Abstract: Crisis management (CM) organizations regularly face the challenge to assess the potential impact of a change in their socio-technical setup. No matter if a new software, a new tool, a simple workflow or a broader organizational structure become available, CM organizations need to estimate the potential added value under a high degree of uncertainty. In general, the more reliable information about the new solution is available, the more informed the decisions are. One promising way in assessing the potential impact of new CM solutions can be found through its application in an as realistic as possible and an as secure as necessary setup. However, such artificial scenarios like simulation exercises hold the risk of measuring the performance of the solution itself rather than its contribution to the CM operation. In this paper we review the state of the art in measuring crisis management performance, discuss the results in the context of performance measurement in general and present a performance measurement approach supporting a structured assessment of innovative CM solutions applied within collaborative demonstration project.

Abstract: Understanding the performance of disaster monitoring systems is a key to understanding their success, therefore; various qualitative and quantitative measures and metrics can be applied in the characterization and analysis of such systems. Through evaluation studies, problems that impede a disaster monitoring system performance can be identified. The results can be used for system control, design, and capacity planning. Previous studies address technical performance analysis metrics for analyzing monitoring systems leaving out human and organizational dimensions of such systems. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to identify and describe a set of disaster monitoring systems performance analysis metrics that may be employed to evaluate such systems. This study may be valuable to researchers and practitioners involved in disaster and emergency response studies in planning the transportation of vital first-aid supplies and emergency personnel to disaster-affected areas, and in improving chances of survival after a natural disaster.

Abstract: The paper discusses the need for an easy-to-use, easy-to-administer measure that can capture shared understanding in a team of professionals working together towards a successful performance. In the paper the development of such a measure is described using two empirical studies. Command-and-Control tasks are complex and often dynamic, and a way of capturing the degree of which a team of individuals have a common understanding of priorities in such a task is imperative. Two studies are presented. In the first study students participated in a microworld experiment where they tried to rank order pre-determined factors in order to measure shared understanding. In the second study officers from the Swedish Armed Forces participated in an exercise where they rank ordered self-generated factors.

Abstract: Relief agency managers show growing interest in dashboards for assessing multi-agency disaster preparedness. Yet, there is a dearth of research on the development and use of dashboards for disaster preparation. Consequently, information system architects in the disaster management domain have little guidance in developing dashboards. Here, dashboards refer to digitalized visualizations of performance indicators. In this paper, we discuss the experiences gained from an action research project on the development of dashboards for assessing disaster preparedness. The objective of this paper is to discuss experiences and tradeoffs extracted from the development of dashboards in practice. We organized a two-day gaming-simulation with relief agency managers for the evaluation of the dashboards. While the relief agency managers acknowledged the usefulness of dashboards in the disaster preparation process and expressed their intention to use these in practice, they suggested that the formulation and clustering of performance indicators requires further research.

Abstract: Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are formed by self-organized wireless nodes that use multi-hop wireless relaying. These networks are useable in a variety of situations ranging from fixed residential broadband networking based on rooftop wireless mesh nodes to emergency response networks for handling large scale disasters. Quick deployability, minimal configuration, broadband communication, and easiness of reconfigurability are the major characteristics that make WMNs a suitable choice for emergency applications. There exist several open research issues in using such WMNs for emergency response applications. We, in this paper, present a hybrid distributed wireless networking architecture, Extreme Networking System (ENS), and present large set of performance observations collected from a real distributed hybrid wireless mesh network used for supporting a medical emergency response application. We present the traffic behavior observed in our network when a client server medical emergency response application is employed. The performance observations on real-traffic scenarios for emergency response application underlines the need for focusing further research on topology control, reliability, service availability, and distributed management. We observed that though there are several challenges that need to be solved, a WMN is a favorable choice for emergency response networking.

Abstract: Several studies and observations regarding past earthquakes such as 1989 Loma Prieta, 1994 Northridge, or 1999 Marmara earthquakes have shown the importance of lifeline systems functionality on response and recovery efforts. The general direction of studies on simulating lifelines seismic performance is towards achieving more accurate models to represent the system behavior. The methodology presented in this paper is a product of research conducted in the Mid-America Earthquake Center. Electric power, potable water, and natural gas networks are modeled as interacting systems where the state of one network is influenced by the state of another network. Interdependent network analysis methodology provides information on operational aspects of lifeline networks in post-seismic conditions in addition to structural damage assessment. These results are achieved by different components of the tool which are classified as structural and topological. The topological component analyzes the post seismic operability of the lifeline networks based on the damage assessment outcome of the structural model. Following an overview of the models, potential utilizations in different phases of disaster management are briefly discussed.

Abstract: When a disaster or emergency occurs, one of the most pressing needs is to establish a communication network for the first responders at the scene. Establishing and accessing a reliable communication infrastructure at a crisis site is crucial in order to have accurate and real-time exchange of information. Failure in the exchange of timely and crucial information or delay in allocating resources impedes early response efforts, potentially resulting in loss of life and additional economic impact. At a disaster site, the existing communication infrastructure may be damaged and therefore partially or totally unavailable; or, there may not have been previously existing infrastructure (as in the case of remote areas). A communication infrastructure within the context of emergency applications should be reliable, easily configurable, robust, interoperable in a heterogeneous environment with minimum interdependencies, and quickly deployable at low cost. A disaster scene is a chaotic environment which requires a systematic approach to abstract the system, study the flow of information and collaboration among different disciplines and jurisdictions to facilitate response and recovery efforts. We have deployed the wireless mesh infrastructure in several drills at the university campus and in the city as part of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) NSF-funded RESCUE project (Responding to Crises and Unexpected Events). To evaluate network performance and identify the source(s) of bottleneck, we have captured the network traffic. The lessons learned from test bed evaluations of the network based on real-world scenarios can be applied to future applications to enhance the network design and performance.

Abstract: As freshwater availability for domestic and agro-industrial uses is highly sensitive to climate change, there is an urgent need for the management of this critical resource to be resilient, i.e., to cope with and rapidly recover from climate risks. To achieve this resilient goal, decision-makers need to have a comprehensive understanding of (i) the current and future local water resources, (ii) the ways these resources are and will be impacted by climate change, and (iii) the effects their management decisions can have. In this paper, we present an innovative scenario based modeling tool that help decision-makers make the most appropriate decision towards managing water resources: the Resilience Performance Assessment (RPA). This GIS-based decision support tool illustrates the current and future effects of climate change on local water resources and simulates the outcomes of different water resources management strategies. The RPA helps guide decision-makers towards the implementation of context specific adaptation strategies.

Abstract: The collaboration between humans (actors) and artificial entities (agents) can be a potential performance boost. Agents, as complementary artificial intelligent entities, can alleviate actors from certain activities, while enlarging the collective effectiveness. This paper describes our approach for experimentation with actors, agents and their interaction. This approach is based on a principled combination of existing empirical research methods and is illustrated by a small experiment which assesses the performance of a specific actor-agent team in comparison with an actor-only team in an incident management context. The REsearch and Simulation toolKit (RESK) is instrumental for controlled and repeatable experimentation. The indicative findings show that the approach is viable and forms a basis for further data collection and comparative experiments. The approach supports applied actor-agent research to show its (dis)advantages as compared to actor-only solutions.

Abstract: This study explored automated training for emergency managers and the effects of feedback on performance. A prototype emergency management training application was built to allow the usage of either immediate feedback or delayed, “hotwash” feedback. Users were split into two groups and asked to carry out two emergency management scenarios using one of the feedback mechanisms, and the difference in scores between each feedback type were analyzed There was a general increase in performance across sessions. Further, the improvements in scores between each feedback type showed that users performed significantly better when using the hotwash feedback mechanism compared with the immediate feedback mechanism. In contrast to the performance data, preference data showed no overall differences between the two procedures, although each user had a strong preference for one or the other feedback mechanism. The implications for the design of training systems offering both procedures are discussed.

Abstract: A convenient way to test Urban Search And Rescue (USAR) robots would be in virtual environments (VEs). Evaluations in VEs are generally accepted as alternative for real scenarios. There are obvious differences between operation in a real and virtual environment. Nonetheless, the current experiment showed no significant differences in situation awareness (SA) and performance during several elementary tasks (e.g. slalom) between a virtual world and a previous experiment in reality (Mioch, Smets, & Neerincx, 2012). Only small dependencies between the unit tasks were found. The effect of individual differences (like gender, km driven per year, and gaming experience), were significant for certain elementary tasks. Testing robots in virtual environments could still be useful even if differences between VE and reality exist, since comparisons of different conditions in VE seems to have the same results as the same comparison in the field (Bishop & Rohrmann, 2003; Van Diggelen, Looije, Mioch, Neerincx, & Smets, 2012).

Abstract: For sustainable care of cultural heritage it is essential to set accurate goals. However, the difficulty involved in establishing what is accurate in any given circumstance is often highly underestimated. Unbalanced decision making based on partial consideration of the situation surrounding a cultural heritage asset can at best result in inefficient use of resources and at worst will lead to its rapid loss. But the balance of risk against benefit is not straightforward, the impact of certain activities are far easier to quantify than others. Consequently, the adoption of a well balanced approach that considers all activities equally within the same framework is the key to providing appropriate and sustainable levels of protection. The development of an appropriate and systematic methodology offers a resolution to this problem. The outcome will be a suite of performance indicators assigned to each activity within a multivariate management framework. This paper describes the development and validation of such a methodology and the current status of the author's research.

Abstract: Large scale emergencies are usually responded to by a team of emergency managers or a number of sub teams for safety and efficiency. Team coordination has attracted considerable research interest, especially from the cognitive, human factors, and ergonomic aspects because shared situation awareness (SSA) and team situation awareness (TSA) of team members are critical for optimal decision making. This paper describes the development of an information system (SAVER) based on SSA and TSA oriented systems design. Validation and evaluation of the implemented design show that decision performance is improved by the SAVER system. © 2012 ISCRAM.