Why Information Matters: A Foundation for Resilience

Embracing Change: The Critical Role of Information, a research project by the Internews' Center for Innovation & Learning, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, combines Internews' longstanding effort to highlight the important role ofinformation with Rockefeller's groundbreaking work on resilience. The project focuses on three major aspects:- Building knowledge around the role of information in empowering communities to understand and adapt to different types of change: slow onset, long-term, and rapid onset / disruptive;- Identifying strategies and techniques for strengthening information ecosystems to support behavioral adaptation to disruptive change; and- Disseminating knowledge and principles to individuals, communities, the private sector, policymakers, and other partners so that they can incorporate healthy information ecosystems as a core element of their social resilience strategies

The use of ICT in Disaster Risk Management: A Case Study of Nema Borno State

The survey examined the use of ICT in disaster risk management a case study of NEMA Borno state. The objectives of the study are: to ascertain the use and level of application of ICTs for disaster risk management, to Identify the types of ICT NEMA uses for disaster risk management, assess the specific areas of ICT application for disaster risk management, to examine the effectiveness of effective of the use of ICT in disaster risk management, to Identify the challenges in the application of ICT for disaster risk management in NEMA. The study was situated within diffusion of innovation theory and reviewed related literature thematically. The entire staffs of NEMA (90) formed the population of the study. Purposive sampling technique was used in selecting 60 samples out of the population for analysis as it is needless and time wasting to study the whole population. The study found that NEMA like any other disaster risk management agencies globally is not left out in the effort towards adopting and utilization of ICT in disaster risk management in its own domain. Some of the ICT facilities such as digital camera, Computer and mobile phones have gained effective penetration in terms of utilization by the Agency for disaster risk management. Interestingly, even sophisticated technology like the GIS is been used by the Agency, which is a positive development in terms of being up to date facility wise. Although there are several challenges bedevilling NEMA in effectively utilizing ICT for disaster risk management, the challenges have not hindered the use of available technology for disaster risk management. This goes to show that the use of ICT for disaster risk management in the 21st century is a necessity for purpose of efficiency and timely disaster risk management. Much needs to be done to ensure that NEMA fully benefits from the several opportunities tied to ICT in disaster risk management. The study recommends that Government should adequately fund and meet ICT requirements of NEMA to enable it effectively deploy ICT for disaster risk management. The agency should constantly train its staff and organise refresher courses for its staff on the latest ICT and there uses for disaster risk management

International Telemedicine/Disaster Medicine Conference: Papers and Presentations

The first International Telemedicine/Disaster Medicine Conference was held in Dec. 1991. The overall purpose was to convene an international, multidisciplinary gathering of experts to discuss the emerging field of telemedicine and assess its future directions; principally the application of space technology to disaster response and management, but also to clinical medicine, remote health care, public health, and other needs. This collection is intended to acquaint the reader with recent landmark efforts in telemedicine as applied to disaster management and remote health care, the technical requirements of telemedicine systems, the application of telemedicine and telehealth in the U.S. space program, and the social and humanitarian dimensions of this area of medicine

Bot-Based Emergency Software Applications for Natural Disaster Situations

Upon a serious emergency situation such as a natural disaster, people quickly try to call their friends and family with the software they use every day. On the other hand, people also tend to participate as a volunteer for rescue purposes. It is unlikely and impractical for these people to download and learn to use an application specially designed for aid processes. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of including bots, which provide a mechanism to get inside the software that people use daily, to develop emergency software applications designed to be used by victims and volunteers during stressful situations. In such situations, it is necessary to achieve efficiency, scalability, fault tolerance, elasticity, and mobility between data centers. We evaluate three bot-based applications. The first one, named Jayma, sends information about affected people during the natural disaster to a network of contacts. The second bot-based application, Ayni, manages and assigns tasks to volunteers. The third bot-based application named Rimay registers volunteers and manages campaigns and emergency tasks. The applications are built using common practice for distributed software architecture design. Most of the components forming the architecture are from existing public domain software, and some components are even consumed as an external service as in the case of Telegram. Moreover, the applications are executed on commodity hardware usually available from universities. We evaluate the applications to detect critical tasks, bottlenecks, and the most critical resource. Results show that Ayni and Rimay tend to saturate the CPU faster than other resources. Meanwhile, the RAM memory tends to reach the highest utilization level in the Jayma application.Fil: Ovando Leon, Gabriel. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; ChileFil: Veas Castillo, Luis. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; ChileFil: Gil Costa, Graciela Verónica. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - San Luis; ArgentinaFil: Marin, Mauricio. Universidad de Santiago de Chile; Chil

Aeronautics and space report of the President, 1982 activities

Achievements of the space program are summerized in the area of communication, Earth resources, environment, space sciences, transportation, aeronautics, and space energy. Space program activities of the various deprtments and agencies of the Federal Government are discussed in relation to the agencies' goals and policies. Records of U.S. and world spacecraft launchings, successful U.S. launches for 1982, U.S. launched applications and scientific satellites and space probes since 1975, U.S. and Soviet manned spaceflights since 1961, data on U.S. space launch vehicles, and budget summaries are provided. The national space policy and the aeronautical research and technology policy statements are included

Empowering Non-Terrestrial Networks with Artificial Intelligence: A Survey

6G networks can support global, ubiquitous and seamless connectivity through the convergence of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks (NTNs). Unlike terrestrial scenarios, NTNs pose unique challenges including propagation characteristics, latency and mobility, owing to the operations in spaceborne and airborne platforms. To overcome all these technical hurdles, this survey paper presents the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in learning and adapting to the complex NTN environments. We begin by providing an overview of NTNs in the context of 6G, highlighting the potential security and privacy issues. Next, we review the existing AI methods adopted for 6G NTN optimization, starting from machine learning (ML), through deep learning (DL) to deep reinforcement learning (DRL). All these AI techniques have paved the way towards more intelligent network planning, resource allocation (RA), and interference management. Furthermore, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in AI-powered NTN for 6G networks. Finally, we conclude by providing insights and recommendations on the key enabling technologies for future AI-powered 6G NTNs

Aeronautics and space report of the President, 1980 activities

The year's achievements in the areas of communication, Earth resources, environment, space sciences, transportation, and space energy are summarized and current and planned activities in these areas at the various departments and agencies of the Federal Government are summarized. Tables show U.S. and world spacecraft records, spacecraft launchings for 1980, and scientific payload anf probes launched 1975-1980. Budget data are included

Evaluating last-mile hazard information dissemination : a research proposal

This is a comprehensive and detailed report regarding implementation of a first-responders ICT strategy for emergency communication and disaster management in Sri Lanka. The project showed that ICTs can be incorporated into communities and form a critical infrastructure. However, from a technical perspective all ICTs used in the hazard information dissemination system (HazInfo Pilot) need upgrading to receive Complete Full-CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) messages before their use in the Last-Mile Communities of Sri Lanka. Sri Lankan society is not used to working according to plans, nor adhering to concepts of deadlines. Disastrous weather events and ongoing civil conflicts are impediments to pilot project planning