Abstract: Mobile communications networks and devices can be and have been used by authorities to warn and instruct the general public during crises. However, our understanding of how mobile technologies could best be used for emergency announcements (public warnings) is currently limited. To clarify one part of this field of study, we define and describe a simple taxonomy for mobile emergency announcements (MEA) systems. The taxonomy has three categories: preplanned MEA systems, ad-hoc MEA systems and semi ad-hoc MEA systems. Differences in functional, security and other requirements were found between MEA systems belonging to different taxonomy categories, both concerning how each category of MEA systems can meet the common requirements, and concerning which requirements are the most important for each category of MEA systems. The differences between the categories were especially clear for these requirements: the understandability and credibility of the MEAs and the security of a MEA system.

Abstract: To face the urgent need to train strategic and operational managers in dealing with complex crises, we are researching and developing an innovative decision support system to be used for crisis management and interactive crisis training. This paper provides an overview of current decision-support systems, simulation software and other technologies specifically designed to serve crisis managers. These findings inform the design of a new interactive simulation technology system, where a 3D Common Operational Picture (COP) is shared between tactile digital whiteboard in the command center and mobile devices in the field. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: This paper concerns a preliminary user study to determine the acceptance of a mobile application that is supposed to involve civilians during emergencies. In particular, the focus is on bystanders. Their intervention during emergencies constitutes a delicate issue, since they were traditionally considered as a rather annoying party being merely observers of incidents. However, with the ubiquity and ever-increasing capabilities of cell phones there might emerge a great potential to flip the coin and to benefit from bystanders playing from now on a contributive role. To examine this hypothesis, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 persons. The result of our study shows that people are willing to use such mobile assisting system, and thus we take it as a positive starting signal to continue our research into this direction considering the elicited user constraints.

Abstract: This research explores the potential determinants of trust in newly formed virtual teams to better inform the choice of communication media for virtual emergency response groups for which interpersonal trust is crucial. Results of a laboratory experiment indicate that the way that communicants view their teammates and themselves as part of that team is significantly correlated with the level of trust that they experience. Impression formation, public self-awareness, perceived social presence, and self-disclosure are all found to have significant correlations with trust among ad hoc teammates. It is therefore recommended that the design of emergency response communication systems include features to foster these feelings thereby promoting trust among teammates. Our results are applicable to ad hoc emergency teams who interact for a period of time to address relief and recovery efforts after a major disaster or emergency.

Abstract: In every disaster and crisis, incident time is the enemy, and getting accurate information about the scope, extent, and impact of the disaster is critical to creating and orchestrating an effective disaster response and recovery effort. The main goal of beAWARE framework is to provide support in all the phases of an emergency incident. More specifically, we propose an integrated solution to support forecasting, early warnings, transmission and routing of the emergency data, aggregated analysis of multimodal data and management the coordination between the first responders and the authorities.

Abstract: In this paper we imagine that one day soon, mass crisis events will result in thousands of people trying to get emergency help multiple via multiple mediums. Public Access Service Points and 911 Centers will not be able to meet the demand of text-message calls for help during a large scale disaster. While 911 dispatchers will need to respond directly to each individual text message, we present the development and testing of a system that aims to provide this data, in real-time, directly to emergency managers during a large-scale crisis. The system is designed to accept, sort, triage and deliver hundreds of direct text messages from the PSAP and provide them directly to emergency management staff, who can leverage their content. In the hands of the emergency manager, these data can be used to inform resource allocation decisions, enhance their operational situational awareness, and potentially improve the response to the crisis.

Abstract: Crisis response is, as any other collaborative networked organization, challenged by changes and vulnerabilities. Moreover, as a complex system with distributed activities and numerous interdependencies, considering the risk of such an organization at a systemic level, including time and space dimensions, is necessary. Systemic risk management is a topic traditionally studied in the finance area. Even if a few researches now focus on the supply chain management area (a more relatable domain regarding crisis response), there is even fewer literature regarding systemic risk management for the crisis response. Thus, this paper proposes first to define systemic risk related to the case of the crisis response. Then, a framework for context-aware systemic risk management is presented, to support the design as well as the follow-up of the crisis response, meeting one of the challenges of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

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.

Abstract: This paper introduces two concepts-dialogical emergency management and strategic awareness-as means to use and understand the content of social media for the purpose of emergency communication. Dialogical emergency management denotes that the emergency management organizations follow what people publish in various social media on emergencies and ongoing emergency response, and then adjust their information strategies in a way that matches the expectations and needs for emergency information of the public. The concept of strategic awareness suggests that it is essential to have an understanding of the receiver (public) of emergency information but also to have an understanding of the receivers' idea about the emergency and emergency response. Hence, the notion of strategic awareness incorporates structured awareness of how people interpret, value, and reacts on communication based on what they think about the sender's (emergency management organization's) actual intentions and motives.

Abstract: In search and rescue scenarios local information on victims and other finds needs to be disseminated rapidly to other rescue workers and team leaders. However, post disaster scenarios may imply the collapse of information infrastructure including cellular communication and Internet connectivity. Even if we consider wireless ad hoc communication as a means of information dissemination we should count on frequent loss of connectivity in the network due to unpredictable mobility and sparse network topologies. In this paper we present the realization of an existing manycast protocol (random walk gossip) on commodity handheld devices running the Android platform. This communication mode is used to demonstrate the potential for distributed information dissemination on victims and finds. The application layer is an adaptation of an existing surveying information tool (POSIT) which is now fully decentralized and relies on text communication to achieve energy efficiency.

Abstract: Natural and man-made hazards have many unexpected consequences that concern as many heterogeneous services. The GéNéPi project offers to support officials in addressing those events: its purpose is to support the collaboration in the field and the decision-making in the crisis cells. To succeed, the GéNéPi system needs to be aware of the ongoing crisis developments. For now, its best chance is to benefit from the ever growing number of available data sources. One of its goals is, therefore, to learn how to manage numerous, heterogeneous, more or less reliable data, in order to interpret them, in time, for the officials. The result consists on a situation model in the shape of a common operational picture. This paper describes every stage of modelling from the raw data selection, to the use of the situation model itself.

Abstract: Population preparedness plays a crucial role in disaster management since it can help reduce the number of victims and restrict damage. Nevertheless, little work has been done at a European level towards preparing populations to learn how to cope with disasters and involving them in the disaster management process. In this paper we present the preliminary results of an on-line emergency preparedness survey circulated among EU citizens, which aims to identify and analyse people?s behaviour in terms of preparedness, first reaction, risk awareness and willingness to engage in preparedness actions. Our preliminary analysis, based on over 1200 participants, indicates that although EU populations have a high capability for participation in emergency response, their preparedness level is low. We also found that national differences are a significant factor affecting individual preparedness behaviour and awareness of risks.