International Journal of Emergency Management (6 papers in press)

Regular Issues

• Pre-positioning facilities for collecting tents from communities for post-earthquake relief  
  by Jing-Xian Zhou, Zhi-Hua Hu, Xiang Li 
  Abstract: Pre-positioning facilities for collecting tents distributed in communities is critical to improve the efficacy of tent collection and supply in post-earthquake relief. This paper aims at a pre-positioning problem for facilities that collect the tents in communities by considering various earthquake scenarios. A bi-stage stochastic programming model is formulated for the facility location problem. The model minimises the economic costs and time-related penalty costs. Considering the effects of objective weights and known parameters on the solutions, five experiments were performed and analysed for studying the proposed model. A case illustrates the location problem for the facilities for collecting tents from communities in Pudong New District, Shanghai, China, in the relief of the Yaan earthquake.
  Keywords: emergency logistics; location problem; stochastic programming; uncertain scenario; earthquake
  
  
• Frames of the terrorist attack in Sweden: a qualitative study of true and fake news coverage  
  by Alexander Thielen, Åke Sivertun, Peder Hyllengren, Aida Alvinius 
  Abstract: On 7 April 2017, a terrorist attack occurred in central Stockholm. A hijacked lorry was intentionally driven into crowds along a pedestrian street. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore how the media framed this terrorist attack. The data collection approach was inductive and explorative, mainly involving searching electronic media databases. The qualitative analysis of 1294 articles resulted in four overarching themes describing how the terrorist attack was framed in the media. These frames are as follows: the incident, framed as confirmed, unconfirmed and denied information; the perception of leadership and authorities as trustworthy; the site perceived as a place of sorrow; and crisis management framed as the initial and sequential framing of the professionals, the heroes and the villains. The primary conclusion is that true as well as fake news affects crisis management and public opinion, which may create challenges for the entire society within the crisis management area.
  Keywords: terrorist attack; media; fake news; Sweden; crisis management.
  
  
• Does the means achieve an end? A document analysis providing an overview of emergency and crisis management evaluation practice in the Netherlands  
  by Ralf Josef Johanna Beerens 
  Abstract: Evaluations provide insights into the effectiveness of emergency exercises or the response to a disaster. A well-constructed process is key to capturing evidence-based feedback that can support future learning and development. However, little is known about how they are performed in practice and whether they actually meet their intended purpose. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of how operational emergency response evaluations are currently performed in the Netherlands. The study was based on an analysis of evaluation reports and supporting documents from all 25 Dutch safety regions. Outcomes were cross-checked by regional representatives. The findings show that a variety of approaches and designs are currently being used, which are not explicitly or logically linked. Most evaluations are isolated activities that do not build on each other. It is unclear how, and if, lessons identified become lessons learned, while the link between data collection and analysis and conclusions often remains vague. These issues undermine the validity of the evaluation and can have implications for its impact.
  Keywords: crisis; disaster; emergency exercise; evaluation; practice; test; the Netherlands; evaluation design; evaluation process; document analysis; evaluation report.
  
  
• A grounded analysis of participation mechanisms of social rescue organisations in China following the Wenchuan earthquake  
  by Weidong Wang, Jiliang Zou 
  Abstract: Since the Wenchuan earthquake on 12 May, 2008, social organisations involved in emergency management in China have been displaying an increasingly important role. The aim of this paper was to analyse the evolution of the participation of social rescue organisations in China in the past ten years. The research determines some related laws and associated problems. According to a grounded analysis of the characteristics, advantages, and evolution of the participation mechanism of Blue Sky Rescue (BSR) and the Rescue Team of Ramunion (RTR) in social rescues, suggestions are proposed to consummate the participation mechanism of social rescue organisations from four aspects: system guarantee, organisational governance, communication and coordination, and social support. Moreover, the network management mechanism of social rescue organisations was also studied to improve disaster prevention and relief networks.
  Keywords: participation mechanism; social rescue organisations; grounded analysis; Blue Sky Rescue; Rescue Team of Ramunion; Wenchuan earthquake.
  
  
• Deep uncertainty in humanitarian logistics operations: decision-making challenges in responding to large-scale natural disasters  
  by Mohammad Tafiqur Rahman, Tim A. Majchrzak, Tina Comes 
  Abstract: Humanitarian logistics operation performs challenging tasks when responding to large-scale natural disasters. Decision makers at different stages of humanitarian operation exploit numerous problem-specific decision-making models or tools. When synchronising the outputs (decisions) from models into a unified solution, the situation becomes critical because of the lack of consensus on objectives and the availability of model alternatives with uncertainty in the models key parameters and evaluation of the models alternative outcomes. Thus, the operational environment becomes complex to respond urgently to humanitarian needs and makes the situation deeply uncertain. In this article, we inspect humanitarian logistics problems and available deep uncertainty approaches to identify the adapting needs in the latter to be applicable to former. Our research findings indicate that deep uncertainty approaches should incorporate the concept of short term planning by considering time constraints, bounded process iteration, data transformation technique, handling process failure, and ways of identifying model assumptions.
  Keywords: deep uncertainty; planning; decision making; robustness; adaptive pathways; humanitarian logistics; problem areas; natural disasters; relief distribution.
  
  

Special Issue on: Recent Advances in Information Security

• Research on user acceptance behaviour of mobile group intelligent sensing applications based on UTAUT  
  by Xiaolong Ma, Yonghui Dai, Weining Tang, Guowei Li, Lu Shengqi 
  Abstract: In the era of rapid development of the internet of things, Group intelligence perception technology is widely used in various mobile APPs such as QQ, Alipay, Baidu map, etc. Users participation behaviour is a key factor in the system service quality and development. According to the analysis of the characteristics of Group intelligence perception and the application development of Mobile Group Intelligent sensing applications, we add the perceived trust, user acceptance and task technology matching to construct the UTAUT seven-factor model. Through the empirical test of 341 valid questionnaires collected in the survey, the results show that convenience conditions, perceived trust, performance expectations, effort expectations and task technology matching have a significant impact on users willingness to adopt. Finally, based on the experimental results, we propose effective countermeasures and suggestions for the development of Mobile Group Intelligent sensing applications.
  Keywords: group intelligence perception; mobile group intelligent sensing applications; unified theory of acceptance and use of technology; UTAUT; structural equation model.