EPOC, SAHS y enfermedad cardiovascular

This section describes the overall organisation of the thesis and explains the chapter construction.

1.8.1 Chapter 2: Theoretical Foundation and Literature Review

The aim of this chapter is to develop a theoretical foundation of the study and highlight the gap in literature related to the use of information systems for improving SA, SSA and TSA in emergency decision making and implementation. The structure of this chapter is:

Emergency management and emergency decision making Theoretical underpinning of SA, SSA and TSA

Information systems to improve SA Ontology based SA

Existing ontology based systems

The chapter identifies the significant gap in the literature concerning the use of information systems to support SSA, and TSA in decision making and implementation during emergencies involving mass evacuation. Another gap found in the literature is about the information requirements of SA, SSA and TSA, for various emergency management roles.

28 1.8.2 Chapter 3: Research Methodology

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overall design of the research methodology used to achieve the research objectives. The main aspects are as follows:

The overall design research architecture and theoretical foundations for its suitability to this study

The use of a modified form of Goal Directed Information Analysis (GDIA) (Prasanna et al., 2009) to obtain the information needs of various emergency management roles

The design and development of the prototype system for improving SA, SSA and TSA

The use of ontologies in prototype development for automatic situation assessment

The Evaluation of the prototype to evaluate the model and validate the findings The division of the forthcoming chapters according to three inter-linked problems

The main outcome of this chapter is the overview of the design research methodology and clear direction for research activities to achieve the research objectives of the study. Other outcomes are the steps for design, implementation and evaluation of a prototype that can support SA, SSA and TSA. Moreover, the main research problem is divided into three sub problems and is tackled in three separate chapters i.e. 4, 5 and 6 discussed below.

1.8.3 Chapter 4: SAVER: Situation Aware Vigilant Emergency Reasoner

This chapter discusses the problem of gathering requirements needed to develop situation awareness (SA) and the design of a system that can model situations and provide inference to classify incoming information into information required to develop three levels of SA. The chapter then suggests a solution to the problems followed by the design and development of a prototype. In the next section, this chapter describes the evaluation of the prototype designed and developed. The last section discusses the conclusions. The chapter is structured as follows:

The problem identification

29 The design and development started with information requirements gathering. The selection of scenarios used in national exercises

The description of interview processes and observations during the exercises Data validation via questionnaire from GEOCs all over New Zealand Prototype development

Testing of the prototype Conclusions

The chapter outcomes are the process of SA development and the information requirements of SA. Other outcomes include a prototype designed and developed using ontologies for situation modelling and the testing results of the prototype evaluation. The prototype uses ontology based inference to classify situation information according to the SA requirements.

1.8.4 Chapter 5: Improving Individual Situation Awareness Using SAVER

The aim of this chapter is to describe the problems of developing accurate situation awareness (SA) necessary for decision making and carrying out collaborative tasks. Moreover, in the next section, personalised and contextualised information is suggested as a solution. Following the suggestion section, design and development of the prototype is conversed in detail. This section proposes ontology based contextual SA information to provide personalised information. The chapter then provides the details of simulated experiments conducted to measure the SA of emergency managers to evaluate the prototype design. This chapter is structured as:

The problems related to individual SA The suggested solution

The design and development of the contextual SA component of the prototype The development of various ontologies

The description of features of prototype interfaces to improve SA

The evaluation of the prototype by emergency managers in experiments using SA measurement techniques

Outcomes include the architecture design of a contextual SA information broker, developed ontologies and a prototype system with SA oriented user interface design for enhanced SA evaluation results of the prototype.

30 1.8.5 Chapter 6: Improving Shared and Team Situation Awareness Using SAVER Chapter 6 starts with the description of the problem relating to shared and team situation awareness (SSA & TSA). It describes the requirement of developing and maintaining the accurate SSA and TSA necessary for team decision making and collaborative tasks. In the next section, a solution to the problem is suggested. Afterwards, the design and development of a prototype to support SSA and TSA is described. This section also explains the role of ontologies in the development of a system supporting SSA and TSA. In the next section the prototype is evaluated by measuring SSA and TSA of emergency managers in experiments and the results are reported. Conclusion is the last section of this chapter. This chapter is structured as:

The problems related to SSA and TSA The solution suggested to the problem

The design and development of the prototype component to support SSA and TSA

The use of ontologies in the prototype development

The description of the prototype features to improve SSA and TSA of emergency managers

The results of the prototype evaluation in experiments

Outcomes of this chapter include the architecture design of an ontology based SSA and TSA information broker, ontologies developed to support SSA and TSA, a prototype system, evaluation results of a prototype for supporting SSA and TSA.

1.8.6 Chapter 7: Discussion

Chapter 7 provides the formalisation of SA, SSA and TSA definition on the basis of results. In addition, it discusses the implications of the results in relation to the existing theories and the limitations of the study. The chapter also elaborates on the possible relationship between different models of TSA and their relation with the individual SA. In the next section of the chapter, implementation requirements of operational SAVER are discussed. At the end of the chapter, a summary of the whole study is provided. 1.8.7 Chapter 8: Summary, Conclusions and Future Work

The final chapter outlines the conclusions in the form of answers to the research questions and points to their details in the thesis. Moreover, in the next and last section

31 of the chapter, possible avenues of future research related to the study are discussed. See Figure 1.2 below for the overall flow of the thesis.

Figure 1.2 Flow of thesis chapters Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Literature Review Chapter 3 Design Science Research Methodology Chapter 4 SAVER Chapter 5

SAVER: SA _{SAVER: SSA & TSA} Chapter 5

Chapter 7 Discussion

Chapter 8 Conclusions & Future

32

THEORETICAL FOUNDATION AND

LITERATURE REVIEW