Ulrich Meissen, Frank Fuchs-Kittowski, Michael Jendreck, Stefan Pfennigschmidt, Markus Hardt, & Agnès Voisard. (2017). A general system architecture and design for the coordination of volunteers for agile disaster response. 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. 890–900). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: In the recent decade the evolvement and widespread success of new technologies in particular in the field of computing power, network bandwidth, mobile networks and wearable devices have prepared the foundation for completely new approaches in crisis management. Currently, we are at the edge that such new technologies for crisis management are becoming a real and practically applicable option, e.g. in the field of alerting, crowdsourcing, and crowdtasking. In parallel, we witness in the recent years that citizens are more and more willing to help during crisis and disasters, thus providing a large – yet unused – potential for agile support in disaster preparation and response. In many disaster situations the emergency personnel reach the limits of their capabilities. In particular during the isolation phase the support of such volunteers can be a valuable benefit for disaster response. With the help of new technologies crisis management can provide current on-site information via mobile devices in real time as well as organize and coordinate the activities of the volunteers at specific locations. In this paper we present the results of the research project ENSURE: a general architecture and a system design for the coordination of spontaneous volunteers for agile disaster response. With the expected broader implementation of such systems in disaster management in the future it is inevitable to elaborate such common technological foundations for practical mass applications.
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B. Betting, E. Varea, & B. Patte-Rouland. (2017). Smoke dynamics in compartment fires: large scale experiments and numerical simulations. 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. 879–889). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Today, during compartments fire, the decision-making of the rescue teams is mainly based on human decisions, which are the results of gathered experiences. However, a perfect knowledge of the situation, its evolution over time and the dangers that may appear is impossible. The transition between a localized fire and a generalized fire can take several forms. One of the most important vectors in the propagation of combustion for compartment fires is smoke due to its high temperature and the large amounts of energy it contains. Despite its extreme danger, smoke remains important to study because it convey valuable information, especially on the appearance of thermal phenomena feared by firemen. To carry out this study, a large scale experimental cell is used. A burner fueled with propane produces hot fumes in a so-called “real fire” configuration. All the measurements carried out are compared with LES (Large Eddy Simulation) simulations of the experiment using FDS. The numerical component allows defining scenarios (fire fully developed, fire under ventilated ...), which are verified by the experiments. The dual competence numerical /experimental data is essential in this type of study since the experimental data suffer from a lack of resolution (spatial, temporal) but nevertheless represent information necessary for validating the codes.
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Ilona Heldal, & Cecilia Hammar Wijkmark. (2017). Simulations and Serious Games for Firefighter Training: Users' Perspective. In eds Aurélie Montarnal Matthieu Lauras Chihab Hanachi F. B. Tina Comes (Ed.), Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Informatin Systems for Crisis Response And Management (pp. 868–878). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Simulation and serious games (SSG) are advocated as promising technologies supporting training in emergency management (EM). Based on an investigation of SSG use for fire fighter training in nine countries, this paper is examining key elements and success factors that can counteract potential obstacles and challenges of SSG implementation. Data comes from interviews and observations with users and responsible managers from user organizations. By contrasting the different incentives and views regarding the SSG use, this paper contributes to a better understanding of SSG integration into organizational practices. Only by connecting the local, organizational strategies and user requirements with technical values and concrete examples can the SSG usage be experienced as successful. This connection requirement is by far not obvious since values are formulated differently by the main stakeholders and the benefits at one organization are not necessarily the same as at another. In this context, the added values of SSG solutions need to be more explicitly connected to the goals of traditional classroom and live training.
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Fatemeh Hendijani Fard, Cooper Davies, & Frank Mauer. (2017). Agile Emergency Responses Using Collaborative Planning HTN. 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. 857–867). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: Emergency response planning is a complex task due to multiple organizations involved, different planning considerations, etc. Using artificial intelligence collaborative planning helps in the automatic planning for complex situations. Analyzing all impacting factors along with plans that are executable can facilitate the decision making in Emergency Operations Centers for an agile emergency response. A main component of a planner is a knowledge base. Although many systems are developed to support decision making in emergency response or recovery, they either focus on specific or small organizations, or rely on simulations. To the best of our knowledge, there is a gap that there is no common knowledge base for provincial level mass emergencies for automatic planners. The multiplicity of the emergency response documents and their structure makes the knowledge acquisition complex. In this paper, we explain the process of extracting knowledge based on hierarchical task networks and how it speeds up the reactivity to a disaster.
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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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