Transcript 9/11: Requirements and Research Problems Raised by Them

9/11: Requirements and Research
Problems Raised by Them
NSF Workshop on Responding to the Unexpected
27-28 Feb 2002
Rae Zimmerman
Robert Neches, [email protected]
Operator Input
• Seeing Urban Spaces & How to Anticipate & Protect Them - Modeling &
Engineering Predictions for Impacts on Urban Spaces
• Mobile Devices to Assess Urban Risks & Threats & Relay Information
from the Field
• Improving Intergovernmental Coordination & Partnerships
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Improving Public-Private Coordination & Partnerships
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If all politics is local, the best & most accurate data is - Local data is key
• Using Place to Coordinate Data, People and Activities - The Role of GIS
What’s the Important Problem?
• Situations you can’t specifically plan for:
either can’t expect it or can’t afford it
• Situations where prepositioned governmental
organizations alone
– would not be adequate
– would be overwhelmed
– would be dependent on heroic efforts to succeed
• What 9/11 tells us about addressing the problem
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must account for informal, ad hoc connections
therefore must support inclusion, interaction
must overcome inadequate information, uncertainty
must deal with overload
Key Contributions to be Made
• Identifying, replicating, and transferring
models of what worked, e.g., 9/11
• Finding ways to do it better
• Interdisciplinary science of organizations
with applications in other areas
– Business and commerce
The Opportunity: Basis for Believing
that Advances can be Made
• Body of data on previous crises and response effort
– Archival data
– “Live simulations", games, etc
• Positive models like NY 9/11 response
– Validation of social science research on flat organizations
• New technology advances: data mining, information
technology, spread spectrum wireless, ...
• Key trends in network-centric computing:
Authenticated and access-controlled. Underlying persistent object system
of global scale, hard to take down. Major source of leverage.
Multidisciplinary Research Issues
(Human, organizational, technology system, economic viability)
The right information in the right place at the right time
-- no more, no less
• Informed, collaborative decisionmaking behavior under stress
• Preparation for responding
– Robust, secure
• Operational dynamics of coordinated execution of decisions
• Increasing self-monitoring, adaptivity
Mapping the Crisis Response Community’s Problems, Needs,
and Requirements to Research Issues
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“seeing crisis situations”
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Logistics
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communication infrastructure (technology)
mobile devices and communications -- interoperability
(technology)
data interoperability, integration and fusion
Systems robustness
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leveraging/coordinating initiative of private org’s
what is needed (human resources, technology, supplies); what is
immediately available, acquisition processes, transportation
(ground, sea, air), storage/depot issues, maximizing consistency
as updates
donations management
communications/data technology
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timeliness -- speed, early warning extracted from diverse sources
accuracy
understandability to diverse analysts
assuring a shared, common picture
communications, data, security, electric
redundancy, reliability, fallbacks
interagency communications / policy, procedures,
social/human issues
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“nested business processes” (e.g., assuring public confidence,
hierarchy and priority of processes that go into enabling
transportation of assisted)
adapting organizational processes/reward structures to be more
supportive to cooperating in an interdependent world
privacy (see also security)
• improving intergovernmental “orgware,” partnering arrangements...
• improving public/private coordination
• public/citizen communication (reaching people, identifying/reaching
social groups, handling multicultural/multi-language issues,
identifying leaders/spokespeople/stakeholders)
• knowledge base of “predictable aspects of unpredictable events”
(e.g., behavior of social groups in buildings)
• large scale data (supply, ...)
– mining
– quality and reliability
– replacement/substitution of alternate sources when preferred not available
– data level, grain size, and suitability for intended purpose (e.g., policy
decision vs.operational action)
• problem definition, problem scoping (who’s affected)
• assessing consequences, exploring “alternative futures”, in real-time
• support for rapid development of consensus and decisionmaking
under time pressure
• identifying and responding to crises for common, neglected
situations: small gov’t organizations with limited resources, ports
• REALISTIC, HIGH-GRADE SECURITY (in balance with
technology)
Cross-cutting Themes:
Evaluation Criteria
• Taking advantage of diversity
• Identification / surfacing new information
• Institutionalizing crisis response as routine systemic
response to “surge” requirements, not new
• Reducing overwhelming situations - reduction of
overload situations
• Rapid, global analysis of situation (esp. supply system)
Other Comments / Questions / Issues
• Focus: Man-made (as opposed to natural)
– terrorism
– technological (oil spills, nuclear, industrial chemical, WMDs, cyber ...)
– both malicious and accidental
• Focus: Time frame
– Contingency planning, Immediate response, Post-event mitigation, Mitigation
lessons learned (transfer to other crises)
• Key questions to study closer:
– Dimension of “roles”, who’s affected, who sets responsibilities
– What were the failures?
Need more data, study on the past cases
– Need to understand interaction with regulatory and policy issues
Personal Comment
• The operator is king -- stay in contact
• The way to make a difference is to explore
new concepts of operation
– New technology
– Inspired by, evaluated by new social science
• Making a difference because it gets used
• Which only happens if the operator is king