Michael Tyworth, & Steve Sawyer. (2006). Integrated criminal justice system design: Designing an appropriate governance structure. In M. T. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2006 – 3rd International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 444–449). Newark, NJ: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.
Abstract: In this paper we discuss interim findings from an ongoing comparative case study of the Automated Regional Justice Information System (ARJIS) in San Diego, CA. Significant attention had been given to the need to integrate information systems across organizational boundaries in the criminal justice domain. We employ a social informatics lens in this research that views the technological artifact as embedded in cultural and institutional context. In our examination of ARJIS we have found that the adoption of a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) as a governance structure has impacted system design and organizational practices significantly. Specifically, the JPA facilitates participation by member agencies and, allows the ARJIS management team autonomy and flexibility in developing and managing the ARJIS information system.
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Valerio Lorini, Carlos Castillo, Steve Peterson, Paola Rufolo, Hemant Purohit, Diego Pajarito, et al. (2021). Social Media for Emergency Management: Opportunities and Challenges at the Intersection of Research and Practice. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 772–777). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: This paper summarizes key opportunities and challenges identified during the workshop “Social Media for Disaster Risk Management: Researchers Meet Practitioners” which took place online in November 2020. It constitutes a work-in-progress towards identifying new directions for research and development of systems that can better serve the information needs of emergency managers. Practitioners widely recognize the potential of accessing timely information from social media. Nevertheless, the discussion outlined some critical challenges for improving its adoption during crises. In particular, validating such information and integrating it with authoritative information and into more traditional information systems for emergency managers requires further work, and the negative impacts of misinformation and disinformation need to be prevented.
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Gerd Van Den Eede, Willem J. Muhren, Raphaël Smals, & Bartel A. Van De Walle. (2006). IS capability for incident management and the DERMIS design premises. In M. T. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2006 – 3rd International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 251–261). Newark, NJ: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.
Abstract: In this paper we present a dynamic model of the performance of an organization's Incident Management process as determined by the capability of its supporting emergency response information system. Our work is based on the Capability Trap model by Repenning & Sterman (2001) and draws from the many insights on emergency response information systems design as described in the DERMIS (Dynamic Emergency Response Management Information System) framework established by Turoff et al. 2004. Whereas the latter describes the premises that underlie an Information System (IS) that is capable of ensuring a reliable and flexible emergency response, the present paper contributes to the research field by looking at the interrelations of the aforementioned premises. We take a System Dynamics approach and gain insights in the key determinants of IS Capability by highlighting the mutual interdependences grouped around the concepts of adaptability, control, implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge.
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Marcel D.E Van Der Lee, & Marcel Van Vugt. (2004). IMI – An information system for effective Multidisciplinary Incident Management. In B. C. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2004 – 1st International Workshop on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 15–19). Brussels: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.
Abstract: The field of crisis response and disaster management can be characterized, upon many other factors, by distributed operations, not daily routine work and multidisciplinary aspects. In designing and developing information systems for crisis response these factors need special attention. On behalf of regional emergency services, TNO Physics and Electronics Laboratory designed and guided commissioning of the IMI project (Information System for Multidisciplinary Incident Management). Four regional fire departments in Zuid-Holland decided to develop the information system. The Rotterdam region was selected as project pilot. The IMI-project was carried out with experiences and a background of military command and control where the above three factors also play a major role. In this paper we will elaborate on the reasons behind the design of the functionalities of the IMI-system. © Proceedings ISCRAM 2004.
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Sara Vieweg, Leysia Palen, Sophia B. Liu, Amanda L. Hughes, & Jeannette N. Sutton. (2008). Collective intelligence in disaster: Examination of the phenomenon in the aftermath of the 2007 Virginia Tech Shooting. In B. V. de W. F. Fiedrich (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2008 – 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 44–54). Washington, DC: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: We report on the results of an investigation about the “informal, ” public-side communications that occurred in the aftermath of the April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech (VT) Shooting. Our on-going research reveals several examples of on-line social interaction organized around the goal of collective problem-solving. In this paper, we focus on specific instances of this distributed problem-solving activity, and explain, using an ethnomethodological lens, how a loosely connected group of people can work together on a grave topic to provide accurate results.
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Vihan C.N. Weeraratne, Raymond C.Z. Cohen, Mahesh Prakash, Lalitha Ramachandran, Nikhil Garg, & Valentijn Pauwels. (2023). Assessing Climate Vulnerability Under Future Changes to Climate, Demographics and Infrastructure: A Case Study for the Chapel Street Precinct, Melbourne. In V. L. Thomas J. Huggins (Ed.), Proceedings of the ISCRAM Asia Pacific Conference 2022 (pp. 35–44). Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey Unversity.
Abstract: The Chapel Street Precinct is a busy commercial and residential corridor in the City of Stonnington Local Government Area (LGA) located in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. Authorities and planners in the LGA are interested in understanding how the changing climate affects the socioeconomic environment of the region. By considering existing climate hazards (such as extreme heat, flood and water availability), infrastructure, and demographic information in the region together with future projections of climate change and demographic changes, a Socioeconomic Vulnerability Index (SVI) was created at a Mesh Block scale to better identify relatively high-risk Mesh Blocks in the region. The climate projections under medium and high future emission scenarios (i.e., representative concentration pathways (RCP)) as per IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) fifth assessment report (AR5), RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively for 30-year epochs around 2030, 2050 and 2070 were used in the SVI development. The current-day scenario is considered under Baseline conditions for demographic and asset information representing present-day conditions, whereas the baseline climate dataset considers the climate for the 30 year period 1991-2020 to best represent the present-day climate. The multi-model mean of the future climate projections from 6 different climate models were obtained from the Victoria’s Future Climate tool (https://vicfutureclimatetool.indraweb.io), developed by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Data61 together with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) under Data61’s INDRA framework (https://research.csiro.au/indra/). A version of INDRA is currently under development to allow map-based interactivity, experimentation and scrutiny of the vulnerability indices and their subcomponents across the study region. The SVI was created using a weighted indicator approach utilising a range of indicators belonging to 3 categories, exposure, susceptibility, and baseline adaptive capacity. The indicators were first normalised and the final SVI was given a score between 0-1 for each Mesh Block. The worst levels of vulnerability were observed to be for the RCP8.5 2070 scenario. In general, the RCP8.5 scenarios indicated a worse outcome compared to the RCP4.5 scenario. The area along Chapel Street within the precinct which is a densely built-up area high in population was found to be the most vulnerable area in the study region. It is foreseen that decision makers will be able to use the holistic data-driven outcomes of this study to make better informed decisions whilst adapting to climate change.
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Vitaveska Lanfranchi. (2017). Machine Learning and Social Media in Crisis Management: Agility vs Ethics. 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. 256–265). Albi, France: Iscram.
Abstract: One of the most used sources of information for fast and flexible crisis information is social media or crowdsourced data, as the information is rapidly disseminated, can reach a large amount of target audience and covers a wide variety of topics. However, the agility that these new methodologies enable comes at a price: ethics and privacy. This paper presents an analysis of the ethical risks and implications of using automated system that learn from social media data to provide intelligence in crisis management. The paper presents a short overview on the use of social media data in crisis management to then highlight ethical implication of machine learning and social media data using an example scenario. In conclusion general mitigation strategies and specific implementation guidelines for the scenario under analysis are presented.
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David J. Wald. (2013). Adding secondary hazard and ground-truth observations to PAGER's loss modeling. In J. Geldermann and T. Müller S. Fortier F. F. T. Comes (Ed.), ISCRAM 2013 Conference Proceedings – 10th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 586–591). KIT; Baden-Baden: Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie.
Abstract: A rapid, holistic view of earthquake disasters begins with earthquake location and magnitude, alerted by seismic networks. The initial source characteristics, along with any available ground-shaking observations, can be used to rapidly estimate the shaking extent, its severity (e.g., ShakeMap), and its likely impact to society, for example, employing the U.S. Geological Survey's Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response, or PAGER, system. When serous impacts are likely, PAGER's impact-based alerts can, in turn, begin the process of primary response at the local, national, or international level, and the process of reconnaissance via social media, the mainstream media, scientific analyses, and remotely-sensed and ground-truth observations. In this work-in-progress report, we describe our initial efforts to incorporate event-specific ground-truth observations and model secondary ground-failure hazards back into the loss-modeling domain in order to provide a more holistic view each earthquake disaster.
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Ulrich Walder, Thomas Bernoulli, & Thomas Wießflecker. (2009). An indoor positioning system for improved action force command and disaster management. 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: Managing emergency situations in large buildings and underground structures could be simplified if at any time the positions of on-site emergency crews were available. In this paper a system is proposed which combines inertial measurements of moving persons with building floor plans tagged with information on semantics to achieve a novel level of robust indoor positioning. A speech driven user interface tailored for visualization on head mounted displays makes information easily available for action forces. The system is complemented with a self-configurating communication network based on novel approaches combining mobile ad hoc networks, sensor networks, and professional mobile radio systems to make the locally determined positions available to anybody on-site.
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Maximilian Walther, Sven Schaust, & Michael Kaisser. (2013). Social media-based event detection for crisis management in the al za'atari refugee camp. In J. Geldermann and T. Müller S. Fortier F. F. T. Comes (Ed.), ISCRAM 2013 Conference Proceedings – 10th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 927–928). KIT; Baden-Baden: Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie.
Abstract: Social Media data allows for profound analyses of user-generated content in order to predict or manage disasters and crisis situations. In this paper, we present an analysis of tweets from and about Al Za'atari, a refugee camp in Jordan close to the Syrian border. Our results are based on the analysis of location-tagged tweets by our “Avalanche” system in order to support an accurate situational awareness picture for on-site and off-site operators from relief organizations on evolving events and challenges.
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Rebecca Walton, Robin E. Mays, & Mark P. Haselkorn. (2011). Defining fast: Factors affecting the experience of speed in humanitarian logistics. 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: Speed is a central value for emergency logistics stakeholders. Emergency response literature makes a compelling case for rapid logistics processes to provide goods and services in humanitarian emergencies. However, speed is not well-defined concept. While situational demand contributes to the need for speed, an important factor is the perception of speed given the experience of the response stakeholders. Unfortunately, the literature lacks complex, situated pictures of how logistics stakeholders experience speed (i.e., what does it mean for a logistics process to be “fast”? What factors affect whether stakeholders perceive a logistics experience as fast?) To address this gap, we explored how logistics stakeholders in a large international humanitarian organization experience and perceive speed of operations. Our findings suggest that (1) the experience of speed is often comparative, not solely objective; (2) close communication between internal clients (field requestors) and service providers (logistics team) can make clients more likely to experience the logistics process as fast; and (3) feeling in control of decision-making can make both clients and service providers more likely to experience the logistics process as fast.
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Wang, D. (2023). Public Cognition and Perception on Social Media in Crisis. In Jaziar Radianti, Ioannis Dokas, Nicolas Lalone, & Deepak Khazanchi (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International ISCRAM Conference (pp. 1081–1082). Omaha, USA: University of Nebraska at Omaha.
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.
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Wang, D., & Kogan, M. (2023). Resonance+: Augmenting Collective Attention to Find Information on Public Cognition and Perception of Risk. In Jaziar Radianti, Ioannis Dokas, Nicolas Lalone, & Deepak Khazanchi (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th International ISCRAM Conference (pp. 487–500). Omaha, USA: University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Abstract: Microblogging platforms have been increasingly used by the public and crisis managers in crisis. The increasing volume of data has made such platforms more difficult for officials to find on-the-ground information and understand the public’s perception of the evolving risks. The crisis informatics literature has proposed various technological solutions to find relevant information from social media. However, the cognitive processes of the affected population and their subsequent responses, such as perceptions, emotional and behavioral responses, are still under-examined at scale. Yet, such information is important for gauging public perception of risks, an important task for PIOs and emergency managers. In this work, we leverage the noise-cutting power of collective attention and take cues from the Protective Action Decision Model, to propose a method that estimates shifts in collective attention with a special focus on the cognitive processes of those affected and their subsequent responses.
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Hayley Watson, & Rachel L. Finn. (2013). Privacy and ethical implications of the use of social media during a volcanic eruption: Some initial thoughts. In J. Geldermann and T. Müller S. Fortier F. F. T. Comes (Ed.), ISCRAM 2013 Conference Proceedings – 10th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 416–420). KIT; Baden-Baden: Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie.
Abstract: In a relatively new area of research for crisis management, this working paper presents a preliminary discussion of some of the privacy and ethical implications surrounding the use of social media in the event of a crisis. The paper uses the chaos caused by the eruptions of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010 to contextualise the analysis. It begins by presenting two case studies of the use of social media by members of the public and the aviation industry during the crisis caused by the ash plume. The paper then proceeds to briefly highlight some select ethical and privacy implications stemming from the use of social media such as privacy infringements and inequality. The paper concludes by briefly summarising the findings of the paper and considering next steps for future research in this area.
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Hayley Watson, Lemi Baruh, Rachel L. Finn, & Salvatore Scifo. (2014). Citizen (in)security?: Social media, citizen journalism and crisis response. In and P.C. Shih. L. Plotnick M. S. P. S.R. Hiltz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings – 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 294–298). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.
Abstract: The use of social media in a crisis has been applauded, and is witnessing an increase in uptake among those involved in crisis management activities, including citizens. Whilst some challenges have been discussed elsewhere, somewhat lacking is a discussion on the impact of sharing information on the security of those that may have been recorded. Accordingly, this working paper aims to provide preliminary results of an initial mapping task that seeks to examine the impact of the use of social media in a crisis on the social and ethical wellbeing of the security of the citizen. Authors argue that the heightened involvement of citizen journalism results in the filtering of information after its online publication which raises concerns relating to the dissemination of false information and a threat to an individual's privacy. Such issues should be adequately addressed in the encouragement and use of citizen contributions in crisis response.
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Adam Widera, Hanns-Alexander Dietrich, Bernd Hellingrath, & Jörg Becker. (2013). Understanding humanitarian supply chains – Developing an integrated process analysis toolkit. In J. Geldermann and T. Müller S. Fortier F. F. T. Comes (Ed.), ISCRAM 2013 Conference Proceedings – 10th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 210–219). KIT; Baden-Baden: Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie.
Abstract: In this paper we present the development of an integrated process analysis toolkit for humanitarian logistics. The toolkit integrates a conceptual and a technological component. Our approach follows a case study-based modeling and design approach. The developed concept was evaluated in two humanitarian organizations. Based on these results we extended and integrated the tool-supported process analysis approach, which is ready to use for the structural and quantitative analysis of humanitarian logistics processes. The toolkit can be applied in humanitarian organizations as a decision support tool for designing, planning and executing their logistics processes. Thus, the application affects the preparedness of humanitarian organizations as well as their response performance. The process analysis toolkit is embedded in an overall research agenda with the objective to provide humanitarian organizations with the capabilities to identify, monitor, and improve their logistics processes respecting the organization specific objectives.
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Hiroko Wilensky. (2014). Twitter as a navigator for stranded commuters during the great east Japan earthquake. In and P.C. Shih. L. Plotnick M. S. P. S.R. Hiltz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2014 Conference Proceedings – 11th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 697–706). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University.
Abstract: The increased use of social media, such as Twitter, was widely reported on Japanese media after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. This study is a qualitative investigation of the use of Twitter by the stranded commuters and their supporters in the Tokyo metropolitan area immediately after the earthquake. This paper describes the possibilities and problems of Twitter use under a rapidly changing disaster situation. During the first evening of this disaster, the Japan Railroad and other railroad systems ceased their operations in the Tokyo area. This left more than five million commuters stranded in the area. Many commuters walked hours to return home, while others struggled to find temporary shelter and stayed overnight in the city. This study also explores if Twitter was an effective navigator for helping stranded commuters return home or find shelter.
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Min-Hao Matt Wu, Annie Hsin-Wen Liu, & K. Mani Chandy. (2008). Virtual environments for developing strategies for interdicting terrorists carrying dirty bombs. In B. V. de W. F. Fiedrich (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2008 – 5th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 83–87). Washington, DC: Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, ISCRAM.
Abstract: Strategies for detecting terrorists carrying radioactive material can be evaluated in virtual environments more easily than they can be in the real world. Real scenarios expose personnel to radiation and concomitant dangers. The execution of multiple real-world scenarios – such as catching terrorists in factories, houses and open spaces – is expensive. This paper describes virtual environments for interdicting terrorists carrying radioactive material. The virtual environments are constructed by incorporating the physics of radiation into virtual-world platforms. We explore the relative advantages of a gaming engine (Half-Life 2), a 3D online virtual world (Second Life) and a robot simulator platform (Stage/Player) for developing strategies for interdicting dirty bombers. Preliminary results on implementations of these virtual environments are presented.
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Yan, S. (2005). Design of enterprise crisis predicting system based on cluster and outlier data mining. In B. C. B. Van de Walle (Ed.), Proceedings of ISCRAM 2005 – 2nd International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 143–145). Brussels: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium.
Abstract: In order to solve such problems as half-structured and non-structured data analysis in enterprise crisis predicting system, a predicting system based on cluster and outlier data mining is put forward. The system organization, frame construction, function and working principles are illustrated. And the working process is showed by an example of cheat predicting. The experimental results show that this method is efficient and it is a new way to solve such problems.
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Yasas Senarath, Jennifer Chan, Hemant Purohit, & Ozlem Uzuner. (2021). Evaluating the Relevance of UMLS Knowledge Base for Public Health Informatics during Disasters. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 97–105). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: During disasters public health organizations increasingly face challenges in acquiring and transforming real-time data into knowledge about the dynamic public health needs. Resources on the internet can provide valuable information for extracting knowledge that can help improve decisions which will ultimately result in targeted and efficient health services. Digital content such as online articles, blogs, and social media are some of such information sources that could be leveraged to improve the health care systems during disasters. To efficiently and accurately identify relevant disaster health information, extraction tools require a common vocabulary that is aligned to the health domain so that the knowledge from these unstructured digital sources can be accurately structured and organized. In this paper, we study the degree to which the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) contains relevant disaster, public health, and medical concepts for which public health information in disaster domain could be extracted from digital sources.
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Selim Serhan Yildiz, & Himmet Karaman. (2012). Developing a physics-based model for post-earthquake ignitions. 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: Earthquakes not only cause damages by shaking, but secondary disasters like fire following earthquake (FFE), tsunami, liquefaction, land slide etc. also cause large-scale losses. In some cases, FFEs result in losses more than shaking do as seen in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1923 Kanto earthquake. FFEs are generally caused by strong ground shakings. Strong shakings damage the structures and infrastructures. As a consequence of earthquake, many ignitions can occur due to damaged gas systems and electrical systems, overturning of electrical appliances and heating equipments and falling of flammable materials from shelves in structures. In addition to interior structure ignitions, damaged infrastructure elements such as gas pipelines and electric transmission lines can also cause ignitions. Some of these ignitions spread due to amount of fuel load (combustible materials), construction material, direction and speed of wind etc. in the environment and they can turn into large urban conflagrations. This paper proposes a physics-based post-earthquake fire ignition model in order to estimate number and location of ignitions in urban areas. © 2012 ISCRAM.
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Ylenia Casali, Nazli Yonca Aydin, & Tina Comes. (2021). Zooming into Socio-economic Inequalities: Using Urban Analytics to Track Vulnerabilities – A Case Study of Helsinki. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 1028–1041). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: The Covid19 crisis has highlighted once more that socio-economic inequalities are a main driver of vulnerability. Especially in densely populated urban areas, however, these inequalities can drastically change even within neighbourhoods. To better prepare for urban crises, more granular techniques are needed to assess these vulnerabilities, and identify the main drivers that exacerbate inequality. Machine learning techniques enable us to extract this information from spatially geo-located datasets. In this paper, we present a prototypical study on how Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to analyse the distribution of labour and residential characteristics in the urban area of Helsinki, Finland. The main goals are twofold: 1) identify patterns of socio-economic activities, and 2) study spatial inequalities. Our analyses use a grid of 250x250 meters that covers the whole city of Helsinki, thereby providing a higher granularity than the neighbourhood-scale. The study yields four main findings. First, the descriptive statistical analysis detects inequalities in the labour and residential distributions. Second, relationships between the socio-economic variables exist in the geographic space. Third, the first two Principal Components (PCs) can extract most of the information about the socio-economic dataset. Fourth, the spatial analyses of the PCs identify differences between the Eastern and Western areas of Helsinki, which persist since the 1990s. Future studies will include further datasets related to the distribution of urban services and socio-technical indicators.
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Yossi Nygate, William Johnson, Mark Indelicato, Miguel Bazdresch, & Clark Hochgraf. (2018). Intelligent Wireless Infrastructure Management for Emergency Communications. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 1156–1160). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
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.
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Zeno Franco, Chris Davis, Adina Kalet, Michelle Horng, Johnathan Horng, Christian Hernandez, et al. (2021). Augmenting Google Sheets to Improvise Community COVID-19 Mask Distribution. In Anouck Adrot, Rob Grace, Kathleen Moore, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2021 Conference Proceedings – 18th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 359–375). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Face mask scarcity in the United States hindered early infection control efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Areas with a history of racial segregation and poverty experienced differential COVID-19 death and morbidity rates. Supplying masks equitably and rapidly became an urgent public health priority. A partnership between a local manufacturer with available polypropylene fabric and the Medical College of Wisconsin, which had the capability to assemble and distribute masks, was formed in April, 2020. An improvised logistics framework allowed for rapid distribution more than 250,000 masks, and later facilitated hand-off to other organizations to distribute over 3 million masks. Using an action research framework three phases of the effort are considered, 1) initial deliveries to community clinics, 2) equitable distribution to community agencies while under “safer at home” orders, and 3) depot deliveries and transfer of logistics management as larger agencies recovered. A multi-actor view was used to interrogate the information needs of faculty and staff remotely directing distribution, medical student volunteers delivering masks, and the manufacturer monitorng overall inventory. Logistics information was managed using Google Sheets augmented with a small SQLite component. A phenomenological view, toggling back and forth from the “socio” to the “technical” provides detailed insight into the strengths and limitations of digital solutions for humanitarian logistics, highlighting where paper-based processes remain more efficient. This case study suggests that rather than building bespoke logistics software, supporting relief efforts with non-traditional responders may benefit from extensible components that augment widely used digital tools.
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X.L. Zhang, Jian Guo Chen, Guofeng Su, & Hongyong Yuan. (2013). Study on source inversion technology for nuclear accidents based on gaussian puff model and ENKF. In J. Geldermann and T. Müller S. Fortier F. F. T. Comes (Ed.), ISCRAM 2013 Conference Proceedings – 10th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 634–639). KIT; Baden-Baden: Karlsruher Institut fur Technologie.
Abstract: For nuclear power plant (NPP) accident, the assessment of the radiation consequences plays an important role in the emergency response system. However, the source characteristics which greatly influence thhe accuracy of the assessment result is poorly known or even unknown at the early phase of accident, wich can cause poorly understanding of the situation and delay the response activities. In this paper, source inversion technology in analyzing nuclear accidents based on Gaussian puff model and ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is proposed. The method is validated with simulated measurements and the results show that it can give reasonable estimations of the change in release rate and height simultaneously, though the first guess of release rate is 102 larger than the true value. The investigation of the influence of sharp change in source term shows that the method is robust to capture the sharp change, but there is a delay of response when the release height increases simultaneously.
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