Evaluation of an inventory for the assessment of critical incidents involving football fans

Introduction: Fan violence is a frequent occurrence in Swiss football (Bundesamt für Polizei, 2015) leading to high costs for prevention and control (Mensch & Maurer, 2014). Various theories put forward an explanation of fan violence, such as the Elaborated Social Identity Model (Drury & Reicher, 2000) and the Aggravation Mitigation Model (Hylander & Guvå, 2010). Important observations from these theories are the multi-dimensional understanding of fan violence and the dynamics occurring in the fan group. Nevertheless, none of them deal with critical incidents (CIs) which involve a tense atmosphere combined with a higher risk of fan violence. Schumacher Dimech, Brechbühl and Seiler (2015) tackled this gap in research and explored CIs where 43 defining criteria were identified and compiled in an integrated model of CIs. The defining criteria were categorised in four higher-order themes “antecedents” (e.g. a documented history of fan rivalry), “triggers” (e.g. the arrest of a fan), “reactions” (e.g. fans masking themselves) and “consequences” (e.g. fans avoiding communication with fan social workers). Methods: An inventory based on this model is being developed including these 43 criteria. In an exploratory phase, this inventory was presented as an online questionnaire and was completed by 143 individuals. Three main questions are examined: Firstly, the individual items are tested using descriptive analyses. An item analysis is conducted to test reliability, item difficulty and discriminatory power. Secondly, the model’s four higher-order themes are tested using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Thirdly, differences between sub-groups are explored, such as gender and agerelated differences. Results: Respondents rated the items’ importance as high and the quota of incomplete responses was not systematic. Two items were removed from the inventory because of low mean or a high rate of “don’t know”-responses. EFA produced a six-factor solution grouping items into match-related factors, repressive measures, fans’ delinquent behaviour, intra-group behaviour, communication and control and inter-group factors. The item “fans consume alcohol” could not be ordered into any category but was retained since literature accentuates this factor’s influence on fan violence. Analyses examining possible differences between groups are underway. Discussion: Results exploring the adequacy of this inventory assessing defining criteria of CIs in football are promising and thus further evaluative investigation is recommended. This inventory can be used in two ways: as a standardised instrument of assessment for experts evaluating specific CIs and as an instrument for exploring differences in perception and assessment of a CI e.g. gender and age differences, differences between interest groups and stakeholders. References: Bundesamt für Polizei. (2015). Jahresbericht 2014. Kriminalitätsbekämpfung Bund. Lage, Massnahmen und Mittel [Electronic Version]. Drury, J., & Reicher, S. (2000). Collective action and psychological change. The emergence of new social identities. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 579-604. Hylander, I., & Guvå, G. (2010). Misunderstanding of out-group behaviour: Different interpretations of the same crowd events among police officers and demonstrators. Nordic Psychology, 62, 25-47. Schumacher-Dimech, A., Brechbühl, A. &, Seiler, R. (2016). Dynamics of critical incidents with potentially violent outcomes involving ultra fans: an explorative study. Sport in Society. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1080/17430437.2015.1133597

A Multi-Agent System for the Solution of Fuzzy Incidents in Telecommunications

This article presents a multi-agent expert system (SMAF) , that allows the input of incidents which occur in different elements of the telecommunications area. SMAF interacts with experts and general users, and each agent with all the agents? community, recording the incidents and their solutions in a knowledge base, without the analysis of their causes. The incidents are expressed using keywords taken from natural language (originally Spanish) and their main concepts are recorded with their severities as the users express them. Then, there is a search of the best solution for each incident, being helped by a human operator using a distancenotions between them.

A Multiagent system model which suggests solutions to fuzzy incidents in the field of telecommunications

This article presents the model of a multi-agent system (SMAF), which objectives are the input of fuzzy incidents as the human experts express them with different severities degrees and the further search and suggestion of solutions. The solutions will be later confirm or not by the users. This model was designed, implemented and tested in the telecommunications field, with heterogeneous agents in a cooperative model. In the design, different abstract levels where considered, according to the agents? objectives, their ways to carry it out and the environment in which they act. Each agent is modeled with different spectrum of the knowledge base

Solving Incidents in Telecommunications Using a Multiagent System

This article presents the model and implementation of a multiagent fuzzy system (MAFS), to automate the search of solutions of incidents in telecommunications, expressed by the users in an imprecise way and, later, registered in a a knowledge base keeping their original vaguenesses and the relationships between the incidents considered as ancestors and descendants. The process of the fuzzy incidents, no matter their causes, is based on the application of a formula which transforms the intervals of the fuzzy incidents to a computational language and in the interaction between the different kinds of software agents and the humans. To search and suggest solutions of the incident originally stated, a search algorithm is used and illustrated with an example. The preliminary results obtained show the users' satisfaction, in a great percentage of the presented cases. The system is adaptive and allows to record new solutions for future users.

Learning from incidents during bridge erection

Bridge building is a highly uncertain endeavour that entails considerable risk, as attested to by the succession of construction-related incidents and accidents recently reported in Spain and elsewhere. While efforts are being made to improve on-site safety, many issues are still outstanding, such as the establishment of reliability requirements for the ancillary systems used. The problems that must be dealt with in everyday practice, however, are more elementary and often attributable to human error. The overall organisation of the use of bridge construction equipment is in need of improvement. Close cooperation between the bridge engineers responsible for construction planning and ancillary element suppliers is imperative, for flawed interaction between building equipment and the bridge under construction may generate structural vulnerability. External quality assurance should likewise be mandatory

A model of air transport passenger incidents and rights

This paper describes a representation of the legal framework in the air transport passenger's rights domain and the foremost incidents that trigger the top of consumer complaints ranking in the EU. It comprises the development of a small network of three ontologies, formalisation of scenarios, specification of properties and identification of relations. The approach is illustrated by means of a case study based in the context of a real life cancelled flight incident. This is part of an intended support-system that aims to provide both consumers and companies with relevant legal information to enhance the decision-making process.

Real-time incidents detection in the highways of the future

Due to ever increasing transportation of people and goods, automatic traffic surveillance is becoming a key issue for both providing safety to road users and improving traffic control in an efficient way. In this paper, we propose a new system that, exploiting the capabilities that both computer vision and machine learning offer, is able to detect and track different types of real incidents on a highway. Specifically, it is able to accurately detect not only stopped vehicles, but also drivers and passengers leaving the stopped vehicle, and other pedestrians present in the roadway. Additionally, a theoretical approach for detecting vehicles which may leave the road in an unexpected way is also presented. The system works in real-time and it has been optimized for working outdoor, being thus appropriate for its deployment in a real-world environment like a highway. First experimental results on a dataset created with videos provided by two Spanish highway operators demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system and its robustness against noise and low-quality videos.

Aggressive incidents inside a Montreal barroom involving patrons, barmaids and bouncers : a micro level examination of routine activity theory

Objectives: This article further examines the phenomenon of aggression inside barrooms by relying on the “bouncer-ethnographer” methodology. The objective is to investigate variations in aggression through time and space according to the role and routine of the target in a Montreal barroom. Thus, it provides an examination of routine activity theory at the micro level: the barroom. Methods: For a period of 258 nights of observation in a Canadian barroom, bouncers completed reports on each intervention and provided specific information regarding what happened, when and where within the venue. In addition, the bouncer-ethnographer compiled field observations and interviews with bar personnel in order to identify aggression hotspots and “rush hours” for three types of actors within barrooms: (a) bouncers, (b) barmaids and (c) patrons. Findings: Three different patterns emerged for shifting hotspots of aggression depending on the target. As the night progresses, aggressive incidents between patrons, towards barmaids and towards bouncers have specific hotspots and rush hours influenced by the specific routine of the target inside the barroom. Implications: The current findings enrich those of previous work by pointing to the relevance of not only examining the environmental characteristics of the barroom, but also the role of the target of aggression. Crime opportunities follow routine activities, even within a specific location on a micro level. Routine activity theory is thus relevant in this context, because as actors in differing roles follow differing routines, as do their patterns of victimization.