Efficient Rescue Research Articles

A Study to Assess the Performance of Disaster Management During the 2017 Yongji County Flood in China

In 2017, Yongji County, which is located in Jilin Province, China, was devastated by its worst floods for generations. Consequently, the people of Yongji County suffered losses due to both the natural disaster and the deficiencies of disaster management. The aim of this research was to evaluate the factors that influenced the experiences of victims to provide insights into the performance of disaster management. Statistical analysis was employed to describe the functions and role of disaster management in the 2017 Yongji County flood. The Logistic regression also was adopted to explore the association between the performance and outcomes of disaster management experienced by victims, and gender, age, profession, frequency of disasters, the efficiency of defense measures, the efficiency of rescue, the loss of property, the degree of normal life and productivity recovery, the satisfaction of governmental compensation, the degree of disaster information disclosure, the government attitudes, the mechanism of accountability, and public safety education. This paper is among the first studies to identify the factors that affect victims’ perceptions in assessing the performance of disaster management hosted by local government. Hence, this research makes an important contribution in assisting policymakers and officers in local government to improve performance in dealing with natural and environmental disasters.

Concentrating all helper protein functions on a single entity allows rescue of recombinant measles virus by transfection of just two plasmids.

The generation of recombinant measles virus (MeV) from manipulated genomes on plasmid DNA is quite a complex and inefficient process. As a member of the order Mononegavirales its single-stranded ssRNA genome in negative sense orientation is not infectious, but requires co-availability of the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase L, the polymerase co-factor phosphoprotein P, and the nucleocapsid protein N in defined relative amounts to establish infectious centres in transfected cell cultures that release replication-competent recombinant MeV particles. For this so-called rescue, different rescue systems were developed that rely on at least four different components. In this work, we establish a functional MeV rescue system just being composed of two components: the plasmid encoding the (modified) viral genome, and a one-helper-plasmid bundling all helper functions. In contrast to a rescue-system for Newcastle Disease Virus, another paramyxovirus, co-expression of all helper proteins by the same promoter failed. Instead, adaptation of the strength of the respective promoters to drive each helper gene´s expression to the relative expression found in MeV-infected cells or other rescue systems, which indeed adjusted respective mRNA and protein expression, yielded success, albeit not yet to the same efficacy as the four-component system. Thereby, our study paves the way for the development of easier and, after further optimization, more efficient rescue systems to generate recombinant MeV for e.g. the application as a vaccine platform or oncolytic virus, for example.

Determining the drift characteristics of open lifeboats based on large-scale drift experiments

Lifeboat is one of the most important life-saving equipment for escaping at sea when a ship is abandoned in an extreme emergency. An accurate drift model can help rescuers find the drift position of lifeboat in the shortest time, thus improving the efficiency of marine search and rescue (SAR) at sea and ensuring the safety of wrecked people. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the drift characteristics and to develop an accurate drift prediction model for the open lifeboat. First, large-scale drift experiments were conducted to analyze the drift characteristics with three 6.5-meter-long real-size open lifeboats in the South China Sea. Next, three drift prediction models of the lifeboats were developed using the least squares method based on the drift experimental data. Finally, the drift prediction models of the lifeboats were compared and evaluated using the Lagrangian method and Monte Carlo technique, respectively. Results indicate that the probability of positive crosswind leeway (CWL) of the open lifeboat is 47.5%. The jibing frequency is 6% per hour, and the maximum leeway divergence angle is 45°. These drift characteristics are very important for the prediction of the open lifeboat drift trajectory. The comparison results of three drift models show that the improved drift model is more accurate than the other two drift models for predicting drift trajectories of the open lifeboat, which can be directly applied to maritime search and rescue operations in the South China Sea.

Research on the effect of ceiling centralized smoke exhaust system with air curtains on heat confinement and plug-holing phenomenon in tunnel fires

As tunnel fires can easily cause numerous casualties, this paper proposes a combination of ceiling centralized smoke exhaust and air curtain ventilation to study the temperature distribution characteristics and smoke control effects to assist passenger evacuation and firefighting. Dimensionless Froude number was introduced for a theoretical analysis and a series of CFD simulations. The plug-holing phenomenon in the coupling effect between air curtains and ceiling centralized smoke exhaust systems was investigated by changed the parameters of the heat release rate, the smoke exhaust rate, and the jet velocity of the air curtains. The results demonstrate a mutually reinforcing effect of the combined ceiling centralized smoke exhaust system and air curtains in terms of smoke control. The optimal distance between the ceiling exhaust port and the air curtains is 30 m. The blocked holes in the coupled system are mainly located at the downstream edge of the exhaust port, which directly reduces the smoke exhaust efficiency. The smoke exhaust efficiency is more affected by the smoke exhaust rate variation than by the air curtains velocity. A model was built to predict the smoke exhaust efficiency of the coupled system when the fire source power is 20 MW. We propose a new modified critical Fr number (3.69), which can be used to predict the phenomenon of smoke plug-holing in the coupled system. These results allow the design of a fire protection system for tunnel fires with a high barrier and high smoke exhaust effect, facilitating the safe escape of people and efficient fire rescue in the event of a fire.

Development of a β-Globin Gene Replacement Strategy As a β-Thalassemia Therapy

Background: β-thalassemia is a genetic disorder with high unmet need worldwide. Over 300 genetic mutations that result in the reduction, or loss, of β-globin (HBB) expression have been characterized to date. Patients with thalassemic mutations in both HBB alleles often experience severe anemia resulting from ineffective erythropoiesis due to the loss of adult hemoglobin (HbA) tetramers (α2β2) and imbalanced excess of α-globin chains. One challenge is creating a genome-editing strategy that replaces the diversity of disease-causing mutations in the HBB gene while restoring physiological HbA expression. Therefore, a gene-editing platform using homology-directed repair (HDR) that could replace the entire HBB gene in situ and under the control of normal regulatory elements would be an ideal strategy. Methods: CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) were edited using high-fidelity Cas9, HBB guide RNA, and different AAV6 DNA donor templates and then differentiated into red blood cells in vitro. We evaluated HBB expression in 39 AAV6 donors engineered with heterologous introns and different polyadenylation signals first using a flow cytometry screening assay and later HPLC. Candidates that met or exceeded wild-type HBB expression were moved forward for further comparison. Next, we edited HSPCs with the 8 highest expressing AAV6 donors, performed in vitro differentiation, and evaluated HDR frequencies by droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) and HbA formation by HPLC. The candidate that demonstrated the highest conversion of donor knock-in to HbA was further engineered to boost expression and reduce construct size. Two final candidates were moved forward to further characterize their ability to rescue loss of HbA in CD34+ HSPCs isolated from patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) at the protein and RNA level. Additionally, we performed DNA analysis on the gene-edited cells using ddPCR and a targeted PCR-free long-range sequencing approach. Results: Adding heterologous introns to the HBB coding sequence significantly increased HBB expression relative to the no-intron construct containing only coding DNA. The results from our flow cytometry screen and HPLC analysis were positively correlated, and the top DNA donors with heterologous introns resulted in physiologic HbA expression. Using this gene-replacement strategy, we achieved HDR frequencies of up to 40% in CD34+ HSPCs. Further optimization resulted in a smaller DNA template, maintenance of HbA conversion rates, and a lower rate of unintended recombinations. Finally, using HSPCs from patients with SCD as a therapeutically relevant model, we found, by HPLC and RNA sequencing, the optimized DNA donor can successfully replace the entire nonfunctional HBB gene, thereby restoring physiologic HbA expression. Future experiments are investigating in vitro gene correction in cells isolated from patients with β-thalassemia and additional studies evaluating in vivo stem cell repopulation capacity of gene-edited HSPCs. Conclusion: We developed an HBB AAV6 donor engineered with heterologous introns that demonstrates efficient HBB gene replacement and HbA rescue in the erythroid progeny of CD34+ HSPCs isolated from patients with SCD, offering a potential differentiated approach for treating β-thalassemia.

Construct and clinical verification of a nurse-led rapid response systems and activation criteria

BackgroundEffective team leadership and good activation criteria can effectively initiate rapid response system (RRS) to reduce hospital mortality and improve quality of life. The first reaction time of nurses plays an important role in the rescue process. To construct a nurse-led (nurse-led RRS) and activation criteria and then to conduct a pragmatic evaluation of the nurse-led RRS.MethodsWe used literature review and the Delphi method to construct a nurse-led RRS and activation criteria based on the theory of “rapid response system planning.” Then, we conducted a quasi-experimental study to verify the nurse-led RRS. The control group patients were admitted from August to October 2020 and performed traditional rescue procedures. The intervention group patients were admitted from August to October 2021 and implemented nurse-led RRS. The primary outcome was success rate of rescue.SettingEmergency department, Gansu Province, China.ResultsThe nurse-led RRS and activation criteria include 4 level 1 indicators, 14 level 2 indicators, and 88 level 3 indicators. There were 203 patients who met the inclusion criteria to verify the nurse-led RRS. The results showed that success rate of rescue in intervention group (86.55%) was significantly higher than that in control group (66.5%), the rate of cardiac arrest in intervention group (33.61%) was significantly lower than that in control group (72.62%), the effective rescue time of intervention group (46.98 ± 12.01 min) was shorter than that of control group (58.67 ± 13.73 min), and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The rate of unplanned ICU admissions in intervention group (42.85%) was lower than that in control group (44.04%), but the difference was not statistically significant (P > 0.05).ConclusionsThe nurse-led RRS and activation criteria can improve the success rate of rescue, reduce the rate of cardiac arrest, shorten the effective time of rescue, effectively improve the rescue efficiency of patients.

Further developments in disaster control: goal, strategy and tactic using the example of the 2021 flood disaster in the Ahr valley

In July 2021, the Medical Task Force47 was deployed to the flood disaster in western Germany as part of the cross-regional disaster relief system. With the aim of deriving possible improvements in disaster management, it was scientifically evaluated. The focus of this study was the strategy to build up and to maintain aresponsive and efficient rescue system. After defining an evaluation process, an interdisciplinary panel of experts reviewed operational documents and relevant concepts of the Bavarian Red Cross. Based on these, strategies and tactics were developed to achieve predefined goals. The performance of the emergency units could be increased by modern vehicles and equipment (eBikes, drones, all-terrain vehicles). To improve the response capability, new rapid response groups could be required that can take over the function of an advance command and can process mission assignments in impassable terrain autonomously. These could be integrated and synchronized into regional and cross-regional disaster relief. In future, it could be difficult for Germany's largely volunteer-organised disaster management to safely deploy the multitude of possible state-of-the-art resources in the highly complex environment of adisaster. Partial professionalization by full-time command and control staff could be one solution for this problem.

Analysis of fire rescue problems and fire station siting based on fitting algorithms

This paper provides an in-depth study of the fire rescue problem. Based on the number of calls to police at the site in previous years, monthly calls to police in 2022 were predicted through polynomial fitting, cubic spline interpolation, and a two-tone spline interpolation model to analyze and determine the best analytical model. The level of demand for fire stations at the site was measured by using the population density of the site and the number of emergencies per unit time, plus the distance to the nearest fire station at the site to measure its risk level, and finally the cost of building the fire station was considered to measure its composite index, and the site of the fire station was determined based on the composite index. And the grey prediction algorithm as well as the Topsis evaluation algorithm predicts the composite evaluation index for the next 9 years in order to determine where to build the fire station. This study will enable more efficient and uniform fire rescue and more rapid rescue operations to maximize the efficiency of rescue. The relevant data to reasonably predict the various types of emergencies that may occur in the future around the world is an important reference in the issue of fire station location.

Testis electroporation coupled with autophagy inhibitor to treat non-obstructive azoospermia

Infertility affects 10%-20% of the population in most countries, with approximately half of those cases resulting from male infertility. Although millions of infertile men are able to have children with the assistance of reproductive technology, individuals with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) syndrome are unable to do so because they lack functional sperm. Therefore, some other strategies for infertile NOA men are still urgently needed. Our current study uses an NOA-like mouse model to optimize microinjection and a subsequent electroporation method to test potential treatment strategies. We showed that the spermatogenetic process could be partially rescued in young Stra8-Rnf20 -/- mice with microinjection and subsequent electroporation of Rnf20 plasmids into the testes. All meiotic prophase I stages could be identified, and programmed DNA double-strand break repair factors could successfully be recruited to Stra8-Rnf20 -/- spermatocytes after electroporation. Moreover, by including an autophagy inhibitor in the treatment, electroporation significantly improved the spermatogenetic rescue efficiency of adult Stra8-Rnf20 -/- mice. Most importantly, infertility caused by Rnf20 depletions could be overcome by electroporation coupled with intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Our studies establish a relative safe and efficient testis electroporation system and provide a promising therapeutic strategy for patients with NOA.

Effects of pre-bloom spraying thidiazuron and different embryo development media on seedless grape embryo rescue

ABSTRACT Embryo rescue technology has been widely applied in seedless grape breeding, but its success depends on many factors. Here, two Vitis vinifera seedless varieties ‘Qinhong No.2’ and ‘Qinhong No.10’ were used as research objects, the inflorescences were sprayed with 0.5 mg·L−1 thidiazuron 10 days before flowering, and then the ovules from open- and self-pollination of them were cultured in solid–liquid biphase MM3 media to investigate the effect of thidiazuron on embryo rescue. Under natural condition, the ovules of open- and self-pollination were inoculated onto three solid–liquid biphase media NN, ER, and MM3 to compare the efficiency of embryo rescue. The results showed that pre-bloom spraying thidiazuron significantly promoted ovule development and further improved the effect of embryo rescue in vitro. After applying thidiazuron, the embryo development rate, germination rate, and seedling rate of the four combinations reached 30.77%–42.62%, 29.36%–41.64%, and 22.02%–40.33%, respectively. Open-pollination of the two varieties provided better effects for culturing than their self-pollination, and the MM3 medium was always more suitable for embryo development than either the ER or NN medium. Furthermore, the germination rate of bare embryos of ‘Qinhong No. 10’ open-pollination on solid WPM medium surpassed that of ovules (without embryo stripping) on solid NN medium. HIGHLIGHTS Pre-bloom spraying TDZ could improve the effect of embryo rescue of seedless grape. The embryo rescue effect was better in open- than self-pollinated seedless grapes. Solid–liquid biphase MM3 was more suitable for embryo rescue than an ER or NN medium. The seedling rate of bare embryos on WPM medium exceeded that of ovules on NN medium. Overall, 2312 hybrids from the four combinations were obtained via embryo rescue.

Research on modular scheme of aviation emergency rescue for natural disasters

Aviation emergency rescue is the core part of China's emergency rescue system and the main rescue force, which plays an important role in disaster relief, rescue materials transfer, casualty transportation, air rescue, major health and epidemic prevention. Based on H145 helicopter, the modular design concept is adopted to redesign the aviation rescue equipment, and the modular structure layout of the cabin is completed for major natural disasters. Aiming at the path planning problem of rescue helicopter, based on the improved ant colony algorithm, the optimal path planning of helicopter is completed by comprehensively considering the constraints of helicopter flight performance and flight environment. Through the use of medical data interaction technology, a standardized transport information service platform is established, which solves the problem of medical information island between the transfer unit, the transport unit and the evacuation hospital when the helicopter performs the aviation emergency rescue task, realizes the interconnection of medical data, effectively shortens the response time of aviation emergency rescue and improves the rescue efficiency.

Investigating the Obstacle Climbing Ability of a Coal Mine Search-and-Rescue Robot with a Hydraulic Mechanism

Due to the perilous conditions in coal mine accidents, trapped people need to be rescued as soon as possible. The danger and complexity of this environment have brought great difficulties for search and rescue. The emergence of rescue robots has addressed this problem, and the improvement of their search-and-rescue ability is a key concern for rescue robot designers. Based on previous experience of a tracked mobile robot, this paper proposes a new solution via the addition of adjustive rocker arms. For this purpose, a hydraulic unit is installed between the rocker arms and the robot, which enables the rocker arms to be pulled back and forth, enabling its adaptation to more complex environments. In addition, based on kinematics equations, by analyzing the motion rules and characteristics of climbing typical obstacles including stairs, grooves, and lug steps, the present research not only works out the centroid coordinates but also explores the maximal obstacle height. The results show that when the rocker arms are extended by hydraulic pressure, the obstacle-climbing height of the robot increases 16.7 percent. This demonstrates the improvement in obstacle climbing ability and rescue efficiency in complex environments.

Research on Camouflaged Human Target Detection Based on Deep Learning.

In the task of camouflaged human target detection, the target is highly integrated with the complex environment background, which is difficult to identify and leads to false detection and missed detection. A detection algorithm MC-YOLOv5s is proposed for the characteristics of camouflaged targets. The algorithm takes YOLOv5s as the basic framework. First, a multispectral channel attention module is embedded in the backbone feature extraction network, which enhances the network's ability to extract camouflaged target features, weakens the attention to the surrounding background, and effectively improves the algorithm's antibackground interference. Second, the original upsampling operation is replaced by a lightweight general upsampling operator to achieve effective fusion of high-resolution low-level feature maps and low-resolution high-level feature maps. Finally, the K-means++ clustering method is used to optimize the anchor boxes of the dataset target, and the sizes of the generated priori boxes are allocated to each detection layer, which increases the matching degree between the priori boxes and the actual target boxes, and further improves the detection accuracy of the algorithm. The training and verification were carried out on the military camouflaged personnel dataset (MCPD), the precision (P), recall (R), and mean average precision (mAP) of the MC-YOLOv5s algorithm reached 97.4%, 86.1%, and 94%, respectively. Compared to the original YOLOv5s model, mean average precision (mAP) is increased by 3.7 percentage points. The improved algorithm has better detection effect, is more sensitive to camouflaged targets, and achieves accurate positioning and identification of camouflaged human targets. If the proposed MC-YOLOv5s is applied to personnel search and rescue in complex battlefields and natural disaster environments, it can greatly improve personnel search and rescue efficiency and life survival rate, and reduce the consumption of human and material resources in rescue.

Scenario inference model of urban metro system cascading failure under extreme rainfall conditions

Metro systems have become high-vulnerability entities due to the increasing frequency and severity of urban flooding. Flood events may cause cascading failure to metro systems; therefore, exploring the cascading failure risk of the metro system is a prerequisite for urban flooding prevention and risk management. This study presented a Rank-Order Centroid (ROC) based CIA-ISM (Cross-Impact Analysis, and Interpretive Structural Modeling) method to accurately assess the reliability of emergency management in metro systems under extreme rainfall conditions. We applied this approach to a metro flooding case in Zhengzhou on July 20, 2021. The reliability results show that efficient rescue and timely shutdown notification are the most critical causal events in the cascading failure scenarios. The events of system vulnerability that have the most significant impact on casualties, property losses, and social panic are, respectively, timely notification of the shutdown, humanitarian aid, and public opinion guidance. In forecast scenarios with emergency management measures in effect, the probability of casualties, property losses, and social panic decrease by 96.3%, 58.58%, and 64.28%, respectively. Moreover, a comparison with Bayesian Network (BN) model verified the effectiveness of the ROC-based CIA-ISM approach. Based on the study, we suggest the metro companies release a timely notification of the shutdown. This study can provide scientific data for decision-makers to reasonably develop emergency strategies, significantly reducing flood losses and promoting cities’ sustainable development.

Efficacy of Bonfils fiberoptic stylet for difficult tracheal intubation with double lumen tube: A prospective observational study

• The technique of choice to optimize one lung ventilation (OLV) consists in positioning a double lumen tube (DLT). • The incidence of reported difficulties in positioning a DLT with direct laryngoscopy is higher compared to a single lumen tube. • Bonfils rigid endoscope could be considered as a safe and efficient rescue device for DLT positioning in case of direct laryngoscopy failure.

Catalase-Mimetic Artificial Biocatalysts with Ru Catalytic Centers for ROS Elimination and Stem-Cell Protection.

Exploring high-efficiency reactive oxygen species (ROS)-elimination materials is of great importance for combating oxidative stress in diverse diseases, especially stem-cell-based biotherapeutics. By mimicking the FeN active centers of natural catalase, here, an innovative concept to design ROS-elimination artificial biocatalysts with Ru catalytic centers for stem-cell protection is reported. The experimental studies and theoretical calculations have systematically disclosed the activity merits and structure diversities of different Ru sites when serving as ROS-elimination artificial biocatalysts. Benefiting from the metallic electronic structures and synergetic effects of multiple sites, the artificial biocatalysts with Ru cluster centers present exceptional ROS-elimination activity; notably, it shows much higher catalytic efficiency per Ru atom on decomposing H2 O2 when compared to the isolated single-atom Ru sites, which is more efficient than that of the natural antioxidants and recently reported state-of-the-art ROS-scavenging biocatalysts. The systematic stem-cell protection studies reveal that the catalase-like artificial biocatalysts can provide efficient rescue ability for survival, adhesion, and differentiation functions of human mesenchymal stem cells in high ROS level conditions. It is suggested that applying these artificial biocatalysts with Ru cluster centers will offer a new pathway for engineering high-performance ROS-scavenging materials in stem-cell-based therapeutics and many other ROS-related diseases.

Emergency traffic distribution and related traffic organization method under natural disasters

The frequent occurrence of natural disasters caused by human activities and environmental pollution has forced people to pay attention to environmental protection. Of course, emergency rescue after natural disasters is also a great component of research. Emergency rescue often generates a large number of emergency evacuation and rescue traffic needs. In the face of scarce road resources, how to allocate limited road resources for emergency traffic needs reasonably to improve the efficiency of emergency rescue has important practical significance. This paper studies the emergency traffic distribution method and the traffic organization method of the emergency traffic network. First, on the basis of the existing traffic distribution method based on Logit model, combined with the characteristics of emergency traffic flow, an emergency multi-path traffic distributed method based on the second modified Logit model is proposed. As well as the emergency lane reversal implementation strategy is proposed according to the actual situation. Finally, an example is proposed to comprehensively verify the emergency traffic distribution method and emergency lane reversal strategy proposed in this paper. The experimental results show that the proposed method can cope with the complex scenarios of multiple emergency traffic flows and is helpful to improve the overall efficiency of emergency traffic flow.

Studies of Acceleration of the Human Body during Overturning and Falling from a Height Protected by a Self-Locking Device.

The use of individual fall protection equipment is one of the most commonly applied methods of protecting workers whose worksites are located above the floor level. The safety of the user in such a situation depends on both the proper selection and correct use of such equipment. Additionally, aspects such as minimizing the free-fall distance before the fall arrest, as well as quick notification of an accident and efficient rescue operation, are important factors influencing safety. This paper presents a new testing method for fall arrest equipment using a test stand consisting of the Hybrid III 50th Pedestrian ATD anthropomorphic manikin and measuring set with three-axis acceleration transducers. The proposed method and test stand were developed for the design and testing of new fall protection devices equipped with electronic detection and alarm systems, for which it is necessary to determine acceleration limits in order to determine the alarm threshold. The proposed method is based on the measurement of accelerations that occur during tipping and falling from the height of an anthropomorphic manikin secured by a self-locking device. Two places of attachment of the measuring set with a three-axis acceleration sensor were analyzed at the waist belt of the manikin (abdomen and back). Moreover, the self-locking device lanyard was attached to the two points of the safety harnesses (the front and back point). The aim of the research was to check whether the acceleration values depend on the places of attachment of the measuring and anchored system, as well as to determine their maximum values. Acceleration values corresponding to fall arrest and tipping were analyzed. Limits of acceleration have been established in order to determine the threshold of alarm triggering. The non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test was used to check whether the location of the three-axis acceleration transducer and the position of the self-locking device lanyard attachment affect the value of the recorded acceleration. For results of acceleration measurements when testing the behavior of the manikin during fall arrest, no statistically significant differences were found. For results of acceleration measurements when testing the tipping behavior of the manikin, statistically significant differences occurred. This means that during fall arrest, the location of the three-axis acceleration transducer and the position of the self-locking device lanyard attachment do not matter. This work is a continuation of previous research on accelerations characterizing human body positions occurring during normal physical activities (ADL—activities of daily living).

Helicopter Takeoff and Landing Point Location in Cities for Emergency Services

In low-altitude rescue, civilian helicopters, relying on their speed, efficiency and flexibility, play at center stage. Due to the terrain restrictions of the disaster area, it is difficult for helicopters to carry out safe and efficient rescue in cities. In order to facilitate emergency rescue, fixed helicopter takeoff and landing points for rescue missions must be selected strategically and wisely. However, the traditional method is to analyze the satellite data and conduct field surveys manually, which is rather subjective. A scientific, simple and efficient method of location selection is in urgent need. This paper analyzes the normativeness of the location of the helicopter’s take-off and landing point and establishes a model of the slope and undulation of the landing site. It utilizes ArcGIS software to build layers and selects for the terrain element models that meet the specifications. It also studies the rescue radius commonly used in the world and then maximizes the location range of the take-off and landing point based on the greedy algorithm. Considering the construction cost, the final optimized site selection result is obtained. The results show that the use of GIS space technology can effectively select suitable take-off and landing points and gain valuable time for low-altitude rescue.

An Efficient and Uncertainty-Aware Decision Support System for Disaster Response Using Aerial Imagery

Efficient and robust search and rescue actions are always required when natural or technical disasters occur. Empowered by remote sensing techniques, building damage assessment can be achieved by fusing aerial images of pre- and post-disaster environments through computational models. Existing methods pay over-attention to assessment accuracy without considering model efficiency and uncertainty quantification in such a life-critical application. Thus, this article proposes an efficient and uncertain-aware decision support system (EUDSS) that evolves the recent computational models into an efficient decision support system, realizing the uncertainty during building damage assessment (BDA). Specifically, a new efficient and uncertain-aware BDA integrates the recent advances in computational models such as Fourier attention and Monte Carlo Dropout for uncertainty quantification efficiently. Meanwhile, a robust operation (RO) procedure is designed to invite experts for manual reviews if the uncertainty is high due to external factors such as cloud clutter and poor illumination. This procedure can prevent rescue teams from missing damaged houses during operations. The effectiveness of the proposed system is demonstrated on a public dataset from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The solution won the first place award in International Overhead Imagery Hackathon.