Emerging Issues In Management Research Articles

Optimal decision-making of post-disaster emergency material scheduling based on helicopter–truck–drone collaboration

In the last decades, natural disasters, such as earthquakes and landslides, have occurred frequently, seriously threatening the safety of people’s lives and property. How emergency material is scheduled and delivered efficiently to the affected sites after a disaster has become a critical issue in emergency management. Current studies on emergency material scheduling mainly focus on truck or helicopter transport. Inspired by the success of employing drones in commercial logistics, this work investigates the emergency material scheduling issue based on the cooperative transport of drones, helicopters, and trucks. Specifically, this paper considers the limited transport capacity, road conditions in the early stage of the disaster rescue, and affected sites restricted by road conditions that can only be served by helicopters or drones. The studied problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming model, and a two-stage heuristic algorithm is developed to solve the model. For the proposed model, instances of different sizes are generated, and extensive experiments are performed to test the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. The comparison between the solutions obtained by the two-stage algorithm and Gurobi Solver for the small instances validates the effectiveness of the proposed heuristic algorithm. Experimental results for the larger instances show that the proposed two-stage algorithm can effectively solve the problem of emergency material scheduling. Sensitivity analysis of ten typical instances is performed to provide managerial insights. Finally, a case study of the Sichuan earthquake and the visualization of transport routes are presented. The model and solving approach proposed in this work can provide essential decision references for emergency management decision-making.

Good Practices in Inter-Institutional Collaboration in Managing the Migrant Crisis

In 2021, Lithuania faced the challenge of managing the crisis of new type of migration across the Belarusian border, which threatened the security of the country and its citizens. A broad set of inter-institutional collaboration strategies and methods were used among the public institutions to address this crisis. Such inter-institutional collaboration has been a multifaceted and complex process, involving both known and new good practices. The aim of this article is to provide insights into good collaborative practices between the Lithuanian national defence and internal affairs systems in managing the migrant crisis. Following the expert interview results, the study identified three good practices of inter-institutional collaboration: (i) the creation of a single dissemination channel for the crisis response services, which ensured that all actors were in the same information field; (ii) the delegation of representatives of the institutions to teams at strategic, operational and tactical levels; and (iii) inter-institutional information sharing ensured good situational awareness at an early stage of emergency management. Lessons learned from the collaboration between the institutions of the national defence and internal affairs systems can be applied to improve inter-institutional collaboration in other areas. The research results can be used to enhance the process of such collaboration in addressing current emergency management issues and serve as a basis for effective and smooth emergency preparedness and response where inter-institutional synergy is needed.

Elements of standard operating procedures and flexibility issues in emergency management: A Japan-Taiwan comparison

Planning and flexibility are necessary elements of emergency management. However, balancing these two elements is not easy and requires empirical information to improve the means of maximizing the effectiveness of both elements. Defining standard operating procedures (SOPs) is a key tool for planning emergency responses. The determinants of elaborate SOPs and the benefits and side effects of exercising them were surveyed among Japanese and Taiwanese municipal governments, which are primarily responsible for dealing with natural and manmade hazards. Japanese municipalities can define a large part of SOPs themselves and are loosely linked to the upper-level government structure during emergency responses. Their Taiwanese counterparts use a nationally standardized template of SOPs and act as a part of a nationally unified emergency management system. The experiences of different types of emergency events have increased the elaboration levels within the basic set of SOPs among Japanese municipalities, validating the use of SOPs to adopt the multi-hazard approach. The additional time-related set of SOPs was typically used by municipalities that experienced floods or landslides. The benefits of using SOPs were widely recognized at both study sites. Although SOPs did not hamper optimal emergency responses in most situations, among the surveyed emergency management officials in Japan (41%) and Taiwan (61%), there was concern over the negative effect of defining detailed SOPs on the flexibility of contingent responses.

Development of Early Warning System for Public Health Emergencies in China: Focus on SARS, H7N9, COVID-19

As the number of public health emergencies increases in China, the construction of emergency management is becoming more and more eager, especially the dissemination and control of COVID-19 is the most important issue in emergency management. The early warning system of public health emergencies has become one of the hot spots. China's emergency management system has now built a set of its own efficient emergency management mechanism for public health emergencies, but the perfect early warning mechanism for public health emergencies can accurately predict the direction of the development of the event before the event occurs, can avoid suffering, avoid wasting public resources, and invest more funds in other emergencies. From this point of view, China's public health emergency warning mechanism is growing in the confrontation, making China's view from heavy governance slowly firm to heavy warning. At present, China's early warning system has developed to a certain extent, but there are still shortcomings, such as: the unreasonable subject of early warning, the lag of early warning standards, the scope of monitoring subject is not wide enough and so on. This paper will analyze the changes of China's early warning system in the past 20 years through literature analysis and case analysis, and further study how to improve the early warning system of public health emergencies.

Emergency alternative evaluation under group decision makers: a new method based on entropy weight and DEMATEL

ABSTRACTWith the increasing occurrence frequency of emergency events, how to select the most desirable alternative has emerged as one critical issue in emergency management. In this paper, we propose a new method combining entropy weight and DEMATEL (decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory) to manage emergency alternative selection under group decision makers. Firstly, IFN (intuitionistic fuzzy number) is introduced to represent linguistic assessment of decision makers under different criteria. Secondly, based on belief entropy, the weight of decision makers is determined and then applied in IFWA (intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging) operator to fuse group assessment. Thirdly, with the weight of criteria calculated by DEMATEL, TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) is used to rank emergency alternatives. Two case studies are illustrated to demonstrate the efficiency and practicability of the proposed method through the comparison of other existing methods. The proposed method has three advantages: (1) Via IFN and IFWA operator, it is simple and efficient to address the representation and fusion of linguistic assessment under uncertain information. (2) DEMATEL can help decision-makers weight the importance of criteria considering their direct and indirect effects; (3) Belief entropy can well measure the uncertainty of information and is capable of determining the weight of experts objectively.

Duty or safety? Exploring emergency service personnel's perceptions of risk and decision-making when driving through floodwater

Vehicle-related flood fatalities and rescues due to driving through floodwater are a significant emergency management issue for emergency services. To reduce fatalities, injuries, and costs associated with this risky driving behaviour it is essential to develop strategies to stop or reduce the incidence of people driving through floodwater. In Australia, people are told not to enter floodwater – on foot or in vehicles – with the phrase ‘If it's flooded, forget it’ widely used in official messaging. As first responders responsible for floods, storms and tsunamis, Australian State Emergency Service (SES) personnel are working in flood conditions regularly and are considered an occupationally ‘at-risk’ group for driving through floodwater. Although SES agencies across states and territories in Australia are independently led, they typically promote policies of not entering floodwater to their personnel. Such policies are important for meeting duty of care obligations to employees, for protection of assets (vehicles and equipment), and for upholding organisational reputation (leading by example). This study was undertaken to explore the behaviour of driving through floodwater by SES personnel. The study explored the characteristics of those who have and have not driven through floodwater, and then used detailed situations in which SES personnel entered floodwater in vehicles to analyse their perception of risks, the conditions and contexts in which they entered floodwater, and to identify what influenced their decision to enter.Following an earlier systematic literature review, a detailed online questionnaire was developed and administered to SES personnel from a single agency. Data from 670 respondents indicated that 54.8% had driven through floodwater in the previous two years, and a number of differences in the profile of those who had/had not driven through floodwater were identified. Those more likely to have driven through floodwater included males, volunteer personnel with longer lengths of service, those doing more driving hours per week, those deployed to work in flood conditions, and those with current flood rescue qualifications. The location type, water depth, and water velocity were conditions that contributed more to perception of risk at the time personnel drove through the floodwater. Detailed information about an experience of entering floodwater was obtained from 201 respondents who had driven through floodwater in SES vehicles, and six factors relating to the decision to drive through floodwater were extracted. ‘Organisational training and safety’, ‘External locus of control’ and ‘Absence of risk signals’ were identified as having the greatest influence on risk perception leading to decisions to drive through floodwater. The findings of the study have a number of practical implications for the improvement of occupational safety management; such as upgrading risk assessments strategies, reviewing workplace health and safety policies, enhancing training, increasing skills and knowledge of emergency services personnel about floodwater hazard situations, and improving internal flood risk communication.

Emergency Alternative Selection Based on an E-IFWA Approach

With the increasing occurrence frequency of emergency events, how to select the most desirable alternative has been as one of the major issues in emergency management. In this paper, a new method incorporating an extension entropy, Best-Worst method and Intuitionistic fuzzy weighted averaging operator (E-IFWA) is proposed to manage emergency alternative selection. E-IFWA method uses intuitionistic fuzzy number (IFN) to represent incomplete information (fuzzy information and missing information), which can describe the preference of decision-makers more clearly due to its more options. Extension intuitionistic fuzzy entropy is proposed to determine objective weight, and the Best-Worst method (BWM) is adapted to determine subjective weight, hence the objective and subjective combined weight of decision-makers and criteria are considered in this paper. The experiments including a simple example and a case study compared with the existing method illustrate that E-IFWA method is effective and can get a more reasonable result in emergency management.

Consequence analyses induced by landslides along transport infrastructures in the Enna area (South Italy)

In recent years, several landslides have had a strong impact on the road network, creating the need to define criteria for management and mitigation of hydrogeological risk through landslide zoning correlated with transport infrastructure systems. The reliability of transport infrastructures plays a key role since, in many cases, their inefficiency has caused serious damage to the anthropic system. Recently, advances in cloud computing have opened new opportunities in early warning and emergency management issues. The scientific community has recognized the added value of a geo-analytic approach in complex decision-making processes for critical situations due to natural events such as landslides. In this context, the research project CLARA [CLoud plAtform and smart underground imaging for natural Risk Assessment] has been developed. The main objective of the project is the acquisition of local knowledge on issues related to landslide risk that may affect urban areas, through the development of smart technologies that allow acquisition, management and sharing of complex information. The results provide a representation of the consequence analyses induced by landslides with reference to the Sicilian road network in the Enna area (southern Italy) to be used when planning the mitigation measures to be undertaken in order to improve the prevention and reduction of the disastrous effects of landslides.

A multi criteria comprehensive evaluation approach for emergency response capacity with interval 2-tuple linguistic information

Emergency response capacity evaluation (ERCE) is an important and challenging issue in emergency management with the frequent occurrence of emergency events. Because of their different backgrounds and preferences, decision makers (DMs) often prefer to use linguistic variables from different linguistic term sets to express their decision information about the importance and the ratings of multi criteria involved in ERCE issue, some of which may be imprecise and uncertain. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi criteria comprehensive evaluation (MCCE) approach for ERCE with interval 2-tuple linguistic information. First, a new method for comparison between interval 2-tuples is proposed. Then, the classic analytical hierarchy process is extended into the ITL-AHP, in which the interval 2-tuple linguistic preference relation (ITLPR) and its multiplicative consistency are defined. An iterative algorithm to improve the consistency level of an ITLPR is proposed. Based on improved ITLPRs, the priority weights of criteria are derived by the normalizing rank summation method. In individual decision information collecting processes, both subjective weights and objective weights of DMs are considered. Furthermore, some interval 2-tuple interval weighted aggregation operators in which the weight vectors take the form of interval 2-tuple linguistic information are developed. Finally, a numerical illustration and comparison analyses are provided to elucidate the feasibility and superiority of the proposed method. The proposed method can provide a flexible way to perceive and appraise the emergency response capacity (REC) and an effective tool to handle the emergency management performance evaluation and decision making under fuzzy and uncertain information environment.

Seismic risk: recent developments for the emergency management

he recent advances in cloud computing have opened new opportunities in emergency management issues due to earthquakes. In this context, Geographic Information System (GIS) based solutions have been recently investigated, with the aim of the prevention and the reduction of seismic risk. The paper focuses on the results of the research project PRISMA - cloud PlatfoRms for Interoperable SMArt Government in which an innovative open source GIS system, based on the knowledge in the field of dynamic characterization of soil has been developed in order to assess the local seismic hazard and the seismic zonation of the Enna area in the south of Italy. The paper describes how the application of prospecting and surveying techniques allowed a decisive improvement in the geological knowledge of the area, contributing to define the subsoil model for the purposes of seismic microzonation. The seismic geotechnical characterization has been performed with laboratory tests including the resonant column and cyclic torsional shear test on undisturbed samples. The interpretation of geophysical and geotechnical data and their correlation with geological units are presented as microzonatic map. Finally, a wireless sensor network has been used for structural monitoring at the aim to highlight the significant benefits when the time available for access is limited, by representing an effective way of managing risks. All the data relating to the monitoring of the buildings and to the geological and geotechnical characterization are available on the web GIS platform, representing an important tool for the prevention and reduction of the seismic risk.

OSCAR: a framework to integrate spatial computing ability and data aggregation for emergency management of public health

Spatial computing has emerged a critical issue in emergency management of public health. Due to the complexity of spatial data structure and disperse character of spatio-temporal data, when emergency event of public health occurs, it is difficult to get the needed data and analysis it then make quick decision in a short time. In this paper, OSCAR: an Open Spatial Computing and data Resource platform were introduced including its components, framework, elements and two implementations. OSCAR provides a data resource aggregation platform to retrieve data from official statistic agencies through data service and database, scrawl related data from BBS and social media and mirror the environment data from earth observation data sites. All the dataset are arranged in data cubes according to their spatial and temporal dimensions. This mechanism ensures the feasibility and timeliness of time-sequence analysis of specific regions. The algorithms of spatial computing of public health are usually complicated and depend on particular computing environment, which is usually not default configuration of computer of nowadays. OSCAR deploys a series of computation images in a cloud-computing environment. The computation ability can be extended on-demand and thus the time of the computation can be shortened and limited in several minutes when it is needed. The two implementation of human rabies of China and H7N9 in China show the convenience of our platform.

Connecting the Dots: Integrating Diverse Theoretical Perspectives to Understand Emerging Management Issues

Connecting the Dots: Integrating Diverse Theoretical Perspectives to Understand Emerging Management Issues

NICU Evacuation Training and Disaster Preparedness

To discuss the NICU nurses' knowledge of roles and responsibilities in neonatal evacuation procedures; to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention adapted from core competencies and toolkits to increase awareness and knowledge of neonatal evacuation procedures; and to identify possible areas and opportunities to improve communication, resources, and training related to NICU evacuation. Quality improvement educational intervention. A 377-bed medical center with a 12-bed NICU located in Mission Hills, Southern California. Twenty-six neonatal nurses who provide care to neonates in the acute care setting of the NICU. Pretesting/posttesting to determine whether the educational intervention increased participants’ knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions on the evacuation process of inpatient, hospitalized neonates as part of NICU disaster preparedness. Increased knowledge (based upon responses to a 10-item knowledge questionnaire, d = 2.37) and self-efficacy (based upon responses to a 4-item questionnaire, d = 1.56). The NICU educational course was the first step in the revision of the current NICU infant evacuation policy and in the development of a larger quality improvement program for NICU disaster preparedness. Disaster planning and preparedness components are being added to the unit policy and hospital emergency operations plan. The task force developed for this project is now an appointed, on-going, interprofessional, multifacility committee, the purpose of which is to present findings and proposed solutions on NICU disaster preparedness and emergency management issues to hospital and regional disaster preparedness administrators.

Coastal zone management challenges in Ghana: issues associated with coastal sediment mining

Coastal erosion is a serious environmental problem that has caused the loss of private infrastructure and national assets along Ghana’s coast. Several hard engineering measures have thus been used to protect some communities and vital state assets when they became threatened. Regardless of this problem, sediment mining activities are increasingly practiced along most of Ghana’s coast, further exacerbating coastal erosion intensity and degrading coastal ecosystems. This paper provides an overview of the activities of coastal sediment miners along four administrative Districts in the Central Region of Ghana and identifies how issues arising from the practice are managed at the local community level as well as by state environmental regulators. The study uses a mixed-method approach, involving individual and group interviews, administration of a set of structured questionnaire and field observations, to identify coastal sediment mining and emerging management issues. Overall, three main categories of coastal sediment mining activities were identified in the area. Results indicate that coastal sediment mining is widely practiced by both commercial contractors and community members, giving rise to the high perception among residents that it is the reason for the degradation of the coastline in the studied areas. The study also established that state environmental regulators have weak inter-agency cooperation leading to poor enforcement of environmental laws and non-prosecution of offending individuals. The paper suggests that since each identified sediment mining activity has its own peculiar issues and mode of operation, coastal managers should address each category independently in order to derive lasting impacts in curtailing the practice.

Cervical dissecting hematoma associated with the use of oral anticoagulant and/or antiplatelet therapy: three clinical cases

The authors present three cases that required emergency admission for rapidly aggravating dyspnoea and severely impaired deglutition of sudden onset in patients treated with Coumarin derivatives, and/or antiplatelets for potential risk of thrombotic vascular events. The problems in establishing a diagnosis and differential diagnosis, the complexity of emergency therapy and the management of medication during hemostasis required a multidisciplinary team of specialists in ENT, Intensive Care, Cardiology, Imaging and Laboratory Medicine. The article highlights the ENT emergency management issues in these cases with a complex pathological background, which have in common the necessity to offer assistance and secure breathing for pharyngolaryngeal dyspnoea.

Aftershock risk assessment and the decision to open traffic on bridges

SUMMARYCritical issues in emergency management after a seismic event are assessing the functionality of the main infrastructures (hospitals, road network, etc.) and deciding on their usability just after the mainshock. The use of a pure analytical tool to assess the aftershock risk of a structure can be contrasted with the limited time available to make a decision about the usability of a structure. For this reason, this paper presents a method for evaluating post‐earthquake bridge practicability based on a rational combination of information derived from numerical analyses and in situ inspections. In particular, we propose an effective tool to speed up the decision‐making process involved in evaluating the seismic risk of mainshock‐damaged bridges in the context of aftershocks. The risk is calculated by combining the aftershock hazard using the Omori law and the fragility curves of the structure, which are calculated using the regression analysis of a sample of results obtained with data randomly generated by the Latin Hypercube Sampling technique and updated based on the results of in situ inspection. Different decision criteria regarding the practicability of bridges are discussed, and a new criterion is proposed. This tool was applied to an old highway RC viaduct. There are two main findings, including the high sensitivity to Bayesian updating (especially when the damage predicted by numerical analysis does not match the real damage) and the criteria used to decide when re‐open bridges to traffic. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ADVANCES IN COASTAL DISASTERS RISK MANAGEMENT – LESSONS FROM THE 2011 TOHOKU TSUNAMI

The earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 led to death and destruction in coastal areas in Japan. A seminar was held in June 2012 for Japanese and Dutch coastal researchers to discuss lessons for the management of the risks in coastal areas associated with tsunamis, typhoons and storm surges. The seminar has highlighted important practical and theoretical issues in coastal protection, risk and emergency management, and climate change and sea level rise research that are of importance for the Netherlands and Japan and other coastal regions. The performance of the system during historical events gives important lessons for the (re)design of resilient coastal protection systems in the future. It has also been discussed how risk assessments can be utilized to determine how an effective combination of prevention, land use planning and emergency management can be implemented to minimize future risks in the coastal zone.

Emergency Decision Engineering Model Based on Sequential Games

When emergency breaks out, the problem how to make timely and efficiently the emergency decision is focus issue in emergency management. So an engineering model is established by using dynamic games firstly. Then the process of sequential games between decision maker and emergency is analyzed in detail. The information about emergency is got through finitely sequential games in order to bring forth the optimal relief plan and to provide support for the decision-making when an emergency occurs. Finally, the optimal relief plan that was generated by using the engineering model of sequential games is given by a specific example.

Guest Editor's Introduction: Assessing the Complex and Multidimensional Characteristics of Evacuation Incidents

AbstractThe articles included in this Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy symposium on emergency evacuation issues are drawn from research findings presented at the National Evacuation Conference, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, in February 2010. Assessment questions related to evacuations are of course highly significant for emergency management practice and disaster management policy. Evacuations are highly complex—and frequently dangerous—endeavors. The problems attendant to the unsuccessful sheltering and secondary evacuation of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the difficulties associated with the evacuation of the Houston and Galveston, Texas, metropolitan areas as a consequence of Hurricane Rita several weeks later are stark and relatively recent reminders of that proposition. There are of course numerous disaster evacuations abroad that likewise underscore the urgency and centrality of sound evacuation planning and preparedness. Unfortunately, roughly five years after Katrina and Rita, the massive dislocation of persons in Pakistan as a result of catastrophic flooding again points to the relevance of disaster management practice, evacuations included. But it would be a mistake to think of evacuation management as primarily a matter of infrequent large‐scale disasters or catastrophes. Instead, the reality is that evacuations on a relatively small scale—either incidents in individual structures, such as building fires or incidents in a specific geographic area such as an accidental chemical spill—occur literally every day in the United States. In other words, a wide range of hazard incidents are sufficient to prompt emergency evacuations, and the high rate of incidence requires taking the topic seriously not only as an emergency management issue but as a research question as well.

Public Health Components of Academic Programs in Homeland Security

The academic course requirements for 111 certificate and degree programs in emergency management and homeland security were reviewed to assess the degree to which the subject of public health has been incorporated into the overall curriculum of this broad and emerging field. Courses that were dedicated primarily to the field of public health comprised about 4% of the total number of courses taught in the curriculum, about the same percentage as taught in the fields of intelligence and planning. More courses were taught in the subjects of emergency management, terrorism, and legal issues associated with homeland security. Specific subject matter covered in public health courses included healthcare for mass casualties, pandemics, bioterrorism, preparedness and planning, diseases associated with disasters, and health care systems for emergency use. The author proposes a framework for further discussion on identifying critical education in public health within the context of homeland security.