Aikaterini Christodoulou, John Lioumbas, Kostantinos Zambetoglou, & Nikoletta Xanthopoulou. (2021). Combined innovative technologies for ensuring water safety in utilities: The city of Thessaloniki case study. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 929–934). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Innovative technologies such as monitoring the quality of surface water aquifers with satellite images, applying UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and drone technology for a variety of operations, water quality measurements with improved techniques along with IoT (Internet of Things) and ICT (Information and Communication Technologies), can provide sufficient data for enhancing water safety in urban water utilities. Specifically, these data could be an effective tool for improving risk assessment process and management of water supply systems. Nevertheless, till now, there is a relative lack of published works that validate the efficiency of combing these technologies on water safety processes by incorporating most of them with a systematic way and during real working conditions in water utilities. This work aims to present the preliminary design concept of a platform that embraces innovating water safety technologies planned to be applied to Thessaloniki's Water Supply and Sewerage Co. S.A Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).
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Alexander Gabriel, Babette Tecklenburg, Yann Guillouet, & Frank Sill Torres. (2021). Threat analysis of offshore wind farms by Bayesian networks – a new modeling approach. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 174–185). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: As a result of the ongoing commitment to climate protection in more and more countries and the corresponding expansion of renewable energies, the importance of renewables for the security of electricity supply is also increasing. Wind energy generated in offshore wind farms already accounts for a significant share of the energy mix and will continue to grow in the future. Therefore, approaches and models for security assessment and protection against threats are also needed for these infrastructures. Due to the special characteristics and geographical location of offshore wind farms, they are confronted with particular challenges. In this context, this contribution outlines how an approach for threat analysis of offshore wind farms is to be developed within the framework of the new research project “ARROWS” of the German Aerospace Center. The authors first explain the structure of offshore wind farms and then present a possible modeling approach using Qualitative function models and Bayesian networks.
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Anmol Haque, Duygu Pamukcu, Ruixiang Xie, Mohsen Zaker Esteghamati, Margaret Cowell, & Jennifer L. Irish. (2021). Cascading Effects of Mass Gatherings on COVID-19 Infections from a Multi-hazard Perspective: A Case Study of New York City. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 218–227). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: The devastating economic and societal impacts of COVID-19 can be substantially compounded by other secondary events that increase individuals' exposure through mass gatherings such as protests or sheltering due to a natural disaster. Based on the Crichton's Risk Triangle model, this paper proposes a Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation framework to estimate the impact of mass gatherings on COVID-19 infections by adjusting levels of exposure and vulnerability. To this end, a case study of New York City is considered, at which the impact of mass gathering at public shelters due to a hypothetical hurricane will be studied. The simulation results will be discussed in the context of determining effective policies for reducing the impact of multi-hazard generalizability of our approach to other secondary events that can cause mass gatherings during a pandemic will also be discussed.
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Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.). (2021). 18th ISCRAM Conference Proceedings. Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: The theme of ISCRAM 2021 is ?Embracing the Interdisciplinary Nature of Crisis Management.? These
proceedings highlight the range of interdisciplinary research required to understand the design, behavior,
and performance of crisis and emergency management systems. We are pleased to present the included
papers, which offer excellent contributions on a wide range of topics related to the use of information
systems in crisis response and management.
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Antone Evans Jr., Yingyuan Yang, & Sunshin Lee. (2021). Towards Predicting COVID-19 Trends: Feature Engineering on Social Media Responses. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 792–807). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: During the course of this pandemic, the use of social media and virtual networks has been at an all-time high. Individuals have used social media to express their thoughts on matters related to this pandemic. It is difficult to predict current trends based on historic case data because trends are more connected to social activities which can lead to the spread of coronavirus. So, it's important for us to derive meaningful information from social media as it is widely used. Therefore, we grouped tweets by common keywords, found correlations between keywords and daily COVID-19 statistics and built predictive modeling. The features correlation analysis was very effective, so trends were predicted very well. A RMSE score of 0.0425504, MAE of 0.03295105 and RSQ of 0.5237014 in relation to daily deaths. In addition, we found a RMSE score of 0.07346836, MAE of 0.0491152 and RSQ 0.374529 in relation to daily cases.
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Antonio De Nicola, Maria Luisa Villani, Francesco Costantino, Andrea Falegnami, & Riccardo Patriarca. (2021). Knowledge Fusion for Distributed Situational Awareness driven by the WAx Conceptual Framework. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 79–85). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Large crisis scenarios involve several actors, acting at the blunt-end of the process, such as rescue team directors, and at the sharp-end, such as firefighters. All of them have different perspectives on the crisis situation, which could be either coherent, alternative or complementary. This heterogeneity of perceptions hinders situational awareness, which is defined as the achievement of an overall picture on the above-mentioned crisis situation. We define knowledge fusion as the process of integrating multiple knowledge entities to produce actionable knowledge, which is consistent, accurate, and useful for the purpose of the analysis. Hence, we present a conceptual modelling approach to gather and integrate knowledge related to large crisis scenarios from locally-distributed sources that can make it actionable. The approach builds on the WAx framework for cyber-socio-technical systems and aims at classifying and coping with the different knowledge entities generated by the involved operators. The conceptual outcomes of the approach are then discussed in terms of open research challenges for knowledge fusion in crisis scenarios.
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Apoorva Chauhan, & Amanda Hughes. (2021). COVID-19 Named Resources on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 679–690). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Crisis Named Resources (CNRs) are social media accounts and pages named after a crisis event. They are created soon after an event occurs. CNRs share a lot of information around an event and are followed by many. In this study, we identify CNRs created around COVID-19 on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. We analyze when these resources were created, why they were created, how they were received by members of the public, and who created them. We conclude by comparing CNRs created around COVID-19 with past crisis events and discuss how CNR owners attempt to manage content and combat misinformation.
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Audun Stolpe, & Jo Hannay. (2021). On the Adaptive Delegation and Sequencing of Actions. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 28–39). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Information systems support to crisis response and management relies crucially on presenting actionable information in a manner that supports cognitive processes, and does not overwhelm them. We outline how AI Planning can be used viably to support the \emph{delegation and sequencing} of tasks. The idea is to use standard operating procedures as initial specifications of plans in terms of actors, actions and delegation rules. When expressed in the AI planning language \textit{Answer set Programming} (ASP), machine reasoning can be used in a \textit{pre-incident review} to display relevant delegation and sequencing inherent in a plan. % together with measures of goal achievement. The purpose of this is to uncover weaknesses in the initial plan and to optimize sequencing and delegation to increase the likelihood of achieving goals. Further, adaptive planning can be supported in \textit{during-incident reviews} by updating the current status, upon which ASP will then compute new alternatives. % and corresponding goal achievement measures. At this point, initial goals may no longer be viable and the explicit suggestion of prior sub-optimal goals now worth pursuing can be a game-changer under stress. The conceptual basis we lay out in terms of delegation and sequencing can be readily extended with further planning factors, such as resource requirements, role transfer and goal achievement.
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Boris Petrenj, Mariachiara Piraina, Giada Feletti, Paolo Trucco, Valentina Urbano, & Stefano Gelmi. (2021). Cross-border Information Sharing for Critical Infrastructure Resilience: Requirements and Platform Architecture. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 247–259). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Resilience of Critical Infrastructures is high on the agenda of countries' efforts. Modern CI highly interdependent and span countries, so disruptions occurring on one side of the border can significantly affect economic and social functions on the other. To build CI resilience, stakeholder organizations must collaborate and exchange information throughout the Emergency Management cycle. In this paper, we present the Critical Infrastructure Platform (PIC in Italian) which is being developed within the SICt project (Resilience of Cross-Border Critical Infrastructure). PIC is a technological piece of a broader cross-border regional resilience strategy between Lombardy Region (Italy) and Canton Ticino (Switzerland) aiming to improve the capacity to manage accidental events involving transportation CI between the two countries. The main goal of the PIC platform is to support secure and effective information-sharing, inter-organizational risk assessment, monitoring and operational coordination under critical situations. The paper presents the key requirements of such ICT system, its high-level architecture including the description of its main modules, main takeaways and future steps.
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Boris Petrenj, & Paolo Trucco. (2021). Blockchain-based Solutions to support inter-organisational Critical Infrastructure Resilience. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 982–993). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: This conceptual paper critically discusses opportunities for and challenges to the development and exploitation of blockchain-based solutions for resilience management at inter-organizational level of interdependent Critical Infrastructure (CI) systems. The main premise behind this idea is that trustful information-sharing and inter-institutional collaboration are the key elements of government and private sector efforts to build CI resilience (CIR). The discussion presents a vision that the adoption and adaptation of Blockchain Technology (BCT) could significantly improve the way a network of stakeholders prepares for and performs in face of inevitable CI disruptions. Even though BCT is regarded as technological innovation, the impacts go far beyond information systems. BCT application in this domain would entail significant benefits to organizational, managerial, legal and social issues, but would require adequate operational and organizational changes. We discuss how interdisciplinary approach (BCT and CIR) could address existing challenges, how it could introduce new challenges and how it could support other approaches and paradigms currently being regarded as the future of risk and resilience management. Even though the discussion in this paper is focused on Critical Infrastructure resilience, each point also applies to Crisis/Disaster management domain in general. This is a preliminary overview with the aim to stimulate further discussions and point to possible new, disruptive and interdisciplinary research avenues. To this end, a possible research agenda is eventually proposed.
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Briony Gray, & Matthew Colling. (2021). Supporting Emergency Health Services during a Pandemic: Lessons from the Canadian Red Cross. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 320–332). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has tested Canada's readiness capacity as emergency health needs continue to exceed some communities' capacity to respond. To address this variance, the Canadian Red Cross (in collaboration with local, provincial, territorial, national, and Indigenous partners) have leveraged international experience in humanitarian response and preparedness, developing innovative new response services, delivery modalities, and protocol through which to mitigate and manage risk. This approach breaks down emergency management into two main streams – health interventions and disaster management – to innovatively and effectively cope with increasingly complex and frequent requests for support. Using internal data from within the Canadian Red Cross, this paper presents and discusses the services, roles and expectations of this two-stream approach which has been designed to (i.) support COVID-19 testing and vaccination, (ii.) support outbreak crisis management, especially through epidemic, prevention, and control interventions, and (iii.) support traditional emergency management responses in the midst of a pandemic. It concludes by reporting on the successes of the two-stream approach to date while scoping further the potential evolutionary track of some of these services, their underpinning methodology, and appetite for recovery operations in the near future. This approach may therefore be of value to other organizations or practitioners coping with emergency management challenges during a pandemic.
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Briony Gray, & Matthew Colling. (2021). Understanding Interoperability in Humanitarian Aid Organizations. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 439–447). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Quality and timely knowledge is critical to effective humanitarian operations during crises. Despite this, there remain limitations to its capture, exchange and understanding both in the inter and intra agency settings. To improve this, methods like interoperability should be improved within humanitarian aid organizations and their wider networks. Learning from the experiences and insights of domestic and international delegates of the Canadian Red Cross, this paper highlights that the biggest added values of interoperability to the intra-agency setting are (i.) increasing organizational capacity, expertise and reputation, (ii.) better tools, processes and leveraging valuable knowledge, and (iii.) improved engagement of volunteers, employees and delegates. The most prevalent barriers are (i.) workplace culture, (ii.) differences in operations, context and communications and (iii.) the socio-technical barriers of systems, processes and integration. The paper concludes by presenting lessons for humanitarian organizations to improve interoperability, supporting resilient responses for future crisis management.
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Bruna Diirr, Vânia de Oliveira Neves, Marcus Vinícius Vasconcelos de Almeida Cunha, Ana Beatriz Kapps dos Reis, & Jairo Francisco de Souza. (2021). Software Requirements for Disaster Management Systems. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 1042–1054). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Disasters are a major global problem and a serious threat to sustainable development. In this context, the development of disaster management systems becomes a complex activity, both due to the unpredictability of the events to be treated and the difficulty in extracting or identifying these systems users' needs (requirements). This study aims to understand the requirements usually elicited for disaster management systems and how such requirements are identified. Thus, a systematic mapping of literature (SM) and an open-source repository mining (RM) were performed. Results bring benefits both to academics and practitioners, as detail several characteristics of disaster management systems that could assist these systems development and decision-making, besides providing inputs to guide further research.
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Cecilia Hammar Wijkmark, Ilona Heldal, & Maria-Monika Metallinou. (2021). Experiencing Immersive VR Simulation for Firefighter Skills Training. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 913–921). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Virtual Reality (VR) technology has gained interest for training in many domains, including firefighter education and training. However, there is hesitation in accepting immersive VR technology, especially for skills training. This paper examines the results from a field study investigating how first-time users experience immersive VR comparing with hot fire live simulation (HF-LS) training, a training involving several human senses. This study included nineteen firefighter students, eight instructors, and seven experienced firefighters using a VR technology simulating fire, smoke, heat, and via haptic feedback hose and pressure experiences. Data investigating user experiences were collected through questionnaires and observations. The results show that experienced firefighters valued the training using this VR technology higher than students. Further findings illustrate a difference between different user groups regarding expectations on the realism of simulated representations. For example, the visual realism of the smoke and the fire was more appreciated by experienced firefighters than students and instructors.
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Claudio Paliotta, Klaus Ening, & Sigurd Mørkved Albrektsen. (2021). Micro indoor-drones (MINs) for localization of first responders. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 881–889). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: In this paper, we describe our approach to the localization in GNSS-denied and risky unknown environments offirst responders (FRs). The INGENIOUS project is an EU funded project which is developing a new integratedtoolkit to support the operations of FRs. The micro indoor-drones (MINs) developed within the INGENIOUSproject represent a component of the toolkit which will support the localization of FRs in search-and-rescue (SAR)operations. In this paper, the concept behind the MINs and the current achievements are illustrated.
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Cody Buntain, Richard Mccreadie, & Ian Soboroff. (2021). Incident Streams 2020: TRECIS in the Time of COVID-19. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 621–639). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Between 2018 and 2019, the Incident Streams track (TREC-IS) has developed standard approaches for classifying the types and criticality of information shared in online social spaces during crises, but the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 has shifted the landscape of online crises substantially. While prior editions of TREC-IS have lacked data on large-scale public-health emergencies as these events are exceedingly rare, COVID-19 has introduced an over-abundance of potential data, and significant open questions remain about how existing approaches to crisis informatics and datasets built on other emergencies adapt to this new context. This paper describes how the 2020 edition of TREC-IS has addressed these dual issues by introducing a new COVID-19-specific task for evaluating generalization of existing COVID-19 annotation and system performance to this new context, applied to 11 regions across the globe. TREC-IS has also continued expanding its set of target crises, adding 29 new events and expanding the collection of event types to include explosions, fires, and general storms, making for a total of 9 event types in addition to the new COVID-19 events. Across these events, TREC-IS has made available 478,110 COVID-related messages and 282,444 crisis-related messages for participant systems to analyze, of which 14,835 COVID-related and 19,784 crisis-related messages have been manually annotated. Analyses of these new datasets and participant systems demonstrate first that both the distributions of information type and priority of information vary between general crises and COVID-19-related discussion. Secondly, despite these differences, results suggest leveraging general crisis data in the COVID-19 context improves performance over baselines. Using these results, we provide guidance on which information types appear most consistent between general crises and COVID-19.
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Congcong Wang, Paul Nulty, & David Lillis. (2021). Crisis Domain Adaptation Using Sequence-to-Sequence Transformers. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 655–666). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: User-generated content (UGC) on social media can act as a key source of information for emergency responders incrisis situations. However, due to the volume concerned, computational techniques are needed to effectively filter and prioritise this content as it arises during emerging events. In the literature, these techniques are trained using annotated content from previous crises. In this paper, we investigate how this prior knowledge can be best leveraged for new crises by examining the extent to which crisis events of a similar type are more suitable for adaptation tonew events (cross-domain adaptation). Given the recent successes of transformers in various language processing tasks, we propose CAST: an approach for Crisis domain Adaptation leveraging Sequence-to-sequence Transformers. We evaluate CAST using two major crisis-related message classification datasets. Our experiments show that ourCAST-based best run without using any target data achieves the state of the art performance in both in-domain and cross-domain contexts. Moreover, CAST is particularly effective in one-to-one cross-domain adaptation when trained with a larger language model. In many-to-one adaptation where multiple crises are jointly used as the source domain, CAST further improves its performance. In addition, we find that more similar events are more likely to bring better adaptation performance whereas fine-tuning using dissimilar events does not help for adaptation. To aid reproducibility, we open source our code to the community.
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Congcong Wang, Paul Nulty, & David Lillis. (2021). Transformer-based Multi-task Learning for Disaster Tweet Categorisation. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 705–718). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Social media has enabled people to circulate information in a timely fashion, thus motivating people to post messages seeking help during crisis situations. These messages can contribute to the situational awareness of emergency responders, who have a need for them to be categorised according to information types (i.e. the type of aid services the messages are requesting). We introduce a transformer-based multi-task learning (MTL) technique for classifying information types and estimating the priority of these messages. We evaluate the effectiveness of our approach with a variety of metrics by submitting runs to the TREC Incident Streams (IS) track: a research initiative specifically designed for disaster tweet classification and prioritisation. The results demonstrate that our approach achieves competitive performance in most metrics as compared to other participating runs. Subsequently, we find that an ensemble approach combining disparate transformer encoders within our approach helps to improve the overall effectiveness to a significant extent, achieving state-of-the-art performance in almost every metric. We make the code publicly available so that our work can be reproduced and used as a baseline for the community for future work in this domain.
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Dashley Rouwendal van Schijndel, Audun Stolpe, & Jo Erskine Hannay. (2021). Toward an AI-based external scenario event controller for crisis response simulations. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 106–117). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: There is a need for tool support for structured planning, execution and analysis of simulation-based training for crisisresponse and management. As a central component of an architecture for such tool support, we outline the design ofan AI-based scenario event controller. The event controller is a component that uses machine reasoning to computethe next state in a scenario, given the actions performed in the corresponding simulation (execution of the scenario).Scenarios are specified in Answer Set Programming, which is a logic programming language we use for automatedplanning of training scenarios. A plan encoding in ASP adds expressivity in scenario specification and enablesmachine reasoning. For exercise managers this gives AI-based tool support for before-action and during-actionreviews to optimize learning. In line with Modelling and Simulation as as Service, our approach externalizes eventcontrol from any particular simulation platform. The scenario, and its unfolding in terms of events, is externalizedas a service. This increases interoperability and enables scenarios to be designed and modified readily and rapidlyto adapt to new training requirements.
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David Wodak, & Kenny Meesters. (2021). How To Improve HO/TO's: An Exploratory Study on The Alignment Between Information, Technology And Crisis teams. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 459–470). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: In the last decade, the number of crises has increased, and have become more complex. Crisis response does not only focus on rescue operations, or separate stages but rather it is an integrated and continuous process. During this continuous process, several handovers take place. A handover is an important, critical but challenging moment during a crisis, due to the organizational factors that influence the handover and the technology used to transfer information. Since these are crucial elements of a Crisis handover, it would indicate that the alignment between these factors could lead to the improvement of Crisis handovers. However, certain barriers resulted in a lack of alignment. An important barrier originates from the organizational processes. These have a lack of focus on which crisis managers are involved in the handover and thus create a lack of alignment between the systems and information used by various crisis teams.
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Dimitrios Sainidis, Dimitrios Tsiakmakis, Konstantinos Konstantoudakis, Georgios Albanis, Anastasios Dimou, & Petros Daras. (2021). Single-Handed Gesture UAV Control and Video Feed AR Visualization for First Responders. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 835–848). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming increasingly widespread in recent years, with numerous applications spanning multiple sectors. UAVs can be of particular benefit to first responders, assisting in both hazard detection and search-and-rescue operations, increasing their situational awareness without endangering human personnel; However, conventional UAV control requires both hands on a remote controller and many hours of training to control efficiently. Additionally, viewing the UAV video-feed on conventional devices (e.g. smartphones) require first responders to glance downwards to look at the screen, increasing the risk of accident. To this end, this work presents a unified system, incorporating single-hand gesture control for UAVs and an augmented reality (AR) visualization of their video feed, while also allowing for backup remote UAV control from any device and multiple-recipient video streaming. A modular architecture allows the upgrade or replacement of individual modules without affecting the whole. The presented system has been tested in the lab, and in field trials by first responders.
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Duygu Pamukcu, Christopher Zobel, & Yue Ge. (2021). Analysis of Orange County, Florida 311 System Service Requests During the COVID-19 Pandemic. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 208–217). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: The Orlando metropolitan area in Florida, where Walt Disney World is located, is intimately familiar with impacts of natural disasters because of the yearly threat of hurricanes in the southeastern United States. One of the tools that has aided them in their efforts to monitor and manage such disasters is their 311 non-emergency call system, through which local residents can issue requests to the municipality for disaster-related information or other services. This paper provides a preliminary examination of the potential for the Orange County 311 system to provide actionable information to them in support of their efforts to manage a different type of disaster: the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential of the system to support the County in this context is illustrated through several preliminary analyses of the complete set of service requests that were registered in the first ten months of 2020.
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Emir Dervisevic, & Miralem Mehic. (2021). Overview of Quantum Key Distribution Technique within IPsec Architecture. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 391–403). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
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.
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Enrique Caballero, Angel Madridano, Dimitrios Sainidis, Konstantinos Konstantoudakis, Petros Daras, & Pablo Flores. (2021). An automated UAV-assisted 2D mapping system for First Responders. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 890–902). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Recent advances in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) sector have allowed such systems to carry a range of sensors, thus increasing their versatility and adaptability to a wider range of tasks and services. Furthermore, the agility of these vehicles allows them to adapt to rapidly changing environments making them an effective tool for emergency situations. A single UAV, or a swarm working in collaboration, can be a handy and helpful tool for First Responders (FRs) during mission planning, mission monitoring, and the tracking of evolving risks. UAVs, with their on-board sensors, can, among other things, capture visual information of the disaster scene in a safe and quick manner, and generate an up-to-date map of the area. This work presents a system for UAV-assisted mapping optimized for FRs, including the generation of routes for the UAVs to follow, data collection and processing, and map generation.
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Erik Borglund, Martina Granholm, & Ulf Andersson. (2021). Virtual Emergency Operation Centre: How to manage a crisis from an EOC when you need to work from home. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 238–245). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: What happens when an organization requires its employees to work from home during a pandemic that needs to be managed? This research in progress article focuses on TELCOALPHA and their transition of the emergency operation centre (EOC) to be digital and distributed. A qualitative research method approach was applied and liminality has been used as lens to investigate the passage from analog to digital. Focus has been on understanding the transition and how they handled ambiguity within the organization when their crisis management moved online. The transition was successful, and two areas were identified as important to this success: 1. TELCOALPHA used IT that the staff in the crisis organization already had experience of working with prior to the Covid-19 pandemic; 2. TELCO_ALPHA ran crisis management team meetings as they would run regular business meetings. There was no new “crisis management structure” at the meetings.
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