Abstract: This paper introduces a simulator to train cognitive skills and teamwork of EMS teams engaged in a multi-casualty incident. It focuses on the multi-level EMS management of the incident: the collaborative training of the onsite paramedics and offsite dispatch operators in a flexible manner. The simulator?s configuration consists of two primary modules: 1. The multi-casualty incident site module, consisting of a fully interactive 3D serious game for a single trainee playing the role of the onsite paramedic in charge of managing the EMS; and 2. The EMS dispatch center module for two trainees, one playing the dispatch supervisor and the other playing a dispatch operator. This module includes also a situation display to facilitate situational awareness skills, predictive thinking, natural decision making, and team transactive memory systems.

Abstract: In this study, urban pluvial flood risk is studied in an actual study area using scenario simulation method based on hydrodynamics. Real weather data and GIS (Geographic Information System) data are adopted to make the results reliable. A region in Haidian District of Beijing is selected as the study area. All the rainfall scenarios (about 200 scenarios) during an 8-year period (from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2015) are obtained from hourly precipitation data. These rainfall scenarios are used as input for numerical simulations. Spatial-temporal distributions of water depth are obtained through numerical simulation base on SWEs (Shallow-Water Equations). GPU computing technique is applied to increase simulation speed greatly. Influence of rainfall parameters on flood water depth is analyzed. The results show that water depth becomes higher if rainfall duration and average rainfall intensity increase. Moreover, situation of water depth is not only related to overall parameters like rainfall duration or rainfall intensity, but also related to other details of rainfall. Water depth exceedance probability curves of every location and every building are obtained, and different characteristics of the curves are discussed. Finally, the effect of water depth exceedance probability curves of buildings on designing building foundation height is shown. This study is helpful to the risk assessments of urban pluvial flood.

Abstract: Integrated flood risk management involves a large portfolio of options for mitigating risks that includes hard and soft structural, non-structural, and recovery responses. Non-structural responses include flood warnings, emergency services supported by individuals, collective actions and the use of resistance and resilience measures. Sufficient flood warning time, appropriate actions at desired locations and time are essential for effective and beneficial responses. From this perspective beside the management of the crisis itself, the level of preparedness including the evaluation of plans involving such responses (e.g. emergency protocols) also needs to be sufficient and, thus in the context of various event scenarios.

Abstract: Emergencies are highly complex situations that require careful consideration of information collected from a variety of sources, by a variety of individuals and agencies. Good situation awareness provides the basis for a highly effective decision-making process requiring large volumes of real time information. Processing this is a highly complex task, and the dynamic nature of emergencies introduces further challenges. Over the years, several initiatives have attempted to address this complexity by proposing a variety of solutions that have contributed to a growing field of research. While progress toward decision-making support has been significant, the process of managing decisions has received less attention. To learn from decisions, there needs to be a process of collecting, curating and analyzing decision-making itself. Information being collected via a large number of resources needs to be formalized and interpreted by the decision maker, who in turn combines the information collected with their own knowledge and experience to make critical, and often life-saving decisions. Many of the decisions need to be taken instantaneously, while some need careful consultation and consideration, in collaboration with experts only once good situation awareness is achieved. This process of taking decisions based on evidence and personal experience is often lost, mostly due to lack of appropriate archiving mechanisms (e.g. not digitizing paper-based decisions or recording informal decisions). Therefore post-event analysis and auditing activities can lose track of how decisions were made, their associated evidences and rationale. Recording decisions in real-time, as they are taken, can provide a step change in the way decision support systems can aid future events or post-event analyses. We address this aspect of decision support by proposing a real-time decision capture and monitoring approach, Decision Graphs. At the core of Decision Graphs resides a decision management framework, employing semantic web techniques to organise decisions, as and when they are taken. While Semantic Web approaches have been employed in the past in Decision-Making for Emergency Response, management of decisions using Semantic Technologies has been largely limited. Lightweight decision loggers are deployed in a variety of ways ? mobile applications available for all types of mobile devices, web browser-based plugins, and a dedicated web site. The decision loggers capture decisions and all related evidence and rationale from the decision maker, and make them available to the decision management framework. Following an event, a decision maker can then retrieve all decisions via a web-based solution. In this poster, we first present requirements gathered from interviews with a variety of stakeholders. We then address this need and propose a decision management framework that employs a variety of pervasive lightweight decision loggers and semantic web technologies for enriching and organizing decisions. Finally, we present our visualisation mechanisms to help look up events and decisions, during follow-up post event analyses activities.

Abstract: Affected locations by flash floods are rich in information for flood management. Usually, there are several types and sources of information which can be related to achieve better reliability to decision-making. However, a major challenge is to achieve the reliability this information within datasets so heterogeneous or complex. For instance, reports of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) through a crowdsourcing-based platform can be confirmed by means of images available on site. Thus, we carried out an experiment to identify water level of river through clustering from static images using an evolutionary method of hierarchical data clustering, called DAta-MIning COde REpositories (Sanches, Cardoso, and Delbem, 2011). Our experiment aimed answering the following question: Is DAMICORE able to find matching clusters between static images gathered from the sensor in-situ and water levels provided by the non-automatic interpretation mechanisms in the riverbed? These mechanisms (Figure 1 (a) water level ruler, (b) puppet, and (c) multi-color band) refer to the hazard index at hydrology field and help volunteers to report into the crowdsourcing-based platform (Degrossi, Albuquerque, Fava, Mendiondo, 2014). Moreover, our dataset contains 288 images categorized in (gray) 124 undefined, (orange) 109 acceptable, (red) 17 high, (dark red) 6 very high, and (blue) 32 flood which were obtained from in-situ sensor in a 5-minute temporal resolution on November 23rd, 2015, when a flash flood occurred at 4 p.m. (Figure 1 (d) ) at São Carlos, São Paulo, Brazil. Our preliminaries results have shown a possible matching between clusters found (Figure 2) and interpretation mechanisms of the water level in the riverbed. Therefore, there is evidence that the DAMICORE can support VGI reports collected from dedicated platforms, improving the credibility of information. Nevertheless, further experiments should be performed considering a greater number of images per category and matching between other types of VGI and authoritative data, e.g. social media and sensor.

Abstract: This work aims to analyse an emergency response tabletop simulation exercise undertaken as part of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) State?s Fire Department?s officer training program and conducted at Rio de Janeiro State?s Command and Control Center (CICC). Eleven groups of three officers acting as one played the roles of unit commanders. The exercise concerned the use of a set of SOPs and our research sought to identify sources of resilience and brittleness. From an initial scenario, the inserts escalated the action so as to require the commanders? responses to exercise 12 different SOPs, many simultaneously. This provided the context for the simulation´s main goal, which was to exercise and verify the knowledge, use, and suitability of the procedure related to the management of operational events of larger scale, duration, or complexity. Data collection and analysis followed cognitive task analysis methodology and included audio and video recording of the simulation and parts of its two preparation workshops. The simulated exercise showed the relationship between standardization and resilience. Not all of the expected SOPs set were utilized, in part due to the exercise design, in part due to gaps in participants? knowledge of SOPs, and in part due to acknowledged limitations of SOPs to deal with all cases real world contexts. This need for adaptation is an aspect increasingly present in complex systems, such as the one studied here, as the unexpected variability arising from the interaction between the many different elements that compose them can exceed the capacity of the SOPs to deal with it. Knowledge and analysis of the need for adaptation can contribute on different fronts: (i) better training for more conscious and safer recognition, planning and implementation of adjustments; (ii) the design or reformulation of SOPs better able to deal with real activity by considering aspects revealed by brittleness; and (iii) artefacts design to support these demands for recognition and enforcement, ensuring increasingly resilient, efficient and secure systems.

Abstract: This abstract highlights research challenges to improving effectiveness of integrating information and communication technologies during emergencies. Proposed as a research focus is the integration of proven virtual activation processes with an unobtrusive research presence. This positions the research presence during a real-time emergency to glean previously unknown information/rationales on how decision-makers decide and take action. Establishing a collaborative partnership by combining a ?research presence? with the ?virtual operation capability,? is essential. Mutual understanding must embrace the precept of no disruption to first responders in actual response and recovery efforts. Consensus should be reached in identifying measurable outcomes for the research. The collaborative effort opens a groundbreaking area for consideration of study in crisis response and management. It would shed new light on an underexplored, critical area of emergency management and has the potential to further enhance the value of information and communication systems in preparing, responding, and recovering from emergencies.

Abstract: Information security is an important part of almost any kind of Information System. Crisis Management Systems (CMS) are a type of Information System that deals with information which needs to be secure. No matter what kind of crisis, natural disasters, man-made crisis or terrorist attacks, the CMS security should not be compromised. There are many challenges regarding exchange of qualified information and interoperability between various Expert Systems and the CMS. It is important to have strong security in terms of technology, skills, security requirements, sensitivity of information and trust-worthiness (Vural, Ciftcibasi and Inan, 2010). Depending on the type of crisis situation, different sets of security components should be triggered, since the security requirements vary between situations. For example, a terrorist attack has different security requirements in the system compared to a natural disaster or a medical emergency. In this paper, the importance of Information Security in CMS will be discussed. Methods for secure exchange of qualified information are analyzed and a secure and dynamic Crisis Management Information Security System (CMISS) design is introduced. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: The need for better team measurement in realistic environments has been recognized as one of the key challenges that characterize the field of team work studies (Salas, Cooke, & Rosen, 2008). This challenge is particularly hard to address in the context of emergency response, due to the inherent complexity and dynamism of the domain. Emergency response is part of the emergency management cycle, and refers to the mobilization of the adequate actors and resources to mitigate the impact of an incident on the public and on the environment (Abrahamsson, Hassel, and Tehler, 2010). Emergency response often requires the cooperation of multiple agencies such as police, medical, and fire services, consequently increasing the complexity of such operations. We report of how SYnRGY – a human-centered emergency response technological tool – is embedded with extensive measurement and simulation capabilities to allow tracing of experts' task models in a silent and reliable way. We describe how these capabilities; combined with an innovative modeling technique – dynamic cognitive task modeling – can be used to extract experts' representations of the task. We discuss the importance of such a model for training, improvement of emergency response procedures and development of emergency response tools. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: The mankind has passed through a significant historical frontier, including technological processes where hazardous substances are the potential threats for the employees, the public, environment and property and therefore it is inevitable to pay increased attention to the occurrence of the industrial accidents and mainly to their prevention. The area of safety of technical and technological systems is very closely connected not only with the reliability of the processes but also with the technical as well as social, legal and other aspects. There exist several systematic approaches, methods and techniques to assess industrial processes and risks linked to these processes on the European Union level and also on the national level of each member state. We can mention some basic systematic approaches – MOSAR, CPQRA, ARAMIS, PRA (PSA) widely used in this area. But according to the analyst's needs they usually miss structured and systematic approach, how to complete the risk assessment in steps and what the content of each of these steps is. The main focus of this paper is to discuss the theoretical aspects of the risk assessment in industrial processes and to show the possible approach of structured and systematic methods with support of logical diagrams to fulfill all tasks concerning the industrial accident assessment. Last but not least it is to present the research activities of the Department of Crisis Management, University of Žilina in Žilina, Slovakia. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: With a coastline touching upon the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the Great Lakes and the Arctic Sea, the Canadian MSOCs are faced with a daunting task. They are responsible for both routine duties, including patrolling coastal areas and collecting satellite data, as well as critical missions, such as emergency response and crime intervention. Both kinds of mission require the fusion of data from a variety of sources and the orchestration of myriad heterogeneous resources over great physical distances. They must deal with uncertainty, both in terms of what can be known and also in the outcomes of actions, and must interact with an environment prone to dynamic change. We present the architecture and core mechanisms of a decision support system for marine safety and security operations (Glässer, Jackson, Araghi, When and Shahir, 2010). The goal of this system is to enhance complex command and control tasks by improving situational awareness and automating task assignments. This system concept includes adaptive information fusion techniques integrated with decentralized control mechanisms for dynamic resource configuration management and task execution management under uncertainty. Autonomously operating agents employ collaboration and coordination to collectively form an intelligent decision support system. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: Society is faced with a growing amount of property damage and casualties from man-made and natural disasters. Developing societal resilience to those disasters is critical but challenging. In particular, societal resilience is jointly determined by federal and local governments, private and non-profit sectors, and private citizens. We present a sequence of games among players such as federal, local, and foreign governments, private citizens, and adaptive adversaries. In particular, the governments and private citizens seek to protect lives, property, and critical infrastructure from both adaptive terrorists and non-adaptive natural disasters. The federal government can provide grants to local governments and foreign aid to foreign governments to protect against both natural and man-made disasters. All levels of government can provide pre-disaster preparation and post-disaster relief to private citizens. Private citizens can also make their own investments. The tradeoffs between protecting against man-made and natural disasters – specifically between preparedness and relief, efficiency and equity – and between private and public investment, will be discussed. © 2012 ISCRAM.