Johannes Göllner

A General Framework for Using Social and Traditional Media During Natural Disasters: QuOIMA and the Central European Floods of 2013

Traditional media have a long history in covering natural disasters and crises. In many instances, these media remain major providers of information about an event. In recent years, however, information about natural disasters has increasingly been disseminated on a significant scale via Social Media platforms. These media provide new, additional and complementary angles on events and, combined with traditional media, produce a more complete spectrum of coverage. We present an approach, combining information from across the different kinds of media—traditional as well as social—and also across multiple languages, providing opportunities for first responders and decision makers to gain improved situational awareness and allowing for improved disaster relief, support, mitigation and resilience measures. The approach is put into context by relating it to a long-term strategic model including horizon-scanning and risk-management activities and a 5-phase disaster model forming the basis for information gathering and dissemination activities. To illustrate the research efforts the QuOIMA (Quelloffene Integrierte Multimedia Analyse) project, based on the pillars of cross-media, multimedia, and multilingual processing and representing major aspects of the general framework is presented. QuOIMA focuses on the information gathering aspects from the point of view of a first responder and crisis manager or -communicator rather than the management of active (outgoing) communication. Initial findings on data collected during the 2013 Central European floods are reported and discussed.

Secure Communication over Software-Defined Networks

We report on work in progress towards a practical implementation of a software defined overlay network that provides data delivery services at a freely definable and provably optimized quality of service. Our example implementation establishes transparent secure transmission, where security is in terms of confidentiality, authenticity and availability. Using general techniques from game-theory, we show how to simultaneously optimize several performance indicators of a transmission service, taking care of interdependencies and using security as a showcase application.

Cross-Media Analysis for Communication during Natural Disasters

In this paper we describe the role of media in the context of natural disasters. Traditional media have a long history in covering disasters and will continue to be a major provider of information in the future. In recent years, however there has been a significant change: information about natural disasters has increasingly been disseminated on a large scale on social media platforms. These media are typically faster but may be less reliable. They provide additional and complementary angles on events and, combined with traditional media, provide a wider spectrum of coverage. We argue that cross-media information combined with multi-lingual data provides huge opportunities for first-responders and decision makers to gain improved situational awareness allowing for improved disaster relief, support, mitigation and resilience measures.

Concept for Strategic Foresight Knowledge Development Framework for Horizon Scanning Center

Big data analytics, predictive analytics, and artificial intelligence can contribute to improve the predictive power of risk models. In a world of increasing complexity and interdependency, the ability to capture access and utilize big data sets will determine success in risk management. In this publication, a framework for knowledge management of Horizon Scanning Centers (HSC) is proposed to improve the effectiveness of these centers, by using new methods of big data analytics. After discussing foresight as trigger for changes, with epistemic foundations and information logistics, a framework for knowledge performance and risk analysis is presented. This framework is designed to improve the effectiveness of HSC and thus to improve the governance of uncertainty in the age of big data.

Intellectual capital management using knowledge scorecards: the Austrian national defence academy showcase

This paper discusses the applicability of knowledge scorecards and intellectual capital management for monitoring and steering of knowledgedriven organizations based upon a practice project at the Austrian Defence Academy (in particular the School for Atomic, Biological and Chemical Defence). Within this project the model-driven approach PROMOTE® has been applied to develop the knowledge scorecard at the Austrian National Defence Academy. The paper presents the knowledge scorecard architecture, the method and the findings.