Promoting Emergency Measures toward Recovery from the Earthquake
- NRI Starts Offering IT-Based Restoration-Support Solutions -

We offer our heartfelt condolences to everyone affected by the Tohoku Pacific Earthquake, and our prayers for the speediest possible recovery.

On March 15, 2011, Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. launched the earthquake recovery assistance project team under the direct control of its president, Tadashi Shimamoto. Under this project, NRI has presented various recommendations and research results, and today announced that it offers solutions (IT-based systems) to help those who are supporting earthquake sufferers and afflicted areas, based on the strengths in information technology (IT)-related know-how that NRI has built up in its business operations to date.

NRI will start providing two solutions: "Report on an Analysis of Vox Pop from Disaster-Stricken Areas" and "Feedback Message Utilization System Linking Earthquake Sufferers and Supporters."

■"Report on an Analysis of Vox Pop from Disaster-Stricken Areas"

URL:

http://act311.nri.co.jp

Start date:

April 14, 2011 (planned)

While the means of communication is now being restored and secured in earthquake-afflicted areas, the supply of daily necessities is still far from satisfactory at evacuation shelters and in disaster-stricken areas. Information on where and when goodwill relief supplies should be delivered tends to be complicated, and local governments on the receiving end also remain in a state of confusion.

In order to help local government and volunteer groups in their decisions on the sorting of relief supplies, and members of the public wishing to deliver relief supplies, NRI will provide the "Report on an Analysis of Vox Pop from Disaster-Stricken Areas" over the Internet that makes it possible to pinpoint which goods are presently needed in which locations over a vast range of afflicted areas.

Features of the "Report on an Analysis of Vox Pop from Disaster-Stricken Areas"

The "Report on an Analysis of Vox Pop from Disaster-Stricken Areas," using data from the Twitter social media system, collects and analyzes information concerning requests for assistance almost in real time, and prepares and releases relevant reports. As analysis reports present assistance requests transmitted from disaster-stricken areas by city, town and village, anyone can see what is being sought now in afflicted areas instantly. We use NRI's TRUE TELLER with a strong track record in Japanese text mining technology for the collection and analysis of Twitter data.

By responding to requests and opinions of local governments as well as volunteer groups and members of the public who wish to provide aid going forward, we plan to analyze and publish helpful information on the recovery from the earthquake disaster by obtaining it from social media, in addition to information on assistance requests.

The System Environment Required for Use

The "Report on an Analysis of Vox Pop from Disaster-Stricken Areas" is compatible with Internet Explorer version 6.0 or higher browsers. ActiveX needs to be installed to view analysis reports.

■"Feedback Message Utilization System Linking Earthquake Sufferers and Supporters"

Start date:

Scheduled for around mid-April 2011

The "Feedback Message Utilization System Linking Earthquake Sufferers and Supporters" is an information system for managing relief supplies by boxes and delivering feedback messages from recipients of assistance, developed with the purpose of connecting the needs of earthquake sufferers forced to accept inconvenience in their daily lives in afflicted areas, such as daily necessities in short supply, to companies and organizations wishing to support disaster sufferers.

More specifically, we provide the system for collecting and distributing information on the contents and final destinations of relief supplies offered by supporting companies and organizations and feedback from the receiving end in terms of "boxes" (we are assume cardboard boxes), making use of quick response (QR) codes on labels attached to boxes for feedback use.

The Flow of the "Feedback Message Utilization System Linking Earthquake Sufferers and Supporters"

1. NRI builds the website for the "Feedback Message Utilization System Linking Earthquake Sufferers and Supporters";
2. Companies and organizations wishing to offer relief supplies access the website and register information on the contents of supplies offered and destinations in terms of boxes;
3. Supporting companies and organizations prepare, download and print out accompanying labels with QR codes for each box for feedback messages (e-mail), and ship out boxes of relief supplies with the labels attached;
4. Earthquake sufferers at evacuation shelters or their own homes in afflicted areas receive relief supplies through local governments and other routes;
5. Local governments and sufferers in afflicted areas receiving relief supplies can send feedback messages on their conditions and needs to e-mail addresses written on the labels attached to the boxes of goods offered;
6. Feedback messages from those involved in the transportation of relief supplies and people who receive those relief supplies are managed in terms of boxes on the server provided by NRI and conveyed to supporting companies and organizations; and
7. The delivery of messages from afflicted areas to supporting companies and organizations can be expected to create new "bonds" between them and also help sustain assistance and mitigate the sense of isolation of people in afflicted areas.

NRI provides the "Feedback Message Utilization System Linking Earthquake Sufferers and Supporters" in the hope that the circle of support will broaden further with supporting companies and organizations getting the feedback from afflicted areas, such as who received their relief supplies and who found their relief supplies helpful (see [References] Table 2).

[References]

■Table 1 The Screen Image of the "Report on an Analysis of Vox Pop from Disaster-Stricken Areas" (the Example of Iwate Prefecture)
(The labels on the graphs for the day's number of assistance requests indicate the city, town and villages names in Iwate Prefecture, while the legend shows specific relief supplies being sought.)

■Table 2 Overview of the "Feedback Message Utilization System Linking Earthquake Sufferers and Supporters"