scholarly journals Data interoperability software solution for emergency reaction in the Europe Union

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (9) ◽  
pp. 6003-6031 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Casado ◽  
E. Rubiera ◽  
M. Sacristan ◽  
F. Schütte ◽  
R. Peters

Abstract. Emergency management becomes more challenging in international crisis episodes because of cultural, semantic and linguistic differences between all stakeholders, especially first responders. Misunderstandings between first responders makes decision-making slower and more difficult. However, spread and development of networks and IT-based Emergency Management Systems (EMS) has improved emergency responses, becoming more coordinated. Despite improvements made in recent years, EMS have not still solved problems related to cultural, semantic and linguistic differences which are the real cause of slower decision-making. In addition, from a technical perspective, the consolidation of current EMS and the different formats used to exchange information offers another problem to be solved in any solution proposed for information interoperability between heterogeneous EMS surrounded by different contexts. To overcome these problems we present a software solution based on semantic and mediation technologies. EMERGency ELements (EMERGEL) (Fundacion CTIC and AntwortING Ingenieurbüro PartG 2013), a common and modular ontology shared by all the stakeholders, has been defined. It offers the best solution to gather all stakeholders' knowledge in a unique and flexible data model, taking into account different countries cultural linguistic issues. To deal with the diversity of data protocols and formats, we have designed a Service Oriented Architecture for Data Interoperability (named DISASTER) providing a flexible extensible solution to solve the mediation issues. Web Services have been adopted as specific technology to implement such paradigm that has the most significant academic and industrial visibility and attraction. Contributions of this work have been validated through the design and development of a cross-border realistic prototype scenario, actively involving both emergency managers and emergency first responders: the Netherlands–Germany border fire.

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. 1563-1576 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Casado ◽  
E. Rubiera ◽  
M. Sacristan ◽  
F. Schütte ◽  
R. Peters

Abstract. Emergency management becomes more challenging in international crisis episodes because of cultural, semantic and linguistic differences between all stakeholders, especially first responders. Misunderstandings between first responders makes decision making slower and more difficult. However, spread and development of networks and IT-based emergency management systems (EMSs) have improved emergency responses, which have become more coordinated. Despite improvements made in recent years, EMSs have not still solved problems related to cultural, semantic and linguistic differences which are the real cause of slower decision making. In addition, from a technical perspective, the consolidation of current EMSs and the different formats used to exchange information offers another problem to be solved in any solution proposed for information interoperability between heterogeneous EMSs in different contexts. To overcome these problems, we present a software solution based on semantic and mediation technologies. EMERGency ELements (EMERGEL) (Fundacion CTIC and AntwortING Ingenieurbüro PartG, 2013), a common and modular ontology shared by all the stakeholders, has been defined. It offers the best solution to gather all stakeholders' knowledge in a unique and flexible data model, taking into account different countries' cultural and linguistic issues. To deal with the diversity of data protocols and formats, we have designed a service-oriented architecture for data interoperability (named DISASTER: Data Interoperability Solution At STakeholders Emergency Reaction) providing a flexible extensible solution to solve the mediation issues. Web services have been adopted as specific technology to implement this paradigm that has the most significant academic and industrial visibility and attraction. Contributions of this work have been validated through the design and development of a cross-border realistic prototype scenario, actively involving both emergency managers and emergency-first responders: the Netherlands–Germany border fire.


2016 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frauke Hoss ◽  
Paul Fischbeck

Abstract Emergency managers (EMs) use National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts to prepare for and respond to severe weather events. To effectively facilitate such decision making, the NWS needs to understand this large and important group of clients. EMs translate the forecasts to local topography, suggest actions to take in preparation of high water levels, and use their local network and reputation to make people act. For this study, 17 EMs in towns along rivers were interviewed and asked to describe their use of river and weather forecasts. Forecast uncertainty is one of the many uncertainties an EM has to manage when coordinating an emergency response. Each of the interviewed EMs who uses river forecasts was acutely aware that river forecasts often have substantial uncertainty. To cope with this uncertainty, EMs engage in extensive information gathering before forming their own judgments. However, EMs often do not communicate their judgment of the situation to the public, fearing potential liability claims and backlash from the media. For emergency management decisions, while EMs do consider forecast data, they rely heavily on recorded data and monitoring crews, limiting the benefits of forecasts that can be made with significant lead time. This paper arrives at recommendations for the NWS on how to increase the value of river and weather forecasts for decision making in emergency management.


Author(s):  
Yan Wang

Current CAD systems only support interactive geometry generation, which is not ideal for distributed engineering services in enterprise-to-enterprise collaboration with a generic thin-client service-oriented architecture. This chapter presents a new feature-based modeling mechanism, document-driven design, to enable batch mode geometry construction for distributed CAD systems. A semantic feature model is developed to represent informative and communicative design intent. Feature semantics is explicitly captured as trinary relation, which provides good extensibility and prevents semantics loss. Data interoperability between domains is enhanced by schema mapping and multi-resolution semantics. This mechanism aims to enable asynchronous communication in distributed CAD environments with ease of design alternative evaluation and reuse, and improved system throughput and utilization


Author(s):  
Yan Wang

Current CAD systems only support interactive geometry generation, which is not ideal for distributed engineering services in enterprise-to-enterprise collaboration with a generic thin-client service-oriented architecture. This chapter presents a new feature-based modeling mechanism, document-driven design, to enable batch mode geometry construction for distributed CAD systems. A semantic feature model is developed to represent informative and communicative design intent. Feature semantics is explicitly captured as trinary relation, which provides good extensibility and prevents semantics loss. Data interoperability between domains is enhanced by schema mapping and multi-resolution semantics. This mechanism aims to enable asynchronous communication in distributed CAD environments with ease of design alternative evaluation and reuse, and improved system throughput and utilization


Author(s):  
Christoph Ernst ◽  
Andreas Mladenow ◽  
Christine Strauss

Purpose Emergency managers face coordinative challenges that require a high degree of mobility, flexibility and the ability to interpret heterogeneous, location-dependent information of various sources and quality. Recent information and communication technology-driven developments like crowdsourcing or social networks have opened up new organizational possibilities for emergency managers. To make quick but solid decisions, and improve the coordination of activities performed by crowdsourcees during disaster response, the authors suggest the use of collaborative features from crowdsourcing and inherent availability of resources from social network effects. In this paper, the idea of considering collaboration and crowdsourcing as drivers for flexibility in the design of business processes in the context of emergency management is prepared, the meaning of location-dependent tasks for volunteers is investigated, and the added value of social network effects is substantiated. Design/methodology/approach This paper is part of an ongoing research project in the field of crowdsourcing. It represents conceptual work that builds on relevant literature. Findings In terms of emergency management, the paper sheds light on what emergency managers may consider when coordinating activities performed by volunteers and how they may benefit from social network effects. Furthermore, it is shown how they can exploit information using collaboration-based and tournament-like crowdsourcing, how they can benefit from invoking additional resources using weak ties from social networks, and how visualization of information may support decision-making. Practical implications Exemplary applications to exploit crowdsourcing and social network effects to support improvisation and to respond flexibly in disaster response are given. Originality/value This paper suggests novel collaborative approaches to support emergency managers in their decision-making. Based on social network analysis, the value of weak ties is elaborated, and based on a taxonomy from crowdsourcing, distinct collaborative alternatives are developed and proposed for application in emergency management.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Sinclair ◽  
Emma E.H. Doyle ◽  
David M. Johnston ◽  
Douglas Paton

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute information and recommendations that could better equip emergency managers to prepare for and respond to emergencies and disasters, with a focus on improving their decision‐making capabilities during response.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire‐based survey approach was used in this research and 48 different local government organisations participated. These results were examined in conjunction with contemporary emergency management decision‐making literature. A combination of closed and open ended questions was used, enabling qualitative and quantitative analysis.FindingsResults suggest that while there is information available about decision making, not all emergency managers are aware of the existence of this information or understand its relevance to emergency management. It is likely that those who did have a comprehensive understanding of decision making had gained this knowledge through non‐emergency management‐related courses. In total, 71 percent of participants said they would be interested in receiving more support regarding training and practice for decision making in Emergency Operations Centres.Originality/valueA wide body of research has investigated decision‐making styles. However, this paper shows that in the local government emergency management sector there is little awareness of the understanding of the different decision‐making approaches. In addition, for those organisations surveyed, there is a great desire for further training and practice in decision making. It is thus vital that this need is addressed, to further improve the future response of these organisations to emergencies.


Author(s):  
Yusuf Lateef Oladimejia

The realisation of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to communicate data between systems running on different platforms lack an organised framework to capture the essential elements required for successful interoperability between web applications and their services. In this work, a SOA for Data Interoperability in Web Applications (SOADIWA) was designed. The architecture of SOADIWA was based on five layers, namely Web Application Layer (WAL), Quality of Service Assurance Certifier Layer (QoSACL), Web Service Layer (WSL), Visualization Input Layer (VIL) and Visualization Output Layer (VOL). In WAL, the Service Requester (SR) initiates a request for data from the Service Provider (SP) through the QoSACL to provide appropriate website via WSL for rendering of services which must be accepted, processed and returned for a particular need in VIL. The requested data is filtered in VIL for data exploration and analysis in VOL using context-sensitive visualization techniques. The purpose of QoSACL is to check and verify the claims made by the SP about its quality of service. This enabled the SR to choose the service that satisfied its needs. The implementation comprised of Java Script, Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 and NuGet packages; while the experiment was simulated on LoadUI pro application. Standard metrics such as Optimal Performance (OP) and Phased Effort Distribution (PED) were developed to test SOADIWA. These results conformed to basic web service interoperability. The work led to the integration of a host of techniques towards the creation of a novel tool that is useful in web domain using SOA approach.


Data Mining ◽  
2013 ◽  
pp. 474-502
Author(s):  
Marc Rabaey ◽  
Roger Mercken

This chapter introduces the concept of the “Intelligence Base,” developed in a study on the information requirement of the management of an (military) organization. The purpose of the study was to conceive, for each level of an organization, an appropriate Decision Support System (DSS) and/or Knowledge and Information System. All systems would eventually have been integrated in an overall Enterprise Architecture (EA). By discussing the OODA-cycle of John Boyd and the Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) the authors show that the concept of Intelligence Base can be a DSS for very demanding environments. Related topics are knowledge, culture, and real options (business example). The proposed framework is based on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Cloud Computing, which will determine the configuration of the Information Technology (IT) systems.


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