Paola Amaldi

Research Interests

Personal Homepage:
mdx.ac.uk/cs/staff/CMT/p_amaldi-trillo.asp

Current place of employment:
Middlesex University

* My main interest area is automation in complex socio-technical system. While the declared purposes for introducing automation are to increase safety and productivity, understanding how practitioners achieve their objectives in the current environment is fundamental. Consequences linked to introducing automation have to be anticipated if "automation surprises" have to be prevented. It is only through modelling how people share knowledge and other resources that we can develop hypothesis about the impact of automation and thus what requirements the system should meet. A long-term research interest is activity modelling through direct observation of practitioners in "natural" and simulated environments, interviewing practitioners through the use of scenarios, and during routine operations. I have been particularly concerned with modelling decision making and diagnostic processes (Amaldi, 1993; .Amaldi, Barale, & Di Rienzo, 2000) * A related area is validation of advanced automated tools. What type of evidence do we need to support the finding that the tool is validated? Checking that requirements are met is definitely an important step. This, however raises the issue of how requirements are gathered and later validated. Requirement gathering implies not only drawing up a list of desiderata but also generating an initial activity model of the target population (Amaldi, Wilson, 2002). Without such an activity modelling, requirements cannot be validated as it would be impossible to justify designers' choice and individual variability, among other things. Complex tools cannot be validated just by looking for metrics to measure "productivity" and "safety". A more systemic approach should be considered where the tool is assessed in the context of the activities concerned by the tool (Amaldi, & Cellier, 1998). * My main application domain is automation issues in Civil Aviation. For over ten years I have collaborated with National Research and Development Centers for designing and testing new technology for air traffic controllers and commercial airline pilots. Thus I have worked for the Federal Aviation Administration in the USA, for the Centre d'Etude de la Navigation Aerienne in France, for the Italian National Agency for Air Traffic Control (ENAV). Actually I am involved in a project, called Fast Prototype, concerned with the development of a radar control station for airport tower air traffic controllers. We are implementing ethnographic approach to the study of how expert practitioners share available resources to make the environment productive and safe, in spite of the several opportunities to generate "system breakdowns". Publications: * Amaldi, P. and Wilson, S. (2002) Activity Modelling for CORA-2:Human Factors Issues for the Requirements Generation Process. Eurocontrol, Bretigny France * Amaldi, P., Barale, G., DI Rienzo, N. (2000). Putting in operation a complex system is not only a technical challenge. Paper presented at the 3rd USA/Europe Air Traffic Management Seminar. Available at http://atm-seminar-2000.eurocontrol.fr/ * Amaldi, P., & Cellier, J-M (1998). A validation paradigm shift: from a "user-centered" to a systemic approach. In G.Boy, C. Graeber, J-M Robert (eds.) Hci-Aero'98. Montreal: Editions de l'Ecole Polytecnique de Montreal. * Amaldi, P. (1993). Radar controllers' problem solving and decision making skills. In J.A. Wise, V.D. Hopkin, and P. Stager (eds.) Verification and validation of complex systems: Additional human factors issues. Embry-Riddle University Press.

Publications by Paola Amaldi (bibliography)

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» 2008 «

Joyekurun, Ronish, Wong, William and Amaldi, Paola (2008): Responding to Uncertainty on Approach in Hazardous Situations. In: ICRAT 08 International Conference on Research in Air Transportation 2008 June 1-4, 2008, Fairfax, Virginia, USA. p. 7.

Fields, Bob, Amaldi, Paola, Wong, William and Gill, Satinder (2008): Introduction: In-Use, In-Situ: Extending Field Research Methods -- Part 2. In International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 24 (4) pp. 359-360

» 2007 «

Joyekurun, Ronish, Amaldi, Paola and Wong, William (2007): A Functional Collaborative Work Unit for Analysing Hazardous Flight Approaches. In: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2007, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. .

Fields, Bob, Amaldi, Paola, Wong, William and Gill, Satinder (2007): Editorial: In Use, In Situ: Extending Field Research Methods. In International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 22 (1) pp. 1-6

Joyekurun, Ronish, Amaldi, Paola and Wong, William (2007): Designing for the Resilience of Flight Approach Operations. In: EUROCONTROL Annual Safety Research and Development Seminar October 24-26, 2007, Rome, Italy. p. 6. Available online

Joyekurun, Ronish, Wong, William and Amaldi, Paola (2007): Designing for the Resilience of Flight Approach Operations. In: ECSCW 10th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work September 24-28, 2007, Limerick, Ireland. p. 1. Available online

Rozzi, Simone, Amaldi, Paola, Wong, William and Field, Bob (2007): Operational potential for 3D displays in air traffic control. In: Brinkman, Willem-Paul, Ham, Dong-Han and Wong, B. L. William (eds.) ECCE 2007 - Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics August 28-31, 2007, London, UK. pp. 179-183. Available online

Mancero, Gabriela, Wong, William and Amaldi, Paola (2007): Looking but not seeing: implications for HCI. In: Brinkman, Willem-Paul, Ham, Dong-Han and Wong, B. L. William (eds.) ECCE 2007 - Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics August 28-31, 2007, London, UK. pp. 167-174. Available online

» 2006 «

Joyekurun, Ronish, Amaldi, Paola and Wong, William (2006): Shared Weather Information in Routine and Non-Routine Situations. In: 5th Eurocontrol Innovative Research Workshop and Exhibition 2006, Bretigny sur Orge, France. .

» 2005 «

Wong, B. L. William, Joyekurun, Ronish, Mansour, Hoda, Amaldi, Paola, Nees, Anna and Villanueva, Rochelle (2005): Depth, layering and transparency: developing design techniques. In: Proceedings of OZCHI05, the CHISIG Annual Conference on Human-Computer Interaction 2005. pp. 1-10. Available online

Joyekurun, Ronish, Wong, William, Nees, Anna, Amaldi, Paola and Villanueva, Rochelle (2005): Information Layering, Depth and Transparency Effects on Multi-Layered Displays for Command and Control. In: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 2005, Orlando, USA. .

Fields, Bob, Amaldi, Paola and Tassi, Antonello (2005): Representing Collaborative Work: The Airport as Common Information Space.. In Cognition, Technology and Work, 7 pp. 119-133

Changes to this page (author)

27 Feb 2010: Enabled abstracts to be shown on Paola Amaldi's author page.
17 Jun 2009: Author was edited