Network trust management in emergency situations

AbstractWe study the unique trust management, and more precisely reputation management and revocation of malicious nodes in the context of ad hoc networks used for emergency communications.Unlike in centralized systems, reputation management and revocation in ad hoc networks is non-trivial. This difficulty is due to the fact that the nodes have to collaboratively calculate the reputation value of a particular node and then revoke the node if the reputation value goes below a threshold. A major challenge in this scheme is to prevent a malicious node from discrediting other genuine nodes. The decision to revoke a node has to be communicated to all the nodes of the network. In traditional ad hoc networks the overhead of broadcasting the message throughout the network may be very high. We solve the problem of reputation management and node revocation in ad hoc networks of cell phones by using a threshold cryptography based scheme. Each node of the network would have a set of anonymous referees, which would store the reputation information of the node and issue reputation certificates to the node with timestamps. The misbehavior of a particular cell phone is reported to its anonymous referees, who issue certificates which reflect the positive and negative recommendations

Culture and disaster risk management - stakeholder attitudes during Stakeholder Assembly in Rome, Italy

This report provides a summary of the topics discussed and the results of the CARISMAND Second Stakeholder Assembly conducted in Rome, Italy on 27-28 February 2017. In order to promote cross-sectional knowledge transfer, as in the CARISMAND First Stakeholder Assembly held in Romania in the previous year, the audience consisted of a wide range of practitioners that are typically involved in disaster management, e.g., civil protection, the emergency services, paramedics, nurses, environmental protection, Red Cross, fire-fighters, military, the police, and other non-governmental organisations. Further, these practitioners were from several regions in Italy, e.g., Rome and Lazio, Toscana, Emilia-Romagna, and Valle D’Aosta. The participants, who varied between 40 and 60, were recruited via invitations sent to various Italian organisations and institutions (at the national, regional and local levels), and via direct contacts of the Protezione Civile Comune di Firenze who are one of the Italian partners in the CARISMAND Consortium. The event consisted of a mix of presentations, working groups, and panel discussions for these participating practitioners, in order to combine dissemination with information gathering (for the detailed schedule/programme please see Appendix 1). After an initial general assembly where the CARISMAND project and its main goals were presented, the participants of the Stakeholder Assembly were split into small groups in separate breakout rooms, where over the course of the two days they discussed the following topics: 1) Working Group 1. “Culture & Risk”: Practical Experience of Cultural Aspects Disaster Communication between Practitioners and Citizens; 2) Working Group 2. “Media Culture & Disasters”: The Use of Social Media and Mobile Phone Applications in Disasters; 3) Working Groups 3. “Social Cohesion & Social Corrosion”: Cultures, Communities, and Trust. After each working group session, panel discussions allowed the participants to present the results of their working group to the rest of the audience. After each panel discussion, keynote speakers gave presentations related to the respective working group’s topic. This time schedule was designed to ensure that participants are provided with detailed information about recent developments in disaster management, e.g. related to the use of mobile phone apps and social media, but without influencing their attitudes and perceptions expressed in the working groups. The main focus of the working groups was the relationships between culture and risk/disaster communication, the role of social media and smartphone apps, and trust between citizens and disaster managers and/or authorities. These topics, and the questions discussed within each working group, were chosen: following the findings of the CARISMAND First Stakeholder Assembly held in Bucharest, in particular regarding the disconnection between citizens’ risk perception and cultural factors in disasters; 1) the results of the CARISMAND First and Second Citizen Summits held in Bucharest and Malta respectively, specifically taking up the participants’ suggestions regarding vulnerable groups and groups that are seen to be potentially helpful in disaster situations; 2) the results of Work Package 3 ‘Cultural Factors and Technologies’, in particular regarding the increasing interest in mobile phone apps compared to social media usage; 3) the literature review provided in Work Package 4 ‘Risk Perception and Risk Cultures’, particularly regarding the ambivalent of role of trust in disaster preparedness, response and recovery; 4) the preliminary findings of Work Package 7 ‘Citizens Empowerment’, in respect to community cohesion and specific opportunities for citizen empowerment; and 5) topics highlighted in Work Package 8 ‘Risk Communication and the Role of the Media in Risk Communication’ regarding disaster communication practices (particularly in connection with social media/apps usage as identified in Work Package 3 ‘Cultural Factors and Technologies’). These topics were also chosen in order to provide a sound basis for the next round of CARISMAND events (Third and Fourth CARISMAND Citizen Summits held, later, in Rome and Frankfurt in June 2017), i.e. exploring issues of risk perception and culture in the context of disasters at the very point, where practitioners and citizens interact. The location of the Second Stakeholder Assembly was selected to make use of the extensive local professional network of the Protezione Civile, but also due to Italy being a location where various “types” of hazards are prevalent, and disasters were occurred in the very recent past. All documents related to the Working Groups, i.e. discussion guidelines and consent forms, were translated into Italian. Accordingly, all presentations as well as the group discussions were held in Italian, aiming to avoid any language/education-related access restrictions, and allowing participating practitioners to respond intuitively and discuss freely in their native language. For this purpose, researchers from the Laboratory of Sciences Citizenship in Rome, one of the CARISMAND Consortium members, were used as Working Group moderators, alongside simultaneous interpreters and professional local moderators contracted via a local market research agency (RFR International), who also provided the transcripts and translations into English for all Working Group discussions. It is important to note that the discussions within these working groups reflect the participants’ perceptions and may or may not reflect the realities of how communication actually occurs in disaster situations.The project was co-funded by the European Commission within the Horizon2020 Programme (2014-2020).peer-reviewe

Large emergency-response exercises: qualitative characteristics - a survey

Exercises, drills, or simulations are widely used, by governments, agencies and commercial organizations, to simulate serious incidents and train staff how to respond to them. International cooperation has led to increasingly large-scale exercises, often involving hundreds or even thousands of participants in many locations. The difference between ‘large’ and ‘small’ exercises is more than one of size: (a) Large exercises are more ‘experiential’ and more likely to undermine any model of reality that single organizations may create; (b) they create a ‘play space’ in which organizations and individuals act out their own needs and identifications, and a ritual with strong social implications; (c) group-analytic psychotherapy suggests that the emotions aroused in a large group may be stronger and more difficult to control. Feelings are an unacknowledged major factor in the success or failure of exercises; (d) successful large exercises help improve the nature of trust between individuals and the organizations they represent, changing it from a situational trust to a personal trust; (e) it is more difficult to learn from large exercises or to apply the lessons identified; (f) however, large exercises can help develop organizations and individuals. Exercises (and simulation in general) need to be approached from a broader multidisciplinary direction if their full potential is to be realized

Culture and disaster risk management - stakeholder attitudes during Stakeholder Assembly in Lisbon, Portugal

This report provides a summary of the topics discussed and the results of the third CARISMAND Stakeholder Assembly conducted in Lisbon, Portugal on 27-28 February 2018. In order to promote cross-sectional knowledge transfer and gather a variety of attitudes and perceptions, as in the first and second CARISMAND Stakeholder Assemblies held in Romania and Italy in the previous years, the audience consisted of a wide range of practitioners who are typically involved in disaster management, e.g., civil protection, the emergency services, paramedics, nurses, environmental protection, Red Cross, firefighters, military, and the police. Further, these practitioners were from several regions in Portugal, including the island of Madeira. The 40 participants were recruited via invitations sent to various Portuguese organisations and institutions, and via direct contacts of the Civil Protection Department in Lisbon which is one of the partners in the CARISMAND consortium. The event consisted of a mix of presentations and discussion groups to combine dissemination with information gathering (for the detailed schedule/programme see Appendix 1). Furthermore, this third Stakeholder Assembly was organised and specifically designed to discuss and collect feedback on a comprehensive set of recommendations for disaster practitioners, which will form one of the core elements of the CARISMAND Work Package 9 ‘Toolkit’. These recommendations, which have all been formulated on the basis of Work Packages 2-10 results, were structured in four, main “sets”: 1. Approaches to ethnicity in disaster management; 2. Culturally aware disaster-related training activities; 3. Cultural factors in disaster communication, with the sub-sets: a. Cultural values and emotions; (cross-)cultural symbols; “physical” aides and methods; b. Involvement of cultural leaders; involvement of specific groups; usage of social media and mobile phone apps; and 4. Improving trust, improving disaster management. In an initial general assembly, the event started with presentations of the CARISMAND project and its main goals and concepts, including the concept of culture adopted by CARISMAND, and the planned CARISMAND Toolkit architecture and functionalities. These were followed by a detailed presentation of the first of the above mentioned sets of recommendations for practitioners. Then, participants of the Stakeholder Assembly were split into small groups in separate breakout rooms, where they discussed and provided feedback to the presented recommendations. Over the course of the 2-day event, this procedure was followed for all four sets of recommendations. To follow the cyclical design of CARISMAND events, and wherever meaningful and possible, the respective Toolkit recommendations for practitioners provided also the basis for a respective “shadow” recommendation for citizens which will be discussed accordingly in the last round of CARISMAND Citizen Summits (Citizen Summit 5 in Lisbon, and Citizen Summit 6 in Utrecht) in 2018. The location of the Third Stakeholder Assembly was selected to make use of the extensive local professional network of the Civil Protection Department in Lisbon, but also due to Portugal being a traditional “melting pot” where, over more than a millennium, people from different cultural backgrounds and local/ethnical origins (in particular Africa, South America, and Europe) have lived both alongside and together. All documents related to the Working Groups, i.e. discussion guidelines and consent forms, were translated into Portuguese. Accordingly, all presentations, as well as the group discussions were held in Portuguese, aiming to avoid any language/education-related access restrictions, and allowing participating practitioners to respond intuitively and discuss freely in their native language. For this purpose, simultaneous interpreters and professional local moderators were contracted via a local market research agency (EquaçãoLógica), which also provided the basic data analysis of all Working Group discussions and an independent qualitative evaluation of all recommendations presented in the event. The results of this analysis and evaluation will demonstrate that most recommendations were seen by the participating practitioners to be relevant and useful. In particular, those recommendations related to the use of cultural symbols and the potential of mobile phone apps and/or social media were perceived as stimulating and thought-provoking. Some recommendations were felt to be less relevant in the specific Portuguese context, but accepted as useful in other locations; a very small number was perceived to be better addressed to policy makers rather than practitioners. These and all other suggestions for improvement of the presented CARISMAND Toolkit recommendations for practitioners have been taken up and will be outlined in the final chapter of this report.The project was co-funded by the European Commission within the Horizon2020 Programme (2014-2020).peer-reviewe

ANGELAH: A Framework for Assisting Elders At Home

The ever growing percentage of elderly people within modern societies poses welfare systems under relevant stress. In fact, partial and progressive loss of motor, sensorial, and/or cognitive skills renders elders unable to live autonomously, eventually leading to their hospitalization. This results in both relevant emotional and economic costs. Ubiquitous computing technologies can offer interesting opportunities for in-house safety and autonomy. However, existing systems partially address in-house safety requirements and typically focus on only elder monitoring and emergency detection. The paper presents ANGELAH, a middleware-level solution integrating both ”elder monitoring and emergency detection” solutions and networking solutions. ANGELAH has two main features: i) it enables efficient integration between a variety of sensors and actuators deployed at home for emergency detection and ii) provides a solid framework for creating and managing rescue teams composed of individuals willing to promptly assist elders in case of emergency situations. A prototype of ANGELAH, designed for a case study for helping elders with vision impairments, is developed and interesting results are obtained from both computer simulations and a real-network testbed