An intelligent situation awareness support system for safety-critical environments

Naderpour, M; Lu, J; Zhang, G

An intelligent situation awareness support system for safety-critical environments

Naderpour, M

Lu, J

Zhang, G

Permalink

Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Decision Support Systems, 2014, 59 (1), pp. 325 - 340
Issue Date:: 2014-03-01

Open Access

Copyright Clearance Process

Recently Added
In Progress
Open Access

This item is open access.

Adobe PDF

Download Accepted Manuscript VersionAdobe PDF (1.22 MB)

View on publisher's site

View statistics

Full metadata record

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Naderpour, M https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3549-3875	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Lu, J https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0690-4732	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Zhang, G https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3960-0583	en_US
dc.date.available	2020-05-25T19:04:14Z
dc.date.issued	2014-03-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Decision Support Systems, 2014, 59 (1), pp. 325 - 340	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0167-9236	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/36960
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/36961
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/32968
dc.description.abstract	Operators handling abnormal situations in safety-critical environments need to be supported from a cognitive perspective to reduce their workload, stress, and consequent error rate. Of the various cognitive activities, a correct understanding of the situation, i.e. situation awareness (SA), is a crucial factor in improving performance and reducing error. However, existing system safety researches focus mainly on technical issues and often neglect SA. This study presents an innovative cognition-driven decision support system called the situation awareness support system (SASS) to manage abnormal situations in safety-critical environments in which the effect of situational complexity on human decision-makers is a concern. To achieve this objective, a situational network modeling process and a situation assessment model that exploits the specific capabilities of dynamic Bayesian networks and risk indicators are first proposed. The SASS is then developed and consists of four major elements: 1) a situation data collection component that provides the current state of the observable variables based on online conditions and monitoring systems, 2) a situation assessment component based on dynamic Bayesian networks (DBN) to model the hazardous situations in a situational network and a fuzzy risk estimation method to generate the assessment result, 3) a situation recovery component that provides a basis for decision-making to reduce the risk level of situations to an acceptable level, and 4) a human-computer interface. The SASS is partially evaluated by a sensitivity analysis, which is carried out to validate DBN-based situational networks, and SA measurements are suggested for a full evaluation of the proposed system. The performance of the SASS is demonstrated by a case taken from US Chemical Safety Board reports, and the results demonstrate that the SASS provides a useful graphical, mathematically consistent system for dealing with incomplete and uncertain information to help operators maintain the risk of dynamic situations at an acceptable level. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.	en_US
dc.relation	http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP110103733
dc.relation.ispartof	Decision Support Systems	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1016/j.dss.2014.01.004	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Information Systems	en_US
dc.title	An intelligent situation awareness support system for safety-critical environments	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	1	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	59	en_US
utslib.for	080105 Expert Systems	en_US
utslib.for	080108 Neural, Evolutionary and Fuzzy Computation	en_US
utslib.for	080605 Decision Support and Group Support Systems	en_US
utslib.for	01 Mathematical Sciences	en_US
utslib.for	08 Information and Computing Sciences	en_US
utslib.for	15 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Computer Science
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Information, Systems and Modelling
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CAI - Centre for Artificial Intelligence
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CAMGIS - Centre for Advanced Modelling and Geospatial lnformation Systems
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.issue	1	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	59	en_US

Abstract:

Operators handling abnormal situations in safety-critical environments need to be supported from a cognitive perspective to reduce their workload, stress, and consequent error rate. Of the various cognitive activities, a correct understanding of the situation, i.e. situation awareness (SA), is a crucial factor in improving performance and reducing error. However, existing system safety researches focus mainly on technical issues and often neglect SA. This study presents an innovative cognition-driven decision support system called the situation awareness support system (SASS) to manage abnormal situations in safety-critical environments in which the effect of situational complexity on human decision-makers is a concern. To achieve this objective, a situational network modeling process and a situation assessment model that exploits the specific capabilities of dynamic Bayesian networks and risk indicators are first proposed. The SASS is then developed and consists of four major elements: 1) a situation data collection component that provides the current state of the observable variables based on online conditions and monitoring systems, 2) a situation assessment component based on dynamic Bayesian networks (DBN) to model the hazardous situations in a situational network and a fuzzy risk estimation method to generate the assessment result, 3) a situation recovery component that provides a basis for decision-making to reduce the risk level of situations to an acceptable level, and 4) a human-computer interface. The SASS is partially evaluated by a sensitivity analysis, which is carried out to validate DBN-based situational networks, and SA measurements are suggested for a full evaluation of the proposed system. The performance of the SASS is demonstrated by a case taken from US Chemical Safety Board reports, and the results demonstrate that the SASS provides a useful graphical, mathematically consistent system for dealing with incomplete and uncertain information to help operators maintain the risk of dynamic situations at an acceptable level. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/32968