Emergency Management

How bureaucracies interact with Indigenous Fire Stewardship (IFS): a conceptual framework (Journal article)

Fire Ecology, online 28 August 2024

Indigenous Fire Stewardship (IFS) is contested within settler-colonial contexts, where its development is shaped by complex and dynamic socio-cultural, legal, and political factors. This manuscript draws from the policy sciences to sketch out a “zone of interaction” between IFS and the state’s wildfire policy system. Drawing from the strategies of bureaucracies, our goal is to illustrate the patterns in this “zone of interaction,” and to identify the implications for IFS, as well as for Indigenous Peoples and landscapes. The authors share insights from the Australian and Canadian contexts where governments are restoring lands and reconciling with the laws and governance of Indigenous Peoples, illustrating how IFS interacts with the state. 

Use this Fire Ecology link to read the article online.

Building age-inclusive disaster risk reduction: Insights among geographically mobile young adults in regional Australia (Report)

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Volume 113, October 2024

This paper identifies the need to pair life-stage with disaster risk reduction (DRR) objectives to improve understandings of what counts as ‘inclusion’ and ‘participation’. Community centred DRR is viewed as the gold standard, linking local networks, skills, capacities and knowledges together with government and nongovernment supports. However, despite the best of intentions young adults still experience exclusion due in part to adult centrism because initiatives are largely curated by adults. While research has sought to address this bias, outmigration by young adults at key life-stages creates an additional barrier. Interviews with young adults aged 18–30 in a bushfire affected area of Australia were conducted three years after disaster. Findings suggest participation is an essentially contested concept among adults and young adults, leading to tension and entrenched age-based exclusion.

Use this ScienceDirect link to read the article online.

Compassion in disaster management : the essential ethic of relational leadership (Book)

By Mark Crosweller, 2025

Should leadership minimize suffering? This book argues yes: offering leaders, especially those in disaster management, a way to improve their ability to lead, serve, and protect others during disasters and crises. Drawing upon his own experiences as a disaster management specialist as well as high-level interviews with disaster management leaders from the USA, Australia and New Zealand, Crosweller bridges theory and practice to achieve three objectives. An essential text for aspiring and experienced leaders, especially those in the fields of EMS, fire services, law enforcement, and emergency management. It will also appeal to students and researchers in related disciplines.

Contact the library to borrow this book. 

Catastrophic Incentives : Why Our Approaches to Disasters Keep Falling Short (Book)

By Jeffrey Schlegelmilch and Ellen Carlin, 2023

As the frequency and severity of national and global disasters mount, little attention is being paid to the efficacy of the systems in place for dealing with this reality. Individual programs are tweaked in response to events-modifications to flood insurance regulations, improved building codes to withstand earthquakes, federal support for pandemic vaccines-but considerations of the overall model for implementation are almost entirely lacking. Jeffrey Schlegelmilch and Ellen Carlin show that an understanding how and why these structures work and do not work to foster resilience can help lead us toward more meaningful approaches to recovery when catastrophe strikes.

Contact the library to borrow this book. 

Australian Government crisis management framework (Report)

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia), September 2024

The framework outlines the arrangements enabling the Australian Government’s ‘all hazards’ crisis management approach. This approach is a continuum of: prevention; preparedness; response; and recovery. However, the main focus of the Crisis Framework is near term crisis preparedness, immediate crisis response and early crisis recovery arrangements. Long-term disaster risk reduction and resilience building activities are not covered in detail in this Crisis Framework. Crises may include (but are not limited to) terrorist incidents, cyber incidents, health pandemics, animal diseases, natural disasters and incidents affecting Australians and/or Australian interests overseas.

Use this PMC link to read the report online.

Insurance catastrophe resilience report 2023-24 (Report)

By Insurance Council of Australia, August 2024

This report shows that the impact of extreme weather on the Australian economy has more than tripled over the last three decades. Insured losses from declared insurance catastrophes have grown from 0.2 of GDP from 1995 to 2000 to 0.7 per cent for the last five years, meaning extreme weather losses are consuming more and more of our economic resources.

Use this Insurance Council link to read the report online.

Police sergeants and disaster management during Australia’s Black Summer bushfire crisis (Journal article)

Policing and Society, online 19 September 2024

The police sergeant, or equivalent supervisor, is the glue that binds police units together, assigns workloads, and distributes organisational power from ‘above’ to ensure that those in the field play fairly and by the rules. Yet very little empirical research has been undertaken to examine the work of sergeants or consider how these roles impact the ability of police and their partners to manage critical incidents, including complex disasters. Drawing on a case study of disaster policing during Australia’s Black Summer bushfires, this paper examines how police sergeants with two distinct emergency management roles leveraged their authority, relationships, and knowledge to support the effective management of this incident. Using composite accounts, it illustrates how both sergeants drew upon and adapted traditional understandings of their role to negotiate the perceived deficiencies of command-and-control and networked features of complex disaster management systems. The case studies illustrate how the officers’ positionalities (organisationally, geographically, and systemically) enhanced their sensemaking abilities during the crisis, and they utilised their recognised authority, relationships, and soft skills to inform, nudge, and influence a wide range of stakeholders. The paper reveals that police sergeants may be uniquely positioned to assist with the coordination of increasingly complex disaster management assemblages at a time when the neoliberal state’s ability to even ‘steer’ these effectively is increasingly called into question.

Use this Taylor & Francis link to read the article online.

Community Engagement/Media

Stakeholder Perceptions of Wildfire Mitigations for Homes Multi-Audience Survey Research (US Report)

NFPA, August 2024

According to NFPA, today there are some 45 million homes at risk to wildfire in the United States. To reduce the loss from wildfires, these structures must be retrofitted to reduce the risk of ignition.  However, we largely rely on voluntary initiatives to make these changes. This only goes so far and action is needed from government, insurers, and other stakeholders to aid in these initiatives.  In order to better message about these regulations and effective mitigation actions, more information is needed about stakeholder perceptions about mitigations for existing structures and motivations for taking action.  Stakeholders include homeowners, local government officials, and fire departments. The objective of this project was to gather information about stakeholder perceptions about wildfire mitigations and risk through surveys implemented in both California and Oregon, which both face elevated wildfire risks.  The survey targeted government officials, local fire departments, and residents in both states.  The information from the surveys will be used to help develop effective messaging strategies about wildfire risk and mitigations.

Use this NFPA link to read the report online.

The NFPA Journal article, "Survey Says", that discusses the report is online here.

Who Drives Disaster Communication? An Analysis of Twitter Network Structure and Influence during a Wildfire Crisis (Journal article)

Western Journal of Communication Vol 88, July 2024

Oregon’s Almeda Fire destroyed over 2,000 residences and displaced thousands of people who evacuated with little warning or guidance from official or traditional media sources. Results of this social network analysis of 12,193 tweets from the active stage of the crisis show a clear clustered network structure, with citizens playing a more influential role in crisis information diffusion than government or media accounts. Additionally, some of the most widely shared information from nonlocal media accounts was misinformed or inaccurate. Findings suggest that crisis leaders should work to cultivate relationships with influential citizen journalists in wildfire-prone areas.

Contact the library to request a copy of this article.

Natural Environment

Australian Geographic - latest issue Australia's foremost geographical destination magazine for over 30 years, the beautifully presented stories and photography in this magazine looks at Australian landscapes, plants and animals, science, industry and people Contact the library to find out how RFS members can access this title and others in our eMagazine collection.

The influence of fire mosaics on mammal occurrence in north-western Australia (Journal article)

Fire Ecology, online 19 September 2024

Understanding the relationship between fire and species habitat preferences is critical in an era of rapid environmental change. In northern Australia, large, intense, and frequent fires are thought to be a primary cause of mammal population declines, particularly through their influence on habitat suitability. Here, we used a large species presence database in combination with satellite-derived fire history data to assess the influence of fire attributes, including burn extent, frequency, and pyrodiversity, on the likelihood of occurrence of eight mammal species in north-west Western Australia.

Use this Fire Ecology link to read the article online.

Buried treasures: how seeds help us learn about fire in the Australian landscape (News science article)

The Conversation, online 11 September 2024

Fire is a natural part of Australian ecosystems. Many plants have developed ways to adapt and even thrive after fire. They may store their seeds in the soil, ready to sprout after fire. Or they may flower after fire, which helps them to produce the next generation of seeds. Most of what scientists know about plants and fire comes from studying what happens above ground. In the author’s new research, her colleagues and her examined what happens below ground, discovering the seedbank in each soil sample reflected its past experience of fire.

Use The Conversation link to read the article online.

Mental Health

Managing the impact of workplace trauma for Australian first responders: Harmonizing policy and practice (Journal article)

Public Money & Management, online 19 September 2024

Workers’ compensation costs are rising for first responder organizations, and mental health issues remain a serious concern for their employees. While advocates have long called for wellbeing programmes to address these challenges, this article evaluates the actual impact of such a programme. The authors explore the influence of team belongingness and a supportive work environment. While workplace trauma significantly affects the mental health of frontline workers, those who participated in the wellbeing programme and had strong team and organisational support reported lower psychological distress. The article highlights the importance of multi-level wellbeing interventions for the first responder workforce.

Use this Taylor & Francis link to read the article online.

Jilya : How one Indigenous woman from the remote Pilbara transformed psychology (Book)

By Tracy Westerman, 2024

From humble beginnings in the remote Pilbara, psychologist and Nyamal woman Tracy Westerman has redefined what’s possible at every turn. Despite neither of her parents progressing past primary school, and never having met a psychologist before attending university, Tracy went on to become the first Aboriginal person in Australia to complete a PhD in Clinical Psychology, rising to become one of the country’s foremost psychologists. Against significant odds, she commenced her own private business to challenge the way the mental health profession responds to cultural difference, and recently established a charitable foundation and scholarship program to mentor Indigenous people from our highest-risk communities to become psychologists.

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Motivation myth busters : science-based strategies to boost motivation in yourself and others (Book)

By Wendy S. Grolnick, Benjamin C. Heddy, and Frank C. Worrell, 2024

This book challenges common myths about motivation and offers readers strategies for successfully motivating themselves and others. Many unscientific and inaccurate ideas about motivation persist because they seem so logical, simple, or appealing. For example, we may say that someone is "unmotivated" and assume that this is just part of their personality, whereas in reality everyone is motivated and it's more likely that their inaction is related to their interests or to their environment. This book reveals the scientific truth about motivation. Readers will learn to identify and debunk ten persistent myths about motivation and replace those myths with accurate knowledge that will help them take positive steps toward their goals.

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The mindful body : thinking our way to chronic health (Book)

By Ellen J. Langer, 2023

A groundbreaking account of the power of our thoughts to improve our health-by the "mother of mindfulness" and first female tenured professor of psychology at Harvard When it comes to our health, too many of us think that a medical diagnosis describes a static or worsening condition. We then live our lives as though our ailments-our stiff knees or frayed nerves or failing eyesight-can only change in one direction: for the worse. A paradigm-shifting book by one of the great psychologists of the twenty-first century, The Mindful Body returns the control over our bodies back to us and reveals that a true understanding of health begins with our mindset.

Contact the library to borrow this book.   

Are you fire fit (Magazine article)

Wildfire Magazine, Q2, Sept 2024

A short article about if, as a wildland fire responder, are you prepared for wildfire season, and not just physically? Although your physical fitness is of great importance, what about your overall wellbeing? What about your mental and emotional preparedness? Have you been acquiring and practicing skills and tools, such as mindfulness, movement, and breathing?

Use this IAWF link to read the article online.

‘I’ve got no PPE to protect my mind’: understanding the needs and experiences of first responders exposed to trauma in the workplace (Journal article)

European Journal of Psychotraumatology, Vol 15 September 2024

First responders regularly experience traumatic events in their workplace which can bring about traumatic stress, which is further exacerbated by the demands and pressures of their jobs. First responders’ coping needs are not being met to a sufficient extent, especially in terms of psychological/mental health input. There is need for evidenced-based, easily accessible, occupation-specific trauma-focused interventions to support first responders with their mental health needs from occupational trauma-related stressors.

Use this Taylor & Francis link to read the article online.

(Fire)fighting the pandemic: PTSD and depression symptom profiles and longitudinal correlates (Journal article)

European Journal of Psychotraumatology, Vol 15 September 2024

Firefighters face regular exposure to potentially traumatic events, which is associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. Despite the high comorbidity, there remains limited understanding of the co-occurrence of PTSD and depression in terms of symptom patterns. Due to the unique stressors added by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is relevant to also understand this comorbidity in light of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Use this Taylor & Francis link to read the article online.

Safety and Health

Men's Health - latest issue The magazine that provides in-depth reporting on everything from fashion and grooming to health and nutrition -  articles aimed at improving men's physical, mental and emotional lives Contact the library to find out how RFS members can access this title and others in our eMagazine collection.

Blinded by smoke: Wildfire smoke exposure and eye irritation in Australian wildland firefighters (Journal article)

The ocular surface. September 2024

This study explored ocular symptoms and use of protective eyewear amongst wildland firefighters in Australia. Australian wildland firefighters were invited to complete an online survey about the occurrence of eye irritation, use of protective eyewear and behaviours associated with occupational smoke exposure. Responses were analysed using logistic regression and qualitative inductive content analysis. Firefighters reported that, at times smoke exposure necessitated eye closure and impaired vision on the fireground. Firefighters also reported that protective eyewear helped to reduce eye symptoms, but its consistent use on the fireground was difficult. The severity and recovery from eye symptoms varied between participants. Australian wildland firefighters frequently experience eye irritation from smoke exposure, and this can affect operational capabilities. These findings can support the development of evidence-based strategies to help protect and aid recovery of the eye surface following smoke exposure.

Use this ScienceDirect link to read the article online.

Stop blaming : create a restorative just culture (Book)

By Sidney Dekker, 2023

There’s been an incident in your organisation. People are impacted. You need to do something. How do you avoid blame, and how do you start learning and improving? This book tells you how to respond restoratively. It lays out how to bend your response away from rules and violations and consequences. And to stay away from flow-chart just cultures that supposedly try to match shades of culpability with suitable sanctions. Instead, it invites you to ask what the impacts are of the incident. And what needs to be done to fix those impacts. And whose obligation is it to go do that.

Contact the library to borrow this book.

Making Night Shift Work : A Practical Guide for the Night Worker (Book)

By Steve Frei, 2021

Night shift is a difficult time to work. Do you work at night and feel tired all the time? Would you like to feel energetic at work, and think more clearly? Would you like to get better sleep? Would you like to avoid the groggy feelings that many night shift workers face? Would you like to have a normal appetite again? And be happier and less irritable? Dr. Steve Frei has been a night-shift-working emergency physician for almost 40 years. Here is his practical guide to help you adapt to night shift in a scientifically based way. It answers your most difficult night shift questions: When should I sleep? How do I get to sleep easier? When can I exercise? Should I take sleeping pills? What can I do to stay awake and alert at work? Should I drink a lot of coffee? What about naps?

Contact the library to borrow this book.

Safety should be a performance driver (Journal article)

Harvard Business Review, Sept/Oct 2024

Safety is regarded as an indispensable right for customers and employees. Government agencies exist to enforce standards, and firms spend millions testing their products and creating safe workplace environments. And yet products are frequently recalled, and workplace accidents continue to happen. Why aren't companies doing better on safety? Most executives frame safety as a compliance issue. They see it as a cost and, consequently, they underinvest in it. They tend to treat safety as an abstract value rather than as a driver of performance. And when a safety crisis hits, they often react with unsustainable measures, generally aimed at managing their public image. To help companies get out of this rut, the authors present evidence that safety can be a key driver of performance. Then they offer a five-step process for leaders: align on the definition of safety, agree on which metrics to use, anticipate and prevent problems, customize safety training, and incentivise employees to adopt preventive behaviours.

Contact the library to request a copy of this article.

Defining clean (Journal article)

NFPA Journal, August 2024

An update on a groundbreaking US research effort to improve the cleaning and decontamination of personal protective equipment—a critical component in the growing awareness of firefighter health and safety

Use this NFPA link to read the article online.    

Wildland firefighters hit their STRIDE (ScienceDaily article)

University of Utah, September 2024

You're a hotshot working to contain a wildfire. The conflagration jumps the fire line, forcing your crew to flee using pre-determined escape routes. At the start of the day, the crew boss estimated how long it should take to get to the safety zone. With the flames at your back, you check your watch and hope they were right. Firefighters, disaster responders, rural health care workers and professionals in myriad other fields need a tool that incorporates all aspects of a landscape's structure to estimate travel times.

Use this ScienceDaily link to read the article online.

Use this Nature link to read the related journal article “A singular, broadly-applicable model for estimating on- and off-path walking travel rates using airborne lidar data” online           

Wildland Firefighter Work History and Clinical Indicators of Cardiovascular Health (Journal article)

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Vol 66, September 2024

The research is to determine the association between the occupational history as a wildland firefighter (WFF) and clinical indicators of cardiovascular health. Among 2862 WFFs, the authors evaluated associations between the number of total days assigned on fire and high-risk categories of three clinically measured cardiovascular indicators. Almost one-third (32%) of WFFs had one or more clinical measures that would place them in high-risk categories for body mass index, blood pressure, and total cholesterol. They concluded that more frequent screening and targeted health promotion programs for WFFs are warranted to increase awareness of cardiovascular risk and prevention strategies.

Contact the library to request a copy of this article.

Leadership and Management

Lessons in leadership: interviews with 11 of Australia's former Defence Ministers (Report)

By Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2024

In this collection of interviews, former Defence ministers from both sides of Australian politics give their views on topics ranging from the complexity of dealing with a massive department, to the grief they shared with families at the funerals of slain soldiers. The pieces are drawn from transcripts with former ASPI executive director Peter Jennings and links to the original video interviews are available in the report.

Use this ASPI link to read the report online.

What about the “soft factors”? Longitudinal effects of leadership behaviors on psychological resources of firefighters

(Journal article)

International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, September 2024

In addition to adequate training and reliable equipment, firefighters need robust psychological resources (e.g., self-efficacy, team cohesion) to sustain readiness for potential deployment in large-scale disasters. However, recurrent exposure to emergency situations in their every-day work poses a threat to psychological resources and jeopardises readiness. In this study, the authors examine how leaders in fire services support their subordinates in maintaining high levels of these resources. 

Use this Elsevier link to read the report online.
 

Fast Company - latest issue The quarterly magazine reporting about how the "fast companies"; entrepreneurs, and cutting-edge are doing what they do. Contact the library to find out how RFS members can access this title and others in our eMagazine collection.

Effective Fire Service Leadership: Point-to-Point Decision Making—the Why and the How

(Magazine article)

Fire Engineering, August 2024

The why of critical decision making is evident daily in fire and emergency services. Incident scenes are dynamic, ever changing, nonroutine, and dangerous. The how of critical decision making is a challenge that you won’t find in a checklist, chart, or algorithm. The delta, or gap, that exists between the how and the why is performance and execution. To measure fire service leadership, effective performance and execution are the usual benchmarks.

Use this library link to download the article.

New Rules for Teamwork (Journal article)

Harvard Business Review, Sept/Oct 2024

Not that long ago, teams were typically composed of people with similar skills working in the same place. Their efforts were based on the idea that by working together in a well-managed process, they could deliver replicable results. Today, companies of all types are called on to demonstrate integrated, cross-functional, project-based teamwork in their operations. New ideas about teamwork are emerging, some based on experience, some guided by new practices, some made up on the fly. But none of this has yet cohered into a systematic approach to improving how teams work. In this article, the authors set out new principles of teamwork that focus on continuous, real-time testing, learning, analysis, adaptation, and improvement.

Contact the library to request a copy of this article.

How to prepare now for what's next : a guide to thriving in an age of disruption (Book)

By Michael McQueen, 2018

Disruption is changing the playing field - keep your successful business on top. Thriving businesses on top of their game are targets for disruption. But for savvy business owners and managers who understand the coming changes, the time to future-proof their successful companies is now. Following over a decade of research into future trends, business reinvention and disruptive innovation, author Michael McQueen presents How to Prepare Now for What's Next, a blueprint for top companies to thrive in turbulent times.

Contact the library to borrow this book. 

The secure board : how to be confident that your organisation is cyber safe (Book)

By Anna Leibel, Claire Pales, 2021

With the collective global spend on cyber security projected to reach four hundred and thirty three billion dollars by 2030, the impact of cyber risk - be it reputational, financial or regulatory - must now be front of mind for all Directors. Written for current and aspiring Board members, The Secure Board provides the insights you need to ask the right questions, to give you the confidence your organisation is cyber-safe.

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The crux : how leaders become strategists (Book)

By Richard P. Rumelt, 2023

Leaders become strategists when they pinpoint the crux of the vital, basic, pivotal challenges they face - the problems that threaten future success and the dramatic opportunities for growth whose shape may be elusive and difficult to grasp - and then take powerful, coherent, decisive action to make progress toward building a better future. Leaders who are strategists have an ever-present alertness to rapidly evolving business, economic, and institutional challenges that threaten future success, fundamental values, even the existence of the organization. Finding the crux is the essential skill of the strategist, especially when challenging problems and opportunities defy easy solution and the forces at work are unclear.

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Change the conversation about change (Journal article)

TD : Talent Development, September 2024

The article discusses the importance of crafting a compelling narrative for successful organisational transformation. It highlights the challenges of effectively managing change and the high failure rate of change efforts. The article emphasises the need for a narrative that resonates with employees and addresses both the logical and emotional aspects of change. It also provides a framework with eight indicators to create an effective narrative, including vision, contextual information, cultural aspects, timing, personal relevance, relational impact, motivation, and emotional responses. 

Contact the library to request a copy of this article.

The art of leading teammates (Journal article)

Harvard Business Review, Sept/Oct 2024

When our society talks about leaders, we focus on formal roles, such as the CEO. This view undervalues the role of informal leaders—team members who influence outcomes by the tone they set, how they conduct themselves, and how they interact with their peers. Their job title doesn't include the word "manager," but they play an outsize role in how teams perform. In this article, NFL great Tom Brady and Nitin Nohria, of Harvard Business School, present a set of principles that people in any realm can apply to help teams successfully work together toward common goals.

Contact the library to request a copy of this article.

Meteorology and Climate Change

Living hot : surviving and thriving on a heating planet (Book)

By Clive Hamilton & George Wilkenfeld, 2024

In Living Hot, highly respected academic Clive Hamilton and policy consultant George Wilkenfeld shift the emphasis away from reducing carbon emissions and on to making Australia resilient, outlining a vision for an all-embracing and on-going program of investment and social change to protect ourselves from the ravages of a changing climate. Living Hot is a sober assessment of the challenges we face, and a farsighted road map for what we must do next if we want to survive and even thrive on our heating planet.

Contact the library to borrow this book. 

General

A periodic tale : my sciencey memoir (Book)

By Karl Kruszelnicki, 2024

How did a shy Polish immigrant kid - Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki - evolve into the fabulously eccentric Dr Karl? In this long-awaited autobiography, you will learn that it's okay not to have a linear path through life, and that by following our curiosities and our passions, we can bend the universe to our liking.

Contact the library to borrow this book. 

Nexus : a brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI  (Book)

By Yuval Noah Harari, 2024

From renowned historian and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari comes the story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world. Nexus considers how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age through the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill.

Contact the library to borrow this book. 

Storyshowing : how to stand out from the storytellers (Book)

By Sam Cawthorn, 2018

Storytelling has been shown to be one of the most effective methods of persuasion, motivation and inspiration, yet the disconnect remains - you're still only telling. To truly influence people, you need to go deeper than that - you need to show them your story. By inviting your audience in, you connect on a much deeper, more emotional level; you bypass the brain and connect at the root of what it means to be human, leaving a profound impact on their entire outlook. This book shows you how to transcend telling and start showing your story, using an easy-to-follow framework you can start applying today.

Contact the library to borrow this book. 

The long view : why we need to transform how the world sees time (Book)

By Richard Fisher, 2023

Humans are unique in our ability to understand time, able to comprehend the past and future like no other species. Yet modern-day technology and capitalism have supercharged our short-termist tendencies and trapped us in the present, at the mercy of reactive politics, quarterly business targets and 24-hour news cycles. It wasn't always so. As we face long-term challenges on an unprecedented scale, how do we recapture that far-sighted vision? Richard Fisher examines the psychological biases that discourage the long view, and talks to the growing number of people from the worlds of philosophy, technology, science and the arts who are exploring smart ways to overcome them.

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Talk like Ted : The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds (Book)

By Carmine Gallo, 2015

Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. In order to succeed, you need to be able to sell your ideas persuasively. This ability is the single greatest skill that will help you accomplish your dreams. TED Talks have redefined the elements of a successful presentation and become the gold standard for public speaking. Public speaking coach and bestselling author Carmine Gallo has broken down hundreds of TED talks and interviewed the most popular TED presenters, as well as the top researchers in the fields of psychology, communications, and neuroscience to reveal the nine secrets of all successful TED presentations. Gallo's step-by-step method makes it possible for anyone to deliver a presentation that is engaging, persuasive, and memorable.

Contact the library to borrow this book.

Aviation and Drones

Wildfire and smoke early detection for drone applications: A light-weight deep learning approach (Report)

Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Vol 136 October 2024

Drones have become a crucial element in current wildfire and smoke detection applications. Several deep learning architectures have been developed to detect fire and smoke using either colour-based methodologies or semantic segmentation techniques with impressive results. However, the computational demands of these models reduce their usability on memory-restricted devices such as drones. To overcome this memory constraint whilst maintaining the high detection capabilities of deep learning models, this paper proposes two lightweight architectures for fire and smoke detection in forest environments. 

Use this ScienceDirect link to read the article online.

Forest fire monitoring system supported by unmanned aerial vehicles and edge computing: a performance evaluation using petri nets

(Article)

Cluster Computing, Vol 27 October 2024

During the practical application of fire prevention, numerous detection techniques have been thoroughly researched to prevent devastating fires. The techniques improve early fire detection and accelerate emergency response, reducing damage and optimizing system containment operations. Wildfire detection requires a robust infrastructure for equipment, maintenance, and ongoing monitoring. Effective cooperation between components and integration of technologies is key to a consistent and comprehensive response to fires. This article proposes a fire monitoring system using drones, cameras, and edge computing technologies. We use Stochastic Petri Nets (SPN) to model the structure and evaluate the system's performance.

Contact the library to request a copy of this article.

Optimising disaster response: opportunities and challenges with Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) technology in response to the 2020 Labour Day wildfires in Oregon, USA (Journal)

By International Journal of Wildland Fire, online 30 July 2024

The expanding use of Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) technology in disaster response shows its immense potential to enhance emergency management. However, there is limited documentation on the challenges and data management procedures related to UAS operation. We document how Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) technology was used in the 2020 Labour Day wildfires in Oregon, USA. Information from a literature review, social media, and interviews with disaster responders were compiled. Qualitative analyses on the interview data synthesised typical UAS applications and highlighted challenges.

Please use this CSIRO link to read the article online.

An Integrated Quantitative Method of Risk Analysis and Decision Making for Safety Manipulation of a Forest Firefighting Aircraft by Using Physical Models of Multi-Hazard Factors (Journal article)

Heliyon, online September 2024

Although firefighting aircrafts are effective for fighting forest fires, they are affected by a variety of risks related to forest fires during flight operations such as thermal radiation, temperature rise, decrease in air density, and changes in updraft aerodynamics. However, quantifying these influences poses a challenge. Our research reveals that safety standards predominantly hinge on technical indicators like flight height, speed, and angle of attack, which makes it possible to quantify the above effects. A general method framework for analysing firefighting flight safety criteria was constructed in this thesis. Using relevant physical models, such as heat radiation, temperature, air density, and updraft in a forest fire environment, safety criteria with an analytical form were established. The corresponding safety constraints of each criterion were calculated quantitatively, and the most stringent constraint was determined based on multiple factors to obtain a comprehensive safety constraint boundary composed of the critical altitude, stall speed, and critical angle of attack. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is verified in a simulation case. The research results show that the constrained boundary calculation method proposed in this study can provide a scientific basis for the formulation of technical specifications for forest aviation fire safety and aviation fire task planning.

Use this ScienceDirect link to read the article online.