Crisis is a wide concept which may include a diverse set of events and behaviour patterns. Thus, crisis management requires complementary approaches that provide a more complete perspective. This paper describes a useful methodology to analyse crises from a multiple perspective approach that contributes to acquire a more deep understanding about crises and their management. The first approach ...
This paper takes a holistic approach to rapid restoration of critical infrastructures and key resources (CIKR) in the USA. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the all-hazards paradigm remains vital to the homeland security mission. A proposal is presented to overhaul state and local fusion centre guidelines to build on existing counterterrorism functions through the incorporation of compulsory ...
Operator support is essential for making decisions involving ageing infrastructure. In particular, ageing plants may have deviated from their original condition into a new state with a less predictable set of possible actions and outcomes. Standard procedures and practices may be insufficient to handle the risks and vulnerabilities of ageing nuclear infrastructure. Operator support must be ...
Natural disasters impact on the human-created environment. Affected are both the general built environment as well as those few places that a community cherishes as representing their past achievements, aspirations and tribulations ? their cultural heritage sites. Natural disasters are localised events and have the ability to cause extensive loss and destruction to a community's cultural ...
Simulating emergency evacuations has grown in popularity since the tragic events of 9/11. Unfortunately there are a large number of modelling, simulation, animation and computer graphics systems available today many of which are misleading. Models and simulations fall into two main categories: Microscopic and Macroscopic. We highlight the general differences in these approaches, outlining the ...
This paper addresses the problem of composing different ambiguous and vague pieces of information without a central authority through a set of distributed agents, each with limited perspective, converging to a shared point of view by exchanging information only with a reduced subset of nodes (i.e., their respective neighbourhood). To this end, the distributed consensus problem is extended in the ...
Pervasive computing, as a concept, holds the promise of simplifying daily life by integrating mobile devices and digital infrastructures into our physical world. Computers would invisibly integrate themselves into background environments, providing useful services to users, as well as contextual information as to their surroundings. Devices would be able to establish dynamic ad hoc networks to ...
The 2008 Azalea Festival Symposium entitled, 'Katrina over Hampton roads: are we ready?' was held 15?16 April at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia and brought together over 250 attendees from 25 nations. Keynotes included Commissioner Jan Franssen, Queen's Commissioner for South Holland; Lieutenant General (Ret) Russel L. Honore, Former Commander, Joint Task Force Katrina; and ...
In 2007, a TableTop eXercise (TTX) on Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) was held in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was organised by the Civil Protection Committee (CPC) of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). The aim of the TTX was to identify gaps in existing policies and capabilities for the protection of the civil population and Critical Infrastructures (CIs) and to provide nations and ...
The paper addresses a number of concerns that are manifest in the safety management of critical infrastructures (CI) including, and especially, the effects of an increasing complexity on the safety managers' ability to comprehend and monitor the stability, predictability, and manoeuvrability of the systems at hand; the perverse effect of computer ubiquity on the CI safety quality; and, entailing ...
This paper addresses a special line of thought, setting the task of taking a straightforward approach to complexity as a source of vulnerability. The practical goal is to attach a relevant metrics to the internal connectivity of multi-component systems, so that this can be turned to account from a Quantitative Vulnerability Assessment (QVA) oriented standpoint. Complexity induced vulnerability ...
Infrastructure managers increasingly have to deliver to defined performance levels, related to system reliability, availability and life cycle costs, as a result of increasing pressures from governments and operators. This paper will investigate the consequences of this development for the newly established European Railway's infrastructure managers (IMs). It particularly focuses on the state of ...
Institutional and technological changes concerning networked infrastructures, and increasing interdependency between these infrastructures necessitate a different view on their design and management. Responsibilities are no longer in one hand as they often used to be, and failures in systems may impact larger parts of the infrastructures, leading to serious service disruptions. This paper ...
It is becoming clear that sustainable development is, sometimes, obstructed by new risks and vulnerabilities, such as SARS, HIV, terrorist attacks etc. There is a need to outline and identify the current new trends, dependability and governance rules in order to properly model critical infrastructures for greater safety and operational performance. The present paper addresses the need for a ...
This paper discusses governance as a promising approach for dealing with the risks of infrastructures, and specifically with reference to the European situation. The liberalisation and the unbundling of the institutional and market arrangements and the pervasive application of information and communication technologies have increased the interconnectivity among systems and nations, making risks ...
Infrastructure resilience has drawn significant attention in recent years, partly because the occurrence of low-probability and high-consequence disruptive events like Hurricane Katrina, the Indonesian tsunami, terrorism attack in New York, and others. Since civil infrastructure systems support society welfare and viability, continuous infrastructural operation is critical. Along protection ...
The development of a new software-intensive service for an organisation usually implies changes in the organisational processes. This is especially true in the development of an emergency management system where heterogeneous architectures and software application structures have to be integrated. In these situations, many organisations and governmental departments involved in facing emergencies ...
As a result of advances in information technology and the necessity of improved efficiency, Critical Infrastructures (CIs) have become increasingly automated and interlinked over the years. This linkage between CI results in a very complex and dynamic system. However, this growing complexity of CI and their interdependencies reveals new vulnerabilities. In fact, the interdependencies between CI ...
Strategic goals help streamlining risk management efforts, and criticality assessments of infrastructures benefit from such goals. This paper offers an introduction into recent German civil protection activities on this topic at national level. It offers a transferable concept on how to identify, document and justify priorities regarding critical infrastructure services. Based on human values it ...
Stevens Water Monitoring Systems Inc. is proud to announce the completion of the acquisition of Structure Monitoring Inc.Also based in Portland, Oregon, Structural Monitoring Inc. (SMI) provides intelligent IoT (Internet of Things) solutions for monitoring, analyzing, and managing critical infrastructure with emphasis on hydropower, bridges, and transportation applications.Stevens and SMI share a ...