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The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) obligates national governments to ensure the protection and safety of persons with disabilities in emergency situations. This article examines the application and accessibility of state-of-the-art ICT solutions in emergency situations. Research has indeed shown that the design and implementation of evacuation procedures in emergency situations play a critical role in ensuring personal safety and protection. While research has examined the experiences of persons including persons with disabilities in emergency situations, research has yet to examine fully the role that cutting-edge indoor navigation solutions including, for example, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile device and big data analytics hardware and software, in simultaneously ensuring the safety and protection of persons with disabilities and everyone from a universal design perspective. Emerging research on IoT indoor navigation solutions has shown that networks of low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) beacons paired with a mobile application provide a usable wayfinding solution for persons with disabilities in laboratory and controlled experimental settings. This article fills this gap by asking "To what extent can BLE networks ensure the safety and protection of persons with disabilities and everyone in simulated emergency situations? Data from a multimethod study of user experience in emergency evacuations shows that BLE beacon networks could provide a more accessible user experience for persons with disabilities and everyone to evacuate indoor environments during emergency situations. ; acceptedVersion

City resilience is a pressing issue for city stakeholders, as disasters frequently occur while citizens are often not prepared for unexpected events. The Smart Mature Resilience project has developed a Resilience Maturity road-map for cities to achieve a higher mature level of resilience. This road-map is a basis for tackling two System Dynamics modeling challenges: How to design a model that allows users to perceive the importance of adopting policies that are in line with the sequence in the road-map? And how to design a model that shows the consequences of policy adoption in terms of budget and the resilience improvement reflected by the resilience indicators? The paper analyzes and compares two alternative structures for exploring resilience policies to be used by city stakeholders. Our focus is on exploring the behavior of the model and selecting a policy structure that is realistic and likely to generate a useful learning experience.

As a result of several governments closing educational facilities in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, almost 80% of the world's students were not in school for several weeks. Schools and universities are thus increasing their efforts to leverage educational resources and provide possibilities for remote learning. A variety of educational programs, platforms, and technologies are now accessible to support student learning; while these tools are important for society, they are primarily concerned with the dissemination of theoretical material. There is a lack of support for hands-on laboratory work and practical experience. This is particularly important for all disciplines related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), where labs and pedagogical assets must be continuously enhanced in order to provide effective study programs. In this study, we describe a unique perspective to achieving multi-sensory learning through the integration of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) with haptic wearables in STEM education. We address the implications of a novel viewpoint on established pedagogical notions. We want to encourage worldwide efforts to make fully immersive, open, and remote laboratory learning a reality.

International audience ; This paper presents the EU H2020 project Smart Mature Resilience, which takes advantage of the fact that many cities are committed to become increasingly resilient and have ongoing processes for urban resilience. Smart Mature Resilience develops resilience management guidelines based on a Resilience Maturity Model that engages a growing number of stakeholders and multi-level governance in order for cities to become vertebrae for society's resilience backbone. In a dual approach, employing a systematic literature review of international resilience implementation approaches alongside group processes with experts, the Smart Mature Resilience project has developed a preliminary resilience maturity model consisting of five stages Starting, Moderate, Advanced, Robust and verTebrate (SMART) and a Systemic Risk Assessment Questionnaire. The SMART Resilience Maturity Model suggests two principal processes for the transition to resilience maturity: (1) A process of increasing engagement and collaboration with new stakeholder types, from local, to regional, to national to European in a growing resilience backbone, and (2) a process of quality improvement of policies for transitioning from a Safety-I to a Safety-II perspective (from risk assessment & mitigation to adaption to future surprises as conditions evolve).

Accepted manuscript version. Published version available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2016.01.013 . Accepted manuscript version, licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. ; The 'Declaration concerning the prevention of unregulated high seas fishing in the central Arctic Ocean' signed by the Arctic 5 nations, limits unregulated high seas fishing in the central part of the Arctic Ocean, and holds potential social, economic and political impacts for numerous stakeholders. In this paper, the four Interim Measures in the Declaration are discussed and what value these measures bring beyond the existing international agreements is explored. It is found that even though the Declaration fills a gap in the management of potential fish stocks in the central Arctic Ocean, adopts an appropriate precautionary approach and encourages joint research activities, there are both opportunities and challenges connected to its implementation. The most valuable and urgent Interim Measure is that of joint scientific cooperation, which will facilitate more region-specific research and an increased understanding of the fisheries as well as the broader Arctic environment. Furthermore, the research generated by this measure will provide an important decision base for both regulation and management of human activity in the Arctic.