Analyzing Approaches to Collective Knowledge Recall

People and organizations frequently need to recall past events that, for some reason, were not documented when they occurred. The successful reconstitution of past events depends on several variables, such as how long ago the event occurred, and whether key people are still available to tell what they know. Although it is sometimes difficult to restore all known events, an adequate recall process can get closer. This paper examines three knowledge recall methods and compares them in a set of controlled experiments. The group storytelling approach is used in two of the methods, one of which is supported by a groupware. The paper also evaluates the benefits and the drawbacks of using the group storytelling technology

ColabSaber: A pedagogical support framework in the collaborative construction of knowledge / ColabSaber: Uma estrutura pedagógica de apoio na construção colaborativa do conhecimento

This paper proposes the ColabSaber Framework, which aims to change the traditional format of lecture-based classes with the use of the learning principles defended by Vygotsky, such as language, culture and social interaction. ColabSaber uses the fundamentals of Group Storytelling as educational support for elementary school students. This paper points out the importance of the collaborative construction of comic books as an intermediate support in the traditional teaching-learning process, also considering the technological advances and the ease of students in handling new technologies. As a result, the article concludes a significant improvement in the academic performance of the participating students and a motivational element of the academic engagement of the participating students

Crowdsourcing as a tool for urban emergency management: lessons from the literature and typology

Recently, citizen involvement has been increasingly used in urban disaster prevention and management, taking advantage of new ubiquitous and collaborative technologies. This scenario has created a unique opportunity to leverage the work of crowds of volunteers. As a result, crowdsourcing approaches for disaster prevention and management have been proposed and evaluated. However, the articulation of citizens, tasks, and outcomes as a continuous flow of knowledge generation reveals a complex ecosystem that requires coordination efforts to manage interdependencies in crowd work. To tackle this challenging problem, this paper extends to the context of urban emergency management the results of a previous study that investigates how crowd work is managed in crowdsourcing platforms applied to urban planning. The goal is to understand how crowdsourcing techniques and quality control dimensions used in urban planning could be used to support urban emergency management, especially in the context of mining-related dam outages. Through a systematic literature review, our study makes a comparison between crowdsourcing tools designed for urban planning and urban emergency management and proposes a five-dimension typology of quality in crowdsourcing, which can be leveraged for optimizing urban planning and emergency management processes

Turning Emergency Plans into Executable Artifacts

ISBN: 978-0-692-21194-6 Available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) LicenseInternational audienceOn the way to the improvement of Emergency Plans, we show how a structured specification of the response procedures allows transforming static plans into dynamic, executable entities that can drive the way different actors participate in crisis responses. Additionally, the execution of plans requires the definition of information access mechanisms allowing execution engines to provide an actor with all the information resources he or she needs to accomplish a response task. We describe work in progress to improve the SAGA's Plan definition Module and Plan Execution Engine to support information-rich plan execution

Towards Digital Transformation of a City Resilience Framework

Improving city resilience is among the most challenging strategic goals for city administrators worldwide. To support their work, frameworks providing technical support and methodological guidance have been developed. Such frameworks define resilience improvement processes based on multidimensional resilience models to assess one city’s resilience level, plus a collection of policies to increase such level in different dimensions. Although some frameworks include software tools to support the process, their scope is limited to a particular step of the process, and global management is still done manually, hindering agility in the process. In this paper, we present our work towards the digital transformation of a city resilience framework. The use of process technology to specify and enact the process is combined with the application of model-based development techniques to provide interoperability of the different framework tools. We describe the architecture of the solution proposed, and the major features of our approach

Systematic approach to cyber resilience operationalization in SMEs

The constantly evolving cyber threat landscape is a latent problem for today’s companies. This is especially true for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) because they have limited resources to face the threats but, as a group, represent an extensive payload for cybercriminals to exploit. Moreover, the traditional cybersecurity approach of protecting against known threats cannot withstand the rapidly evolving technologies and threats used by cybercriminals. This study claims that cyber resilience, a more holistic approach to cybersecurity, could help SMEs anticipate, detect, withstand, recover from and evolve after cyber incidents. However, to operationalize cyber resilience is not an easy task, and thus, the study presents a framework with a corresponding implementation order for SMEs that could help them implement cyber resilience practices. The framework is the result of using a variation of Design Science Research in which Grounded Theory was used to induce the most important actions required to implement cyber resilience and an iterative evaluation from experts to validate the actions and put them in a logical order. Therefore, this study proposes that the framework could benefit SME managers to understand cyber resilience, as well as help them start implementing it with concrete actions and an order dictated by the experience of experts. This could potentially ease cyber resilience implementation for SMEs by making them aware of what cyber resilience implies, which dimensions it includes and what actions can be implemented to increase their cyber resilience

Resiliência e fragilidade dos sistemas de trabalho e sustentabilidade : estudos de casos de sistemas sócio-técnicos complexos no Brasil na área nuclear, aviação e emergência

A Engenharia de Resiliência tem como propósito tornar pessoas e organizações atentas e sensíveis aos modelos de riscos adotados e às estratégias adaptativas usadas para controlar a emergência e os percursos das falhas. Uma organização resiliente deve proporcionar meios para a gestão das adaptações, monitorando, entendendo, refletindo e aprendendo a partir dessas estratégias, identificando ameaças e riscos à segurança. Falhar em aplicar esses princípios leva a organização a atuar em um modo reativo, numa condição de luta constante contra o perigo. Os estudos de caso apresentados neste artigo procuram aplicar os conceitos e métodos de engenharia resiliência, bem como relacioná-los com o conceito de sustentabilidade dos sistemas sócio-técnicos complexos, num país de desenvolvimento industrial recente como é o caso do Brasil. Os casos abordam os domínios nuclear, aviação e emergência e utilizam a Análise do Trabalho Cognitivo (ATC) como base metodológica. Os estudos permitiram identificar fatores de resiliência e fragilidade nos diversos domínios abordados, mostrando ainda que um sistema proativo de gerenciamento de segurança, usando conceitos da engenharia de resiliência, pode fornecer às organizações meios eficazes para balancear segurança e objetivos de alta produtividade.La Ingeniería de Resiliencia hay como propósito permitir a las personas y las organizaciones a se tornaren atentas y sensibles a los modelos de riesgos adoptados y a las estrategias adaptativas usadas para controlar la emergencia y los recorridos de fallas. Una organización resiliente debe proporcionar medios para la gestión de las adaptaciones, monitoreando, entendiendo, reflejando y aprendiendo a partir de estas estrategias, identificando amenazas y riesgos à la seguridad. Fallar en aplicar eses principios lleva la organización a actuar en un modo reactivo, en una condición de lucha constante contra el peligro. Los estudios de caso presentados en este artigo procuran aplicar los conceptos y métodos de la ingeniaría de resiliencia, así como relaciónalos con el concepto de sustentabilidad de los sistemas socio-técnicos complejos, en un país de desarrollo industrial reciente que es el caso de Brasil. Los casos abordan los dominios nuclear, aviación y emergencia y utilizan la Análisis del Trabajo Cognitivo (ATC) como base metodológica. Los estudios permitirán identificar factores de resiliencia y fragilidad en los diversos dominios abordados, mostrando aun que un sistema proactivo de gerenciamiento de seguridad usando conceptos de la ingeniería de resiliencia puede fornecer a las organizaciones medios eficaces para balancear seguridad y objetivos de alta productividad.Les concepts et le cadre théorique de l’ingénierie de la résilience visent à sensibiliser les individus et les organisations aux modèles du risque adoptés, ainsi qu’aux stratégies d’adaptation choisies, pour contrôler l’émergence de défaillances ainsi que les voies par lesquelles elles surviennent. Une organisation résiliente doit donner les moyens aux acteurs du système de gérer ces adaptations par la surveillance, la compréhension, la réflexion, et l’apprentissage à partir de ces stratégies, identifiant les menaces et les risques existants en termes de sécurité. Ne pas appliquer ces principes pousse l’organisation à agir suivant un mode réactif, à lutter constamment contre le danger. Les études de cas présentées dans cet article cherchent à appliquer les concepts et méthodes de l’ingénierie de la résilience, mais aussi à les rattacher au concept du développement durable des systèmes sociotechniques complexes dans un pays d’industrialisation récente tel que le Brésil. Ces études de cas proviennent des domaines de l’industrie nucléaire et de l’aéronautique et s’appuient sur le cadre méthodologique de l’analyse des activités cognitives. Ces études ont permis d’identifier des facteurs de résilience et de fragilité dans ces divers domaines, et soulignent qu’un système proactif de gestion de la sécurité fondé sur les concepts de l’ingénierie de la résilience peut fournir des moyens efficaces pour équilibrer les objectifs de sécurité et de productivité.Resilience Engineering aims to make people and organizations sensitive to the risk models adopted and to the adaptive strategies used to control the emergency and the failure paths. A resilient organization must provide means to the management of adaptations by monitoring, understanding, reflecting and learning from these strategies, and by identifying threats and risks to safety. The failure in applying such principles leads the organization to act in a reactive model, in an endless fight against danger. The case studies presented in this article seek to apply the concepts and methods of resilience engineering, relating them to the concept of complex sociotechnical systems’ sustainability, in a recently industrialized country like Brazil. The cases approach the domains of nuclear, aviation, and emergency, using Cognitive Task Analysis as methodological basis. The studies have permitted to identify resilience and brittleness factors in the several domains researched ; pointing out that a proactive safety management system based on resilience engineering concepts may provide the organizations with effective means to balance safety and productivity goals

The assessment of information technology maturity in emergency response organizations

[EN] In emergency response organizations, information technologies are not adequately explored. Sometimes, the mere adoption of new information technologies is not productive, as their efficient use depends on other interrelated technologies and the environment where they are installed. This work describes a model to help organizations understand their capability in respect to the adoption of these technologies. The model also helps the performing of the evaluation from different perspectives, making it suitable to collaborative evaluation. Using the proposed model, an organization can measure its maturity level in different aspects of the evaluation and guide the investment on its capabilities. Part of the model has been developed for emergency response organizations and the information technology dimension of the model has been applied to two fire department installations.Marcos R. S. Borges was partially supported by grants No. 560223/2010-2 and 480461/2009-0 from CNPq (Brazil). Work of José H. Canós is partially funded by the Spanish Ministerio. de Educación y Ciencia (MEC) under grant TIPEX (TIN2010–19859-C03-03). The cooperation between the Brazilian and the Spanish research groups was partially sponsored by the CAPES/MECD Cooperation Program, Project #169/ PHB2007-0064-PC.Santos, RS.; Borges, MRS.; Canos Cerda, JH.; Gomes, JO. (2011). The assessment of information technology maturity in emergency response organizations. Group Decision and Negotiation. 20(5):593-613. doi:10.1007/s10726-011-9232-zS593613205Bigley G, Roberts KH (2001) The incident command system: high reliability organizing for complex and volatile task environments. Acad Manag J 44(6): 1281–1299Chinowsky P, Molenaar K, Realph A (2007) Learning organizations in construction. J Manag Eng 23(1): 27–34Diniz VB, Borges MRS, Gomes JO, Canós JH (2008) Decision making support in emergency response. 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Secretome of the preimplantation human embryo by bottom-up label-free proteomics

Abstract A bottom-up label-free mass spectrometric proteomic strategy was used to analyse the protein profiles of the human embryonic secretome. Culture media samples used for embryonic culture of patients undergoing intracytoplasmic sperm injection cycles were selected as a test case for this exploratory proof-of-principle study. The media were stored after embryo transfer and then pooled into positive (n = 8) and negative (n =8) implantation groups. The absolute quantitative bottom-up technique employed a multidimensional protein identification technology based on separation by nano-ultra-high pressure chromatography and identification via tandem nanoelectrospray ionization mass spectrometry with dataindependent scanning in a hydrid QqTOF mass spectrometer. By applying quantitative bottom-up proteomics, unique proteins were found exclusively in both the positive-and negative-implantation groups, which suggest that competent embryos express and secrete unique biomarker proteins into the surrounding culture medium. The selective monitoring of these possible secretome biomarkers could make viable procedures using singleembryo transfer