Georg Neubauer

• PhD
• Senior Researcher at Austrian Institute of Technology

Climate change and other factors like roll back of living environment of species make outbreak of pandemics more likely. To respond adequately to threats arising from pathogens like emerging arboviruses such as the Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus or the West Nile virus, mobile one health laboratories with the highest bio-safety level 4 (BSL4...

Situational awareness is one of the most important factors for efficient and effective response in crisis and disaster situations. Up-to-date, valid and relevant data is one of the means to support crisis management actions, and the development and use of social media, as it is common nowadays, has become a very interesting research topic. In this...

Within this paper requirements and related gaps associated with cross-border pandemic management are analyzed. In order to systematically investigate the potential of solutions to close such gaps, trials can be executed and evaluated. Core elements of such trials are specific scenarios that frame the validation of the applicability of solutions. St...

COVID-19 still represents one of the greatest global challenges of the last decades in terms of medical, coordination and management aspects, but also on the societal and economic level. Even after more than two years, the rapidly changing requirements that the emerging variations of the virus call for, show that Austria-as the majority of countrie...

Pandemien stellen eine enorme Herausforderung in vielen Bereichen des täglichen Lebens dar. Ein entscheidender Erfolgsfaktor in der Prävention und Bewältigung von Pandemien ist die Bereitstellung relevanter Informationen für Akteure im Pandemiemanagement. In der vorliegenden Arbeit stellen wir eine Methode vor, die die Identifizierung von Lösungen...

Having relevant information plays an important role in every aspect of human life. Data mining supports the extraction of additional information by discovering patterns and correlations between data within the dataset under investigation. Information obtained in this way is used in various applications ranging from education, business to crisis man...

Currently we all are facing a challenging time around the globe regarding pandemics, natural as well as manmade disasters. First to mention the current Covid-19 situation in Europe but also worldwide, which forces ministers, politicians, responsible from health and environmental organisation on regional, national level, first responders and many mo...

Advanced situational awareness is a central element of today's crisis and disaster management and the basis of improved decision-making. A prerequisite for optimised decision-making is to quickly obtain valid information about the specific crisis in the affected area. At the same time, a high demand for information arises from the media and the pop...

Evaluations in the frame of the EU research projects DRIVER+ and STAMINA revealed that, aside from the multitude of solutions that can be applied to manage a pandemic (restraining measures, protective equipment, tests for epidemiological observations, therapies and vaccines, tools for predictions, resource planning and monitoring, IT solutions for...

COVID-19 represents one of the greatest global challenges of the last decades in terms of medical, coordination and management aspects, but also on the societal and economic level. The borderline experience of dealing with such a complex, global event has shown that Austria – as the majority of countries and organizations – was inadequately prepare...

Current and future challenges, due to increasingly severe consequences of natural disasters and terrorist threats, require the development and uptake of innovative solutions that are addressing the operational needs of practitioners dealing with crisis and disaster management. This document is based on the results of DRIVER+ and EPISECC and defines...

Within DRIVER+ a terminology was developed including the most relevant terms and definitions applied within the project. This terminology was dedicated to enhancing shared understanding within the project team as well as to support an improved understanding of the output of the project in the broader crisis and disaster management community. This p...

In national as well international crisis and disaster management it is imperative that practitioners address detrimental events in the best possible way. For this purpose, the Portfolio of Solutions (PoS)[1]was developed in the frame of the DRIVER+project[2]. The PoS supports two core functionalities: Firstly,it assists practitioners and other stak...

Interoperability of all actors involved in crisis and disaster management is an imperative pre-requirement for minimizing damage and losses in case of incidents. In order to enhance the opportunities of improved information exchange between involved stakeholders, the EU Commission funded the FP7 project EPISECC. The main objective of EPISECC is to...

In 2015 the migration movements reached an unprecedented peak in several European countries such as Austria since the period after World War II. Involved stakeholders such as national authorities or NGOs were overstrained with the number of displaced persons reaching their borders. Limited information exchange and insulated operational pictures tur...

This paper provides a summary of the EPISECC consortium decisions taken when developing a common information space with respect to data sharing in the field of public protection and disaster relief. After explaining why defining data flows and design process in the EPISECC is important, the paper introduces a high-level overview of the EPISECC Comm...

Interoperability of stakeholders is a predominant requirement of crisis and disaster management. Within the EU-project EPISECC a concept of a common information space is under development in order to facilitate European crisis and disaster management. A pre-requirement to set up such an information space is the in depth analysis of the management o...

In the event of a disaster the coordinated response of emergency services is crucial for saving lives and protecting critical infrastructure. Efficient communication and access to relevant information are essential elements in the immediate aftermath and all phases of the crisis management cycle to maintain public safety. As part of the European Co...

In recent years, the relevance of electromagnetic threats has increased steadily. In the meanwhile, electromagnetic attacks have been included as one of the novel dangers to critical infrastructures of European societies and beyond. Facing this challenge, the European Commission funded several projects addressing this issue. As one result, the FP7...

Interoperability is a crucial aspect for all actors involved in crisis and disaster management. Cooperation and Inter-connectedness of organisations (e.g. by data exchange) is an imperative pre-requirement to save lives and to protect the society. For tackling this challenge the main goal of the EU project EPISECC is to develop a Common Information...

Efficient communication and access to critical information is a key requirement for the operations of public safety and security services in disasters.

Interoperability of stakeholders is an imperative requirement of nowadays crisis and disaster management. Within the European Commission funded FP7 project EPISECC a concept of a common information space is developed in order to assist in the improvement of the European crisis and disaster management. A basis of the development of such an informati...

Crises and disasters occur all over the world with the highest impact on the most vulnerable in society. Generating a trusted status of information out of a multitude of reliable and relevant data about a critical situation is a priority for effective and coordinated disaster management and relief measures delivered by governmental organizations (G...

When disasters occur, key factors for minimizing damages and loss of lives are access to necessary information and effective communication between emergency services. In cross-border disaster management, further challenges arise: language barriers, uneven know-how, organisational and technical differences in particular concerning communication and...

Migration is a major challenge for the European Union, resulting in early preparedness being an imperative for target states and their stakeholders such as border police forces. This preparedness is necessary for multiple reasons, including the provision of adequate search and rescue measures. To support preparedness, there is a need for early indi...

Intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI) has risen to a serious threat for operators of critical infrastructures (CI). In this context, the European Union has funded three projects which deal with this problem. Passport control systems on airports are potential targets for such attacks. As part of cooperation between the EU projects HIPOW an...

The international Red Cross declared that the strengthening of the population’s resilience is one of the most important challenges in today’s crisis and disaster management1. For instance, the Austrian crisis and disaster management heavily relies on a large volunteer community2. However, the enduring and formal membership in voluntary crisis manag...

Several studies have demonstrated that mobile telephones that use different technologies, such as Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) or Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS), have the potential to influence the functionality of active electronic implants, including cardiac pacemakers. According to these studies, a few safety me...

Migration is a major challenge of many European member states, early preparedness is imperative for target states for multiple reasons such as provision of adequate search and rescue measures. Specific events such as natural disasters might be in some cases the reason for increased communication by the crowd as well as early indicators of developin...

Existing approaches to communication with the population in case of disaster are focused on alerting and providing basic information using public media. A consistent communication concept beyond the early warning phase taking into account information needs and capabilities of the population is still lacking. This article describes a conceptual appr...

Based on governmental institutions and strong volunteer organizations, Austria provides a comprehensive and well developed emergency response system. As an important factor for the maintenance of the current quality standard of Austria’s protection and emergency system, the further engagement of voluntariness has to be ensured and enhanced in the l...

Within the Austrian national security research programme KIRAS, a study on security against electromagnetic threats was conducted. Apart from a survey on existing literature about respective events and analyses on existing threats and possible protection measures, a novel risk analysis method was developed, based on a qualitative FMEA (Failure mode...

Based on governmental institutions and strong volunteer organizations, Austria provides a comprehensive and well developed emergency response system. As an important factor for the maintenance of the current quality standard of Austria’s protection and emergency system, the further engagement of voluntariness has to be ensured and enhanced in the l...

There is public concern regarding potential health effects of radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) exposure, as produced by mobile phones or broadcast transmitters. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between RF-EMF exposure and non-specific symptoms and tinnitus in a prospective cohort study. In 2008, 1375 ran...

Social media platforms in crisis management such as Twitter and Facebook have gained a lot of interest over the course of the past five years. Emergency agencies have used them for both, as valuable source of information and as platform to rapidly deliver information to persons affected by a natural disaster. However, crisis managers and crisis com...

Body-worn radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) personal exposure meters (PEMs) have been increasingly used for exposure assessment in epidemiological research. However, little research on the measurement accuracy of these devices is available. In this article a novel measurement setup and a measurement protocol are presented for characteri...

After animal experiments gave a clear indication that the electric conductivity of brain tissue in the frequency range 800 to 2,450 MHz decreases after death, a measurement series on 20 human brains in the time period between 3 and 10 hours post mortem was performed. Analysis of the measurements obtained on fresh tissue yielded a mean value of grey...

The purpose of this work is to investigate potential dangers for people carrying active electronic implants such as cardiac pacemakers resulting from the emissions of TETRA transmitters. The emitted electromagnetic fields of transmitters have the potential to influence the proper function of active electronic implants. Such investigations are very...

The Directive 2004/40/EC of the European Commission has the purpose to protect workers against adverse affects arising from electromagnetic fields. To achieve this goal several requirements are imposed on employers that can be hardly managed by them mainly due to their lack of expertise in the field of electromagnetic fields. It was therefore decid...

The use of personal exposure meters (exposimeters) has been recommended for measuring personal exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) from environmental far-field sources in everyday life. However, it is unclear to what extent exposimeter readings are affected by measurements taken when personal mobile and cordless phones are u...

The selection of an adequate exposure assessment approach is imperative for the quality of epidemiological studies. The use of personal exposimeters turned out to be a reasonable approach to determine exposure profiles, however, certain limitations regarding the absolute values delivered by the devices have to be considered. Apart from the limited...

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the association between exposure to various sources of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF EMFs) in the everyday environment and sleep quality, which is a common public health concern. We assessed self-reported sleep disturbances and daytime sleepiness in a random population sample of 1...

The development of new wireless communication technologies that emit radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) is ongoing, but little is known about the RF-EMF exposure distribution in the general population. Previous attempts to measure personal exposure to RF-EMF have used different measurement protocols and analysis methods making comparis...

In this paper a calibration measurement setup for band-selective personal exposure meters is presented. The equipment and the methods of the measurement procedure are described together with the uncertainty assessment of the measurement equipment, the calibration and the measurement procedure. The average measurement error for the reference measure...

INTRODUCTION In recent years different small field sensors got commercially available, which allows the continuously monitoring of electromagnetic fields. These sensors are used in experimental studies to measure the field contribution of radio services to the total electromagnetic exposure, e.g. see [1]. Beside that different groups are using thes...

Radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) in our daily life are caused by numerous sources such as fixed site transmitters (e.g. mobile phone base stations) or indoor devices (e.g. cordless phones). The objective of this study was to develop a prediction model which can be used to predict mean RF-EMF exposure from different sources for a larg...

The relation between the incident electromagnetic field strength and both the whole-body and the local specific absorption rate (SAR) was investigated for typical heterogeneous exposure scenarios for frequencies relevant for mobile communication. The results were compared to results from plane wave exposure. Heterogeneous exposure arises from multi...

We present a geospatial model to predict the radiofrequency electromagnetic field from fixed site transmitters for use in epidemiological exposure assessment. The proposed model extends an existing model toward the prediction of indoor exposure, that is, at the homes of potential study participants. The model is based on accurate operation paramete...

The present report documents a dialogue between scientists reviewing the currently available scientific evidence with respect to the effects of RF EMF exposure on children. The focus was directed towards a transparent and comprehensible characterization of the findings and conclusions for the evaluation of the relationship between mobile phone comm...

Background: Little is known about the population's exposure to radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) in industrialized countries. Objectives: To examine levels of exposure and the importance of different RF-EMF sources and settings in a sample of volunteers living in a Swiss city. Methods: RF-EMF exposure of 166 volunteers from Basel...

SCENIHR has been asked to provide more details on the research recommendations presented in the SCENIHR opinion on the health effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) adopted on 19 January 2009. The present opinion makes specific recommendations regarding research covering several frequency bands (radio frequency (RF) fields, intermediate frequency...

The purpose of this opinion is to update the SCENIHR opinion of 21 March 2007 in the light of newly available information, and to provide a methodological framework and corresponding guidelines to evaluate available scientific evidence in order to ensure the best possible quality for risk assessment. 1. Update Radio frequency fields (RF fields) It...

Exposimeters are increasingly applied in bioelectromagnetic research to determine personal radiofrequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure. The main advantages of exposimeter measurements are their convenient handling for study participants and the large amount of personal exposure data, which can be obtained for several RF-EMF sources. Howe...

Upon request of the European Commission, the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) has updated the previous opinion on "Possible effects of Electromagnetic Fields (EMF), Radio Frequency Fields (RF) and Microwave Radiation on human health" by the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment...

The aim of the study was to detect whether long-term exposure to "902-MHz GSM-type Wireless Communication Signals" ("radio-frequency (RF)-exposure") would affect 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA)-induced mammary tumours in female Sprague-Dawley rats. Five hundred female rats were each given a single oral dose of 17 mg DMBA per kg body weight (b...

The increasing deployment of mobile communication base stations led to an increasing demand for epidemiological studies on possible health effects of radio frequency emissions. The methodological challenges of such studies have been critically evaluated by a panel of scientists in the fields of radiofrequency engineering/dosimetry and epidemiology....

The Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) has updated the previous opinion on ”Possible effects of Electromagnetic Fields (EMF), Radio Frequency Fields (RF) and Microwave Radiation on human health” by the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment (CSTEE) from 2001, with respect to wheth...

This project is dedicated to investigate the correlation between RF exposimeter readings and real human exposure. Both numerical simulations and measurements are performed. Field levels at the location of the exposimeter close to the human body are compared to the averaged field levels at the location of the body not being present. Preliminary resu...

In the frame of this part of the EUREKA project BASEXPO the relation between the specific absorption rate and the electric field strength is investigated for real life exposure conditions arising next to common RF sources, e.g. mobile communication base stations. The first results show that the deviation of the whole body specific absorption rate f...

This paper presents the design, optimization, realization and verification of novel whole-body exposure setups for rats. The setups operating at 902 MHz and 1747 MHz provide highly efficient, National Toxicology Program (NTP) compatible and well-characterized exposures. They are compared to existing concepts of exposure setups with respect to effic...

In this paper we point out the most relevant content of the ICNIRP guidelines and derive from these standard EMF measurement tasks such as 'In Situ Measurements', 'Compliance Assessment Measurements' and 'RF-Monitoring'. Different requirements and background for these RF-field strength measurement tasks and their specific needs of technical equipme...

Ten experiments on pigs were performed to investigate possible postmortem changes of the dielectric properties of brain gray matter in the frequency range of 800-1900 MHz. After keeping the animals in stable anaesthesia for at least 45 min, they were euthanatised by an intravenous injection of hypertonic potassium chloride (KCl), causing cardiac ar...

The dielectric properties of gray matter in the frequency range of 800-2450 MHz were measured on 20 human brains immediately after excision, less than 10 h after death. The brains were obtained during autopsy of 10 male and 10 female humans who died at ages between 47.5 and 87.5 years [70.4 +/- 9.8 years, mean +/- standard deviation (SD)]. The tiss...

According to manufacturers of both magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, and implantable neurological pulse generators (IPGs), MRI is contraindicated for patients with IPGs. A major argument for this restriction is the risk to induce heat in the leads due to the electromagnetic field, which could be dangerous for the surrounding brain parenchy...

The aim of the article was to provide an overview of published studies regarding the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) of electronic implants. The available literature was sorted according to combinations of implant types and sources of interference. Several experiments concerning the susceptibility of pacemakers to mobile phones have been perfor...

Despite the important role of the immune system in defending the body against infections and cancer, very few investigations have been undertaken to study possible effects of electromagnetic fields on human immunity. The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of occupational exposure on hospital personnel operating magnetic resonance to...

The present study recorded a considerable excess of recommended exposure limits in the vicinity of shortwave diathermy devices used for medical treatment of patients. Different kinds of field probes were used to measure electric and magnetic field strength and the whole body exposure of medical personnel operating shortwave, decimeter wave and micr...

In Austria approximately 2000 industrial and medical radiofrequency devices were in use in 1994. In a cooperation between the Austrian Research Centre Seibersdorf and the Allgemeine Unfallsversicherungsanstalt the field levels in working areas at 70 radiofrequency medical and industrial devices were measured and evaluated. We surveyed exposure of o...

The public concern about the potential adverse health effects of the human exposure to the electromagnetic radiation of GSM base stations has grown in the recent years. The increasing number of cellular telephony subscribers has led to an expansion of networks, with the installation of more base stations. This number of base stations may have to ri...

INTRODUCTION There is public concern about potential effects of radio frequency electromagnetic field (RF-EMF) exposure in everyday life on health, especially on non-specific symptoms of ill health [1]. No data from longitudinal cohort studies are available so far. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between long-term exposure...

The number of new wireless mobile communication tools is steadily increasing in the recent years. The development of these technologies raised new questions in terms of exposure assessment. Most of these applications making use of broadband signals compared to older technologies, e.g. UMTS has a bandwidth of 5 MHz compared to GSM having a bandwidth...

The development of new wireless communication technologies raised new questions in terms of exposure assessment. A short overview on emerging wireless standards is given and assessment procedures for WLAN and UMTS are discussed.

Existing scientific data on absorption of electromagnetic fields in the human body during the use of mobile telephones are mainly based on measurements on phantoms and on simulations. Up to now it has been unclear if measurements in human tissue would lead to the same conclusions as evaluations in phantoms and simulations did. During this project,...

Measurement campaigns performed so far in the vicinity of GSM base stations clearly show that exposure levels are well below the limits recommended by the European Union for the general public . The results also demonstrate that the exposure levels vary by order of magnitudes depending on several physical and environmental factors. There is a clear...

INTRODUCTION For evaluating the exposure by electromagnetic fields composed of more than one frequency component, the ICNIRP guidelines of 1998 recommend building up a weighted sum over these frequency components. The question arises if this linear approach reproduces the actual reaction of neurons in the human central nervous system whose behaviou...