Community Seismic Network

The article describes the design of the Community Seismic Network, which is a dense open seismic network based on low cost sensors. The inputs are from sensors hosted by volunteers from the community by direct connection to their personal computers, or through sensors built into mobile devices. The server is cloud-based for robustness and to dynamically handle the load of impulsive earthquake events. The main product of the network is a map of peak acceleration, delivered within seconds of the ground shaking. The lateral variations in the level of shaking will be valuable to first responders, and the waveform information from a dense network will allow detailed mapping of the rupture process. Sensors in buildings may be useful for monitoring the state-of-health of the structure after major shaking

Determining Training Needs for Cloud Infrastructure Investigations using I-STRIDE

As more businesses and users adopt cloud computing services, security vulnerabilities will be increasingly found and exploited. There are many technological and political challenges where investigation of potentially criminal incidents in the cloud are concerned. Security experts, however, must still be able to acquire and analyze data in a methodical, rigorous and forensically sound manner. This work applies the STRIDE asset-based risk assessment method to cloud computing infrastructure for the purpose of identifying and assessing an organization's ability to respond to and investigate breaches in cloud computing environments. An extension to the STRIDE risk assessment model is proposed to help organizations quickly respond to incidents while ensuring acquisition and integrity of the largest amount of digital evidence possible. Further, the proposed model allows organizations to assess the needs and capacity of their incident responders before an incident occurs.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables, 5th International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime; Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime, pp. 223-236, 201

Designing and Developing a Mobile-Cloud E-Learning Application

The mobile-cloud E-Learning application is an application software which can be downloaded into a mobile phone or a smart phone. This application software functions with the presence of a network, which is the Internet. The objectives of this project are to study on how the contents of the current existing E-Learning can be adapted to the mobile phones/smart phones which will then lead to designing and developing the contents of the mobile E-Learning application to suit the small screens of the mobile phones/smart phones using the cloud computing concept. This objective was made due to the problems identified during the research of the limitations of the current E-Learning system which are usability and accessibility problems. The scope of this study is to design and develop a mobile-cloud E-Learning application for the specifications of the BlackBerry OS 6 with the functions of viewing and posting announcements as well as downloading and uploading lecture notes by students, lecturers and management staffs respectively. The methodology used for the research are distributing online questionnaire and conducting interviews. On the other hand, the project methodology chosen is the prototyping method which requires users’ participation. Finally, up to date, the distributed online showed positive response from the responders whereby they support the mobile version of the E-Learning system

How can we use mobile apps for disaster communications in Taiwan: Problems and possible practice

The growth rate of global smart phone in 2010 is as high as 78.1%, showing that smart phone gradually becomes the mainstream in the mobile phone market. Smart phone has the function of installing applications, provides users with more diversified mobile value-added services and will change users' communication habits in the future. Mobile communication follows the development trend of 3G and WiMAX, make users can link with mobile software stores through internet, downloading all kinds of applications, which has provided human beings with more diversified information, and gradually changed people's living habits. With the widespread of smart phone in Taiwan and many mobile applications start to go popular in market, people are crazy about downloading mobile applications, and different applications create different types of communications. Within a trend of smart phone and massive mobile apps go popular in Taiwan, what can we do to apply these tools for disaster communications? And compare to other infrastructure-level support, is mobile app a feasible route for disaster communications? What is the possible uses and challenges. --

Utilizing Android and the Cloud Computing Environment to Increase Situational Awareness for a Mobile Distributed Response

Maintaining an accurate Common Operational Picture (COP) is a strategic requirement for efficient and successful missions in both disaster response and battlefield scenarios. Past practices include utilizing cellular, radio, and computer based communication methods and updating individual maps accordingly. A drawback of these practices has been interoperability of these devices as well as accurate reporting and documentation among different entities of the effort. Recent advances in technology have led to the utilization of collaborative maps for maintaining a COP amongst command centers. Despite the advantages this technique offers, it does not address the difficulties surrounding receiving reports from field entities as well as ensuring these entities also have good situational awareness. The goal of this research is to explore smartphone capabilities in conjunction with cloud computing to determine how they can extend the benefits of collaborative maps to mobile users while simultaneously ensuring command centers are receiving accurate, up-to-date reports from the field.http://archive.org/details/utilizingandroid109456763Lieutenant, United States Nav

Internet Predictions

More than a dozen leading experts give their opinions on where the Internet is headed and where it will be in the next decade in terms of technology, policy, and applications. They cover topics ranging from the Internet of Things to climate change to the digital storage of the future. A summary of the articles is available in the Web extras section

Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)

This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio