ISCRAM2009
The 6th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management
At Gothenburg, Sweden from May 10-13, 2009
See http://www.iscram.org for more information.

In the track "OPEN-TRACK", the special session
Information Processing in Environmental Crisis Management & Response
(Session ID: OPEN1)
(Session URL: http://www.decis.nl/content/view/113/8/)  

The DIADEM project has taken the initiative to organize an ISCRAM2009 special session on  Information Processing in Environmental Crisis Management & Response (session ID OPEN1).

Call for papers
At the moment two versions of the call for papers are available on the Web.
• The original CFP available from the ISCRAM website (to be replaced soon by:).
•An updated version (30 Oct 2008) (iscram2009_cfp_specialsession_environmentalcrisismanagement) available from the D-CIS website. This updated CFP emphasizes the invitation for academics and practitioners alike to participate in this session.  
Motivation
Environmental crisis management involves inherently complex information management and decision making processes that have to be carried out in an accurate, efficient, and dependable manner across different systems, organizations, geographic areas and time scales. Three major elements can typically be identified in an environment crisis management system: environment monitoring, scenario-based impact assessment, and decision making. In this CFP on environmental crisis management we attract practitioner and academic contributions with the focus on information processing: what are lessons learned from practice, what is current state of the art and what is the next-gen state of the art. In particular, we encourage:
•Papers exposing current challenges in state of the art approaches to information processing.
•Papers explaining how information processing in crisis management can be improved by combining advanced approaches introduced in specialized research communities, such as the AI, communication technology, decision making , etc.
Environmental Crisis Management & Response
Information processing in environmental crisis management and response involves a number of processes, including:


•Early and reliable detection of critical events (e.g. chemical pollution) is critical in any environmental management system. Environment monitoring is therefore a key component, performing processing and analysis of information obtained from sensors and people. This requires (i) efficient acquisition of information from (mobile & heterogeneous) sources spread over large areas, (ii) interpretation of complex observation patterns at different temporal and spatial scales, (iii) inference of the likely physical causes of the sensed anomalies and (iv) prediction of the temporal and spatial evolution of the pollution and (v) a clear and understandable presentation of the results.
•Impact assessment is performed in combination with domain-specific models and expertise, by identifying the vulnerabilities of the ecosystem including its population, infrastructure, etc. in an affected area, and taking into account the estimated dynamics of the critical phenomena. This includes the prediction of the likely evolution of the incident and its impact and the possible effects of mitigating measures.
•Decision making involves planning and evaluation of alternatives, and the implementation of preventive and corrective actions, such as alerting, containment, evacuation, etc. Typically this implies real-time collaboration between experts and authorities from different domains and distributed decision making.
•Of special interest is the combined contribution of humans and machines to this information processing: the combination of human experience, flexibility and creativity with machine precision improves environmental crisis management and response.
Topics
The list of topics below is not exhaustive; contributors (practitioners and academics alike) are invited to submit relevant work.

•Case study analysis of environmental crisis management with emphasis on both human based & automated information processing. In particular, approaches and tools in the context of:

•Monitoring/detection

•Scenario development

•(Information processing for) impact assessment

•Planning and evaluation of countermeasures

•Decision making.

•Practical and theoretical aspects of multi-stakeholder information processing in environmental crisis management regarding:
◦Human-based reasoning/decision making.

◦Automated reasoning approaches.

◦Combination of human-based and automated reasoning.
Deadlines
For deadlines regarding paper submission, notification of acceptance, etc. please consult the authorative www.iscram.org website. The deadlines provided in the CFP are indicative only.  

Types of contributions
For this session we aim at a combination of practitioners and academics, where contributions are presented and lively discussions will be stimulated. Please clearly indicate in your document whether you are submitting an academic or practitioner contribution.
•Academic contributions: we encourage researchers from academia or research labs to submit regular papers focusing on theoretically sound solutions to generic problems from information processing in crisis management. The emphasis is on the use of advanced approaches and methods in this domain that have been successfully introduced in specialized research communities focusing on Artificial Intelligence, communication technology, decision making, cognitive psychology, human machine interaction, robotics, etc.
•Practitioner contributions: practitioners are invited to submit a short paper or a PowerPoint presentation on state of the art approaches to information processing in environmental management and other crisis management systems. These contributions focus on current practices, typical challenges and future improvements. A PowerPoint presentation must be accompanied by an abstract.

Session Chairs
•Gregor Pavlin ( gregor.pavlin@icis.decis.nlThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) D-CIS Lab / Thales Research & Technology Netherlands

•Michael Hiete ( michael.hiete@kit.eduThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) University of Karlsruhe (TH) Institute for Industrial Production (IIP) Hertzstraße 16 76187 Karlsruhe, Germany

•Niek Wijngaards ( niek.wijngaards@icis.decis.nlThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) D-CIS Lab / Thales Research & Technology Netherlands
Important Notice
•All submissions must be formatted according to the ISCRAM 2009 formatting guidelines. Templates and instructions are published on www.iscram.org.
•All submissions must be submitted through the ISCRAM 2009 conference paper submission web page at www.conftool.com/iscram2009. Instructions for the ConfTool system can be found on www.iscram.org.

•All papers and presentations will go through a double-blind review process, leading to a decision of (conditional) acceptance or rejection.

•Accepted papers will be included in the ISCRAM 2009 program and published in the official proceedings if and only if

1.the paper is formatted according to the instructions,

2.the authors sign the copyright transfer form and

3.one of the authors registers for the conference and pays the registration fee before the cut-off date for early registration.

•Authors who have multiple papers accepted can only register for and present one paper at the conference; co-authors need to register separately.