Peter Kutschera

Robust and Trusted Crowd-Sourcing and Crowd-Tasking in the Future Internet

A great majority of the EU citizens already owns a cellular phone. An increasing part of these phones are smartphones with a broadband internet connection. This growing network of smart internet enabled devices could act as a dense sensing network, as well as a tool for individual informing and tasking of mobile citizens and volunteers.

Training Support for Crisis Managers with Elements of Serious Gaming

This paper presents a methodology and a prototypic software implementation of a simple system supporting resource management training for crisis managers. The application that is presented supports the execution and assessment of a desktop training for decision makers on a tactical and strategic level. It introduces elements of turn-based strategic “serious gaming”, with a possibility to roll back in time and re-try new decision paths, while keeping the graphical user interface as simple as possible. Consequently, the development efforts concentrated on: (1) formulating and executing crisis management decisions; (2) assuring responses of all simulated entities adhere to natural laws of the real world; and (3) analyzing progress and final results of the training exercise. The paper presents the lessons learned and discusses the transferability and extensibility of the proposed solution beyond the initial scenario involving accidental release of toxic gas in an urban area in Israel.

SUDPLAN’s Experiences with the OGC-Based Model Web Services for the Climate Change Usage Area

SUDPLAN is currently developing a technical solution for Model Web/Observation Web in the Climate Change usage area. Proposed solution is based on the Open Geospatial Consortium standards, and follows the ideas expressed in SANY Sensor Service Architecture (SensorSA). SUDPLAN also continued the development of the SANY software, resulting in native SOS, SPS and 2D coverage support in ”Time Series Toolbox” framework for building sensor web applications. SUDPLAN re-uses much of the OGC SWE and SANY SensorSA functionality to: (1) configure and run the models; (2) provide the data (observations) required for model execution; (3) inform the user on model run progress and (4) access the model results. In this paper, we shall describe the SUDPLAN’s experiences with implementing of the interoperable Model Web using OGC standards, and discuss the advantages of various services from the OGC SWE suite as compared to non-SWE alternatives in the Climate Change context.

Environmental Information for Public Access

After the installation of the Austrian Ozone Monitoring Network in April 1994, it was soon clear that the information gathered all over the country should be provided to all interested in that matter. For that task an acceptable technology was found by using World Wide Web. To demonstrate how this new technology can be used to access actual environmental information via meta information the Austrian Research Centre Seibersdorf developed an WWW prototype.

Emergency Maps Tool as a Collaborative Instrument for Decision Makers in a Command and Control Environment

Tools for decision making with in a proper collaboration environment are of utmost importance for crises managers as well as decision makers to get continuous and accurate information about the crises situation. One of the main tools in C2-SENSE project is called Emergency Maps Tool (EMT). It has been developed as part of a broader collaboration environment in the C2-SENSE Emergency Interoperability Framework. It is the C2_SENSE instrument for decision making. EMT allows decision makers to set and monitor activities, send and receive event related messages but also to include ad-hoc information from sensors or sensor networks (e.g. water monitoring sensors in case of flooding).

Framework for Enabling Technical and Organizational Interoperability in the Management of Environmental Crises and Disasters

Interoperability is a core component in management of crises and disasters. Crises require interoperability on several different levels: physical (communication, devices and tools), operational (crisis response procedures and protocols) and document level (information exchange). Here we present the Framework that facilitates interoperability on a level that relieves a crisis manager from most burdens related to crisis response (e.g., being available to access sensor data or communicate with other responders). The software components in the Framework are described, as well as the profiling approach that is necessitated for functioning interoperability at such a demanding level. The Framework can be implemented for dealing with environmental challenges through real-time monitoring and response. The frequency of disasters is expected to increase in the forthcoming future mostly due to environmental changes, thus emphasizing the need for interoperability approaches as the one presented in this paper.

RainPortal – A Web Portal for Providing Climate Change Related Precipitation Data Using SUDPLAN Services

RainPortal (http://sudplan.ait.ac.at/RainPortalServer) is a web portal that has three main targets: 1) Provide access to scientifically sound data related to some key climate change aspects in Europe, 2) Provide concrete data about climate change related local precipitation changes by using climate model output and 3) Easy usage and incorporation of the provided information into existing planning workflows.