Introducing Predictive Policing Technologies (PPT)

This reflective case-history presents the findings of a 12-week pilot study of a collaborative organizational change project which oversaw the implementation of predictive policing technology (PPT) into a territorial police force in the North of England. Based on the first year of a two-year initiative, the reflections consider the impact on the future of the project and their potential future application and cultural embeddedness, beyond the organizational and time-bound specifics of this case.

Design Principles for Online Role Play Simulations to Address Groupthink Tendency in Professional Training

Decision making for professionals in crisis situations can be highly stressful and mission critical. It is a kind of naturalistic decision making (NDM), characterized by highly fluid situations under great stress and uncertainty and involving interprofessional teams. A major challenge to the effective handling of crisis situations is the tendency for the personnel involved to ignore alternatives and make irrational decisions, a phenomenon referred to as Groupthink. This chapter reports on a case study of the application of a set of design principles for an online role play simulation (RPS) in addressing Groupthink in crisis management professional training. The training effectiveness on participants' Groupthink tendency was investigated using Bale's interaction process analysis (IPA). The design principles underpinning the RPS training system is discussed in light of the findings.

Sentiment Analysis of Tweets for Estimating Criticality and Security of Events

Social Media has become one of the major industries in the world. It has been noted that almost three fourth of the world's population use social media. This has instigated many researches towards social media. One such useful application is the sentimental analysis of real time social media data for security purposes. The insights that are generated can be used by law enforcement agencies and for intelligence purposes. There are many types of analyses that have been done for security purposes. Here, the authors propose a comprehensive software application which will meticulously scrape data from Twitter and analyse them using the lexicon based analysis to look for possible threats. They propose a methodology to obtain a quantitative result called criticality to assess the level of threat for a public event. The results can be used to understand people's opinions and comments with regard to specific events. The proposed system combines this lexicon based sentimental analysis along with deep data collection and segregates the emotions into different levels to analyse the threat for an event.

Mapping of Areas Presenting Specific Risks to Firefighters Due to Buried Technical Networks

Vehicles or freight cars on fire below a bridge or inside a tunnel are exceptional events and imply difficult intervention conditions for firefighters. A buried technical network like high voltage electricity line, gas or steam pipeline around such a fire causes additional specifics risks. Vulnerability areas for firefighters are zones where both factors exist: a difficult incident area together with a specific risk like buried networks. They require intervention teams with specific emergency response capabilities. The paper proposes a method developed for the Paris Fire Brigade for vulnerability mapping. Results aim at improving the mobilization in allocating directly the specific responses capabilities intervention teams. Results are debated from an operational point of view. Cutting off several network lines during firefighters' interventions may strongly affect the society. In case of simultaneous incidents in vulnerable areas, firefighters could be an early warning system and inform authorities of the risk of services disruption.

Using the Internet to Plan for Terrorist Attack

In this chapter, we discuss how terrorists can use the Internet as a source of information to plan for terrorist attacks. Online anonymity services such as virtual private network (VPN) are discussed, along with advantages and disadvantages of using these services. We also discuss online bomb-making instructions and highlight ways in which these can be used to the advantage of law enforcement. Finally, the use of the Internet as a reconnaissance tool for target selection is discussed, with descriptions of current and past research in this field to identify key information that is available to terrorists, and how this information can be manipulated to reduce the likelihood or severity of a terrorist attack.

Detecting Individual-Level Deception in the Digital Age

This chapter presents a discussion of a new model titled, “DETECT (Determining and Evaluating Truthfulness through Explicit Cue Testing) which relies upon the assessment of verbal and non-verbal cues. The author presents the argument that the digital age has posed novel challenges to law enforcement and intelligence personnel; hence, the author further explains the ways in which the DETECT model (©, Eugenie de Silva, 2014) can be used to determine deceptive activities at the individual-level even in a technologically advanced society. The chapter touches upon Denial and Deception (D&D), and how the detection of deception must be carried out in the twenty-first century, especially through rigorous monitoring within the established legal framework.

Live Video Communication in Prehospital Emergency Medicine

Prehospital emergency medicine treats time-critical diseases and conditions and aims to reduce morbidity and mortality. The progression of emergency medicine is an important topic for governments worldwide. A problem occurs when paramedics need assistance at the emergency site by emergency doctors, who cannot be present. Video-communication in real-time from the emergency site to an emergency doctor offers an opportunity to enhance the quality of emergency medicine. The core piece of this study is a video camera system called “LiveCity camera,” enabling real-time high quality video connection of paramedics and emergency doctors. The impact of video communication on emergency medicine is clearly appreciated among providers, based upon the extent of agreement that has been stated in this study's questionnaire by doctors and paramedics. This study was part of the FP7-European Union funded research project “LiveCity” (Grant Agreement No. 297291).

TEEM

In this article, the authors describe a client-server architecture, designed for supporting data recording and transmission during emergency patient transportation by ambulance. The clients are a set of mobile apps, interfaced to the monitoring devices in the ambulance, that automatically send all the recorded data to a server at the destination center. One additional app enables the travelling personnel to input and transmit further significant patient data, or comments. At the destination center, the specialist physician logs onto the server, receives the data in real time, and is allowed to plot/analyze them, assessing the patient's situation, and possibly sending immediate feedback to the operators in the ambulance. The system is currently under evaluation at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Alessandria Children Hospital, Italy. The system, by allowing real time data communication, is able to provide clear advantages from the organizational and economical viewpoint.

Predicting Medical Resources Required to be Dispatched After Earthquake and Flood, Using Historical Data and Machine Learning Techniques

This article presents a method to predict the medical resources required to be dispatched after large-scale disasters to satisfy the demand. The historical data of past incidents (earthquakes, floods) regarding the number of victims requested emergency medical services and hospitalisation, simulation tools, web services and machine learning techniques have been combined. The authors adopted a twofold approach: a) use of web services and simulation tools to predict the potential number of victims and b) use of historical data and self-trained algorithms to “learn” from these data and provide relative predictions. Comparing actual and predicted victims needed hospitalisation showed that the proposed models can predict the medical resources required to be dispatched with acceptable errors. The results are promoting the use of electronic platforms able to coordinate an emergency medical response since these platforms can collect big heterogeneous datasets necessary to optimise the performance of the suggested algorithms.

Analysis of a Training Package for Law Enforcement to Conduct Open Source Research

Law enforcement officials (LEOs) in the UK conduct open source research (OSR) as part of their routine online investigations. OSR, in this instance, refers to publicly available information that is accessed via the Internet. As part of the research, identifying and tracing the electronic suspect (RITES) course provided by the UK's College of Policing, LEOs are introduced to the open source internet research tool (OSIRT); a free software tool designed to assist LEOs with OSR investigations. This article draws on analyses from questionnaires and observations from a RITES course; mapping them to Kirkpatrick's evaluation model. Results showed the positive impact the RITES course had in transferring knowledge back on-the-job, with LEOs applying knowledge learned to real-life investigative scenarios. Additionally, results showed OSIRT integrated both in the RITES course and into the LEOs investigative routine.