Emergency Alerts Research Articles

An Improved Monitoring System via the Integration of Structural Health Monitoring and Earthquake Emergency Alert Technologies

As a result of the advantages it offers in construction management and maintenance, structural health monitoring for civil structures is becoming more popular in Europe and throughout the world. The main advantages of using such methods include cheaper inspections, more accurate research into the behavior of structures under dynamic loads, better seismic protection, and real-time or near-real-time observation of structural response and evolution of damage, which helps with post-earthquake scenario production and rescue efforts. As a result, Structural Monitoring Systems is a very multidisciplinary field, in which researchers from a wide variety of fields and institutions may work together to improve the effectiveness and reliability of these systems, the benefits of which are almost self-evident. Nowadays, developments in wireless sensor networks, techniques for determining modal properties, and damage detection systems are among the most urgent issues in the sector. Although modal identification and damage detection algorithms have improved, sensor technology has advanced at a faster rate.

Pengetahuan, Sikap Dan Keterampilan Masyarakat Kota Jayapura Dalam Pencegahan Penularan Covid-19

The non-natural disaster status of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Papua Province has been raised from Emergency Alert to Emergency Response. People in Papua, especially those in Jayapura, are required to quarantine and practice Social Distancing and Physical Distancing. But what are the knowledge, attitudes and skills of the Jayapura people to prevent the transmission of this virus? This study was designed to look at the efforts of the Jayapura community in preventing the transmission of COVID-19 through descriptive quantitative methods. With the Google Form questionnaire data collection tool which was distributed online to the people of Jayapura, there were 117 residents of Jayapura City who became respondents in this study. The results obtained are the knowledge, attitudes and skills of Jayapura residents in preventing Covid-19 above 50%. This is because the local government is responsive and there is a national event in Jayapura that encourages a fairly fast and significant process of behavior change.

Testing the public’s response to receiving severe flood warnings using simulated cell broadcast

European Governments must implement a public alerting system to reach mobile phone users affected by major emergencies and disasters by June 2022. Cell Broadcast is used to issue emergency alerts in several countries but has not yet been introduced in the UK. This paper presents the results of a joint research exercise that explored recipients’ responses to cell broadcast messages that warned of floods of varying certainty, severity, and urgency. We adopted a mixed-methods approach employing semi-structured questions and focus groups to assess the perceptions of 80 workshop participants who received simulated emergency alerts on pre-prepared handsets. Our results suggest that although emergency alerting is welcomed, it is necessary to provide accurate and verifiable information, address accessibility challenges, and state location clearly and understandably. This life-saving technology, if used aptly by not over-alerting, specifying the specific urgency, certainty, severity and location of the flood risk, has the real potential of upgrading flood warnings in the UK.

Effectiveness of wireless emergency alerts for social distancing against COVID-19 in Korea

This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of wireless emergency alerts (WEAs) on social distancing policy. The Republic of Korea has been providing information to the public through WEAs using mobile phones. This study used five data sets: WEA messages, news articles including the keyword “COVID-19,” the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients, public foot traffic data, and the government’s social distancing level. The WEAs were classified into two topics—“warning” and “guidance”—using a random forest model. The results of the correlation analysis and further detailed analysis confirmed that the “warning” WEA topic and number of news articles significantly affected public foot traffic. However, the “guidance” topic was not significantly associated with public foot traffic. In general, the Korean government’s WEAs were effective at encouraging the public to follow social distance recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the “warning” WEA topic, by providing information about the relative risk directly concerning the recipients, was significantly more effective than the “guidance” topic.

We Interrupt This Program, This Is an Emergency: Revisiting the Role of Radio in a Crisis

ABSTRACT During disasters and emergencies, radio stations frequently operate in the public interest through the dissemination of critical information. To assess the current perceptions and preparedness of radio stations to broadcast crisis information, the current study replicates and extends a survey conducted in the United States in 2009. Results suggest that radio stations devote a similar amount of time to crisis training and preparedness and continue to consider the Emergency Alert System (EAS) as an appropriate resource. However, the widespread popularity of social media appears to have shifted the way that some stations perceive the ideal placement of crisis information.

An intelligent fuzzy-based emergency alert generation for persons with episodic memory decline problems

Many humans deal with problems that concern episodic memory decline. These problems can cause annoying, and sometimes, dangerous incidents, like failing to recall the name of a friend or forgetting to take a medicine or turn off the cooker. Concerning the above, this paper presents a fuzzy rule-based mechanism that generates emergency alerts when a dangerous situation is caused by an inconsistency in the human’s actions in the home environment. In such a way, the system protects persons with episodic memory decline problems or lapses of attention from dangerous situations that may be caused by their memory disorder and allows them to complete an everyday activity. For the paper’s needs the application of the presented mechanism is limited to the usage of a cooker. The system takes as input the time, the size and the content of the pot that is used to the cooker, calculates the degree of emergency and describes it using fuzzy sets and, finally, applies rules over the fuzzy sets to generate alert messages that notify the monitored person about the next action that s/he has to do in order to complete a particular activity. For the evaluation of the system, we have developed a simulation program that asks users to complete some activities during a specific time period. The system embeds the presented fuzzy rule-based mechanism and monitors the user’s actions and generated alerts, which concern the usage of the stove burner. The simulation software was used by 15 users. Their reactions and opinions about the system’s alerts and the assistance it offers, are positive.

Personal Emergency Alert Device Containing Real-Time Location

Purpose–The purpose of this study is to develop a Personal Emergency Alert Device Containing Real-time Location which can be used by anyone particularly women and children who need help especially in times of emergency. Method–Arduino Nano, Global Positioning System, and Global System for Mobile Communication were utilized as the main components of the device, which was evaluated in the aspect of appearance through its size, weight, product design, casing, and functionality through its accuracy in displaying information, text messaging capabilities, and location tracking. In order to optimize the product’s specifications, it underwent assessment and evaluation by experts in the field. The study used product development design. There were twenty (20) respondents in total, comprising of five (5) Electronics Engineer and fifteen (15) Electronics Engineering students who were selected using purposive sampling techniques. The responses were gathered from the students by handing out questionnaires, which were eventually tallied, tabulated, processed and treated using statistical treatment.Results–The structure of the device is excellent. The product also passed the evaluation of the expert respondents in terms of functionality since it is excellent in accessing the information, delivering the right information, and finding exact locations. The device is thus functional as it serves its purpose.Conclusion–The structure of the device is excellent. The product also passed the evaluation of the expert respondents in terms of functionality since it is excellent in accessing the information, delivering the right information, and finding exact locations. The device is thus functional as it serves its purpose.Recommendations–It is recommended that the product developers should reduce the device size. They should also ensure that the casing and design are attractive to make the device noticeable. Moreover, to further improve the functionality of the device, product developers should track the exactlocation instead of coordinates. They should also consider which cellular network works best for different places. Lastly, to augment the results and findings of this study, further research undertakings on this topic should be conducted.Research Implications–The users of this product can help summon assistance in case of emergency. Practical Implications–Anyone who is experiencing emergency cases will just press the button for them to be tracked and be saved.

Researching Integrated Disaster Risk Management from an Interpretive/Critical Perspective

This essay describes what an interpretive/critical perspective on integrated disaster risk management entails and highlights related research contributions in the field. These contributions offer researchers examples of interdisciplinary, international, multi-methodological, and cross-cultural research in an array of disaster contexts that reflect the philosophical and normative commitments of interpretive/critical scholarship. The essay describes the author’s experiences in applying an interpretive/critical perspective in researching the U.S. Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system, and it explores the value (and risks) that such a perspective holds for policy intervention, institutional practice, and one’s own professional development.

Evaluating the Impact of WEA 2.0 Regulations on WEA Message Content Accessibility

Policy is ever-changing and evolving to address the needs of the population it serves. The conversation surrounding emergency preparedness often excludes vulnerable populations such as people with disabilities. Therefore, policies and regulations must address existing gaps with inclusive emergency communications. As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) re-examines and modifies regulations for the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA), it is invaluable to evaluate whether these regulatory policies have accomplished their intended effect to become more accessible and inclusive. Thus, this paper explores the impact of WEA 2.0 regulations implemented in December of 2019 on the accessibility of WEA message content and provides a comparative analysis on the accessibility of these messages before the regulation and after.

Winter Storm Uri: A Test of Texas’ Water Infrastructure and Water Resource Resilience to Extreme Winter Weather Events

We synthesize the interconnected impacts of Texas’ water and energy resources and infrastructure including the cascading effects due to Winter Storm Uri. The government’s preparedness, communication, policies, and response as well as storm impacts on vulnerable communities are evaluated using available information and data. Where knowledge gaps exist, we propose potential research to elucidate health, environmental, policy, and economic impacts of the extreme weather event. We expect that recommendations made here — while specific to the situation and outcomes of Winter Storm Uri — will increase Texas’ resilience to other extreme weather events not discussed in this paper. We found that out of 14 million residents who were on boil water notices, those who were served by very small water systems went, on average, a minimum of three days longer without potable water. Available county-level data do not indicate vulnerable communities went longer periods of time without power or water during the event. More resolved data are required to understand who was most heavily impacted at the community or neighborhood level. Gaps in government communication, response, and policy are discussed, including issues with identifying — and securing power to — critical infrastructure and the fact that the state’s Emergency Alert System was not used consistently to update Texans during the crisis. Finally, research recommendations are made to bolster weaknesses discovered during and after the storm including (1) reliable communication strategies, (2) reducing disproportionate impacts to vulnerable communities, (3) human health impacts, (4) increasing water infrastructure resilience, and (5) how climate change could impact infrastructure resilience into the future.

Fog-Internet of things-assisted multi-sensor intelligent monitoring model to analyze the physical health condition.

Internet of Things (IoT) technology provides a tremendous and structured solution to tackle service deliverance aspects of healthcare in terms of mobile health and remote patient tracking. In medicine observation applications, IoT and cloud computing serves as an assistant in the health sector and plays an incredibly significant role. Health professionals and technicians have built an excellent platform for people with various illnesses, leveraging principles of wearable technology, wireless channels, and other remote devices for low-cost healthcare monitoring. This paper proposed the Fog-IoT-assisted multisensor intelligent monitoring model (FIoT-MIMM) for analyzing the patient's physical health condition. The proposed system uses a multisensor device for collecting biometric and medical observing data. The main point is to continually generate emergency alerts on mobile phones from the fog system to users. For the precautionary steps and suggestions for patients' health, a fog layer's temporal information is used. Experimental findings show that the proposed FIoT-MIMM model has less response time and high accuracy in determining a patient's condition than other existing methods. Furthermore, decision making based on real-time healthcare information further improves the utility of the suggested model.

Development of Multi-Item Air Quality Monitoring System Based on Real-Time Data

Many air pollutants are inhaled by human breathing, increasing the prevalence of respiratory disease and even mortality. With the recent COVID-19 issue, the number of air pollutants affecting humans is demands further investigation. However, there are not many adequate air measuring devices that can cover a variety of air pollutants. In this study, the developed air measurement system is able to measure sixteen air pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, PM4.0, PM1.0, CO2, CH4, temperature, humidity, VOCs, O2, H2S, NH3, SO2, CO, O3, NO2) in real time. The developed ‘multi-item air quality monitoring system’ can measure sixteen air pollutants in real time and transmit them to the server and the smartphone application at the same time. It was developed to reduce air pollutant damage to humans by emergency alerts using the smartphone application. The development system is composed of hardware development (measurement device) and software development (smartphone application, server). To verify the reliability of the developed equipment, a comparative test, temperature–humidity accuracy test, and operating temperature test were conducted. In the comparative test, difference ratios of ±5% for PM10, ±6% for PM2.5, ±4% for O3, ±5% for NO2, ±7% for CO, and ±7% for SO2 were found compared to the professional measuring devices. The temperature and humidity accuracy test result showed high reliability at ±1% and humidity ± 2%. The result of the operating temperature test showed that there was no problem in normal operation, However, further tests including the long-term comparative test and the closed chamber test will be carried out for all sensors. Additional work including a long-term test for more clear reliability of the device and closed chamber accuracy test for all 16-item sensors, data acquisition rate, and data transmit rate are in progress for commercializing the device.

Exploring whether wireless emergency alerts can help impede the spread of Covid‐19

Officials worldwide have sought ways to effectively use mobile technology to communicate health information to help thwart the spread of Covid‐19. This study offers a preliminary exploration of whether state‐level (N = 6) and local‐level (N = 53) wireless emergency alert (WEA) messages might contribute to impeding the spread of Covid‐19 in the United States. The study compares changes in reported rates of infections and deaths between states and localities that issued WEA messages in March and April of 2020 with states that did not. Small sample sizes and differences in the rates of Covid‐19 spread prohibit robust statistical analysis and detection of clear effect sizes, but estimated effects are generally in the right direction. Combining statistical analysis with preliminary categorization of both WEA message content and social media themes suggests that a positive effect from WEA messages cannot be ruled out.

Securing the wireless emergency alerts system

Modern cell phones are required to receive and display alerts via the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) program, under the mandate of the Warning, Alert, and Response Act of 2006. These alerts include AMBER alerts, severe weather alerts, and (unblockable) Presidential Alerts, intended to inform the public of imminent threats. Recently, a test Presidential Alert was sent to all capable phones in the U.S., prompting concerns about how the underlying WEA protocol could be misused or attacked. In this paper, we investigate the details of this system and develop and demonstrate the first practical spoofing attack on Presidential Alerts, using commercially available hardware and modified open source software. Our attack can be performed using a commercially available software-defined radio, and our modifications to the open source software libraries. We find that with only four malicious portable base stations of a single Watt of transmit power each, almost all of a 50,000-seat stadium can be attacked with a 90% success rate. The real impact of such an attack would, of course, depend on the density of cellphones in range; fake alerts in crowded cities or stadiums could potentially result in cascades of panic. Fixing this problem will require a large collaborative effort between carriers, government stakeholders, and cellphone manufacturers. To seed this effort, we also propose three mitigation solutions to address this threat.

The Effect of the Transmission of Coronavirus Disease-2019 on the Mentality of Parents and Children After the First Wave of Infections

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of the spread of a new type of coronavirus infection (COVID-19) on the mental state in school-age children and parents focusing on the aspects of sleep disorders and depression. A questionnaire survey was conducted for 123 parents and 108 school-age children who visited Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Kyung Hee University Dental Hospital at Gangdong from April 2, 2020 through April 25, 2020, via the direct writing method. Participants were assessed with Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)-7, Center for Epidemiology Scale for Depression. Logistic regressions were used with a level of significance of 5%. The prevalence of GAD, depression, and poor sleep in parents were 34.1%, 17.1% and 44.7%, respectively. The prevalence of GAD in children was 20.4%. Logistic regression showed that stress from Emergency Alert Messages about COVID-19 was associated with GAD and depression in parents. In children, the degree of emotional change after COVID-19 was associated with GAD. This study confirmed that there was a change in the psychological status of children and guardians due to the epidemic of coronavirus disease-2019, and it would be necessary to consider their psychological status during dental treatment.

Gesture Detection using Tensor flow lite Efficient Net Model for Communication and E learning Module for Mute and Deaf

Human communication plays a vital role; without communicating, day-to-day tasks seem difficult to complete. And the world has an almost 5% population that struggles with hearing or speaking disability, which contributes to 430 million people worldwide, and this will grow up to 900million just in the next 25 to 30 years. With the increasing noise pollution, hearing capacity degrades, leading to various hearing problems. The WHO statistics show that 32million kids are acoustically impaired. With disabilities, there are multiple issues these people face, such as lack of learning facilities, job opportunities, communication platforms, etc. These people need a cooperative environment to express, learn at their pace and level of understanding. This paper focuses on developing an application that bridges the gap between these acoustically disabled people and people unknown to their way of communication. The proposed research is an edge device application provides features like a gesture to text, speech to text, e-learning platform, and Alert mechanism. This paper majorly focuses on developing a friendly all in one platform for mute and deaf community for communication, learning and emergency alerts. The research was conducted with two approaches the traditional CNN and Tensorflow lite EfficientNet model to train the ASL (American Sign Language) dataset for the communication platform, where we obtained accuracy of 98.91% and 98.82% respectively. To overcome the computational barriers of traditional CNN approach, Tensorf low lite Efficient Net model was brought into the picture. The proposed methodology would help build a platform for the deaf and mute community to express themselves better and gain wider exposure to the world.

The impact of air pollution alert services on respiratory diseases: generalized additive modeling study in South Korea

To reduce human exposure to particulate matter (PM), governments have enacted various preventive measures, to which a warning system is central. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to assess the effectiveness of mobile-based warning systems on respiratory health outcomes, examining two types of (particles less than in diameter) alerts via text messaging systems: Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) and Air Quality Information Text (AIT) as employed in South Korea from January 2015 to October 2019. We used a generalized additive model to control the non-linear relationship between the level and the number of hospital visits and admissions for four respiratory sicknesses—chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, respiratory tract infection, asthma, and pneumonia—while deciphering how such visits and admissions are reduced by the warning systems. Our results found that both systems reduced the number of new patients with the four sicknesses at a 5% statistical significance level. Of the two, WEA was found to be more effective than AIT. The former reduced the number of new patients by 16.4%, while the latter did so by 2.8%. WEA is for everyone with a cell phone connection. By sending simple and direct alerts to a broader range of people, WEA would help people to reduce the chance of short-term exposure to PM in general. The findings provide evidence with policy implications regarding air pollution adaptation.

Proposing an International Standard Accident Number for Interconnecting Information and Communication Technology Systems of the Rescue Chain.

Background The rapid dissemination of smart devices within the internet of things (IoT) is developing toward automatic emergency alerts which are transmitted from machine to machine without human interaction. However, apart from individual projects concentrating on single types of accidents, there is no general methodology of connecting the standalone information and communication technology (ICT) systems involved in an accident: systems for alerting (e.g., smart home/car/wearable), systems in the responding stage (e.g., ambulance), and in the curing stage (e.g., hospital). Objectives We define the International Standard Accident Number (ISAN) as a unique token for interconnecting these ICT systems and to provide embedded data describing the circumstances of an accident (time, position, and identifier of the alerting system). Materials and Methods Based on the characteristics of processes and ICT systems in emergency care, we derive technological, syntactic, and semantic requirements for the ISAN, and we analyze existing standards to be incorporated in the ISAN specification. Results We choose a set of formats for describing the embedded data and give rules for their combination to generate an ISAN. It is a compact alphanumeric representation that is generated easily by the alerting system. We demonstrate generation, conversion, analysis, and visualization via representational state transfer (REST) services. Although ISAN targets machine-to-machine communication, we give examples of graphical user interfaces. Conclusion Created either locally by the alerting IoT system or remotely using our RESTful service, the ISAN is a simple and flexible token that enables technological, syntactic, and semantic interoperability between all ICT systems in emergency care.

Air Quality Monitoring System with Emergency Alerts Using IOT

The level of air in a particular region has a very strong effect on the human condition in a section because of the level that will affect the health of living organisms. Therefore, it is necessary to periodically measure air quality conditions in the area. during this study period an IoT-based air quality monitoring system was developed to address air quality conditions in the area. The system can monitor the sensitivity sensors to determine the quantity of many small particles within the air and O3, SO2, CO and objects. Studying device information exploits including Arduino microcontroller is being studied. The data is then transmitted directly to the cloud system using a wireless LAN module in Arduino for access to the cloud service. View results are displayed directly on a web page or application provided by the cloud service.

Emergency Alert System for Vehicles using Fog Computing and Cloud Computing

Emergency Alert System for Vehicles using Fog Computing and Cloud Computing