Relief Efforts Research Articles

Eating in Budapest's Soup Kitchens. Versions and Aversions from the History of Public Catering (1860–1918)

AbstractThe growth in Budapest's population at the end of the 19th century was based on the influx of migrants from the countryside, mostly industrial workers. The examination of the social tensions generated by their arrival provides a good illustration of the changes in social policy, one element of which was the operation of soup kitchens. In the mid-19th century, the main driving force behind the founding of soup kitchens was individual religious charity, although by the end of the century, social solidarity and state involvement also contributed to the relief efforts. The present study examines the development of soup kitchens in Budapest based on the historical sources: official documents, and the contemporary press. Using the ethnographic findings of food culture research, it seeks to explain why official soup kitchens were not popular. From an ethnographic point of view, the process of lifestyle change among workers newly breaking away from peasant life and moving to Budapest and its metropolitan area has been little explored to date, and the same applies to the embourgeoisement of the peasantry. When interpreting the processes that accompany labor migration, parallels can be drawn between the eating habits of the workers' regions of origin, the value systems connected with work and food, and the common meals organized for agricultural workers when working away from home. Through a historical and ethnographic approach, the transitional, evolving features of urban foodways emerge in the context of soup kitchens in parallel with the change in lifestyle.

Pelatihan Pengenalan First Aid dan Bantuan Hidup Dasar untuk Para Kader di Desa Karangmulya, Kecamatan Bojongmangu

First Aid in Accidents was a temporary relief and treatment effort for accident victims before receiving more complete assistance from health workers. This cannot be done if the community as the front guard does not have the understanding and skills in initial treatment. First aid was important for accident victims to avoid death or disability. Knowledge of Basic Life Support (BLS) was very necessary to handle these cases. This activity aims to increased knowledge and skills in providing Basic Life Support (BLS) for Health Cadres in Karangmulya village. The method used is training for cadres. The results of the t-test showed that the average pre-test knowledge of the training participants was 4.91 with a median of 4.5 for the pre-test, a standard deviation of 1.130 and an average post-test knowledge score of 6.67 with a standard deviation of 0.89 and a median of 7.00. It can be concluded that there was an increase in knowledge after training with an average difference of 2 scores. This data also shows that cadres are an asset as ordinary people are quick to receive information and learning for emergencies. It is hoped that this activity will be carried out periodically.

Hazard or Non-Hazard Flood: Post Analysis for Paddy Rice, Wetland, and Other Potential Non-Hazard Flood Extraction from the VIIRS Flood Products

VIIRS flood products have been widely used by the National Weather Service (NWS) for river flood monitoring, and by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the International Charter Program for rescue and relief efforts. However, some water bodies, like irrigated or flooded paddy rice fields, and water in seasonal wetlands, are detected as floodwater instead of permanent, seasonal, controlled, or normal water in the VIIRS flood products. Because these kinds of floodwater don’t cause any severe disasters, they should be delineated as non-hazard floods to differentiate from real hazardous floods, the latter of which generally pose a significant risk and damage to human life, property, and the environment. Hazardous floods are usually caused by intensive rainfall, rapid snowmelt, or ice jams, they appear accidentally and tend to be short-term events. Non-hazard floodwaters generally result from tides, wetlands, agricultural irrigation, and other human activities, and thus they appear regularly and often stand for a longer time. Therefore, non-hazard floodwaters are some kind of standing water and usually have much larger long-time flood frequency or probability than hazardous floods. Based on this feature, it’s possible to combine long-time flood frequency calculated as the ratio of total flooding days over total clear days, including both flooding and no-flooding days, from VIIRS flood products with some additional information, such as agriculture statistics and land cover and land use map, to identify non-hazard floodwater in paddy rice fields and wetland. In this study, non-hazard floodwater bodies are classified into four types: paddy rice fields, wetlands, riparian and coastal tidal flooding, and other non-hazard floods, including possible fishing ponds. In this study, we selected several examples, such as the 2023 California flood event and some large paddy rice fields in China, to demonstrate how to identify water in paddy rice fields. The Florida flood event due to Hurricane Ian in 2022 is used to demonstrate how to separate wetlands from real hazardous floods. In addition to non-hazard floodwaters in wetlands, some coastal tidal flooding in Florida is also detected. The non-hazard floodwaters extracted from the proposed methods are compared with change detection analysis and good agreement is found. The paddy rice fields obtained from this study are compared and evaluated with the rice distribution data from the USDA. The quantitative evaluation results from the confusion matrix calculation demonstrate that the accuracy is 99.96%, recall is 83.69%, precision is 61.57%, and the F1-score is 70.95%. The high accuracy indicates that the method developed in this study for paddy rice field extraction from the VIIRS flood products is feasible.

The Community Health Response Team: a culturally and linguistically tailored community response to COVID-19 addressing barriers to testing and vaccinations for refugee, immigrant and migrant communities in Atlanta, Georgia.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Atlanta and Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) established a Community Health Response Team in May 2020. The team members represented refugee, immigrant and migrant populations and had expertise in health care and public health. These 18 individuals were recruited from IRC Atlanta's Career Development program, had a variety of backgrounds and spoke 20 languages. They implemented a community-centered COVID-response intervention model of pairing education and outreach efforts with testing and vaccination clinics. Due to their team makeup, the Community Health Response Team conducted tailored outreach and education that was culturally and linguistically congruent with their target communities. They administered over 16,000 COVID-19 tests at mobile community sites within the first 6 months. Once COVID-19 vaccinations were available, the Community Health Response Team coordinated a total of 834 vaccination events in communities with a high number of refugees and in partnership with refugee- and immigrant-trusted community-based organizations, resulting in 31,888 vaccinations. Hiring staff from refugee, immigrant and migrant populations created a sustainable staffing model. Also, embedding culturally specific strategies in their model of pairing education and outreach led to long-term relationships and greater trust with community members. This approach of engaging and empowering community members to create tailored public health responses should serve as guidance for future public health campaigns.

The Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Autistic Children and Their Families.

We used data from the National Survey of Children's Health to (1) examine differences in economic hardship and safety net program use after the implementation of federal relief efforts, and (2) assess whether the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated autism-based disparities in hardship and program use. We examined five dimensions of economic hardship (poverty, food insecurity, medical hardship, medical costs, and foregone work) and four safety net programs (cash assistance, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and free or reduced-cost meals). First, we calculated adjusted prevalence and odds ratios to compare pre-COVID (2018-2019) and during COVID (2021) outcomes by autism status. Next, we calculated the adjusted odds of each outcome among autistic children compared to those of children with and without other special healthcare needs at both time points. COVID-19 exacerbated autism-based disparities in food insecurity, SNAP, and public health insurance, but alleviated inequities in medical hardship, foregone work, and cash assistance. Autistic children did not experience declines in food insecurity or increases in SNAP like other children; medical hardship and foregone work decreased more for autistic children; and the magnitude of autism-based differences in public coverage significantly increased during the pandemic. Federal relief efforts likely improved economic outcomes of children; however, these effects varied according to type of hardship and by disability group. Efforts to promote economic well-being among autistic populations should be tailored to the financial challenges most salient to low-income autistic children, like food insecurity.

Is there a case for gridshell structures in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts?

This article focuses on the core concerns of shelter and settlement, and more specifically focuses on large-span shelters in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) efforts. Furthermore, this article introduces the audience to novel large-span structures called gridshells. This paper presents a parametric, computational study that quantifies the efficacy of bracing orientation and arrangement on the load carrying capacity of gridshells. The varied parameters include the grid density (“16 by 16” to “30 by 30”) and the bracing scheme (unbraced, continuous fully-braced, discontinuous fully-braced, continuous half-braced, and discontinuous half-braced). Four load cases were analyzed, namely a symmetric distributed load, an asymmetric distributed load, a centered point load, and an off-centered point load. The results of the study provide designers with trends and basic design options upon which they can base further analysis depending on the requirements of the final structure.

Joint User Association and Power Control in UAV Network: A Graph Theoretic Approach

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently been widely employed as effective wireless platforms for aiding users in various situations, particularly in hard-to-reach scenarios like post-disaster relief efforts. This study employs multiple UAVs to cover users in overlapping locations, necessitating the optimization of UAV-user association to maximize the spectral and energy efficiency of the UAV network. Hence, a connected bipartite graph is formed between UAVs and users using graph theory to accomplish this goal. Then, a maximum weighted matching-based maximum flow (MwMaxFlow) optimization approach is proposed to achieve the maximum data rate given users’ demands and the UAVs’ maximum capacities. Additionally, power control is applied using the M-matrix theory to optimize users’ transmit powers and improve their energy efficiency. The proposed strategy is evaluated and compared with other benchmark schemes through numerical simulations. The simulation outcomes indicate that the proposed approach balances spectral efficiency and energy consumption, rendering it suitable for various UAV wireless applications, including emergency response, surveillance, and post-disaster management.

Utilising crowdsourcing and text mining to enhance information extraction from social media: A case study in handling COVID-19 supply requests in Thailand

Social media platforms are critical for disaster communication and relief efforts. Rapid and precise social media post analysis is required for effective disaster response. This article presents a comprehensive study of a framework that combines crowdsourcing and text mining techniques to enhance data extraction from social media. The research focuses on a particular case study of COVID-19 pandemic medical supply request, which shows several key findings. First, the incorporation of domain-specific data during the training of named entity recognition (NER) models is essential for accurately identifying and retrieving important entities, such as the names of medical supplies and hospitals. Second, the implementation of a hybrid system leads to improvement in the extraction of information from social media posts. Finally, the involvement of crowdsourcing is found to be significant in the validation, verification, and filtering of disorganised information within the hybrid system. Our performance analysis demonstrates that the use of hybrid models has the potential to significantly improve the extraction of supply names (by up to 37%) and hospital names (by up to 66%), especially in the absence of a comprehensive vocabulary or specially trained NER models. During the COVID-19 supply shortage in Thailand, volunteers utilised hybrid models to expedite the identification of the necessary information. Experiment results demonstrated significant improvement in the accuracy of extracted data, the ability to acquire relevant information in real-time, the capacity to handle a substantial number of posts and the practical benefit of the proposed framework.

“Some things are proper, and some things are not”: forgotten men and disciplined women in My Man Godfrey

ABSTRACT My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava, 1936) begins with a critique of Depression-era public relief efforts but then focuses for the remainder of the film on the attempts of one ‘forgotten man’ to restore patriarchal authority to a female-dominated household. In the substitution of disciplined women for politically resistant homeless men, the film maps the consent of the subject to sovereign rule onto the screwball comedy’s plot convention of female submission, thus naturalizing sovereignty, and feminizing the disciplined subject of the welfare state.

Collaborative famine relief: Chinese and British responses to the North China Famine from Melbourne, Victoria

The North China Famine of 1876–79 killed over 10 million people and generated a rise in non-governmental relief both nationally and overseas. This article examines the establishment of the China Famine Fund in Melbourne, Australia, which contributed to famine relief efforts in Shanghai. It demonstrates how the fund’s establishment followed lobbying by Chinese merchants in Melbourne and was made possible by pre-existing Chinese-European collaborative social and commercial networks. In highlighting the fund’s establishment, this article draws attention to the cultural influences of Chinese merchant philanthropy, the global mobilities of famine reportage, and philanthropy as a site for elite cultural encounter.

A modern method for building damage evaluation using deep learning approach - Case study: Flash flooding in Derna, Libya

Year after year, floods become more and more a frequent and destructive force of nature, causing significant infrastructure losses and loss of life. An accurate and rapid assessment is required to determine the degree of contamination. The present study proposes a modern method for building damage assessment using deep learning during the flash flood of Derna, Libya. For this reason, we first exploited SAR satellite data, captured before and after the flood, to accurately determine the flood extent. Next, the footprint of affected buildings within this extent was extracted using a deep learning approach (U-Net model) based on high-resolution satellite imagery (30 cm) from MAXAR. Finally, an additional analysis was carried out using VIIRS VNP46A2 data (500 m spatial resolution) to analyse the night light assessment. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of this method, given that 5877 buildings were submerged by water and 2002 buildings were totally or partially destroyed. Also taking into account the estimated night light, Derna's power supply was reduced by over 90% after the floods. The suggested approach is an effective tool for comprehending the global effects of floods and aiding in relief efforts.

Content Analysis of Flood Relief Efforts: Examining Coping and Recovery Themes in Resilience Narrative Analysis

Climate change and pollution have increased frequency of floods. According to statistics, floods are becoming more frequent and causing significant damage, especially to the victims. Subsequently, victims must develop greater resilience. The aim of this study is to determine the focus on flood victims dealing with flood disasters. As part of the inclusion criteria, six relevant government documents were reviewed, all related to flood resilience. Thematic analysis was conducted using ATLAS.ti software identifies five main themes such as resilience behavior, community sustainability, disaster management, strategic planning, and global security. Therefore, the government should develop innovative strategies, utilize the latest technologies, and promote international collaboration to improve flood resilience. Encouraging community sustainability can help flood victims develop resilience behaviors, which is important for creating a society that can withstand natural disasters.

Mathematical problems for designing a short-distance relief goods distribution network in urban areas

In the humanitarian relief efforts after an earthquake strikes, local capabilities are critical in the first hours to assess the situation and deliver relief supplies to the victims. Usually, the relief goods required by victims are unlikely to be found in the impacted areas, and resources from other places need time to be mobilized to the affected areas. Often in earthquakes in cities in developing countries, relief goods do not arrive on time causing victims to suffer even more. In this paper, we present the mathematical formulations and solutions techniques for designing a short-distance distribution network of relief goods, which can be managed by local governments. In the preparation phase, as a part of the immediate response plan based on scenarios, the facilities location and the preliminary distribution paths must be determined. Hence, a p-median problem and a multi-depot heterogeneous fleet vehicle routing problem (MDHFVRP) must be solved. These problems are usually small and there is time to find a solution. However, in the response phase, a dynamical VRP must be solved.

Effect of Cooperatives Aids on Farmers’ Production in Post Flood Disaster in Anambra

The purpose of the study is to determine how cooperative aid affects farmers’ productivity in Anambra State after flooding incidents. Even with climate change making floods more frequent, the government’s reaction is frequently insufficient, requiring the creation of new support systems. During flood catastrophes, agricultural cooperatives such as the Anambra State Fishermen Cooperative Society (ASFCS) and the Anambra State Agricultural Cooperatives Multipurpose Union (ASACMU) have been instrumental in delivering relief efforts. By doing this study, we hope to close the knowledge gap about how well cooperative aids can reduce the negative effects of flooding on farmers’ yields. Using a mixed-methods approach, 370 farmers were randomly chosen from 118 cooperatives to provide quantitative data, while group interactions provided qualitative insights. The results show that farmers’ productivity and different types of cooperative aid have a substantial positive association. Grain and monetary assistance. Farmers’ post-flood productivity is positively impacted by resource sharing of agricultural inputs, material aid, training and education, extension information, infrastructure development, and government action. These results highlight how crucial cooperative assistance is to raising farmers’ output and resilience in the wake of flood disasters. Among the suggestions include promoting the creation of cooperatives, giving prompt assistance from governmental and non-governmental organizations top priority, enhancing access to agriculture supplies and other necessities, and developing training initiatives that specifically address post-flood issues. In Anambra State, putting these suggestions into practice can improve farmers’ resilience and lessen the effects of flooding. In general, this research advances knowledge of the vital role that cooperative aids play in encouraging resilient farming methods and sustainable agricultural practices among farmers in flood-prone areas such as Anambra State.

Evaluation of Humanitarian Relief Efforts at Displaced Camps in Darfur

Evaluation of Humanitarian Relief Efforts at Displaced Camps in Darfur

From Challenges to Solutions: Stakeholder Roles in Disaster Relief Operations

Disaster relief operations (DROs) in Malaysia require the coordinated efforts of various stakeholders to mitigate impacts and enhance community resilience. However, communication barriers, lack of coordination, and shortage of resources often present challenges that can hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of relief efforts. Thus, this study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of how key stakeholders in Malaysia navigate inter-organizational difficulties during DROs. Specifically, the objective was to identify the key challenges faced and explore initiatives implemented by stakeholders to navigate these challenges to strengthen relief operations. To address these objectives, in-depth interviews were conducted with seven experienced DRO stakeholders across three disaster-prone states in Malaysia: Pahang, Selangor, and Kelantan. Data collection involved using notebooks, video recorders, and voice recorders, and the transcribed data was analyzed using Atlas.ti software for thematic analysis. The analysis revealed four main themes: communication, coordination, manpower, and equipment. The stakeholders proactively strengthened relief operations by creating training programs for disaster response teams, providing comprehensive disaster-related information to the community, developing a sensor-based early warning system, and launching a community engagement program called Kampung Siaga 221 to raise disaster awareness. These initiatives reflect a strategic approach aimed at building more resilient communities, ultimately reducing challenges faced during DROs. The findings of this study contribute to the existing literature on stakeholder involvement in disaster management and offer valuable insights that can inform the development of more coordinated and holistic strategies for DROs in Malaysia. Future research could examine the long-term impact and scalability of these initiatives to other regions, as well as investigate the perspectives of disaster-affected communities to further improve DROs.

Application of Drones in Humanitarian Relief: A Review of State of Art and Recent Advances and Recommendations

With the advent of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), known as drones, their deployment in various sectors, especially in humanitarian relief, has witnessed considerable attention. Despite the growing number of studies highlighting the potential of drones, there remains a discernible research gap in consolidating the lessons learned, challenges faced, and regulations governing their usage, particularly in the United States. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive examination of drone deployment in humanitarian relief through a systematic literature review. By outlining the state of the art of studies and practices of the application of drones for humanitarian relief and healthcare support, and analyzing case studies and regulations, this paper presents a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis and offers a clear picture of the current state of drone application in relief efforts. Results indicate that while drones offer unique advantages, such as accessibility to hard-to-reach areas and rapid response, they also face challenges relating to regulatory restrictions, privacy concerns, and logistical limitations. Based on the analysis, this paper concludes with a set of recommendations for the effective employment of drones, including fostering multi-stakeholder partnerships and streamlining the approval process for emergency drone flights. This study emphasizes the need for collaborative regulatory frameworks and best practices to maximize the potential of drone technology in aiding those in distress.

Implications of trust, preparedness, risk perceptions, and local context on deprivation costs and disaster relief planning

Deprivation Costs Functions (DCFs) are key to designing effective relief distribution operations after disasters. In this paper, data are collected in Colombia and Ecuador to estimate DCFs for water and food, considering the influence of individuals' attitudes on preparedness, risk perception, and trust in response agents. Hybrid Choice Models are used to analyze and compare the estimated DCFs. The analyses confirm that DCFs differ by commodity. Additionally, socioeconomic characteristics of individuals influence their willingness to pay for critical supplies to reduce their own suffering. Preparedness, risk perceptions and trust in response agents impact individuals' behavior in disaster situations. The results also show that community and religious groups are considered the most trusted response agents in both countries. As a result, their involvement in official relief efforts should be more articulated. Colombia and Ecuador show significant differences in their estimated DCFs, confirming that deprivation costs are context-specific by nature. As such, DCFs should not be directly transferred among disaster locations. The findings from this study will support decision-makers in designing effective preparedness and response plans that are based on trust relationships that serve as foundations for community resilience.

Increasing portion of U.S. donors giving bulk of donations to disaster relief

A sizeable majority of U.S. donors gave at least half of their charitable contributions to disaster relief efforts last year, according to a new survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Vanguard Charitable, a leading administrator of donor‐advised funds.

Spatio-temporal evolution of public opinion on urban flooding: Case study of the 7.20 Henan extreme flood event

Under global climate change, the increasing frequency of urban floods caused by heavy rainfall has attracted widespread public attention. Simultaneously, social media serves as an emerging data source, playing an important role in monitoring and researching disaster-related public opinion. In this study, we took the 2021 7.20 Henan extreme flood event as an example, extracting highly relevant microblogs from China's ‘Weibo’ platform to explore the spatio-temporal evolution of public opinion. Firstly, a quantitative period division index was constructed based on the relationship between rainfall and Weibo activity, divided the study period into four parts. Using the LDA ((Latent Dirichlet Allocation) model, we extracted topics and used sentiment dictionary analysis to extract emotions. Subsequently, we analyzed Weibo activity, topics, and sentiment across different periods and conducted comparative assessments. There was a response relationship between precipitation and the number of microblog posts, which varied across different periods. Early on, anxiety and panic regarding the flood surfaced during disaster warnings. During the disaster phase, people in affected areas primarily expressed panic, aid expectations, and needs. Those in surrounding regions exhibited concern for the flood, empathy towards affected people, and support for relief efforts. While after relief operations had commenced, public emotions experienced a rapid recovery. This study presents a quantitative method for dividing flood disaster periods and a comprehensive analysis approach considering both temporal and spatial dimensions to explore public opinion dynamics in typical flood events. It offers suggestions to relevant authorities for implementing targeted emotional management measures and mitigating disaster impacts.