civil Transport

Atmospheric ionizing radiation is produced by extraterrestrial radiations incident on the Earth's atmosphere. These extraterrestrial radiations are of two sources: ever present galactic cosmic rays with origin outside the solar system and transient solar particle events that are at times very intense events associated with solar activity lasting several hours to a few days. Although the galactic radiation penetrating through the atmosphere to the ground is low in intensity, the intensity is more than two orders of magnitude greater at commercial aircraft altitudes. The radiation levels at the higher altitudes of the High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) are an additional factor of two higher. Ionizing radiation produces chemically active radicals in biological tissues that alter the cell function or result in cell death. Protection standards against low levels of ionizing radiation are based on limitation of excess cancer mortality or limitation of developmental injury resulting in permanent damage to the offspring during pregnancy. The crews of commercial air transport operations are considered as radiation workers by the EPA, the FAA, and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). The annual exposures of aircrews depend on the latitudes and altitudes of operation and flight time. Flight hours have significantly increased since deregulation of the airline industry in the 1980's. The FAA estimates annual subsonic aircrew exposures to range from 0.2 to 9.1 mSv compared to 0.5 mSv exposure of the average nuclear power plant worker in the nuclear industry. The commercial aircrews of the HSCT may receive exposures above recently recommended allowable limits for even radiation workers if flying their allowable number of flight hours. An adequate protection philosophy for background exposures in HSCT commercial airtraffic cannot be developed at this time due to current uncertainty in environmental levels. In addition, if a large solar particle event occurs during flight at HSCT altitudes then passengers and crew may greatly exceed allowable limits unless means are available to reduce exposures.

Maiden, D. L.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Assessment of Selected CERES Electronic Component Survivability under Simulated Overvoltage Conditions

In August, 1998 a Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) instrument telemetry housekeeping parameter generated a yellow warning message that indicated an on-board + 15V Data Acquisition Assembly (DAA) power converter deregulation anomaly. An exhaustive investigation was undertaken to understand this anomaly and the long-term consequences which have severely reduced CERES operations on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) spacecraft. Among investigations performed were ground tests that approximated the on-board electronic circuitry using a small quantity of flight identical components exposed to maximum spacecraft bus over-voltage conditions. These components include monolithic integrated microcircuits that perform analog signal conditioning on instrument sensor signals and an analog- to-digital converter (ADC) for the entire DAA. All microcircuit packages have either a bipolar silicon design with internal current limiting protections or have a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) design with bias protections. Ground tests that have been running for approximately 8 months have indicated that these components are capable of withstanding as much as twice their input supply voltage ratings without noticeable performance degradation. These data provide CERES operators with confidence of being able to continue science operations over the remaining life of the TRMM mission. This paper will discuss this anomaly and some possible causes, a simulator of affected electronics, test results, prognosis for future CERES operations, and conclusions.

Chapman, John J.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Autoinhibition of a calmodulin-dependent calcium pump involves a structure in the stalk that connects the transmembrane domain to the ATPase catalytic domain

The regulation of Ca(2+)-pumps is important for controlling [Ca(2+)] in the cytosol and organelles of all eukaryotes. Here, we report a genetic strategy to identify residues that function in autoinhibition of a novel calmodulin-activated Ca(2+)-pump with an N-terminal regulatory domain (isoform ACA2 from Arabidopsis). Mutant pumps with constitutive activity were identified by complementation of a yeast (K616) deficient in two Ca(2+)-pumps. Fifteen mutations were found that disrupted a segment of the N-terminal autoinhibitor located between Lys(23) and Arg(54). Three mutations (E167K, D219N, and E341K) were found associated with the stalk that connects the ATPase catalytic domain (head) and with the transmembrane domain. Enzyme assays indicated that the stalk mutations resulted in calmodulin-independent activity, with V(max), K(mATP), and K(mCa(2+)) similar to that of a pump in which the N-terminal autoinhibitor had been deleted. A highly conservative substitution at Asp(219) (D219E) still produced a deregulated pump, indicating that the autoinhibitory structure in the stalk is highly sensitive to perturbation. In plasma membrane H(+)-ATPases from yeast and plants, similarly positioned mutations resulted in hyperactive pumps. Together, these results suggest that a structural feature of the stalk is of general importance in regulating diverse P-type ATPases.

NASA Discipline Plant Biology↗
NASA NTRS2003

The Conference Proceedings of the 2003 Air Transport Research Society (ATRS) World Conference, Volume 3

Volume 3 of the 2003 Air Transport Reserch Society (ATRS) World Conference includes papers on topics relevant to airline operations worldwide. Specific topics include: European Union and civil aviation regimens;simulating decision making in airline operations, passenger points of view on convenient airports; route monopolies and nonlinear pricing; cooperation among airports in Europe; fleet modernizaiton in Brazil;the effects of deregulation on the growth of air transportation in Europe and the United States.

Bowen, Brent↗
NASA NTRS2003

The Study of Airline Merger and Acquisition in the Great China Area

The Asian financial crisis in the late 20 th century has some long lasting effect on the air transportation industry in Asia, especially in the Great China Area. Starting from 1998, airlines in both China and Taiwan suffered some serious financial losses due to the diminishing travel demand caused by the economic recession. Airlines were forced to cut price to attract passengers and hence crashed the market discipline. A number of airline mergers and acquisitions were then driven by the markets and the governments. After China and Taiwan have both entered the World Trade Organization, some mega-merging cases were finalized in late 2002 for better fitting the world's aviation competitions. This paper reviews the nine merging and acquiring cases in the Great China Area in the past 5 years. Almost all the airlines in the area were involved. The new groups of airlines and the survival airlines are introduced. Market response to the airline mergers will also be examined. A general look over the performance of the new airlines will be discussed. And the future of the market will also be analyzed. Finally, the practices and the impacts of current inter-state mergers in the Great China Area will be examined. The study has expected a highly concentrated domestic market in both China and Taiwan. Each of the market will be dominated by three major airline groups of their own. Cross-holding equity within these 6 leading aviation groups would also be possible after further deregulations.

Shon, Zhengyi↗
NASA NTRS2003

Regulation, Competition and Network Evolution in Aviation

Our focus is the evolution of business strategies and network structure decisions in the commercial passenger aviation industry. The paper reviews the growth of hub-and-spoke networks as the dominant business model following deregulation in the latter part of the 20 century, followed by the emergence of value-based airlines as a global phenomenon at the end of the century. The paper highlights the link between airline business strategies and network structures, and examines the resulting competition between divergent network structure business models. In this context we discuss issues of market structure stability and the role played by competition policy.

Gillen, David↗
NASA NTRS2003

Regulation in the Air: Price and Frequency Cap

Despite deregulation on the air-transportation markets, many connections are still operated by a single operator. Regulation is thus a central issue in this industry. There is however a great concern for the (possibly negative) consequences of price regulation on the quality of services. We argue that both aspects should be considered jointly and propose a mechanism that allow to decentralize the optimal structure of services in this industry. The regulatory procedure is robust to the introduction of heterogeneity in the travellers' valuation of the connections' frequency.

deVillemeur, Etienne Billette↗
NASA NTRS2003

Industry Consolidation and Future Airline Network Structures in Europe

In the current downturn in demand for air travel, major airlines are revising and rationalizing their networks in an attempt to improve financial performance and strengthen their defences against both new entrants and traditional rivals. Expansion of commercial agreements or alliances with other airlines has become a key reaction to the increasingly competitive marketplace. In the absence, for regulatory reasons, of cross-border mergers these are the principal means by which the industry can consolidate internationally. This paper analyzes the developments which have been taking place and attempts to itentify the implications for airline network structures and the function of different hub airports. The range of services available to passengers in long-haul markets to/from Europe is evaluated before and after recent industry reorganization. Hubs are crucial to interlink the route networks of parmers in an alliance. However, duplication between nearby hub airports that find themselves within the same airline alliance can lead to loss of service at the weaker locations. The extent to which the alliance hubs in Europe duplicate or complement each other in terms of network coverage is assessed and this methodology also enables the optimal partnerships for "unattached" airlines to be identified. The future role of the various European hubs is considered under different scenarios of global alliance development. The paper concludes by considering possible longer-term developments. In an environment where the low-cost carriers will provide a major element of customer choice, it is suggested that the traditional airlines will retrench around their hubs, surrendering many secondary cities to the low-cost sector. Further reduction in the number of alliances could threaten more of the European hubs. For both regulatory and commercial reasons, the end result may be just one airline alliance - so recreating in the deregulated market the historic rule of IATA.

Dennis, Nigel↗
NASA NTRS2005

The Effect of Line Maintenance Activity on Airline Safety Quality

One of the arguments against deregulation of the airline industry has been the possibility that financially troubled carriers would be tempted to lower line maintenance spending, thus lowering maintenance quality and decreasing the overall safety of the carrier. Given the financial crisis triggered by the events of 9/11: it appears to be a good time to revisit this issue. This paper examines the quality of airline line maintenance activity and examines the impact of maintenance spending on maintenance quality and overall safety. Findings indicate that increased maintenance spending is associated with increased line maintenance activity and increased overall safety quality for the major U.S. carriers.

Rhoades, Dawna L.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Microgravity Analogues of Herpes Virus Pathogenicity: Human Cytomegalovirus (hCMV) and Varicella Zoster (VZV) Infectivity in Human Tissue Like Assemblies (TLAs)

The old adage we are our own worst enemies may perhaps be the most profound statement ever made when applied to man s desire for extraterrestrial exploration and habitation of Space. Consider the immune system protects the integrity of the entire human physiology and is comprised of two basic elements the adaptive or circulating and the innate immune system. Failure of the components of the adaptive system leads to venerability of the innate system from opportunistic microbes; viral, bacteria, and fungal, which surround us, are transported on our skin, and commonly inhabit the human physiology as normal and imunosuppressed parasites. The fine balance which is maintained for the preponderance of our normal lives, save immune disorders and disease, is deregulated in microgravity. Thus analogue systems to study these potential Risks are essential for our progress in conquering Space exploration and habitation. In this study we employed two known physiological target tissues in which the reactivation of hCMV and VZV occurs, human neural and lung systems created for the study and interaction of these herpes viruses independently and simultaneously on the innate immune system. Normal human neural and lung tissue analogues called tissue like assemblies (TLAs) were infected with low MOIs of approximately 2 x 10(exp -5) pfu hCMV or VZV and established active but prolonged low grade infections which spanned .7-1.5 months in length. These infections were characterized by the ability to continuously produce each of the viruses without expiration of the host cultures. Verification and quantification of viral replication was confirmed via RT_PCR, IHC, and confocal spectral analyses of the respective essential viral genomes. All host TLAs maintained the ability to actively proliferate throughout the entire duration of the experiments as is analogous to normal in vivo physiological conditions. These data represent a significant advance in the ability to study the triggering mechanisms which surround Herpes vial reactivation and proliferation. Additionally, prolonged replication of these viruses will allow the tracking of viral genomic shift.

Goodwin, T. J.↗
NASA NTRS2007

A Study to Estimate the Effectiveness of Visual Testing Training for Aviation Maintenance Management

The Air Commerce Act of 1926 set the beginning for standards in aviation maintenance. Even after deregulation in the late l970s, maintenance standards and requirements still have not changed far from their initial criteria. After a potential candidate completes Federal Aviation Administration training prerequisites, they may test for their Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) certificate. Performing maintenance in the aviation industry for a minimum of three years, the technician may then test for their Inspection Authorization (IA). After receiving their Airframe and Powerplant certificate, a technician is said to have a license to perform. At no time within the three years to eligibility for Inspection Authorization are they required to attend higher-level inspection training. What a technician learns in the aviation maintenance industry is handed down from a seasoned technician to the new hire or is developed from lessons learned on the job. Only in Europe has the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) required higher-level training for their aviation maintenance technicians in order to control maintenance related accidents (Lu, 2005). Throughout the 1990s both the General Accounting Office (GAO) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) made public that the FAA is historically understaffed (GAO, 1996). In a safety recommendation the NTSB stated "The Safety Board continues to lack confidence in the FAA's commitment to provide effective quality assurance and safety oversight of the ATC system (NTSB, 1990)." The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been known to be proactive in creating safer skies. With such reports you would suspect the FAA to also be proactive in developing more stringent inspection training for aviation maintenance technicians. The purpose of this study is to estimate the effectiveness of higher-level inspection training, such as Visual Testing (VT) for aviation maintenance technicians, to improve the safety of aircraft and to make recommendations to management with regard to the value of such training.

Law, Lewis Lyle↗
NASA NTRS2020

Building a standardized Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) framework for Mars

We advocate that the Decadal Survey recommends the NASA Science Mission Directorate to develop a rigorous Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) framework for Mars, to optimize future atmospheric observations. Atmospheric conditions on Mars are a potential hazard source for landing missions. Errors in the estimates of atmospheric density profiles, inadequate knowledge of wind vertical structure and dust concentration as a function of height are likely causes of uncertainty at the landing site on the order of kilometers. An operational real-time weather forecasting capability for Mars would reduce such uncertainties, carrying enormous benefits to future robotic missions, and would be an invaluable prerequisite for human missions.A real-time forecasting capability relies upon three fundamental components: a critical mass of observing systems, a data assimilation system (DAS), and a global forecast model. The DAS allows the model to ingest the data effectively, optimizing the observational information content,and transforming them into a gridded representation of the atmosphere at a given time, called an ‘analysis’. The analysis is the best estimate of the atmospheric state for that time, and also represents a set of ‘initial conditions’ from which a global model can be initialized, to predict a future state of the atmosphere. The connection between analysis and forecast represents the foundation of modern weather forecasting. However, from the point of view of a forecast system,not all observations are equally impactful, partially because of the problem of “observational error correlation”, one important research topic in data assimilation development. For the Earth, partly due to the spontaneous and deregulated development of observations and forecast capabilities worldwide for more than half a century,the use of observations in contemporary operational forecast systems is suboptimal, with many potentially useful data being underutilized. On the contrary, Mars atmospheric scientists are in the unique situation of designing the next-generation observing systems by learning from the experience gathered on the Earth, so as to assure that the future instruments are specifically optimized to give the maximum benefit to a future weather forecast capability.An immensely powerful tool that has been firmly established by atmospheric scientists on the Earth is represented by a properly designed OSSE framework. A realistic OSSE framework cannot only quantify the benefit of future data types, be them surface based or space borne, but can also help design and optimize an entire observational network. Furthermore, OSSEs can provide deep insights into an atmosphere’s behavior, by addressing conceptual problems of its intrinsic predictability and delineating the regions or features of the atmosphere which are more sensitive to additional data and would benefit from a denser sampling. The difficulties posed by OSSEs are fundamentally different for Earth and Mars. For Earth, the enormous data volume imposes a tremendous constraint on any innovation in the observing systems: it is very hard for a single sensor to impact the skill. For Mars, the problem is the opposite: almost any additional instrument will exert some impact. However, OSSEs can help to evaluate the cost/benefit for every sensor and suggest optimal data configuration and density.The purpose of this white paper is to provide an introduction to a rigorously designed OSSE framework, explain the underlying problems and challenges, and engage the Mars community to collaborate with Earth Atmospheric scientists in order to develop a joint-OSSE framework for Mars with the largest consensual basis possible. An OSSE infrastructure would increase the understanding of the Martian atmosphere, would help NASA to optimize instrument specifications and orbit choice, providing the maximium benefit for a given expenditure of resources, and could even help establishing a roadmap for a future real-time weather forecasting capability.

Oreste Reale↗