Experience Report: Constraint-Based Modelling and Simulation of Railway Emergency Response Plans

AbstractWe report on experiences from a case study applying a constraint-based process-modelling and -simulation tool, dcrgraphs.net, to the modelling and rehearsal of railway emergency response plans with domain experts. The case study confirmed the approach as a viable means for domain experts to analyse and rehearse emergency response plans, through the activities of formally modelling the plan and subsequently rehearsing it by simulating that model collaboratively. In particular, the constraint-based modelling notation resulted in a flexible model giving rehearsal participants freedom to explore different ways to proceed, including ways not necessarily anticipated in the paper-based emergency response plans. The case study was undertaken as part of a short research, ProSec, project funded by the Danish Defence Agency, with the aim of applying and developing methods for collaborative mapping of emergency and security processes in the danish public transport sector and their dependency on ICT

An Experimental Study on U-commerce Adoption: Impact of Personalization and Privacy Concerns

U-commerce represents “anytime, anywhere” commerce. U-commerce can provide a high level of personalization, which can bring significant benefits to customers. However, customers’ privacy is a major concern and obstacle to the adoption of u-commerce. As customers’ intention to adopt u-commerce is based on the aggregate effect of perceived benefits and risk exposure (e.g., privacy concerns), this research examines how personalization and context can impact on customers’ perceived benefits and privacy concerns, and how this aggregated effect in turn affects u-commerce adoption intention

Fire safety measures - management for non-professionals decision makers

A complexidade do Regime Jurídico da Segurança Contra Incêndio em Edifícios coloca uma série de problemas na sua aplicação para decisores não-técnicos obrigados à sua aplicação. Assim, na tentativa de democratizar a sua interpretação, o presente artigo propõe uma metodologia para utilizadores não-técnicos na identificação das medidas de autoprotecção legalmente definidas. A metodologia proposta é de aplicação generalizada e pretende ser um elemento facilitador para responsáveis pela execução das medidas de autoprotecção aplicáveis aos edifícios ou recintos tendo em conta o estabelecido no Regulamento Técnico de Segurança contra Incêndio em Edifícios. É definido um protocolo de decisão para determinação das medidas de autoprotecção através da utilização de um fluxograma, que apresenta a sequência de operações, envolvidas no processo.The complexity of the fire safety legal framework in itself poses problems to non-professionals decision makers regarding its application. Thus, in an attempt to generalize its interpretation, this paper presents a methodology for non-professionals users aiming to identify the measures defined under the fire safety regulations. The proposed methodology, of a broad application nature, intends to be a user-friendly tool to those responsible for applying fire safety measures to buildings and premises as established in the fire safety technical regulation. A decision support protocol is designed to determine which fire safety measures apply, using a flowchart representing the operations sequence involved in the process

Organizing for Emergencies - Issues in Wildfire Fighting in Croatia

Croatia’s accession to the European Union implies inevitable changes in the national emergency management system. New requirements for adjustment in accordance with the EU standards and practices also apply to the fire-services organization. Harmonious functioning of a large number of relatively autonomous organizations related to the National Protection and Rescue Directorate necessitates clear decision-making authority and coordination mechanisms as well as a high level of interoperability and core competencies development. This paper gives an overview of the Croatian fire protection organization along with its accompanying legislation, followed by an analysis of identified problems, especially those concerning fighting of wildfire. In our research a survey questionnaire comprised of Likert-scale items was used to assess the attitudes and experiences of trained fire department members. The respondents reported a relatively low evaluation of effectiveness and appropriateness of the following key fire service attributes: organizational structure, legislation and firefighting logistics support. From the obtained results guidelines can be drawn for possible redesign of the emergency management organization, especially those concerning the fire protection service

An Empirical Examination of IT-Enabled Emergency Response: The Cases of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita

This paper reports the results of an empirical study that analyzes emergency incident response. The paper studies how information systems (IS) complement other organizational assets to help emergency responders achieve satisfactory response performance. We test the research model using empirical data collected from responses to Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. The results show that IS-enabled asset allocation support directly improves emergency response performance and also positively interacts with non-IS response assets in achieving response success. The results also confirm the value of dispatch systems, interagency communications, and knowledge repositories in developing asset allocation support for an emergency response organization

Nonprofit Organizations in Disaster Response and Management: A Network Analysis

This paper tracks changes in the national disaster management system with regard to the nonprofit sector by looking at the roles ascribed to nonprofit organizations in the Federal Response Plan (FRP), National Response Plan (NRP), and National Response Framework (NRF). Additionally, the data collected from news reports and organizational after action reports about the inter-organizational interactions of emergency management agencies during the September 11th attacks and Hurricane Katrina are analyzed by using network analysis tools. The findings of the study indicate that there has been an increase in the interactions of the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (NVOAD) network member organizations on par with policy changes in the NRP to involve nonprofit organizations in the national disaster planning process. In addition, those organizations close to the center of the network experienced enhanced communication and resource acquisition allowing them to successfully accomplish their missions, a finding that supports the development of strong network connections

Proof of Travel for Trust-Based Data Validation in V2I Communication Part I: Methodology

Previous work on misbehavior detection and trust management for Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication can identify falsified and malicious messages, enabling witness vehicles to report observations about high-criticality traffic events. However, there may not exist enough "benign" vehicles with V2X connectivity or vehicle owners who are willing to opt-in in the early stages of connected-vehicle deployment. In this paper, we propose a security protocol for the communication between vehicles and infrastructure, titled Proof-of-Travel (POT), to answer the research question: How can we transform the power of cryptography techniques embedded within the protocol into social and economic mechanisms to simultaneously incentivize Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) data sharing activities and validate the data? The key idea is to determine the reputation of and the contribution made by a vehicle based on its distance traveled and the information it shared through V2I channels. In particular, the total vehicle miles traveled for a vehicle must be testified by digital signatures signed by each infrastructure component along the path of its movement. While building a chain of proofs of spatial movement creates burdens for malicious vehicles, acquiring proofs does not result in extra cost for normal vehicles, which naturally want to move from the origin to the destination. The proof of travel for a vehicle can then be used to determine the contribution and reward by its altruistic behaviors. We propose short-term and long-term incentive designs based on the POT protocol and evaluate their security and performance through theoretical analysis and simulations

Emergency Response Information System Interoperability: Development of Chemical Incident Response Data Model

Emergency response requires an efficient information supply chain for the smooth operations of intra- and inter-organizational emergency management processes. However, the breakdown of this information supply chain due to the lack of consistent data standards presents a significant problem. In this paper, we adopt a theory- driven novel approach to develop an XML-based data model that prescribes a comprehensive set of data standards (semantics and internal structures) for emergency management to better address the challenges of information interoperability. Actual documents currently being used in mitigating chemical emergencies from a large number of incidents are used in the analysis stage. The data model development is guided by Activity Theory and is validated through a RFC-like process used in standards development. This paper applies the standards to the real case of a chemical incident scenario. Further, it complies with the national leading initiatives in emergency standards (National Information Exchange Model

Collective IT artifacts: Toward Inclusive Crisis Infrastructures

This paper investigates a previously overlooked phenomenon in crisis response information systems, namely inclusive crisis infrastructure. By expanding the well-acknowledged infrastructure concept with alternatives to understand the nature and scope of inclusive crisis infrastructures, this paper contributes to closing the gap between theory and practice by raising some research questions critical to the study of inclusive crisis infrastructures. The emerging literature on crisis response information systems suggests that external sourcing of information increasingly influences crisis response operations. To contribute to this discourse, the paper draws on Pipek and Wulf’s (2009) definition of work infrastructures and Palen and Liu’s (2007) conceptualization of peer-to-peer communications to develop a better understanding of the crisis response arena as a whole. In doing so, this paper goes beyond the emphasis on event-based technologies that currently dominate the crisis response information systems literature and instead argues why crisis infrastructures need to be both inward-looking and accommodating to technological and social outcomes parallel to formal response contexts. The novel conceptualization captures the fact that the crisis context contains collections of collective IT artifacts that are not aligned or related but that are, for autonomy reasons, interlinked to crisis organizations’ current IT infrastructure and may be of great value to such organizations if infrastructure capability options are considered