Mike et al., I wanted to let you all know that some of the specific requirements mentioned below are relevant to the discussions on extensions and constraints in the Emergency Management Reference Information Model(EM-RIM SC), and I have included that list to the addressees for this message. I address issues inline. On 3/18/2013 10:44 AM, Mike Gerber wrote: Elysa et al., I reviewed the document in the mindset that one day NOAA/NWS might be able to use this (just like we could use SitRep) for storm reporting. We actually have an extensive trained volunteer storm spotter network called SKYWARN. We'd want to be able to report things like down trees and power lines, hail size, wind speed, structural damage, injuries, fatalities, intensity of precipitation, precipitation amounts, tsunami heights, etc. With that in mind, I have a few questions and thoughts and welcome anyone to chime in. - Does the EVENT ID get re-used for additional reports (i.e., EMSI messages) or does it change with every message? In EDXL-SitRep the equivalent element is IncidentID and it is applied to all messages that relate to that incident. - Can we only provide one storm report in each EMSI message or can we somehow provide multiple reports in the same message without resorting to the use of FREETEXT? You can include as many separate EDXL messages as you want, for instance EDXL-SitRep messages such as FieldObservation Report, CasualtyAndIlnessReport and EDXL-RM messages such as EDXLRequestResource and EDXLReportResourceDeploymentStatus relating to the same or different incidents by using the EDXL-DistributionElement v2.0 as the wrapper for the set of individual messages contained in the message. - Use of CERTAINTY would be helpful for predictions of extreme weather, but wouldn't we be providing that information in CAP? Certainty, along with Urgency and Severity are currently available in the next versions of EDXL-DE and can be applied to the individual messages within a set, in addition to CAP alerts where they are already available. We are currently working on advice and guidance for all of our standard messages. Without going into detail values for certainty, urgency and severity, we are working on advice for these elements wherever they occur in EDXL communications. - How would we code the intensity of precipitation, such as heavy rain or heavy snow? I see EGEO WEATHER of RAIN and SNOW, but no way to convey intensity information. Want to avoid FREETEXT and resulting language/translation issues. You can use your own, or any other list of intensity values in a ValueList, but it is wise to take some time and learn the extension mechanisms of the EDXL suite. This can be done in a couple of different ways and if you are sending the message to a particular jurisdiction that uses a different ValueList you should work with that jurisdiction to clarify which lists of values you both want to use. I am attaching the CEN WORKSHOP AGREEMENT---CWA 15931-2---February 2009 ICS 13.200 English version Disaster and emergency management - Shared situation awareness - Part 2: Codes for the message structure In pages 11-14 You will find the codelists for 3.2.2/EVENT/EGEO/WEATHER with rain and precip codelists from the Tactical Situation Object standard, with the caveat that this is out of date, in that it predates current work on ISO-TC223-WG3_NO923_ISO_DTR_22351_E (2). However it is very close to the same and I doubt that much will need to be done to adapt the final set of codelists into any work you or we conduct despite the fact that it is out of date. These codelists are a clear example of what we mean by a ValueList. However I have not actually worked with this resource beyond beyond including it in the ontology of the EDXL suite of standards that I am compiling. As you will see, while it does contain quite a bit of units-of-measure, it leaves a lot of room for improvement. However, because it addresses the language hurdles of Europe in the quest for interoperability, I feel confident we can make good use of it. Unfortunately, I don't think it actually covers the measurement standards you are seeking wrt snow. - How would we convey tsunami wave heights? Want to avoid FREETEXT and resulting language/translation issues This is another set of categories in which you can specify height/volume units of measurement for yourselves or within the groups of jurisdictions with which you work. . - How would we convey snow amounts? Want to avoid FREETEXT and resulting language/translation issues. Same as above. This allows great flexibility but if it comes at the cost of conflicting applications instead of increasing interoperability, you will need to make choices. If there are well-defined lists of values, I would suggest using them, for these WeatherEffects, are always paired with WeatherConcerns in the EDXL-SitRep specification. - How would we convey hail size? Want to avoid FREETEXT and resulting language/translation issues. In this case, I would advise using the NWS Hail Size Chart
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/aly/Severe/HailSize_Chart.htm For an example of a list and its values as well as its url I copy this chart here: Hail Size Chart Hail Diameter Size Description 1/4 Pea 1/2 Plain M&M 3/4 Penny 7/8 Nickel 1 (severe) Quarter 1 1/4 Half Dollar 1 1/2 Ping Pong Ball / Walnut 1 3/4 Golf Ball 2 Hen Egg / Lime 2 1/2 Tennis Ball 2 3/4 Baseball 3 Teacup / Large Apple 4 Softball 4 1/2 Grapefruit 4 3/4 - 5 Computer CD-DVD Same as above. If I rec - I didn't see any codes that could be used to convey trees or power lines in any particular condition, e.g. down. Maybe we need TREES and PWRLNS. We'd all love to see a site devoted to a registry of sites providing ValueLists to help make the use of these values within interoperable services easily usable within a SOA Ecosystem. Thoughts anyone? Our Canadian friends have made some great steps in this direction, and we are incorporating their work where possible. I'm working on such an emergency management domain ontology that includes the ISO work. Mike Thanks for bringing this up, Rex Brooks P.S. I hope that any errors in my reply will be quickly discovered and corrected. On 3/5/2013 8:38 AM, Elysa Jones wrote: Friends, ISO 223 has submitted a draft for comment of their message structure for information exchange between emergency management organizations. It includes a packaged situation awareness component and is quite far along in their process. I appreciate that Dennis Gusty provided this to us as we may not have otherwise been made aware. The comment request says comments are due by 3/6 – tomorrow! However there is one place in the internal document that says 3/8 and Denis said we may have a little longer. The two documents are posted in the EM-TC repository in the Contributions Folder for your review. This is a bit frustrating for me as we responded very clearly to ISO in October of 2010 that we had a work in progress (Situation Reporting) when they publicly requested information on this work item. The letter we sent was agreed to by our EM-TC as balloted 26 Oct 2010 and can be reviewed at
https://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/emergency/download.php/39892/ISO%20Response.doc . I am copying Jamie Clark also who is our liaison with ISO. As I reported in my HL7 meeting report, I spent time with the ISO TC215 Secretariat Lisa Spellman as we were panellists on the Standards Panel at the meeting. She was very interested in our real-world work uniting emergency response to health care with TEP. She spent time with me later to review the EDXL standards development process. Lisa is also the US TAG Administrator. I intend to reach out to her as well regarding this report. Perhaps our letter did not get to the right people? Perhaps ignored? We have long talked about how important it is to have a representative on the ISO/TC223 but we have not had the bandwidth. Please post any thoughts or comments as a reply to this email. After I’ve heard from you, we will determine if a special meeting is in order to discuss or whether we should respond. Hopefully we will also have guidance from OASIS as well. Thanks, Elysa Jones, Chair OASIS EM-TC -- Mike Gerber NOAA/National Weather Service Office of Climate, Water, and Weather Services 301-713-0090 x170
Mike.Gerber@noaa.gov -- Rex Brooks GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison Berkeley, CA 94702 Phone: 510-898-0670 Attachment: CWA_15931-2.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document