Mid Sweden University

The article introduces the development of research support systems (RSS) as a special form of information systems (IS) development. Building on experiences from a concrete case several crucial differences between RSS development and development of conventional business support systems (BSS) are identified. So, development for RSS means less of mission and more of continues collaboration, less of producing and more of reciprocal learning and social change. It also involves an expanded universe of discourse that requires support more from an IS researcher and less of a conventional IS-developer. Further, there are issues of ethics and funding that makes RSS development extra challenging. All this represents a shift in focus away from How to do things, toward, What things to do. The article is closed with some tentative guidelines for RSS development. Those include preparing, learning, working arena, anticipatory acting, prototyping and stepwise improvement and scrutiny.

Cooperation across national borders is of paramount importance for the security in border close regions. Timely and adequate training, reflection, and preparation are core tools for facilitating and stimulating such interregional cooperation. Hence, NetAgora, a service oriented web portal for security cooperation, was designed. In NetAgora there is first a service package with accident- and emergency scenarios. Here multi-actors can train their cooperation and decision making skills. The R-statistics open source package is applied for recording and analyzing data from those training occasions. In subsequent debriefing sessions this is used for post-learning. Further, from anticipatory modeling and simulation it is found that rescue operations are delayed and misguided due to shortcomings in the communication between security command and communication centers. Hence, the NetAgora Learning System is designed and prototyped in order to overcome that problem. It will facilitate and stimulate reflection in action and double loop learning and aims at improving communication patterns by anticipatory pre-learning.

Globally flooding is one of the natural catastrophes that every year causes most victims and the greatest economical effects. In case of flooding many authorities and organizations become involved and there is a problem to take in the whole situation and have a common picture when many incidents happen at the same time. Established models of organizational control are insufficient to cope with the management of such complex situations. In this paper we will discuss, from a systemic management perspective, model requirements for management of flooding situations where several independent organizations have to collaborate. Simulation techniques are used as a research method throughout the project. We conclude that the CRISSI simulation system or at least its principles should be relevant for the international bodies. The system has an open design so it is adaptable and can be characterized as an adaptable and learning system.

In case of flooding many authorities and organizations become involved and there is a problem to take in the whole situation and have a common picture when many incidents happen at the same time. There is also a lack of efficient tools showing critical buildings and constructions in combination with actual and forecasted water-levels. When handling critical situations we are facing challenges of complexity, uncertainty, and unpredictability. Such management- and decision activities are normally supported by some kind of models and support tools. However, complexity is normally not explicitly addressed in such models and tools. In this paper we analyse and discuss different kinds of complexity, which are a challenge in critical situations caused by flooding.

Globally flooding is one of the natural catastrophes that every year causes most victims and the greatest economical effects. In case of flooding many authorities and organizations become involved and there is a problem to take in the whole situation and have a common picture when many incidents happen at the same time. Established models of organizational control are insufficient to cope with the management of such complex situations. In this paper we will discuss, from a systemic management perspective, model requirements for management of flooding situations where several independent organizations have to collaborate.

In case of flooding many authorities and organizations become involved and there is a problem to take in the whole situation and have a common picture when many incidents happen at the same time. There is also a lack of efficient tools showing critical buildings and constructions in combination with actual and forecasted water-levels. When handling critical situations we are facing challenges of complexity, uncertainty, and unpredictability. Such management- and decision activities are normally supported by some kind of models and support tools. However, complexity is normally not explicitly addressed in such models and tools. In this paper we analyse and discuss different kinds of complexity, which are a challenge in critical situations caused by flooding.

We are all stakeholders in the geographical space, which makes up our common living and activity space. This means that a careful, creative, and anticipatory planning, design, and management of that space will be of paramount importance for our sustained life on earth. Here it is shown that the quality of such planning could be significantly increased with help of a computer based modelling and simulation support tool. Further, the design and implementation of such a tool ought to be guided by the conceptual integration of some core concepts like anticipation and retardation, multi modal system modelling, fuzzy space modelling and simulation, and multi actor interaction.

Globally flooding is one of the natural catastrophes that every year causes most victims and the greatest economical effects. In Sweden and other European countries death caused by flooding is relatively unusual, but the damages in tangible assets and the cost for the society are considerable. In case of flooding many authorities and organizations become involved and there is a problem to take in the whole situation and have a common picture when many incidents happen at the same time. There is also a lack of efficient tools showing critical buildings and constructions such as roads, railroads, water-purifying plant, etc, in combination with actual and forecasted water-levels. In this paper we discuss anticipation of critical factors to be included in a model for visualization of situations caused by flooding.

Flooding is a natural occurrence and no drainage systems or flood protection measures can give an absolute protection from all flooding events. The impact of flooding on a community and the health and safety risks are significant. Globally flooding is one of the natural catastrophes that every year causes most victims and the greatest economical effects. In Sweden and other European countries death caused by flooding is relatively unusual, but the damages in tangible assets and the cost for the society are considerable. In case of flooding many authorities and organizations become involved and there is a problem to take in the whole situation and have a common picture when many incidents happen at the same time. There is also a lack of efficient tools showing critical buildings and constructions such as roads, railroads, water-purifying plant, etc, in combination with actual and forecasted water-levels. In this paper we discuss how the critical factors can be visualized in the CRISSI system. The complexity challenges according to the laws of complexity are also considered.