Abstract: Voice, analogue mobile radio, and paper have een successfully used for decades for coordination of emergencies and disasters, but although being simple and robust this approach cannot keep pace with todays requirements any more. Emerging and established digital communication standards open the door to new applications and services, but the expected benefit needs to be carefully evaluated against robustness, interoperability, and user-friendliness. This paper describes a framework for IT-supported management of mass casualty incidents, which is currently under implementation and study. The four pillars of the concept are handheld devices for use both in daily rescue operations and in disasters, autonomous satellite-based communication infrastructure, a distributed database concept for maximal availability, and psychological acceptance research.

Abstract: Vulnerable communities are disproportionately impacted by major disasters. Information scientists working to improve disaster planning and mitigation efforts in these communities often involve first responder (practitioner) groups in collaborative design; however, less emphasis has been placed on developing long-term, sustainable crisis informatics partnerships at the population level. Community-based participatory research approaches are gaining attention in the US as an important element in translational science efforts designed to move innovations “from the bench to the curbside.” Community Engagement in Research (CEnR) is a community research approach adopted US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to improve public health intervention. CEnR has implications for improving the generalizability of ISCRAM research, may provide a roadmap for Public/Private/Community disaster research partnerships, and suggests modifications to training for information scientists working in this arena. The CEnR approach also recognizes conflicts that can occur in community/government partnerships, emphasizing the importance of predicting and preventing these situations. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: This paper aims to lead a discourse on distributing mobile applications while having no access to cloud services. While in daily life people acquire applications via application stores, the access to those stores can be severely hampered in disasters. Instead of wishful thinking, i.e. hoping that people or manufactures would pre-install an (emergency) app before a disaster, we have started to investigate into Internet-less deployment mechanisms. We discuss five potential approaches of deploying apps in an ad-hoc fashion. Each approach is assessed against six criteria, while taking a stance that the smartphone is the minimally required deployment platform. This paper concludes with the observation that current mobile operating system providers do not provide “Internet-less” deployment mechanisms, although platforms as Android allow for this. This said, we hope that this contribution can spark further interest into the discussed problematic.

Abstract: Research in emergency response systems has produced significant literature in a very short span of time. We review a corpus of published works on how Information Communication Technology (ICT) is being utilized and the type of tasks ICT attempts to support in the event of a crisis due to disasters, whether natural or man-made. In our research, we have been able to distinguish eight types of tasks supported by technology during a disaster. We list some of these technologies used by the public, practitioners and researchers to illustrate the current trends of technology usage. We also identify gaps and technology needs that require our attention. Given the increasing frequency and severity of disasters, this research is timely as it (1) contributes to our understanding of the trends of development and technology use during times of crises and (2) identifies potential areas for future work to improve ICT's role during times of emergency. © 2012 ISCRAM.

Abstract: KETALE is a database and web application intended to improve the collaborative decision support of the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) and of the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI). It integrates distributed modeling (weather forecasts and dispersion predictions by FMI, source term and dose assessments by STUK) and facilitates collaboration and sharing of information. It does so by providing functionalities for data acquisition, data management, data visualization, and data analysis. The report outlines the software development from requirement analysis to system design and implementation. Operational aspects and user experiences are presented in a separate report.

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 United States of America experienced two major incidents that changed the countrys perspective on emergency preparedness: September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since that time the United States Department of Homeland Security established 10 separate Regional Catastrophic Planning Teams (RCPT) around the country. These RCPTs were set-up to inform, train and determine the effectiveness of mutual-aid coordination and prepare individuals, families and communities for an “all-hazard” environment. As RCPT members representing one state agency providing human services, the authors proposed an initiative, based on a working model they had already deployed in their own agency, to enhance emergency preparedness activities to include individual and community resiliency along with disaster and catastrophic planning. That request to expand the RCPT role, opened-up a dialogue to develop an innovative approach to collaborative partnerships. This shift afforded additional opportunities in times of a crisis, disaster or catastrophe.

Abstract: In this paper, we introduce Tweedr, a Twitter-mining tool that extracts actionable information for disaster relief workers during natural disasters. The Tweedr pipeline consists of three main parts: classification, clustering and extraction. In the classification phase, we use a variety of classification methods (sLDA, SVM, and logistic regression) to identify tweets reporting damage or casualties. In the clustering phase, we use filters to merge tweets that are similar to one another; and finally, in the extraction phase, we extract tokens and phrases that report specific information about different classes of infrastructure damage, damage types, and casualties. We empirically validate our approach with tweets collected from 12 different crises in the United States since 2006.

Abstract: This discussion paper focuses on conceptualizing the ultimate goal in disaster management, i.e. reduction of future risks and impacts and explicitly highlights how actions taken in various phases of integrated disaster risk management influence vulnerability and eventually overall risk characteristics. First, the advancement of the disaster management concept evolving from a cyclic perspective to a spiral view is described and the various stages of disaster management including risk analysis, mitigation, and response are explained. In an attempt to improve and advance disaster risk management, next, the concepts of foresight and prediction are described and its major differences are highlighted. Finally, the basic framework of risk governance is considered for integrating foresight and prediction and thus lifting disaster management to the next level. Active and transparent communication and participation is seen as the key for successfully implementing risk governance.

Abstract: There are problems for managing and sharing geo-data effectively in Turkey. The key to resolving these problems is to develop a harmonized geo-data model. General features of this model are based on ISO/TC211 standards, INSPIRE Data Specifications, and expectations of Turkey National GIS actions. The generic conceptual model components were defined to harmonize geo-data and to produce data specifications. In order to enable semantic interoperability, application schemas were designed for data themes such as administrative unit, address, cadastre/building, hydrographic, topography, geodesy, transportation, and land cover/use. The model, as base and the domain geo-data model, is a starting point to create sector models in different thematic areas. Disaster Management Geo-data Model model was developed as an extension of base geo-data model to manage geo-data collaborate on disaster management activities. This model includes existing geo-data special for disaster management activities and dynamic data collecting during disaster.

Abstract: Continuous Auditing systems require that human judgment be formalized and automated, which can be a complex, costly and computationally intensive endeavor. However, Continuous Auditing systems have similarities with Emergency Management and Response systems, which integrate Continuous Auditing's detection and alerting functions with the tracking of decisions and decision options for the situations that could be more effectively handled by human judgment. Emergency Management and Response systems could be an effective prototype to help overcome some of the implementation obstacles that are impeding Continuous Auditing systems' implementation rate. Continuous Auditing has the potential to transform the existing audit paradigm from periodic reviews of a few accounting transactions to a continuous review of all transactions, which thereby could vastly strengthen an organization's risk management and business processes. Although Continuous Auditing implementations are occurring, their adoption is slower than expected. With the goal of providing an empirical and methodological foundation for future Continuous Auditing systems and possibly inspiring additional investigation into merging the Continuous Auditing and Emergency Management streams of research, this paper provides several definitions of Continuous Auditing, suggests possible architectures for these systems, lists some common implementation challenges and highlights a few examples of how Emergency Management research could potentially overcome them.

Abstract: Understanding the performance of disaster monitoring systems is a key to understanding their success, therefore; various qualitative and quantitative measures and metrics can be applied in the characterization and analysis of such systems. Through evaluation studies, problems that impede a disaster monitoring system performance can be identified. The results can be used for system control, design, and capacity planning. Previous studies address technical performance analysis metrics for analyzing monitoring systems leaving out human and organizational dimensions of such systems. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to identify and describe a set of disaster monitoring systems performance analysis metrics that may be employed to evaluate such systems. This study may be valuable to researchers and practitioners involved in disaster and emergency response studies in planning the transportation of vital first-aid supplies and emergency personnel to disaster-affected areas, and in improving chances of survival after a natural disaster.