Narrative In Police Communication: The Art Of Influence And Communication For The Modern Police Organization

Violence in the City of Rockford, Illinois and surrounding cities has made the Rockford Police Department’s communication vitally important for shaping the future of the community. The primary objective of this project was to gain a greater understanding of how the local police department utilizes one particular communication channel: social media. While some research examining law enforcement’s use of social media exists, this study is unique as it specifically applies Fisher’s (1984) narrative paradigm and key concepts related to public relations functions including relationship building. The analysis revealed that the department does utilize some narrative concepts, but could certainly reevaluate their use of social media to enhance their communication with the community

From Common Operational Picture to Common Situational Understanding : A Framework for Information Sharing in Multi-Organizational Emergency Management

Complex emergencies such as natural disasters are increasing in frequency and scope, in all regions of the world. These emergencies have devastating impacts on people, property, and the environment. Responding to these events and reducing their impact requires that emergency management organizations (EMOs) collaborate in their operations. Complex emergencies require extraordinary efforts from EMOs and often should be handled beyond ordinary routines and structures. Such operations involving multiple stakeholders are typically characterized by inadequate information sharing, decision-making problems, limited situational awareness (SA), and lack of common situational understanding. Despite a high volume of research on these challenges, evaluations from complex disasters and large-scale exercises document that there are still several unsolved issues related to information sharing and the development of common situational understanding. Examples here include fulfillment of heterogeneous information needs, employment of different communication tools and processes with limited interoperability, and information overload resulting from a lack of mechanisms for filtering irrelevant information. Multi-organizational emergency management is an established area of research focusing on how to successfully collaborate and share information for developing common situational understanding. However, the level of complexity and situational dependencies between the involved EMOs create challenges for researchers. An important element for efficient collaboration and information sharing is building and maintaining a common operational picture (COP). Sharing important information is a key element in emergency management involving several EMOs, and both static and dynamic information must be accessible to perform tasks effectively during emergency response. To be proactive and mitigate the emergency impacts requires up-to-date information, both factual information via the COP and the ability to share interpretations and implications through using a communication system for rapid verbal negotiation. The overall research objective is to investigate how stakeholders perceive and develop SA and COP, and to explore and understand key requirements for stakeholders to develop a common situational understanding in complex multi-organizational emergency management.publishedVersio

Volunteering for Vegetables: Community Agriculture and the Prospects for Building a More Democratic Food System

Scholars and activists hold varied ideas about what a more just and equitable food system might look like. Food democracy, one of these alternative food system theories, centers around the idea that all people should have equal opportunity to meaningfully contribute to the shaping of their food systems. Community farms, due to their socially-oriented qualities, present one possibility for people to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to function as food citizens and build food democracy. This research explores and seeks to inform food democracy theory through case studies of two urban community farms – one in Missoula, Montana, and one in San Francisco, California – and their respective volunteer programs that provide produce to volunteers. It also outlines the purpose, governance, and function of these farms, their volunteer programs, and their parent organizations. Case studies were built through in-depth interviews, and supplemented with participant observation and document review. The volunteers’ experiences suggest that, for most of them, their engagement with their respective community farm has helped develop the knowledge and skills necessary in moving toward food democracy. Volunteers at both farms demonstrated knowledge of the food system, skills in food production, the ability to work and problem solve collectively, an orientation toward the commons and community good, and, for some, a sense of efficacy within the food system. Volunteers also described dimensions of broader democratic theory, like community building and citizenship skills, which allowed for the extension of existing food democracy framework. While volunteers’ experiences suggest they are participating in some level of food democracy, the depth of this participation varied among volunteers. As others have found in similar food justice and food sovereignty research, however, people living near the farm did not necessarily experience the same impacts

The role of Artificial Intelligence and distributed computing in IoT applications

[EN]The exchange of ideas between scientists and technicians, from both academic and business areas, is essential in order to ease the development of systems which can meet the demands of today’s society. Technology transfer in this field is still a challenge and, for that reason, this type of contributions are notably considered in this compilation. This book brings in discussions and publications concerning the development of innovative techniques of IoT complex problems. The technical program focuses both on high quality and diversity, with contributions in well-established and evolving areas of research. Specifically, 10 chapters were submitted to this book. The editors particularly encouraged and welcomed contributions on AI and distributed computing in IoT applications.Financed by regional government of Castilla y León and FEDER funds

The role of Artificial Intelligence and Distributed computing in IoT applications

[ES] La serie «El rol de la inteligencia artificial y la computación distribuida en las aplicaciones IoT» contiene publicaciones sobre la teoría y aplicaciones de la computación distribuida y la inteligencia artificial en el Internet de las cosas. Prácticamente todas las disciplinas como la ingeniería, las ciencias naturales, la informática y las ciencias de la información, las TIC, la economía, los negocios, el comercio electrónico, el medio ambiente, la salud y las ciencias de la vida están cubiertas. La lista de temas abarca todas las áreas de los sistemas inteligentes modernos y la informática como: inteligencia computacional, soft computing incluyendo redes neuronales, inteligencia social, inteligencia ambiental, sistemas auto-organizados y adaptativos, computación centrada en el ser humano y centrada en el ser humano, sistemas de recomendación, control inteligente, robótica y mecatrónica, incluida la colaboración entre el ser humano y la máquina, paradigmas basados en el conocimiento, paradigmas de aprendizaje, ética de la máquina, análisis inteligente de datos, gestión del conocimiento, agentes inteligentes, toma de decisiones inteligentes y apoyo, seguridad de la red inteligente, gestión de la confianza, entretenimiento interactivo, inteligencia de la Web y multimedia. Las publicaciones en el marco de «El rol de la inteligencia artificial y la computación distribuida en las aplicaciones IoT» son principalmente las actas de seminarios, simposios y conferencias. Abarcan importantes novedades recientes en la materia, tanto de naturaleza fundacional como aplicable. Un importante rasgo característico de la serie es el corto tiempo de publicación. Esto permite una rápida y amplia difusión de los resultados de las investigaciones[EN] The series «The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Distributed Computing in IoT Applications» contains publications on the theory and applications of distributed computing and artificial intelligence in the Internet of Things. Virtually all disciplines such as engineering, natural sciences, computer and information sciences, ICT, economics, business, e-commerce, environment, health and life sciences are covered. The list of topics covers all areas of modern intelligent systems and computer science: computational intelligence, soft computing including neural networks, social intelligence, ambient intelligence, self-organising and adaptive systems, human-centred and people-centred computing, recommendation systems, intelligent control, robotics and mechatronics including human-machine collaboration, knowledge-based paradigms, learning paradigms, machine ethics, intelligent data analysis, knowledge management, intelligent agents, intelligent decision making and support, intelligent network security, trust management, interactive entertainment, web intelligence, and multimedia. The publications in the framework of «The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Distributed Computing in IoT Applications» are mainly the proceedings of seminars, symposia and conferences. They cover important recent developments in the field, whether of a foundational or applicable character. An important feature of the series is the short publication time. This allows for the rapid and wide dissemination of research results

Human-Centered Automation for Resilience in Acquiring Construction Field Information

abstract: Resilient acquisition of timely, detailed job site information plays a pivotal role in maintaining the productivity and safety of construction projects that have busy schedules, dynamic workspaces, and unexpected events. In the field, construction information acquisition often involves three types of activities including sensor-based inspection, manual inspection, and communication. Human interventions play critical roles in these three types of field information acquisition activities. A resilient information acquisition system is needed for safer and more productive construction. The use of various automation technologies could help improve human performance by proactively providing the needed knowledge of using equipment, improve the situation awareness in multi-person collaborations, and reduce the mental workload of operators and inspectors. Unfortunately, limited studies consider human factors in automation techniques for construction field information acquisition. Fully utilization of the automation techniques requires a systematical synthesis of the interactions between human, tasks, and construction workspace to reduce the complexity of information acquisition tasks so that human can finish these tasks with reliability. Overall, such a synthesis of human factors in field data collection and analysis is paving the path towards “Human-Centered Automation” (HCA) in construction management. HCA could form a computational framework that supports resilient field data collection considering human factors and unexpected events on dynamic job sites. This dissertation presented an HCA framework for resilient construction field information acquisition and results of examining three HCA approaches that support three use cases of construction field data collection and analysis. The first HCA approach is an automated data collection planning method that can assist 3D laser scan planning of construction inspectors to achieve comprehensive and efficient data collection. The second HCA approach is a Bayesian model-based approach that automatically aggregates the common sense of people from the internet to identify job site risks from a large number of job site pictures. The third HCA approach is an automatic communication protocol optimization approach that maximizes the team situation awareness of construction workers and leads to the early detection of workflow delays and critical path changes. Data collection and simulation experiments extensively validate these three HCA approaches.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 201

Assembling The Future: The Role Of Transactive Planning Theory In Generating Alternative Urban Strategies

Conditions of uncertainty, rapid change and heightened social, economic and spatial inequalities are symptomatic of an Increasingly Internationalised and urbanised world system. These issues correspond to the emergence of an urban problematic that requires the requalification of planning’s tools and techniques. Within this context: How does planning go about assembling the future? The Mont Fleur civic scenarios undertaken in South Africa (1991-1992), the Toekomstverkenningen Amsterdam (1998-1999), and the Bishopsgate Methodology Statement proposed for an inner-city development site in London (2002), are presented as illustrative examples of how, planning connects knowledge to action in the public domain, translates complexity, deals with the future; Do the tools and processes used in the examples, extend or limit the possibility of alternative urban strategies? These questions, are a starting point from which to explore John Friedmann’s theory on Transactive Planning (1973). This theory is defined as a normative response to improving the practice of plannirig through a dialogical process that combines various forms of technical and experiential knowledge, through which a deeper understanding of issues surrounding a particular problem, is achieved. Within the present research framework. Transactive Planning is used to formulate the principles, tools and techniques of an approach corresponding to the conditions of an urban problematic. The final question: ‘What kind of future do we want to assemble?” opens the discussion towards considering the role, not only of Transactive Planning, but of an urban imaginary as a way of rephrasing the urban problematic. The endgame is to refunction the notion of the future, not as “uncertainty” that has to be resolved, but as a creative process that generates innovative urban strategies

The influence of task and time on information behaviour in organisations

This research is about the information behaviour of organizational members in different contexts while dealing with the work tasks. The objectives of the research are to provide an understanding of information seeking, using, and sharing through illuminating answers to “How is organizations’ information behaviour shaped with regard to time pressure and task complexity?” and “How do organisational members process information in collaborative settings and decide for the next actions in stable vs. unstable environments?” questions. In work settings, tasks are commonly carried out in groups; information is processed in collaborative manner and affected by situational factors (time and complexity). However, relatively small number of articles presents collaborative information behaviour and its link to situational factors. To contribute to the existing literature, the research aims to explore collaborative information behaviour while carrying out tasks in varying complexity and under time pressure. The research uses qualitative methodology. Data have been collected from Cihan News Agency-Istanbul (CIHAN) and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Disaster Coordination Centre (AKOM) through field observations and interviews. It is a cross case study exploring the differences and commonalities of the information behaviour in two different contexts and two different situations. The interview transcripts and field observation have been interpreted to explain the decision making mode of the organisational members in dynamic environments and the way they process information; and grounded theory approach is used to construct collaborative information behaviour model for the CIHAN and AKOM contexts. Information behaviour models, which are illuminating collaborative information behaviour (CIB), have been introduced as the first contribution of the research. Time pressure and varying task complexity shape the model through illuminating barriers to access information and complex needs of the tasks carried out. The second contribution lies in clarifying the interaction between information behaviour and decision making type (intuitive vs analytical) under time pressure. Time pressure and the nature of the work tasks drive organisational members to use intuition or analytical mode. Activity Theory has been used as the theoretical framework and methodological tool for the research. Activity Theory has been used to investigate individual information behaviour in the literature. Use of Activity Theory to investigate collaborative information behaviour is the methodological contribution

Collaborative decision making in complex work settings: a process of managing inter dependencies

There exists disparity between the conceptualization and occurrence of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) in everyday work activities of complex work settings. Current notions in the field of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) based on studies of decision making in groups typically portray CDM as an isolated event in which multiple personnel jointly undertake decision making. In the real world, however, decisions are made during work performance and interlaced with other processes and activities. Moreover, the complex work setting is a cooperative arrangement in which decision making is distributed. This research aims to alleviate the disparity by investigating how people in a complex working environment make decisions collaboratively. The original contribution to knowledge made by this thesis is the theory of CDM as a process of managing interdependencies. Field-studies conducted in an airport to examine the way CDM is undertaken during Air Traffic Control operations inform theory development. The study takes a qualitative approach and is guided by Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM). The findings of this research indicate that undertaking decision making in the cooperative arrangement of complex work settings requires managing the distributions and interconnections inherent in this setup. In addition, participation and contribution of personnel in decision making is found to be structured by the dependencies between their activities. These findings form the central focus of the theory leading to the depiction of CDM as a process of managing interdependencies. The theory presented in this thesis clarifies and extends existing views by explicating the differentiated process of CDM in the cooperative arrangement of a complex work setting. Based on this a new definition of CDM is formulated. In addition, a conceptual framework of ten parameters is derived to serve as a tool for analysing CDM taking place in a particular work setting. Application of this framework is demonstrated by analysing an aircraft accident report to draw insights about the occurrence of CDM in this setting