CAREER: Improvisation in Response to Extreme Events

职业：即兴应对极端事件

• 批准号: 1118237
• 负责人: David Mendonca
• 金额: $ 4.59万
• 依托单位: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-12-01 至 2012-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1118237&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Improvisation; Response; Extreme; Events

The research objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program award consists of integrated research and education programs designed to improve how society understands, plans for and supports improvisation in response to extreme events. Extreme events such as natural or technological disasters challenge society's capabilities both for planning and response. As indicated by the long history of extreme event decision making, a key to successful planning and effective response is flexibility. One approach to achieving flexibility is improvisation: a combined behavioral and cognitive activity that requires creativity under tight time constraint in order to meet performance objectives. The central challenge of the research program is to improve understanding of improvisation by developing and testing cognitive-level theory about when and how improvisation occurs in emergency response. The first goal of the research program is to produce cognitive-level theory about improvised decision making, derived from a combination of archival research, experimentation and interaction with practitioners. The theory will be expressed in computer-executable form and evaluated via experimentation with emergency response practitioners. The second goal is to integrate the computable theory into a prototype group decision support system, whose impact on decision making will be evaluated via experimentation in a computer-based environment. The central challenge of the education program is to develop and evaluate techniques and technologies to support learning about when and how to improvise in emergency response. The first goal of the educational program is to provide training to emergency response practitioners in making, analyzing and supporting improvised decisions. The second is to introduce high school, undergraduate and graduate students to careers in the field of emergency response. The third is to enable graduate and undergraduate students to participate in the research and education programs. The fourth is to disseminate the results of both programs to research and practitioner communities and to society at large. Integration of research and teaching programs throughout the project will be achieved through the sharing of knowledge and activities both face-to-face and in a virtual community, with oversight of the work shared between the principal investigator and an external Advisory Board.The intellectual merits of this work are in applying the science of modeling to create knowledge at the intersection of cognitive science, decision making and the field of emergency management, thereby addressing the need to develop interdisciplinary approaches to managing extreme events. The resulting cognitive theory will extend existing scholarship, provide the basis for future studies and be incorporated into educational activities, the efficacy of which will be assessed as part of the research. The broader impacts of this work are in contributing to society's ability to plan for and respond to extreme events. The research program will improve understanding of when and how improvisation occurs, producing results that will be translated into educational materials for students across a wide socioeconomic range. The education program will draw on the research to engender appreciation for and interest in the field of emergency response among high school and university students in an urban setting. Finally, results of the research and education programs will be broadly disseminated to research and practitioner communities and to society at large.

该学院早期职业发展（Career）项目奖的研究目标包括综合研究和教育项目，旨在提高社会对极端事件的理解、计划和支持。自然灾害或技术灾害等极端事件对社会的规划和反应能力提出了挑战。长期的极端事件决策历史表明，成功规划和有效应对的关键是灵活性。实现灵活性的一种方法是即兴发挥：这是一种行为和认知相结合的活动，需要在紧迫的时间限制下发挥创造力，以达到绩效目标。该研究项目的核心挑战是通过开发和测试关于应急反应中即兴行为何时以及如何发生的认知水平理论，来提高对即兴行为的理解。该研究项目的第一个目标是通过档案研究、实验和与实践者的互动相结合，产生关于即兴决策的认知水平理论。该理论将以计算机可执行的形式表达，并通过应急响应从业人员的实验进行评估。第二个目标是将可计算理论整合到一个原型群体决策支持系统中，其对决策的影响将通过在基于计算机的环境中进行实验来评估。教育方案的核心挑战是开发和评估各种技术，以支持学习何时以及如何在紧急情况下进行即兴反应。教育方案的第一个目标是为应急反应从业人员提供制定、分析和支持临时决定的培训。二是引进高中生、本科生和研究生从事应急领域的工作。三是使研究生和本科生能够参与研究和教育项目。第四是将这两个项目的成果传播给研究和从业者群体以及整个社会。整个项目的研究和教学计划将通过面对面和虚拟社区的知识和活动共享来实现，并由首席研究员和外部咨询委员会共同监督工作。这项工作的智力优势在于运用建模科学在认知科学、决策和应急管理领域的交叉领域创造知识，从而解决了开发管理极端事件的跨学科方法的需求。由此产生的认知理论将扩展现有的学术研究，为未来的研究提供基础，并纳入教育活动，其有效性将作为研究的一部分进行评估。这项工作的更广泛影响在于有助于提高社会规划和应对极端事件的能力。该研究项目将提高人们对即兴创作发生的时间和方式的理解，产生的结果将转化为广泛社会经济范围内学生的教育材料。该教育计划将利用这项研究，在城市环境中提高中学生和大学生对应急领域的认识和兴趣。最后，研究和教育项目的结果将广泛传播给研究和从业者社区以及整个社会。