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Situational Awareness (situational + awareness)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	55%
Engineering	22%

Selected Abstracts

The Science of Surge: Detection and Situational Awareness

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2006
John McManus MD
As part of the broader "science of surge" consensus initiative sponsored by Academic Emergency Medicine, this report addresses the issues of detection and situational awareness as they relate to surge in the practice of emergency medicine. The purpose of this report, and the breakout group that contributed to its content, was to provide emergency physicians and other stakeholders in the emergency medicine community a sense of direction as they plan, prepare for, and respond to surge in their practice. [source]

Research Priorities for Surge Capacity

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2006
Richard E. Rothman MD
The 2006 Academic Emergency Medicine Consensus Conference discussed key concepts within the field of surge capacity. Within the breakout session on research priorities, experts in disaster medicine and other related fields used a structured nominal-group process to delineate five critical areas of research. Of the 14 potential areas of discovery identified by the group, the top five were the following: 1) defining criteria and methods for decision making regarding allocation of scarce resources, 2) determining effective triage protocols, 3) determining key decision makers for surge-capacity planning and means to evaluate response efficacy (e.g., incident command), 4) developing effective communication and information-sharing strategies (situational awareness) for public-health decision support, and 5) developing methods and evaluations for meeting workforce needs. Five working groups were formed to consider the above areas and to devise sample research questions that were refined further by the entire group of participants. [source]

The Science of Surge: Detection and Situational Awareness

Anatomy of an Ambush: Security Risks Facing International Humanitarian Assistance

DISASTERS, Issue 1 2005
Frederick M. Burkle Jr. MD
The 2003 war with Iraq has generated security concerns that present unique challenges to the practice of providing international humanitarian assistance during war and conflict. Objective research studies on security management are lacking. However, case studies have proven to be an important education and training tool to advance situational awareness of security risks. These challenges are illustrated by an analysis of the events surrounding the first ambush of, and assassination attempt on, a senior US aid official in Baghdad. Before deployment to conflict areas, especially those characterised by insurgent activity, humanitarian providers must realistically assess the threats to life and to the mission. They must obtain pre-deployment situational awareness education, security training and optimal protective equipment and vehicles. [source]

RULES, TECHNIQUE, AND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE: A WITTGENSTEINIAN EXPLORATION OF VOCATIONAL LEARNING

EDUCATIONAL THEORY, Issue 4 2006
Christopher WinchArticle first published online: 30 NOV 200
He argues that most rule-following is only successful when it involves a degree of flexibility. For instance, most technical work that involves rule-following requires flexibility and situational awareness for success. Technical education that fails to take account of the need to apply rules in a way that accounts for a wide variety of situations is likely to be unsuccessful. Winch offers an account of professional judgment based on Stephen Toulmin's theory of argumentation and discusses progression from novice to expert in terms of Toulmin's analysis. He also considers the relation between vocational education and other practices in the context of the wider civic implications of occupational practice. [source]

A robust approach to the UAV task assignment problem

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ROBUST AND NONLINEAR CONTROL, Issue 2 2008
Mehdi Alighanbari
Abstract This paper presents a new robust approach to the task assignment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating in uncertain dynamic environments for which the optimization data, such as target cost and target,UAV distances, are time varying and uncertain. The impact of this uncertainty in the data is mitigated by tightly integrating two approaches for improving the robustness of the assignment algorithm. One approach is to design task assignment plans that are robust to the uncertainty in the data, which reduces the sensitivity to errors in the situational awareness (SA), but can be overly conservative for long duration plans. A second approach is to replan as the SA is updated, which results in the best plan given the current information, but can lead to a churning type of instability if the updates are performed too rapidly. The strategy proposed in this paper combines robust planning with the techniques developed to eliminate churning. This combination results in the robust filter-embedded task assignment algorithm that uses both proactive techniques that hedge against the uncertainty, and reactive approaches that limit churning behavior by the vehicles. Numerous simulations are shown to demonstrate the performance benefits of this new algorithm. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Modelling emergency decisions: recognition-primed decision making.

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 8 2006
The literature in relation to an ophthalmic critical incident
Aims., To review and reflect on the literature on recognition-primed decision (RPD) making and influences on emergency decisions with particular reference to an ophthalmic critical incident involving the sub-arachnoid spread of local anaesthesia following the peribulbar injection. Background., This paper critics the literature on recognition-primed decision making, with particular reference to emergency situations. It illustrates the findings by focussing on an ophthalmic critical incident. Design., Systematic literature review with critical incident reflection. Methods., Medline, CINAHL and PsychINFO databases were searched for papers on recognition-primed decision making (1996,2004) followed by the ,snowball method'. Studies were selected in accordance with preset criteria. Results., A total of 12 papers were included identifying the recognition-primed decision making as a good theoretical description of acute emergency decisions. In addition, cognitive resources, situational awareness, stress, team support and task complexity were identified as influences on the decision process. Conclusions., Recognition-primed decision-making theory describes the decision processes of experts in time-bound emergency situations and is the foundation for a model of emergency decision making (Fig. 2). Figure 2. ,Influences and processes of RPD making. Relevance to clinical practice., Decision theory and models, in this case related to emergency situations, inform practice and enhance clinical effectiveness. The critical incident described highlights the need for nurses to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of anaesthetic techniques as well as an ability to manage and resuscitate patients autonomously. In addition, it illustrates how the critical incidents should influence the audit cycle with improvements in patient safety. [source]

Evaluation of semi-autonomous convoy driving

JOURNAL OF FIELD ROBOTICS (FORMERLY JOURNAL OF ROBOTIC SYSTEMS), Issue 11-12 2008
James Davis
Autonomous mobility technologies may have applications to manned vehicle convoy operations,they have the ability to enhance both system performance and operator capability. This effort examines the potential impact of introducing semi-autonomous mobility [Convoy Active Safety Technologies (CAST)] into manned vehicles. Twelve civilians with experience driving military vehicles in convoy-type operations participated in this experiment. For the experiment, they were tasked with following a lead vehicle while completing a concurrent security task (scanning the local environment for targets). The control of the manned vehicle was varied between CAST and manual control at several different speed levels. Several objective speed and accuracy variables along with subjective operator assessment variables were examined for each task. The results support the potential benefits of incorporating semi-autonomous mobility technologies into manned vehicle convoy operations. The semi-autonomous mobility system was associated with significantly better performance in several aspects of operator situational awareness and convoy integrity, including enhanced target identification, improved maintenance of following distance, and improved performance for unanticipated stops. This experiment also highlighted a critical human factors issue associated with the incorporation of autonomy in real-world applications: participants felt that, overall, they outperformed the semi-autonomous system on the simulated convoy operation. The operator's perception of the system's performance could potentially affect his or her willingness to use the system in real-world applications. This experiment demonstrated that enhancements to overall system performance in real-world applications are achieved by considering both technological and human factors solutions. Published 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., [source]

Building a Simulation-based Crisis Resource Management Course for Emergency Medicine, Phase 1: Results from an Interdisciplinary Needs Assessment Survey

ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE, Issue 11 2008
Christopher M. Hicks BSc
Abstract Introduction:, Emergency department (ED) resuscitation requires the coordinated efforts of an interdisciplinary team. Human errors are common and have a negative impact on patient safety. Although crisis resource management (CRM) skills are utilized in other clinical domains, most emergency medicine (EM) caregivers currently receive no formal CRM training. Objectives:, The objectives were to compile and compare attitudes toward CRM training among EM staff physicians, nurses, and residents at two Canadian academic teaching hospitals. Methods:, Emergency physicians (EPs), residents, and nurses were asked to complete a Web survey that included Likert scales and short answer questions. Focus groups and pilot testing were used to inform survey development. Thematic content analysis was performed on the qualitative data set and compared to quantitative results. Results:, The response rate was 75.7% (N = 84). There was strong consensus regarding the importance of core CRM principles (i.e., effective communication, team leadership, resource utilization, problem-solving, situational awareness) in ED resuscitation. Problems with coordinating team actions (58.8%), communication (69.6%), and establishing priorities (41.3%) were among factors implicated in adverse events. Interdisciplinary collaboration (95.1%), efficiency of patient care (83.9%), and decreased medical error (82.6%) were proposed benefits of CRM training. Communication between disciplines is a barrier to effective ED resuscitation for 94.4% of nurses and 59.7% of EPs (p = 0.008). Residents reported a lack of exposure to (64.3%), yet had interest in (96.4%) formal CRM education using human patient simulation. Conclusions:, Nurses rate communication as a barrier to teamwork more frequently than physicians. EM residents are keen to learn CRM skills. An opportunity exists to create a novel interdisciplinary CRM curriculum to improve EM team performance and mitigate human error. [source]