Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Emergency management'

This thesis is an explorative study of resilience in emergency management, including different actors’ experiences with, and expectations to, interaction by use of collaboration technology in situations of emergency. The study is comprised of interviews with important actors within the Norwegian petroleum industry, i.e. operators, contractors, authorities, and other relevant informants. Further, a literature review is presented upon the theme trust among distributed actors. The findings in this study show that there is a small degree of IO (Integrated Operations) concepts between the different external actors within emergency management. However, there is a somewhat higher utilization of these concepts between the company’s internal actors. This study recommends that the operator companies should turn to the organizations which offer to handle the 2nd line emergency management, and analyze what kind of collaboration technologies they utilize with respect to information sharing during an emergency. It is not possible to anticipate every possible scenario, meaning that the actors should focus on being prepared to be unprepared and thereby rely on their improvisation skills. Further, in order to make the emergency management more resilient, it is necessary to implement more of the IO concepts which are available today while, at the same time, trusting the technology to a greater extent. Another important factor is that the contractor companies wants to be more involved at the operator’s emergency management planning and training events. As mentioned in this thesis, my opinion is that the inclusion of contractor companies is something which the industry should take into consideration. Such a contribution may, along with implementation of IO concepts, make the emergency management more resilient and render possible to react on early warnings such that emergencies could be avoided.

Over a decade ago, there was no standardised method for information sharing during emergency situations. Governments, first responders, and emergency practitioners often had to rely on what little technology that was available to them. This situation slowed down communications, putting entire recovery operations, and lives at stake. The Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) is the umbrella standard for several emergency communication standards that are being developed to address this issue. The Semantic Web is slowly, but steadily becoming a natural extension of the present-day Web. Thanks to efforts from researchers, and corporations such as Google, Facebook, etc., we are seeing more, and more semantics aware applications on the Web. These applications have been successful in bringing Semantic Web technologies to the common user to a large extent. Semantic Web technologies have found applications in a wide range of domains, from medical research to media management. However, a study to see if EDXL messaging standards can benefit from Semantic Web technologies has not yet been made. In this thesis, we investigate the possibility of enabling Semantic Web technologies for EDXL standards, specifically the EDXL Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) standard, and explore the benefits that can come out of it. The possibility of converting XML based EDXL-RM messages to semantic formats is explored at first. This step is achieved through the evaluation of existing tools and technologies. Based on the outcome of this study, an EDXL to OWL converter that works in two stages is developed. The motivation for enabling semantic support for EDXL standards is illustrated through several use cases.

With disasters increasing in frequency and costs each year, this study seeks to explore ways greater public participation can assist emergency managers in their mission to keep communities safe. Specifically this study examines the policy process and administrative functions of emergency management to illuminated the benefits and hindrances involved in greater participation. This study conducted a qualitative analysis of governmental documents, disaster case studies, international research, as well as political science and administrative doctrines, to arrive at its conclusions. The results of this study reveal that the public is a largely untapped resource in the emergency management field. Engaging the public dialogically in early policy stages and emergency management phases is essential to successful inclusion for both administrators and communities. Specifically, public inclusion creates expanded knowledge, shared learning, personal responsibility, and increased social capital. Faced with the growing threat from disasters, emergency management can create communities that are both more resilient and sustainable by increasing public participation.

The risks associated with disasters can be significantly reduced if individuals are well prepared according to the orders and recommendations of emergency management authorities such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and local government. Despite this fact, there is evidence that individuals are not cooperative with these authorities and are therefore underprepared for an emergency. This article argues that individual trust in emergency management authorities may affect their cooperation with emergency preparedness recommendations. Using unique survey data, this study finds a nuanced relationship between individual emergency preparedness for tornadoes and trust in emergency management authorities. Although trust in FEMA in isolation does not explain variations in individual preparedness for tornadoes, increased preparation for a tornado is explained by trust in local government contingent upon a low baseline level of trust in FEMA. This article concludes with some practical and theoretical implications for emergency management authorities and scholars.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2006.
Thesis research directed by: Civil Engineering. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

This study explores how Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) were integrated within local emergency management systems pre-disaster. Semi-structured interviews were conducted following Rubin and Rubin?s (2005) Responsive Interviewing Model with 21 CERT team coordinators in FEMA Region VII (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska). It found that teams varied with regard to integration, and this variance could be explained by a number of related factors. Results suggest that if a team has a skilled leader, stability as an organization, and acceptance by the local emergency management system, they are more likely to be integrated than a team that is lacking some or all of the aforementioned factors. This study categorizes teams on a continuum according to their integration. Finally, this study concludes with a discussion of implications for practice, policy, and research, as well as recommendations for practice and research.

Over the last decade, we have seen that social media services have been widely adopted to communicate with friends or family members, and to generate and consume information. It is not a surprise, therefore, that social media services are also used as powerful communication platforms during disasters and other emergency extreme events. This thesis explores the utilisation and integration of social media services into emergency management organisations (EMOs) for the purpose of day-to-day as well as emergency and disaster management operational modes. EMOs such as fire services, use social media to provide information to, and engage with, the general public and as a source of relevant information to support their situational awareness during an extreme event. Social media services have been adopted by EMOs as an important additional communication channel during times of emergency and disaster management, where EMOs are central and trusted participants within emerging and dynamic social communication networks. Still, for EMOs, social media is a newly adopted technology which is not yet fully understood for this purpose. While some research has analysed social media data to learn how EMOs are communicating with the general public and non-government institutions through their social media channels, little is known as to how EMOs embed social media services into their organisational structures and processes. This research contributes to closing this research gap through an explorative and interpretive case study which highlights how EMOs utilise and integrate social media services into their day-to-day operations, processes and structures as well as into their operational mode during emergencies and disasters. This study analyses five different EMOs, in two different jurisdictions that have adopted and utilise social media services. This research focusses on the integration of social media services within these EMOs and how these EMOs use social media depending on their mode of operation, i.e. day-to-day or emergency management, for: 1) internal EMO communication; 2) interaction with other EMOs; and 3) communication with the general public and media organisations. The analysis of these cases is used to develop a framework of social media utilisation in emergency management organisations for emergency and disaster management. It also contributes to our existing body of knowledge about social media utilisation in emergency and disaster management scenarios. The results of this research project further provide EMOs with a basis to improve their existing approaches to social media utilisation.

Background: According to the literature, up to 30% patients with colorectal cancers (CRCs) present to the emergency department (ED) with surgical emergencies. The most common surgical presentations of these patients are: intestinal obstruction, perforation and bleeding. Palliative surgical interventions in these patients are believed to carry high risks of morbidity and mortality. Moreover, management options tend to be individualized in most cases, if not all. Methodology: A systematic review of published literature was conducted. Articles meeting inclusion criteria were summarized. Quantitative data regarding study characteristics were analyzed and expressed as descriptive statistics. Primary outcomes of interest were post-operative complications, mortality and 5-year disease free status. Results: 304 articles were collected from searching online data bases. Eight articles were found to match the research question and underwent a full text review. Five more articles were added from searching the grey literature. After final review, 11 articles were selected to be included in the systematic review. Papers were assessed for methodological validity. 81.8% of studies used regression models in their analyses. Mean number of patients included in the papers was 3,567 (min= 145, max= 30,790). 50.2% of all patients were males. Most of the included studies reported mean age of more than 60 years. The mean follow-up period in days was 399.5. Analysis of different variables revealed that, CRC patients who received emergency surgery had more comorbidities (95% CI, OR=1.42 P=0.05), higher American Society of Anesthesiology classes (95% CI, OR=1.33 P=0.08), and more advanced disease (95% CI, OR=1.09 P=0.02) than CRC patients who receive surgical intervention on elective basis. Moreover, resection rate was higher in the elective group (95% CI, OR=0.5 P=0.04). In contrast, stoma creation rate was higher in the emergency group (95% CI, OR=5.08 P=0.003). Furthermore, emergency patients had higher rates of postoperative complications (95% CI, OR=4.6 P=0.007) and mortality (95% CI, OR=5.38 P=0.0001). Conclusion: Patients requiring emergency surgery for CRC often have complex comorbidities and acute instability, and are at very high risk of postoperative complications. These findings highlight an important opportunity for the development of comprehensive systems of emergency surgical care, and, ultimately, improvement of patient outcomes.
Medicine, Faculty of
Surgery, Department of
Graduate

Hazardous industries in the UK and Europe are under pressure to increase the transparency and accountability of the ways in which they manage their hazards and the risks they pose to the population and environment. The literature has indicated that the field would benefit from a risk-based, continuous improvement approach to emergency management in hazardous industry. The aim of this research was to construct a framework to enable assessment of the emergency management performance and capability within UK hazardous industry operators. Continuous improvement models from other fields were examined, and an established model called the Capability Maturity Model was selected to form the basis of the framework. A three-stage data collection methodology was designed to gain an overview of an organisation's emergency management capability. This methodology involved reviewing a sample of emergency plans related to UK hazardous industrial sites and observing eight emergency exercises at major hazard industrial sites. The third stage was to record the learning capability of the organisation by observing their feedback processes and interviewing members of staff were necessary. Analysis of the resulting data enabled the construction of a set of eight key processes that define an emergency management system. Using the five- level structure of the Capability Maturity Model along with the principals of continuous improvement, an emergency management assessment framework was constructed. The assessment framework was successfully tested in a large Local Authority, using its emergency plan, a major exercise and a follow-up interview to collect the relevant information. The assessment provided clear details of current capability and maturity of the emergency management system, giving structured guidance on weaknesses in specific process areas and more generally in particular stages of the emergency management system. This ultimately enabled the Local Authority to focus its improvement efforts, increasing their efficiency in learning and effectiveness in preparedness and response.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited
The focus of this thesis is to identify whether emergency management can be modeled after ant colonies, perfectly emergent organizations, in order to better manage an autonomous response. An ant colony uses a dense and resilient communications system that incorporates a positive feedback loop, which allows the organization to be adaptable. Currently, emergency management organizations are experimenting with social media to establish a communications system similar to the positive feedback loop used by ant colonies. This thesis advocates that following a disaster, an emergency management organization gather information from the public through an Internet survey. The survey would be quickly processed and provide critically needed information.

Il tradizionale approccio alla gestione delle emergenze negli edifici si basa sulla previsione deterministica dei principali scenari che potrebbero verificarsi, non tenendo conto degli eventi casuali e inaspettati che potrebbero presentarsi influendo negativamente sulle operazioni da eseguire in caso di emergenza. L’approccio attuale presenta diversi punti di debolezza dovuti ad un’acquisizione di dati sullo stato di emergenza scarsa e poco efficiente e a diversi “colli di bottiglia” nel processo decisionale, che appare irrigidito dal suo carattere eccessivamente gerarchico. Il contributo scientifico di questa tesi, consiste nello sviluppo di una metodologia nella gestione delle emergenze che presenta innovative caratteristiche di efficienza in tempo reale, resilienza e capacità di risoluzione di problemi in modi non convenzionali. Si propone un cambio di rotta da un approccio deterministico ad uno volto ad affrontare la contingenza delle situazioni che potrebbero verificarsi, elevando la flessibilità e adattabilità del sistema, attraverso l’applicazione della teoria “olonica”, la quale promuove maggiore autonomia e cooperazione tra i livelli più bassi della gerarchia in risposta a un workflow troppo rigido. La ricerca ha condotto alla definizione di un’architettura di sistema a supporto delle operazioni standard previste da normativa, rendendole più efficienti attraverso l’utilizzo di dati aggiornati ed eterogenei, proponendo soluzioni alternative in caso di imprevisti, rapidamente calcolate. La metodologia è stata implementata in un caso studio, dettagliandone l’architettura di sistema fondata sull’utilizzo di modelli BIM come “contenitori” di informazioni aggiornate, coerenti e complete sull’edificio, di Reti Bayesiane per selezionare le azioni alternative più promettenti analizzando rapidamente le serie di dati al momento disponibili e una piattaforma di Realtà Virtuale come collettore di dati provenienti da fonti eterogenee e ambiente di simulazione con elementi di Intelligenza Artificiale.
The traditional approach to the building emergency management is based on a deterministic prevision of the main scenarios, regardless of contextual, changing and unexpected events that may happen and seriously affect the effectiveness of emergency measures. The current approach results affected by several weaknesses due to a poor and inefficient data acquisition regarding the evolving scenario and to the bottlenecks in the decision flow, deriving from a too rigid hierarchical workflow. The contribution of this dissertation lies on the development of a new methodology in the emergency management based on the principles of real-time effectiveness, resilience and unconventional problem solving. A shift from a deterministic to a contingent approach is proposed, leveraging the system’s flexibility and adaptability to changing scenarios, founded on the application of the Holonic Theory to the emergency management. This theory promotes a higher autonomy and cooperation among the actors of the lowest level of the hierarchy, as a response to a too rigid hierarchical workflow, often affected by bottlenecks in the decision flow that may result fatal in critical scenarios like the emergency ones. The research has conducted to the definition of a system architecture as support to the standard rescue operations, which improves the usual approach supplying more updated and significant information from different sources and investigating unusual solutions for rescue purposes in case of unforeseen events. It relies on the means of BIM (Building Information Modelling), as comprehensive building information provider, Bayesian Networks to make the decision flow more flexible and able to cope with uncertainties and Virtual Reality engines to collect data from heterogeneous sources and test the overall system. The bottlenecks in the process flow result considerably reduced, providing the system with a faster capability to face unexpected events, endowing it with the required resilience and adaptability.

This study explores the pervasiveness of job fatigue in Emergency Room nurses. It identifies factors that contribute to nurse burnout, including job dissatisfaction and workplace bullying, and explores strategies for assessing and reducing fatigue syndrome. As the literature suggests, there is a link between nurse burnout and patient safety. These findings are expected to help organizations develop strategies to reduce stress in the workplace and develop wellness programs. Upon using an interviewing process, the study found several themes that pointed to the key factors of increased ER nurse burnout, and provided several implications as to the changes that need to be made to improve the ER department environment. Some of the key findings included the need to hire more staff, make supervisors and management more approachable and available, and increasing support to ER nurses. Doing so will clearly help mitigate the problem of high stress levels among ER nurses and help to prevent the likelihood of burnout.

Thesis (M.S.) -- Central Connecticut State University, 1998.
Thesis advisor: Dr. John Harmon. "...in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geography." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-47).

This dissertation is a conversation analytic examination of recurrent practices of interaction in medicalemergency calls. The study expands the analytical focus in past research on emergency calls betweenemergency call operators and callers to pre-hospital emergency care interaction on the phone betweennurses, physicians and callers. The investigation is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Swedish emergencycontrol centre. The data used for the study consists primarily of audio recordings of medical emergency calls.Fundamental procedures in medical emergency calls examined in the dissertation are: (1) questioning; (2)emotion management; (3) risk management and (4) instruction giving. Emergency call-takers ask questions toelicit descriptions by callers of what is happening and to manage symptoms of patients to help keep them safeuntil ambulance crews arrive. In the questioning practice about acutely ill or injured patients call-takers usemainly yes-no questions and clarify problems by questioning callers making a distinction between defined andundefined problems. The analysis reveals four core types of emotion management practices: (1) call-takerskeep themselves calm when managing callers’ social displays of emotions; (2) promising ambulanceassistance; (3) providing problem solving presentations including emergency response measures to concernsof callers, and (4) emphasising the positive to create hope for callers. Call-takers use seven key procedures tomanage risk in medical emergency calls: (1) risk listening through active listening after actual and possiblerisks; (2) risk questioning; (3) risk identification; (4) risk monitoring; (5) risk assessment; (6) making decisionsabout elicited risk and (7) risk reduction. Instruction giving using directives and recommendations isaccomplished by call-takers in four main ways: (1) acute flow maintaining instruction giving when callers areprocedurally out of line; (2) measure oriented instructions for patient care and emergency responsemanagement; (3) organisational response instructions and (4) summarising instruction giving. Callers routinelyacknowledge risk identifications and follow instructions delivered by call-takers to examine statuses and lifesigns of patients such as breathing, movement and pulse, and perform basic first aid and emergency responsemeasures.The findings generated from this study will be useful in emergency call-taker training in carrying out interactiveprocedures in medical emergency calls and add to the larger research programmes on on-telephoneinteraction between professionals and citizen callers. This is an essential book for pre-hospital emergency careproviders and institutional interaction researchers and students.

At the Faculty of Social Sciences in the subject of Sociology

Dissertation (Ed. D.)--University of Akron, Dept. of Educational Foundations and Leadership, 2005.
"August, 2005." Title from electronic dissertation title page (viewed 12/27/2005) Advisor, Sandra C. Coyner; Committee members, Isadore Newman, Nancy K. Grant, Duane M. Covrig, Catharine C. Knight; Department Chair, Susan J. Olson; Dean of the College, Patricia A. Nelson; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Emergency services play a vital role in society by providing help to affected people and minimizing damage to public and private assets as well as the environment during emergencies. However, these organizations deal with problems of increasing demand uncertainty and resource shortage over time. These problems lead to the creation of many other problems, such as longer response times, lower survivability of victims and patients, and more severe damage to properties and the environment. Acquiring more information about future emergency demand, such as factors affecting this demand, can contribute to reduction of the effects of increasing demand uncertainty. The introduction of volunteers as a new type of emergency resource, which has gained attention in the past few years, can be a solution to the problem of increasing resource shortage. The aim of this thesis is to provide operations research-based models and methods that can assist medical emergency services in daily emergency management. The aim is supported by two objectives: 1) to develop a forecasting model and 2) to develop models for the dispatch of volunteers. Three separate studies with a focus on these objectives are conducted, and the results are described in three papers. In the first paper, a forecasting model for predicting the volume of ambulance calls per hour and geographic location for three counties in Sweden is presented. The model takes into consideration geographical zones with few or no population and very low call frequency. Comparative results based on the real data of ambulance calls show that the proposed model performs better than the model that is currently used in some parts of Sweden for operational and tactical planning of emergency medical services. In addition to performance improvement, the proposed model provides information about the factors affecting ambulance demand. In the second paper, the use of volunteers in response to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) cases is considered, and a deterministic optimization model for their dispatch is provided. The model benefits from a survival function for determining dispatch decisions. The effect of arrival times of volunteers on the survivability of patients is also considered. The results show that, in terms of achieved survivability of patient based on the applied survival function, the proposed model performs better than simple decision rules used today. The third paper presents a probabilistic method for the dispatch of volunteers to OHCA cases. This method considers the uncertainties associated with the actions of volunteers once they are assigned a task. The proposed method uses a survival function as the objective of dispatch decisions. The results of the method are compared to the static dispatch method that is currently used in an operational system in Sweden for the utilization of volunteers in OHCA cases. Comparative results based on real data show that, with respect to used survival function, the proposed method contributes to higher survivability of OHCA patients than the static dispatch method. The models and method in this thesis focus on solving real-world problems and use real data for that purpose when available. Some simplifications were considered in the development process. Nevertheless, these models and method have the potential to be beneficial for medical emergency services in practice and can be used as a base for dynamic resource management systems. Such systems can be helpful for both tactical and operational planning of emergency resources.

La ricerca mostrata di seguito mira alla gestione delle emergenze attraverso un'architettura basata sul Federated Cloud of Things dove le risorse dei cloud sono di computing, storage, networking e oggetti fisici come sensori e attuatori, sia reali, sia virtuali. Tali risorse, virtualizzate, sono connesse in una infrastruttura a supporto della gestione delle emergenze. Infatti, come emerge da report e lavori di ricerca, occorre notare il fatto che, nei recenti anni, le emergenze come alluvioni, epidemie e terremoti, oltre che emergenze artificiali come atti di terrorismo, incidenti ferroviari, incidenti nucleari hanno interessato diverse aree sulla terra causando perdite di vite, feriti e danni economici dei paesi. In questi scenari un sistema efficiente di gestione delle emergenze e una risposta pronta quando un'emergenza si verifica, sono necessari al fine di salvare vite umane e limitare i danni al verificarsi di un'emergenza. A tal fine il monitoraggio degli eventi e delle persone è un'attività fondamentale; tale attività è inoltre necessaria per decidere di compiere azioni durante le emergenze come, ad esempio, portare le persone in una situazione sicura. Ciò conduce alla necessità di avere sensori e attuatori che permettono a un sistema di Emergency Management di gestire opportunamente l'emergenza.S Inoltre, dato il numero di organizzazioni coinvolte nell'emergenza, emergono alcuni problemi riguardanti le capacità di collaborazione: spesso le organizzazioni usano sistemi legacy e le comunicazioni con altri sistemi possono essere difficili, inoltre spesso non è consentito l'accesso pieno ai sistemi delle organizzazioni ostacolando quindi la condivisione di risorse e/o dati. Tenendo conto di questi aspetti che interessano le emergenze, questa ricerca propone un framework che fornisce un infrastruttura per gli Emergency Management System (EMS).
The research presented herein aims at managing emergencies by means of a Federated Cloud of Things wherein cloud resources such as computing, storage and network resources, physical objects like sensors and actuators, as well as virtual ones resulting from the processing of user-generated data are connected together in order to provide a virtual seamless infrastructure to tackle emergency situations. Indeed, it is worth to notice the fact that, during the last years, emergency events like floods, pandemics and earthquakes, as well as human activity-based disasters like terrorism, train accidents, and nuclear power plant failures, have involved several areas in the earth causing casualties, and damaging the economics of countries as emerged by several reports and researches. In these scenarios, an efficient management of the emergency and a prompt response on it are needed as soon as an emergency occurs. For this purpose, the monitoring of events and people is a fundamental task and, in many cases, it is also needed to accomplish actions in the emergency, for instance evacuating people and moving them towards safe areas or other emergency-related operations. This brings out the need for sensors and actuators which allow an Emergency Management System (EMS) to properly manage an emergency. Furthermore, given the number of the organizations involved in the emergency, several collaboration issues arise: often organizations use legacy systems and communications with other systems may be difficult and they usually do not give full access to their systems thereby obstructing the sharing of resources and/or data. According to these aforementioned aspects occuring during emergencies, this research proposes a framework that provides a infrastructure for Emergency Management System (EMS).

The aim of this thesis was to examine the cognitive processes through which experienced Offshore Installation Managers (OIMs) make decisions during emergencies, and to determine whether they use a naturalistic or normative decision making strategy. That is, do they recognise the emergency as familiar and base decisions on condition-action rules serially generated (naturalistic), or do they need to concurrently compare and contrast options before selecting the best possible (normative). Emphasis was on the individual OIM's understanding of an emergency and the meaning he attached to the information or events taking place. The method employed to achieve this objective, was a Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) based on triangulation principles, i.e. using multiple methods to examine the same research question and so enhance reliability and validity. The main findings of this thesis were: • Decision making in Safety Case (1992) identified offshore installation emergencies is primarily based on condition-action rules, or rule-based according to Rasmussen's (1983) model, not Standard Operating Procedures. • Decisions are serially generated. There is no evidence of option comparison. • The environment severely limits the number of options available to the OIM. • Decisions are predominantly made when one element of the present status of the incident changes. • Tactical decisions account for approximately 54% and operational decisions for 46% of the decisions made. • Nearly 50% of the decisions taken are instigated by other team members. • The majority of the time (86.8%) is spent on situation assessment. • The OIMs' situation awareness is limited to a maximum of eight interdependent problem categories. • Situation awareness comprises approximately four categories at any one point. • Risk and time pressure are the two major factors contributing to incident assessment. • There are individual differences in decision making style and situation awareness.

Thesis (M.S. in Information Technology Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2006.
Thesis Advisor(s): Alex Bordertsky. "September 2006." Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Emergency management policies on corporate level are recommended to reduce financial and legal risk. The basis of this risk are corporate liability laws and, on project level, contract provisions on indemnities and force majeure. The work recommends nine essential principles to the management of construction companies for developing emergency management systems and plans. They will be relevant for the contractors to achieve legal compliance, especially when there are sites under different jurisdictions. This work is a bottom-up analysis of the legal foundations of emergency management. International standards rely on the Plan-Do-Check-Act model as a basis for management systems. This model was used to structure the findings from the analysis of the laws of various countries from both the common and the civil law system. The ‘plan’ and the ‘do’ phase of this model can be filled with legal requirements. Despite the differences in the legal systems of the European Union and the countries and states studied (USA, Washington State, UK, Germany, Italy), there are some similarities. The laws focus on the response measure and less on the type or cause of the accident. The response measures which are regulated in all countries are first aid, fire-fighting, and evacuation. This work presents the similarities and difference in the various codes regarding these response measures and gives guidance on how to manage compliance.

The co-evolution of the operational art and technology in the military arena may have applications for emergency management operations. The application of network-based systems towards disaster management and public safety has the potential to capitalize on lessons learned from the military to improve command and control, speed of communication and operational agility. In order to react to a constantly evolving operational picture while maintaining forces spread across great distances, the military has developed network-based organizations and command and control structures to capitalize on advances in technology. These techniques and the understanding and development of local networks could have a similar impact on domestic disaster relief. In today’s asymmetric operational environment, commanders have the ability and doctrine to develop the situation remotely, process raw data into actionable intelligence and push direction and guidance down to operating forces at a rapid rate. The size and scope of disasters affecting the populace today require a more agile and networked organizational structure. This research will explore whether the same netcentric techniques and practices used by the military can be used in domestic disaster response.

In this thesis, an emergency management system taking advantage of mobile computing and its awareness on context is provided. The framework primarily aims to create an infrastructure for acquiring implicit and explicit data about an emergency situation by using capabilities of smart mobile devices and converting them into value-added information to be used in phases of emergency management. In addition to conceptual description of the framework, a real prototype implementation is developed and successful application of the framework is demonstrated. Sample cases are analyzed in conjunction with the prototype and an experiment for reporting an emergency situation is carried out by a group of participants in order to demonstrate the applicability and feasibility of the framework. Data collected during the experiment are examined in order to determine the advantages of the proposed system in comparison with traditional emergency reporting efforts.

In the twenty-first century, the healthcare industry faces ever-changing economic, social, political and technology challenges. Costs are rising, funding is diminishing, human and fiscal resources are becoming scarcer, customer-expectations are rising, the complexity of disease is increasing and technology is becoming more complex. These trends have a massive impact on every aspect of hospital operations and the Emergency Department is no exception. Overcrowding in the Emergency Department (ED) in hospitals has become a growing problem in many developed countries around the world. ED overcrowding has a direct effect on patient-care, including compromised patient-safety, increased length-of-stay, increased mortality and morbidity-rates and increased costs. Healthcare policy-makers and hospital and ED administrators are being forced to search for ways to improve the capacity of EDs by better utilisation of existing resources and creating more efficient systems to overcome this problem. Throughout the past few decades, there has been an increasing trend of using numerous systems-analysis tools and techniques which have come from manufacturing and other service industries to address the various issues in healthcare and EDs. Among those tools Discrete-Event Simulation (DES) is a powerful tool to improve the efficiency and capacity in dynamic and complex systems. Use of these tools to address the overcrowding problem in EDs has been patchy; specific aspects of issues have been studied but no attempt has been made to deploy DES or any other systems-analysis tool in a strategic and holistic manner. The aim of this research is to develop a modelling-based framework to manage the overcrowding problem in EDs. The research identified the causes of overcrowding in EDs and developed a decisions-framework with the long-term, medium-term and short-tem decisions in EDs that related to the overcrowding problem. Finally, it identified the best possible systems-analysis tools to support those decisions to overcome the overcrowding problem in EDs. This research could help the healthcare policy-makers, managers, systems-engineers as well as the researchers and consultants who are interesting in the Emergency Department operational management.

Ghana is highly vulnerable and threatened by several hazards and has sought ways of minimizing impacts of hazards events over time including demonstrating an interest in developing an emergency management training and an higher education degree program. Yet, as of 2013, the country has not developed a disaster management training program or a degree program. This study investigated Ghana?s efforts to see these programs develop with a particular focus on identifying the factors involved in explaining the current status of Ghana?s efforts. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to select 19 emergency management scholars and practitioners who have been involved with Ghana?s efforts. An additional 6 faculty members who have been involved with development of other new degree programs in 4 Ghanaian universities were selected through snowball sampling for the purposes of comparison with the data collected from those involved in efforts to initiate an emergency management higher education degree program. The data collection was done through in-depth semi-structured face-to-face and telephone interviews. Both the data collection and analysis were guided by Rubin and Rubin?s (2005) Responsive Interviewing Model. The data show that although Ghana intends to develop an emergency management degree program in the future, its efforts, to date, have been geared towards developing a training program. The results suggest that six main factors explain why Ghana has not yet established the emergency management training program it intends to first develop. The factors include institutional support, partnership, advocacy, funding, program marketing, and cultural factors. Further, the results show that there are likely to be six other factors to address if, and when Ghana decides to pursue an emergency management degree program. These factors include faculty issues, student issues, supporting learning materials, professional legitimacy, accreditation and curriculum development, and autonomy and administrative location.

BACKGROUND Emergency planning is essential to mitigate disasters and ensure appropriate emergency responses. However, it is imperfect and rarely ‘evidence-based’. The extent of the evidence-base and how it is utilised is also unclear. This thesis scopes the evidence-base from a health perspective, and explores the determinants of evidence-based practice in this field. METHODS Three scoping reviews of published literature including British grey literature were conducted to map the evidence-base. Two further studies involving key informant interviews in the UK and Nepal were then conducted to understand how evidence was used and identify determinants of evidence-based practice in this field. A thematic approach was then applied during data analysis for key themes. FINDINGS Many publications originate from high income countries, especially North America. Most were observational and unsystematically reported commentaries and event reports. Whilst many addressed emergency planning and response issues, few covered disaster mitigation or recovery. More disaster research especially from LMIC settings is required. The UK interviews revealed greater practitioner focus on operational aspects. Knowledge gaps included individual and organisational behaviour in emergencies, public engagement and community disaster resilience. There were issues with knowledge acquisition, dissemination and utilisation, and ascertaining the optimal system configuration. Interviews in Nepal uncovered further barriers to evidence-based practice such as contextual factors (e.g. poverty), local custom and culture, weak legislative infrastructure, and limited demand and accessibility of the evidence-base. CONCLUSIONS The validity and generalisability of existing disaster literature is unclear and little evidence synthesis has been performed to inform policy and practice. What constitutes “evidence” is also contested. Various knowledge management issues exist. Current knowledge gaps are diverse, including socio-behavioural aspects, operational processes and organisational configuration issues. Barriers to evidence-based practice include political factors especially in settings where governance, legislation and leadership are weaker. Promoting evidence-based practice will require individual, organisational and system culture change.

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Automação e Sistemas, Florianópolis, 2016.
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Esta dissertação aborda o problema de melhorar o processo de resposta a uma emergência em um sistema de trânsito urbano. A abordagem de Sistemas Multi Agentes, dotado de uma técnica de cooperação, é adotada para implementar uma estratégia que controla os semáforos e conduz os veículos de emergências de modo a melhorar seus tempos de deslocamento, além de minimizar o impacto das prioridades atribuídas a tais veículos no fluxo do tráfego. A proposta é avaliada definindo como métricas: o tempo total necessário para resolver a emergência, como também, a velocidade média, o tempo médio e a densidade média de todos os veículos no trânsito. Os resultados mostram que nossa proposta consegue reduzir o tempo de deslocamento dos veículos de emergência, além de minimizar o impacto das prioridades atribuídas a tais veículos no fluxo do tráfego.

Abstract : This dissertation approaches the problem of improving an emergency response process on an urban traffic system. The use of Multi Agent Systems approach, endowed with an explicit cooperation technique is proposed to implement a strategy that controls the traffic signals and route emergency vehicles in order to improve their travel time and minimize the impact of priorities given to these emergency vehicles on the traffic flow. The time needed to perform all the emergency response process, as well as, the average speed, travel time and density are defined as metrics for the assessment. The assessment results show that our proposal is able to reduce the travel time of emergency vehicles as well as to minimize the impact of priorities given to emergency vehicles on the traffic flow.

Firefighting is an inherently dangerous occupation involving numerous risk sources, unique contexts, multiple personnel and rapidly changing environments. Firefighting operations are dynamic in nature yet require calculated risk taking and structured command to prevent the realisation of potentially catastrophic outcomes to both casualties and rescuers. The notion of “dynamic risk management” is a term that has gained popularity throughout fire services worldwide, yet the process of dynamic risk management is typically poorly articulated. This study demonstrates ‘dynamic risk management’ is a misnomer, with risk management being a defined process applied within the context of dynamic emergency response. Failure to recognise this and respond accordingly may leave fire services exposed to adverse findings should adverse consequences be realised. Further, this study tested the perceptions of risk held by incident controllers in the Department of Fire and Emergency Services in Western Australia against AS31000, through a combination of qualitative surveys and subsequent Bayesian analysis of reported adverse outcomes resulting from all hazards emergency response. This study found significant variance in risk tolerance between incident controllers and to a lesser degree, variance in the understanding of risk as defined by AS31000. Bayesian statistical analysis identified reportable adverse outcomes were almost certain to occur across the majority of firefighting activities, whilst potential worst case outcomes were rarely historically realised. The results of this study demonstrate that it is critical for firefighting organisations to have documented risk thresholds and to provide greater education of risk management in dynamic situations to incident controllers of all ranks.

Nowadays, the world is facing disasters on an unprecedented scale: millions of people are affected by natural disasters globally each year and, only in the last decade, more than 80% of all disaster-related deaths were caused by natural hazards. Scientific predictions and evidence indicate that global climate changes are increasing the number of extreme events, creating more frequent and intensified natural hazards such as floods and windstorms. Population growth, urbanization and the inability of poor populations to escape from the vicious cycle of poverty are conditions to foresee that there will most likely be an increase in the number of people who are vulnerable to natural hazards, with a resulting increase of natural disasters and environmental emergencies. In recent years, international preoccupation for disasters and their impacts has intensified and risen closer to the top of the development agenda. For many years, response to disasters was largely confined to emergency relief and short-term life-saving actions. But over the last two decades, the critical importance of disaster preparedness, mitigation, and prevention has been widely recognized. The humanitarian and the United Nations system are therefore called to intensify their efforts to improve their capacity in order to provide support to the countries in need and to be better prepared to intervene. Such request came, amongst others, from the UN General Secretary in various occasions. In the frame of humanitarian operations, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations is in the front line. The WFP is the biggest UN Agency and responds to more than 120 emergencies per year worldwide. According to the UN reform, WFP is also the leader of logistics for UN and international bodies during emergency response operations. WFP initiated a process to reinforce its capacity to be a leading force in the area of emergency response, improving its Information Management capacity in support to emergency preparedness and response. To do so, an agreement of collaboration with the recently formed Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance Cooperation and Action (ITHACA) Association has been signed and a joint collaboration started in February 2007. One of the objectives of the collaboration is about the use of Geomatics and Information Technology instruments in the Early Warning and Early Impact analysis field. Many worldwide experiences conducted in this area, show that the use of remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technologies, combined with up-to-date, reliable and easily accessible reference base geographic datasets, constitute the key factor for the success of emergency operations and for developing valuable natural disaster preparedness, mitigation and prevention systems. As a matter of fact, the unique characteristics associated with geographic, or geospatial, information technologies facilitate the integration of scientific, social and economic data through space and time, opening up interesting possibilities for monitoring, assessment and change detection activities, thus enabling better informed interventions in human and natural systems. Besides its proven value, the geospatial information is an expensive resource and needs to be fully utilized to maximize the return on investment required for its generation, management and use. Reuse and sharing of spatial information for multiple purposes is an important approach applied in countries where investment in spatial data collection and in their appropriate management has advanced on the basis of its known asset value. Very substantial economic benefits have been estimated by countries that have moved in the direction of optimizing data reuse. However, it is still relatively easy to find examples of projects and other development activities from around the globe that required expensive recapture of essential spatial data because they were originally captured in unique or non-standard file formats, or perhaps discarded after initial use. Recapture of data has also been undertaken in many cases simply because its prior existence was known only by its originators. The United Nations has not been immune to this problem, both within and between the multitude of entities that make up the Secretariat and its agencies, funds and programmes. Historically, the production and use of geospatial data within the UN entities has been accomplished by its component organizations, according to their individual needs and expertise. This has resulted in multiple efforts, reduced opportunities for sharing and reuse of data, and a unnecessary cost burden for the UN system as a whole. Thus, a framework data development approach has been considered necessary. This has resulted in the proposal that implement an UN Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). The term SDI is used to denote the relevant base collection of technologies, policies and institutional arrangements that facilitate the availability of and access to spatial data. A SDI hosts geographic data and attributes, sufficient documentation (metadata), a means to discover, visualize and evaluate the data (catalogues and Web mapping), and some methods to provide access to the geographic data. Beyond this, it will also host additional services or software to support applications of the data. The concept of developing a Spatial Data Infrastructure to fulfil UN data management needs was duly approved by United Nations Geographic Information Working Group (UNGIWG) members in 2005 at their 6th Plenary Meeting in Addis Ababa, in the context of a UN-specific SDI, or UNSDI. The WFP, like all other UN agencies, has been called to develop a Spatial Data Infrastructure, according to the UNGIWG recommendations. Therefore, during the last year the different units of WFP involved in the use of geospatial data worked at defining and implementing a WFP SDI with the aim of contributing at the whole UNSDI project. This effort was coordinated and supported by the ITHACA association. Aim of the study The objective of the conducted research has been to investigate the better solution for collecting and organizing geospatial data within a suitable geodatabase with two main purposes:  to support the WFP SDI effort: the development of consistent reusable themes of base cartographic content, known as Framework, Fundamental or Core Data, is recognized as a main and first ingredient in the construction of a SDI. Therefore, the definition of a geodatabase supporting all the WFP units dealing with GIS and geospatial data can be considered a fundamental and necessary step in the whole complex process of the development of the WFP SDI. Common used data provide key for the integration and, in the context of the SDI implementation, the definition of a Core Data geodatabase can be thought as one instrumentality to help improving interoperability, reducing expenses resulting from the inevitable duplications. Moreover, the major aim of the planned geodatabase is to supply all WFP users of a “minimum spatial dataset” which assures valuable geographic analyses and mapping, in support to decision makers during emergencies operations.  to support all activities carried out by ITHACA: the planned geodatabase must constitute a suitable instrument which realizes the integration and the organization of the large geospatial data needed by all ITHACA units in their activities, allowing their effective distribution, sharing and reuse, avoiding any duplication. Moreover, the implemented solution must also guarantee the correct management and updating of the data, keeping their integrity. Finally, this instrument must also allow the easy and fast sharing of necessary information produced by ITHACA during Early Impact activities with the WFP’s users engaged in the emergencies rescue operations. In conclusion, the major expected output of the study carried out, described in this thesis, has been the design and the development of a global database and of related rules and procedures in order to correctly store, manage, and exchange geospatial data needed either by WFP humanitarian workers and ITHACA users. The developed database solution allows integrating and updating globally consistent geographic data coming from different sources in many formats, providing each user with the latest datasets, thus avoiding duplications and mistakes. In methodological terms, the following procedure has been adopted: - defining requirements, identification of all activities supported by the geodatabase, analysis of the data flows expected in all supported activities, examining existing data sources and relevant standards (particularly those proposed by the UNGIWG); - development of the data model. The data model has been shaped according to specific needs and demands of the involved user groups within the different interested organizations. The adopted design techniques do not wander off the techniques proposed in literature for general database design, even if it has been necessary, in some steps, to consider the specific features of geographic data; - geodatabase schema generation and implementation of the defined geographic database model as an ESRI ArcSDE Enterprise Geodatabase based on Oracle 10g as DBMS.

Meta-synthesis is an approach to synthesize qualitative research results. Originally proposed in the medical field and in education, this approach helps to advance current knowledge by generating a new interpretive synthesis. Since current research practices and knowledge development in emergency management is excessively divergent, there has been a need for a synthesis of knowledge from practice and research. One of the main arguments of this study is that the need is met by this study of a meta-synthesis. In this research, I suggested that many research results dealing with the issue of how to improve the performance of emergency management can be integrated into strategies for network management in emergencies. I used the term strategies in a much more generalized way to capture the idea of managerial/behavioral skills, plans, and insights for emergency management. The meta-synthesis was conducted from a keyword search, surveys, and expert interviews, which identified representative studies in emergency response. The review process of the representative studies is captured in a two-by-two matrix (intervention point axis and planning-improvisation axis) as a way of presenting the meta-synthesis results. This study then, turned to an analysis of reports of the Hurricane Katrina response using the meta-synthesis results. Qualitative content analysis was used as a method for the analysis. Reports from the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate are the target documents of the analysis. While conducting the analysis, I argued that the attempt of interpreting the failures of Katrina response into the failures of network management strategies provides clearer understandings regarding what went wrong and what was lacking. Furthermore, I argued that the way of thinking attempted in the analysis is a constructive one in that it provides an instructive action agenda for future disasters by connecting lessons learned to the strategies for emergency management.
Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2008.
Vita: p. 144. Thesis director: P. J. Maddox. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed July 3, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-143). Also issued in print.

In recognition of the fact that communications commonly are considered to be essential to effective disaster preparedness and response, the present study addresses several related themes concerning the role of communications infrastructures--i.e., equipment facilities on the one hand, and established patterns of interpersonal relationships among government decision-makers and industry representatives on the other--in peacetime emergency communications planning and response processes. Its investigative tasks include the choice to apply the implicit guiding model in North American emergency management, namely, the "command-and-control" theoretical model, to a specific single-country peacetime disaster context: the Canadian case. That choice rests upon a recognition of the methodological difficulties and challenges in dealing with an emerging and highly dynamic configuration of multiple institutional players, new technologies and residual government policies respecting the telecommunications sector.
The study's findings suggest an appreciation of the complexity and nuanced context within which multiorganizational and especially multijurisdictional peacetime crisis management occurs, sometimes understood as the emergence of other frameworks. This investigation contributes to the disaster literature by providing the first exhaustive study of Canada's national emergency communications structure and capabilities. It therefore can perhaps best be seen as a prologue or preliminary discourse to a broader international comparative effort of addressing questions related to communications preparedness in regard to peacetime disasters.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009.
Thesis Advisor(s): Bergin, Richard ; Josefek, Robert. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 27, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Trust, collaboration, inter-organizational relations, interorganizational trust, cooperation, emergency management, trust building, New York City Fire Department. Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-102). Also available in print.

There exists a lack of consensus around the definition of ?sustainability? and numerous of applications of the concept in the disaster literature. Reviewing the disaster literature on sustainability, its intended audience, and the disciplines that inform it, a disconnect between the strategies proposed and the current role of county emergency managers in the U.S is evident. This study qualitatively explored how sustainability is conceptualized and perceived to be applicable at the local level by interviewing county emergency managers in the states of Florida and North Dakota. The study demonstrated that the lack of definitional clarity evidenced in the disaster literature is also reflected in emergency manager conceptualizations of sustainability. However, themes related to meaning were identified in the interviewed managers? conceptualizations of sustainability, contextual factors influencing these conceptualizations offered, and implications of these findings for the development of the profession and discipline of emergency management discussed.

Disaster scholarship and recent disaster policy in the United States have suggested that coordination of efforts in the disaster recovery process will allow impacted jurisdictions to maximize positive recovery outcomes. Yet it remains unclear exactly who should be, or is, coordinating disaster recovery at the local level. This study explored the role of county elected officials in disaster recovery in an attempt to understand what role these elected officials currently play in the recovery process?particularly as related to the coordination of recovery efforts. During the initial data collection process, the researcher discovered that the role of county elected officials in disaster recovery appears to be consistent with their routine, day-to-day role in county government. No one person within the impacted counties was charged with a coordinator role in recovery. The researcher expanded the focus of the study to explore whether there were disaster conditions that necessitate overall coordination in order to best negotiate the recovery process and, if so, who was fulfilling that overall coordination role and what were they doing as part of it. Data was initially collected through 20 in-depth, telephone interviews with county elected officials in twelve states. Grounded theory was used to conceptualize the overall research design and analyze the data. Based on theoretical sampling, an additional 22 in-depth, telephone interviews were completed with a combination of county elected officials, emergency managers, designated recovery coordinators, and municipal mayors. The data showed that overall coordination in disaster recovery as implied by the literature and supported in federal policy did not appear to be currently happening?at least not at the county level. Coordination?to the extent that it was occurring in most jurisdictions?could best be described as in pockets and ad hoc. However, the study was unable to determine the extent to which this absence of coordination represents a problem in recovery. Based on the findings of this research, it would seem that there is a discrepancy between the literature-based idealization of coordination in recovery and the ad hoc coordination materializing in practice that needs to be addressed by both researchers and practitioners.

Recent disasters have demonstrated the importance of mitigating their potential impact to not only protect human lives, but to also reduce the seemingly unending cycle of repeated damages. The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 requires state, local, and tribal governments to have FEMA-approved Hazard Mitigation Plans in order to qualify for certain types of Federal funding. However, even with these mandates in place, there are a number of local governments that have yet to adopt a FEMA-approved multi-hazard mitigation plan. Although multi-hazard mitigation plans seem rational for reducing the impact of hazards, efforts to prepare plans and implement mitigation-related activities are oftentimes met with resistance at the local jurisdictional level. The purpose of this qualitative study is to inductively examine the social, financial, and political conditions and forces that contribute to the decision to adopt or not adopt a hazard mitigation plan in the Red River Valley.

Thesis (M.A.)--Kent State University, 2009.
Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Dec. 11, 2009) Advisor: David Kaplan. Keywords: hazards; disaster; urban; public policy; government; emergency management; city; local. Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-92).

This study addresses the issue of household disaster preparedness. This work contributes two elements to disaster research. The first contribution improve the knowledge of the factors that affect household disaster preparedness. The review of literature yielded three categories of variables that can jointly explain household disaster preparedness: household structure, demographics, and risk-perception factors. In this study 19 variables compose these factors. A second contribution constitutes a theoretical exploration of the concept of disaster preparedness. In this work, four different constructs of disaster preparedness were tested. These constructs include material preparedness, preparedness activities, a combined index, and a weighted and combined index. The study presents the logic and methodology of the index construction and validation. The data used in this study came from households in the Montreal Urban Community (MUC) in Canada. A random sample of 1,003 English- and French-speaking heads of households adequately represents the 1.8 million persons within the MUC. An independent survey firm conducted the interviews in 1996. Results show that the weighted combined household disaster preparedness index constitutes the best construct to represent the concepts under study. Study results also reveal that risk-perception variables (attitudinal factors) offered the strongest explanatory power. Household structure and demographic variables collectively explained less than 8% of the dependent variable. The model used in this study yielded a coefficient of determination of .320, explaining 32% of the variance in the household disaster preparedness level. Concluding this study, the discussion offers implications for both disaster managers and researchers. Researchers should add to their analysis the household perspective as a complement to the organizational one. Also, it is clear that many other conceptual issues must be explored in understanding and measuring disaster preparedness. Disaster managers should base their efforts on sound research rather than on misconceptions about social behavior. Such implications can contribute to bridging the gap and also putting into practice the knowledge drawn from this growing and collective effort of studying disasters.

Natural and man-made disasters have gained attention at all levels of policy-making in recent years. Emergency management tasks are inherently complex and unpredictable, and often require coordination among multiple organizations across different levels and locations. Effectively managing various knowledge areas and the organizations involved has become a critical emergency management success factor. However, there is a general lack of understanding about how to describe and assess the complex nature of emergency management tasks and how knowledge integration can help managers improve emergency management task performance. The purpose of this exploratory research was first, to understand how emergency management operations are impacted by tasks that are complex and inter-organizational and second, to investigate how knowledge integration as a particular knowledge management strategy can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the emergency tasks. Three types of specific knowledge were considered: context-specific, technology-specific, and context-and-technology-specific. The research setting was the Miami-Dade Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the study was based on the survey responses from the participants in past EOC activations related to their emergency tasks and knowledge areas. The data included task attributes related to complexity, knowledge area, knowledge integration, specificity of knowledge, and task performance. The data was analyzed using multiple linear regressions and path analyses, to (1) examine the relationships between task complexity, knowledge integration, and performance, (2) the moderating effects of each type of specific knowledge on the relationship between task complexity and performance, and (3) the mediating role of knowledge integration. As per theory-based propositions, the results indicated that overall component complexity and interactive complexity tend to have a negative effect on task performance. But surprisingly, procedural rigidity tended to have a positive effect on performance in emergency management tasks. Also as per our expectation, knowledge integration had a positive relationship with task performance. Interestingly, the moderating effects of each type of specific knowledge on the relationship between task complexity and performance were varied and the extent of mediation of knowledge integration depended on the dimension of task complexity.