Eli Rohn

A Unified Localizable Emergency Events Scale

Managers of emergencies face challenges of complexity, uncertainty, and unpredictably. Triadic constraints imply requisite parsimony in describing the essence of the emergency, its magnitude and direction of development. Linguistic separation increases as the crisis management organization is more complex and made up of diverse constituents. Therefore, a standard objective emergency scale is vital to quantify and unambiguously communicate the nature of any emergency. Previous work laid the foundations for an objective measurable emergency event scale. This article proposes a unified emergency scale based on a mathematical model, accompanied by several examples spanning local to national events. DOI: 10.4018/jiscrm.2009071001 IGI PUBLISHING This paper appears in the publication, International Journal of Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management, Volume 1, Issue 4 edited by Murray E. Jennex and Bartel Van de Walle

The US is replacing its historical federalist

There exists an acute need for an unambiguous objectively measurable emergency scale to facilitate communication and mutual understanding of the nature of any emergency, by the public and government agencies. A review of existing emergency scales and their potential indicates no one scale can accurately describe all emergencies. Our research solicits ideas for such a scale using a modified Delphi process followed by a survey. The goal of this research is to gain a better understanding on how the public understands emergency scales and anticipate response for emergency events. The contribution of this research is to identify a set of fundamental dimensions for a measurable emergency scale, derived from the Delphi process outcomes. We also present preliminary findings from the survey developed from the results of the Delphi process.

Coalition Formation Decision Support System

Many democratically elected representative governments around the world require the formation of a coalition to create a government that is expected to be durable and stable. Creating such a coalition is far from trivial. This research describes a computerized coalition formation decision support system that attempts to meet this challenging task and formally rank possible coalitions. We use theories from political science and utilize insights from artificial intelligence to build the tool. We demonstrate the tool’s utility and validity empirically by comparing historical coalitions to predictions made by the tool. Tests show that we are able to recommend quite accurately durable coalitions and assess which coalitions would most likely be unstable.

Explaining small business InfoSec posture using social theories

Purpose This study aims to investigate information technology security practices of very small enterprises. Design/methodology/approach The authors perform a formal information security field study using a representative sample. Using the Control Objectives for IT (COBIT) framework, the authors evaluate 67 information security controls and perform 206 related tests. The authors state six hypotheses about the findings and accept or reject those using inferential statistics. The authors explain findings using the social comparison theory and the rare events bias theory. Findings Only one-third of all the controls examined were designed properly and operated as expected. About half of the controls were either ill-designed or did not operate as intended. The social comparison theory and the rare events bias theory explain managers’s reliance on small experience samples which in turn leads to erroneous comprehension of their business environment, which relates to information security. Practical implications This information is valuable to executive branch policy makers striving to reduce information security vulnerability on local and national levels and small business organizations providing information and advice to their members. Originality/value Information security surveys are usually over-optimistic and avoid self-incrimination, yielding results that are less accurate than field work. To obtain grounded facts, the authors used the field research approach to gather qualitative and quantitative data by physically visiting active organizations, interviewing managers and staff, observing processes and reviewing written materials such as policies, procedure and logs, in accordance to common practices of security audits.

Offensive Information Warfare Revisited: Social Media Use in Man-Made Crises

Socio-technical forecasts that materialized are of particular interest, as they are based on basic principles that must hold true for a long time, and thus worthy of special attention. The exploitation of the Internet as a vehicle for psychological and physical battle has been anticipated ever since the Internet became a world-wide phenomenon. Its potential for abuse by terrorist groups motivated Valeri & Knights to compile a list of key predictions, without the benefit of the hindsight afforded by the post-millennial terrorist attacks on the USA & Europe, and before social media was conceived. This paper evaluates some of their predictions in light of the massive social media and network attacks that occurred in Israel and Syria. Additionally, the paper examines how attacked governments and nations respond. The authors find that some of the key predictions advanced by Valeri and Knights have proven accurate. Offensive information warfare attacks have and will continue to influence policies, budgets and civic voluntary participation to counter such attacks.