Abstract: Fast-spreading fake news has become an epidemic in the post-truth world of politics, the stock market, or even during natural disasters. A large amount of unverified information may reach a vast audience quickly via social media. The effect of misinformation (false) and disinformation (deliberately false) is more severe during the critical time of natural disasters such as flooding, hurricanes, or earthquakes. This can lead to disruptions in rescue missions and recovery activities, costing human lives and delaying the time needed for affected communities to return to normal. In this paper, we designed a comprehensive framework which is capable of developing a training set and trains a deep learning model for detecting fake news events occurring during disasters. Our proposed framework includes infrastructure to collect Twitter posts which spread false information. In our model implementation, we utilized the Transfer Learning scheme to transfer knowledge gained from a large and general fake news dataset to relatively smaller fake news events occurring during disasters as a means of overcoming the limited size of our training dataset. Our detection model was able to achieve an accuracy of 91.47\% and F1 score of 90.89 when it was trained with the first 28 hours of Twitter data. Our vision for this study is to help emergency managers during disaster response with our framework so that they may perform their rescue and recovery actions effectively and efficiently without being distracted by false information.

Abstract: During emergencies, it is often necessary to evacuate vulnerable people to safer places to reduce loss of lives and cope with human suffering. Shelters are publically available places to evacuate, especially for people who do not have any other choices. This paper overviews emergency shelter planning in disaster mitigation and preparation and discusses the need for better responding to people who need to evacuate during emergencies. Recent evacuation studies pay attention to integrating social factors into evacuation modeling for better prediction of evacuation decisions. Our goal is to address the impact of social behavior on the sheltering choices of evacuees and to explore the potential contributions of including social network characteristics in the decision-making process of authorities. We present the shelter utilization problem in South Carolina during Hurricane Florence and discuss an agent-based modeling approach that considers social community structures in modeling the shelter choice behavior of socially connected individuals.

Abstract: In addition to their normal task of supporting community participation, engagement, and improved information access, information technology-based public service systems are also essential for maintaining critical services and providing effective communication with citizens before, during, and after emergencies. This study focuses on the impacts of disaster events on the operational performance of such service systems and discusses opportunities for managing service efficiency by rearranging and reallocating resources during emergencies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to provide a practical method for improving the relative efficiency of public service systems in such a context. We suggest a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach for quantifying the relative efficiencies associated with service requests from an input-output-based standpoint, and discuss the Orange County (Florida) 311 non-emergency service system, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as an example of how such operational efficiency can be managed during a disruption.

Abstract: Cooperation and interaction demands digital skills. In an agile context, there is no time for learning while doing, implicating that many of the skills need to be practiced beforehand. Since exercises are one way of enhancing skills needed in crisis situations, it is important to know what skills are practiced during the exercises. This review aims to understand what skills have been practiced during exercises conducted in Sweden between 2010 and 2014. Data was obtained from 15 evaluations of exercises including multiple actors. Most exercises practiced collaboration, communication, information and shared situation awareness skills. Results showed that 4 out of 15 had a specific goal in terms of technology use. Exercises with explicit technology goals are effective as a way to change opinions about the tool in question. The participants requests additional exercises specifically targeting routines and the use of technological tools.

Abstract: Effective risk management begins with successful risk identification. Unfortunately, traditional approaches may lead to haphazard and incomplete results. To overcome this, we present a new integrative approach to improve risk identification that sequentially investigates protector-views and narrow scopes using literature review, ethnography, and subject matter expertise. This paper illustrates this approach by identifying man-made and natural threats to mass-gathering events in general, and stadium security as an example. Improving risk identification enhances resilience to known risks by enabling planning and development of targeted response strategies. Working from a more complete portfolio of risk resilience strategies may also improve flexibility and agility to respond to new and emerging risks.

Abstract: One of the most critical challenges faced by authorities during the management of a climate-related crisis is the overwhelming flow of heterogeneous information coming from humans and deployed sensors (e.g. cameras, temperature measurements, etc.), which has to be processed in order to filter meaningful items and provide crisis decision support. Towards addressing this challenge, ontologies can provide a semantically unified representation of the domain, along with superior capabilities in querying and information retrieval. Nevertheless, the recently proposed ontologies only cover subsets of the relevant concepts. This paper proposes a more “all-around” lightweight ontology for climate crisis management, which greatly facilitates decision support and merges several pertinent aspects: representation of a crisis, climate parameters that may cause climate crises, sensor analysis, crisis incidents and related impacts, first responder unit allocations. The ontology could constitute the backbone of the decision support systems for crisis management.

Abstract: Emergency response organisations struggle with resource constraints and thereby faces challenges in providing
high-quality public services. Utilising voluntary first responders is one way to address these challenges. There
are different types of volunteers who can help at an emergency site, e.g. citizen volunteers or voluntary
professionals from other occupations. To successfully engage with and utilise these resources, adequate
information and communication technology (ICT) is necessary. In this meta-study, combining and further
exploring two previous studies, the aim is to identify, analyse and evaluate suitable functions for smartphone
applications that can be used to dispatch and support volunteers. The results show that the functions can be
divided into essential ones that are necessary for the response to work at all, and others that might contribute to a
more effective response. The study also shows that the same functions can be used for different volunteer
groups.

Abstract: Quantum key distribution (QKD) is a method for secret key distribution which is secure against any future computational threat. In this paper we give an overview of existing solutions that integrate QKD method within the most popular architecture for establishing secure communication in modern IP (Internet Protocol) networks – IPsec (Internet Protocol security). The provided overview can be used to further design the integration of QKD within IPsec architecture striving for a standardized solution.

Abstract: Emergency managers rely on formal and informal communication channels to identify needs in post-disaster environments. Message retransmission is a critical factor to ensure that help-seekers are identified by disaster responders. This paper uses a novel annotated dataset of Twitter posts from four major disasters that impacted the United States in 2021, to quantify the effect that expressed emotions and support typology have on retransmission. Poisson regression models are estimated, and the results show that messages seeking instrumental support are more likely to be retransmitted. Expressions of anger, fear, and sadness increase overall retweets. Moreover, expressions of anger, anticipation, or sadness increase the likelihood of retransmission for messages that seek instrumental help.

Abstract: Partial or total horizontal evacuation of populations in urban areas is an important protection measure against a natural or technological risk. However, casualties during massive displacement in a context of stress and in a potentially degraded environment may be high due to non-compliance with instructions, accidents, traffic jams, incivilities, lack of preparation of civil security or increased exposure to hazards. Working in evacuation plans is therefore fundamental in avoiding casualties caused by improvisation and in promoting self-evacuation whenever possible. Since it is impossible to re-create the conditions of a crisis on the ground to assess such evacuation plans, there is a need for realistic models in order to evaluate them using simulations. In this paper, we present the ESCAPE software framework that helps in the development of such plans and testing them. In particular, ESCAPE, which uses the GAMA open-source platform as a core component, provides an agent-based simulation tool that supports simulation of the evacuation of a city's population at fine temporal and Geographical scales. The framework was developed such that it works for a wide range of scenarios, both in terms of hazards, geographical configurations, individual behaviors and crisis management. In order to show its adaptability, two applications are presented, one concerning the evacuation of the city of Rouen (France) in the context of a technological hazard and the other pertaining to the evacuation of the district of Hanoi (Vietnam) in the event of floods.

Abstract: This paper is about the work that takes place during large police operations in different command post settings, and how artefacts are used in the collaborative process in creating a common operational picture (COP). We apply “artefactual multiplicity” as our analytical lens. An interpretative research approach has been applied in form of ethnographical field studies using observation and informal interviews as data collection techniques. The artefacts that have been studied are definable as common artefacts, i.e. artefacts that are commonly available in our work environment. Based upon the five separate studies, the artefacts studied are found to be very important as collaborative tools and many also have embedded visualization functionalities. The main contribution from this research is 1) extensive knowledge about how the artefacts are used in the establishment of the COP during large police operations, where the process of establishing the COP is, to a very large extent, dependent upon the artefacts' collaborative and multiple functions; 2) the proposal and suggestion to study the whole staff and the artefacts used by the staff as one heterogeneous unit, as a record of activities. Studies of single artefacts in isolation reduce the possibility of seeing the full multiplicity of all the artefacts used within the staff, and the complexity of the intertwined web of artefactual functions.

Abstract: Police officers’ situational awareness during tactical intervention can be crucial for how they act and whether they use the correct level of force in extreme situations. This paper presents preliminary findings in ongoing research focusing on police tactical interventions and situational awareness. Twenty-one police officers were interviewed, and a video sequence of a shorter car chase was used to set the scene in the interviews. The interviewed police officers described their tactical decisions applying the standardized tactical approach applied in the Swedish police. In the analysis, a focus on how situational awareness is gained and how situational awareness is affected by tactical decisions is presented. The study indicates that the situational awareness process begins before the actual intervention (pre-intervention phase). During the actual intervention, situational awareness is very complex. Technology supporting police officers’ cognition, as well as management and control of one or many risk areas, is identified.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop a simulation model to evaluate bleeding control kit location strategies for a mass casualty incident scenario. Specifically, the event simulated was an explosion at a large sports arena. The model included a representation of the arena itself, simulated crowd movements following the detonation of an improvised explosive device, injuries and treatments, and different ways for immediate responders to help injured patients using tourniquets. The simulation model gave logically consistent results in the validation scenarios and the simulation outcomes were in line with the expected outcomes. The results of the different tourniquet location scenarios indicated that decentralized placement (more than one location) is better, easy access is important (between rather than at emergency exits) and that an increased number of available tourniquets will result in an increased number of survivors.