Abstract: This paper is a critical examination of the U.S. Incident Command System (“ICS”) as an organizational structure and information gathering tool for emergency management from the perspective of a career emergency management officer who became a graduate student in information management following 35 years of public service. In addition to examining the ICS, and assessing its current weaknesses in the area of information management, the paper proposes a low-cost, COTS approach to automating the ICS information gathering and dissemination process.

Abstract: The larger the scale, scope, and duration of a disaster, the higher is the number of response units. However, with more units involved in the response also the heterogeneity of responder units drastically increases in terms of capabilities, experiences, practices, techniques, tactics, and procedures. As a result, the coordination and overall management of the response becomes an increasingly challenging endeavor. In the response to the 2014 Oso/SR530 landslide disaster in Washington State over one hundred agencies were involved, which presented a huge coordination task for the incident command. This empirical study is exploratory and focuses on the activities and interactions of professional responders, particularly, in the early phases of the response. It amends and complements previous studies on the subject by identifying and describing in detail various challenges in the early response. It also discusses recommendations on how to tackle and potentially mitigate the challenges identified in future responses.

Abstract: This paper describes work-in-progress regarding STORMI, an agent-based simulation environment for evaluating the response by the emergency services to hypothetical major incidents in the UK. At present, STORMI consists of two main components: a Scenario Designer and a Simulator. The Scenario Designer enables the setting up of a hypothetical multi-site mass casualty incident anywhere in the UK, along with the resources which may be considered for responding to it. This provides input to the Simulator, which through its Multiple Program Multiple Data architecture, models the agents and their environment at a higher level of detail inside incident sites than it does outside, thus focusing attention on the areas of most interest. Furthermore, the multiple programs of the Simulator execute concurrently, thus targeting multi-core processors. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: National information and situation centers are faced with rising information needs and the question of how to prepare for unexpected situations. One promising development is the access to vastly growing data produced by distributed sensors and a socially networked society. Current emergency information systems are limited in the amount of complex data they can process and interpret in real-time and provide only partially integrated prediction and alarming capabilities. In this paper we present a novel approach to build a new type of automated and scalable information systems that intelligently make use of massive streams of structured and unstructured data and incorporate human feedback for automated incident detection and learning. Big data technologies, uncertainty handling and privacy-by-design are employed to match end-user system requirements. We share first experiences analyzing data from the centennial flood in Germany 2013.

Abstract: During a disaster, health and medical decision makers need accurate, timely information. However, it is seldom readily available to the right decision makers, at the right time. Quite a number of databases currently exist with information about health and medical organizations which decision makers need during a disaster. Some of these databases have functions that facilitate decision-making and communication before, during and after a disaster. In theory, linking several existing databases will supply this information. Also, other functions can be provided in one package for incident management and monitoring of the preparedness capacity of a State's health and medical systems. But, this has not happened yet in Florida. This research assessed the different users needs, defined the information required to make good decisions and is testing a pilot decision support system of linked databases.

Abstract: The current scope of ICT support for disaster coordination is primarily focused at either the network or data levels. There is significant opportunity for ICT to play an even more important role for disaster coordination at the information level. This paper reviews the information structures and requirements gathered from disaster coordination centres based on exercise observations. Such coordination of information is usually based on national frameworks that document structures, roles, and responsibilities, but are seldom supported by relevant ICT infrastructure or systems. This paper uses the lessons learned from the exercise observations to identify future opportunities for information management software to support disaster centre operations. In particular, the paper introduces a prototypical Crisis Information Management System we are developing to support two challenges: incident notification and resource messaging. The system is based on open standards under development within the OASIS standards consortium, and will be evaluated as part of future exercises.

Abstract: Organizations affected by a cyber-attack usually rely on external Cyber Incident Response (CIR) consultants to conduct investigations and mitigate the impact. These CIR consultants need to make critical decisions that could have major impact on their clients. This preliminary investigation aims to get a better understanding of CIR decision -making and answers the following questions: (1.) To what extent do experienced CIR consultants use a Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) Making strategy during their work? (2.) What are the implications for cyber crisis management as well as for training and decision -making? To answer these questions, we conducted a literature review and interviewed six experienced CIR consultants using the Critical Decision Method. Our analysis reveals that CIR consultants recognize situations based on past experiences and apply a course of action that has worked effectively in the past. This course of action is mainly aimed at collecting and evaluating more data. This finding differs from other operational domains, such as the military and fire department, where recognition is usually followed immediately by action. For cyber crisis management, this means that crisis management teams should decide to what extent and in what ways they want to mitigate the risk of responding belatedly to cyber events, which could potentially lead to unnecessary data theft and sustained business disruption. Another implication is that crisis management teams should consider whether additional forensic investigations outweigh the expected benefits throughout the response process. For instance, if the likely entry-point of the attacker has been discovered, how much effort should be devoted to exclude other potential entry-points. Reflecting on the status-quo, several implications for training and decision making are provided.

Abstract: Crisis management frameworks are typically associated with concepts related to command and control or ?hierarchical? decision-making. However, advancements in communication technologies and new media platforms have brought new prospects to the design of crisis management frameworks. Social media platforms, for example, enable volunteering citizens to actively take part in crisis response efforts. In our paper we explore comparing and contrasting two forms of crisis management frameworks: a formal, the well-tested Incident Command System of the US, and an informal example, the Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) program. The goal of the paper is to outline potential ways to examine the disparities in network structure and collaboration linkages in different forms of crisis management frameworks.

Abstract: The use of portable ultrasound devices enables a better and immediate diagnostics at the scene of a mass casualty incident. The detection of free fluid in abdomen and thorax is an important indicator for the further treatment. The gained information affects the triage of casualties, the pre-clinical medical attendance and the patient management. The presented article describes an innovative approach to transmit sonographic video streams over wireless networks to a remote hospital, where the medical data is used for diagnostics. For the secure transmission of data a new network unit is designed, which gathers information with regard to the network status and the character of transported data. This “Intelligent Network” is located in the transport layer of the OSI reference model and enables a dynamic interconnection between network and application, provides an interface for functional transparency and the disclosure of parameters and establishes the basis for an universal security system.

Abstract: We have been studying the standardization of an emergency-management support system mainly for natural disasters at the local-government level. The system provides information from three viewpoints, “Plan: What should we do?”, “Do: What are we doing?”, and “See: What kind of situations are we in?” to support decision making at an emergency operations center. Rapid and accurate judgment prevents the occurrence of new damage and the expansion of damage, and as a result resilience will increase. We investigated its applicability to emergency management for cyber incidents through a cyber-defense exercise.

Abstract: Reconstruction of major emergencies and crisis as well as observations of large-scale emergency exercises are common approaches for studying and understanding various actors work practice in emergency response. Studies of small-scale emergencies using an ethnographic approach are less common. This paper presents data from a single small-scale emergency as part of an extensive ethnographical field study. A detailed analysis of fire crew enroute sensemaking in a single small-scale emergency is outlined. The theory of sensemaking is applied as an analytical lens aiming to explain the communication between the command centre operator and the fire crew in terms of sensemaking. Further, implications for re-design of existing systems and infrastructure are presented as well as brief reflections of the consequences of such re-design. © Proceedings ISCRAM 2004.

Abstract: Mass incidents represent a global problem, putting potential threats to public safety. Due to the complexity and uncertainties of mass incidents, law enforcement agencies lack analytical models and structured processes for anticipating potential threats. To address such challenge, this paper presents a threat analysis framework combining the scenario analysis method and Bayesian network (BN) reasoning. Based on a case library