Emergency Warning Research Articles

Understanding emergency response: lessons learned from the helping literature

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the need for collaboration between two areas of research: classical psychological helping behaviours and emergency warnings. A large-scale disaster (i.e., the Chicago Heat Wave) is used throughout the paper as an example in which knowledge of the helping behaviour literature could have assisted emergency responders. The emergency warning literature is reviewed within the context of people heeding the warnings and deciding to share the information with others. Developments in the helping literature are reviewed, along with a final summary of key lessons from this area of experimental research that can help answer questions for future emergency responders. With a better understanding of experimental findings in the area of prosocial behaviours, emergency managers may be better able to assist their communities. Likewise, a greater collaboration between these two fields may lead to more research with the intent of improving emergency response.

Implementing Cognitive Intervention to Educate and Improve Resident’s Preparedness in Landslide Areas

Semarang city has the potential landslides were quite high in almost all regions. The previous research shows that the Manyaran and Kembang Arum is classified as “not ready” with vulnerability-prone of landslide areas. Therefore, design and implementation of cognitive interventions in human are needed to educate and improve the preparedness of the residents against landslide. This study aims to implement the various cognitive interventions to the residents in landslide areas and analysis of the different interventions toward the preparedness index. The study is conducted on 40 respondents from Kembang Arum and 40 respondents from Manyaran. They are aged ≥ 17 years, illiteracy and a RT/RW/PKK cadres. The independent variables in this study are Knowledge and Attitude, Emergency Planning, Warning System, and Resources Mobilization. The dependent variable is the preparedness index. The design of cognitive interventions is generated according to the demographic characteristics of the respondent and the result of Fault Tree Analysis. The preparedness index of the residents against landslides in Kembang Arum increases about 71.71% and in Manyaran up to 90.06%. Implementation of cognitive interventions with module, video and discussion in the Manyaran is more effective than using posters, videos and discussions in Kembang Arum.

Shared intelligent optimum route selection through traffic management system in VANET– SIRS

A Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) consists of the vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to roadside communication. Growing the density of the vehicles on the road causes flooding while transferring packets from a source to one or multiple destinations over a VANET. However, increasing vehicles on road may causes a problem such as redundancy, congestion, collision and increasing delay though receiving emergency warnings. As long as reliable and proficient multi-hop broadcast in vehicular ad hoc networks is challenging one. In the proposed system commence a new protocol which uses the character of elegant route establishment and selection method for transfer information to the destination (dst) with minimum redundancy, delay and highest bits per second delivery. In some environment vehicles are deployed in a dense manner, and it can move at a high speed. Adjacent Access Points (APs) on the road find out route information from their past report gatherings which use a fuzzy logic to select routing conclusion. This approach consists of isolating the whole network area into clusters. Based on which an optimized route is chosen using the input parameters as vehicle density, distance from the adjacent AP, vehicle mobility, receiving signal strength and delay should be jointly measured in the relay node selection. Though, these computation conflicts with each other depend on vehicle mobility. Hence, we employ fuzzy logic to handle this imprecise information to select forwarding vehicles by mutually taking into account of vehicle distance (d), mobility (v) and Receiving Signal Strength (RSS). The selected vehicle can provide an assure data forwarding with a high competence. The performance of the proposed scheme is evaluated on the metrics such as end-to-end delay, packet delivery ratio by varying vehicle speed, and density of vehicles.

Vulnerable voices on fire preparedness: Policy implications for emergency and community services collaboration

AbstractAn investigation of household preparedness and community connections was undertaken in the NSW Blue Mountains. The research employed a qualitative approach. Upon receiving ethical approval, interviews and focus groups with a total of 31 vulnerable residents were recorded and transcribed. Data analysis included the manual coding of individual transcripts and key word queries entered into NVivo 10. Fire planning for community resilience within Australia focusses on property preparation and an emergency warning system designed to assist the evacuation decisions of residents. In this article, we report on vulnerable residents and their preparedness for the October 2013 bushfires. Our findings demonstrate that the vulnerable people interviewed did not consider property preservation as a priority, and their knowledge and engagement with the warning system and evacuation procedures was limited. Of practical value, the research found local community services and emergency planning committees should collaboratively plan for vulnerable community members who are unable to take a very active role in preparing themselves or their dependents to face a bushfire or similar disaster. In addition, preparedness and warning communications should be devised and targeted to more clearly assist vulnerable people during the lead up to, and in the midst of, a disaster.

Vehicle collision prediction at intersections based on comparison of minimal distance between vehicles and dynamic thresholds

Accurate collision prediction algorithms are important to provide drivers reliable warning messages. This study introduces a novel approach for collision prediction at intersections. The algorithm involves the use of an index called `minimal future distance (MFD)', which is defined to be a future distance (FD) between the subject vehicle and the primary other vehicle, and a two-level dynamic threshold for performing the collision prediction task. Real-time vehicle motion information and surrounding road geometry are utilised to forecast FDs and identify MFD within an upcoming time horizon. The dynamic threshold in both emergency warning and normal warning situations consists of two parts, a vehicle heading direction-related part and a speed value-related part. Potential collisions are determined by the comparison of MFD with different dynamic thresholds in different driving scenarios. The combined use of vehicle real-time state and road geometry in the algorithm significantly increased the collision prediction accuracy. Furthermore, the use of dynamic thresholds ensured the promptness and robustness of the collision warning system. Simulation results show that the false positive rate and false negative rate of severe collisions at intersections can be robustly eliminated and those of marginal collisions can be kept low at 2.4 and 3.6%, respectively.

TF-DMB: A traffic flow theory-based dynamic multi-hop broadcast protocol

In order to ensure traffic safety, the emergency warning message should be transmitted quickly and reliably in vehicular ad hoc networks by multi-hop broadcast. In this article, we propose a traffic flow theory-based dynamic multi-hop broadcast protocol to address the issue of emergency warning message dissemination in vehicular ad hoc networks. The main goal of our protocol is to reduce delay and enhance reliability no matter the traffic density is high or low. First, according to the simulations of the distribution of vehicles under different traffic densities, a method of dynamically dividing the communication range is proposed, which, to a large extent, could find the candidate forwarders by one non-uniform partition. Next, a mechanism of dynamically adjusting the contention window size and boundary is designed, and the minimum waiting time difference is considered. The complete execution process of theory-based dynamic multi-hop broadcast protocol and corresponding retransmission strategies are included for high reliability. Through extensive simulations, we demonstrate the superior performance of our protocol in terms of one-hop delay, one-hop message processing, and delivery ratio compared with other existing schemes.

Study on the Status and Development of Tourism Meteorological Disaster Emergency Warning System

Meteorological disaster is an important factor to hinder the development of the tourism industry. Construction of meteorological disaster emergency warning capability of tourism is important embodiment of refined and user-friendly development of meteorological services, and also important guarantee of visitor safety and sustainable tourism development. From the perspective of environmental carrying capacity, this paper introducing the main impact of meteorological disasters. The paper summarized travel emergency and early-warning management system of meteorological disasters in China, and proposed meteorological tourism disaster emergency warning system model conception.

Progressive approach to eruption at Campi Flegrei caldera in southern Italy

Unrest at large calderas rarely ends in eruption, encouraging vulnerable communities to perceive emergency warnings of volcanic activity as false alarms. A classic example is the Campi Flegrei caldera in southern Italy, where three episodes of major uplift since 1950 have raised its central district by about 3 m without an eruption. Individual episodes have conventionally been treated as independent events, so that only data from an ongoing episode are considered pertinent to evaluating eruptive potential. An implicit assumption is that the crust relaxes accumulated stress after each episode. Here we apply a new model of elastic-brittle failure to test the alternative view that successive episodes promote a long-term accumulation of stress in the crust. The results provide the first quantitative evidence that Campi Flegrei is evolving towards conditions more favourable to eruption and identify field tests for predictions on how the caldera will behave during future unrest.

Understanding the Impact of Visual Imagery in Emergency Warning Messages

This study examines how the provision of emergency messaging during flood events is perceived by members of the community; whether it correctly prompts the correct risk assessment; and whether messages prompt the desired behavior. Experimental conditions are applied to determine the correlation between an individual's innate risk tolerance and the perceived risk they associate with a series of flood-related image prompts.

Emergency warning for people with disabilities

The intent of this article is to assess the current state of Emergency Warning capabilities in the United States and make recommendations on what needs to be done to cost effectively establish a National Emergency Warning System to best serve the people of the United States, including those with disabilities. As part of this assessment, terminology will be defined, existing systems will be examined, critical needs and functions will be explained, and recommendations made for a system to deliver emergency messages to those people immediately at risk from natural and human-caused disasters in a timely and effective manner, regardless of location or situational circumstance. The assessment will include the needs and available technologies for delivering emergency warnings to people with disabilities, which are generally little understood, poorly addressed, and often ignored.

Development of a Wearable Instrumented Vest for Posture Monitoring and System Usability Verification Based on the Technology Acceptance Model.

Body posture and activity are important indices for assessing health and quality of life, especially for elderly people. Therefore, an easily wearable device or instrumented garment would be valuable for monitoring elderly people’s postures and activities to facilitate healthy aging. In particular, such devices should be accepted by elderly people so that they are willing to wear it all the time. This paper presents the design and development of a novel, textile-based, intelligent wearable vest for real-time posture monitoring and emergency warnings. The vest provides a highly portable and low-cost solution that can be used both indoors and outdoors in order to provide long-term care at home, including health promotion, healthy aging assessments, and health abnormality alerts. The usability of the system was verified using a technology acceptance model-based study of 50 elderly people. The results indicated that although elderly people are anxious about some newly developed wearable technologies, they look forward to wearing this instrumented posture-monitoring vest in the future.

Construction of Early Warning Mechanism of University Emergencies

In recent years, emergency event have occurred in colleges and universities now and then. It not only poses a threat to normal teaching, management and the life of teachers and students, but also keeps the image and reputation of colleges and universities suffered serious damage. As the main research of early warning emergency mechanism, this paper preliminarily explored and researched colleges and university emergency features, classification and incentives. It was also reviewed early warning mechanism in the process of crisis monitoring, making plans, crisis response and publicity education. Based on these, this paper established early warning mechanism for university emergency, to discuss establishment and improvement the emergency warning system in colleges and universities.

Vehicle Public Safety System Design and Implementation

To enhance traffic safety with efficient transportation, a vehicle public safety system is designed and implemented for collision avoidance and emergency warning. The proposed architecture for the system combines On Board Unit development with publicly available inter-vehicle wireless communication systems and also positioning devices. A communication routing scheme is proposed based on multi-hop broadcasting scheme with a dissemination model and a suppression technique. Field test of the On Board Unit prototype and simulation model of the proposed communication routing scheme demonstrates the capability of the system to improve traffic safety with low latency, wider coverage and collision avoidance.

Toward a User-Centered Approach for Emergency Warning Distribution

There are many known problems with inappropriate response to emergency warnings. Recommended actions are not always properly followed, and sometimes emergency warnings are not taken seriously. A variety of psychological individual differences can influence the perception of emergency warnings. At present, warning distributors do not consider how these factors affect emergency warning response. We recommend that emergency warning distribution systems be developed that account for these differences to improve response. To this end, we propose four guidelines supported by psychological research and inspired by currently available technologies. These guidelines frame a user-centered approach to more appropriately tailor warning messages for each recipient.

Assessing Mental Models of Emergencies Through Two Knowledge Elicitation Tasks.

The goals of this study were to assess the risk identification aspect of mental models using standard elicitation methods and how university campus alerts were related to these mental models. People fail to follow protective action recommendations in emergency warnings. Past research has yet to examine cognitive processes that influence emergency decision-making. Study 1 examined 2 years of emergency alerts distributed by a large southeastern university. In Study 2, participants listed emergencies in a thought-listing task. Study 3 measured participants' time to decide if a situation was an emergency. The university distributed the most alerts about an armed person, theft, and fire. In Study 2, participants most frequently listed fire, car accident, heart attack, and theft. In Study 3, participants quickly decided a bomb, murder, fire, tornado, and rape were emergencies. They most slowly decided that a suspicious package and identify theft were emergencies. Recent interaction with warnings was only somewhat related to participants' mental models of emergencies. Risk identification precedes decision-making and applying protective actions. Examining these characteristics of people's mental representations of emergencies is fundamental to further understand why some emergency warnings go ignored. Someone must believe a situation is serious to categorize it as an emergency before taking the protective action recommendations in an emergency warning. Present-day research must continue to examine the problem of people ignoring warning communication, as there are important cognitive factors that have not yet been explored until the present research.

Time To Decide: To Call or Not to Call 911 During Weather Crises

The purpose of this study was to measure response and reaction time (RT) to call 911 for five weather emergencies in order to determine whether participants considered them “serious” enough to call for help. Past research has shown that people fail to take emergency warnings seriously, possibly due to past experience and poor risk assessment. Participants were asked if they would call 911 if they witnessed weather emergencies. Response and RT were recorded. Results showed that participants did not agree on whether to call 911, showing a 50-50 split on most decisions. Participants were fast to indicate they would call 911 for tornadoes and hurricanes. No sex differences in RTs were found, but there was some variation within each sex. Fast RTs were predicted by news exposure, suggesting that recent experience is influential on one’s mental model, processing speed, and decision-making. Future research should use professionals and emergency personnel as a comparison group to this sample of young adults and further examine reasons why people decide to call 911.

The Praelium Nuportanum by Isaac Dorislaus: Anglo–Dutch Relations and Strategic historiography

SUMMARYThis article investigates the Anglo–Dutch scholar and diplomat Isaac Dorislaus's sole published work, Praelium Nuportanum (PN; 1640), on the battle of Newport in 1600. After presenting some new or little known information about the work, it discusses PN's intellectual context and concludes that the work is a reminder of successful Anglo–Dutch cooperation in the past, of Dutch indebtedness to English assistance, and the Republic's importance as an ally for England, all relevant to the negotiations running in 1640 for an Orange–Stuart wedding, and their backgrounds in the British Civil Wars and Anglo–Spanish–Dutch relations at the time. After the troubles ensuing from Dorislaus's Cambridge lectures on Tacitus in 1627, PN shows the author reconciled with the Court and the Laudian faction. With respect to style and content, PN appears clearly Tacitist in style, with many direct quotations from Tacitus, but this Tacitism operates more on a literary than a political level. Much of PN's historical content is a reworking of Francis Vere's Commentaries (published 1657). From the perspective of the Protestant ‘Anglo–Scoto–Dutch public sphere’ recently discussed in the scholarship, PN might perhaps be read as a warning of the gradual emergence of an Anglo–Dutch Calvinist–parliamentarian ‘realm’ as a force opposing the Crown.

A deep-learning-based emergency alert system

Abstract Emergency alert systems serve as a critical link in the chain of crisis communication, and they are essential to minimize loss during emergencies. Acts of terrorism and violence, chemical spills, amber alerts, nuclear facility problems, weather-related emergencies, flu pandemics, and other emergencies all require those responsible such as government officials, building managers, and university administrators to be able to quickly and reliably distribute emergency information to the public. This paper presents our design of a deep-learning-based emergency warning system. The proposed system is considered suitable for application in existing infrastructure such as closed-circuit television and other monitoring devices. The experimental results show that in most cases, our system immediately detects emergencies such as car accidents and natural disasters.

Field experiment for exploring the effects of in‐vehicle warning information on driver's responsive behaviour

This study evaluates the effectiveness of advance warning in-vehicle systems. Under real-time driving settings, the abilities to respond appropriately to unsafe conditions were reviewed for a homogeneous group of drivers. Using differential global positioning system equipped probe vehicles, individual vehicle speeds as well as its speed change rates were collected based on the corresponding vehicle trajectory. The driver's response was evaluated under two different types of warning systems, emergency warning and general warning, by combining various modalities. Study results showed that for emergency alerts, the most effective warning information was transmitted by integrating ‘voice, graphic, and text’ or ‘repeated computer tone and text’. In the case of a general warning alert, the ‘repeated computer tone, voice, graphic, and text’ combination indicated to be the most effective. The results of this research look to provide insights in developing and designing an effective in-vehicle warning system.

Systematic Surveillance Detects Multiple Silent Introductions and Household Transmission of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus USA300 in the East of England.

Background. The spread of USA300 methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) across the United States resulted in an epidemic of infections. In Europe, only sporadic cases or small clusters of USA300 infections are described, and its prevalence in England is unknown. We conducted prospective surveillance for USA300 in the east of England.Methods. We undertook a 12-month prospective observational cohort study of all individuals with MRSA isolated from community and hospital samples submitted to a microbiology laboratory. At least 1 MRSA isolate from each individual underwent whole-genome sequencing. USA300 was identified on the basis of sequence analysis, and phylogenetic comparisons were made between these and USA300 genomes from the United States.Results. Between April 2012 and April 2013, we sequenced 2283 MRSA isolates (detected during carriage screening and in clinical samples) from 1465 individuals. USA300 was isolated from 24 cases (1.6%). Ten cases (42%) had skin and soft tissue infection, and 2 cases had invasive disease. Phylogenetic analyses identified multiple introductions and household transmission of USA300.Conclusions. Use of a diagnostic laboratory as a sentinel for surveillance has identified repeated introductions of USA300 in eastern England in 2012–2013, with evidence for limited transmission. Our results show how systematic surveillance could provide an early warning of strain emergence and dissemination.