Emergency Relief Work Research Articles

Coastal fisheries and community-based support systems in post disaster contexts

Pacific Island Countries and Territories are highly exposed to natural disasters, intensified by increases in frequency and force of extreme weather events. Pacific societies, like in Vanuatu, have been shaped in many ways by such natural disasters; reflected in customary practices and social fabric of rural coastal communities. When a natural disaster occurs, government attention justifiably focuses on channelling and coordinating international humanitarian aid to fill gaps in capacity and resourcing national recovery efforts. However, central to disaster recovery, particularly in the immediate aftermath of disruption, are the ways that local people support each other (within and between communities). Disconnects between national and local recovery efforts are common and stand to inhibit effective responses. This study aims to understand horizontal, self-organised community-to-community support systems and communities’ post-disaster engagement with external aid. It draws from two different datasets: i) the observations collected through the emergency relief work led by the National Disaster Management Office in Vanuatu shortly after the 2023 twin tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin hit the country, as well as ii) the loss and damage survey led by the Vanuatu Fisheries Department to estimate the level of damage these cyclones caused in various regions of Vanuatu. Through this process, we highlight the social systems that enable community-to-community support, as well as potential opportunities for external-aid to support communities in a more efficient manner. Results reveal that community-to-community support is critical in the first weeks post-disaster. Recognizing the roles that different support networks play at different stages of disaster response is critical not only to improving people's and institutions' ability to bounce back from particular disruptions, but also in broader efforts to strengthen community resilience in the face of climate change.

Multi-attribute decision making for deep learning-based typhoon disaster assessment

Emergency rescue decisions in case of a typhoon disaster can be considered multi-attribute decision-making problems. Considering the need for the timeliness and authenticity of decision-making information sources after such a disaster, this study proposed using learning methods to process real-time online data and interval-valued neutrosophic numbers (NNs) to express the classification results. Using Typhoon Hagupit as an example, a trained text classification model was used to classify real-time data (online comments), following which the classification results were used as weights to convert these data into interval-valued NNs. Finally, the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) method was adopted to rank the extent of damage caused by the typhoon in each region; the sorting results were consistent with the official statistical data, proving the effectiveness of the proposed method. A detailed sensitivity analysis was conducted to determine the optimal parameter settings of the classification model. Furthermore, the proposed method was compared with existing methods in terms of data conversion and deep learning efficiency; the results confirmed the superior capabilities of the proposed method. Notably, the proposed method can provide support to disaster management professionals in their post-disaster emergency relief work.

Experience of Emergency Relief Work and Monitoring for Bird Flu in a City in Eastern India

Bird flu or avian influenza is a zoonotic disease that can be transmitted from migratory and wild birds to poultry birds and rarely also poultry birds to man. The disease is only rarely contagious to man from birds but can lead to very high mortality in humans. Hence there is need of constant control and monitoring activities by district, state and central authorities with active participation of the animal husbandry section. The central team deputed in a city in Eastern India actively monitored the control activities. The article emphasizes the actions and observations by such a central team in an Avian Influenza- affected area in a state in Eastern India.

Optimization of Warehouse Location and Supplies Allocation for Emergency Rescue under Joint Government–Enterprise Cooperation Considering Disaster Victims’ Distress Perception

The location and allocation of emergency supplies are an important part of emergency rescue work. The existing emergency location and allocation process is inefficient, costly, and neglects the psychology of victims. To improve the emergency relief work and solve the current problems, this paper introduces the victims’ pain perception cost into the model, takes the lowest cost of the whole emergency rescue system as the goal, constructs a government–enterprise joint emergency material location–allocation model, and uses the simulated annealing algorithm to solve the model. This paper takes the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan Province as the background and verifies the validity and rationality of the model through a comparative analysis of case simulations. The results show that the model and algorithm can effectively solve the emergency supplies location–allocation problem considering the victims’ pain perception, reflecting the idea of human-centered sustainable development and providing support for building a sustainable emergency relief system.

Developing professional competencies for humanitarian engineers

One of the roles of engineering institutions is the registration and regulation of engineering professionals, assessing their competence in both technical and management areas. A similar approach is being promoted for professional humanitarian engineers, identifying core competencies relevant to emergency relief work. This would improve standards in the workforce, allow training and experience to be independently evaluated, and facilitate the careers of people working in a very mobile sector. Using the experiences of RedR UK in recruiting and training humanitarian engineers, this paper explores the skills, knowledge and other attributes that distinguish an enthusiastic but ill-informed and inexperienced person from somebody with the expertise to work efficiently, effectively and ethically in a challenging humanitarian context.

Social sustainability dimensions in the seismic risk reduction of public schools: a case study of Lima, Peru

The provision of education is a vital feature of a socially sustainable system. However, students in highly seismic areas are under permanent hazard, a critical situation for student populations with high vulnerability factors such as insecure infrastructure, low teacher salaries, and poor living conditions due to social exclusion and inequity. In this article, we use community-based elements, such as institutional arrangements and a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach, to develop a comprehensive multi-scale risk model for socially sustainable seismic risk reduction in schools. We analyze the case of schools in the city of Lima, Peru, integrating aims, objectives, and methodologies based on risk-reduction strategy from previous disciplinary studies. Identifying schools that, on one hand, can be most useful during emergencyrelief work and, on the other hand, educational facilities that could cause the most harm to students are priorities for a risk-reduction strategy. We identify social sustainability factors in schools, such as security and well-being of the student population, accessibility, incomes, basic service provision, and community organization. Specifying the spatial and territorial relationships within public school surroundings is essential to guaranteeing the effectiveness and efficiency of risk-mitigation strategies.

An evaluation of coordination relationships during earthquake emergency rescue using entropy theory.

Emergency rescue after an earthquake is complex work which requires the participation of relief and social organizations. Studying earthquake emergency coordination efficiency can not only help rescue organizations to define their own rescue missions, but also strengthens inter-organizational communication and collaboration tasks, improves the efficiency of emergency rescue, and reduces loss. In this paper, collaborative entropy is introduced to study earthquake emergency rescue operations. To study the emergency rescue coordination relationship, collaborative matrices and collaborative entropy functions are established between emergency relief work and relief organizations, and the collaborative efficiency of the emergency rescue elements is determined based on this entropy function. Finally, the Lushan earthquake is used as an example to evaluate earthquake emergency rescue coordination efficiency.

What is needed to increase the professional competencies of the military emergency medical technicians of the Republic of Korea Air Force?

What is needed to increase the professional competencies of the military emergency medical technicians of the Republic of Korea Air Force?

Mobile Telephony as Catalyst of Social Change-Emerging Trends and Implication in India

The new information and communication technologies have transformed social life more than any of the previous waves of technology innovations that amazed humanity. Mobile telephone as the most ubiquitous of this revolution has become so important a tool for the modern human being that he frightens to think life without it. With a mobile phone subscriber base of 563.73 million, India has already emerged as the second largest wireless connection network in the world only next to China, and efforts are being made from both governmental and non-governmental platforms to further expand the mobile communication infrastructure in the country. The widespread access to mobile phones and the expanding value added services they provide has changed the dynamics of social interaction to the extent of exerting a driving influence on the information economy in India. With rapid mobile phone penetration even in the remotest parts of the country and growing network coverage, mobile phone is playing crucial role in finding solutions to a host of social problems and helping improve lives in underdeveloped parts of the country. Be it, connecting families separated by disaster, help in emergency relief work, empower farmers to ask for better prices in markets, mobile technology has emerged as the catalyst. With very high potential to drive change in the areas of health, humanitarian assistance, and environmental conservation, mobile telephone has emerged as a powerful tool for positive social change.

Albert Murray's Magical Youth

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It's a short walk from 125th Street subway station to Harlem home of Albert Murray, Stanley Crouch's literary father man whom Henry Louis Gates Jr. dubbed King of Cats in New Yorker a few years ago. Murray, a student with Ralph Ellison at Tuskegee in 1930s later Ellison's sparring partner for decades (their long-running cultural dialogue was published in 2000 as Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison Albert Murray), began publishing novels after he retired from Air Force in 1962. may be best known for his trilogy Train Whistle Guitar (1974), The Spyglass Tree (1991), The Seven League Boots (1996), but his critical writings include South to a Very Old Place (1972) From Briarpatch File: On Context, Procedure American Identity (2001), as well as countless articles. I was calling on him in my research for a documentary on Federal Writers' Project, his early friendship with Ellison. As I covered blocks I mentally retraced my phone calls with Murray, searching for some encouragement. Found none. was generally indifferent to questions about his friend's early days on Federal Writers' Project. Murray wasn't interested in politics and all that bullshit, he warned. But he was gracious enough to welcome a visit. I lowered my expectations kept walking. The apartment building dominated an otherwise patchy block. I signed in at desk took elevator up. Mrs. Murray let me in graciously before letting herself out to go to market. Their apartment was packed to transom with books artwork, including a striking collection of African art Romare Bearden prints of Ellington Ulysses. What dominated place, though, was spectacular south-facing window, wide as living room, its down-island vista of all Manhattan. Murray moved slowly used a walker, occasionally he rambled. But at ninety, his mind was agile. Out of nowhere, he launched into a discourse on Booker T. Washington's philosophy for Tuskegee, outlining the talented tenth idea, taking it back to Frederick Douglass, then forward to his own essay in From Briarpatch File, award he received as a notable Alabama writer. Not black writer! Alabama writer. was proud of that. gave an impersonation of Washington (Yes, Lord made Earth, but Dutch made Holland) laughed. said that Washington's point, missed by many of his detractors, was that blacks should work to secure their own property economic base. Murray remained uninterested in my list of questions. Emergency relief work on FDR's New Deal was too ideological for an artist, he said. Murray is famously allergic to labels, especially label of black writer, resents political baggage. knew Ellison not as a black writer, but as an artist intellect beyond categories, beyond simple views of race--like multiracial characters in Ellison's unfinished second novel, published posthumously in 2000 as Juneteenth this year as Three Days Before Shooting. Everybody's related in United States, see? Murray said. Everybody is part white part black ... Those abstractions [white black] get you around But epic literature of thing will deal with metaphors that help you to cope with complexity. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When I asked about 1930s more generally, he directed me to a photo album across room. That's Tuskegee, 1939, he said, pointing to a photo of him in a suit, looking flash. That's way I dressed. The suit was from the swankiest store in Atlanta, a four-hour drive away. Long before Murray met Ellison to discuss books, he first noticed older boy because of his style. He was a junior when I was a freshman, Murray told me. Ellison had worked briefly at a haberdashery in Oklahoma City, which is what attracted me to him. …

Disaster Relief and Recovery after a Landslide at a Small, Rural Hospital in Guatemala

Though many reports have assessed hospital emergency responses during a disaster that affected the facility's operations, relatively little work has been dedicated to identifying factors that aid or impede the recovery of such hospitals. On 05 October 2005, Hurricane Stan triggered landslides that buried an impoverished Mayan community in Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala. The six-bed Hospitalito Atitlán also was in the landslide's path. Though opened just months earlier, the institution maintained 24-hour services until reopening in a new facility only 15 days after the landslides. This qualitative study examined the Hospitalito Atitlán's disaster recovery using unstructured interviews with key hospital personnel and community members. Participant observation provided information about institutional and cultural dynamics affecting the hospital's recovery. Data were collected retrospectively during June-September 2006 and June 2007. The Hospitalito's emergency responses and recovery were distinct endeavors that nonetheless overlapped in time. The initial 12 hours of disorganized emergency relief work was quickly succeeded by an organized effort by the institution to provide inpatient and clinic-based care to the few severely injured and many worried-well patients. As international aid started arriving 2-3 days post-landslide, the Hospitalito's 24-hour clinical services made it an integral organization in the comprehensive health response. Meanwhile, a subset of the Hospitalito's non-clinical staff initiated rebuilding efforts by Day 2 after the event, joined later by medical staff as outside aid allowed them to hand off clinical duties. Effective use of the Internet and conventional media promoted donations of money and supplies, which provided the raw materials used by a group determined to reopen their hospital. Early work by a recovery-focused team coupled with a shared understanding of the Hospitalito as an institution that transcended its damaged building drove the hospital's rapid post-emergency revival. Encouraging a similar sense of mission, emulating the Hospitalito's handling of funding and material procurement, and conducting rebuilding and relief efforts in parallel may aid recovery at other health facilities.

Les interventions psychothérapiques précoces post-traumatiques

La dimension psychologique est d’introduction récente dans la chaîne des secours français. Il faut attendre 1995 avec l’attentat du RER Saint-Michel pour que L. Crocq fonde les cellules d’urgence médicopsychologiques. Les méthodologies de prise en charge des victimes suivent des protocoles de type debriefing psychologique ou de defusing d’inspiration anglo-saxonne ou française. Le premier type élaboré par J. Mitchell en 1988 met l’accent sur les défaillances des cognitions face au traumatisme. L’objectif est de conduire le patient à une représentation mentale des enjeux traumatiques et à une sédation des symptômes invalidants. Le deuxième type, essentiellement francophone, privilégie une approche psychothérapique précoce. Son objectif est la promotion des affects dans le cadre contenant d’une régulation psychodynamique post-traumatique. Celle-ci met l’accent sur le vécu personnel de la victime face aux expériences individualisées de déréliction, d’effondrement psychique ou d’agonie primitive. Ces oppositions de méthode reposent sur des conceptions divergentes du trauma psychique. Notre contribution suggère d’inclure les travaux et recherches sur les processus originaires dans la gestion des pathologies péritraumatiques.

Critical Incidents in emergency relief work

The ethos of technical assistance in emergency relief work has emphasised the importance of recruiting people with appropriate professional and technical skills to work under the difficult circumstances of disasters. The authors used the Critical Incident Technique to assess jobrelated skills that were seen to be crucial for the achievement of the objectives towards which emergency relief personnel were working. Fifteen Irish nurses, working predominantly in refugee camps, identified over 60 different work objectives and 54 distinct job-related skills. It is argued that greater account should be taken of the variety of objectives which motivates such fieldworkers. The job-related skills identified were primarily process- rather than outcome-oriented skills, and the authors hold that a greater emphasis should be placed on the development of fluid as opposed to crystallised skills. The possibilities of using the Critical Incident Technique as a mechanism for feeding back authentic field experience and operationalising effective process skills are discussed.

The Negro in Periodical Literature, 1985-1989 — Part II

INTELLECTUAL--CULTURAL--SOCIAL Anesko, Michael. So Discreet a Zeal: Slavery and the Anglican Church in Virginia, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XCIII (July, 1985), 247-278 A demonstration of the inter-relationship of the Anglican Church in Virginia and practices involving the Negro, 1680-1730. Berthoff, Rowland, Mist Over the South, The Journal of Southern LII (September, 1986), 523-546. The author consistently questions the thesis that the Southern culture is a reflection of English Celtic roots. He reflects on the African survival in the United States, while analyzing the data relative to his theme. pp. 524, 545. Blayney, Michael Stewart, and the Noble Savage, The Tennessee Historical Quarterly, XLV (Spring, 1986), 56-73. An analysis of Roots in an attempt to determine the sources of its popularity. Blight, David W., Frederick Douglass and the American Apocalypse, Civil War XXXI (December, 1985), 309-328. An examination of Douglass's place in the intellectual and theological traditions in the search for the meaning of the American Civil War. Bourgeois, Christie L., Stepping Over Lines: Lyndon Johnson, Black Texans, and the National Youth Administration, 1935-1937, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XCI (October, 1987) 149-172. Reference to J.J. Rhodes and Bishop College, 157, 158. Brady, Marilyn Dell, Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, 1900-1930, Kansas History A Journal of the Central Plains, IX (Spring, 1986), 19-30. The story reflecting the organization, work and development of the Kansas Federation of Colored Women's Clubs from 1900. Burnside, Jacqueline G., Suspicion Versus Faith: Negro Criticism of Berea College in the Nineteenth Century, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, LXXXIII (Summer, 1985), 237-266. The article concentrates on the formative period, the mid-1890's, when Berea began experiencing a rapid rate of growth and the evolving conflict in an unusual experience in racial co-education in the South. Butler, Anne M., Still in Chains: Black Women in Western Prisons, 1865-1910, Western Historical Quarterly, XX (February, 1989), 19-35. The article focuses, with only limited comparative pretenses, on the experiences of black women in Western prisons. Carlton-LaNey, Iris, Social Work Students' Emergency Relief Work Following the East Nashville Fire of 1916, Tennessee Historical Quarterly , XLIV (Winter, 1985), 371-379. A study reflecting the varied actions of Fisk University Social Work students after the Nashville Fire of 1916. Chambers, Clarke A., Toward a Redefinition of Welfare History, The Journal of American LXIII (September, 1986), 407-433. An analysis urging an expansion and redefinition of the field of welfare history and an attempt to point up the necessity for closer co-ordination with the new social history-blacks involved. Chapman, Gregory Dean, Army Life at Camp Thomas, Georgia, During the Spanish American War, The Georgia Historical Quarterly, LXX (Winter, 1986), 633-656. Black military unit cited in a review of military experiences at Camp Thomas, Georgia during the Spanish American War and the following years. Blacks cited, 637, 638, 639. Chiswick, Barry R., Differences in Education and Earnings Across Racial and Ethnic Groups: Tastes, Discrimination, and Investments in Child Quality, Quarterly Journal of Economics, CIII (August, 1988), 571-595. A demonstration that group differences in earnings, schooling and rates of return from schooling, are striking, higher levels of schooling-higher rates of return which coincides with child quality investment, rejecting determinants of schooling are discrimination, minority group status. Clement, Priscilla Ferguson, Children and Charity: Orphanages in New Orleans, 1817-1914, Louisiana XXVII (Fall, 1986), 337-351. …