Risk communication and social media:are we ready?

Oral presentation

Crisis communication and social media : the changing environment for natural disaster response

Over the past two years there have been several large-scale disasters (Haitian earthquake, Australian floods, UK riots, and the Japanese earthquake) that have seen wide use of social media for disaster response, often in innovative ways. This paper provides an analysis of the ways in which social media has been used in public-to-public communication and public-to-government organisation communication. It discusses four ways in which disaster response has been changed by social media: 1. Social media appears to be displacing the traditional media as a means of communication with the public during a crisis. In particular social media influences the way traditional media communication is received and distributed. 2. We propose that user-generated content may provide a new source of information for emergency management agencies during a disaster, but there is uncertainty with regards to the reliability and usefulness of this information. 3. There are also indications that social media provides a means for the public to self-organise in ways that were not previously possible. However, the type and usefulness of self-organisation sometimes works against efforts to mitigate the outcome of the disaster. 4. Social media seems to influence information flow during a disaster. In the past most information flowed in a single direction from government organisation to public, but social media negates this model. The public can diffuse information with ease, but also expect interaction with Government Organisations rather than a simple one-way information flow. These changes have implications for the way government organisations communicate with the public during a disaster. The predominant model for explaining this form of communication, the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC), was developed in 2005 before social media achieved widespread popularity. We will present a modified form of the CERC model that integrates social media into the disaster communication cycle, and addresses the ways in which social media has changed communication between the public and government organisations during disasters.

Crisis communication and social media:the changing environment for natural disaster response

Over the past two years there have been several large-scale disasters (Haitian earthquake, Australian floods, UK riots, and the Japanese earthquake) that have seen wide use of social media for disaster response, often in innovative ways. This paper provides an analysis of the ways in which social media has been used in public-to-public communication and public-to-government organisation communication. It discusses four ways in which disaster response has been changed by social media: 1. Social media appears to be displacing the traditional media as a means of communication with the public during a crisis. In particular social media influences the way traditional media communication is received and distributed. 2. We propose that user-generated content may provide a new source of information for emergency management agencies during a disaster, but there is uncertainty with regards to the reliability and usefulness of this information. 3. There are also indications that social media provides a means for the public to self-organise in ways that were not previously possible. However, the type and usefulness of self-organisation sometimes works against efforts to mitigate the outcome of the disaster. 4. Social media seems to influence information flow during a disaster. In the past most information flowed in a single direction from government organisation to public, but social media negates this model. The public can diffuse information with ease, but also expect interaction with Government Organisations rather than a simple one-way information flow. These changes have implications for the way government organisations communicate with the public during a disaster. The predominant model for explaining this form of communication, the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC), was developed in 2005 before social media achieved widespread popularity. We will present a modified form of the CERC model that integrates social media into the disaster communication cycle, and addresses the ways in which social media has changed communication between the public and government organisations during disasters.

Digital Art and Design

The desire to create unique things and give free rain to one's imagination served as a powerful impetus to the development of digital art and design software. The commoner was the use of computers the wider variety of professional software was developed. Nowadays the creators and computer designers are receiving more and more new and advanced programs that allow their ideas becoming virtual reality. This research paper looks at the history of the development of graphic editors from the simplest to the most modern and advanced. This brief survey includes the history of different graphic editors’ creation, their features and abilities. This paper highlights the two basic branches of graphic editors – these that are in free use and commercial graphic editors design software. The researcher selected the most powerful and influential graphic editors design software brands like Paint.NET and GIMP among free software and commercial Adobe Photoshop. This paper also dwells upon the way digital art transferred from the exclusively professional business into the hobby for ordinary users. This research paper bears implications for those who are interested in features and potentiality of most popular graphic editors design software.

Footballers and social media ‘Faux Pas’:the Football Association’s cash cow?

Reflects on the increasing scope for irresponsible comments made on social media sites to attract civil or criminal penalties, and how such remarks by professional footballers have generated significant amounts of revenue for the Football Association (FA). Reviews the range of social media "faux pas" committed by footballers, the large fines imposed by the FA Regulatory Commission and why these constitute a useful "cash cow".

Acousto-optic effect in microstructured polymer fiber bragg gratings:simulation and experimental overview

A fine control of the microstructured polymer fiber Bragg grating spectrum properties, such as maximum reflected power and 3-dB bandwidth, through acousto-optic modulation is presented. For simulation purposes, the device is modelled as a single structure, comprising a silica horn and a fiber Bragg grating. For similar sized structures a good correlation between the numerical results and the experimental data is obtained, allowing the strain field to be completely characterized along the whole structure. It is also shown that the microstructured polymer fiber Bragg grating requires less effort from the piezoelectric actuator to produce modification in the grating spectrum when compared with a silica fiber Bragg grating. This technique has potential to be applied on tunable optical filters and tunable cavities for photonic applications.

Digital Preservation and Access to Cultural and Scientific Heritage: Presentation of the KT-DigiCult-BG Project

The fast development and wide application of digital methods, combined with broadened access to the Internet and falling computing costs, have created intense interest in electronic presentation and access to cultural and scientific heritage resources. Information technologies have offered cultural institutions new opportunities for the presentation of their holdings, which are now made accessible not only to the specialists, but also to the citizens and interested parties worldwide. The paper presents an overview of the Bulgarian experience in the field of digital preservation and access and on-going work on the project “Knowledge Transfer for the Digitisation of Scientific and Cultural Heritage to Bulgaria” (MTKD-CT-2004-509754) supported by the Marie Curie programme of the FP6 of the EC.

Digital resources and their role in advanced service provision:a VRIN analysis

Purpose: We examine the role of digital resources in the context of advanced service provision to determine their strategic potential. Approach: We conduct a theoretical review of the literature to identify digital resources which we subsequently analyse with regards to their value, rarity, inimitability and non-substitutability (VRIN). Findings: Our analysis shows that the strategic value of the digital resources is unlocked through their complementarity. Value: The research has implications for the management of advanced services and contributes towards the grounding of servitization research in the wider economic and management theory.

Analysis and design of power management scheme for an on-board solar energy storage system

This paper investigates the power management issues in a mobile solar energy storage system. A multi-converter based energy storage system is proposed, in which solar power is the primary source while the grid or the diesel generator is selected as the secondary source. The existence of the secondary source facilitates the battery state of charge detection by providing a constant battery charging current. Converter modeling, multi-converter control system design, digital implementation and experimental verification are introduced and discussed in details. The prototype experiment indicates that the converter system can provide a constant charging current during solar converter maximum power tracking operation, especially during large solar power output variation, which proves the feasibility of the proposed design. © 2014 IEEE.

Design of Fractional Order Digital Differentiators and Integrators Using Indirect Discretization

Mathematics Subject Classification: 26A33, 93B51, 93C95

Numerical and experimental analysis of sensitivity-enhanced RI sensor based on Ex-TFG in thin cladding fiber

We report a highly sensitive refractive index (RI) sensor in the aqueous solution, which is based on an 81°-tilted fiber grating structure inscribed into a thin cladding fiber with 40 μm cladding radius. The numerical analysis has indicated that the RI sensitivity of cladding resonance mode of the grating can be significantly enhanced with reducing cladding size. This has been proved by the experimental results as the RI sensitivities of TM and TE resonance peaks in the index region of 1.345 have been increased to 1180 nm/RIU and 1150 nm/RIU, respectively, from only 200 and 170 nm/RIU for the same grating structure inscribed in standard telecom fiber with 62.5-μm cladding radius. Although the temperature sensitivity has also increased, the change in temperature sensitivity is still insignificant in comparison with RI sensitivity enhancement.

A computational approach to measuring the correlation between expertise and social media influence for celebrities on microblogs

Existing approaches of social influence analysis usually focus on how to develop effective algorithms to quantize users' influence scores. They rarely consider a person's expertise levels which are arguably important to influence measures. In this paper, we propose a computational approach to measuring the correlation between expertise and social media influence, and we take a new perspective to understand social media influence by incorporating expertise into influence analysis. We carefully constructed a large dataset of 13,684 Chinese celebrities from Sina Weibo (literally 'Sina microblogging'). We found that there is a strong correlation between expertise levels and social media influence scores. In addition, different expertise levels showed influence variation patterns: high-expertise celebrities have stronger influence on the 'audience' in their expertise domains.

Digital Preservation and Web Access to the Konkoly Observatory Schmidt Telescope Plate Archive

ACM Computing Classification System (1998): J.2.