José Orlando Gomes

Human factors approach for evaluation and redesign of human–system interfaces of a nuclear power plant simulator

Abstract Nuclear power production is a safety-critical process where ultimate execution of process change decisions lie with the operators. Thus it is important to provide the best possible decision support through effective supervisory control operator interfaces. This requires a human factors/ergonomics approach in the modernization of analog instrumentation and control systems of the existing nuclear power plants. In this article, we describe how this approach is being used for modernization of the ANGRA I power plant. Using a cognitive task analysis (CTA) approach, we observed operators working on an advanced control room of a nuclear power plant digital simulator and noted several opportunities for improvement in the human/system interfaces related to the graphics design, alarm systems and procedure integration. A redesigned prototype was constructed as an alternative to the current simulator and hardcopy procedure manuals. The design improves upon the graphical layout of system information and provides better integration of procedures, automation and alarm systems. The design was validated by expert opinion and a scenario-based comparison. Relevance to industry Human factors/ergonomics are not playing the role they deserve in the design of process control systems making them less controllable than they could be if human factors were adequately incorporated. The use of human factors approach in the design of process control systems throughout the industry presents many opportunities for improvements with regard to system effectiveness, efficiency, reliability and safety.

Normal people working in normal organizations with normal equipment: System safety and cognition in a mid-air collision

A fundamental challenge in improving the safety of complex systems is to understand how accidents emerge in normal working situations, with equipment functioning normally in normally structured organizations. We present a field study of the en route mid-air collision between a commercial carrier and an executive jet, in the clear afternoon Amazon sky in which 154 people lost their lives, that illustrates one response to this challenge. Our focus was on how and why the several safety barriers of a well structured air traffic system melted down enabling the occurrence of this tragedy, without any catastrophic component failure, and in a situation where everything was functioning normally. We identify strong consistencies and feedbacks regarding factors of system day-to-day functioning that made monitoring and awareness difficult, and the cognitive strategies that operators have developed to deal with overall system behavior. These findings emphasize the active problem-solving behavior needed in air traffic control work, and highlight how the day-to-day functioning of the system can jeopardize such behavior. An immediate consequence is that safety managers and engineers should review their traditional safety approach and accident models based on equipment failure probability, linear combinations of failures, rules and procedures, and human errors, to deal with complex patterns of coincidence possibilities, unexpected links, resonance among system functions and activities, and system cognition.

Knowledge management support for collaborative emergency response

An emergency response activity usually involves several teams from different organizations working cooperatively for the purpose of saving lives or properties. These teams have to make many decisions under time pressure to accomplish their goals. Most decisions require contextual knowledge coming from the emergency settings, including those which report the activities of other emergency teams. The goal of this paper is to describe a system which aims at storing and disseminating the contextual knowledge required by teams during the course of an emergency.

Vulnerabilidade socioambiental, redução de riscos de desastres e construção da resiliência: lições do terremoto no Haiti e das chuvas fortes na Região Serrana, Brasil

Data on disasters around the world reveal greater seriousness in countries with lower social and economic development levels. In this context, disaster risk-reduction and resilience-building policies are priorities in the sustainable development agenda, featuring among the topics selected for the Rio+20 Summit. By means of a contribution of a conceptual nature and from examples of disasters in countries with different development levels, namely the Haiti earthquake and the torrential rains in the mountain range close to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the scope of this article is to demonstrate how socio-environmental vulnerability creates conditions for disasters, while at the same time limiting strategies for their prevention and mitigation. Lastly, some of the measures that disaster risk reduction and resilience-building demand in a socio-environmental vulnerability context are highlighted. These involve changes in the current patterns of social, economic and environmental development geared toward ecological sustainability and social justice as pillars of sustainable development.Data on disasters around the world reveal greater seriousness in countries with lower social and economic development levels. In this context, disaster risk-reduction and resilience-building policies are priorities in the sustainable development agenda, featuring among the topics selected for the Rio+20 Summit. By means of a contribution of a conceptual nature and from examples of disasters in countries with different development levels, namely the Haiti earthquake and the torrential rains in the mountain range close to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, the scope of this article is to demonstrate how socio-environmental vulnerability creates conditions for disasters, while at the same time limiting strategies for their prevention and mitigation. Lastly, some of the measures that disaster risk reduction and resilience-building demand in a socio-environmental vulnerability context are highlighted. These involve changes in the current patterns of social, economic and environmental development geared toward ecological sustainability and social justice as pillars of sustainable development.

Unfolding the Cerebral Cortex Using Level Set Methods

Level set methods provide a robust way to implement geometric flows, but they suffer from two problems which are relevant when using smoothing flows to unfold the cortex: the lack of point-correspondence between scales and the inability to implement tangential velocities. In this paper, we suggest to solve these problems by driving the nodes of a mesh with an ordinary Differential equation. We state that this approach does not suffer from the known problems of Lagrangian methods since all geometrical properties are computed on the fixed (Eulerian) grid. Additionally, tangential velocities can be given to the nodes, allowing the mesh to follow general evolution equations, which could be crucial to achieving the final goal of minimizing local metric distortions. To experiment with this approach, we derive area and volume preserving mean curvature flows and use them to unfold surfaces extracted from MRI data of the human brain.

Analysis of the resilience of team performance during a nuclear emergency response exercise

The current work presents results from a cognitive task analysis (CTA) of a nuclear disaster simulation. Audio-visual records were collected from an emergency room team composed of individuals from 26 different agencies as they responded to multiple scenarios in a simulated nuclear disaster. This simulation was part of a national emergency response training activity for a nuclear power plant located in a developing country. The objectives of this paper are to describe sources of resilience and brittleness in these activities, identify cues of potential improvements for future emergency simulations, and leveraging the resilience of the emergency response system in case of a real disaster. Multiple CTA techniques were used to gain a better understanding of the cognitive dimensions of the activity and to identify team coordination and crisis management patterns that emerged from the simulation exercises.

Resilience and brittleness in the ALERTA RIO system: a field study about the decision-making of forecasters

Natural disasters, particularly those triggered by heavy rainfall, may cause major damage and death. However, if an accurate early warning is issued, the damage can be mitigated. In Latin America and Brazil, characteristics of socioeconomic development often lead to a disorderly growth of cities and, consequently, occupation and irregular construction in risk areas. Therefore, forecasts of heavy rainfall, as well as preventative and mitigatory actions based on meteorological data/alerts, are essential to saving lives and minimizing material loss. An event that would have benefited from such actions is that which occurred in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro in January 2011, when over 800 people lost their lives. This work describes the first research initiative on resilience engineering domain in systems to forecast heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro. The results indicate important sources of brittleness in the system that supports the work of meteorologists, mainly related to the technical and organizational framework, and suggests that the main source of resilience in dealing with critical situations is the tacit knowledge of experts.

A program to support the construction and evaluation of resilience indicators

The main objective of this work is to propose a method and a tool to support the development of indicators able to inform an organization about the state of its resilience through a cyclical process of identifying its resilience factors, proposing resilience indicators, assessing its organizational resilience followed by assessing and improving the resilience indicators. The research uses concepts from complex adaptive systems and from resilience engineering to establish an initial set of indicators able to assess elements that contribute to organizational resilience, and structures them temporarily as a hierarchy. A software application to support indicator definition and structuring, questionnaire generation, and result assessment activities was built to assist in speeding up the experiment-adjust cycle. Prototype indicators were instantiated with helicopter operating companies in mind, and were reviewed by a domain expert.

The design of collaboration support between command and operation teams during emergency response

The natural disasters occurred recently became one of the main press reports, especially the lack of adequate tools to manage emergency response. One of the aspects observed is the participation of field teams in the resolution of a crisis situation, mostly limited in sending information and executing tasks. Despite the importance of this communication, it is necessary to improve the interaction. Few studies have focused on how the operative use of information technology will affect the Command and Control System. More over, the development of more robust of new technologies and new mobile devices indicate new opportunity for the field teams to use information technology to support their activities. This paper presents a proposal of an information system to support interaction between emergency response teams and to evaluate their impact in a response organization.

Maturity Levels of Information Technologies in Emergency Response Organizations

In emergency response organizations with very limited resources, information technologies are not adequately explored. In such organizations, the simple adoption of new information technologies is not productive, as their efficient use depends on many other interrelated technologies. This work describes a model to help understanding these interrelationships. The model allows the cooperative evaluation of an organization through different perspectives. The model also helps the performing of the evaluation from different perspectives, making it suitable to collaborative evaluation. Using the model, an organization can measure its maturity level and guide the investment in emergency response capabilities. The information technology dimension of the model has been applied to the firefight organization in Brazil.