MAXIMIZING DISPERSANT PREPAREDNESS: LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE 2007 HAWAIIAN ISLANDS FULL SCALE EXERCISE

2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 (1) ◽  
pp. 805-809
Author(s):  
Kim Beasley ◽  
C. Curtis Martin ◽  
Roger Laferriere
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Data Transmission ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
And Control

ABSTRACT Large scale dispersant exercises have been conducted nationally and internationally ever since their first large scale use during the Torrey Canyon Spill of 1967. Few of these exercises are conducted on the grandest scale intended to exercise all aspects of the operation; from command and control, pre-application testing, application, monitoring and data transmission. Clean Islands Council in cooperation with the State of Hawaii'S Department of Health and the U.S. Coast Guard conducted a two day exercise on February 21–22, 2007 to test the full range of the State'S Dispersant capability. It was the largest exercise ever conducted in Hawaii, and arguably the largest in United States history. The exercise was the culmination of 14 years of program development by the Clean Islands Council, the State of Hawaii and the United States Coast Guard. The exercise instilled a tremendous appreciation in all players involved of the complexity of dispersant operations, and the importance of ensuring efficient command and control processes, support and communications. All elements of Dispersant application were tested: decision making processes, laboratory pre-testing, on-scene test application, on-scene application, on-scene monitoring and real time data transmission to effect quick decision making from jurisdictional agencies. Additionally, the latest state of the art equipment was used during all phases. This paper discusses the results of the exercise and shares critical lessons learned that will greatly advance the preparedness knowledge of all dispersant users internationally. The authors of this paper have over 50 years of collective spill response experience and were personally involved in the exercise design and execution.

Ban Ki-moon, 2007–2016

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Gowan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Security Council ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Central African Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cautious Approach ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Council Decision ◽  
The Face

During Ban Ki-moon’s tenure, the Security Council was shaken by P5 divisions over Kosovo, Georgia, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine. Yet it also continued to mandate and sustain large-scale peacekeeping operations in Africa, placing major burdens on the UN Secretariat. The chapter will argue that Ban initially took a cautious approach to controversies with the Council, and earned a reputation for excessive passivity in the face of crisis and deference to the United States. The second half of the chapter suggests that Ban shifted to a more activist pressure as his tenure went on, pressing the Council to act in cases including Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, and Syria. The chapter will argue that Ban had only a marginal impact on Council decision-making, even though he made a creditable effort to speak truth to power over cases such as the Central African Republic (CAR), challenging Council members to live up to their responsibilities.

The American War in Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carter Malkasian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Narrative Format

The American War in Afghanistan is a full history of the war in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2020. It covers political, cultural, strategic, and tactical aspects of the war and details the actions and decision-making of the United States, Afghan government, and Taliban. The work follows a narrative format to go through the 2001 US invasion, the state-building of 2002–2005, the Taliban offensive of 2006, the US surge of 2009–2011, the subsequent drawdown, and the peace talks of 2019–2020. The focus is on the overarching questions of the war: Why did the United States fail? What opportunities existed to reach a better outcome? Why did the United States not withdraw from the war?

scholarly journals Crisis Standards of Care Implementation at the State Level in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
pp. 599-603 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colton Margus ◽  
Ritu R. Sarin ◽  
Michael Molloy ◽  
Gregory R. Ciottone
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Pediatric Care ◽  
Standards Of Care ◽  
Institute Of Medicine ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
The Us

AbstractIntroduction:In 2009, the Institute of Medicine published guidelines for implementation of Crisis Standards of Care (CSC) at the state level in the United States (US). Based in part on the then concern for H1N1 pandemic, there was a recognized need for additional planning at the state level to maintain health system preparedness and conventional care standards when available resources become scarce. Despite the availability of this framework, in the years since and despite repeated large-scale domestic events, implementation remains mixed.Problem:Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) rejuvenates concern for how health systems can maintain quality care when faced with unrelenting burden. This study seeks to outline which states in the US have developed CSC and which areas of care have thus far been addressed.Methods:An online search was conducted for all 50 states in 2015 and again in 2020. For states without CSC plans online, state officials were contacted by email and phone. Public protocols were reviewed to assess for operational implementation capabilities, specifically highlighting guidance on ventilator use, burn management, sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) score, pediatric standards, and reliance on influenza planning.Results:Thirty-six states in the US were actively developing (17) or had already developed (19) official CSC guidance. Fourteen states had no publicly acknowledged effort. Eleven of the 17 public plans had updated within five years, with a majority addressing ventilator usage (16/17), influenza planning (14/17), and pediatric care (15/17), but substantially fewer addressing care for burn patients (9/17).Conclusion:Many states lacked publicly available guidance on maintaining standards of care during disasters, and many states with specific care guidelines had not sufficiently addressed the full spectrum of hazard to which their health care systems remain vulnerable.

Carceral protectionism and the perpetually (in)vulnerable

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 537-550
Author(s):  
SM Rodriguez ◽  
Liat Ben-Moshe ◽  
H Rakes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Transformative Justice ◽  
State Agents ◽  
And Control

The United States relies on carceralism—mass incarceration and institutionalization, surveillance and control—for its continued operation. The criminalization of difference, particularly in relation to race, disability and queerness, renders certain people as perpetually subject to state violence due to their perceived unruliness. This article relies on two case studies, in Toledo, Ohio and Brooklyn, New York to question the construction and co-optation of vulnerability by state agents and focus on interrelated instances of state violence done under the guise of protectionism of and from unruly subjects. We then discuss the response to these instances of violence- from the state in the form of carceral ableism and sanism, and from local activists trying to navigate the shifting contours of protectionist violence by enacting queer transformative justice.

Shipboard Communications: Quantifying Operator Capabilities and Limitations

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (23) ◽  
pp. 1900-1904
Author(s):  
E. Bardine Debra ◽  
F. Wallace Daniel ◽  
Udo Goff ◽  
Christine Schlichting
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Navy ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Command And Control ◽  
The United States ◽  
Breaking Point ◽  
Voice Communications ◽  
Audio Channel ◽  
Subject Experiment ◽  
And Control

As the United States Navy moves towards a reduction in manning aboard future ships, the number and complexity of tasks the warfighter must perform remains high. One responsibility of the warfighter that is very taxing on his/her audio channel is the handling of voice communications. To determine the “breaking point” in handling these voice communications, researchers used a fully developed scenario to test the capabilities and limitations of typical Navy watchstanders when subjected to a varying number of active communications circuits. Metrics such as accuracy and latency of response were used to measure human performance. In addition, a between-subject experiment was used to determine whether or not a simulated speech-to-text tool would help to improve warfighter performance on a communications task, while not degrading performance on a primary, tactical task. The experiment was performed in the Integrated Command Environment (ICE) lab at NAVSEA Dahlgren, a testbed for future command and control concepts and a vehicle to solicit valuable feedback from members of the fleet.

scholarly journals Bayesian probabilistic forecasting with large-scale educational trend data: a case study using NAEP

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kaplan ◽  
Mingya Huang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Population Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Probabilistic Forecasting ◽  
Term Trend ◽  
Trend Data ◽  
Long Term Trend

AbstractOf critical importance to education policy is monitoring trends in education outcomes over time. In the United States, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has provided long-term trend data since 1970; at the state/jurisdiction level, NAEP has provided long-term trend data since 1996. In addition to the national NAEP, all 50 states and United States jurisdictions participate in the state NAEP assessment. Thus, NAEP provides important monitoring and forecasting information regarding population-level academic performance of relevance to national and international goals. However, an inspection of NAEP trend reports shows that relatively simple trend plots are provided; and although these plots are important for communicating general trend information, we argue that much more useful information can be obtained by adopting a Bayesian probabilistic forecasting point of view. The purpose of this paper is to provide a Bayesian probabilistic forecasting workflow that can be used with large-scale assessment trend data generally, and to demonstrate that workflow with an application to the state NAEP assessments.

scholarly journals Automated data-intensive forecasting of plant phenology throughout the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn D. Taylor ◽  
Ethan P. White
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Plant Phenology ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Phenological Data ◽  
Data Intensive ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Near Term ◽  
Automated Forecasting

AbstractPhenology - the timing of cyclical and seasonal natural phenomena such as flowering and leaf out - is an integral part of ecological systems with impacts on human activities like environmental management, tourism, and agriculture. As a result, there are numerous potential applications for actionable predictions of when phenological events will occur. However, despite the availability of phenological data with large spatial, temporal, and taxonomic extents, and numerous phenology models, there has been no automated species-level forecasts of plant phenology. This is due in part to the challenges of building a system that integrates large volumes of climate observations and forecasts, uses that data to fit models and make predictions for large numbers of species, and consistently disseminates the results of these forecasts in interpretable ways. Here we describe a new near-term phenology forecasting system that makes predictions for the timing of budburst, flowers, ripe fruit, and fall colors for 78 species across the United States up to 6 months in advance and is updated every four days. We use the lessons learned in developing this system to provide guidance developing large-scale near-term ecological forecast systems more generally, to help advance the use of automated forecasting in ecology.

POLLUTION RESPONSE DURING NATIONAL SPECIAL SECURITY EVENTS: STRIKING A BALANCE BETWEEN SECURITY AND RESPONSE.

2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (1) ◽  
pp. 943-948
Author(s):  
Joseph Gleason
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Homeland Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Department Of Homeland Security ◽  
National Convention ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The U.S

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY During the summer of 2004, the First Coast Guard District in Boston, Massachusetts supported both Presidential political nominating conventions for the 2004 election. The Democratic National Convention was held in Boston, Massachusetts on July 26–29, 2004, and the Republican National Convention was held in New York City from August 30th to September 2, 2004. This was the first time both conventions have taken place within the geographic area of responsibility of a single Coast Guard District. The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security declared both of these events as National Special Security Events under Presidential Decision Directive 62 (PDD-62). PDD-62 formalized and delineated the roles and responsibilities of federal agencies in the development of security plans for major events. The 2004 Democratic and Republican Conventions were the first political conventions held in the United States since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the months before the Democratic National Convention, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice stated that there was credible intelligence from multiple sources indicating that al-Qaeda planned to attempt an attack on the United States during the period leading up to the election. (Joint Statement of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Attorney General John Ashcroft on May 28, 2004) The terrorist attacks on the Madrid rail system were a direct attempt by AI Qaeda to influence the elections in Spain, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was going to take all appropriate steps to prevent a similar attack in the United States. (Schmidt and Priest, Washington Post May 26, 2004; Page A02) The 2004 Conventions offered a significant challenge for the Coast Guard and other federal, state, and local agencies that had dual responsibility for coordinating security operations while being prepared to respond to a disaster including oil spills and hazardous substance releases—the combination of what was previously designated as crisis and consequence management under PDD-39. This paper will examine lessons learned from planning and operations in support of the conventions. Having served as the First District Project Officer for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, this paper is written as my observations of the lessons learned and offers some insight into what went well and possible areas for improvement as I observed throughout the more than 18 months of planning for these events of national significance. The Coast Guard planning and operational support for the Democratic and Republican National Conventions demonstrated the importance of a team approach to planning, interagency coordination and partnerships, pre-event preparedness activities, and pre-deploying personnel and resources for response. It is my hope that the observations contained in this paper can benefit federal, state, and local agencies as they prepare for large significant events in the future including National Special Security Events.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document