Mahshid Marbouti, Irene Mayor, Dianna Yim, & Frank Maurer. (2017). Social Media Analyst Responding Tool: A Visual Analytics Prototype to Identify Relevant Tweets in Emergency Events. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 572–582). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Public and humanitarian organizations monitor social media to extract useful information during emergencies. In this paper, we propose a new method for identifying situation awareness (SA) tweets for emergencies. We take a human centered design approach to developing a visual analytics prototype, SMA-RT (“Social Media Analyst Responding Tool”), informed by social media analysts and emergency practitioners. Our design offers insights into the main requirements of social media monitoring tools used for emergency purposes. It also highlights the role that human and technology can play together in such solutions. We embed a machine learning classifier to identify SA tweets in a visual interactive tool. Our classifier aggregates textual, social, location, and tone based features to increase precision and recall of SA tweets.
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Marc van den Homberg, Jannis Visser, & Maarten van der Veen. (2017). Unpacking Data Preparedness from a humanitarian prioritization perspective: towards an assessment framework at subnational level (eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes, Ed.). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: All too often the collection as well as analysis of data for humanitarian response only starts once a disaster hits. This paper proposes a framework to assess Data Preparedness on five dimensions: Data Sets, Data Services and Tooling, Data Governance, Data Literacy, and Networked Organizations for Data. We demonstrate for one dimension, i.e. Data Sets, how it can be quantified. First step is to determine which Data Sets must be collected before a disaster strikes so that as many as possible decision-makers' information needs are covered. Subsequently, a Data Sets Preparedness Index can be calculated based on Completeness, Recency and Accuracy & Reliability. We tested the index for Malawi and The Philippines and show how it can be used to direct data collection and determine when data analysis for e.g. predicting severity becomes meaningful. The index can be modified for reporting on global policies such as the Sustainable Development Goals.
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Marc-André Kaufhold, & Christian Reuter. (2017). The Impact of Social Media for Emergency Services: A Case Study with the Fire Department Frankfurt. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 603–612). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: The use of social media is not only part of everyday life but also of crises and emergencies. Many studies focus on the concrete use of social media during a specific emergency, but the prevalence of social media, data access and published research studies allows the examination in a broader and more integrated manner. This work-in-progress paper presents the results of a case study with the Fire Department Frankfurt, which is one of the biggest and most modern fire departments in Germany. The findings relate to social media technologies, organizational structure and roles, information validation, staff skills and resources, and the importance of volunteer communities. In the next step, the results will be integrated into the frame of a comparative case study with the overall aim of examining the impact of social media on how emergency services respond and react in an emergency.
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Maude Arru, & Elsa Negre. (2017). People Behaviors in Crisis Situations: Three Modeling Propositions. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 139–149). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Warnings can help to prevent damages and harm if they are issued timely and provide information that help responders and population to adequately prepare for the disaster to come. Today, there are many indicator and sensor systems that are designed to reduce disaster risks. These systems have proved to be eective. Unfortunately, as all systems including human beings, a part of unpredictable remains. Indeed, each person behaves dierently when a problem arises. In this paper, we focus on people behaviors in crisis situations: from the definition of factors that impact human behavior to the integration of these behaviors, with three dierent modeling propositions, into a warning system in order to have more and more eÿcient crisis management systems.
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Melanie Eckle, Benjamin Herfort, Yingwei Yan, Chiao-Ling Kuo, & Alexander Zipf. (2017). Towards using Volunteered Geographic Information to monitor post-disaster recovery in tourist destinations. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 1008–1019). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: The aftereffects of disaster events are significant in tourist destinations where they do not only lead to destruction and casualties, but also long-lasting economic harms. The public perception causes tourists to refrain from visiting these areas and recovery of the tourist industry, a major economic sector, to become challenging. To improve this situation, current information about the tourist and infrastructure recovery is crucial for a “rebranding”- information that is however time and cost-intensive in acquisition using traditional information sources. An alternative data source that has shown great potential for information gathering in other disaster management phases, which was less considered for disaster recovery purposes, is Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). Therefore, this paper introduces a VGI-based methodology to address this task. Initial analyses conducted with Flickr data indicate a potential of VGI for recovery monitoring, whereas the analysis of OpenStreetMap data shows, that this form of VGI requires further quality assurance.
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Michael Aupetit, & Muhammad Imran. (2017). Interactive Monitoring of Critical Situational Information on Social Media. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 673–683). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: According to many existing studies, the data available on social media platforms such as Twitter at the onset of a crisis situation could be useful for disaster response and management. However, making sense of this huge data coming at high-rate is still a challenging task for crisis managers. In this work, we present an interactive social media monitoring tool that uses a supervised classification engine and natural language processing techniques to provide a detailed view of an on-going situation. The tool allows users to apply various filtering options using interactive timelines, critical entities, and other logical operators to get quick access to situational information. The evaluation of the tool conducted with crisis managers shows its significance for situational awareness and other crisis management related tasks.
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Michael Morin, Irène Abi-Zeid, Claude-Guy Quimper, & Oscar Nilo. (2017). Decision Support for Search and Rescue Response Planning. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 973–984). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Planning, controlling and coordinating search and rescue operations is complex and time is crucial for survivors who must be found quickly. The search planning phase is especially important when the location of the incident is unknown. We propose, implement, solve, and evaluate mathematical models for the multiple rectangular search area problem. The objective is to define optimal or near-optimal feasible search areas for the available search and rescue units that maximize the probability of success. We compare our new model to an existing model on problem instances of realistic size. Our results show that we are able to generate, in a reasonable time, near optimal operationally feasible plans for searches conducted in vast open spaces. In an operational context, this research can increase the chances of finding s urvivors. Ultimately, as our models get implemented in the Canadian Coast Guard search planning tool, this can translate into more lives being saved.
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Mohammed Benali, A. R. G. (2017). Towards a Crowdsourcing-based Approach to enhance Decision Making in Collaborative Crisis Management. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 554–563). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Managing crises is considered as one of the most complicated organizational and managerial task. Indeed, dealing with such situations calls for many groups from different institutions and organizations to interact and collaborate their efforts in a timely manner to reduce their effects. However, response organizations are challenged by several problems. The urgent need of a shared and mutual situational awareness, information and knowledge about the situation are distributed across time and space and owned by both organizations and people. Additionally, decisions and actions have to be achieved promptly, under stress and time pressure. The contribution outlined in this paper is suggesting a crowdsourcing-based approach for decision making in collaborative crisis management based on the literature requirements. The objective of the approach is to support situational awareness and enhance the decision making process by involving citizens in providing opinions and evaluations of potential response actions.
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Nadia Saad Noori, Yan Wang, Tina Comes, Philipp Schwarz, & Heide Lukosch. (2017). Behind the Scenes of Scenario-Based Training: Understanding Scenario Design and Requirements in High-Risk and Uncertain Environments. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 948–959). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Simulation exercises as a training tool for enhancing preparedness for emergency response are widely adopted in disaster management. This paper addresses current scenario design processes, proposes an alternative approach for simulation exercises and introduces a conceptual design of an adaptive scenario generator. Our work is based on a systematic literature review and observations made during TRIPLEX-2016 exercise in Farsund, Norway. The planning process and scenario selection of simulation exercises impact directly the effectiveness of intra- and interorganizational cooperation. However, collective learning goals are rarely addressed and most simulations are focused on institution-specific learning goals. Current scenario design processes are often inflexible and begin from scratch for each exercise. In our approach, we address both individual and collective learning goals and the demand to develop scenarios on different layers of organizational learning. Further, we propose a scenario generator that partly automates the scenario selection and adaptively responds to the exercise evolvement.
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Nawel Amokrane, & Nicolas Daclin. (2017). Deducing Complex Scenarios for Resilience Analysis: Application to the Franco-German High Speed Train Network. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 464–474). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: The present work is part of the project RE(H)STRAIN1 which investigates security and its impact on the resilience of the Franco-German high-speed train network in case of terrorist attacks. To improve the capacity of this network to recover a normal functioning after a terrorist attack, appropriate security measures must be determined. To do so, the project investigates, in a scenario-driven holistic approach the entire terrorist sphere of possible actions. Terrorism threat is first defined as a set of single attacks called vignette attacks represented by the triplet actor – weapon – target, then complex attack scenarios are built considering combination rules detailed in this article. In this regard, this work aims at providing end-users with an approach to automatically deduce a set of formalized, consistent and plausible complex attack scenarios to allow in further steps to analyze and improve the resilience level of the high-speed train transportation infrastructure.
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Neda Mohammadi, John E. Taylor, & Ryan Pollyea. (2017). Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Public Response to Human-Induced Seismic Perturbations. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 666–672). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: There is general consensus that subsurface wastewater injections associated with unconventional oil and gas operations are responsible for the rapid increase of earthquake activity in the mid-U.S. Understanding the public response to these earthquakes is crucial for policy decisions that govern developing situational awareness and addressing perceived risks. However, we lack sufficient information on the reactive and recovery response behavior of the public tending to occur in the spatiotemporal vicinity of these events. Here, we review the spatiotemporal distribution of public response to the September 3, 2016, M5.8 earthquake in Pawnee, Oklahoma, USA, via a social media network (Twitter). Our findings highlight a statistically significant correlation between the spatial and temporal distribution of public response; and suggest the possible presence of a spatial distance decay, as well as a temporal far-field eect. Understanding the underlying structure of these correlations is fundamental to establishing deliberate policy decisions and targeted response actions.
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Nicky van Oorschot, & Bart van Leeuwen. (2017). Intelligent fire risk monitor based on Linked Open Data. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 294–306). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Every day the Fire department of the Netherlands work hard to save people's lives. Therefore, they have been investing in Business Intelligence approaches for several years, to get more information for accident prevention and accident fighting. In this paper, Linked Open Data has been used as a business intelligence approach for the creation of dwelling fire risk profiles based on demographic data. During the research a Proof of Concept showed the appliance of Linked Open Data for this purpose. However the data have some quality mismatches, such as: outdated, accuracy issues and not 100% complete. Evaluation session proofed that the outcomes show similarities with a fire incident map and the gut feeling of several firefighters.
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Nicolas Serrano, Josune Hernantes, Tim A. Majchrzak, & Mihoko Sakurai. (2017). Resilience Information Portal. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 445–456). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: The Smart Mature Resilience Project is a European research Project aimed at developing a Resilience Management Guideline. The guideline is composed of five tools developed in the project. They help to determine the level of resilience of a city and how to improve it. The Resilience Information Portal, one of these five tools, must support and integrate the different tools. It is also used as an engagement and communication tool. The tool had to be built before the finalization of the requirements, so a double approach was pursued in this project. First, a fast prototype was built based on a CMS, and second, a solution was built from scratch. The paper explains this process, compare both approaches, and how the long way can be more efficient. The final version has shown to be easy to use, and powerful enough to respond to the requirements of the users of the portal.
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Per Wikberg, Dennis Andersson, & Björn Johansson. (2017). Assessing command and control teams' performance and agility. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 204–219). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Crisis response organizations and military units must be agile and able to adapt to dynamic situations. The ability to adapt includes command and control agility, organizational adaptability and individual adaptability. An exploratory study of these adaptability traits were undertaken during a naval exercise. The exercise scenario was designed to progressively become more challenging, suggesting decreased performance and adaptability over time. The study objectives were to develop a data collection approach for adaptability traits and to investigate association between these traits and performance. Data collected from four command teams were evaluated in terms of response rate and item variation. Principal component analysis was used to explore latent structures and relationships. The results indicate acceptable survey response rates and trends showing a decrease in organizational adaptability and C2 agility over time while individual adaptability increased. The analysis also identified five partially independent components in the latent structure.
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Philipp Schwarz, Yan Wang, Stephan Lukosch, & Heide Lukosch. (2017). Policy Gaming for Humanitarian Missions. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 814–823). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Aid workers increasingly face risks when working in crisis regions. In order to improve effectiveness and safety of humanitarians, it is of great importance to provide a well thought out real-time socio-technical support. Thus, new policies and innovative technological solutions need to be developed and integrated into humanitarian workflows. For the requirements elicitation process to realize this aspiration, we employ a board game approach that confronts players with situations aid workers experience in the field. From the first game session, we learned that the game is a valuable tool. It raises awareness to important challenges and trade-offs that humanitarians face. In addition, it is an effective catalyst for initiating a discussion on which system requirements are needed. Future work will include an update of the board game as well as sessions with the target group of practitioners to inform the development of a socio-technical system for humanitarian aid work.
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Quentin Schoen, Sébastien Truptil, Franck Fontanili, Matthieu Lauras, & Anne-Ghislaine Anquetil. (2017). Tracking in real time the blood products transportations to make good decisions. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 173–180). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: The French Blood Establishment (EFS) is the only one in France allowed dealing with the blood supply chain. The EFS centers are scattered in France and blood products are transported over hundreds of kilometers, from collection sites to hubs and from the hubs to distribution sites. The strong constraints on lifetime and storage conditions imply a traceability of transportation steps very accurate, which is necessary in case of unexpected and unwanted events. To make “good” decisions, we propose in this research work to use the Physical Internet philosophy. Thanks to sensors in containers and Complex Event Processing modules to aggregate and filter the data collected, we would be able to create a real time “field model”. In case of crisis this model would be helpful and perfectly adapted to help the crisis unit to make “good” decisions and maybe propose solutions based on the past events.
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Rafael de Sousa Ferreira Costa, Tharcisio Cotta Fontainha, Adriana Leiras, Hugo Tsugunobu Yoshida Yoshizaki, Paulo Gonçalves, & Abdon Baptista de Paula Filho. (2017). IT infrastructure at the Rio de Janeiro City Operations Center – the case of 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 739–751). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Rio Operations Center (COR) was the agency of Rio de Janeiro Prefecture responsible for monitoring the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games operations, due to its role in the integrated management of the city operations. This paper presents a case study considering a brief theoretical reference and data collected through direct observations, interviews, internal documents and access to the systems and software used by COR. The analysis of the COR IT infrastructure and monitoring teams' preparation for the Olympics revealed a successful development of new teams and conflict solving practice. Despite the use of different sources of information and the development of specific systems for the event, the COR preparation faced some restrictions in analytical functions, security and integration among systems. Nevertheless, regionalization for monitoring and inter-agency coordination, cross-agency instant messaging, and a team for active monitoring of social media emerged as new practices, representing opening venues for future research.
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Rob Grace, Jess Kropczynski, Scott Pezanowski, Shane Halse, Prasanna Umar, & Andrea Tapia. (2017). Social Triangulation: A new method to identify local citizens using social media and their local information curation behaviors. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 902–915). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Local citizens can use social media such as Twitter to share and receive critical information before, during, and after emergencies. However, standard methods of identifying local citizens on Twitter discover only a small proportion of local users in a geographic area. To better identify local citizens and their social media sources for local information, we explore the information infrastructure of a local community that is constituted prior to emergencies through the everyday social network curation of local citizens. We hypothesize that investigating social network ties among local organizations and their followers may be key to identifying local citizens and understanding their local information seeking behaviors. We describe Social Triangulation as a method to identify local citizens vis-à-vis the local organizations they follow on Twitter, and evaluate our hypothesis by analyzing users' profile location information. Lastly, we discuss how Social Triangulation might support community preparedness by informing emergency communications planning.
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Robert Zinke, Laura Künzer, Benjamin Schröder, & Christina Schäfer. (2017). Integrating Human Factors into Evacuation Simulations – Application of the Persona Method for Generating Populations. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 127–138). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: For assessing evacuation dynamics in disaster situations, current approaches of pedestrian simulations increasingly include additional human characteristics. One aim is to assess realistic effects of structural changes of an infrastructure on evacuation behavior displayed by users. Creating agents with supplementary physical and psychological human characteristics and assembling the agents in accordance to the user's population may be beneficial not only to support decision making. The analysis of simulated effects of, e.g., informational strategies will foster crisis and disaster management. This paper combines knowledge about users in subway systems and highlights benefits of using the Persona method to improve objectivity in the specification of different user types. Persona method is adapted to pedestrian simulation. Using data from the authors´ field studies, personas are developed and implemented for an evacuation simulation. First findings suggest that including personas into pedestrian simulation influences the results with respect to the required safe evacuation time (RSET).
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Sadeeb Ottenburger, & Thomas Münzberg. (2017). An Approach for Analyzing the Impacts of Smart Grid Topologies on Critical Infrastructure Resilience. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 400–411). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: The generation and supply of electricity is currently about to undergo a fundamental transition that includes extensive development of smart grids. Smart grids are huge and complex networks consisting of a vast number of devices and entities which are connected with each other. This fact opens new variations of disruption scenarios which can increase the vulnerability of a power distribution network. However, the network topology of a smart grid has significant effects on urban resilience particularly referring to the adequate provision of vital services of critical infrastructures. An elaborated topology of smart grids can increase urban resilience. In this paper, we discuss the role of smart grids, give research impulses for examining diverse smart grid topologies and for evaluating their impacts on urban resilience by using an agent based simulation approach which considers smart grid topology as a model parameter.
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Samuel Lee Toepke. (2017). Temporal Sampling Implications for Crowd Sourced Population Estimations from Social Media. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 564–571). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Understanding the movements of a population throughout the 24-hour day is critical when directing disaster response in an urban area. An emergency situation can develop rapidly, and understanding the expected locations of groups of people is required for the success of first responders. Recent advances in modern consumer technologies have facilitated the generation, sharing and mining of an extensive amount of volunteered geographic information. Users leverage inexpensive smart devices, pervasive Internet connections and social media services to provide data about geospatial locations. Using an enterprise system, it is possible to aggregate this freely available, geospatially enabled data and create a population estimation with high spatiotemporal resolution, via a heat map. This investigation explores the effects of different temporal sampling periods when creating such estimations. Time periods are selected, estimations are generated for several large urban areas in the western United States, and comparisons of the results are shown/discussed.
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Sandra Lechtenberg, Adam Widera, & Bernd Hellingrath. (2017). Assessing Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) for Humanitarian Organizations. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 765–774). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Logistics activities are of high importance for the success of a humanitarian operation and can be responsible for up to 80% of its costs. Vendor Managed Inventory, a concept successfully applied in commercial logistics, might be a possibility to enhance the effectiveness of humanitarian logistics operations. However, there is a lack of an appropriate assessment of the VMI applicability for a humanitarian organization. We propose an adjusted VMI Readiness Score for humanitarian organizations, a tool adapted from a commercial context for the specific requirements of humanitarian scenarios, to gain a general impression of the suitability of VMI. The tool is applied exemplary to the IFRC and the result indicates that it is worthwhile to further investigate the applicability of VMI for humanitarian organizations.
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Sarah Bratt, Bryan Semaan, Lauren Britton, Bryan Dosono, & Franco Zeno. (2017). Translation in Personal Crises: Opportunities for Wearables Design. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 266–279). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: This paper reports on a qualitative study exploring personal crises that emerge during transitions. Personal crises, like crises caused by natural disasters, often lead to new behaviors and opportunities for technology appropriation and design. Through interviews with 14 military veterans re-integrating into civilian society, we find that the veterans' transitions involve several impediments related to translation work--the process through which people make sense of the conflicting rules and norms between former and present social realities. We developed guidelines for the design of new wearable devices that can aid veterans in the translation process by proposing a six-fold schema of design criteria for wearables--detection, nudging, portability/proximity, inconspicuousness, connectivity, and reflection--to empower veterans in managing personal crises, fostering resilience, and creating normalcy. Finally, we develop the concept of identity creep to explicate these translation-breakdowns.
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Sebastian Lindner, Hans Betke, & Stefan Sackmann. (2017). Attributes for Simulating Spontaneous On-Site Volunteers. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 846–856). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Disaster managers report that several disasters would have turned out on a dramatic scale without spontaneous unaffiliated on-site volunteers (SUV). Since SUVs are usually not integrated in chains of command and behave in a certain pattern of its own, coordination of SUVs becomes a challenge for disaster management. One key to coordination is communication and adequate support by information systems. However, real disasters or field tests are usually too expensive, elaborate, and partly impossible when coordination of SUVs is to be exercised or novel tools and methods must be evaluated. Simulating the SUV's behavior by software-agents is considered a constructive solution, however, the specification of simulation settings is an open research field. Therefore, this paper aims at identifying relevant attributes affecting SUVs behavior by a state-of-the-art literature review, classifying and discussing the attributes. Our results provide a sound basis for defining SUV-agents and performing suitable simulations in the future.
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Simon French, Nikos Argyris, Jim Q. Smith, Stephanie Haywood, & Matthew C. Hort. (2017). Uncertainty Handling during Nuclear Accidents. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 15–24). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: In the years following Chernobyl, many reports and projects reflected on how to improve emergency management processes in dealing with an accidental offsite release of radiation at a nuclear facility. A common observation was the need to address the inevitable uncertainties. Various suggestions were made and some of these were researched in some depth. The Fukushima Daiichi Disaster has led to further reflections. However, many of the uncertainties inherent in responding to a threatened or actual release remain unaddressed in the analyses and model runs that are conducted to support the emergency managers in their decision making. They are often left to factor in allowances for the uncertainty through informal discussion and unsupported judgement, and the full range of sources of uncertainty may not be addressed. In this paper, we summarise the issues and report on a project which has investigated the handling of uncertainty in the UK's national crisis cell. We suggest the R&D programmes needed to provide emergency managers with better guidance on uncertainty and how it may affect the consequences of taking different countermeasures.
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