Learning from past Disasters to Improve Crisis Management

In the event of a disaster the coordinated response of emergency services is crucial for saving lives and protecting critical infrastructure. Efficient communication and access to relevant information are essential elements in the immediate aftermath and all phases of the crisis management cycle to maintain public safety. As part of the European Commission funded FP7 project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens), an inventory of past disasters and critical events was developed. Information was obtained by systematic interviews with experts active in the field of crisis and disaster management on both national and international level. They represent organisations such as first responders, emergency services and civil protection offices from 15 EU (European Union) countries. The paper will outline several aspects such as the quality of information exchange between crisis managers and the analysis of key recommendations for improvement identified during the management of past disasters

Towards a Pan-European Information Space

ABSTRACT When disasters occur, key factors for minimizing damages and loss of lives are access to necessary information and effective communication between emergency services. In cross-border disaster management, further challenges arise: language barriers, uneven know-how, organisational and technical differences in particular concerning communication and data or information exchange. To address those challenges, the FP7-Project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens) is working on the concept of a common information space to improve interoperability and efficiency while managing cross-border disasters. This involves researching on a common taxonomy and ontology as well as on interoperability functionalities and tools. A first step on this direction is the analysis of how disasters have been and are being managed. This paper reports on an inventory of disasters designed to consolidate such knowledge and aimed at being the basis for this information space. First gaps identified in communication/information management are also presented

Analysis of the hazard potential of electromagnetic weapons for humans

Abweichender Titel nach Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des VerfassersZusammenfassung in englischer SpracheDie vorliegende Diplomarbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Gefährdungspotential elektromagnetischer Waffen, die von Kriminellen oder Terroristen zur absichtlichen elektromagnetischen Störung oder Zerstörung von elektrischen/elektronischen Komponenten eingesetzt werden können. Im Zuge von Angriffen mittels derartiger Systeme treten energiereiche elektromagnetische Felder auf, die zur Gefährdung des Menschen führen können. Um die potentielle Gefahr beurteilen zu können wird im Rahmen dieser Diplomarbeit eine Analyse der existierenden Systeme anhand aktueller Literatur durchgeführt und diese nach Signalform und Herstellungsaufwand eingeteilt. Es wird eine Übersicht über gängige Personenschutznormen und Richtlinien gegeben, damit etwaige nachteilige, gesund-heitliche Auswirkungen auf den Menschen untersucht werden können. Ausgehend von diesen Un-tersuchungen werden realistische Szenarien abgeleitet, in denen Personen dem elektromagnetischen Feld verschiedener Systeme ausgesetzt sind. Mittels einer 3-D Simulationsumgebung werden numerische Simulationen durchgeführt, um eine mögliche Grenzwertüberschreitung festzustellen.In this master thesis, the hazard potential of electromagnetic weapons is investigated. These sys-tems can be used by criminals or terrorists to disturb or destroy electric/electronic components by means of intentional electromagnetic interference. In the course of such attacks, electromagnetic fields with high-energy are observed which could led to detrimental effects on humans. To assess the potential hazard, an analysis of existing systems is done according to the current literature. The systems are classified towards their signal shape and the effort to build them. An overview about standards and guidelines of electromagnetic exposure is given to determine if adverse health effects may occur. Based on these investigations, realistic scenarios are derived among persons who are exposed by different types of electromagnetic fields. An exposure evaluation is done, to verify a possible exceedance of exposure limits, by numeric simulations using a 3-D simulation environment.10

Interoperabilität im Katastrophenmanagement - der Einsatz von IKT beim inter-organisationalen Informationsaustausch

Im Katastrophenfall und bei großräumigen Schadenslagen stellt die Informationsgewinnung und -verarbeitung erhebliche Herausforderungen für die Einsatzkräfte dar. Um diesen Herausforderungen zu begegnen, ist es notwendig, dass unterschiedliche Akteure im Schadensraum Informationen austauschen und möglichst effektiv und effizient interagieren, wobei diese Interaktion auf taktischer, operativer und strategischer Ebene stattfinden kann. Durch die Verwendung von unterschiedlichen Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT) und unterschiedlichen Begrifflichkeiten in den jeweiligen Einsatzorganisationen können jedoch semantische Lücken beim Informationsaustausch auftreten. Um eine möglichst exakte Lagebilddarstellung zu erhalten, muss diese Lücke im Einsatzfall unbedingt vermieden werden. Die Erschwernis hierbei stellt die Verwendung von Systemen dar, die nicht darauf ausgelegt sind miteinander zu interagieren und somit keine semantische Interoperabilität gewährleisten. In dieser Master-Thesis werden die wesentlichen Probleme des organisationsübergreifenden Informationsaustausches bei Katastrophen sowie größeren Schadenslagen anhand einer umfangreichen Literaturrecherche erhoben und analysiert. Des Weiteren werden Modelle von Interoperabilitätsschichten untersucht und den Ebenen des Katastrophenmanagements gegenübergestellt. Anschließend wird auf Konzepte eingegangen, die dazu dienen die Kommunikation, Koordination und Kooperation zu klassifizieren, und es wird überprüft, wie Einsatzorganisationen durch technologische Hilfsmittel auf semantischer Ebene unterstützt werden können. Dazu werden semantische Strukturen analysiert und in den Kontext von Interoperabilitätsmodellen gestellt. Diese Arbeit diskutiert einerseits Ansätze auf nationaler Ebene und andererseits wird ein Ausblick auf die länderübergreifende Zusammenarbeit mittels Fallstudie und Expertenreflexion gegeben.In the event of disasters and major incidents, the acquisition and processing of information poses considerable challenges for responder organisations. To meet these challenges, it is necessary for different actors in the damage area to exchange information and interact as effectively and efficiently as possible, whereby this interaction can take place at tactical, operational and strategic level. However, the use of different information and communication technologies (ICT) and different terminologies in the respective responder organisations can lead to semantic gaps in the exchange of information. These gaps must be avoided to obtain an accurate operational picture. The difficulty here is the use of systems that are not designed to interact with each other and therefore do not guarantee semantic interoperability. In this thesis, the main problems of cross-organisational information exchange in the event of disasters and major incidents are identified and analysed based on an extensive literature review. In addition, models of interoperability layers are examined and compared with the levels of disaster management. Subsequently, concepts are discussed which serve to classify communication, coordination and cooperation, and it is examined how responder organisations can be supported by technological tools on a semantic level. Therefor semantic structures are analysed and placed in the context of interoperability models. On the one hand this thesis discusses approaches at the national level and on the other hand provides an outlook on cross-border cooperation by means of a case study including an expert reflection

Towards a Pan-European Information Space

When disasters occur, key factors for minimizing damages and loss of lives are access to necessary information and effective communication between emergency services. In cross-border disaster management, further challenges arise: language barriers, uneven know-how, organisational and technical differences in particular concerning communication and data or information exchange. To address those challenges, the FP7-Project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens) is working on the concept of a common information space to improve interoperability and efficiency while managing cross-border disasters. This involves researching on a common taxonomy and ontology as well as on interoperability functionalities and tools. A first step on this direction is the analysis of how disasters have been and are being managed. This paper reports on an inventory of disasters designed to consolidate such knowledge and aimed at being the basis for this information space. First gaps identified in communication/information management are also presented

Accelerator Reliability Information System Data Quality Concept

This work is part of ARIES EU project task to study feasibility of reliability information sharing within the accelerator community. In practice, this means establishing an Accelerator Reliability Information System (ARIS) where users could upload and access the reliability data. This approach has been successfully used in industry and this experience is detailed by our earlier literature review. We have also published a report describing the use cases of the ARIS. This report presents a literature review on maintenance data quality estimators

Bibliography and state of the art of reliability information systems

Reliability and availability have been identified as a key topic for cost and energy efficient operations in research of industrially used particle accelerators and medical particle facilities. The scope of this document is to reference documents of existing reliability information systems in industries, lists of relevant standards and best-practices and a summary with an assessment of those documents, which can be considered suitable for a reliability and availability information system in a multi-national, collaborative technical research infrastructure environment

On the Volume of Geo-referenced Tweets and Their Relationship to Events Relevant for Migration Tracking

Part 7: Analytics and VisualizationInternational audienceMigration is a major challenge for the European Union, resulting in early preparedness being an imperative for target states and their stakeholders such as border police forces. This preparedness is necessary for multiple reasons, including the provision of adequate search and rescue measures. To support preparedness, there is a need for early indicators for detection of developing migratory push-factors related to imminent migration flows. To address this need, we have investigated the daily number of geo-referenced Tweets in three regions of Ukraine and the whole of Japan from August 2014 until October 2014. This analysis was done by using the data handling tool Ubicity. Additionally, we have identified days when relevant natural, civil or political events took place in order to identify possible event triggered changes of the daily number of Tweets. In all the examined Ukrainian regions a considerable increase in the number of daily Tweets was observed for the election day of a new parliament. Furthermore, we identified a significant decrease in the number of daily Tweets for the Crimea for the whole examined period which could be related to the political changes that took place. The natural disasters identified in Japan do not show a clear relationship with the changes in the degree of use of the social media tool Twitter. The results are a good basis to use communication patterns as future key indicator for migration analysis

Common information space as enabler for collaboration in disaster management:Demonstration of the validity of the EPISECC CIS concept

Interoperability of all actors involved in crisis and disaster management is an imperative pre-requirement for minimizing damage and losses in case of incidents. In order to enhance the opportunities of improved information exchange between involved stakeholders, the EU Commission funded the FP7 project EPISECC. The main objective of EPISECC is to develop a Common Information Space (CIS) designed to enable seamless information exchange between different practitioners involved in European crisis and disaster management. The concept of the CIS ensures that the organizations participating in the information processes can continue to use their proprietary IT solutions applied for crisis management. Unobstructed information exchange between IT solutions of different origin can be realized by developing an adaptor to the CIS only once. Such an approach reduces complexity in a considerable way. For instance, in case of 5 interacting organizations the CIS concept requests to develop 5 adaptors instead of 20 interfaces in case of interfacing each of the 5 tools on a bilateral way. In addition, with the EPISECC CIS, it is possible to semantically annotate exchanged messages as well as to set up subgroups of participating organizations in order to manage different types of incidents in parallel. This ensures that messages are only shared between the organizations involved in the management of a specific event. Within this paper the main features of the EPISECC CIS are illustrated. In addition, the successful Proof of Concept (PoC) of the project that took place in Palmanova, Italy in May 2017 is described