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Stephen Potter, Austin Tate, & Gerhard Wickler. (2006). Using I-X process panels as intelligent to-do lists for agent coordination in emergency response. In M. T. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2006 – 3rd International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 272–281). Newark, NJ: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to describe the I-X system with its principal user interface, the I-X Process Panel, its underlying ontology, , and how this panel can be used as an intelligent to-do list that assists emergency responders in applying pre-defined standard operating procedures in different types of emergencies. In particular, multiple instances of I-X Process Panels can be used as a distributed system to coordinate the efforts of independent emergency responders as well as responders within the same organization. Furthermore, it can be used as an agent wrapper for other software systems such as web services to integrate these into the emergency response team as virtual members. The heart of the I-X system is an automated planner that can be used to synthesize courses of action or explore alternative options manually.
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Carin Rencrantz, Niclas Karlsson, & Rolf Olsson. (2012). A concept for inter-organizational crisis management exercises. In Z.Franco J. R. L. Rothkrantz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2012 Conference Proceedings – 9th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Vancouver, BC: Simon Fraser University.
Abstract: A large inter-organizational Swedish crisis management exercise was carried out during two months in 2011. It was unique in the sense that it combined both short-term and long-term crisis management involving more than 60 organizations and 6000 participants. This has never been done before in this context and therefore required an elaborated and sophisticated exercise concept. The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of the exercise as well as lessons learned about the concept and the Swedish crisis management system. The exercise was composed of three different phases each involving different methods with respect to exercising and evaluating effective and efficient crisis management. The general conclusion is that the exercise enabled analyzes and handling of both short-term and long-term crisis management. This implies that the exercise concept could be of great use in Sweden and other countries where emergencies call for cooperation between numerous distributed organizations. © 2012 ISCRAM.
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Robert Power, Bella Robinson, David Alexander, & Mahesh Prakash. (2018). Predicting Demand for Government Services during Disaster Events. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 89–96). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: Smart Service Queensland (SSQ) is the 'front door' to the Queensland State Government in Australia, providing services and information for citizens and businesses. Services are delivered through online channels, call centres and face-to-face service centres. Rostering to adequately staff the call centres during business as usual demand is well supported using existing workforce planning tools and content management systems alongside real-time telephonic monitoring. However, during times of large scale emergency events, such as floods and tropical cyclones, effective workforce planning heavily relies upon experienced SSQ personnel constantly monitoring and updating call centre staffing levels leading up to and during the disaster event to ensure customer demands are met. Achieving the right balance of call centre servicing without over provisioning is a challenging task. We present a prototype analytics tool that supports the SSQ Forecast Analyst responsible for workforce planning during disaster events and provides initial results of modelling caller behavior during two recent tropical cyclones. The tool provides a single point of reference to a wide collection of relevant datasets, including population demographics and details of the natural and built environment, data feeds describing the emergency event under investigation, relevant social media posts and call centre operations metrics. The tool is an early proof of concept demonstrator highlighting the utility of data integration, web mapping, real-time event monitoring, and predictive modelling.
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Robert Power, Bella Robinson, & Mark Cameron. (2023). Insights from a Decade of Twitter Monitoring for Emergency Management. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 247–257). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The Emergency Situation Awareness (ESA) tool began as a research study into automated web text mining to support emergency management use cases. It started in late 2009 by investigating how people respond on Twitter to specific emergency events and we quickly realized that every emergency situation is different and preemptively defining keywords to search for content on Twitter beforehand would likely miss important information. So, in late September 2011 we established location-based searches with the aim of collecting all the tweets published in Australia and New Zealand. This was the beginning of over a decade of collecting and processing tweets to help emergency response agencies and crisis coordination centres use social media content as a new channel of information to support their work practices and to engage with the community impacted by emergency events. This journey has seen numerous challenges overcome to continuously maintain a tweet stream for an operational system. This experience allows us to derive insights into the changing use of Twitter over this time. In this paper we present some of the lessons we’ve learned from maintaining a Twitter monitoring system for emergency management use cases and we provide some insights into the changing nature of Twitter usage by users over this period.
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David J. Saab, Edgar Maldonado, Razvan Orendovici, Louis-Marie Ngamassi Tchouakeu, Kang Zhao, Annemijn Van Gorp, et al. (2008). Building global bridges: Coordination bodies for improved information sharing among humanitarian relief agencies. In B. V. de W. F. Fiedrich (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2008 – 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 471–483). Washington, DC: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Information is a critical component to improved inter-agency coordination during disaster response. Coordinated information and communication technologies deployments as well as coordinated information management processes are important tools in the provision of this information. However, multilateral agency coordination faces many challenges, which has sparked the formation of coordination bodies. This research examines three such bodies and describes their organizational arrangements as well as identifies common challenges they face to effective coordination. It finds that the bodies differ on a variety of dimensions including funding mechanisms, autonomy, and number of members, which will likely have implications for the strategies they employ. Also, the coordination bodies identify a lack of standardization, capacity and information availability and analysis as challenges to improved coordination.
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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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Sebastian Lindner, Stefan Sackmann, & Hans Betke. (2019). Simulating Spontaneous Volunteers: A System Entity Structure for Defining Disaster Scenarios. In Z. Franco, J. J. González, & J. H. Canós (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management. Valencia, Spain: Iscram.
Abstract: Fast and easy communication, e.g. via Twitter or Facebook, encourages self-coordination between spontaneous
volunteers in disasters. Unfortunately, this is more and more challenging official disaster management. The need
for the directed coordination of spontaneous volunteers triggered researchers to develop effective coordination
approaches. However, evaluating and comparing such approaches as well as their exercising are lacking a
standardized way to describe repeatable disaster scenarios, e.g. for simulations. Therefore, we present a novel
System Entity Structure (SES) for describing disaster scenarios considering the disaster environment,
communication infrastructure, disaster management, and population of spontaneous volunteers. The SES is
discussed as a promising scheme for including spontaneous volunteers in disaster scenarios on a general level. Its
applicability is demonstrated by a Pruned Entity Structure derived from a real disaster scenario. Based on the
results, we give an outlook on our subsequent research, the XML-based Spontaneous Volunteer Coordination
Scenario Definition Language (SVCSDL).
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J. Renze Steenhuisen, Mathijs M. De Weerdt, & Cees Witteveen. (2007). Enabling agility through coordinating temporally constrained planning agents. In K. Nieuwenhuis P. B. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Intelligent Human Computer Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM 2007 Academic Proceedings Papers (pp. 457–466). Delft: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: In crisis response, hierarchical organizations are being replaced by dynamic assemblies of autonomous agents that promise more agility. However, these autonomous agents might cause a decrease in effectiveness when individually constructed plans for moderately-coupled tasks are not jointly feasible. Existing coordination techniques can be applied in the pre-planning phase to guarantee feasible joint plans for partially-ordered tasks. Temporal relations in crisis response are often more complex than the simple precedence relations in current work. Therefore, we analyze whether temporal information can be dealt with by a conversion to partially-ordered tasks with only precedence constraints. Time windows and two temporal constraints (overlaps and during) can be rewritten in such a way that the task remains partially-ordered. When other temporal constraints (meets, starts, finishes, and equals) are used, tasks become tightly-coupled, requiring coordination in the execution phase as well. This work shows the applicability of pre-planning coordination as an enabling technology for the effective formation of agile organizations.
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Sultan A. Alharthi, Nick LaLone, Ahmed S. Khalaf, Ruth Torres, Lennart Nacke, Igor Dolgov, et al. (2018). Practical Insights into the Design of Future Disaster Response Training Simulations. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 818–830). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: A primary component of disaster response is training. These educational exercises provide responders with the knowledge and skills needed to be prepared when disasters happen. However, traditional training methods, such as high-fidelity simulations (e.g., real-life drills) and classroom courses, may fall short of providing effective and cost-efficient training that is needed for today's challenges. Advances in technology open a wide range of opportunities for training using computer-mediated simulations and exercises. These exercises include the use of mixed reality games and wearable computers. Existing studies report on the usefulness of these technologies for training purposes. This review paper synthesizes prior research and development of disaster response simulations and identifies challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned. Through this review, we provide researchers and designers with an overview of current practices in designing training simulations and contribute practical insights into the design of future disaster response training.
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Sung-Yueh Perng, Monika Büscher, Lisa Wood, Ragnhild Halvorsrud, Michael E. Stiso, Leonardo Ramirez, et al. (2012). Peripheral response: Microblogging during the 22/7/2011 Norway attacks. In Z.Franco J. R. L. Rothkrantz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2012 Conference Proceedings – 9th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Vancouver, BC: Simon Fraser University.
Abstract: This paper presents a case study of a very recent man-made crisis in Norway on 22 July, 2011, during which a single person first detonated a bomb in downtown Oslo and then killed 69 young people on the island of Utøya. It proposes a novel way of conceptualizing the public contribution to mobilization of resources using microblogging, particularly tweeting. By examining aspects of public and professional response to this crisis, the notion of peripheral response is developed in relation to emergent forms of agile and dialogic emergency response. Through examining the distributed efforts of responding to the crisis, the paper also revisits situation awareness and reflects upon the dynamic and constantly changing environment that social media and crises inhabit together. © 2012 ISCRAM.
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Adriaan Ter Mors, Xiaoyu Mao, Nicola Roos, Cees Witteveen, & Alfons H. Salden. (2007). Multi-agent system support for scheduling aircraft de-icing. In K. Nieuwenhuis P. B. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Intelligent Human Computer Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM 2007 Academic Proceedings Papers (pp. 467–478). Delft: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Results from disaster research suggest that methods for coordination between individual emergency responders and organizations should recognize the independence and autonomy of these actors. These actor features are key factors in effective adaptation and improvisation of response to emergency situations which are inherently uncertain. Autonomy and adaptability are also well-known aspects of a multi-agent system (MAS). In this paper we present two MAS strategies that can effectively handle aircraft deicing incidents. These MAS strategies help improve to prevent and reduce e.g. airplane delays at deicing stations due to changing weather conditions or incidents at the station, where aircraft agents adopting pre-made plans that would act on behalf of aircraft pilots or companies, would only create havoc. Herein each agent using its own decision mechanism deliberates about the uncertainty in the problem domain and the preferences (or priorities) of the agents. Furthermore, taking both these issues into account each proposed MAS strategy outperforms a naive first-come, first-served coordination strategy. The simulation results help pilots and companies taking decisions with respect to the scheduling of the aircraft for deicing when unexpected incidents occur: they provide insights in the impacts and means for robust selection of incident-specific strategies on e.g. deicing station delays of (individual) aircraft.
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Gaia Trecarichi, Veronica Rizzi, Lorenzino Vaccari, Maurizio Marchese, & Paolo Besana. (2009). Open Knowledge at work: Exploring centralized and decentralized information gathering in emergency contexts. In S. J. J. Landgren (Ed.), ISCRAM 2009 – 6th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: Boundary Spanning Initiatives and New Perspectives. Gothenburg: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Real-world experience teaches us that to manage emergencies, efficient crisis response coordination is crucial. ICT infrastructures are effective in supporting the people involved in such contexts, by supporting effective ways of interaction. They also should provide innovative means of communication and information management. At present, centralized architectures are mostly used for this purpose; however, alternative infrastructures based on the use of distributed information sources, are currently being explored, studied and analyzed. This paper aims at investigating the capability of a novel approach (developed within the European project OpenKnowledge1) to support both centralized and decentralized architectures for information gathering. For this purpose, we developed an agent-based e-Response simulation environment fully integrated with the OpenKnowledge infrastructure and through which existing emergency plans are modelled and simulated. Preliminary results show the OpenKnowledge capability of supporting the two afore-mentioned architectures and, under ideal assumptions, a comparable performance in both cases.
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Chris J. Van Aart, & Stijn Oomes. (2008). Real-time organigraphs for collaboration awareness. In B. V. de W. F. Fiedrich (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2008 – 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 651–659). Washington, DC: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Collaboration awareness, as extension to organization awareness, is knowing how organizations do work and achieve their goals. This knowledge moves on a scale from stated prescribed ways of acting (such as procedures and protocols) to informal channels of communication, teamwork and decision-making. Based on available static and dynamic data, standardized insights can be given about collaboration in emergency situations in the form of organigraphs. We argue that for gaining practical collaboration awareness, both the formal structure of an organization as well as informal interactions should be inspected. Informal interaction includes informal communication channels, actual decision making on the spot and multi-disciplinary joint activities. We have implemented our system in the form of a web-based visualization tool. This tool would have been useful in the Hercules disaster, giving insights in informal information exchange, possibly preventing fatal decisions.
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Bernard Van Veelen, Patrick Storms, & Chris J. Van Aart. (2006). Effective and efficient coordination strategies for agile crisis response organizations. In M. T. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2006 – 3rd International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 202–213). Newark, NJ: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.
Abstract: Agile crisis response organizations can be seen as actor-Agent communities, where artificial coordination strategies are applied to manage activities. This paper provides a classification of artificial coordination strategies, specified in terms of the Rasmussen's three-level model for supervisory control: skill, rule and knowledge based. Three distinct strategies to artificial coordination based on Rasmussen's levels are described. These approaches are applied in a small case study related to the problem of medic-casualty allocation in the crisis response domain. In terms of effectiveness and efficiency, the knowledge-level coordination strategies seem to be the most effective, where the skill-level strategies are the most efficient. Concerning flexibility there is a reverse trade-off with efficiency. Opposed to skill-level strategies, knowledge-level strategies easily adjust to changing operational requirements. On all aspects, the performance of rule-level strategies is in-between knowledge-level and skill-level strategies. The results of this work can be used to improve the performance and effectiveness of actor-Agent communities for mission critical applications.
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Steven C. Way. (2011). Information requirements for context-aware multi-agency real-time coordination during crisis response. In E. Portela L. S. M.A. Santos (Ed.), 8th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: From Early-Warning Systems to Preparedness and Training, ISCRAM 2011. Lisbon: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Most information systems (IS) research into emergency management (EM) consists of case studies of prior disasters, social behavior research, and planning or preparedness research. This study fills a gap in EM and IS research as it aims to better understand the nature of coordination during crisis response; investigate the functions and capabilities of existing coordination systems; and identify the desired functions to manage multi-agency coordination response. Grounded theory is the methodology adopted for this study. Firsthand interview and observational data will be collected from agency command centers, ride-outs with police, fire, and emergency medical services (EMS) agencies, and from multi-agency training exercises. This study is expected to make a theoretical contribution to crisis response system design as it will develop a theory to better understand the information requirements for context-aware multi-agency real-time coordination responses to crises.
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Steven C. Way, & Yufei Yuan. (2012). Towards a context-aware multi-party emergency coordination system framework. In Z.Franco J. R. L. Rothkrantz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2012 Conference Proceedings – 9th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Vancouver, BC: Simon Fraser University.
Abstract: A framework for an emergency response system is proposed which is an extension of, but significantly different from, traditional group and distributed group support systems. The framework considers the environmental, organizational, and activity-based issues of emergency response for responders and decision makers. These issues are addressed by incorporating context-aware, multi-agency relationship management, and multiparty coordination components into the framework for a context-aware multiparty coordination system. © 2012 ISCRAM.
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Felix Wex, Guido Schryen, & Dirk Neumann. (2011). Intelligent decision support for centralized coordination during Emergency Response. In E. Portela L. S. M.A. Santos (Ed.), 8th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: From Early-Warning Systems to Preparedness and Training, ISCRAM 2011. Lisbon: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Automated coordination is regarded as a novel approaches in Emergency Response Systems (ERS), and especially resource allocation has been understudied in former research. The contribution of this paper is the introduction of two variants of a novel resource allocation mechanism that provide decision support to the centralized Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Two quantitative models are computationally validated using real-time, data-driven, Monte-Carlo simulations promoting reliable propositions of distributed resource allocations and schedules. Various requirements are derived through a literature analysis. Comparative analyses attest that the Monte-Carlo approach outperforms a well-defined benchmark.
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Felix Wex, Guido Schryen, & Dirk Neumann. (2012). Operational emergency response under informational uncertainty: A fuzzy optimization model for scheduling and allocating rescue units. In Z.Franco J. R. L. Rothkrantz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2012 Conference Proceedings – 9th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Vancouver, BC: Simon Fraser University.
Abstract: Coordination deficiencies have been identified after the March 2011 earthquakes in Japan in terms of scheduling and allocation of resources, with time pressure, resource shortages, and especially informational uncertainty being main challenges. We suggest a decision support model that accounts for these challenges by drawing on fuzzy set theory and fuzzy optimization. Based on requirements from practice and the findings of our literature review, the decision model considers the following premises: incidents and rescue units are spatially distributed, rescue units possess specific capabilities, processing is non-preemptive, and informational uncertainty through linguistic assessments is predominant when on-site units vaguely report about incidents and their attributes, or system reports are not exact. We also suggest a Monte Carlo-based heuristic solution procedure and conduct a computational evaluation of different scenarios. We benchmark the results of our heuristic with results yielded through applying a greedy approach. The results indicate that using our Monte Carlo simulation to solve the decision support model inspired by fuzzy set theory can substantially reduce the overall harm. © 2012 ISCRAM.
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Torben Wiedenhöfer, Christian Reuter, Benedikt Ley, & Volkmar Pipek. (2011). Inter-organizational crisis management infrastructures for electrical power breakdowns. In E. Portela L. S. M.A. Santos (Ed.), 8th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management: From Early-Warning Systems to Preparedness and Training, ISCRAM 2011. Lisbon: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Major electricity breakdowns like the Northeast Blackout (USA) in 2003 or the blackout in most parts of Western Europe in 2005, have shown the fundamental role of electricity in our everyday life. The experiences of these accidents show that power suppliers, firefighters, police, county administration and citizens face multifarious challenges in inter-organizational communication, information and coordination processes during coping and recovery work. In this work-in-progress paper we describe early research dealing with inter-organizational issues in emergency management (EM). We are mainly focusing on supporting social practices in inter-organizational EM, for example collaborative interpretation of emergency situations, ad-hoc coordination or supporting citizen communication and helping routines. Identified from our experiences from related projects, discussions and literature studies, we suggest potential questions and future topics in user-driven software engineering processes for EM and domain specific problems, such as supporting citizen participation, coping with information uncertainties and quality variations or enhancing inter-organizational learning.
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Bo Yu, & Guoray Cai. (2012). Coordination of emergency response operations via the event-based awareness mechanism. In Z.Franco J. R. L. Rothkrantz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2012 Conference Proceedings – 9th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Vancouver, BC: Simon Fraser University.
Abstract: Emergency response involves collaboration among search and rescue workers, medical staff, transportation coordinators, and others to save human lives and minimize damages. While carrying out local activities, members of the teams must also attend to new events happening elsewhere that may affect their work, and be prepared to adjust their activities accordingly. This paper describes a computer supported coordination system, DACE (Dependency-based Awareness and Coordination Environment), which offers a scalable solution to coordination in emergency response. The system serves as a cognitive aid to human actors in both maintaining a group mental model of the overall collaborative activities and their dependencies, and determining the effects of events as they propagate through the web of dependencies. We demonstrate the principles and utility of the DACE system through a hypothetical scenario of search and rescue exercise. This work contributes to the goal of scaling up awareness-based coordination in emergency response. © 2012 ISCRAM.
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