Negotiating the 'trading zone'. Creating a shared information infrastructure in the Dutch public safety sector

Our main concern in this article is whether nation-wide information technology (IT) infrastructures or systems in emergency response and disaster management are the solution to the communication problems the safety sector suffers from. It has been argued that implementing nation-wide IT systems will help to create shared cognition and situational awareness among relief workers. We put this claim to the test by presenting a case study on the introduction of ‘netcentric work’, an IT system-based platform aiming at the creation of situational awareness for professionals in the safety sector in the Netherlands. The outcome of our research is that the negotiation with relevant stakeholders by the Dutch government has lead to the emergence of several fragmented IT systems. It becomes clear that a top-down implementation strategy for a single nation-wide information system will fail because of the fragmentation of the Dutch safety sector it is supposed to be a solution to. As the US safety sector is at least as fragmented as its Dutch counterpart, this may serve as a caveat for the introduction of similar IT systems in the US

Understanding distributed sensemaking in crisis management: the case of the Utrecht terrorist attack

On Monday morning March 18, 2019 a terrorist opened fire inside a tram in the middle of the city of Utrecht. A key challenge in the Utrecht attack was making sense of the situation and organizing a coherent response in a distributed command and control structure. This is a recurrent challenge in crisis management. As command structures expand, sensemaking becomes distributed when groups at different locations develop partial images of a complex environment. While most sensemaking studies focus on how specific groups attempt to collectively construct a plausible representation of the situation, few accounts of distributed sensemaking have appeared. This study explains how crisis managers made sense of the volatile situation across different command structures. Twenty five crisis managers from different teams were interviewed by making use of the critical decision methodology. The analysis points to five factors that influence the quality of distributed sensemaking: type of interdependence, sensitivity to operations, plausibility, hierarchy, and identity. It signals that updating one's sensemaking does not only require noticing discrepant cues but is especially related to key social-cognitive and organisational processes that stimulate doubt, questioning, and a plurality of perspectives.NWO016.Veni.195.121Security and Global Affair

Crisismanagement na de tramaanslag in Utrecht

In deze bijdrage staat een analyse van het crisismanagement tijdens de tramaanslag in Utrecht op 18 maart 2019 centraal. Direct na de schietpartij komt een grote multidisciplinaire hulp- verleningsoperatie op gang en start de politie met de Manhunt op de gevluchte dader(s). Om deze operaties te onderzoeken zijn 24 respondenten geïnterviewd die deel hebben uitgemaakt van 11 verschillende crisisteams, zowel binnen de politie, als bij de geneeskundige diensten en de brandweer. De analyse zoomt in op vijf sleutelmomenten die laten zien waarom en op welke punten de betekenisgeving uiteenloopt en waar er verschillende vormen van commandovoering conflicteren. Met deze analyse komt een scherper zicht op de kracht en beperkingen van proce- dures voor terrorismegevolgbestrijding. De analyse laat ook zien dat ondanks deze problemen, de operaties veelal robuust zijn verlopen doordat veelvuldig is gezocht naar pragmatische oplossingen. Met de inzichten uit dit artikel wordt een bijdrage geleverd aan het versterken van crisismanagement bij grootschalig (politie)operaties.NWO016.Veni.195.121Security and Global Affair

Drawing the Line: Cross-boundary Coordination Processes in Emergency Management

Groenewegen, P. [Promotor]Boersma, F.K. [Copromotor

Shaping Societal Impact: between control and cooperation

In our modern society, the impact of large-scale safety and security incidents can be large and diverse. Yet, this societal impact is makeable and controllable to a limited extent. At best, the effect of concrete response actions is that the direct damage is somewhat reduced and that the recovery is accelerated. Proper crisis communication can make the biggest difference with respect to overall societal impact. We argue that crisis communication must strike a balance between a directive approach of chaos, command and control and a more empathic approach of continuity, coordination and cooperation. On the basis of a concrete case we analyze how crisis communication reflects the incident response approach and how societal impact is affected

A systematic review of 20 years of crisis and disaster research: trends and progress

The field of crisis and disaster studies has proliferated over the past two decades. Attention is bound to grow further as the world negotiates the prolonged challenges of the Covid‐19 pandemic. In this review, we provide an overview of the main foci, methods, and research designs employed in the crisis and disaster research fields in the period of 2001–2020. The review documents that the focus and methods used have not changed much over time. Single case studies and exploratory research prevail, the focus has shifted from preparedness to response, and methodological diversity is limited, but gradually increasing. Future challenges are to understand transboundary crisis management and creeping crises. Advancing the field calls for our community to put more effort in drawing lessons beyond the single case to uncover comparable and universal patterns that connect between events or phases, which help to theorize the multifaceted nature of crisis and disaster managementSecurity and Global Affair

Pandemic Publishing: a bibliometric review of COVID‐19 research in the crisis and disaster literature

Iconic events have traditionally instigated progression in the fields of crisis and disaster science. In the wake of the COVID‐19 pandemic, the pressing question is how this global health emergency impacted the research agendas of our field. We reviewed contributions in ten important crisis and disaster journals in the two and a half years following the COVID‐19 outbreak from 1 January 2020 to 30 June 2022. Specifically, we conducted a bibliometric review using thematic mapping analysis to distill the major themes covered by the emerging COVID‐19 literature within crisis and disaster science (N = 239 articles). Our results indicate that several well‐known topics are applied to the COVID‐19 pandemic, such as risk, crisis communication, governance, resilience and vulnerability. The pandemic also gave rise to new topics, such as citizen behavior, state power, and the business and mental health impact of crisis measures. Several studies are already looking ahead by identifying lessons for preparedness and mitigation of future pandemics. By taking stock of the surge of COVID‐19 studies while this academic literature is still taking shape, this review sets the stage for future contributions to the crisis and disaster literatures. It provides valuable lessons for what topics are studied and what themes need more attention. The COVID‐19 pandemic is destined to become an iconic event for our literature that not only strengthens and deepens existing debates, but strengthens and deepens existing debates, but also clearly offers the opportunity to draw in new perspectives and broaden the horizon of crisis and disaster science.Security and Global Affair

The combined use of cross-section analysis and other stratigraphic recording systems in the cleaning of two panel paintings from the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century

Cross sections are frequently used in the stratigraphic study of pictorial structures. Thanks to cross sections, it is possible to study and record original and non-original strata that may provide important information regarding the artist's technique and later restoration processes. This information helps conservators design different strategies in processes such as cleaning. However, it is often in cleaning where the advantages and limitations of cross sections become obvious. When dealing with a complex structure, cross sections may not be enough to record in a comprehensive and accurate manner all the strata removed during cleaning. In some cases, the conservator may obtain during cleaning a great amount of stratigraphic information that is not visible in the cross sections. Therefore, it may be necessary to resort to other recording systems, such as the stratigraphic unit recording sheet and the stratigraphic diagram, which are frequently used in archaeological stratigraphy. This article demonstrates how cross-section analysis was combined with stratigraphic study during the cleaning of two panel paintings to gain an improved understanding of their complicated layer structure.Barros García, JM.; Reina De La Torre, A.; Pérez Marín, E. (2014). The combined use of cross-section analysis and other stratigraphic recording systems in the cleaning of two panel paintings from the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century. Studies in Conservation. 60(4):245-252. doi:10.1179/2047058414Y.0000000128S24525260

Measurement of the longitudinal diffusion of ionization electrons in the MicroBooNE detector

Abstract: Accurate knowledge of electron transport properties is vital to understanding the information provided by liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). Ionization electron drift-lifetime, local electric field distortions caused by positive ion accumulation, and electron diffusion can all significantly impact the measured signal waveforms. This paper presents a measurement of the effective longitudinal electron diffusion coefficient, DL, in MicroBooNE at the nominal electric field strength of 273.9 V/cm. Historically, this measurement has been made in LArTPC prototype detectors. This represents the first measurement in a large-scale (85 tonne active volume) LArTPC operating in a neutrino beam. This is the largest dataset ever used for this measurement. Using a sample of ∼70,000 through-going cosmic ray muon tracks tagged with MicroBooNE's cosmic ray tagger system, we measure DL = 3.74+0.28 -0.29 cm2/s