The shifts experienced in the environment of disaster operations and emergency response are reshaping the context of information acquisition and utilization in hospitals. In addition to the formulation of emergency response plans, healthcare organizations (especially hospitals) are being challenged by the growing need to maintain and share real time information necessary for the improvement of emergency response processes. Such information-related attention originates from many emergency-specific concerns including the limited focus of current emergency response information systems, decision limitations that challenge the formulation of decision support applications and the characterization of user requirements, the heterogeneity of emergency response information and the difficulty of integrating spatially distributed information sources. The increased attention in emergency response information also emerges from the recent technological developments (in terms of hardware, software functionalities, databases and telecommunication, among others) which significantly affected the processing, storage and retrieval of real time information. This paper focuses on the examination of the context of emergency response in Al Ahsaa area of Saudi Arabia and the applicability of multi-agent information systems through the proposal of an integrated architecture. Then it sheds light on the implementation concerns to ensure the contribution of the proposed architecture towards the engagement of stakeholders, the improvement of the availability and accessibility of emergency management information and the harmonization of emergency response operations. .

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Recent technological advancements significantly redefined the context in which organizations acquire, process, and share information. The transformations that emerged across the organizational and institutional landscapes have led to the emergence of new forms of organizational design and business models. Within this context, the new business patterns, platforms and architectures have been developed to enable for the maximization of benefits from data through the adoption of collaborative work practices. The main focus of such practices is oriented towards the improvement of responsiveness, building of alliances and enhancing organizational reach. The use of global networks and web based systems for the implementation of collaborative work has been accompanied with a wide range of computer supported collaborative systems. This paper examines the context of collaboration, collaborative work and the development of agent-supported collaborative work system and examines the implications of the ontological positions of sociomateriality on agent-supported collaborative work domains in terms of multi-agent architecture and agent-oriented evaluation.

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This chapter addresses the software engineering dimensions associated with the development of mobile and context-aware multiagent systems. It argues that despite the growing deployment of such systems in different application domains little has been done with regards to their analysis and design methodologies. The author argues that the introduction of mobility and context awareness raises three main challenges that deserve a paradigm shift: the challenge of information integrity, service availability on mobile devices, and the complexity of decision modeling. Because they reflect different operational and procedural dimensions, the author argues that the conventional software engineering practices used with intelligent systems that possess other agency qualities need to be “re-engineered.” The chapter emphasizes that the envisioned methodology should reflect a thorough understanding of decision environments, domains epresentation, and organizational and decision-making structures. Furthermore, the chapter provides a description for the appropriate enablers necessary for integrated implementation.