Logo: to the web site of Uppsala University

In this paper an expert system for environmental impact assessment, known as the EIA-system, is presented. This system provides advice for hydropower development and river regulation projects. It is based on a method used for assessing the impact that hydropower development and river regulation will have on the environment, called the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Method (Strömquist & Tatham, 1992). Knowledge relating to the entire project is required with this method to enable a stepwise approach to be adopted for the assessment. Since people in developing countries lack knowledge about the impact a project will have on the environment, as well as expertise and resources, an expert system should be invaluable to assist the end users in their decision-making regarding the impact hydropower development and river regulation projects will have.

The EIA-system was developed to provide advisory and educational support for end users using the EIA method within developing countries. The system has to be appealing to use and, moreover, it must motivate the users to utilise it and thereby the EIA method within political settings disinterested in environmental concerns. Furthermore, the system needs to be useable and comprehensible to the end users. To realise these requirements, a logic programming language was utilised together with hypermedia technology. Briefly, the logic programming language formalises the domain knowledge and the inference mechanism. The hypermedia technology used a multimedia system to constitute the user interface and to convey domain specific information and explanation facilities.

The objective of the project presented in this paper has been to develop a newsimulator system that can contribute to improved methods for train trafficplanning and operation and to create an experimental environment for developmentof new control support systems and operator user interfaces. The newsimulator system is based on a previously developed simulation kernel,SIMON/TTS, which has been used by the Swedish National Rail Administrationfor off line planning experiments. The SIMON/TTS system has now beenredesigned into an interactive, real-time simulator where external control andpresentation systems can be connected via a communication module. Thesimulator system will be used for different purposes. Some of the most importantexperimental scenarios are to perform experiment with new user interfaces fortrain traffic control operators, to test the usefulness of decision support systemsfor train dispatchers, to evaluate alternative strategies for solving conflicts intrain traffic control and to provide a simulator environment for education andtraining of train traffic operators.

The Virtual Sky project attempts to investigate the applicability of three-dimensional stereoscopic display for AirTraffic Control. This investigation is quite complex in that it requires several disciplines to be studied in parallel. For instance, we decided to use a multidisciplinary approach, which is made of three related components: “Visualization”,“Interaction” and “Human Factors”. This paper describes the framework of the investigation and provides the analysis’details for each component involved. Moreover, we present some preliminary results involving Air Traffic Controllersand entailing their training with a special Interaction device.