Universal design of ICT for emergency management: A systematic literature review and research agenda

The primary objectives of this article are to give a systematic overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Emergency Management, and to highlight high-impact research opportunities to ensure that the increasing introduction of ICT in Emergency Management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers, in particular for the elderly and people with disabilities. A systematic review on various literature with respect to Universal Design, ICT and Emergency Management between 2008 to 2018 was employed in this study, and reviewed systematically using a predefined framework. The ultimat…

Virtual reality applications for higher education: Design elements, lessons learned, and research agenda

Experimentation with a System Dynamics Based Interactive Learning Environment A Case Study of Accessibility of Norwegian Municipalities Websites

Publish-subscribe smartphone sensing platform for the acute phase of a disaster: A framework for emergency management support

The advanced sensors embedded in modern smartphones opens up for novel research opportunities, as for instance manifested in the field of mobile phone sensing. Most notable is perhaps research activities within human activity recognition and context-aware applications. Along a similar vein, the SmartRescue project targets monitoring of both hazard developments as well as tracking of people in a disaster, taking advantage of smartphone sensing, processing and communication capabilities. The goal is to help crisis managers and the public in early hazard detection, hazard prediction, and in the forming of risk minimizing evacuation plans when disaster strikes. In this paper we propose a novel …

A systematic review of immersive virtual reality applications for higher education: Design elements, lessons learned, and research agenda

Abstract Researchers have explored the benefits and applications of virtual reality (VR) in different scenarios. VR possesses much potential and its application in education has seen much research interest lately. However, little systematic work currently exists on how researchers have applied immersive VR for higher education purposes that considers the usage of both high-end and budget head-mounted displays (HMDs). Hence, we propose using systematic mapping to identify design elements of existing research dedicated to the application of VR in higher education. The reviewed articles were acquired by extracting key information from documents indexed in four scientific digital libraries, whi…

SMS-based Real-time Data Collection for Evaluation of Situational Awareness and Common Operational Picture : Lessons Learned from A Field Exercise

Managing complex multi-agency emergency operations requires that the key actors have a holistic, correct and dynamic situational awareness (SA) and that the involved actors establish a common operational picture (COP). Establishing SA and COP are key objectives in many multi-agency exercises, however, reported research shows limitations in existing methods and approaches for collecting the data required for evaluating this. By being able to capture near real-time information during different phases of the exercise we will be better positioned to identify what works well and what does not work in the process of establishing SA and COP. Our paper presents an example of real-time data collecti…

Towards a resilience management guideline — Cities as a starting point for societal resilience

Unexpected crises and risks affect the urban population. Critical infrastructure dependency, climate change and social dynamics have captured the attention of city decision makers across different disciplines, sectors, and scales. Addressing these challenges mandates an increase in resilience. This article presents the development of the novel European Resilience Management Guideline (ERMG) developed by the European H2020 Smart Mature Resilience (SMR) project. It encompasses five supporting tools for city resilience. The purpose of this article is threefold. First, it describes the extensive co-creation methods used to establish, validate and test the five ERMG tools as collaborations among…

Experience from Indoor Fire Search and Rescue Game Design for Technology Testing

No matter how good the fire evacuation plan for a building is, there is a risk of immovable victims being left behind due to smoke obscuration, inhalation of poisonous gasses, or other reasons. Firefighters usually perform the search and rescue for casualties in responding to fire hazards, besides the firefighting. Among of the challenges in the search and rescue operation is how to locate victims, and to keep monitoring the fire development so that it will not accidentally harm the fire personnel. This paper presents a game designed to test a smartphone app’s feature that supports concurrent tracking of indoor victims and fire spread. 22 volunteers were assigned roles either as rescuers or…

Universal Design of ICT for Emergency Management

The primary objectives of this article are to give a systematic overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Emergency Management, and to highlight high-impact research opportunities to ensure that the increasing introduction of ICT in Emergency Management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers, in particular for the elderly and people with disabilities. A systematic review on various literature with respect to Universal Design, ICT and Emergency Management between 2008 to 2018 was employed in this study, and reviewed systematically using a predefined framework. The ultimat…

An Overview of Public Concerns During the Recovery Period after a Major Earthquake: Nepal Twitter Analysis

In responding to disasters, Twitter is extensively used, both for information exchange and mapping the crisis, among citizens, and in relation to national and international humanitarian responders. This paper reports Twitter analysis aimed at identifying the most pressing issues that arose in the short term recovery phase starting about a week after the Nepal earthquake, including the heretofore neglected topic of mismatch between international relief and local cultures. Based on Twitter data collected between April 30th and May 6th 2015. 1,074,864 raw messages apparently related to the Nepal earthquake were retrieved, filtered and analyzed. This exploratory adapts established frameworks fo…

Crowd Models for Emergency Evacuation: A Review Targeting Human-Centered Sensing

Emergency evacuation of crowds is a fascinating phenomenon that has attracted researchers from various fields. Better understanding of this class of crowd behavior opens up for improving evacuation policies and smarter design of buildings, increasing safety. Recently, a new class of disruptive technology has appeared: Human-centered sensing which allows crowd behavior to be monitored in real-time, and provides the basis for real-time crowd control. The question then becomes: to what degree can previous crowd models incorporate this development, and what areas need further research? In this paper, we provide a survey that describes some widely used crowd models and discuss their advantages a…

Emergent vulnerabilities in Integrated Operations: A proactive simulation study of economic risk

Abstract The protection of critical infrastructure requires an understanding of the effects of change on current and future safety and operations. Vulnerabilities may emerge during the rollout of updated techniques and integration of new technology with existing work practices. Managers need to understand how their decisions, often focused on economic priorities, affect the dynamics of vulnerability over time. Such understanding is difficult to obtain, as the historical data typically used for decision support, prediction and forecasting may not be available. We report on the use of group model building and simulation to consider proactively the effects of a 10-year, multi-billion dollar mo…

A methodology for fire data analysis based on pattern recognition towards the disaster management

The aim of this paper is to investigate a proposed strategy for fire disaster analysis that is implemented based on pattern recognition technique in order to achieve a methodology for disaster management. Since the fire hazard has severe effects onto human and properties, it is essential to predict and possibly prevent it. Almost every fire produces some issues, such as heat, smoke, gas, and flame, which are sensible and measurable via devices or detection systems. The fire behavior is relevant to these issues. In this research, temperature, heat radiation, and visibility (smoke) data of fire that have been obtained from Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) are used for analysis. The location of t…

Experimental Command and Control Center for Crisis and Disaster Management: A Living-Lab Approach

The living-lab is a planned research infrastructure that includes user involvement and the co-design process. This article presents an overview of the innovative experimental control room for crisis management that adopts this living-lab approach in all research co-creation activities. The aims of this paper are threefold: (1) To study possible control room research methods, focus areas, and technologies that can be tailored to the living-lab approach; (2) To illustrate and share experience on the possibilities to tailor an experimental command and control center as a living-lab. (3) To explore the features to fulfill to maximize the benefit of the living-lab for all intended audiences. By …

Universal Design of ICT for Emergency Management from Stakeholders’ Perspective

While Universal Design principles have been adopted in many areas to ensure that products and services are usable for the broadest possible diversity of users, there is still an open area when it comes to the emergency management domain. This article aims at providing a systematic overview of the current state of the emerging research field of Universal Design of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Emergency Management, and to highlight high-impact research opportunities to ensure that the increasing introduction of ICT in Emergency Management can contribute to removing barriers instead of adding more barriers, in particular for the elderly and people with disabilities. A sys…

A Perspective Review on Integrating VR/AR with Haptics into STEM Education for Multi-Sensory Learning

As a result of several governments closing educational facilities in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, almost 80% of the world’s students were not in school for several weeks. Schools and universities are thus increasing their efforts to leverage educational resources and provide possibilities for remote learning. A variety of educational programs, platforms, and technologies are now accessible to support student learning; while these tools are important for society, they are primarily concerned with the dissemination of theoretical material. There is a lack of support for hands-on laboratory work and practical experience. This is particularly important for all disciplines related …

City Resilience Dynamics tool

The Impacts of ICT Support on Information Distribution, Task Assignment for Gaining Teams’ Situational Awareness in Search and Rescue Operations

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed the way we communicate and work. To study the effects of ICT for Information Distribution (ID) and Task Assignment (TA) for gaining Teams’ Situational Awareness (TSA) across and within rescue teams, an indoor fire game was played with students. We used two settings (smartphone-enabled support vs. traditional walkietalkies) to analyze the impact of technology on ID and TA for gaining TSA in a simulated Search and Rescue operation. The results presented in this paper combine observations and quantitative data from a survey conducted after the game. The results indicate that the use of the ICT was good in second scenario than first sce…

Vulnerability Black Markets: Empirical Evidence and Scenario Simulation

This paper discusses the manifest characteristics of online Vulnerability Black Markets (VBM), insider actors, interactions and mechanisms, obtained from masked observation. Because VBM transactions are hidden from general view, we trace their precursors as secondary evidence of their development and activity. More general attributes of VBMs and the exploits they discuss are identified. Finally, we introduce a simulation model that captures how vulnerability discoveries may be placed in a dual legal-black market context. We perform simulations and find that if legal markets expose vulnerabilities that go unresolved, the security and quality of software may suffer more than in the absence of…

On the Usability of Smartphone Apps in Emergencies

It is very critical that the disaster management smartphone app users be able to interact efficiently and effectively with the app during an emergen-cy. An overview of the challenges face for designing mobile HCI in emergency management tools is presented in this paper. Then, two recently developed emergency management tools, titled GDACSmobile and SmartRescue, are studied from usability and HCI challenges point of view. These two tools use mobile app and smartphone sensors as the main functionality respectively. Both have a smartphone app and a web-based app with different UIs for their different user groups. Furthermore, the functionality of these apps in the format of a designed scenario…

Universal Design of Information Sharing Tools for Disaster Risk Reduction

International audience; Disaster information sharing tools are an important aspect of disaster resilience, and it is of utmost importance that these tools are accessible and usable for as many potential users as possible. In this paper, we evaluate the accessibility of a selection of tools for crowdsourcing disaster situation information. As our evaluation shows that the selected tools are not fully accessible, we provide recommendations for mitigation, as well as highlight the importance of further research in this area.

A Spatio-temporal Probabilistic Model of Hazard and Crowd Dynamics in Disasters for Evacuation Planning

Published version of a chapter in the book: Recent Trends in Applied Artificial Intelligence. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38577-3_7 Managing the uncertainties that arise in disasters – such as ship fire – can be extremely challenging. Previous work has typically focused either on modeling crowd behavior or hazard dynamics, targeting fully known environments. However, when a disaster strikes, uncertainty about the nature, extent and further development of the hazard is the rule rather than the exception. Additionally, crowd and hazard dynamics are both intertwined and uncertain, making evacuation planning extremely difficult. To address this chal…

Slaying the SA-Demons – Humans vs. Technology – A Content analysis

This paper examines Situation Awareness (SA) and the application of Endsley’s SA-Demons in different contexts and research areas. We perform content analysis to examine how they are used, and to what degree they are perceived as stemming from human-error or weaknesses in technology and if any suggestions for mitigation are primarily focused on the human or the technology side. Based on our findings, we propose Universal Design as a tool that can counter the effects of the SA-Demons by improving the usability and accessibility of SA-supporting technology and thereby removing barriers to SA, rather than challenging the users to overcome not only barriers that are a result of the complexity of…

A Study of a Social Behavior inside the Online Black Markets

Illegal activities in cyberspace involving software vulnerabilities have resulted in tangible damage on computer-based environments. Lately, online black market sites for trading stolen goods, credentials, malware and exploit kits have been intensively examined. The market players are identifiably a group of loosely tied individuals but posses shared interests. However, their social behavior has only been discussed in a limited manner. This paper examines the arrangement of the market insiders’ social behavior that enables such forums to continue or discontinue their operation and become a meaningful threat to security. The results reveal that particular formal and informal regulations and …

A Framework for Assessing the Condition of Crowds Exposed to a Fire Hazard Using a Probabilistic Model

Published version of an article in the journal: International Journal of Machine Learning and Computing. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7763/IJMLC.2014.V4.379 open Access Allocating limited resources in an optimal manner when rescuing victims from a hazard is a complex and error prone task, because the involved hazards are typically evolving over time; stagnating, building up or diminishing. Typical error sources are: miscalculation of resource availability and the victims’ condition. Thus, there is a need for decision support when it comes to rapidly predicting where the human fatalities are likely to occur to ensure timely rescue. This paper proposes a probabil…

Enhancing Disaster Response for Hazardous Materials Using Emerging Technologies: The Role of AI and a Research Agenda

Despite all efforts like the introduction of new training methods and personal protective equipment, the need to reduce the number of First Responders (FRs) fatalities and injuries remains. Reports show that advances in technology have not yet resulted in protecting FRs from injuries, health impacts, and odorless toxic gases effectively. Currently, there are emerging technologies that can be exploited and applied in emergency management settings to improve FRs protection. The aim of this paper is threefold: First, to conduct scenario analysis and situations that currently threat the first responders. Second, to conduct gap analysis concerning the new technology needs in relations to the pro…

Comparing Different Crowd Emergency Evacuation Models Based on Human Centered Sensing Criteria

Emergency evacuation of crowds is a fascinating phenomenon that has attracted researchers from various fields. Better understanding of this class of crowd behavior opens up for improving evacuation policies and smarter design of buildings, increasing safety. Recently, a new class of disruptive technology has appeared: Human-centered sensing which allows crowd behavior to be monitored in real-time, and provides the basis for real-time crowd control. The question then becomes: to what degree can previous crowd models incorporate this development, and what areas need further research? In this paper, the authors provide a survey that describes some widely used crowd models and discuss the advan…

Eliciting Information on the Vulnerability Black Market from Interviews

Threats to computing prompted by software vulnerabilities are abundant and costly for those affected. Adding to this problem is the emerging vulnerability black markets (VBMs), since they become places to trade malware and exploits. VBMs are discussed based on information derived from interviews with security researchers. The effort is enriched by further examination of documents surrounding the disclosure of four selected vulnerabilities cases. The result suggests that the VBMs is bifurcated into two distinct parts; the skilled-hacker and the script-kiddie VBMs with a possible link between them, where the latter become places to sell malware or exploit kits after the zero day vulnerability…

Better Access to Terminology for Crisis Communications

International audience; Crisis management depends on efficient communications with professional staff and with people who are affected by the crisis. The correct interpretation of general language and technical terms is crucial to take good actions and to save valuable time. To reduce the risk of misunderstandings we need a well-established crisis management terminology. Several collections of terms have been prepared for hazard areas such as pollution, radiation, fire safety, and dangerous goods. Today such terminologies can be provided on different websites, depending on how the national crisis management is organised. This distribution and a variation of different formats and user interf…

Map-based interfaces for common operational picture

Common operationalpicture (COP) map-based interfacesdisplay operational information to support integrationofemergency responders. Such interfacesintegrate different subsystems and present the resulting information into an overview for enabling situation awareness. Literature shows that they are often developed from non-user-centric perspectives and are defined in technological terms that arenot adequately capturing the users’ needs. Therefore,theaim of this particular work in progressis to get insight into the features and the role of COP map-based interfaces currently being used in Norway to (1) examine theircontent, functionality, and design;and(2) to understand how such displays are inco…

Digital Volunteers in Disaster Response: Accessibility Challenges

The emergence of the Digital Humanitarian Volunteer (DHV) movements when disaster strikes have drawn the attention of researchers and practitioners in the emergency management and humanitarian domain. While there are established players in this rapidly developing field, there are still unresolved challenges, including accessibility of their digital tools and platforms. The purposes of this paper are twofold. First, it describes the background, impact and future potential of the DHV movement, and discusses the importance of universal design for the digital tools and platforms used for crowdsourcing of crisis information. Second, this paper shows how lack of concern for universal design and a…

Serious Game Design for Flooding Triggered by Extreme Weather

Managing crises with limited resources through a serious game is deemed as one of the ways of training and can be regarded as an alternative to a table-top exercise. This article presents the so-called “Operasjon Tyrsdal” serious game, inspired by a real case of extreme weather that hit the west coast of Norway. This reference case is used to add realism to the game. The game is designed for a single player, while the mechanics are framed in such a way that the player will have limited resources, and elevated event pressure over time. Beside applying an iterative Scrum method with seven Sprint cycles, we combined the development work with desk research and used the involvement of testers, i…

Perceivability of Map Information for Disaster Situations for People with Low Vision

Digital maps have become increasingly popular in disaster situation to provide overview of information. However, these maps have also created barriers for many people, particularly people with visual impairments. Existing research on accessible maps such as tactile and acoustic maps focuses on providing solutions for blind persons to be able to perceive the information digital maps present. For people with low vision, who often rely on magnifier, good contrast and good navigation support, current digital map solutions present many challenges. In this paper we have studied two types of digital maps and their related surrounding text in the home page of disaster applications. The study focuse…

Virtual Reality Applications for Higher Educations: A Market Analysis

Co-design of a Virtual Training Tool with Emergency Management Stakeholders for Extreme Weather Response

Emergency services usually prepare for the most frequent or predictable types of disasters, such as fires. However, preparation for complex, unpredictable disaster scenarios is infrequent, probably because of high resource demand and difficulty of covering dynamic training needs of multiple stakeholders. The use of serious game techniques as the core of simulated or virtual training tools opens for new ways of training and learning in emergency and crisis scenarios. However, the number of virtual training tools customized to specific disaster or crisis scenario that address needs of diverse user groups is limited. Existing tools are often tailored with a particular geographical setting and …

A Bayesian Network Model for Fire Assessment and Prediction

Smartphones and other wearable computers with modern sensor technologies are becoming more advanced and widespread. This paper proposes exploiting those devices to help the firefighting operation. It introduces a Bayesian network model that infers the state of the fire and predicts its future development based on smartphone sensor data gathered within the fire area. The model provides a prediction accuracy of 84.79i¾?% and an area under the curve of 0.83. This solution had also been tested in the context of a fire drill and proved to help firefighters assess the fire situation and speed up their work.

Understanding Situational Disabilities and Situational Awareness in Disasters

In this paper, a scenario-based approach augmented with personas typically used in universal design and interactive design domains is used to illustrate the occurrence of situational disabilities in emergency situations, and to show how environmental factors can trigger these situational disabilities. With the help of personas representing selected archetypical characteristics and roles, the scenarios are further examined to show how these situational disabilities can affect the situational awareness of different stakeholders, not only in the command and control centers, but also first responders in the field as well as affected members of the public. This approach provides a better underst…

Dynamic Modeling of the Cyber Security Threat Problem

This chapter discusses the possible growth of black markets (BMs) for software vulnerabilities and factors affecting their spread. It is difficult to collect statistics about BMs for vulnerabilities and their associated transactions, as they are hidden from general view. We conduct a disguised observation of online BM trading sites to identify causal models of the ongoing viability of BMs. Our observation results are expressed as a system dynamic model. We implement simulations to observe the effects of possible actions to disrupt BMs. The results suggest that without interventions the number and size of BMs is likely to increase. A simulation scenario with a policy to halt BM operations re…

Sharing Incident and Threat Information for Common Situational Understanding

This paper presents the INSITU research project initiated to provide a systematic approach for effective sharing, integration and use of information from different sources, to establish a common operational picture (COP) and shared situational understanding among multiple actors in emergency response. The solution developed will provide an interactive map display, integrating harmonisation of terminology and collaboration support for information sharing and synthesis. The enhanced COP will also support evaluation and learning from exercises and incidents. The project involves close collaboration with emergency management stakeholders in Norway, for requirements analysis, participatory desig…

Using Audio-Logs for Analyzing the Development of a Common Operational Picture in Multi-agency Emergency Response

Multi-agency emergency response requires effective communication and collaboration for building and maintaining a common operational picture. Full-scale exercises are shown to be effective for learning, and for training the collaborative skills needed. This paper presents a methodology for analysis of real-time communication for building the common operational picture, using audio-logs. The analysis of the audio-logs provides insights for both practitioners and researchers in the emergency management domain concerning the dynamics of inter-agency collaboration and information exchanges when responding to emergencies. Coding and categorizing of audio-log-based information exchanges among mul…

A Bayesian network model for evacuation time analysis during a ship fire

We present an evacuation model for ships while a fire happens onboard. The model is designed by utilizing Bayesian networks (BN) and then simulated in GeNIe software. In our proposed model, the most important factors that have significant influence on a rescue process and evacuation time are identified and analyzed. By applying the probability distribution of the considered factors collected from the literature including IMO, real empirical data and practical experiences, the trend of the rescue process and evacuation time can be evaluated and predicted using the proposed model. The results of this paper help understanding about possible consequences of influential factors on the security o…

Assessing the added value of the recent declaration on unregulated fishing for sustainable governance of the central Arctic Ocean

Accepted manuscript version. Published version available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.01.013. Accepted manuscript version, licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. The ‘Declaration concerning the prevention of unregulated high seas fishing in the central Arctic Ocean’ signed by the Arctic 5 nations, limits unregulated high seas fishing in the central part of the Arctic Ocean, and holds potential social, economic and political impacts for numerous stakeholders. In this paper, the four Interim Measures in the Declaration are discussed and what value these measures bring beyond the existing international agreements is explored. It is found that even though the Declaration fills a gap in the manag…

Evaluating Accessibility and Usability of an Experimental Situational Awareness Room

New advanced emergency management facilities such as a control room which is equipped with advanced ICT technologies should consider universal design principles and ensure the accessibility and usability of some important technical functions available in the room. This paper aims at evaluating the accessibility and usability of an experimental control room. This room has a flexible architecture, i.e., the information displays are interchangeable through drag-drop system on a control-panel. We used a complementary heuristic and user testing approach. A video analysis, open questionnaire and discussion with testers were applied to detect technology usage barriers. The results show that the pr…

A Crisis Management Serious Game for Responding Extreme Weather Event

Managing crisis with limited resources through a serious game is deemed as one of the ways of training and can be regarded as an alternative to the table-top exercise. This paper presents the so-called “Operasjon Tyrsdal” serious game, inspired by a real case of extreme weather that hit the west coast of Norway. This reference case is used to add realism to the game. The game is designed for a single player, while the mechanics are framed in such way that the player should deal with limited resources, and elevated event pressure over time to manage. Beside applying an iterative Scrum method with seven Sprint cycles, we combined the development work with desk research and involvement of test…

Ant colony optimisation for planning safe escape routes

Published version of a chapter from the volume: Recent Trends in Applied Artificial Intelligence. Also available on SpringerLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38577-3_6 An emergency requiring evacuation is a chaotic event filled with uncertainties both for the people affected and rescuers. The evacuees are often left to themselves for navigation to the escape area. The chaotic situation increases when a predefined escape route is blocked by a hazard, and there is a need to re-think which escape route is safest. This paper addresses automatically finding the safest escape route in emergency situations in large buildings or ships with imperfect knowledge of the hazards. The proposed so…

Turning Common Operational Picture Data into Double-loop Learning from Crises – can Vision Meet Reality?

Norwegian Research Council Grant #295848

Project report: Requirements specification

The SAMRISK project “Sharing incident and threat information for common situational understanding“ (INSITU) commenced in May 2019. The INSITU project develops solutions for establishing a common situational understanding in complex operations requiring collaboration between several agencies. This involves systematic analysis of existing information sources and defining the information elements that are critical to share in different phases of a crisis situation. In addition, the project will develop procedures and related tool support for efficient collection and integration of information. As part of this work, the project contributes to harmonisation of terminology across agencies to secu…

A Study on the Usage of Smartphone Apps in Fire Scenarios - Comparison between GDACSmobile and SmartRescue Apps

In this paper, we present a thorough overview of the two recently developed applications in the field of emergency management. The applications titled GDACSmobile and SmartRescue are using mobile app and smartphone sensors as the main functionality respectively. Furthermore, we argue the differences and similarities of both applications and highlight their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, a critical scenario for fire emergency in a music festival is designed and the applicability of the features of each application in supporting the emergency management procedure is discussed. It is also argued how the aforementioned applications can support each other during emergencies and what the pote…

Architecture of High Fidelity Simulation Tool for Crisis Management Training

This paper addresses an ongoing project KriseSIM aiming at creating a virtual training tool for crisis management that should be realistic, flexible, scalable with highfidelity system architecture and user interface. Our goal is to accomplish high-level requirements developed through a codesign process with the crisis management stakeholders. In this paper, we describe a highfidelity training tool architecture, which follows the serious game design principles. The tool is designed as a resource management serious game genre, where the players will deal with limited resources and should respond based on various critical information flows. A preliminary result, i.e. the architecture and the t…

Towards European Dimensions of City Resilience

International audience; Disaster resilience is becoming more important and raises the highest concerns worldwide, including in Europe. Cities have a vital role for resilience because a majority of the population resides in the cities. Despite the recognition of the importance of city resilience, there is no strong consensus what city resilience is and its dimensions, and how the resilience concept should be transferred into management practice in the cities. In this paper, we conduct a survey of EU sectorial approaches in terms of EU-funded projects related to climate change and critical infrastructure, where urban or city resilience are in focus. The goal is to obtain an overview of how th…

Simulation models in eGovernment using system dynamics: A literature survey

System Dynamics (SD) is a method to build simulation models using computers, to study the behaviour of systems, and apply what-if scenarios aiming at achieving optimal policy design. To have an overview of the current state-of-the-art of SD use in the eGovernment field; we have surveyed related literature. Our main goal is to uncover the possibilities for future research by clarifying the shortages. The identified literature is not very large. In most of the literature, SD models use was limited to SD practitioners. We discovered low usage of Group Model Building and workshops despite their usefulness in involving non-SD practitioners in the model building process. Additionally, there is a …

Project report : Evaluering av INSITU skogbrannøvelse

Rapporten presenterer resultater fra evaluering av en digital tabletop-øvelse arrangert av INSITU-prosjektet i april 2021, der scenarioet omfattet 3 samtidige skogbranner i Agder. Hensikt med øvelsen var å gi erfaring med hvordan situasjonsbilde kan deles fra innsatsleder til sentrale myndigheter med bruk av felles digital kartstøtte. Øvelsen involverte ca. 70 deltagere fra 20 etater og organisasjoner, i tillegg til prosjektgruppen fra INSITU.

Representing fire emergency response knowledge through a domain modelling approach

When any kind of emergency occurs, Emergency Responders (ERs) from different emergency organizations (such as police, fire, ambulance and municipality) have to act concurrently to solve the difficulties which are posed at the emergency site. Moreover, during the immediate response, getting the awareness of the situation is very crucial for ERs to lessen the emergency impacts such as loss of life and damage to the property. However, this can only be done when ERs get access to the information in timely manner and share the acquired information with one another during emergency response. Despite ERs share knowledge with one another they have to use same concepts to obtain the semantic underst…

Escape planning in realistic fire scenarios with Ant Colony Optimisation

Published version of an article from the journal:Applied Intelligence Also available on Springerlink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10489-014-0538-9 An emergency requiring evacuation is a chaotic event, filled with uncertainties both for the people affected and rescuers. The evacuees are often left to themselves for navigation to the escape area. The chaotic situation increases when predefined escape routes are blocked by a hazard, and there is a need to re-think which escape route is safest. This paper addresses automatically finding the safest escape routes in emergency situations in large buildings or ships with imperfect knowledge of the hazards. The proposed solution, based on Ant Colony …

Cyber-Security in Digital Metering Value Chain for Mountain Landslide Warning

The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) are initiating a digitalization process that involves the use of a digital metering value chain and cloud computing. The main objective of this study is to investigate how NVE can ensure cyber-security in digital meters and the cloubased metering value chain for mountain landslide warning. The study is based on a qualitative approach including methods like document analysis and semi structured interviews used as input to a risk analysis based on the ISO 31000 standard. The risk analysis covered three different scenarios from NVE. Those three scenarios were internal, external Norwegian, and transnational value chains for metering lan…

Fire simulation-based adaptation of SmartRescue App for serious game: Design, setup and user experience

Managing the crisis by embracing game and simulation elements and human participation into an interactive system is a mean to learn about responding to unexpected events. This so-called serious game approach is adopted in a summer school for crisis management attended by doctoral students and practitioners, as a part of its learning curriculum. The participants took part in the Disaster in my Backyard serious game, designed as a realistic crisis environment. A smartphone app encompassing fire simulations of a five-story apartment, showing how the flame, smoke and temperature of the fire developed over time from floor to floor, was tested in this serious game scenario. The color-coding of sm…

More than experience? On the unique opportunities of virtual reality to afford a holistic experiential learning cycle

Virtual reality has been proposed as a promising technology for higher education since the combination of immersive and interactive features enables experiential learning. However, previous studies did not distinguish between the different learning modes of the four-stage experiential learning cycle (i.e., concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation). With our study, we contribute a deeper understanding of how the unique opportunities of virtual reality can afford each of the four experiential learning modes. We conducted three design thinking workshops with interdisciplinary teams of students and lecturers. These workshops resulted in…

Universally Designed Beacon-Assisted Indoor Navigation for Emergency Evacuations

International audience; The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) obligates national governments to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in emergency situations. This article examines the application and accessibility of state-of-the-art ICT solutions in emergency situations. Research has indeed shown that the design and implementation of evacuation procedures in emergency situations play a critical role in ensuring personal safety and protection. While research has examined the experiences of persons including persons with disabilities in emergency situations, research has yet to examine fully the role that cutting-edge in…

Accessibility of Norwegian Municipalities Websites: An Interactive Learning Environment Experimental Investigation

Accessibility is an important aspect of websites generally and public websites particularly. Many ways could be proposed to enhance accessibility, however the impact of selected actions is hard to predict due to diversification and contradiction, in addition to the existence of the time factor. A System Dynamics simulation model including factors affecting the accessibility of Norwegian municipal websites was encapsulated in an Interactive Learning Environment (ILE). As the model promised to be able to change how users think and take decisions, this ILE was tested by users in an experiment. We have conducted a#x03B1;, a#x03B2;, and a#x03B3; change analysis on the results of this experiment.…