Contingency Planning

Court system plays a central role in the constitution in the United States, as information technology now involving in almost all aspects of the daily life, for businesses, government agencies, and individual’s activities. Courts also dependents on information technology, in computerize case management systems, electronic filing, electronic retrieval, and communications systems. Disasters can strike court systems as all other systems in the United States, as a natural disaster, and / or Human made disasters, therefor, having a plan that can help protect the systems, and data of the courts is an essential. The need of having a correct and affective disaster recovery, and business continuity plans efforts need to be taken serially and essential.

The tendency towards maximizing economic benefits has led power systems utilities to run close to the limits of stable operation. This has necessitated the study of the stressed situation of the power system network to accomplish efficient energy management without losing its reliability. On-line monitoring of power system stability has become a vital factor for electric utilities. An effective method for real-time monitoring of system status and thus voltage collapse prediction is described. The proposed technique investigates each line of the system through calculating an indicator that varies from 0 (no load condition) to 1 (maximum permissible loading condition). The basic concept of maximum power transfer through a line is utilized. The proposed contingency evaluation technique is applied on the IEEE 24 bus and IEEE 6 bus reliability test system and is found to be accurate in assessing the stressful status of the lines.

Question
What lessons have been identified from previous humanitarian contingency planning exercises in advance of large-scale military operations?

Summary
The majority of the literature seems to focus on humanitarian contingency planning for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and other older cases such as Kosovo. It is difficult to identify what pre-planning may or may not have been undertaken, as political sensitivities and the tendency for military secrecy around large-scale military operations means that few specific details are publicly available. However, a number of organisations have conducted evaluations, including independent evaluations, of their planning and preparation. Others have also reflected on lessons learned in grey and academic literature.

Contingency planning needs to consistently: integrate gender and protection issues; consider low probability events that would have high risk; anticipate a large outflow of refugees where there are large numbers of internally displaced persons; and should not neglect the medium and longer term.
Lessons learned include:
◾Good expertise and political analysis, from all actors involved is required to properly assess the situation on the ground. Decisions made at higher levels may be less accurate as to the situation on the ground.
◾Effective coordination requires all agencies, including the military, to engage in transparent planning. It also requires coordination mechanisms to be clear and for roles to be clarified to avoid confusion in the field. This can be time-consuming.
◾Local actors often have greater acceptance within communities than new agencies coming to deliver aid, and should be identified as potential partners in advance. For external agencies, an established presence and existing relationships with local partners are important for preparedness and response.
◾Mapping can help indicate what supplies are available locally and where IDPs may flee following military action. Pre-positioning humanitarian supplies at the local level prior to military action can assist emergency response.
◾Military forces should have a good knowledge of how international relief operations function and respect their principles in order to work well together. High turnover of troops may require frequent training for new military actors.

A range of different institutions comprise the system ofpublic inquiry into deaths and disasters in the United Kingdom. This paper analyses the roles these institutions play in the investigation of cause, in the allocation of blame and in the formal construction of those events. It will ...

This article presents the results of research into vulnerability to crime in two economic sectors in Belgium. Vulnerability to crime is an integration of diverse temporal factors. Borrowing from Zedner, we address pre-crime and post-crime aspects of vulnerability, arising before and after the criminal event in an economic context. Within this temporal frame, four sub-dimensions of vulnerability to crime are identified: opportunity to commit a crime, inadequate checks and controls within the business or sector, a lack of ability to recover from a crime and lack of adaptation after a crime. Based on inductive interviews with professionals, security staff, law enforcement agents and with criminals in the transport sector and the hotel and catering industry, a study of police files, and inspired by ecologists’ work on resilience, we explore vulnerability to crime as a multifaceted factor undermining the sustainability of businesses. This conceptualisation of vulnerability accepts uncert...

... An effective crisis management and business continuity training plan will need to resort to many different, complementary methodologies (eg lectures, case studies, seminars, table-top, controlEdward Borodzicz and Kees Van Haperen ... Edward Borodzicz and Kees Van Haperen ...