Kenneth Johnson, Javier Cámara, Roopak Sinha, Samaneh Madanian, & Dave Parry. (2021). Towards Self-Adaptive Disaster Management Systems. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 49–61). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Disasters often occur without warning and despite extensive preparation, disaster managers must take action to respond to changes critical resource allocations to support existing health-care facilities and emergency triages. A key challenge is to devise sound and verifiable resourcing plans within an evolving disaster scenario. Our main contribution is the development of a conceptual self-adaptive system featuring a monitor-analyse-plan-execute (MAPE) feedback loop to continually adapt resourcing within the disaster-affected region in response to changing usage and requirements. We illustrate the system's use on a case study based on Auckland city (New Zealand). Uncertainty arising from partial knowledge of infrastructure conditions and outcomes of human participant's actions are modelled and automatically analysed using formal verification techniques. The analysis inform plans for routing resources to where they are needed in the region. Our approach is shown to readily support multiple model and verification techniques applicable to a range of disaster scenarios.
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Peng Xia, Ji Ruan, & Dave Parry. (2018). Virtual Reality for Emergency Healthcare Training. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 494–503). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: Given the rising trend of natural and technological disasters in recent years, the demands for emergency responders are on the rise. One main challenge is how to cost-effectively train emergency responders. In this research, we aim to explore of the usage of Virtual Reality (VR) technology in an emergency healthcare training setting. We start with the following two research questions: (1) how to implement the VR technology to be used in the emergency healthcare training; and (2) how to evaluate the effectiveness of our implementation. To address the question (1), we construct emergency healthcare workflows from reference sources, convert them into process diagrams, and develop a VR software that allows users to carry out the processes in a virtual environment. To address question (2), we design an experiment that collect participants's personal data (features such as Age, Technical background etc.) and the performance data (such as timespan, avatar moving distance, etc.) generated during the training sessions. Ten participants were recruited and each performed three training sessions. We evaluate the data collected and have the following three conclusions: (a) despite the different personal features, the participants, after repeated trainings, can improve their performance with reduced timespan and moving distance; and (b) the technical background plays the most significant role among other features in affecting timespan in our VR-based training.
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Peng Xia, Ji Ruan, Dave Parry, Jian Yu, & Sally Britnell. (2023). Enhancing Triage Training for Mass Casualty Incidents with Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 68–76). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: Mass casualty incidents (MCIs) occur with natural or man-made disasters. Training emergency staff for combating MCIs is essential, but the cost can be high as such incidents rarely occur, and a physical simulation is resource-intensive. Triage is a critical task in dealing with MCIs. In this paper, we propose to use Virtual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to build a low-cost, high-efficient system for MCI triage training. Our system captures more comprehensive training data and utilizes state-of-the-art AI evaluation methods.
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Reem Abbas, Tony Norris, & Dave Parry. (2018). Disaster Healthcare: An Attempt to Model Cross-Agency CommunicationIn Disasters. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 504–515). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: In disasters, several national, international, and non-governmental organisations such as police, health, ambulance, fire and civil defence services are usually involved in the response process. Therefore, it is crucial that responding agencies communicate effectively to avoid fragmentation and duplication in services, to harmonise separate activities, and to clarify roles and responsibilities. Central to communication is information exchange. Effective information exchange enhances not only the appropriateness and success of disaster response, it also ensures timeliness. However, cross-agency communication is extremely challenging especially at times when there are high stress levels, incomplete data, and minimum time to make critical decisions. This paper attempts to specify a 'best-practice' model for cross-agency communication built around the specific information requirements of disaster management and disaster medicine agencies, with the aim of improving the overall quality of healthcare services provided to disaster victims.
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Tony C. Norris, Santiago Martinez, Leire Labaka, S. Madanian, José J. Gonzalez, & Dave Parry. (2015). Disaster E-Health: A New Paradigm for Collaborative Healthcare in Disasters. In L. Palen, M. Buscher, T. Comes, & A. Hughes (Eds.), ISCRAM 2015 Conference Proceedings ? 12th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Kristiansand, Norway: University of Agder (UiA).
Abstract: Disaster management and disaster medicine are well-established disciplines for responding to disasters and providing care for individuals whose health and well-being has been affected. However, these disciplines have different origins, development, and priorities so that communication and coordination across them during disasters is often lacking, leading to delayed, sub-standard, inappropriate, or even unavailable. Moreover, neither discipline exploits the new range of e-health technologies such as the electronic health record or telehealth and mobile health that are revolutionizing non-disaster healthcare. We need a new paradigm that applies information and e-health technologies to improve disaster health planning and response. This paper describes the initial stages of a project to develop such a paradigm by scoping and developing the area of disaster e-health.
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