Category: Events

VUW Seminar: Insights from a Simulation Model of Disaster Response

The School of Management at Victoria University is hosting the following seminar on Thursday, 1 February 2017 from 12.30 – 1.30pm.

Title: Insights from a Simulation Model of Disaster Response

Speaker: Prof. Jose Julio Gonzalez from the Centre for Integrated Emergency Management, University of Agder, Norway

Location: RH207, Rutherford House, Pipitea Campus, Wellington

Disasters do not follow scripts and the literature strongly indicates that management of disasters requires the responder team to act as “emergent organization”.

The talk presents a system dynamics simulation model of the management of a major landslide that occurred 2005 in Norway as an outlier of Katrina. The model describes a disequilibrium-experimenting-emergence process, whereby the responder team manages the disaster as an emergent organization, proceeding from disequilibrium, to experimentation to self-organization.

A feedback analysis of the system dynamics model shows that a set of vicious reinforcing feedback loops caused by following standard organizational procedures initially increases errors in response. Eventually learning and sensemaking in an improvisation/experimentation process leads to new emergent dynamics, whereby the loops act virtuously.

We discuss to what extent the model can describe large scale disaster responses of different types and how it relates to the wider disaster response literature. We discuss what types of levers, such as policies and training, are available to decrease the vicious loops and speed the transition from errors to successful innovation.

Presenter: Jose Julio Gonzalez is Professor for Information and Communication Technology at the Department for ICT, University of Agder, Norway. He also was adjunct professor 2005-2017 at the Centre for Cyber and Information Security, NTNU Gjøvik, Norway. He has a doctor degree in natural sciences (mathematical physics) and a doctor degree in technology (polymer science). He has published in various areas of natural sciences, technology and social sciences. Since 1999, his areas of interest are security management, management of emergencies and critical infrastructure protection, where he has led and cooperated successfully in various international projects. He led the project “A Model-based Approach to Security Culture (AMBASEC)”, running 2005-2010, concerned with protection of Norwegian offshore oil & gas infrastructure. In addition, he has participated as PI in several EU projects funded by CIPS, FP7 and Horizon2020. Currently he acts as scientific coordinator for the EU Horizon2020 project Smart Mature Resilience http://smr-project.eu/home/. During the last two years he has collaborated with Auckland University of Technology in a project targeting Disaster eHealth. He was founding director of the Centre of Integrated Emergency Management (http://ciem.uia.no) at the University of Agder 2011-2014. Dr Gonzalez was awarded the Research Prize from the Agder Academy of Science and Letters in 2012 for his research on Critical Infrastructure Protection, crisis and disaster management and security.

This will be followed by refreshments.

ALL WELCOME

Any queries please email: [email protected] or [email protected]

ORSNZ Annual General Meeting 2017

ORSNZ is holding its Annual General Meeting during the upcoming ORSNZ conference on Tuesday the 12th of December from 12:20pm – 1pm.

The agenda for the meeting is:

  1. Apologies (to [email protected]);
  2. Minutes of the previous AGM;
  3. Matters arising from the minutes;
  4. President’s report;
  5. Honorary Treasurer’s report and financial statement;
  6. Update on Special Interest Groups;
  7. Update on website;
  8. Mentoring;
  9. Hans Dallenbach Prize;
  10. Conferences
  11. ORSNZ Statistics
  12. Election of officers and auditor;
  13. Other business.

ORSNZ Annual General Meeting 2017

There will be an AGM held during the upcoming ORSNZ Conference (date+time to be confirmed). The tentative agenda is:

1. Apologies (to [email protected]);
2. Minutes of the previous AGM;
3. Matters arising from the minutes;
4. President’s report;
5. Honorary Treasurer’s financial statement;
6. Update on Special Interest Groups;
7. Update on website;
8. Mentoring;
9. Election of officers and auditor;
10. Other business.

You can find the minutes from the previous AGM here, and the discussion document about Special Interest Groups here.

If you have any other agenda items, please email them to [email protected] by Sunday 19 November 2017.

Mini-conference on Infrastructure Planning under Uncertainty

As part of the 2017 ORSNZ Annual Conference, there will be a 1-day mini-conference on Infrastructure Planning under Uncertainty on Wednesday 13 December. This day will begin with a plenary presentation by Prof. Michael Ferris (see the program for details), and end with an analytics forum event, and a discussion panel.

Also, we would like to remind you that Tuesday, 31 October is the final day for abstract submissions, as well as early-bird registrations. We welcome both practical and theoretical talks utilising either operations research, or analytics methods.

Workshop on Construction Simulation Opportunities in New Zealand

The joint research group of the University of Auckland and the Auckland University of Technology (SimCon) invites you to join a free 2‐hour workshop “Construction Simulation Opportunities in New Zealand” to gain new insight into the impacts and benefits of using simulation in the built environment engineering.

Event details
When: Tuesday 31 October 2017, 5.00 pm‐7:00 pm
Where: City Conference Centre, WA224 AUT City Campus, 55 Wellesley St, Auckland
Cost: This event is free, and light refreshments will be served.

What will you learn?
‐ The use of simulation to lift productivity and competitiveness within the construction industry
‐ The use of simulation for project planning, control and diagnosis
‐ The cutting‐edge research being developed by SimCon research group

Who should attend?
Architects, engineers, construction managers, general contractors, owners, policy makers and professionals who struggle to understand the real benefits of construction simulation tools and methods.

For enquiries and registration: Please email [email protected]

National Science Challenge 11 sponsors this event.