Emergency Situational Awareness Research Articles

Twitter-Based Disaster Response Using Machine Learning

Twitter, a microblogging platform, receives real-time information via informal conversations, and it has, accordingly, become the main source of data for research studies based on emergency situational awareness. Millions of tweets are posted on Twitter every day, and during disasters, the frequency of tweets relating to an on-going crisis event grows exponentially. This unprecedented increase in the number of tweets during disasters needs to be monitored, identified, processed, and analyzed so that necessary measures can be taken at the earliest to reduce the loss or damage during emergencies. However, due to large voluminous data being available during crisis hours, it is almost impossible for a human to perform these tasks in real time. In this regard, a semi-automated AI-based disaster response system for Twitter data is proposed. The proposed disaster response system would be capable of extracting essential situational awareness information related to a disaster and would also be capable of sketching tentative area of critically affected population.

Knowledge to action: Resilience planning among state and local transportation agencies in the United States.

The results of a nationwide survey of state and local agencies conducted in 2020 are summarized to understand priorities for improving transportation emergency management (EM) and resilience. Questions on EM activities, policies, and operations were answered by 190 respondents from across the country. In addition to comparing responses across transportation, EM, and other organizations (law enforcement, public works, health, environmental services, etc.), differences are analyzed based on agency size, location, experience, and hazard exposure. Respondents were also asked to prioritize EM activities for additional funding. Capabilities such as Emergency Planning, Traffic Control, Response Teams, and Situational Awareness emerge as priority areas. Approximately 60 percent of transportation agencies report updates of EM plans within the last 5 years compared to 70 percent of EM and 38 percent among other agencies. Four general linear models (GLMs) are developed and tested to determine the attributes of respondents who support improvements in (1) planning, (2) communications, (3) collaboration, and (4) transformation of agencies. An evaluative framework for measuring and managing resilience is developed and tested based on the responses. The analysis reveals diverse EM experiences, capabilities, and priorities, providing insight into future directions for sustaining and improving transportation resilience.

A Physical Therapist's Experience as a Point-of-Contact Care Provider in a Wilderness Environment: A Case Series Report

Background Wilderness physical therapists (WPTs) are on-scene primary providers who combine physical therapy, emergency first aid, and wilderness survival skills to manage people with a wide array of injuries and illnesses in remote environments. Case Presentation Patient 1, a 51-year-old female, was unable to bear weight after sustaining a right knee injury from falling into a river while hiking. The WPT immobilized a suspected knee fracture using a SAM® Splint, moved the patient and her group to safer location, and constructed a shelter. Shortly after, patient 2, a 14-year-old male, fell and sustained a forehead laceration. Hemostasis was obtained and the patient was monitored for neurologic abnormalities. Safety was complicated by rainfall, darkness, and the absence of cell service to notify emergency medical services. Outcome and Follow-Up Emergency medical services arrived 4 hours after the initial injury and evacuated both individuals. Plain film radiographs of patient 1's knee were interpreted as normal; however, subsequent magnetic resonance imaging revealed a posterior tibial plateau fracture with ligamentous injury. Following a 20-hour observation period, patient 2 was returned to continue the hike with his group. Discussion This case illustrates the emergency medical, leadership, and situational awareness skills required of a WPT. This case also illustrates the in-field application of the Ottawa knee rules and the importance of careful neurologic assessment in individuals with head trauma. JOSPT Cases 2022;2(3):175–182. Epub: 21 June 2022. doi:10.2519/josptcases.2022.10944

GEOINFORMATION FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT 2020 (Gi4DM2020): PREFACE

GEOINFORMATION FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT 2020 (Gi4DM2020): PREFACE

GEOINFORMATION FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT 2020 (GI4DM2020): PREFACE

GEOINFORMATION FOR DISASTER MANAGEMENT 2020 (GI4DM2020): PREFACE

An artificial intelligence based crowdsensing solution for on-demand accident scene monitoring

Abstract Road traffic crashes have a devastating impact on societies by claiming more than 1.35 million lives each year and causing up to 50 million injuries. Improving the efficiency of emergency management systems constitutes a key measure to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries. In this work, we propose a comprehensive crowdsensing-based solution for the real-time collection and the analysis of accident scene intelligence as a means to improve the efficiency of the emergency response process and help reduce road fatalities. The solution leverages sensory, mobile, and web technologies for the real-time monitoring of accident scenes, and employs Artificial Intelligence for the automatic analysis of the accident scene data, to allow the automatic generation of accident intelligence reports. Police officers and rescue teams can use those reports for fast and accurate situational assessment and effective response to emergencies. The proposed system was fully implemented and its operation was successfully tested using a variety of scenarios. This work gives interesting insights into the possibility of leveraging crowdsensing and artificial intelligence for offering emergency situational awareness and improving the efficiency of emergency response operations.

An Arabic social media based framework for incidents and events monitoring in smart cities

Smart city initiatives aim at leveraging human, collective, and technological capital to ensure sustainable development and quality of life for their citizens. Offering efficient and sustainable emergency rescue services in smart cities requires coordinated efforts and shared information between the public, the decision makers, and rescue teams. With the rapid growth and proliferation of social media platforms, there is a vast amount of user-generated content that can be used as source of information about cities. In this work, we propose a novel framework for events and incidents’ management in smart cities. Our framework uses text mining, text classification, named entity recognition, and stemming techniques to extract the intelligence needed from Arabic social media feeds, for effective incident and emergency management in smart cities. In our system, the data is automatically collected from social media feeds then processed to generate incident intelligence reports that can provide emergency situational awareness and early warning signs to rescue teams. The proposed framework was implemented and tested using datasets collected from Arabic Twitter feeds over a two-years span, and the obtained results show that Polynomial Networks and Support Vector Machines are the top performers in terms of Arabic text classification, achieving classification accuracy of 96.49% and 94.58% respectively, when used with stemming. The results also showed that the use of stemming led to a penalty in terms of response time, and that the richer the dataset/corpus used in terms of size and composition, the higher the classification accuracy will be.

Public Health Emergency Preparedness System Evaluation Criteria and Performance Metrics: A Review of Contributions of the CDC-Funded Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Centers.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-funded Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Centers (PERRCs) conducted research from 2008 to 2015 aimed to improve the complex public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) system. This paper summarizes PERRC studies that addressed the development and assessment of criteria for evaluating PHEPR and metrics for measuring their efficiency and effectiveness. We reviewed 171 PERRC publications indexed in PubMed between 2009 and 2016. These publications derived from 34 PERRC research projects. We identified publications that addressed the development or assessment of criteria and metrics pertaining to PHEPR systems and describe the evaluation methods used and tools developed, the system domains evaluated, and the metrics developed or assessed. We identified 29 publications from 12 of the 34 PERRC projects that addressed PHEPR system evaluation criteria and metrics. We grouped each study into 1 of 3 system domains, based on the metrics developed or assessed: (1) organizational characteristics (n = 9), (2) emergency response performance (n = 12), and (3) workforce capacity or capability (n = 8). These studies addressed PHEPR system activities including responses to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the 2011 tsunami, as well as emergency exercise performance, situational awareness, and workforce willingness to respond. Both PHEPR system process and outcome metrics were developed or assessed by PERRC studies. PERRC researchers developed and evaluated a range of PHEPR system evaluation criteria and metrics that should be considered by system partners interested in assessing the efficiency and effectiveness of their activities. Nonetheless, the monitoring and measurement problem in PHEPR is far from solved. Lack of standard measures that are readily obtained or computed at local levels remains a challenge for the public health preparedness field. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:626-638).

Twitter911: A Cautionary Tale

Researchers have argued that social media, and in particular, Twitter, can be searched to improve “situational awareness” in emergency situations; that is, to provide objective, actionable real-time information to first-responders. Prior studies have examined cases of very rare, catastrophic emergencies that took place over many days, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. We asked instead if Twitter could pro- vide useful information for first-responders on a more regular basis, by conducting an exhaustive analysis of tweets and fire department data for medium-sized county (population 1 million), and for two larger-scale single-day emergencies in New York City. Our results are resoundingly negative: useful tweets were extraordinarily rare or nonexistence. This study provides a cautionary note as to the potential of Twitter and similar platforms for emergency situational awareness.

Methodology for Data and Information Quality Assessment in the Context of Emergency Situational Awareness

Situation Assessment (SA) approaches aim to provide powerful resources to support decision makers in enhancing their Situational Awareness (SAW). The process of SA in emergency response systems is ...

A Comprehensive Experimental Practice for Ship Bridge Resource Management Training Based on Ship Handling Simulator

There is short in the number of large ship handling simulator and it has high failure in BRM training. They could not remain for a long time in the laboratory for teachers qualified with captain and highly educated full-time laboratory personnel. Marine institutions begin to carry out practical teaching reform for these problems, which make people to work hand with policy support and scientific and rational evaluation mechanisms, innovative training teaching methods and establish an objective assessment criteria. By BRM training students enhance the ship's emergency response, role awareness and situational awareness, which have important practical significance to enhance navigational safety and strengthen risk awareness.

A Comparison of Cabin Safety Awareness among Airline Passengers in Taiwan and Mainland China

Abstract This article compares the effect of cabin safety education on passengers' cabin safety awareness in knowledge, attitude, and behavior (KAB) in Taiwan and Mainland China, primarily for passengers that cross the Taiwan Strait. Evidence reveals that passengers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait need to be taught about safety before they fly. Passengers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait were surveyed at two Taiwan airports, the Taoyuan International Airport and the Taipei Municipal Airport. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique is used for data analysis. The results show that cabin safety education positively affects Taiwan passengers' cabin safety knowledge, attitude, and behavior. Safety education that involves accurate utilization of emergency equipment procedures, situational awareness, and responses is recommended. Although the cabin safety education positively affects Mainland China passengers' attitude and behavior, it does not have a strong effect on the aspect of knowledge. Emergency equipment procedures and regulations are needed content for cabin safety education for Mainland China passengers. The findings also indicate that Taiwan passengers' cabin safety knowledge will positively affect their behavior; therefore, the knowledge-behavior consistency is supported. The attitude-behavior and the knowledge-attitude consistency correlation are both supported as well. However, the relationships among Mainland China passengers' cabin safety knowledge, attitude, and behavior are not consistent. Passengers' demographic data indicate that the Mainland China passengers' educational level, age, and number of flights could be major factors in this inconsistency.

A Comparison of Cabin Safety Awareness among Airline Passengers in Taiwan and Mainland China

Abstract This article compares the effect of cabin safety education on passengers' cabin safety awareness in knowledge, attitude, and behavior (KAB) in Taiwan and Mainland China, primarily for passengers that cross the Taiwan Strait. Evidence reveals that passengers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait need to be taught about safety before they fly. Passengers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait were surveyed at two Taiwan airports, the Taoyuan International Airport and the Taipei Municipal Airport. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) technique is used for data analysis. The results show that cabin safety education positively affects Taiwan passengers' cabin safety knowledge, attitude, and behavior. Safety education that involves accurate utilization of emergency equipment procedures, situational awareness, and responses is recommended. Although the cabin safety education positively affects Mainland China passengers' attitude and behavior, it does not have a strong effect on the aspect of knowledge. Emergency equipment procedures and regulations are needed content for cabin safety education for Mainland China passengers. The findings also indicate that Taiwan passengers' cabin safety knowledge will positively affect their behavior; therefore, the knowledge-behavior consistency is supported. The attitude-behavior and the knowledge-attitude consistency correlation are both supported as well. However, the relationships among Mainland China passengers' cabin safety knowledge, attitude, and behavior are not consistent. Passengers' demographic data indicate that the Mainland China passengers' educational level, age, and number of flights could be major factors in this inconsistency.

The effect of aviation safety education on passenger cabin safety awareness

This paper examines the effect of aviation safety education on passenger cabin safety awareness in knowledge, attitude, and behavior (KAB). The educational value of KAB has been addressed in various fields such as AIDS prevention and campus safety. KAB has been applied in aviation safety related areas, especially in training, such as crew resource management training, pilot training, and mechanic training. However, KAB has not been implemented in aviation passenger education in cabin safety. This paper uses the construct of “aviation safety education”, which is intended to influence airline passenger knowledge of, attitude toward, and behavior about cabin safety awareness. Passenger surveys were done at two Taiwan airports. The results show that aviation safety education positively affects airline passenger cabin safety knowledge, attitude, and behavior. We recommend safety education that involves accurate instruction about emergency equipment procedures, situational awareness, emergency responses, and relevant cabin-safety regulations. Our findings indicated that an increase in cabin safety knowledge positively affected airline passenger behavior, which supported knowledge–behavior consistency. We also found that a positive attitude toward cabin safety positively affected airline passenger behavior, which supported attitude–behavior consistency. The hypothesis that cabin safety knowledge positively affected passenger attitude – knowledge–attitude consistency was not supported.