Cognitions attributing health complaints to disaster exposure are associated with more severe health complaints and are therefore a promising target for interventions. Little is known about the best strategy to modify such cognitions following exposure to a technological disaster at the community level. In 1992, a Boeing 747 crashed in a residential area in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Persistin...

Recent natural disasters have highlighted the need for disaster preparedness, planning, and management. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the usefulness of Web sites in dealing with natural disasters. However, little is known about the necessary contents and structures of Web-based information systems for natural disaster management. In this paper, we focus on developing an ontology structure of e...

Almost every natural disaster is accompanied by some sort of technological one. A number of studies also show a correlation between technological disasters and various global processes such as solar disturbances, geophysical field variation etc. In this study we attempted to ascertain and codify the relationship between different types of technological disasters and natural hazards. Two types o...

Critical knowledge gaps seriously hinder efforts for building disaster resilience at all levels, especially in disaster-prone least developed countries. Information deficiency is most serious at local levels, especially in terms of spatial information on risk, resources, and capacities of communities. To tackle this challenge, we develop a general methodological approach that integrates communi...

This paper seeks to examine the extent to which technological advances can enhance inter-organizational information sharing in disaster relief. Our case is the Virtual OSOCC (On-Site Operations Coordination Centre) which is a part of the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System (GDACS) under the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA). The online platform, ...

Progress in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and radio frequency (RF) technology has fostered the development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Different from traditional networks, WSNs are data-centric, self-configuring and self-healing. Although WSNs have been successfully applied in built environments (e.g. security and services in smart homes), their applications and benefits have n...

The paper discusses what is important in preparing for and managing disaster occasions. The starting point is that what is crucial is not planning or managing per se since there is always a degree of both, but good planning and managing. It is after all possible to have bad instances of both. Thus, to assess in any intelligent way the preparedness planning for and the managing of disasters requ...

The United Nations named 2010 as a year of natural disasters, and launched a worldwide campaign to improve the safety of schools and hospitals from natural disasters. In the region of South East Europe, Croatia and Serbia have suffered the greatest impacts of natural disasters on their communities and health facilities. In this paper the disaster management approaches of the two countries are c...

The process of sensemaking usually forms the beginning of the management of a disaster and continues throughout its course. Information system provide tremendous opportunities to support this process. However, the vast scientific knowledge on the sensemaking process is given too little consideration in the design of information systems. Meanwhile, new means to get hold of current information on...