Abstract: This paper focuses on the micro-blogging service Twitter, looking at source credibility for information shared in relation to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. We look at the sources, credibility, and between-language differences in information shared in the month following the disaster. Messages were categorized by user, location, language, type, and credibility of information source. Tweets with reference to third-party information made up the bulk of messages sent, and it was also found that a majority of those sources were highly credible, including established institutions, traditional media outlets, and highly credible individuals. In general, profile anonymity proved to be correlated with a higher propensity to share information from low credibility sources. However, Japanese-language tweeters, while more likely to have anonymous profiles, referenced low-credibility sources less often than non-Japanese tweeters, suggesting proximity to the disaster mediating the degree of credibility of shared content. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: When emergency announcements (EA) to a population in a crisis area are needed, avoiding single points of failure in the EA sending and forwarding systems is essential. We present a new concept, an extension to existing EA sending systems, which is based on real-time location information about mobile devices. Such a solution would increase the EA sending systems' robustness through redundancy and technology diversity. At the same time, these mobile emergency announcement (MEA) sending systems would increase the percentage of the threatened population that can be reached fast. The proposition is based on a set of requirements for EA sending systems, the most important of which turned out to be ensuring the authenticity and integrity of the EA information content. We found our preliminary results too optimistic: current GSM networks should not be used for sending EAs, as it is quite possible to forge SMS text messages, even to multiple GSM phones in a specific target area. The next generations of mobile phone networks (3G/UMTS and 4G) seem more promising, due to their packet-oriented architectures, as each data packet can be stamped with verifiable information about the source of the data. However, the development of communications networks with features compatible with MEA sending will demand that both authorities and independent experts take an active, early role in networks design right beside the commercial organisations. © Proceedings ISCRAM 2004.

Abstract: This paper describes the approach to implement network centric operations (NCO) in the Dutch crisis management domain. NCO resolves a number of important shortcomings related to the supply and flow of information experienced in current verbal communication-based crisis management. First, we provide a description of the crisis management organization in the Netherlands and the nature of information supply problems. Second, we explain how a network centric approach would be implemented in this domain. Next, we describe how between 2005 and 2008 several regions in the Netherlands have made efforts to implement a network-approach, and we evaluate their experiences. The NCO approach reduces the need for reliability checks of verbal communication. Consequently procedures can be optimized with NCO. This paper concludes with next steps, such as continuing to explore the effects of NCO on the current way of working and train people to work in a network centric environment.

Abstract: Protection of society against natural and man-made disasters is high on the societal and political agenda. Effective crisis management is more important than ever. Nowadays, crisis organisations depend crucially on reliable telecom services, and unexpected failure of telecommunication may have serious consequences. In order not to be caught unprepared, crisis organisations should therefore perform a risk assessment on telecom availability. Unfortunately, assessment of availability risks of modern, multi-operator telecom services is difficult; information sources are unreliable, and the relevant information is uncertain and difficult to obtain. This paper describes some of these difficulties, as well as the requirements of availability risk assessment methods for crisis telecommunication services. The paper outlines a new method that can be applied without requiring full knowledge of the physical layout of the telecom infrastructure. This new method relies on telecom service diagrams as a tool for risk analysis and to facilitate dialogue among the analysts.

Abstract: Telephone calls are the predominant telecommunication mode in Sri Lanka. Leveraging voice-based applications for disaster communication would be acceptable and sustainable. The findings in this paper are from an experiment concerning interactive voice for connecting community-based emergency field operatives with their central coordination hub. Challenge was in interchanging the Freedom Fone (FF) Interactive Voice Response (IVR) generated, Sinhala and Tamil language, speech data with the text-based 'Sahana' disaster management system for analysis and decision support. Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) interoperable content standard was adopted for mediation. Low quality voice data resulting in incomplete information was a barrier to automating transformations between text and speech. Replacing those processes with human procedure significantly degrades the reliability. Moreover, human interaction with decoupled software systems, to accomplish the sequence of tasks, points to instabilities. This paper discusses the complexities and usability shortcomings discovered through controlled-exercises in Sri Lanka. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: Microblogging platforms have been increasingly used in crisis, facilitating more participatory communication between official response channels and affected communities. Despite the potential benefits, research has shown that disaster response organizations could not effectively utilize social media data due to data deluge (Knox 2022). To better understand the information needed for disaster response, we turn to the National Incident Management System Guidance for public information officers (PIOs) (NIMS Basic Guidance for PIOs 2020), the primary spokesperson for emergency management organizations. The guidance indicates that PIOs use social media for two major purposes, supporting their operational needs and gauging public perception of risk and incident response. To support the operational needs, the crisis informatics literature has heavily focused on information types supporting situational awareness, including serviceable, eyewitness or actionable information. However, the information representing public perception, such as people’s cognitive and perceptual processes in response to incidents, has been less addressed at scale. To bridge the gap between quantitative study in crisis informatics and information representing cognitive and perceptual processes and better support the task of PIOs, I focus on the study of people’s cognitive and perceptual processes on social media for my research. Cognitive and perceptual processes refer to the way that people pay attention to or process environmental inputs, including the mental activities of acquisition, processing or evaluation of environmental cues, social cues, and warnings. These processes reveal people’s perception of- and decision-making in response to potential threats. With this focus, I seek to answer the following research question: How could people’s cognitive and perceptual processes be inferred from their social media activities in crisis to benefit stakeholders in incident response? My interest in tracing this overall theme through a varied range of sub-tasks produces three more specific research questions: RQ1. How can information exposure and attention be operationalized to highlight cognitive and perceptual processes? RQ2. How do people’s perception of risk communications from stakeholders vary in crisis? RQ3. How could a principled and scalable pipeline be designed to identify people’s cognitive and affective perceptions on Twitter? I took cues from the Protective Action Decision Model (Lindell and Perry 2012) and leveraged baselines in the literature to address these research questions. To address the first research question, I proposed a metric that conceptualized and operationalized the predecision process. The proposed metric was incorporated into a pipeline and applied to two real-word events to recommend messages that represent the shift of collective attention of those locally affected with a specialized focus on cognitive and perceptual processes. To address the second research question, I went beyond the perception of risks to include perceptions of risk communications by stakeholders. I performed an empirical study of the relation between risk communications by stakeholders and different kinds of public perceptions (Lindell and Perry 2012). To address the third research question, I proposed a future work to provide benchmark coding schemes, datasets and models to quantitatively identify information representing cognitive and perceptual processes. I will leverage existing benchmark datasets in the literature (Olteanu et al. 2014; Imran et al. 2016; Alam et al. 2018; Zahra et al. 2020; Rudra et al. 2017; Mazloom et al. 2018; Purohit et al. 2018) and coding schemes in qualitative studies (Trumbo et al. 2016; Demuth et al. 2018) and create benchmark classification models.

Abstract: Widespread disasters can overload official agencies' capacity to provide assistance, and often citizen-led groups emerge to assist with disaster response. As social media platforms have expanded, emergent rescue groups have many ways to harness network and mobile tools to coordinate actions and help fellow citizens. This study used semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation techniques to better understand how wide-scale rescues occurred during the 2017 Hurricane Harvey flooding in the Greater Houston, Texas USA area. We found that citizens used diverse apps and social media-related platforms during these rescues and that they played one of three roles: rescuer, dispatcher, or information compiler. The key social media coordination challenges these rescuers faced were incomplete feedback loops, unclear prioritization, and communication overload. This work-in-progress paper contributes to the field of crisis and disaster response research by sharing the nuances in how citizens use social media to respond to calls for help from flooding victims.

Abstract: Official crisis messages need to be persuasive to promote appropriate public responses. However, little research has examined the content of crisis messages from a persuasion perspective, especially for natural hazards. This study deductively identifies five persuasive message factors (PMFs) applicable to natural hazards, including two under-examined health-related PMFs: health risk susceptibility and health impact. Using 2016 heat hazards as a case study, this paper content-analyzes heat-related Twitter messages (N=904) posted by eighteen U.S. National Weather Service Weather Forecast Offices according to the five PMFs. We find that the use of descriptions of hazard intensity is disproportionately high, with a lack of use of other PMFs. We also describe different types of statements used to signal the two health-related PMFs. We conclude with implications and recommendations relevant to practitioners and researchers in social media crisis communication.

Abstract: This poster describes the research of a collaborative faculty-led research that will enable first responders to identify and visualize geo-located quality of service and coverage gaps in wireless and deployable networks during an emergency event and support the deployment additional LTE base stations within FirstNet to augment network coverage and capacity. Our crowd sourced cellular metrics system uses big data analytics to detect changes in coverage and usage patterns and recommends where to deploy additional communication assets. The approach uses machine learning methods to measure and model coverage gaps and automatically implement bandwidth prioritization on whatever communication assets are available.

Abstract: Despite the undeniable value of computer games as educational resources for teaching children, its actual application in educational processes is hampered due the complexity of their design and the high cost of developing them. In order to foster their adoption for emergency training, we propose a model for describing the different elements of an educational game for this domain. The model might serve to support the game designing process as well as a communication tool between educators and game designers. This way, the educator can specify the requirements of the educational experience he aims to construct, and based on that information the game designer can propose a set of possible configurations of the game elements that can help to attain the specified objectives.

Abstract: Recent Developments in the telecommunication technology offer a number of additional tools not only for the providers of emergency and disaster response, but may also facilitate early warning. Their application depends, however, on the regulatory framework governing telecommunications and on their appropriateness for the specific requirements in the pre-, peri- and postimpact phases of an event. Telecommunications are a key element for to the success of emergency preparedness and response, and the application of all available technologies and networks saves lives. The recent events in the Indian Ocean Region will have to be the subject of detailed analysis and evaluation of all existing mechanisms, hopefully leading to improvements in the organizational and operational field. First information available already in the immediate aftermath of the events of 26 December 2004 has been applied to the considerations in the present paper.