Faina Linkov

University of Pittsburgh

Natural and man-made disasters, like floods, eruptions of volcanoes, etc., have tormented mankind since antiquity. Despite all the warning signs, it is certain that when the eruption of Vesuvius started on the morning of 24 August, CE 79, it caught the local population of Pompeii utterly unprepared for the major disaster that ultimately ruined the entire city. What makes our world today different from the population of ancient Pompeii 2,000 years ago is better abilities to share scientific data about the warning signs of disasters. Modern technologies are giving us an unprecedented opportunity to share disaster preparedness and mitigation information very rapidly and effectively. Technologies such as the Internet, telecommunications, etc., have a great potential to help us prepare for disasters, however, oftentimes scientists are not taking advantage of them. In an effort to change this situation, our group conducted a NATO funded workshop on the scientific networking.

Networking of scientists from various disciplines is an important aspect of disaster forecast and prevention. Since the breakdown of the Soviet Union in 1991, man-made disasters became a very real possibility in Russia and other Former Soviet Union (FSU) countries. Collapse of public health infrastructure in the countries of the FSU became a realistic threat to the health of the people throughout the FSU, Europe, the Mediterra- nean region, and worldwide. An earthquake or famine in the FSU could be the tipping point leading to a chain reaction of political, economic, and health destabilization in the FSU, markedly escalating nuclear and other types of threat for all other countries. FSU scientists have few connections with their colleagues in Europe and the Western world, and their work is rarely published in peer-reviewed journals. It is likely that the improvement in scientific networking among FSU scientists and their counterparts in other countries would lead to better disaster information sharing and ultimately to better prevention and mitigation of natural and man-made disasters. FSU scientists networking with U.S. scientists and others worldwide would be a powerful form of public health mitigation against natural disasters, and escalating man-made disasters (e.g., nuclear war). The Global Health Network Supercourse (GHNS), supported initially by NASA, and then by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) created a network of over 600 scientists in the FSU region. As a part of the Supercourse project, directors of this workshop were successful in networking over 31,000 public health professionals in 151 countries. This network shares a free library of 2,500 low-bandwidth Supercourse lectures at www.pitt.edu/∼super1. The Supercourse project is currently supported by the National Library of Medicine (NIH).

The networking of scientists researching the area of natural and man-made disasters became the topic of NATO funded Advanced Research Workshop that took place in Kaunas, Lithuania, in August 2005. Strengthening and improving existing networking and finding new cost-effective information distribution channels became the leading topic of this workshop. This workshop demonstrated how to use cost-effective Internet- based information distribution channels to:

• Share disaster low-bandwidth preparedness and mitigation research information in the library of the Supercourse lectures as demonstrated at <www.pitt.edu/∼super1>

• Create scientific networking locally and with other countries

• Collaborate on disaster preparedness and mitigation research projects

• Increase one's chances of publication in peer-reviewed journals

This workshop was significant not only because it allowed exchanging the knowledge among scientists from NATO countries, but also because it provided a fertile ground for forging life-long friendships. These friendships will serve as a cornerstone for the future multinational collaborative projects in the area of disaster preparedness and mitigation. As meeting participants discussed in one of the sessions, networking is not about computers or other technologies, but it is about friends. Improved networking among friends in the area of disaster preparedness and mitigation is promising to make us better prepared for crisis situations in NATO countries and around the world.