Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 343-343
Author(s):  
Kenji Watanabe

Among the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake, there were a large number of new findings, including which preparations functioned as planned and which did not. Now that a year has elapsed since the earthquake disaster, the parties concerned need to reexamine those measures which are yet to be implemented since we should not see the same results after a large scale disaster in the future as those we saw in the past. In this JDR Special Issue on Business Continuity Plan (BCP), I tried to ask for papers not only from academia but also from business fields to make this issue practical and useful to be leveraged for our next steps in preparing for incoming disasters. As a result, this issue obtains papers from various fields from academia to financial businesses and also with several different approaches which includes actual real case studies. Many of papers in this issue focus on intangible part of business continuity activities that is different from the traditional disaster management approaches which have mainly focused on tangibles or hardware reinforcement against natural disasters. Recent wide-area disasters taught us the importance of intangibles and we should start discussions more in details with aspects such as corporate value, emergency transportation & logistics, training & exercises, funding arrangement, and management systems. I hope that discussions and insights in this issue will help our discussions and actions to move forward. Finally, I really thank the authors’ insightful contributions and the referees’ intensive professional advices to make this JDR Special Issue valuable to our society in preparing for incoming disasters.

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-5
Author(s):  
Yuichiro Usuda

I would like to express my sincere appreciation for the honor of receiving this prestigious award. The award has been presented to me for the “Special Issue on NIED Frontier Researches on Science and Technology for Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience 2017” of JDR Vol.12 No.5, for which I was the guest editor. I heard that this special issue has been the most downloaded over the past three years. NIED, to which I belong, is an institute that deals with natural disasters comprehensively. Since 2016, we have been working to become a “core organization for innovation in disaster resilience science and technology” as a new seven-year plan. Japan is a country prone to disasters, with many large-scale natural disasters occurring every year. Recent examples would be the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake, 2017 Nasu Avalanche, Northern-Kyushu Heavy Rain, 2018 Eruption of Mt. Kusatsu-Shirane, Western-Japan Heavy Rain, Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake, and 2019 Typhoon #19. We should collect “intelligence” related to natural disasters in multiple fields to reduce our disaster risk and improve our resilience. The Special Issue is a compilation of research results from individual fields. I am elated that the first special issue of NIED has gained such attention. NIED will continue to conduct research across multiple fields. We hope that NIED’s activities will lead to collaboration with many people and that the integration of intelligence will improve disaster resilience in Japan and all over the world.


2021 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
Oren Pizmony-Levy ◽  
Dafna Gan

The aim of this special issue, “Learning Assessments for Sustainability?”, is to examine the interaction between the environmental and sustainability education (ESE) movement and the international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) movement. Both global educational movements emerged in the 1960s and their simultaneous work have affected each other since then. While the articles in this special issue highlight the potential benefits of ILSAs as a source of data for secondary analysis, they also demonstrate the limitations of ILSAs and their negative consequences to ESE. As such, we call for more research on the interaction between ESE and ILSAs and for a serious consideration of how test-based accountability practices might work against meaningful engagement with ESE. This introductory article includes three sections. The first section provides context about the movements. The second section presents an overview of the articles and alternative ways for reading them. The third section discusses lessons learned from the collection of articles. We conclude with a call for further research and reflection.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (S1) ◽  
pp. s108-s108
Author(s):  
P.W. Gula ◽  
E.M. Szafran

Natural disasters challenge for Emergency and Rescue Services- lessons learned Przemyslaw Gula MD PhD, Edyta Szafran Institute for Emergency Medicine. Krakow, Poland.In the period 2008–2010 Poland experienced series of natural disasters including 3 large scales flooding, 2 periods of extremely high snowfalls followed by low temperature periods and finally local flush flooding in different locations. The time of each disaster elapsed from several days up to 6 weeks. All of them had severe impact on local infrastructure by destroying road systems, communication as well as healthcare and fire brigade facilities. The rescue efforts required evacuation, Search and Rescue operations, providing medical care and shelter. The most problems occurred in following areas: - large scale evacuation - collapse of communication systems (including 112 dispatch) - inadequate number of specialized rescue equipment (helicopters, vehicles, boats, snowmobiles, etc.) - providing EMS in affected areas - necessity of evacuating hospitals. The lessons learned showed the need for following changes: - strong trans regional coordination in means of facilitation of utilizing civil protection and military recourses - unification of operative procedures for all actors of the response operation - improvement of communication systems and reducing their vulnerability on environmental factors - establishing regional crisis management and control centers, covering the emergency response activities in affected areas - need of large-scale use of HEMS as well as Police and military helicopters in natural disasters - need for better supply in specialized rescue equipment including recue motorboats, 4 wheels drive recue vehicles and ambulances, snowmobiles, quads in local response units. The main rule of commanding the entire operation is subsidiary. Local coordinating structures should be supported by regional and central governments by supplying necessary recourses. However the operational command should be unified and include all participating units and organizations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shunichi Koshimura ◽  

In the years that have passed since the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, many new findings, insights and suggestions have been made in disaster observation, sensing, simulation, and damage determination on the damage scene. Based on the lessons, challenges for disaster mitigation against future catastrophic natural disasters such as the anticipated Tokyo metropolitan and Nankai Trough earthquakes are made on how we will share visions of potential impact and how we will maximize society's disaster resilience. Much of the ``disaster big data" obtained is related to the dynamic flow of large populations, vehicles and goods inside and outside affected areas. This has dramatically facilitated our understanding of how society has responded to unprecedented catastrophes. The key question is how we will use big data in establishing social systems that respond promptly, sensibly and effectively to natural disasters how this understanding will affect adversity and resilience. Researchers from a wide variety of fields are now working together under the collaborative JST CREST project entitled ``Establishing the most advanced disaster reduction management system by fusion of real-time disaster simulation and big data assimilation." One objective of this project is to identify potential disaster scenarios related to earthquake and tsunami progress in a chained or compound manner and to create new techniques for responsive disaster mitigation measures enabling society to recover. This special issue on disaster and big data consists of 11 papers detailing the recent progress of this project. As an editor of this issue, I would like to express our deep gratitude for the insightful comments and suggestions made by the reviewers and the members of the editorial committee.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-225
Author(s):  
Shunichi Koshimura ◽  

6 years have passed since the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. Many new findings, insights and suggestions have been made and were implemented in disaster observation, sensing, simulation, and damage determination. The challenges for disaster mitigation against future catastrophic natural disasters, such as the Tokyo metropolitan earthquake and Nankai Trough earthquake, are how we share the visions of the possible impacts and prepare for mitigating the losses and damages, and how we enhance society’s disaster resilience. A huge amount of information called “disaster big data” obtained, which are related to the dynamic flow of a large number of people, vehicles and goods inside and outside the affected areas. This has dramatically facilitated our understanding of how our society has responded to the unprecedented catastrophes. The key question is how we use big data in establishing the social systems that respond promptly, sensibly and effectively to natural disasters, and in withstanding the adversities with resilience. Researchers with various expertise are working together under the collaborative project called JST CREST “Establishing the most advanced disaster reduction management system by fusion of real-time disaster simulation and big data assimilation.” The project aims to identify possible disaster scenarios caused by earthquake and tsunami that occur and progress in a chained or compound manner and to create new technologies to lead responses and disaster mitigation measures that encourages the society to get over the disaster. This special issue titled “Disaster and Big Data Part 2,” including 13 papers, aims to share the recent progress of the project as the sequel of Part 1 published in March 2016. As an editor of this issue, I would like to express our deep gratitude for the insightful comments and suggestions made by the reviewers and the members of the editorial committee.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-435
Author(s):  
Koichi Osuka

As a disaster-prone country, Japan has endured many earthquake disasters. The latest cases include the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake disaster, the 2004 Niigata Chuetsu earthquake, and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. Since the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake in particular, many robot researchers have started undertaking the research and development of rescue robots. Their practical applications have a long way to go, so to continue ongoing robot research and development, we should also be aware that comparatively few researchers and engineers are actually engaged in such research and development. Great earthquakes (or tsunami) are both rare and unpredictable, which makes it very difficult to establish research policies for rescue robots intended for specialized use in disaster response. We should also realize that Japan is almost constantly hit by one or another every year – e.g., the typhoons that hit Japan directly every year and themselves triggering other disasters caused by landslides or avalanches due to heavy rainfall. The Japanese populace is so accustomed to such happenings but, nevertheless, few actions have been taken unlike those against large-scale earthquakes. It is often said that an effective disaster response system can only be developed after we have experienced many actual disasters. It then occurs to us that we must first construct disaster response systems – rescue robots, etc. – directly targeting daily natural disasters. Any large-scale disaster response system can be built on such constant efforts. On the other hand, any disaster response system against daily natural disasters could only be developed by locally domiciled researchers and engineers. This makes us feel that it is possible to increase the number of personnel who become involved in disaster response research and development. Based on the above context, this special issue provides a wide range of articles on region-specific disasters and disaster response actions, focusing on their localities and specialties. We sincerely hope that this special issue will help in promoting research and development on rescue robots and putting them to practical use.


2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessie Lissenden ◽  
Siri Maley ◽  
Khanjan Mehta

As we develop practical, innovative and sustainable technology solutions for resource-constrained settings, what can we learn from the Appropriate Technology (AT) movement? Based on a review of academic literature over the past 35 years, this article identifies, and chronologically maps, the defining tenets and metrics of success advocated by scholars. The literature has gradually evolved from general musings into concrete lessons learned, while the definitions of “success” have transitioned from laboratory success into practical application and long-term usefulness. Nonetheless, juxtaposing this scholastic history with actual projects reveals three major gaps in AT philosophy related to a lack of 1) bilateral knowledge exchange, 2) emphasis on venture scalability, and 3) integration of implementation strategy through the project lifecycle. This article argues that rethinking and repositioning AT with a human-centric narrative emphasizing sustainability and scalability is imperative in order to revitalize and accelerate the AT movement and to achieve the large-scale impact it was expected to deliver.


2020 ◽  
Vol 198 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-748
Author(s):  
Daniel Brezina

Natural disasters have a specific position in terms of threats to the life and health of citizens, the environment, and the property of municipalities in individual regions. Their negative consequences can affect a lot of people and disrupt the routine processes on a large area. Natural disasters mostly have negative effects on people, material values and nature. In the case of large-scale natural disasters, the functioning and stability of state systems may be compromised and impaired, including those in Poland and Slovakia.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Gellert

<p>Three generations of the Alpha-Particle-X-ray-Spectrometer (APXS) have been part of the science suite on all four landed NASA Mars rovers so far. Using x-ray spectroscopy following excitation with alpha particles and x-rays from <sup>244</sup>Cm radioactive sources, so far about 2000 samples have been investigated along the combined traverse of ~85km on the surface of Mars.</p><p>The APXS reports 16 standard elements in all samples and additional trace elements like Ge, Cu, Ga, Rb, Sr, As, Se, Y and Pb if at elevated levels. The sample spot of ~ 20 mm diameter is often large enough to represent bulk content, though small enough to reveal evidence for certain minerals through element correlations when oversampled in rasters. The results from all missions revealed large scale sedimentary formations, like Murray and Burns indicating specific environmental conditions in the past. The soil was found similar at all sites, representing a well mixed global crust component. APXS geochemical data were used for important constraints of complimentary mineralogy results, ground truth for orbiters and comparison to Martian meteorites.</p><p>Results from the ongoing Curiosity mission and the long living MER rovers will be discussed. Additionally, some very successful applications and investigations that were serendipitously developed after launch will be reviewed. Part of the presentation will be devoted to the unique challenges, trade-offs during design and lessons learned from the long operation of the instrument. The combination of APXS, XRD and Moesbauer results from MER and MSL with future fine scale XRF results of the soil at the Mars 2020 landing site might shed a light into the enigmatic amorphous phase, which could represent a record of the past alteration processes on Mars.</p>


1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 1096-1111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Dewind ◽  
Philip Kasinitz

After three decades of renewed, large-scale immigration to the United States, social scientists are increasingly turning their attention to processes of immigrant incorporation and reexamining the perspectives of social scientists who studied similar processes in the past. This essay reviews the insights and questions raised by the foregoing articles in this special issue of the International Migration Review and assesses their theoretical contributions to understanding relations between immigrants and native-born Americans in contemporary processes of incorporation.


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