Cyberinfrastructure for homeland security: Advances in information sharing, data mining, and collaboration systems

Most disaster scenarios faced by agencies entrustedwith homeland security require timely access to relevant information that can be sensed and acted upon. However, the required data and information often reside in silos that are isolated from each other due to jurisdictional boundaries or representational incompatibilities. Given the nature of the threat to homeland security, regional, cross-institutional data sharing is a necessary first step towards effective crisis response measures. The purpose of this special issue is to encourage research discussions of practical and novel cyberinfrastructure technologies, techniques, methods, practices, and systems that can contribute to knowledge in this important emerging area. The intent was to publish relevant work that contribute to the application of state-of-the-art knowledge of information sharing, data mining or collaboration systems to the context of homeland security. The 2003 NSF Workshop on “Cyberinfrastructure Research for Homeland Security” defined Cyberinfrastructure as a key technology enabler that facilitates the federation of distributed information and knowledge resources to reduce constraints of distance and time. Cy-