Web-Based Interactive Technologies and the Response to Warnings for Extreme Events

该项目正在调查通过社交媒体传播预警等紧急情况相关可操作信息的情况。具体而言，该研究将评估社会科学在社交媒体背景下的预警模型，确定社交媒体对极端事件预警的贡献，并开发一种算法方法来处理大量社交媒体数据，以提取相关和可操作的信息。本研究将应急管理人员的现场访谈与社交媒体数据的处理和分析相结合。算法方法结合了各种数据处理技术和经典的社会网络分析方法。此外，内容分析用于评估隐藏在社交媒体数据中的信息。作为组织研究重点的具体事件是日本仙台发生的9.0级地震及其引发的海啸。这项研究的结果将丰富我们对社交媒体在极端事件中警告传播中的作用的理解。此外，这项工作将就如何将社会媒体纳入应急管理提供建议。应急管理人员将有一种更快、更有效的方式向公众提供应急信息。此外，这项研究为研究界的新成员提供了一个机会，例如伦斯勒理工学院的研究生研究人员和勒莫恩学院的第一代本科生研究助理，他们将参与一个项目，其结果将为改进应急管理提供建议，最重要的是，为拯救生命的实践提供见解。

The project is investigating the diffusion of emergency relevant actionable information, such as warnings, through social media. Specifically, the research will assess warning models from social sciences in the context of social media, determine the contribution of social media to warnings of extreme events, and develop an algorithmic approach for processing voluminous amount of social media data in order to extract relevant and actionable information. The research combines on site interviews of emergency management personnel with processing and analyzing social media data. The algorithmic approach incorporates various data processing techniques with classic social network analysis methods. Additionally, a content analysis is used to evaluate the information hidden in social media data. The specific event that serves as an organizing focus of the research is a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and the resulting tsunami in Sendai, Japan.The results of this research will enrich our understanding of the role of social media in the communication of warnings during extreme events. Additionally, this effort will provide suggestions on ways to incorporate social media in emergency management. Emergency managers will have a faster and more effective means to reach the public with emergency information. Moreover, this research offers an opportunity for new members of the research community, such as graduate student researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and first generation undergraduate research assistants from Le Moyne College, to participate in a project whose results will offer recommendations for improving emergency management, and most importantly, provide insights for practice that can save lives.