2/13/2012
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Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Information Technology I
US Principal Investigators Japan/NZ Collaborators
J. Stamberger, I. Lane, S. Ergan M. Billinghurst
Yasuaki Sakamoto, Yuko Tanaka Toshihiko Matsuka, Hidehito
Honda, Yasushi Michita
Jeannette Sutton David Johnston
Arjan Durresi. Raj Jain Leonard Barolli, Makoto
Takizawa, Shibata Yoshitaka, Akio
Koyama
Calton Pu Masaru Kitsuregawa
Eva K Lee (Group Leader) Atsuo Susuki
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Research Themes
Rapid Damage
AssessmentCommunication
Data Management
Decision-Support:-Resource Allocation
-Rapid Screening
-Population Protection
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Mobile Augmented Reality to Improve Rapid Assessment in Disasters
Team: J. Stamberger*, I. Lane*, S. Ergan* (CMU, USA), M. Billinghurst (University
of Canterbury, NZ)
Objective: Evaluate the use of mobile augmented reality for rapid, large-scale
damage assessments of buildings by facilitating remote collaborative
expert/non-expert interactions
Carnegie-Mellon University, University of Canterbury
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Non-experts in earthquake hit region
Remote expertsRapid building
assessment
Collaborative
Augmented
Reality Tools
Expected Findings1
For response planning following an earthquake or similar natural
disaster, rapid assessment of infrastructure damage is critical
Expected Findings:➔ Collaborative augmented reality systems coupled with remote
experts and on-site citizens can assist in rapidly and accurately
assessing infrastructure damage➔ Identification of methods for evaluating remote collaborative
augmented reality (AR) systems for rapid damage assessment➔ Evaluation of collaborative AR systems for remote damage
assessment
1 Onsite data collection in Christchurch originally planned for summer 2011 (July 14-30th, 2011).
Due to delay of award funding, collection will now be performed in Feb 27th – Mar 7th, 2012
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
2/13/2012
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University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
When Online is Off: Public Communications Following the February 2011 Christchurch, NZ Earthquake
Team: Jeannette Sutton*, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, GNS Scienceand Massey University. Co-Investigator, Dr. David Johnston
1. Investigates the strategies used by local government to communicate electronically with disaster affected individuals
2. Individual access to information in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake
3. Effects of information access on individual perceptions of community resiliency.
Key Findings
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
1. Public officials had no strategies in place to
communicate via social media; no plans to coordinate
with digital volunteers
2. The public who were directly affected searched for
information across multiple sources; established their
own information flow; found local information most
useful.
3. Digital volunteers sought out and curated open data
onto locally relevant maps
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Indiana University and Washington University, St. Louis
Using Lessons from the Disaster in Japan to Develop
Communications for Emergency Situations
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Team: Arjan Durresi* (Indiana University Purdue
University Indianapolis), Raj Jain*
(Washington University in St. Louis), Leonard
Barolli (Fukuoka Institute of Technology),
Makoto Takizawa (Seikei University), Shibata
Yoshitaka (Iwate Prefectural University), Akio
Koyama (Yamagata University).
Internet
Cellular
Disaster Area
Objective: Study and propose solutions for emergency
communications in the United States
Key Findings
• Japan has a very sophisticated EEW system but does not use
the latest capabilities of smart phones. US has no cellular
warning system. [WUSTL MS project report]
• When cellular infrastructure is broken, Wi-Fi capabilities of
the phones and private WiFi networks can be used to
communicate warning in a trustworthy manner [IUPUI tech
report]
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
2/13/2012
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Stevens Institute of Technology
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Minimizing the spread of false rumors in social media during a
disaster
Team: Yasuaki Sakamoto and Yuko Tanaka (Stevens Institute of Technology;
Toshihiko Matsuka & Hidehito Honda (Chiba University), Yasushi Michita
(University of Ryukyus)
Objectives:
– Understanding the psychology behind the spread of false
rumor in Twitter regarding the Japan Earthquakes
– Developing recommendations for minimizing the spread of
false information
Key Findings
• Identified five factors that predict intention to transmit rumor that
relates to the Japan earthquakes: • Damage level (subjective experience of damage level)• Commitment (the presence of close victims)• Importance of the tweet• Familiarity of the tweet• Spread (estimated number of people who know the tweet)
• Interestingly, perceived accuracy of the tweet and the anxiety
associated with the tweet did not predict transmission intention.
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Table 1. Multiple Regression Results on Rumor Transmission Intention
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Georgia Institute of Technology
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Automating Emergency Data and Metadata Management to Support
Effective Short-Term and Long-Term Disaster Recovery Efforts
Team: Calton Pu*, Georgia Institute of Technology, Masaru Kitsuregawa,
University of Tokyo, Japan.
Objective: Development of a generic tool that supports
centralized sensor data collection, metadata management, and
information retrieval in a timely, scalable and practical manner
Key Findings
• There are many sensor data sources that are used
mainly for recovery purposes, but they can become
invaluable resources for research if sufficient metadata
can be collected for their appropriate interpretation by
researchers.
• Existing data and metadata management tools for
sensors are not appropriate for high volume sensor
data from numerous and diverse data sources.
Furthermore, the proliferation of new sensors that
generate more data (both in quantity and variety) may
actually aggravate the problem by overloading the
limited capabilities of current data management tools.
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
2/13/2012
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Georgia Institute of Technology
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
Population Protection and Monitoring in Response to Radiological
Incidents
Team: Eva K Lee*, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atsuo Suzuki, NanZan
University, Japan
Objectives: Design and advance information – decision support
system for population protection and emergency response, and
establish a national knowledge databank
- identify people in immediate danger; those
who need medical treatment for
contamination or exposure; recommend and
facilitate practical steps to minimize risk; rapid
screening and decontamination; register
people for long-term health monitoring; and
service the displaced population on day-to-day
needs.
Key Findings
• On-the-ground:• Lack of strategies and emergency
guidelines for rapid screening and
decontamination for both workers and
citizens
• Lack of knowledge of radiation safety and
emergency response processes, even for
those living very close to nuclear plants
• Advances: • Collected critical data related to
radiological emergency response
processes
• Information-decision support system
developed helps with large-scale
radiological emergency response (social,
logistics, policies)
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
2/13/2012
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Opportunities for Future Research-
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
What new questions raised by these events require basic research?
� Can building information models be leveraged to assist during rapid damage
assessment?
� Will collaborative crowdsourcing coupled with consumer level mobile devices
obtain expert quality assessments?
� Can interactive dialog agents assist in this process?
� What are the communication cues necessary for remote collaboration and
shared situational awareness?
� Digital volunteerism: emergence, leadership, resiliency (Little is known about
the digital volunteers who converge during disasters, such as how they are
organized, how they conduct their work, why they do what they do, etc.)
� Develop communication protocols suitable for emergency
� More basic research is needed (1) to better understand people’s cognitive
behavior including reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making, and (2) to
design better social media systems based on the understanding of cognitive
behavior.
� Large-scale mathematical modeling, decision analysis and real-time systems
for emergency response must be advanced.
Opportunities for Future Research-
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
What new data are available as a result of these events?
• Annotated and geo-located images and videos of earthquake
damaged buildings
• Recorded collaborative dialogs of the damage assessment
process
• Detailed damage assessment reports for buildings used in this
exercise
• A complete 3-D model of inner-city Christchurch with immersive
panoramic images
• Data about communication failure
• Timeline on evacuation, sociological information regarding
citizen knowledge and after-event psychological and medical
burden
• Tremendous amount of data via social media
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Opportunities for Future Research-
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012
What unique aspects of these events require the development of a focused research program?
• Crowdsourcing has been successfully used during planning for
sheltering and aiding in earthquake hit regions and has a potential
to access to structural experts to increase the speed of rapid
assessments
• The interplay between technical and social aspects
• Trust and trustworthiness through digital media post disaster
• Developing methods for managing, sampling, and analyzing large
set of data from social media and multiple sensor sources
• Strategic planning and operations capabilities for emergency
response and medical preparedness for radiological incidents.
Opportunities for Future Research
What are the important lessons from these larger than expected events for the U.S.?
• Rapid assessment of infrastructure damage is critical for response agencies to
plan for sheltering displaced people
• Crowd sourcing played an important supporting role in providing information to
response agencies in both Japan and NZ
• Disaster coordination networks and integration of digital volunteers into official
communications efforts are critical.
• Develop standards, regulations, and systems for cellular based emergency
communications
• Intelligent usage and interpretation of free data sources
• Strategic planning and operations capabilities for emergency response and
medical preparedness for radiological incidents is one of the critical
cornerstones for US Homeland Security, along with biological and chemical
incidents. The Japan incident underscores its paramount importance. Such needs
are wide-spread as many nations employ nuclear plants for energy generation.
Japan and NZ Earthquakes RAPID and Research Needs Workshop
Arlington, VA Feb 9 and 10, 2012