Published in 2020

Empirical Analysis of Trends in Runway Incursions in the United States from 2001 to 2017

Aviation Runway safety Safety Airport

Authors: David Ison

Journal: Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Description:

Runway incursions, events in which an aircraft, vehicle, or person is located on a runway surface without authorization, continue to be a constant threat to aviation safety. Previously identified on the ‘‘Most Wanted’’ list of aviation safety issues by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has spent significant amounts of money and effort to address runway incursions. Little empirical evidence has been collected on the effectiveness of such efforts. Moreover, the data that are available provide a confusing landscape of contradicting findings. Some FAA publications claim that runway incursions are decreasing while the evidence provided in such documents support the contrary. News headlines tout decreases in runway incursions while briefly stating that they are increasing in recent years. The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative and correlational study was to provide an improved understanding of trends in runway incursions based on statistical analysis rather than on generalizations. The findings of this study indicated that from 2001 to 2017 runway incursions appear to have a strong, positive correlation with ascending years, i.e., are increasing over time (r 5 0.995, p , 0.001). Each type of incursion severity category (A, B, C, and D) is further analyzed. Also, analysis for the last five and ten years was conducted to focus on more recent trends. Suggestions for future research are also provided.

Published in 2020

Detection of Online Contract Cheating through Stylometry: A Pilot Study.

Plagiarism Stylometry Academic integrity

Authors: David Ison

Journal: Online Learning

Description:

Contract cheating, instances in which a student enlists someone other than themselves to produce coursework, has been identified as a growing problem within academic integrity literature and in news headlines. The percentage of students who have used this type of cheating has been reported to range between 6% and 15.7%. Generational sentiments about cheating and the prevalent accessibility of contract cheating providers online seems to only have exacerbated the issue. The problem is that no simple means have been identified and verified to detect contract cheating because available plagiarism detection software is ineffective in these cases. One method commonly used for authorship authentication in nonacademic settings, stylometry, has been suggested as a potential means for detection. Stylometry uses various attributes of documents to determine if they were written by the same individual. This pilot assessed the utility of three easyto-use and readily available stylometry software systems to detect simulated cases of contract cheating academic documents. Average accuracy ranged from 33% to 88.9%. While more research is necessary, stylometry software appears to show significant promise for the potential detection of contract cheating.

Published in 2020

Statistical procedures for evaluating trends in coronavirus disease-19 cases in the United States

COVID Trends Public health

Authors: David Ison

Journal: International Journal of Health Sciences

Description:

Objectives: In late 2019, a novel respiratory disease was identified as it began to spread rapidly within China’s Hubei Province soon thereafter, being designated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Unfortunately, trends in cases and rates of infection have been consistently misunderstood, particularly within the media, due to little, if any, statistical analysis of trends. Critical analysis of data is necessary to determine how to best manage local restrictions, particularly if there are resurgences of infection. As such, researchers have been calling for data-driven, statistical analysis of trends of disease to provide more context and validity for significant policy decisions. Methods: This quantitative study sought to explore different statistical methods that can be used to evaluate trend data to improve decision-making and public information on the spread of COVID-19. Analyses were conducted using Spearman’s rho, MannWhitney U tests, Mann-Kendal tests, and Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests with follow up Kwiatkowski–Phillips–Schmidt–Shin tests. Results: The results indicated a mix of both surprising and expected findings. Variations among COVID case reporting for each day of the week were identified but not deemed significant. Spearman correlation data appeared to perform well in identifying monotonic trend while Mann-Kendal tests appeared to provide the most intelligible results. Conclusions: This study provides examples of statistical tools and procedures to more thoroughly examine trends in COVID-19 case rate data. It is advocated that such metrics be made available to health and policy stakeholders for potential use for public health decisions.

Published in 2018

An empirical analysis of differences in plagiarism among world cultures

Plagiarism Academic integrity Culture

Authors: David Ison

Journal: Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management

Description:

Academic integrity issues, e.g. plagiarism, continue to plague higher education across the globe. Research has noted that the identification and tolerance of cheating behaviors varies dependent upon local culture. This quantitative, comparative study investigated the potential differences among actual rates of incidence of plagiarism among predominant countries and regions in which the literature identified as having academic integrity problems. This study gathered doctoral dissertations and master's theses from institutions in the selected locations and analyzed them with Turnitin® originality assessment software. Regions and countries evaluated were based on guidance from exigent literature. A Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to evaluate any differences in the prevalence of plagiarism among these locations. The results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference among groups, χ2 (6, N = 266) = 19.545, p = 0.003, η2 = 0.074. Further analysis determined a mix of findings that both support and deny conceptions in other literature.

Published in 2016

Two Decades of Progress for Minorities in Aviation

Authors: -

Journal: Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Published in 2016

A strategy for alleviating aviation shortages through the recruitment of women

Authors: -

Journal: International Journal of Aviation Management

Published in 2015

The Influence of the Internet on Plagiarism Among Doctoral Dissertations: An Empirical Study

Authors: -

Journal: Journal of Academic Ethics

Published in 2015

Comparative Analysis of Accident and Non-Accident Pilots

Authors: -

Journal: Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Published in 2015

Assessing Computer Vision Syndrome Risk for Pilots

Authors: -

Journal: Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Published in 2015

Identification of Air Traffic Management Principles Influential in the Development of an Airport Arrival Delay Prediction Model

Authors: -

Journal: Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research