Abstract: In today's globalized world and with the extensive use of social media, there is a high connectivity of people across countries, which can be a helpful potential in disaster response. In a coordinated manner, spontaneous volunteers from neighbouring nations can provide high manpower and resources to a disaster affected area. In this article, we discuss why the consideration of spontaneous volunteers is relevant in a cross-border context in order to improve disaster resilience for borderlands. Furthermore, we introduce a baseline agent-based model to simulate cooperation procedures for the involvement of spontaneous volunteers to the official crisis response in a borderland and discuss important issues that need to be addressed in future considerations.

Abstract: Social media data analysis is important for disaster management. Lots of prior studies have focused on classifying a tweet based on its text or based on its images, independently, even if the tweet contains both text and images. Under the assumptions that text and images may contain complementary information, it is of interest to construct classifiers that make use of both modalities of the tweet. Towards this goal, we propose a multimodal classification model which aggregates text and image information. Our study aims to provide insights into the benefits obtained by combining text and images, and to understand what type of modality is more informative with respect to disaster tweet classification. Experimental results show that both text and image classification can be improved by the multimodal approach.

Abstract: This paper presents an overview of the ongoing research into the development of an agent-based model to enable simulations to be performed of agents evacuating from a multi-floor building with a complex layout, including staircases. Specifically, a flow field of navigation objects is constructed pre-computation, which stores the directions and shortest distances to all exits and staircases. Using the flow field, a navigation method is proposed for agents familiar with the environment to identify and follow the shortest route to a chosen exit. Preliminary simulations have been performed to investigate the effect on evacuation time of (i) exit configurations and (ii) familiarity of agents with the building layout. In assessing the effect of exit configurations, results show that the location of the main entrance has a significant influence on evacuation time. In addition, having more exits does not necessarily lead to a shorter evacuation time. In terms of the effect of familiarity of agents, having more agents with a greater level of familiarity does not significantly reduce evacuation time in most cases.

Abstract: Securing the accessibility of emergency vehicles using specific emergency transportation road (SETR) is crucial for the rapid activities of emergency vehicles after a large earthquake. In this paper, we construct a simulation model that describes collapse of roadside buildings and following street blockages, and evaluate the accessibility of emergency vehicles. Performing the simulations, we demonstrate the effects of quake-resistant-conversion of roadside buildings as follows: (1) the accessibility of emergency vehicles using SETR is not good enough under the current situation, but (2) can be significantly improved by performing seismic retrofit of buildings according to seismic index of building structure.

Abstract: This study aims to design a route planner functionality that includes real-time context information from physical sensors and citizen observations to support pedestrian navigation in urban areas exposed to extreme heat and floods. Urban population is growing and people living in urban areas are especially exposed to heat and urban flooding, which are two of the anticipated effects of climate change. Route planning functionality can be of value to individual citizens, especially those with limited mobility, as well as for healthcare professionals and authorities who are responsible for crisis response and management. Although the route planner functionality is to be experimentally implemented in a specific tool with the use of broadly available web technologies and real time data, a major generic outcome is the framework that can be used to develop the functionality as part of a decision support tool of any kind.

Abstract: This paper takes on the challenge of designing situational awareness information systems that take into account not only the prevalence of so-called demons of situational awareness, but also situational disabilities that will typically occur in a disaster situation, both in the control room and in the field among the general public as well as first responders. It further outlines how a situational awareness information system process model can be adapted and used as a basis for designing situational awareness information support systems that address these issues with the help of Universal Design principles.

Abstract: In this article, we want to present the concept for a risk management approach to assess the condition of critical infrastructure networks within metropolitan areas, their interdependencies among each other and the potential cascading effects. In contrast to existing solutions, this concept aims at providing a holistic view on the variety of interconnected networks within a city and the complex dependencies among them. Therefore, stochastic models and simulations are integrated into risk management to improve the assessment of cascading effects and support decision makers in crisis situations. This holistic view will allow risk managers at the city administration as well as emergency organizations to understand the full consequences of an incident and plan mitigation actions accordingly. Additionally, the approach will help to further strengthen the resilience of the entire city as well as the individual critical infrastructures in crisis situations.

Abstract: This paper aims at studying the role of Wikipedia in social resilience processes during terrorist attacks. It discusses how Wikipedia users' specific skills are mobilized in order to make sense of the event as it unfolds. We have conducted an ethnographic analysis of several Wikipedia's terrorist attacks pages as well as interviews with regular Wikipedia's contributors. We document how Wikipedia is used during crisis by readers and contributors. Doing so, we identify a specific pace of contributions which provides reliable information to readers. By discussing the conditions of their trustworthiness, we highlight how historical sources (i.e. traditional media and authorities) support this pace. Our analyses demonstrate that citizens are engaging very quickly in processes of resilience and should be, therefore, considered as relevant partners by authorities when engaging a response to the crisis.

Abstract: Robots such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deployed for search and rescue (SAR) can explore areas where human searchers cannot easily go and gather information on scales that can transform SAR strategy. Multi-UAV teams therefore have the potential to transform SAR by augmenting the capabilities of human teams and providing information that would otherwise be inaccessible. Our research aims to develop new theory and technologies for field deploying autonomous UAVs and managing multi-UAV teams working in concert with multi-human teams for SAR. Specifically, in this paper we summarize our work in progress towards these goals, including: (1) a multi-UAV search path planner that adapts to human behavior; (2) an in-field distributed computing prototype that supports multi-UAV computation and communication; (3) behavioral modeling that yields spatially localized predictions of lost person location; and (4) an interface between human searchers and UAVs that facilitates human-UAV interaction over a wide range of autonomy.

Abstract: The ubiquity of mobile internet-enabled devices combined with wide-spread social media use during emergencies is posing new challenges for response personnel. In particular, service operators are now expected to monitor these online channels to extract actionable insights and answer questions from the public. A lack of adequate tools makes this monitoring impractical at the scale of many emergencies. The TREC Incident Streams (TREC-IS) track drives research into solving this technology gap by bringing together academia and industry to develop techniques for extracting actionable insights from social media streams during emergencies. This paper covers the second year of TREC-IS, hosted in 2019 with two editions, 2019-A and 2019-B, contributing 12 new events and approximately 20,000 new tweets across 25 information categories, with 15 research groups participating across the world. This paper provides an overview of these new editions, actionable insights from data labelling, and the automated techniques employed by participant systems that appear most effective.

Abstract: Digital technologies have become an integral enabler of communication during various phases of emergency management (EM). A crucial prerequisite of effective communication between authorities and the public during EM is the establishment of adequate mutual trust. Trust, however, is an elusive concept which is not easily translatable into technical settings. In this paper we propose an integrative model of trust in digital communication and show how such model can be advantageous in assessing and improving trust relations in context of EM. Our interdisciplinary model, which is based on findings from psychology, sociology and computer sciences provides an abstraction which not only seizes both subjective and objective as well as personal and non-personal, \eg institutional or cultural, aspects of trust but at the same time is concrete enough to be applicable to real-life scenarios.

Abstract: Risk analysis of snowmelt flood is an urgent demand in cold highland areas. This paper focuses on the method for the rapid and reliable forecast of daily snowmelt, snow water runoff, and snowmelt flood risk. A neural network algorithm is used to calculate snow density distribution, snow depth and snow-water equivalent with the brightness temperature data. Then, daily snowmelt is predicted using the degree-day factor method with the temperature distribution. On this basis, we use the steepest descent method and Manning formula with hydrographic information to simulate snow water runoff. We also propose a method to predict the snowmelt flood risk with the geographic feature and historical flood data. The evaluated risk is compared with monitored data in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, which shows good consistency. At last, we develop a risk analysis system to generate the snowmelt flood risk map and provide risk analysis service.

Abstract: Many governments, organizations, practitioners and researchers involved in collaboration on resilience in emergency management are agreed that this is a key aspect. The QuEP+R framework aims to improve resilience in an organization's emergency plan management, in which the stakeholders must be adequately prepared and trained for their responsibilities in the emergency plan, providing techniques that propose the improvement of the emergency plan besides resilience. However, for these techniques to be effective, organizations need the theoretical resilience proposed in QuE+R to be implemented. The CiET framework was designed for this purpose and has learning objectives and training contents related to QuEP+R techniques to train stakeholders. The CiET capability plan contents have been classified by resilience dimensions towards the optimization of resilience in emergency plan management. The integration is supported by I+R-Tool, which generates the capability plans automatically from the results of the QuEP+R assessment, which outcomes in a stakeholder's effective training, contributing to the optimization and improvement of the resilience, therefore, in improving the quality of emergency plans. Hence, the aim remains to search for the continuous improvement of the emergency plan management within organizations.