Emergency Response Activities Research Articles

Petri-net based evaluation of emergency response actions for preventing domino effects triggered by fire

In industrial chemistry, many flammable materials are handled and/or stored in various facilities. It is possible that major fires occur at these facilities possibly leading to domino effects due to the failure of neighboring facilities caused by thermal radiation. It will take a certain time that thermal radiation causes nearby facilities to fail and that a domino effect occurs. The time needed for escalation to take place allows emergency actions as a response to the primary fire to prevent the propagation of the fire. In the present study, a Timed Colored Hybrid Petri-net (TCHPN) based methodology is introduced to evaluate different emergency response actions based on their efficiency in preventing or delaying the propagation of domino effects. A TCHPN model of emergency response to flammable liquid tank fire is established, and a time based analysis of emergency response actions for preventing domino effects is performed. Based on the simulation analysis, the probability of domino effects is calculated and response actions are compared.

Rapid post-earthquake modelling of coseismic landslide intensity and distribution for emergency response decision support

Abstract. Current methods to identify coseismic landslides immediately after an earthquake using optical imagery are too slow to effectively inform emergency response activities. Issues with cloud cover, data collection and processing, and manual landslide identification mean even the most rapid mapping exercises are often incomplete when the emergency response ends. In this study, we demonstrate how traditional empirical methods for modelling the total distribution and relative intensity (in terms of point density) of coseismic landsliding can be successfully undertaken in the hours and days immediately after an earthquake, allowing the results to effectively inform stakeholders during the response. The method uses fuzzy logic in a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to quickly assess and identify the location-specific relationships between predisposing factors and landslide occurrence during the earthquake, based on small initial samples of identified landslides. We show that this approach can accurately model both the spatial pattern and the number density of landsliding from the event based on just several hundred mapped landslides, provided they have sufficiently wide spatial coverage, improving upon previous methods. This suggests that systematic high-fidelity mapping of landslides following an earthquake is not necessary for informing rapid modelling attempts. Instead, mapping should focus on rapid sampling from the entire affected area to generate results that can inform the modelling. This method is therefore suited to conditions in which imagery is affected by partial cloud cover or in which the total number of landslides is so large that mapping requires significant time to complete. The method therefore has the potential to provide a quick assessment of landslide hazard after an earthquake and may therefore inform emergency operations more effectively compared to current practice.

Cyber physical systems design, methodology, and integration: the current status and future outlook

Emerging cyber-physical systems (CPS) field will impact on every activity of the daily life in the next few years With the increasing advances in ICT information communication technology (ICT), multidisciplinary fields of research such as cyber-physical systems (CPS) have been wide. The emergence of cyber-physical-social systems (CPS) as a novel paradigm has revolutionized the relationship between humans, computers and the physical environment. This paper aims to present a comprehensive overview of CPS key aspects from different points of views such as design, methodology, and key enabler technologies such as sensor networks, Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, and multi-agent systems. Also, some important applications such as smart cities which are considered as one of the important application that will provide new services for healthcare applications, vehicular networks, energy distribution, the monitoring of environmental changes, business and commerce applications, emergency response, and other social activities and industrial systems are explored. Also, this paper considers the requirements and methodologies for CPS integrations such as CloudIoT and CloudIoV systems. Although, there are significant efforts and studies have been made towards CPS application, key challenges and problems in CPS have been identified in this paper to be considered as research issues the next few years.

Integration of Probabilistic and Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment Within Urban Development Planning and Emergency Preparedness and Response: Application to Manizales, Colombia

The details of a multi-hazard and probabilistic risk assessment, developed for urban planning and emergency response activities in Manizales, Colombia, are presented in this article. This risk assessment effort was developed under the framework of an integral disaster risk management project whose goal was to connect risk reduction activities by using open access and state-of-the-art risk models. A probabilistic approach was used for the analysis of seismic, landslide, and volcanic hazards to obtain stochastic event sets suitable for probabilistic loss estimation and to generate risk results in different metrics after aggregating in a rigorous way the losses associated to the different hazards. Detailed and high resolution exposure databases were used for the building stock and infrastructure of the city together with a set of vulnerability functions for each of the perils considered. The urban and territorial ordering plan of the city was updated for socioeconomic development and land use using the hazard and risk inputs and determinants, which cover not only the current urban area but also those adjacent areas where the expansion of Manizales is expected to occur. The emergency response capabilities of the city were improved by taking into account risk scenarios and after updating an automatic and real-time post-earthquake damage assessment.

Residual ultimate strength assessment of double hull oil tanker after collision

The aim of the present study is the assessment of a residual ultimate strength of an Aframax-class double hull oil tanker damaged in collision. A contribution to the research of the problem is given in a systematic investigation of the influence of the rotation of neutral axis (NA), which is performed by imposing appropriate boundary conditions. Nonlinear finite element method (NFEM), using explicit dynamic integration method implemented in LS-Dyna, is employed. NFEM results are compared with the IACS CSR progressive collapse analysis (PCA) method. Residual strength diagrams are developed for a rapid residual ultimate longitudinal strength assessment in both sagging and hogging and accounting for correction factor because of the rotation of NA. Following this, developed diagrams are compared with previously published researches. The results of this study may be used by classification societies in a Rules development process, in the risk assessment studies of the maritime transportation and for a quick calculation of the hull girder residual strength of a damaged ship in the situation requiring emergency response action.

Advanced modeling techniques of a spent fuel pool with both RELAP5 and MELCOR and associated accident analysis

A spent fuel pool (SFP) is designed as a temporary storage facility for spent fuels before the spent fuels can be shipped away for intermediate storage or reprocessing. Although the likelihood of an SFP cooling accident is extremely low, the SFP event at the Fukushima Daiichi unit 4 demonstrated how confusion and lack of information during the progression of an SFP accident could adversely contribute to emergency response actions. Advanced SFP modeling schemes for both RELAP5 and MELCOR were successfully developed to analyze accidents of SFP. According to the heat load density, an SFP was divided into one high power region for the latest discharged fuel bundles and several regular power regions for other fuel bundles with proper lumping schemes. Particular to the RELAP5 modeling, a 3×3 hot channel model was also included in the high power region to calculate the interactive responses between adjacent bundles. Detailed thermal hydraulic responses of regions with different power densities, including the hottest bundle, can all be properly simulated. The detailed thermal hydraulic responses observed include temperature rise and inlet mass fluxes driven by bundles with different power, termination of natural circulation flow by descending water level, and sequential heat up of bundles with different powers. A comparison of the counterpart calculation of a loss-of-cooling accident before fuel degradation with both RELAP5 and MELCOR is also demonstrated, and general consistency between the two codes is observed. The SFP RELAP5 model was further applied to evaluate SFP emergency operation procedures involving makeup and spray mitigation in the event of loss-of-cooling or loss-of-coolant. Moreover, the SFP MELCOR model was also applied to calculate severe accident progression after a loss-of-cooling accident in the SFP. The entire progression calculated by MELCOR successfully demonstrates the capability of MELCOR to calculate the SFP responses covering both thermal hydraulics and severe accident progression during an accident involving both loss-of-cooling and loss-of-coolant accidents.

Detecting Damaged Building Regions Based on Semantic Scene Change from Multi-Temporal High-Resolution Remote Sensing Images

The detection of damaged building regions is crucial to emergency response actions and rescue work after a disaster. Change detection methods using multi-temporal remote sensing images are widely used for this purpose. Differing from traditional methods based on change detection for damaged building regions, semantic scene change can provide a new point of view since it can indicate the land-use variation at the semantic level. In this paper, a novel method is proposed for detecting damaged building regions based on semantic scene change in a visual Bag-of-Words model. Pre- and post-disaster scene change in building regions are represented by a uniform visual codebook frequency. The scene change of damaged and non-damaged building regions is discriminated using the Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. An evaluation of experimental results, for a selected study site of the Longtou hill town of Yunnan, China, which was heavily damaged in the Ludian earthquake of 14 March 2013, shows that this method is feasible and effective for detecting damaged building regions. For the experiments, WorldView-2 optical imagery and aerial imagery is used.

Perceptions, behavioral expectations, and implementation timing for response actions in a hurricane emergency

This study examined the perceived attributes, behavioral expectations, and expected implementation timing of 11 organizational emergency response actions for hurricane emergencies. The perceived attributes of the hurricane response actions were characterized by two hazard-related attributes (effectiveness for person protection and property protection) and five resource-related attributes (financial costs, required knowledge/skill, required equipment, required time/effort, and required cooperation). A total of 155 introductory psychology students responded to a hypothetical scenario involving an approaching Category 4 hurricane. The data collected in this study explain previous findings of untimely protective action decision making. Specifically, these data reveal distinctly different patterns for the expected implementation of preparatory actions and evacuation recommendations. Participants used the hazard-related and resource-related attributes to differentiate among the response actions and the expected timing of implementation. Moreover, participants’ behavioral expectations and expected implementation timing for the response actions were most strongly correlated with those actions’ effectiveness for person protection. Finally, participants reported evacuation implementation times that were consistent with a phased evacuation strategy in which risk areas are evacuated in order of their proximity to the coast. However, the late initiation of evacuation in risk areas closest to the coast could lead to very late evacuation of risk areas farther inland.

Analysis of emergency response actions for preventing fire-induced domino effects based on an approach of reversed fuzzy Petri-net

In the chemical process industry, large quantities of different flammable substances are stored in tank farms. Due to potential mutual impacts among the tanks, severe domino accidents may occur after a tank catches fire. The emergency response to a tank fire may influence the development of the accident and impact the occurring of escalating events or so-called domino effects. In this paper, a fuzzy Petri-net (FPN) based reversed reasoning approach is proposed to analyze emergency response actions impacting domino effects. FPN is utilized to deduce the consequence-antecedent relationship between an accident and the emergency response actions. To analyze and compare the impacts of the actions on a domino effect, the backward reasoning is of special interest and often preferable when the occurrence probability of domino effects is known. As a tank fire accident in an oil depot usually lasts for a certain period of time, and as it may be greatly influenced by emergency response actions, it is taken as an example to illustrate the proposed approach.

Enhancing Resilience of Bridges to Extreme Events by Rapid Damage Assessment and Response Strategies

The U.S. highway transportation network consists of more than 650,000 bridges that are essential to maintaining the performance of the network. The existing bridges are, however, vulnerable to a variety of natural and manufactured (human-caused) hazards and may act as bottlenecks in the case of any failures. The most common extreme events include natural hazards, such as ground excitation during earthquakes, high wind and storm surges in hurricanes, and scouring and debris impacts during floods. Despite several advances in the technologies available for the design of new bridges and the retrofitting of existing ones, incidents in which bridges fail partially or completely after an extreme event still occur. In such cases, it is important for the federal, state, and local authorities to identify the damaged bridges, quantify the extent of the damage, plan for rapid recovery, and provide alternative routes for emergency response and evacuation activities. For this purpose, NCHRP Synthesis Topic 46-11 gathered the relevant information on the technologies available for the rapid assessment of damage to highway bridges after an extreme event, the availability of data from these techniques to transportation agencies and bridge owners, decision-making tools or processes that would use the data, and the emergency planning protocols in place to address the failures in bridges. This paper provides a summary of the findings of that project.

CDC Grand Rounds: Modeling and Public Health Decision-Making.

Mathematical models incorporate various data sources and advanced computational techniques to portray real-world disease transmission and translate the basic science of infectious diseases into decision-support tools for public health. Unlike standard epidemiologic methods that rely on complete data, modeling is needed when there are gaps in data. By combining diverse data sources, models can fill gaps when critical decisions must be made using incomplete or limited information. They can be used to assess the effect and feasibility of different scenarios and provide insight into the emergence, spread, and control of disease. During the past decade, models have been used to predict the likelihood and magnitude of infectious disease outbreaks, inform emergency response activities in real time (1), and develop plans and preparedness strategies for future events, the latter of which proved invaluable during outbreaks such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and pandemic influenza (2-6). Ideally, modeling is a multistep process that involves communication between modelers and decision-makers, allowing them to gain a mutual understanding of the problem to be addressed, the type of estimates that can be reliably generated, and the limitations of the data. As models become more detailed and relevant to real-time threats, the importance of modeling in public health decision-making continues to grow.

Influence of emission rate on atmospheric dispersion modeling of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident

The role of emission rate in atmospheric dispersion modeling was investigated in this study. Six different emission rates that were estimated by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and Norwegian Institute for Air Research after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident were used as inputs to FLEXPART-WRF, a Lagrangian particle dispersion model. High-resolution (1 km) meteorological data in a local scale region (100 km) were downscaled dynamically by the Weather Research and Forecasting model from a reanalysis of ERA-Interim during 11–31 March, 2011, and were used to drive the model. The accumulated deposition of 137Cs was used to assess the simulations. Deposition occurred mainly during four periods dominated by wet deposition due to precipitation, which were 15, 20–22, 25, and 30–31 March. The basic deposition pattern was established on 15 March, shortly after the highest emission rates of 14 March, and the largest variation in deposition with the different emission rates was also observed in this period. Emission rates estimated are usually not independent from the models and meteorological input data. The model-meteorology combination used for emergency response activities had better be the one used to determine the source term.

Simulation analysis of the use of emergency resources during the emergency response to a major fire

During an emergency response to an accident or disaster, emergency response actions often need to use various emergency resources. The use of resources plays an important role in the successful implementation of emergency response, but there may be conflicts in the use of resources for emergency actions. According to the emergency response in case of an oil fire, two types of emergency response models with dynamic structure are established by using Resource-Oriented Timed Colored Hybrid Petri-Net (RO-TCHPN). Type 1 model does not establish a special conflict avoidance mechanism for emergency actions, while Type 2 model uses a queuing method to avoid possible conflicts in the use of limited resources by multiple actions. In this paper, the two types of models are simulated and analyzed, including (1) emergency response process simulation, which analyzes and determines the time and the conditions of the potential conflicts occurring; and (2) comparison analysis, analyzing the improvement of the Type 2 model as compared with the Type 1 model. Increasing emergency resources to reduce or avoid conflicts and whether all the fire-trucks should be fully filled at the beginning of an emergency response, are also discussed based on the simulation.

Outburst Flood Simulation Model for Optimizing the Solo River Floods Emergency Response Activities

This study aims to develop flood inundation based on several flood level. The results of this study are: (a) land use in the study area is divided into (1) urban area (the Business Area) which includes regional administrative center, shopping area, and office area, (2) residential areas (single home region, the region multi- unit house (residence), settlement areas and apartments), (3) industrial estate (industrial estates are less dense and dense industrial area), (4) the surface area covered with vegetation (forest - thicket, meadow area, and the area of land productive rice fields and fields), (5) the area of open land and vacant land that is intended (the city park , cemetery and park area, and (6) transportation area and the pavement surface area (area train station and bus terminal region), (b) the preparation of spatial database in this study in the form of data or data vector altitude of Digital Elevation Model (DEM). District of Jebres there are 56 points of elevation and District of Pasar Kliwon there are 48 points of elevation. Elevation of the study area ranged from 88,9 mpdal up to 127.65 mdpal and (c) the higher the flood inundation scenarios impact on land use in the study area are also getting bigger. Most obvious impact under scenario 2 m area of 296 601 m , while the smallest impact under scenario 1 m with an area of 77 693 m 2 2 impact. Extensive simulation results based on the total impact amounts to 544 756 m.

‘And then they left’: Challenges to child protection systems strengthening in South Sudan

International child protection work has undergone a paradigm shift, moving from addressing issues such as trafficked children, street children and child labour separately to a more integrated systems approach. As a young nation still marked by conflict, South Sudan offers insight into how the interplay between a fragile national child protection system in a conflict‐affected country and the efforts of international humanitarian actors can promote or undermine systems strengthening. From June to August 2012, 52 semi‐structured key informant interviews with international‐, national‐ and community‐level actors were completed. Eight community‐level focus group discussions were also conducted separately with men, women, boys and girls. Interview guides were designed to explore participant perceptions of child protection system functioning. Data were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Four dimensions emerged as crucial pillars for child protection systems strengthening: coordination, capacity, funding and community inclusion. These factors were found to have taken root in unequal measure. Respondents at all systemic levels indicated that child protection systems strengthening efforts operated largely in isolation from the quotidian realities of children, families and communities. The humanitarian apparatus — marked by short‐term funding and accountability to the international community — will require significant reform to situate humanitarian efforts in a systems strengthening framework. If the objective is to strengthen national child protection systems, emergency response activities must better align with household‐ and community‐level efforts to protect children.

Environmental Isolation of Circulating Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus After Interruption of Wild Poliovirus Transmission - Nigeria, 2016.

In September 2015, more than 1 year after reporting its last wild poliovirus (WPV) case in July 2014 (1), Nigeria was removed from the list of countries with endemic poliovirus transmission,* leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan as the only remaining countries with endemic WPV. However, on April 29, 2016, a laboratory-confirmed, circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) isolate was reported from an environmental sample collected in March from a sewage effluent site in Maiduguri Municipal Council, Borno State, a security-compromised area in northeastern Nigeria. VDPVs are genetic variants of the vaccine viruses with the potential to cause paralysis and can circulate in areas with low population immunity. The Nigeria National Polio Emergency Operations Center initiated emergency response activities, including administration of at least 2 doses of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) to all children aged <5 years through mass campaigns; retroactive searches for missed cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), and enhanced environmental surveillance. Approximately 1 million children were vaccinated in the first OPV round. Thirteen previously unreported AFP cases were identified. Enhanced environmental surveillance has not resulted in detection of additional VDPV isolates. The detection of persistent circulation of VDPV2 in Borno State highlights the low population immunity, surveillance limitations, and risk for international spread of cVDPVs associated with insurgency-related insecurity. Increasing vaccination coverage with additional targeted supplemental immunization activities and reestablishment of effective routine immunization activities in newly secured and difficult-to-reach areas in Borno is urgently needed.

Integrated Modeling of Disaster Emergency Response Activities Using Simulation: Bornova Case Study

We present a detailed integrated simulation model for casualty transportation and emergency room management after a major disaster. Usually, the two important processes are handled separately in literature. However, to be able to correctly evaluate preparedness of disaster and emergency and minimize potential loss of lives, these two interconnected processes must be analysed together. We present a case study for the proposed integrated simulation model using real life data for Bornova, Izmir in Turkey. Results obtained by running the simulation model with a detailed experimental design are statistically analysed and findings are discussed.

Smart Cities as Cyber-Physical Social Systems

ABSTRACT The emerging prototype for a Smart City is one of an urban environment with a new generation of innovative services for transportation, energy distribution, healthcare, environmental monitoring, business, commerce, emergency response, and social activities. Enabling the technology for such a setting requires a viewpoint of Smart Cities as cyber-physical systems (CPSs) that include new software platforms and strict requirements for mobility, security, safety, privacy, and the processing of massive amounts of information. This paper identifies some key defining characteristics of a Smart City, discusses some lessons learned from viewing them as CPSs, and outlines some fundamental research issues that remain largely open.

Petri-net based modeling and queuing analysis for resource-oriented cooperation of emergency response actions

During an emergency response after an accident, emergency actions often require certain emergency resources. The adequate use, or the lack thereof, of emergency resources will affect the efficiency and even the success of emergency response activities or processes. Different emergency actions form certain relationships on using emergency resources. The cooperation modes of emergency actions on using resources are analyzed in this paper, and Petri-net models for these cooperation modes are provided. On this basis, an approach to detect emergency action conflicts resulting from resource-use is proposed. For conflicts caused by limited resources sharing, the queuing system which is modeled by a Petri-net and integrated into the model of emergency actions, is adopted to avoid conflicts. An example of an emergency response activity related with a fire accident is used to demonstrate the modeling method. The conflicts are analyzed and a queuing system is used to avoid simultaneously employing the same resource.

Identification of Minimum Standards in Emergency Goods for Earthquake Relief in Indonesia

Our purpose in this paper is to determine the minimum standards of emergency goods to be made available to persons adversely affected by earthquakes to implement quick, accountable emergency response activities. Our results show the minimum standards for emergency earthquake relief goods well-suited to Indonesia’s local population. Our results are expected to be used to help define the types of emergency goods required following a disastrous earthquake. Our research includes information about a variety of emergency goods determined through questionnaires distributed to the earthquake-affected persons once designated as internally displaced persons (IDPs). Those answering questionnaires were asked to rate the importance of goods based on their experience during postearthquake evacuation.