NEW BOOK RELEASE (2010): Advanced ICTs for Disaster Management and Threat Detection: Collaborative and Distributed Frameworks

A book edited by:
Dr. Eleana Asimakopoulou, University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom
Dr. Nik Bessis, University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom

To be published by IGI Global

Introduction
Using advanced ICT to effectively and efficiently manage the complexity of foreseen and unforeseen disastrous situations and to detect potential threats is perhaps one of the most prominent challenges in any organizational setting. With an increased number of natural and man-made disasters, there has been an evolved interest in revisiting past and current disaster management and threat detection approaches. Reviewing these approaches as a means to advance practices and prompt future directions could alleviate or even prevent human, property and environmental loss via emergent collaborative distributed technologies and frameworks.

During the last several decades the number of losses caused by natural and man-made disasters has increased. Humans are not always capable of avoiding extreme natural phenomena, technological accidents or terrorist attacks. There is a need to prepare and plan in advance actions in response to these events in order to support sustainable livelihood by protecting lives, property and the environment. In turn, various disaster management bodies (FEMA, EMA, European Civil Protection, etc) involving authorities at a local, national and international level have been formed to mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from such disasters and to detect potential threats. There are also collaborative research institutes, scientific laboratories and other non-profit organizations studying the natural phenomena and, most importantly, the response processes with the intention of advancing the disaster management discipline, its practice and application as a whole. Recent concerns and threats, such as climate change, support for developing countries, diseases or terrorism, have contributed to the evolution of the way that disaster management and threat detection practices approach extreme situations. Hence, there is a need to revisit current approaches in order to advance the discipline and cope with these new and unforeseen threats.

On the other hand, ICT developments over the last four decades have facilitated organizations with numerous collaborative tools to support various levels of enquiries within the field of application. In particular, the use of advanced distributed technologies has evolved over the years in such a way to accommodate and advance collaborative endeavors between interested parties (including disaster management stakeholders) scattered across the world. Such utilization of distributed data and resources related to ICT developments – including but not limited to service oriented approaches, grid technologies, cloud computing, mashups, data mining, data visualization, geographical information systems, intelligent agents, artificial intelligence and neural networks – should be further aligned for the purpose of disaster management and threat detection.

The Overall Objective of the Book
The primary goal of the book is to demonstrate how strategies and state-of-the-art ICT have and/or could be applied to serve as the vehicle to advance disaster management and threat detection approaches, decisions and practices. The achievement of such a goal implies the contribution of various practitioners, scholars in the area and researchers from other disciplines who are willing to offer their expertise and skills in advancing the disaster management and threat detection discipline both as a theory and practice. The book also aims to provide conceptual and practical guidance to disaster management stakeholders including ICT and senior managers of relevant organizations. It will help assist in identifying and developing effective and efficient approaches, mechanisms, and systems using emerging technologies to support their effective operation. Specifically, this book aims to build a network of excellence in effectively and efficiently managing advanced strategies and next generation distributed ICT for disaster management stakeholders to advance their current practices and approaches.

The overall mission of the book is to introduce both technical and non-technical details of strategies and ICT demonstrating their application and their potential utilization within the disaster management and threat detection sector. It also prompts revisiting current approaches (through critical reviews) and further developing the area for best practices for coping with emerging and unforeseen threats. The book aims to collect the vast experience of many leaders demonstrating past and current methods, tools and practices employed for disaster management purposes. As such, the book aims to be a definitive state-of-the-art collection and to prompt future directions for disaster managers to identify applicable theories and practices in order to mitigate, prepare for, respond to and recover from various foreseen and/or unforeseen disasters.

Advanced ICTs for Disaster Management and Threat Detection:Collaborative and Distributed Frameworks

A book edited by:

Dr. Eleana Asimakopoulou,University of Bedfordshire, UK

Dr. Nik Bessis, University of Bedfordshire, UK

Foreword by:

Professor Efthymios Lekkas,National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Editorial Advisory Board:

Dr Steve Bloomer, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, University of Teesside, UK

Dr Andre Clark, University of Glamorgan, UK

Professor Angus Duncan,University of Bedfordshire,UK

Dr Stathes Hadjiefthymiades,University of Athens, Greece

Professor Fuad Mallick,BRAC University, Bangladesh and Kathmandu University, Nepal

Dr Ralf Steinberger, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Italy

Dr Tim Thompson,University of Teesside, UK

Table of Contents:

Section I: Current Approaches in Disaster Management

Chapter I

A Systemic Approach to Managing Natural Disasters

¹Jaime Santos-Reyes and²Alan N. Beard

¹ SEPI-ESIME, IPN, Mexico

² Heriot-Watt University, Scotland, UK

Chapter II

ICT Approaches in Disaster Management: Public Awareness, Education and Training, Community Resilience in INDIA

Sunitha Kuppuswamy

Anna University Chennai, India

Chapter III

Multimedia Educational Application for Risk Reduction

Ana Iztúriz, Yolanda Barrientos, María A. González, Larry Rivas, Matilde V. de Bezada and Simón Ruíz

Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador, Venezuela

Chapter IV

Natural Hazards: Changing Media Environments and the Efficient Use of ICT for Disaster Communication

Helena Zemp

University Zurich, Switzerland

Chapter V

United Arab Emirates: Disaster Management with Regard to Rapid Onset Natural Disasters

Hamdan Al Ghasyah Dhanhani ¹, Angus Duncan¹ and David Chester ²

^{1 University of Bedfordshire, UK}

^{2 University of Liverpool, UK}

^{Chapter VI}

^{Disaster Informatics: Information Management as a Tool for Effective Disaster Risk Reduction}

^{Jishnu Subedi}

^{Tribhuvan University, Nepal}

^{Section II: Advanced Collaborative Technologies for Disaster Management}

^{Chapter VII}

^{Efficient Deployment of ICT Tools in Disaster Management Process}

^{Aysu Sagun}

Anglia Ruskin University, UK

Chapter VIII

Current State and Solutions for Future Challenges in Early Warning Systems and Alerting Technologies

Ulrich Meissen and Agnès Voisard

Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering (ISST), Germany

Chapter IX

MedISys - Medical Information System

Jens P. Linge¹, Ralf Steinberger¹, Flavio Fuart¹, Stefano Bucci¹, Jenya Belyaeva¹, Monica Gemo¹, Delilah Al-Khudhairy¹, Roman Yangarber² and Erik van der Goot¹

^{1Joint Research Centre of the European Commission Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen Global Security and Crisis Management Unit, Italy}

² University of Helsinki, Finland

Chapter X

Social Media (Web 2.0) and Crisis Information: Case Study Gaza 2008-09

Miranda Dandoulaki¹ and Matina Halkia²

¹National Centre of Public Administration and Local Government, Greece

²European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy

Chapter XI

Utilizing Web 2.0 for Decision Support in Disaster Mitigation

Kumaresh Rajan¹, Rui Chen², Hejamadi Raghav Rao¹ and JinKyu Lee³

¹The State University of New York at Buffalo, USA

²Ball State University, USA

³Oklahoma State University, USA

Chapter XII

Incident and Disaster Management Training: Collaborative Learning Opportunities Using Virtual World Scenarios

Anne M. Hewitt¹, Susan S. Spencer², Danielle Mirliss¹and Anne Riad Twal¹

¹Seton Hall University, USA

²SetonWorldWide, USA

Section III: Next Generation Approaches and Distributed Frameworks for Disaster Management

Chapter XIII

Mathematical Models Generators of Decision Support Systems for Help in Case of Catastrophes: An Experience from Venezuela

José G. Hernández R¹ and María J. García G.²

¹Universidad Metropolitana, Venezuela

²Minimax Consultores C.A., Venezuela

Chapter XIV

Integrating Scenario-Based Reasoning Into a Multi-Criteria Decision Support System for Emergency Management

Tina Comes¹, Michael Hiete¹, Niek Wijngaards², and Frank Schultmann¹

^{1Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), GermanY}

^{2Thales Research & Technology Netherlands/D-CIS Lab, The NetherlandS}

^{Chapter XV}

^{POP-C++ and Alpine3D: Petition for a New HPC Approach}

^{Pierre Kuonen1, Mathias Bavay2, and Michael Lehning2}

^{1University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland, Fribourg, Switzerland}

^{2WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF, Switzerland}

^{Chapter XVI}

^{Sensor and Computing Infrastructure for Environmental Risks – The SCIER System}

^{Odysseas Sekkas, Dimitrios V. Manatakis, Elias S. Manolakos and Stathes Hadjiefthymiades}

^{University of Athens, Greece}

^{Chapter XVII}

^{A Personalized Forest Fire Evacuation Data Grid Push Service – The FFED-GPS Approach}

^{Eleana Asimakopoulou, Nik Bessis, Ravikanth Varaganti, and Peter Norrington}

^{University of Bedfordshire, UK}

The book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the IGI Publishing (Idea Group Publishing), Information Science Publishing, IRM Press, CyberTech Publishing, Information Science Reference (formerly Idea Group Reference) and Medical Information Science Reference imprints in 2010.