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An Improved Rank Criterion-based NLOS node Detection Mechanism (IRC-NLOS-DM) is proposed based on the benefits of a reputation model for effective localization of NLOS nodes during the dynamic exchange of emergency messages in critical situations.

This proposed IRC-NLOS-DM scheme derives the benefits of a reputation model that influentially localizes the NLOS nodes under dynamic exchange of emergency messages. This proposed IRC-NLOS-DM scheme is an attempt to resolve the issues with the routing protocols that aids in warning message delivery of vehicles that are facing NLOS situations with the influence of channel contention and broadcast storm. It is developed for increasing the warning packet delivery rate with minimized overhead, delay and channel utilization.

The simulation results of the proposed IRC-NLOS-DM scheme confirmed the excellence of the proposed IRC-NLOS-DM over the existing works investigated based on the channel utilization rate, neighborhood prediction rate and emergency message forwarding rate.

It is proposed for reliable warning message delivery in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) which is referred as the specialized category of mobile ad hoc network application that influences Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and wireless communications. It is proposed for implementing vehicle safety applications for constructing a least cluttered and a secure environment on the road.

It is contributed as a significant mechanism for facilitating reliable dissemination of emergency messages between the vehicular nodes, which is essential in the critical environment to facilitate a risk-free environment. It also aids in creating a reliable environment for accurate localization of Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) nodes that intentionally introduces the issues of broadcasting storm and channel congestion during the process of emergency message exchanges.

The chapter describes the basics of developed high-level spatial grasp technology (SGT) and its spatial grasp language (SGL) allowing us to create and manage very large distributed systems in physical, virtual and executive domains in a highly parallel manner and without any centralized resources. Main features of SGT with its self-evolving and self-spreading spatial intelligence, recursive nature of SGL and organization of its networked interpreter will be briefed. Numerous interpreter copies can be installed worldwide and integrated with other systems or operate autonomously and collectively in critical situations. Relation of SGT, with capability of holistic solutions in distributed systems, to the gestalt psychology and theory, showing unique qualities of human mind and brain to directly grasp the whole of different phenomena, will be explained too, with SGT serving as an attempt to implement the notion of gestalt for distributed applications.

The purpose of this study is to identify organizational cultural factors and overarching themes on emergency management evident across the Facebook page of an emergency management organization. This study also aims to understand the dimensions of social capital that influence the reputation of emergency management organization using the lens of organizational culture.

The organizational cultural factors defined in the literature were used to classify content posted by the organization during a six-month period. The posts were read and analyzed thematically to determine the overarching themes evident across the collected posts. The dimensions of social capital defined in the literature were used to determine its influence on the reputation of an emergency management organization.

The organizational cultural factors that emerged from the analysis are openness and future orientation without any evidence on risk-taking and flexibility. An analysis of cultural factors indicates that organizational culture facilitates knowledge exchange and knowledge combination. The key themes embedded in the organization's posts are emergency preparedness, communication devices for emergency management, coordination and admiration. The dimensions of social capital that influenced the reputation of emergency management organization were group characteristics, volunteerism, generalized norms and togetherness. Though previous studies have found the influence of culture on social capital, this study extends those findings by identifying the dimensions of culture (i.e. openness and future orientation) that reflects the social capital dimensions (i.e. generalized norms and group characteristics) in an organizational setting.

This study contributes to theory on the identification of cultural factors from content posted by emergency management organizations on a public social networking site (SNS). The organization benefited in terms of its reputation through the dimensions of social capital which are group characteristics, volunteerism, generalized norms and togetherness. One of the organizational reputation dimensions that was evident in this study was moral reputation which is a contribution of this study.

Among the guiding principles of Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, three guiding principles were evident in the posts of the emergency management organization. These principles which represent the practical implications of this study are disaster risk reduction through cooperation, inclusiveness of minority community members and implementing cost-effective and sustainable development policies for future through investment.

Previous studies have examined organizational culture in general, but to date there has been very little research into determining cultural factors that facilitate knowledge exchange and knowledge combination. This is also a unique study which identified the dimensions of social capital and organizational reputation in emergency management.

Pertinent information sharing across various government agencies, as well as non‐governmental and private organizations, is essential to assess the incident situation, identify the needed resources for emergency response and generate response plans. However, each agency may have incident management systems of its choice with valuable information in its own format, posing difficulty in effective information sharing. Application‐to‐application sharing cross agency boundaries will significantly reduce human efforts and delay in emergency response. Information sharing from disparate systems and organizations, however, requires solving of the interoperability issue. The purpose of this paper is to present the UICDS™‐based resource sharing framework as a step toward addressing the afore‐mentioned challenges.

A prototype middleware system is developed using a standards‐based information sharing infrastructure called UICDS™ (Unified Incident Command and Decision Support™), an initiative led by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology division. This standards‐based middleware, resource management plug‐in utilizes the ontology of organizational structure, workflow activities and resources, and the inference rules to discover and share resource information and interoperability from different incident management applications.

The middleware prototype implementation shows that the UICDS™‐based interoperability between heterogeneous incident management applications is feasible. Specifically, the paper shows that the resource data stored in the Resource Directory Database (RDDB) of the NJ Office of Emergency Management (NJOEM), Hippocrates of the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services (NJDHSS) can be discovered and shared with other incident management systems using the ontology and inference rules.

This study illustrates the possible solutions to the application to application interoperability problem using the DHS initiated interoperability platform called UICDS™.

The resource discovery and emergency response planning can be automated using the incident domain ontology and inference rules to dynamically generate the location‐based incident response workflows.

Telephone calls are the predominant telecommunication mode in Sri Lanka. Consequently, leveraging voice-based applications for disaster communication would be acceptable and sustainable. The purpose of this paper is to realise the design requirements for an integrated voice-enabled alerting and reporting system, and then to use the lessons learned to influence disaster management researchers, practitioners and developers to invest resources in related new system developments.

The findings in this paper are from an experiment concerning interactive voice for connecting community-based emergency field operatives with their central co-ordination hub.

A particular challenge was in interchanging Sinhala and Tamil language speech data, generated by the Freedom Fone Interactive Voice Response, with the text-based “Sahana” disaster-management system for analysis and decision support. The Emergency Data Exchange Language interoperable content standard was adopted for mediation between the two disparate systems. Standard mobile phones were the interface linking the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members. Low quality voice transmissions over the GSM cellular infrastructure resulted in distorted data. This shortcoming was a barrier to automating transformations between text and speech.

Replacing those processes with human procedure significantly degrades their reliability. Nevertheless, the CERT members find voice-enabled information exchange useful and easy to use, because it diminishes the need for computer literacy and removes language barriers. The paper discusses the utility evaluation of the introduced system.

This paper seeks to review the geophysical threats generated by volcanic activity and reports on the technological and social management techniques available to counter those threats.

The information presented was derived from a review of case studies of response to volcanic eruptions in the USA, Europe and Japan. The studies reviewed included both technical papers from geologists and volcanologists and research by social scientists.

The unique relationship between human settlements and volcanoes was described. This was done in the context of special features of volcanic hazards that set them apart from other natural hazards: time frame, multiple impacts, magnitude of destructive potential and predictability. Based on pairing geophysical threats with human safety concerns, three critical social management techniques were described: public education, access controls and evacuation systems. The social science and geophysical principles that underlie the effectiveness of these techniques are described.

The review brings together the results of numerous case studies over the years and highlights the hazard management issues that were common across them. Then, with respect to each of the techniques identified, a critique of issues associated with implementation was conducted that draws upon both the geophysical literature and social science literature. In particular, patterns of citizen resistance to public education, access controls and evacuation are described and approaches to implementation that minimize such resistance are suggested.

There are many discussions in the geophysics literature of the types and nature of volcanic eruptive behavior. In the social science literature there are discussions of public education strategies for hazards, controlling access to dangerous locations and evacuation systems. This paper pairs geophysical threats with appropriate techniques for protecting populations, specifically within the unique context of volcanic eruptions. There is also discussion of common problems that have arisen when the different techniques have been used in the past and suggestions for ways to avoid those problems. The paper is aimed at professional emergency managers and planners who are faced with managing dangers to populations from volcanicity.

Emerging technologies have the potential to significantly change the way people work and function, with tremendous impacts on people and the societies in which they live. For emergency management practice, efficient and effective use of emerging technologies can save both lives and property, while also improving the way emergency managers communicate with the populations they serve. However, the use of emerging technologies can also have negative and unforeseen consequences. Thus, it is essential to have a comprehensive understanding of how emerging technologies function as a communications and information-sharing tool to improve the practice of emergency management.

Furthermore, as with the emergence of any new technology, social justice issues must be considered. For example, is an emerging technology affordable enough for all to use, or does the technology add to the so-called “digital divide,” increasing the gap between the haves and have-nots? Or does the emerging technology serve as an equalizer, providing access and availability for all socio-economic status groups? This chapter serves as an introduction to these issues and how they impact emergency management practice in a discussion of how the communication process functions, how emerging technologies impact communication strategies in emergency management, and the importance of including a social justice framework in emergency management operations and plans to understand how these emerging technology tools can be used to keep people and property safe from disasters.

Risk communication is a critical component of individual health decision making and behavior. In disaster situations, it is crucial that risk-related messages are communicated accurately and that they reach and inform target audiences about the steps they can take to protect their health. Despite a global recognition of the importance of risk communication in responding to disasters, there remains a dearth of evidence on how to evaluate the effectiveness of risk communication messages. The purpose of this paper is to develop and assess a pilot tool to evaluate the effectiveness of disaster risk messages.

A pilot evaluation tool was developed using the existing risk communication literature. An expert assessment of the tool was conducted using an open-ended survey and a focus group discussion with 18 experts at the Public Health Agency of Canada in February 2013.

The tool measures content, reach, and comprehension of the message. It is intended to be a quick, internal evaluation tool for use during a disaster or emergency. The experts acknowledged the practicality of the tool, while also recognizing evaluation challenges.

This pilot exploratory tool was assessed using a relatively small sample of experts.

This tool offers public health and disaster preparedness practitioners a promising approach for evaluating and improving the communication and management of future public health emergencies.

This is the first practical tool developed to evaluate risk communication messages in disaster situations.

This chapter focuses on emergency and hastily formed knowledge networks. All six facets of knowledge networks are described. The importance of four of the six facets is called out, including domain, topology, nodes, and relationships among the networks’ members. The authors provide four network profiles, including emergency and disaster response networks, law enforcement networks, military networks, and militia and vigilante networks.

Social media have increasingly gained credibility as information sources in emergencies. Retweeting or resharing nature has made Twitter a popular medium of information dissemination. The purpose of this article is to enhance our understanding of both linguistic style and content properties (i.e. both affective and informational contents) that drives resharing behavior or virality of disaster messages on Twitter. We investigate this issue in the context of natural disaster crisis.

In this study, the authors develop, drawing upon language expectancy and uncertainty reduction theories as an enabling framework, hypotheses about how the language (i.e. style and content) influence resharing behavior. They employ a natural language processing of disaster tweets to examine how the language – linguistic style (concrete and interactive language) and linguistic content (information- and affect-focused language) – affects resharing behavior on Twitter during natural disasters. To examine the effects of both linguistic style and content factors on virality, a series of negative binomial regressions were conducted, particularly owing to the highly skewed count data.

Our analysis of tweets from the 2013 Colorado floods shows that resharing disasters tweets increases with the use of concrete language style during acute emergencies. Interactive language is also positively associated with retweet frequency. In addition, neither positive nor negative emotional tweets drive down resharing during acute crises, while information-focused language content has a significantly positive effect on virality.

Agencies for public safety and disaster management or volunteer organizations involved in disseminating crisis and risk information to the public may leverage the impacts of the linguistic style and language content through the lens of our research model. The findings encourage practitioners to focus on the role of linguistic style cues during acute disasters. Specifically, from the uncertainty reduction perspective, using concrete language in the disaster tweets is the expected norm, leading to a higher likelihood of virality. Also, interactively frame disaster tweets are more likely to be diffused to a larger number of people on Twitter.

The language that people use offer important psychological cue to their intentions and motivations. However, the role of language on Twitter has largely been ignored in this crisis communication and few prior studies have examined the relationship between language and virality during acute emergencies. This article explains the complex and multifaceted nature of information resharing behavior using a multi-theoretical approach – including uncertainty reduction and language expectancy theory – to understand effects of language style and content cues on resharing behavior in the context of natural crisis events.