FirstNet: Reaping the Benefits of the "Broadband" by Aligning it with Social and Human Factors

The First Responder Network Authority, a.k.a., #FirstNet is certainly a "First" in more than one way. In addition to serving as a Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN) for First Responders, it is also a "First" in terms of its potential for bridging the gulf between public safety socio-technical systems (organizations) and citizens at-large through a variety of Social Media and communication platforms (operating on 4G LTE networks with smart phones, tablets, wearable devices, and the like serving as end-user devices).

The traditional model for communication between citizens and first responder organizations, which is currently constrained by legacy systems, needs to be taken to the next level into a new era, made possible by FirstNet. This is to realize communication and computing "utilities" and widgets that are citizen-centered, public safety-focused and community service oriented solutions. For example imagine the following possibilities: 

1. Consider the utilization of distributed computing, smart analytics and intelligent sensors (citizens included, citizens as sensors!) assets that are endowed with the capability to "pull" the right first responder assets to the site of the incident even before a formal voice call is made to 911 to a PSAP (public safety answering point)
2. Enable the first responders develop a veridical mental model of the different aspects of the situation (e.g., chemical spill; bodily harm; natural disaster) so that they rightly equip and approach the situation
3. Facilitate the development of situation awareness (Perception, Cognition and Projection of the Unfolding event, its non-equilibrium dynamics, potential for harm) so that the First Responder team and commander can employ "naturalistic decision making" to develop strategies on the fly as to how to respond and contain it; etc.

Last but not least, Social Media-like platforms can also be employed by exploiting the "broadband" of the PSBN within and among public safety agencies with the goal of enabling human and organizational interoperability; overcoming fragmentation and compartmentalization of data, records, and (human expertise) institutional memory. So that they can be either tapped into -- or intelligently "pushed" to -- the public safety personnel at any given time. The beneficiaries may range from a first responder at the tactical edge or sharp end of the system to command in the backend of the system.

New developments such as Cloud Computing and Data transmission at broadband speeds alone will not suffice if they are not aligned with social and human factors of citizens and first responders. The imperative here is to identify "Data" that is relevant to the emergency situation (i.e., non-normal and abnormal situations) thus turning it into actionable "Information" and, then, processing and presenting that information in a form that can be comprehended -- i.e., turned into "Knowledge" -- by all cognitive agents (humans / first responders to AI/Computing systems) in the system. This may involve developing novel transcoding techniques to developing human-machine learning systems that complement each other, leverage their respective cognitive computing strengths (perceptual vs. conceptual gist), and, thus, acting as a force-multiplier at the tactical-edge and society at-large.

To summarize, how the "Broadband's" extraordinary potential is harnessed to deliver utility to human and machine assets is contingent on understanding the interactions and coupling between them. An understanding of this requires performing cognitive ethnography in the field -- city streets to the fireground -- and applying both classical human factors and high velocity human factors (HVHF) to design intuitive user- and cognitive interfaces between first responders and their radios, computing and data devices. So that the power and speed of state of the art computing and communication technologies (wearables to cockpit interfaces to cloud computing to Internet of Things) are delivered to first responders' 'proverbial' finger tips and minds in cognitively digestible "chunks, volumes and velocities" -- in other words, in a highly intuitive format even when first responders don't have enough human (cognitive) bandwidth of their own to interact with technology due to high workload, stress triggered by a high stakes situation or imminent danger or situational impairment (smoke, water, debris in the environment) or due to personal injury.

In closing, First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) is one of the best ever challenges yet to the critical communication industry to up its game where its rate of innovation has been pretty flat compared to the goings-on in the world of consumer technology. FirstNet behooves the mission critical industry to develop new paradigms and breakthrough innovations in partnership with first responders to both predict as well as react when it comes to protecting the life & limb of citizens in particular and the precious intellectual, cultural and material wealth of free nations at-large.

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The author, Moin Rahman, is a Principal Scientist at HVHF Sciences, LLC. 

For more information, please visit:
http://hvhfsciences.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman

HVHF Article Archive: http://hvhfsciences.blogspot.com/
E-mail: hvhf33322@gmail.com

Creative Disruptions (or lack thereof) in Mission Critical Communications Technology

In this post, I will go out on a limb and make the audacious claim that the first and, thus far, the biggest "bottom-up" creative disruptor in mission critical communications industry (a.k.a., First Responder communications) has been the elimination of the "runner." That is, the messenger who relayed messages between the command post and the front lines. Legend has it that the most famous runner of all time was Pheidippides who ran from the battlefield of Marathon to Athens, in 490 BC, to relay the message that the Persians were defeated.

Then came the mother of all "creative disruptions" insofar mission critical communications were concerned: Wireless communication.

Thanks to the 2-way radio. The job of the Runner has become obsolete and "marathon" has turned into a competitive sport. But it took a tragedy concerning "Public Safety" --  a lack of, and poor, radio communication capabilities on the high seas, which resulted in the sinking of the Titanic -- for the first major federal legislation concerning wireless communications to be enacted into law. It was the Radio Act of 1912. And, public safety, has never been the same since (for the better).  However, it was the impetus of WWII and the realization by the US Signal Corps on the importance of portable radio communications for the dismounted soldier, which resulted in the commercialization of the first generation of handheld portable radios.

Handie-Talkie (SCR-536) military radio - circa 1945 – the first model of a hand held two-way radio ever produced.
(manufacturer was Galvin Manufacturing which became Motorola during WWII)

Success in mission critical domains (first responders, transportation, energy generation, healthcare, etc.) is contingent on timely transmission, receipt and comprehension of mission-relevant information. This could range from runner-based relayed communication, semaphores (hand signals), smoke signals to wireless radio communication (voice, data or homing signal); the latter is invaluable because of its lightening speed. Radio communication not only saves lives, it also serves as a"force-multiplier" as it enhances the effectiveness and efficiency of work done and services delivered by first responders.

Now lets explore mission critical communication in general and the extent to which "two-way radio" communication has evolved from its humble beginnings over the last 50 years. This is to find out what and where is the state of the art of radio communication; and have there been any creative disruptions since the advent of the wireless radio in the mission critical domain.

Bottom-Up Creative Disruptor vs. Top-Down Innovation 

I define a bottom-up creative disruption as one where the fundamental nature of how work ought to be performed -- to make it safer, cleaner, efficient and effective with multifold gains -- is realized with a game changing technology. Wireless radio communication was certainly one such game changing technology for mission critical professionals. In fact, it was such a revolutionary technology it found its way into the consumer market, and its cousin, the cellular phone, became a wild success.

Now to top-down innovations.  These are mostly small, but very much necessary, incremental changes that make a technology better. In the two-way radio case, those familiar with industry jargon, will point out such innovations: conventional to trunking; analog to digital; single to multiband; Simulcast; interoperability between different vendor equipment (APCO P25 Standard); etc. Many of these top-down innovations were necessitated to exploit the extremely valuable and crowded Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum -- and also to deliver some benefits to first responders in the field.

In a similar vein, the consumer cellular phone has seen many such top-down innovations (FDMA, CDMA, TDMA, GPRS, 3GPP, 4G LTE), but has also vastly benefited from a number of bottom-up creative disruptors. These range from color screens, multi-touch user-interfaces, speech recognition, location-based services, GPS, Internet and an "app" rich ecosystem,  and much more. A good number of these were driven by the need to meet the end-users wants and needs; and/or out think the consumers themselves to provide them with services they could not have imagined. For instance, it is said the legendary former Apple CEO, the late Steve Jobs, could imagine and intuit what the (consumer) end-users' digital interests and pursuits would be or should be, even though they (customers) wouldn't know it until the they experienced it! In the consumer space, an open market and intense competition, resulted in many bottom-up creative disruptions. Thanks to titans, past and present, such as Motorola, Nokia, Blackberry, Apple, Samsung, among others.

The Revolution in Consumer Communication Technology vs. the slow Evolution in Mission Critical Comms.

Note: The devices are shown for representational purposes; the pictures themselves only tell less than half the story, as the technology within and without (network and ecosystem) has much more to do with creative disruptions and innovations in their respective market verticals.

Have Mission Critical Communications withered on the Vine?

For some, the above question is a heresy. How dare one ask such a question...? But have we seen the kind of user-based, bottom-up creative disruptions in the mission critical communications industry that are on par with the consumer communication market? The basic anatomy of the mission critical radio has pretty much remained the same over the years. The user-experience has not really become intuitive and user-friendly, particularly under High Velocity Human Factors (HVHF) conditions -- say, in a high stakes, dangerous and highly stressful situations. (In HVHF states the user's cognitive capacity is diminished due to task overload and other threats; there is insufficient cognitive bandwidth to interact with technology.)

At the end of the day when there is a loss of life and/or assets, the fire fighter or the police officer is blamed because he didn't know how to get to the tactical talk net (group or channel). Or the buck is passed around and "lack of training" gets blamed. But what about the root cause: the design of the portable communication radio or the network that supports it? Some daring visionaries, from industry, regulatory bodies, and first responders agencies, have thought about it, and have tried hard to improve the utility of the radio, but for any number of reasons have been stymied.

These critical radio problems (device and network infrastructure) were brought into the limelight in two recent incidents that ended in loss of life: the Navy yard shooting and the Yarnell Hill wildland fire.

It is important to note that adding a color display and making bigger, bulkier knobs or best-in-class Push-to-Talk buttons with a "sweet spot" to a mission critical radio does not solve the kind of problem that confront the first responder. Certainly, they make the specific I/O interface easier to look, twiddle or press.  But what is the point of making a fundamentally unintuitive product that lacks critical utility when that ability to communicate is lost in critical moments? The reasons could range from lack of connectivity to the inability to figure out -- particularly, under highly stressful situations when the ability to think is altered due to danger -- on how to get to the right channel on the radio. Or stated in operational terms get to the the closest fellow first responder, with the appropriate skill set, say, a paramedic, from one's own team or another department.  Remember "moments" time matters in first response. A severe arterial bleed could take a life in a matter of less than 5 minutes. Bluntly stated showroom usability of buttons and knobs does not necessarily equal to actual utility delivered on the fireground, or when taking fire in a SWAT operation.

Thus one is forced to conclude that mission critical communication technology lags and not leads, both in absolute and relative terms (compared to consumer comms.), in terms of what ought to be done. For one, no noteworthy innovation that was born in the mission critical space has gone to the consumer markets in the recent past. Whereas innovations from the consumer space (e.g., Google Glass) are knocking at the doors of mission critical. There are many reasons for the paucity of innovation in the mission critical space. They range from poor economies of scale, lack of viable business models, insufficient or skewed competition, insufficient hardcore human factors engineering related R&D due to lack of a vision or funding, absence of a strong partnership among first responder agencies/end-users, vendors and regulatory bodies, among others. (Recently Politico alleged about special interests trying to impede the proposed Public Safety Broadband Network.)

Creative Disruptions in Mission Critical Communications

The need of the hour in mission critical communications is not so much about getting the police officer an iPad or a Google Glass. They may have a role, assuming they are not distractors but truly deliver utility during normal and abnormal situations.

What really should matter, as a first step, is a thorough understanding of how first responder work is best done before we think of "engineering" a solution. In many instances, first responder work is done inefficiently or dangerously either to compensate for the limits of technology or inspite of it. To understand the "socio-technical" aspects of a firefighter, paramedic or police officers work one needs cognitive ethnographers, social and human factors researchers study their work in real time, in the field -- and in context. (Questionnaires or focus groups should be used to support field work not as substitutions; by themselves questionnaires reveal very little.) This type of work is done by teaming-up with first responders (the actual end-users and not purchasing decision makers in first responder agencies) and including them in "participatory" design exercises.

At a high level, one needs to understand the following factors, their interplay, and how goal driven tasks are best accomplished.

1. First responder physical and cognitive demands
2. Nature of first response, situation or context
3. Individual and team task execution needs; inter / intra departmental coordination and collaboration

Data collection from the above described field work, followed by interpretation and ideation should drive the discovery of solutions. The solutions could range from training, technology, organizational factors to operating procedures. In other words, technology is one among other factors.

Insofar technology is concerned it may or may not involve using or adapting commercially off the shelf technologies; or it may require something new to be invented resulting in a creative disruption.  Such an approach, would increase efficiency of first response and protect first responders. For example, a firefighter should be made aware before he enters the building whether he would be losing his ability to communicate (transmit and/or receive). Simply put, an inability to receive a command to evacuate may have life threatening consequences.  There are several more such issues (known and unknown) that hobble first responder communications and put them into danger. Unfortunately, these problems can neither be solved with a bigger, better ergonomic knob nor the world's best push-to-talk button; or for that matter augmented reality afforded by a head mounted display such as Google Glass.

So what needs to be done? Part of the answer lies in product design (bottom-up, creative disruptions and top-down innovation). But is there an impetus or an incentive for creative disruption in the mission critical industry market vertical?: yes and no. I will reserve this discussion for another article.

In the meantime, I solicit feedback, and would like to hear your thoughts on the state of the art of mission critical communication.

Moin Rahman is a Principal Scientist at HVHF Sciences, LLC. He specializes in:

"Designing systems and solutions for human interactions when stakes are high, moments are fleeting and actions are critical."

For more information, please visit:

http://hvhfsciences.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman

HVHF Article Archive: http://hvhfsciences.blogspot.com/

E-mail: moin.rahman@hvhfsciences.com

The Future of First Response & Emergency Management: New Technology Considerations

The mission critical communication industry is moving towards enhancing the effectiveness of first responders by making multiple streams of information in various modalities, or multimedia, converge; a.k.a,, unified communications. This includes bringing together voice (Land Mobile Radio; Cellular; PSTN (telephony); VoIP; Video / Data).

This is underway as we are moving away from legacy circuit-switched technologies to interoperable and secure IP-based network-centric services that deliver video, file transfer, and unified messaging. And it is being operationalized on a transport layer: a mobile networking infrastructure (e.g., 4G LTE; FirstNet; IP-based interoperable platform) to deliver this [converged] rich information at the tactical edge to the first responder in the field.  This connectivity works both ways (inbound / outbound). The first responder(s) and commanders at the incident site should not only be able to communicate, capture information, query databases and stream multimedia information but also share what they have onsite with cohorts and/or reach back into the chain of command.

This degree of connectivity, communicability and flexibility made possible by the evolution of technology is both a boon and if not designed well from a human factors standpoint a bane.  

In this article, I briefly discuss the "boons." That is, how technology when designed well, by taking into consideration human factors (cognitive/physical capabilities & limitations) and organizational structure and cultures in which they perform, can amplify first responder capability. In other words, become a force multiplier.

Consider firefighting (structure and wildland fires), where both voice and data integration is being explored by equipment manufacturers and first responder organizations. This includes, but is not limited to, transporting data -- e.g., database interrogation, remote sensing, and telemetry, or computing data in situ, as part of a cognitive computing or intelligent network.  This may include a variety of data sets that range from alarm type, incidence location, geo-location, building layouts, hazmat info, etc., for structure fires; and meteorology, topology, fuel source,, etc., for wildland firefighting.  Last, but not least, some of the industry players are also moving towards tracking individual fire fighter's physiological measures, location / presence, etc., to monitor health, safety and performance, on the fire ground.

Next, let us look at law enforcement, which I will use to explain the elements of what is known as a "socio-technical system" or STS. If a police officer has to succeed at the tactical edge, s/he needs to be networked and connected with the rest of the players and technologies that make it happen. This amalgamation of personnel and technology(s) in an organization, with its own culture, structure, goals, and how it utilizes technology to get work done, is a "socio-technical system."  

Law Enforcement Socio-Technical System (People + Technology)

Brief HVHF note on how technology may either hinder or amplify first responder performance at the tactical edge. Available here.

Thus the design of a network or a handheld device can't be seen in isolation. If they have to be effective, their design should take into consideration both human interaction with it and how well it is integrated to accomplish organizational goals.  For example, wireless communication dead-spots, frequent outages, slow network speeds, sub-optimal preempting/prioritizing & squelching protocols or difficulty in maintaining the system or troubleshooting equipment can result in inefficiencies, low throughput and loss (human lives to property) in a first responder context.  Furthermore, it needs to take into account cultural and structural factors such as chain of command dynamics, centralization vs. decentralization, conformity vs. customizablity, operational doctrine, cultural power distance, short term thinking vs. long term orientation, policies, politics, intra/inter-organizational issues, budgets (equipment to training), etc.

So what is the ideal architecture for the human-machine interface for first responder technology?  How does one filter raw Data, to identify mission critical & essential Information that are relevant to the incident.  Next, put that information into context -- so that it is transmuted into actionable Knowledge for all stakeholders at the incident-site (e.g., enriching situation awareness and mental models of the progress & containment of the fire, search & rescue, safety, etc., for fire fighters & commanders). See Figure below. 

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RAW DATA (when filtered for relevancy) → (and put into context, inline with current goals) turns into mission critical & eseential INFORMATION → (when this information is presented in a format, mode or medium where it could be accurately understood) then it turns into useful and actionable KNOWLEDGE 

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To accomplish the above goal, a data rich ecosystem should, of course, first be data-driven, but then should be information-based and knowledge-led to be successful. This could be accomplished by abstracting the human-technology interface into three layers:

1. physical / graphical user-interface (provides the perceptual gist from a semiotic and affordances standpoint); 
2. cognitive interface (couples the physical / graphical user-interface's affordances, semiotic & information architecture with the work-related goals and mental models of the technology that the user brings to the task -- which produces a conceptual gist in his/her mind); 
3. epistemological interface (aiding via predictive/prescriptive analytics and enabling the comprehension of relevant, goal supporting information -- nudging the human agent to take a certain course of action (CoA) among a set of choices, resulting in a CoA gist). 

The means to this end could range from exploiting commercial off-the-shelf technologies that might range from hardware or software / apps; or it might involve developing new products (if none exist off-the-shelf) to close the gap. 

But how does one determine what is the appropriate technological solution? Applying technology for technology's sake, or because it is there, is a dangerous proposition in a first responders' world. It could occlude his senses (e.g., poorly designed heads-up display), diminish situation awareness, not constructively aid decision making on the fly, which might eventually lead to the misuse or disuse of expensive technology; or worse yet, may result in wrong decisions and lead to catastrophic outcomes. 

Thus, first and foremost, we need to understand what is that we are trying solve. It begins by asking the right questions. The place to begin is cognitive ethnography (field research) to actually observe first responders performing their work in the field. It could be real events in real time and/or simulated ones like drills. (Asking questions to first responders in a closed room, out of context, via a focus group may provide partial answers. They are unlikely to be accurate; people say things that they thought they did in a time stressed situation, but in reality they may never have done it. Memory is fragile. It is distorted due to stress, lapses and  decay due to passage of time). 

The data collected from cognitive ethnography should be followed by a rigorous human factors design analysis to ideate, innovate and conceptualize usable and utilitarian solutions. 

The last step is to identify technology that can be either adapted off-the-shelf or developed from scratch. They are the portable / wearable / mobile / fixed devices, network infrastructure, and platforms (data centers, transport, service architectures) -- their form factors and user-interfaces -- that will accomplish the above stated goal of developing usable and utilitarian solution for first responders.

Thus when a technology is designed with a user-centered focus and driven by human and socio-technical factors, it can turn it into a great boon -- a "force multiplier" by delivering the following benefits:

• Context sensitive information that yields knowledge (situation awareness, sensemaking, accurate analytics-driven decision-aiding).
• Hyper-intuitive user-experience, even under stress (when first responders' cognitive resources are depleted), that makes technology second nature and delivering utility to the first responder at the tactical edge or for personnel in the back-end of the system.
• Effective C2 (command & control): Locus of control for commander and emergency managers; and resilient delivery of first response and emergency services.

So before we conclude how cool that Google Glass will be on a first responder or Siri voice interface for light and siren controls inside a police car; or as a technologist get on the drawing board to design something from scratch; or as a purchaser in a first responder department making a purchase decision about a particular vendor's technology; let us pause and ask ourselves what is that we are trying to solve?: both from the back-end and at the tactical edge.

About the author:

Moin Rahman is a Principal Scientist at HVHF Sciences, LLC. He specializes in:

"Designing systems and solutions for human interactions when stakes are high, moments are fleeting and actions are critical."

For more information, please visit:

http://hvhfsciences.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman

HVHF Article Archive: http://hvhfsciences.blogspot.com/

E-mail: hvhf33322@gmail.com

Preventing Tragedies in Wildland Fire Fighting

We mourn the loss of 19 of the very best and brave wildland fire fighters, the Granite Mountain Hotshots*, at Yarnell Hill (Prescott), Arizona. As painful as this loss was, it behooves us, the scientific research community, to advance our understanding of fire science and fire fighter human factors to prevent such future tragedies. 

*Hotshots are an elite group of wildland firefighters, with a demanding regimen of physical and fire science training. They carry around 40 - 50 lbs. of gear, food, water, fire shelters, etc., and are dropped-off as a small group, where they fight the fire on their own. For example, they create a fire line, by starving the fire of its fuel (getting rid of brush, dry chaparral, brittle oak brush etc.) to keep the fire from spreading. They have a lookout who observes the wind patterns, weather, progression of fire, etc., on the fireground in real time, to help the firefighters develop their strategy and tactics -- and keep them safe. (A video of the Granite Mountain Hotshots that was filmed in April 2012 is available below this article.)

Started by a lightning strike on Friday, the fire spread to 8,000 acres. (Via NY Times)

Given the nature of the events at Yarnell Hill -- a burnover where the wind radically shifted suddenly and the flames changed direction without warning engulfing the Granite Mountain Hotshots -- posing the following research questions and finding answers may close the gap in our current knowledge on wildland firefighting. Thus enhancing risk assessment, situation awareness and decision making of firefighters and their commanders, supplemented with advances in communication, sensing and computing technologies that truly deliver utility, usability and safety to the crew on the fireground.

• Computational modeling of fire fighting by treating it as a physical & socio-technical complex systems. This complex system will consist of various heterogeneous agents (physical and human) -- fuel source (for the fire), heat intensity, oxygen levels, wind patterns and fire fighters' characteristics (knowledge, skills, abilities, training, physical fitness, cognitive readiness, experience -- i.e., capabilities & limitations). Furthermore, the human / organizational (socio-technical) element will encompass operational strategies and tactics (protocols), equipment and machines.  Thus these various agents produce their own signals and interact with other agents at the boundaries (a.k.a., signal-boundaries of a "dynamic generated systems" in complexity and chaos theory). This modeling may enable the commander and his/her crew to predict in near real time the behavior of the fire and effort/resources needed to starve it off fuel and oxygen to bring it under control; advise received, as needed from a central command center, who develop a macro level situation awareness with computational model providing proactive decision support;

The above picture from AZCentral.com

• Advance research in fire fighter (human) sensemaking, situation awareness and naturalistic decision making of complex scenarios in volatile, high stakes and complex settings to understand the fidelity and validity of situation assessment. Understand how firefighters / commander makes a decision on how to engage or disengage from a fire and how do they perceive risks (loss / gain) and probabilities to inform their decision making in real time.

Note the communication gear, the 2-way radio in front -- and inside the radio pocket -- of the harness on the Fire Jacket. 

(Communication and Computing technology is discussed in the next bullet point)

"Rick Cowell, the 55-year-old superintendent of the Tahoe Hotshots, addressing his crew during the Stafford blaze." *Photographer:* Kyle Dickman  via Outside Magazine

• Signal and imaging technologies (aerial and geospatial sensing and analysis), including command and control (radio communications and computing), that best integrate human and systems to enhance safety. The design of radio communications between the "lookout" and the "hotshots" on the fire ground -- as well as group communications between centralized command & control, lookout and hotshots (shared situation awareness) -- are vital to enhance situation awareness. In other words, comprehend the current conditions, particularly risks and hazards arising due to the fuel source and wind/weather patterns; and, more importantly, project the future trajectory and progression of the fire. Furthermore, the utility and use of large screen, data / computing devices on the fireground for use by the lookout or the hotshot squad leader, where data is fed from ground / aerial sensors (e.g., dropsondes) and video/images from central servers, should be investigated. Even though, this technology may provide valuable thermal and weather intelligence, it also poses the danger of cognitive / attentional tunneling and information overload causing the firefighters to loose situation awareness of dangers in the immediate physical  vicinity.

Thus it is vital to formulate the right research questions, find answers in terms of training and technologies, to prevent future tragedies resulting from volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous factors, time stress -- that are inherent to wild land fire fighting.

Video: Granite Mountain Hotshots

 

This video of the Granite Mountain Hotshots was filmed in April 2012. Chillingly, it shows the crew practicing the deployment of their fire shelters (aluminum foil and silica sacks that reflect radiant heat). Prior to this tragic and wicked conflagration the Prescott Fire Department -Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew had never before been forced to deploy shelters in a fire. The LAST RESORT... Fire shelters have saved the lives of nearly 300 firefighters since 1977. Story credit: Stand with Arizona standwitharizona.com 

Thanks to -- and via -- Brotherhood of Fire 

News Articles

NPR: "19 Firefighters Killed In Ariz. Wildfire Called Deadliest In Decade"

PBS Newshour Video Report:  
Part 1: Ariz. Inferno Kills Elite Firefighters

Part 2: Firefighters Who Perished in Arizona Faced High Heat, 'One of the Hardest' Tasks

AZ Central: Wildfire experts: More than 1 factor spawned Yarnell tragedy

Further Reading:
Outside Magazine, on being a Hotshot: IN THE LINE OF WILDFIRE 

About the author:

Moin Rahman is a Principal Scientist at HVHF Sciences, LLC. He specializes in:

"Designing systems and solutions for human interactions when stakes are high, moments are fleeting and actions are critical."

http://hvhfsciences.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman 

E-mail: moin.rahman@hvhfsciences.com

Designing Hyper-Intuitive User Interactions for Mission & Safety-Critical Domains

INTRODUCTION

Moin Rahman, Principal Scientist, HVHF Sciences, presents the Direct Perception-Action Coupling (DPAC) approach to design hyper-intuitive user-interactions between professional end-users and mission critical products, particularly in high stakes and time compressed situations. The DPAC approach is particularly applicable to inform the design of technology (computers, communication, devices, cockpits, life sustaining devices, etc.) in safety critical domains such as warfighting, firefighting, emergency medicine, aviation, automobiles, among others.

PRESENTATION

Note: On a related topic, you will also find this post on Designing NexGen Products: Bending the Users' Learning Curve of interest.

REFERENCES

Rahman, M., Balakrishnan, G., & Bergin, T. (2011). Designing Human-Machine Interfaces for Naturalistic Perceptions, Decisions and Actions occurring in Emergency Situations. Theoretical Issues in Ergonomics Science. Vol. 13(3), 358-379.
Available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1463922X.2010.506561

Rahman, M. (2012). Direct Perception-Action Coupling: A Neo-Gibsonian Model for Critical Human-Machine Interactions under Stress.  In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 56th Annual Meeting. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.
Available online at: http://pro.sagepub.com/content/56/1/1401.abstract?etoc

"Smart" Embodied Interactions - Examples

Caterpillar M-Series Moto Grader (latest model)  - 
Note: More than 15 levers present in the previous model were replaced with two joy sticks that encapsulate the DPAC approach discussed in the presentation.

NEST Learning Thermostat

Black & Decker Gyro Screw Driver

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Moin Rahman

Founder/Principal Scientist

HVHF Sciences, LLC

"Designing systems and solutions for human interactions when stakes are high, moments are fleeting and actions are critical."

http://hvhfsciences.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/moinrahman