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Social media has been adopted by various stakeholders to propagate information and communicate online for disaster‐related discussions. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of interaction among multiple stakeholders on social media during natural disaster. Tweets related to Hurricane Harvey were analyzed. Four types of users reflecting the stakeholders of disaster were predicted by a supervised classifier. The communications among different user groups were formulated as an interaction network. Interaction characteristics of different user groups were compared through social network analysis. Preliminary results suggest that government authorities are frequently interacted and usually act as brokers in emergency communication. Individual citizens actively interact with others during the disaster. Media and NGO users have more external interaction. The findings of this study provide practical insights into emergency communication among different types of users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the EU FP7 ICT project ABSOLUTE, a novel network architecture based on the LTE-A aerial and terrestrial rapidly deployable eNodeB (RD-eNodeB) systems has been proposed for emergency communications in unexpected and temporary events. These systems would experience complex spectrum environment with multiple unknown coexisting cellular networks, which needs to be quickly adapted with cognitive radio techniques for rapid deployment. To this end, this paper proposes a spectrum awareness scheme considering initial spectrum sensing on RD-eNodeB, sensing using UE's measurement capability and the radio environment map (REM) during the roll-out and in-service phases of the system's operation. For the initial spectrum sensing, a novel scheme for detecting, classifying and measuring downlink signals from coexisting base stations with different radio access technologies (RATs) is presented, which is invulnerable to the noise uncertainty problem. Encouraging numerical results of effectively detecting and classifying coexisting UMTS signal and LTE signals with different physical layer identities have been obtained via simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Aiming at traits and requirements of emergency communication, high survivable heterogeneous emergency communication network can provide a reliable and flexible communication services at emergency site. Firstly, the design of high survivable heterogeneous emergency communication network is expounded and analyzed in detail, including networking mode, design strategy and hierarchical network structure. Next, network deployment and node configuration methods are discussed. Finally, some typical performance indexes are selected and survivability of heterogeneous emergency communication network are analyzed and evaluated comprehensively by computer simulations. Evaluation results can facilitate the design and deployment of practical network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to the needs of emergency communication of high altitude long endurance (HALE) UAVS and based on the SBD capability of Iridium, designed a communication terminal which was beyond link of sight. This device used the Iridium satellite communication link and was not limited by the distance. It has Small volume, light weight and can get the real time position information of GPS and transfer to the operator. The way of getting the position data is flexible and reliable. After testing of GPS signal simulator, the GPS module of this terminal has not limitation of altitude; the frequency of the data transmission can be less of 30 seconds and meets the requirement of design. To sum up, it is a universal emergency communication terminal and suit for all kinds of UAVS. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Virtual community forms "when people carry on public discussion long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form weds of personal relationship" (Howard Rheingold, 1993). As the development of technology and society, computer-mediated communication (CMC) becoming more and more popular, makes virtual community as an important carrier of emergency information communication. Applying SNA as a main methodology, this article will analyze the structure of some discussion networks in different virtual communities with the topic of a typical emergency event, as well as the features of emergency communication in virtual communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freedom Fone (FF) is an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System that integrates with the Global System for Mobile (GSM) telecommunications [1]. Sahana is a disaster information management expert system working with Internet technologies [2]. The Project intent was to mediate information between the FF and Sahana through the Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) interoperable content standard [3]. It goal was to equip Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka's largest humanitarian organization, with voice-enabled disaster communication. The 3.52 Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for voice quality was an early automation challenge in introducing Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). A 4.0 MOS was determined as a cut-point for classifying reliable voice data [4]. The Percent Difficult (PD) in an emulated speaker-independent scenario was 29.44% and a speaker-dependent scenario was 13.24%. Replacing human operators with ASR software proved inefficient [5] and [6]. This paper discusses uncertainties that are barriers to integrating voice enabled automated emergency communication services for response resource analysis and decision support. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to establish emergency communication networks for fire fighting in underground constructions, new Mesh network technology and its characteristics are introduced, also put forward the technical and tactical indicators of Air Mesh400 internet radio stations, simulated battle shows that the Mesh network solve communication QoS and guarantee stabile performance, meeting the needs of the fire brigade combat command, and improve the level of fire fighting and rescue forces. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper demonstrates the lately developing technology-Smart Grid. Compared with the traditional way of trunked communication system in emergency, this paper proposed a more efficient method to solve this problem to use smart meter installed in the ubiquitous power line. Hence, this paper is proposed a network system, giving a method to communicate and control when accidents happening under many circumstances. The structure of the network system, the group calling method and the singling structure are all demonstrated to present the integrated network. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The development of smart grid requires higher data rate and wider coverage for current communication networks. What's more, the communication network should be rapidly and flexibly deployed in emergency situation. In this paper, we first investigate the requirements of communication network in smart grid. Then application of LTE in normal and emergency situations in smart grid is proposed. Finally, the network architecture and the optimize strategies of LTE system in smart grid are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to improve service performance of large-scale emergency communication network and enhance network scalability and reliability, wireless self-organizing emergency communication network integrating clustering algorithm and information ferry is proposed. Research backgrounds and relevant works are introduced firstly. Then, design ideas, objectives and methods of proposed wireless self-organizing emergency communication network service enhancement schemes are expounded in detail, mainly including network clustering methods and information ferry mechanisms. Finally, technical merits of proposed scheme are concluded. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The mine accident occurs so frequently. The reliability and Quality of Service (QOS) of underground emergency rescue communication system have decisive function on the rescue achievements. This article brings forward to apply 802.11EDCF protocol in MAC layer to underground emergency rescue communication system by analyzing the influence of 802.11 DCF to QOS system which is based on 802.11b/g network. By means of simulating, it is obviously shown that even if the network payload of underground emergency rescue communication system is in high heavy, QOS of audio, video and data traffic category still can be guaranteed based on 802.11EDCF protocol in MAC layer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]