Intelligent evacuation management systems: A review

Crowd and evacuation management have been active areas of research and study in the recent past. Various developments continue to take place in the process of efficient evacuation of crowds in mass gatherings. This article is intended to provide a review of intelligent evacuation management systems covering the aspects of crowd monitoring, crowd disaster prediction, evacuation modelling, and evacuation path guidelines. Soft computing approaches play a vital role in the design and deployment of intelligent evacuation applications pertaining to crowd control management. While the review deals with video and nonvideo based aspects of crowd monitoring and crowd disaster prediction, evacuation techniques are reviewed via the theme of soft computing, along with a brief review on the evacuation navigation path. We believe that this review will assist researchers in developing reliable automated evacuation systems that will help in ensuring the safety of the evacuees especially during emergency evacuation scenarios

Construcción de planes de restauración de vías orientados a facilitar operaciones de logística humanitaria

Disruptions in the transportation network are one of the hardest consequences of a disaster. They have the potential of hampering the performance of emergency aid organizations, reducing the opportunities of saving critical victims during response and recovery phases. The strategic restoration of road network implies the prioritization of those a ected roads whose rehabilitation would reduce travel times, allowing emergency relief vehicles, civilians and restoration machines to move faster through the network. Humanitarian Road Restoration Problem (HURREP) is a relatively new topic in comparison with other research topics on disaster management. In this study, we present a mathematical model which schedules and routes restoration machines and relief vehicles working in parallel on the same network. We adopt the minimization of weighted sum of attention times to communities as the objective function, seeking for a restoration plan totally dedicated to provide support to relief plan. Among other features, our methods are able to deal with di erent relief modes working in parallel, road disruptions that are naturally removed over time (e.g. by evaporation) and vehicle-dependent starting times. We also provided an heuristic algorithm able to solve large size instances of our problem in less than the 2.7% of the runtime limit suggested by the Administrative Department for Prevention, Attention, and Recovery from Disasters in Antioquia, Colombia (DAPARD). We validated the applicability of our methods on real world disaster scenarios through a study case based on the Mojana's oods occurred in northern Colombia on the 2010-2011.MaestríaMagister en Ingeniería Industria

Full-scale Transport Controlled Impact Demonstration Program

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NASA conducted a full-scale air-to-surface impact-survivable impact demonstration with a remotely piloted transport aircraft on 1 December 1984, at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The test article consisted of experiments, special equipment, and supporting systems, such as antimisting kerosene (AMK), crashworthiness structural/restraint, analytical modeling, cabin fire safety, flight data recorders, post-impact investigation, instrumentation/data acquisition systems, remotely piloted vehicle/flight control systems, range and flight safety provisions, etc. This report describes the aircraft, experiments, systems, activities, and events which lead up to the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID). An overview of the final unmanned remote control flight and sequence of impact events are delineated. Preliminary post CID observations are presented

Town of Cumberland Town Council Meeting October 9, 2006

Town of Cumberland Town Council Meeting October 9, 2006 is the complete packet for the Cumberland Town Council meeting for October 9, 2006, and includes the minutes of the Town Council meeting of September 25, 2006. Agenda items include: 06 - 169. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on proposed Twin Brook Recreation Area improvements estimated at 1.1 million dollars to construct a shelter with restroom facilities, maintenance building, road realignment and field improvements. 06 - 170. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on a waiver of the Recreational Facilities and Open Space Impact Fee for Goose Pond Development, LLC for the Foxes Gore Subdivision located off of Goose Pond Road. 06 - 171. To hold a public hearing to consider adopting a Cumberland Noise Ordinance. 06 - 172. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on the Cumberland NIMS Implementation Plan and the Cumberland Emergency Management Ordinance. 06 - 173. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on an Agreement with the Town of Falmouth for shared Animal Control Officer and Harbormaster services

Town of Cumberland Town Council Meeting October 9, 2006

Town of Cumberland Town Council Meeting October 9, 2006 is the complete packet for the Cumberland Town Council meeting for October 9, 2006, and includes the minutes of the Town Council meeting of September 25, 2006. Agenda items include: 06 - 169. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on proposed Twin Brook Recreation Area improvements estimated at 1.1 million dollars to construct a shelter with restroom facilities, maintenance building, road realignment and field improvements. 06 - 170. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on a waiver of the Recreational Facilities and Open Space Impact Fee for Goose Pond Development, LLC for the Foxes Gore Subdivision located off of Goose Pond Road. 06 - 171. To hold a public hearing to consider adopting a Cumberland Noise Ordinance. 06 - 172. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on the Cumberland NIMS Implementation Plan and the Cumberland Emergency Management Ordinance. 06 - 173. To hold a public hearing to consider and act on an Agreement with the Town of Falmouth for shared Animal Control Officer and Harbormaster services

Optimized location-allocation of earthquake relief centers using PSO and ACO, complemented by GIS, clustering, and TOPSIS

© 2018 by the authors. After an earthquake, it is required to establish temporary relief centers in order to help the victims. Selection of proper sites for these centers has a significant effect on the processes of urban disaster management. In this paper, the location and allocation of relief centers in district 1 of Tehran are carried out using Geospatial Information System (GIS), the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) decision model, a simple clustering method and the two meta-heuristic algorithms of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). First, using TOPSIS, the proposed clustering method and GIS analysis tools, sites satisfying initial conditions with adequate distribution in the area are chosen. Then, the selection of proper centers and the allocation of parcels to them are modelled as a location/allocation problem, which is solved using the meta-heuristic optimization algorithms. Also, in this research, PSO and ACO are compared using different criteria. The implementation results show the general adequacy of TOPSIS, the clustering method, and the optimization algorithms. This is an appropriate approach to solve such complex site selection and allocation problems. In view of the assessment results, the PSO finds better answers, converges faster, and shows higher consistency than the ACO

An exploratory study of the growth of the Accountable Care Organization and its impact on physician groups’ profit: a complex adaptive system approach

The emergence of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in the landscape of the U.S. healthcare system marks a paradigm shift in healthcare operations. The potential impact of ACOs has been a topic of intense debate. Traditional analytical approaches do not lend themselves to examining the complex phenomenon of the emergence and growth of ACOs in the healthcare network. We adopt a complex adaptive system lens to examine the growth of ACOs among physician groups and explore factors that influence this growth. We also discuss the impact of ACOs on the profit of physician groups. An agent-based model was built to simulate physician groups' ACO entrance and exit based on a set of simple rules and their complex interactions with other agents. Based on the simulation results, we derive patterns of ACO expansion and contraction, following four stages of wait-and-see, rollercoaster, fast growth, and stabilizing. Findings suggest that the growth of ACOs is sensitive to the initial state of ACO membership. When the initial size of ACO membership increases, it helps to eliminate the rollercoaster stage. In addition, the growth of the ACO varies depending on the cost–quality tradeoff. When both cost and quality objectives can be met simultaneously, the growth of ACO membership follows wait-and-see and fast growth stages followed by a different stage that we term sticky state. The impact of ACOs on physician groups’ cumulative profit varies by the service quality level of the physician group. Physician groups affiliated with insurance companies charging the lowest or the highest level of health insurance premiums are worse off with the ACO option. However, the ACO benefits physician groups affiliated with an insurance company charging a moderate level of premiums.Ye

Translational studies on mechanical hemostasis and coagulopathy in trauma

Trauma, in terms of physical injury, is the leading cause of death and disability among children and young adults worldwide. Hemorrhage and coagulation dysfunction are two important causes of preventable deaths after traumatic injuries. Novel methods for management of non-compressible hemorrhage and treatment of trauma induced coagulopathy (TIC) may reduce mortality. In this thesis we investigate two fundamentally different methods for mechanical hemorrhage control after potentially lethal truncal hemorrhage: intravascular occlusion- and external compression of the aorta. The Abdominal Aortic and Junctional Tourniquet® (AAJT) and Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA) were initially introduced in military medicine as possible interventions to avoid exsanguination from large vessel injuries. We assessed these interventions during 60 to 240 minutes with the aim to identify specific physiological effects and suggest tolerable application times. The feasibility of a transition between the methods was studied. We investigated the hemodynamic effects of crystalloid- and whole blood transfusion in conjunction with the interventions. Intermittent reperfusion during REBOA, with the aim to decrease organ damage was investigated. We introduced a method for advanced analyzation of viscoelastic tests by principal component analysis to detect TIC. The AAJT and REBOA were both effective to stop hemorrhage distal to the aortic bifurcation and restored critical circulation proximal to the aortic occlusion. Infra-renal REBOA required more crystalloid fluids to restore the circulation than AAJT. Both methods caused ischemic injuries which became significant after 1 hour of infra-renal aortic occlusion. The ischemic injuries were alleviated by intermittent reperfusion during thoracic REBOA application. TIC was detected in pigs by principal component analysis of rotational thromboelastometry, which comprised a new method for possible identification of TIC phenotypes. In conclusion, mechanical hemostasis was effective by both abdominal tourniquet- and intravascular aortic occlusion. We also identified potentially severe complications due to hemodynamic- and metabolic consequences, particularly when application times exceed one hour

Software agents & human behavior

People make important decisions in emergencies. Often these decisions involve high stakes in terms of lives and property. Bhopal disaster (1984), Piper Alpha disaster (1988), Montara blowout (2009), and explosion on Deepwater Horizon (2010) are a few examples among many industrial incidents. In these incidents, those who were in-charge took critical decisions under various ental stressors such as time, fatigue, and panic. This thesis presents an application of naturalistic decision-making (NDM), which is a recent decision-making theory inspired by experts making decisions in real emergencies. This study develops an intelligent agent model that can be programed to make human-like decisions in emergencies. The agent model has three major components: (1) A spatial learning module, which the agent uses to learn escape routes that are designated routes in a facility for emergency evacuation, (2) a situation recognition module, which is used to recognize or distinguish among evolving emergency situations, and (3) a decision-support module, which exploits modules in (1) and (2), and implements an NDM based decision-logic for producing human-like decisions in emergencies. The spatial learning module comprises a generalized stochastic Petri net-based model of spatial learning. The model classifies routes into five classes based on landmarks, which are objects with salient spatial features. These classes deal with the question of how difficult a landmark turns out to be when an agent observes it the first time during a route traversal. An extension to the spatial learning model is also proposed where the question of how successive route traversals may impact retention of a route in the agent’s memory is investigated. The situation awareness module uses Markov logic network (MLN) to define different offshore emergency situations using First-order Logic (FOL) rules. The purpose of this module is to give the agent the necessary experience of dealing with emergencies. The potential of this module lies in the fact that different training samples can be used to produce agents having different experience or capability to deal with an emergency situation. To demonstrate this fact, two agents were developed and trained using two different sets of empirical observations. The two are found to be different in recognizing the prepare-to-abandon-platform alarm (PAPA ), and similar to each other in recognition of an emergency using other cues. Finally, the decision-support module is proposed as a union of spatial-learning module, situation awareness module, and NDM based decision-logic. The NDM-based decision-logic is inspired by Klein’s (1998) recognition primed decision-making (RPDM) model. The agent’s attitudes related to decision-making as per the RPDM are represented in the form of belief, desire, and intention (BDI). The decision-logic involves recognition of situations based on experience (as proposed in situation-recognition module), and recognition of situations based on classification, where ontological classification is used to guide the agent in cases where the agent’s experience about confronting a situation is inadequate. At the planning stage, the decision-logic exploits the agent’s spatial knowledge (as proposed in spatial-learning module) about the layout of the environment to make adjustments in the course of actions relevant to a decision that has already been made as a by-product of situation recognition. The proposed agent model has potential to be used to improve virtual training environment’s fidelity by adding agents that exhibit human-like intelligence in performing tasks related to emergency evacuation. Notwithstanding, the potential to exploit the basis provided here, in the form of an agent representing human fallibility, should not be ignored for fields like human reliability analysis