Real Disaster Research Articles

Aggressive.

Aggressive Anji Wall "The other faculty members don't think that you are aggressive enough to train with us." This is what my mentor shared with me in confidence when I did not match at my first-choice residency program. I was crushed. I could not understand how aggressive behavior in surgery is considered a positive personality trait. Moreover, as a champion athlete in college and medical school, I knew that I could be aggressive in appropriate settings. I had never considered that a hospital or operating room was a place where I should be aggressive. The term aggressive means ready to attack or confront, and it is synonymous with hostile, belligerent, and antagonistic. How, I wondered, could being aggressive be a desirable trait for a surgical resident? Reflecting on my journey so far, I think that the answer to this question lies in the culture that has been created by—as Joan Cassell states in "Doing Gender, Doing Surgery: Women Surgeons in a Man's Profession"—the 'adrenalized vocation' of surgery that values arrogance, courage and decisiveness. When I rotated at my first-choice hospital, it was everything I'd dreamed of in a surgical training program: intense cases, prestigious research, and teaching rounds with rapid-fire questions that ranged from surgical history to postoperative care. What I didn't notice at the time were the toxicities I'd been conditioned to see as normal. Abrasive, tough surgeons ruled the program. Their hierarchical culture left little room for collegiality. Attending surgeons reigned over the operating rooms, where they had permission to behave how they saw fit: verbally assaulting nurses, scrub technicians, anesthesiologists, and residents. Broken or undesired instruments were thrown to the OR floor for any reason. This behavior was not universal, but far too prevalent and obvious to excuse as one or two bad actors. The operating room culture accepted unprofessional, unkind, and unbelievable behavior as the norm. While my rejection was devastating, not matching at my first-choice program turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. The residency program that I did match into valued and promoted attending surgeons and surgical residents who were entirely different. The administrative chief resident's orientation lecture entitled "This is how we roll" outlined the first two rules of surgical residency: Be Nice and Respect Others. We were informed that the annual Emergency Room Consultation Award was a coveted honor for surgical residents. The emergency room residents selected the surgical resident who they determined performed the most timely, respectful, and helpful consultations. Beyond expecting me to become a competent clinical and technical surgeon, my residency taught me that I must also embrace collegiality and kindness. Being confrontational in the OR, ER, and wards was a detriment to patients and not an essential ingredient in excellent care to patients. Such care is best achieved when we work together with respect and lift each other up. When I left residency for transplant fellowship, I had grown accustomed to the collegial teamcentered culture of residency. I thought that I had chosen a place that had a similar culture, and I was so excited to spend two years gathering amazing technical training with staff who would build my surgical career. There were smooth cases, and I made some good relationships, but I can't ignore the fact that parts of the experience were unnecessarily abusive. There was a superficial collegial relationship among the staff and toward the fellows, but in the blink of an eye, attitudes would shift, and normal interactions would turn into confrontations on the wards, in the ER, or in the OR. Artificial or real disasters loomed all around, and an unsuspecting [End Page 209] nurse, circulator, anesthesiologist, or I would become the target of a rampage. If these situations had happened daily, I would have known what to expect. But the whims of any particular surgeon felt random, and, early on, I was entirely unprepared. I had so many positive interactions, but the negative ones were so powerful that I still get chest pain when I think back to my fellowship. By my second year of fellowship, I was getting more accustomed to the culture...

Surgical Treatment of Early Onset Scoliosis Probable causes of Undesirable Results

Aim : Early Onset Scoliosis (EOS) is in many cases a surgical challenge. These deformities are present during the child’s most active physical development and may raise several issues, especially cardio-respiratory problems which will irreversibly affect the quality of life. The aim of EOS treatment is to ensure a proper lung development and to control the kyphoscoliotic deformity without fusion. The purpose of the study represents the analysis of postoperative evolution in a series of operated EOS patients made us aware of possible therapeutic related issues. We consider the importance to highlight them, in order to carefully choose the surgical treatment in EOS. Material and Methods : The study represents a retrospective clinical and imagistic analysis of operated EOS patients.A series of 52 EOS patients, operated by different treatment methods (2003-2014) has been analyzed. The series included congenital, idiopathic infantile and one syndromic scoliosis. Surgical procedures consisted in hemivertebral resection concomitant with instrumentation, the use of VEPTR or Shilla devices or combinations of these. The follow-up period ranged 4-15 years. The patients were investigated by clinical and imagistic exams. 15 patients with poor clinical and radiological results after surgery were identified (worsening of the curve, extended fusion with a short, stiff spine, impaired trunk imbalance and/or pseudarthrosis). Results : The possible identified therapeutic issues included: the use of surgical techniques which resulted in extended posterior fusion, the choice of an possibly poor surgical technique, improper or faulty applied implants. Conclusions : Complications and possible postoperative evolutions related to the chosen therapeutic decision should be very thorough taken into account before any procedure. A poor strategy treatment of these deformities decreases quality of life. The prognosis is variable, depending on the cause inducing the deformity. That’s why the treatment should be individualized for each EOS patient. An improper treatment may produce real disasters or cuts short any therapeutic chance, maybe the only one available, in order to ensure the best life quality obtainable.

LSAR: Multi-UAV Collaboration for Search and Rescue Missions

In this paper, we consider the use of a team of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to accomplish a search and rescue (SAR) mission in the minimum time possible while saving the maximum number of people. A novel technique for the SAR problem is proposed and referred to as the layered search and rescue (LSAR) algorithm. The novelty of LSAR involves simulating real disasters to distribute SAR tasks among UAVs. The performance of LSAR is compared, in terms of percentage of rescued survivors and rescue and execution times, with the max-sum, auction-based, and locust-inspired approaches for multi UAV task allocation (LIAM) and opportunistic task allocation (OTA) schemes. The simulation results show that the UAVs running the LSAR algorithm on average rescue approximately 74% of the survivors, which is 8% higher than the next best algorithm (LIAM). Moreover, this percentage increases with the number of UAVs, almost linearly with the least slope, which means more scalability and coverage is obtained in comparison to other algorithms. In addition, the empirical cumulative distribution function of LSAR results shows that the percentages of rescued survivors clustered around the [78%-100%] range under an exponential curve, meaning most results are above 50%. In comparison, all the other algorithms have almost equal distributions of their percentage of rescued survivor results. Furthermore, because the LSAR algorithm focuses on the center of the disaster, it finds more survivors and rescues them faster than the other algorithms, with an average of 55%~77%. Moreover, most registered times to rescue survivors by LSAR are bounded by a time of 04:50:02 with 95% confidence for a one-month mission time.

A study on 3D safety state information platform architecture design for realistic disaster management based on spatial information

A study on 3D safety state information platform architecture design for realistic disaster management based on spatial information

BLACK HUMOR: THE TRANSFORMATION OF TRAGEDY INTO AN ABSTRACT IDEA

Introduction. Humor is a mirror of sociocultural changes, looking into which you can learn about the desires, fears and concerns inherent in people of a particular historical era. This article is devoted to one of the most specific features of our time – black humor. In the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century, its popularity increased significantly. Among the possible reasons for this phenomenon, it is especially possible to distinguish the role of the media in the unnecessarily detailed coverage of tragic events. Materials and methods. Materials for reflection were philosophical and artistic texts, folklore, films, content of television programs and Internet files. We used the abstract-logical method, the method of system analysis, historical, hermeneutical comparative methods. Results of the research. Socio-cultural factors that caused changes in the attitude of society towards laughter and humor from a generally negative to a generally positive attitude are revealed. Thanks to this, black humor, despite all its ambiguity, has become a familiar phenomenon for many people. Acquaintance with black humor begins with the earliest childhood – from children’s literature, cartoons and folklore, the creators of which often act themselves children. Moreover, much of the black jokes for the adult audience are also devoted to children (themes of child mortality, disability, pedophilia, etc.). A radical shift in the attitude of people towards death, and in particular child death, could also serve as the reason for the increased popularity of the humor genre in question. Details of the peculiarities of humor about real disasters, Internet trolling, humorous coverage of public and private deaths, connection of black humor and fear of death are considered in detail. Discussion and conclusion. The main dimensions of black humor are temporal, territorial, social, hypothetical distances, repeatability, irreversibility of damage. Positive function of humor is that it serves as a means of counteracting any limitations of life. Black humor opposes the main of these limitations-death. It is the transformation of tragedy into an abstract idea. Abstractive idea is abstracted from the events that occurred and reduces the psycho-traumatic perception of real phenomena. Thus, black humor performs a positive function of psychological defense.

Generation and visualization of earthquake drill scripts for first responders using ontology and serious game platforms

As there is an increasing number of disasters happening worldwide, numerous mitigation approaches have been proposed to alleviate the impact of disasters. In Taiwan, public and private organizations often work together to prepare various disaster scenarios to train emergency response units. Thus, the design of appropriate drill scripts plays an important role in enhancing the capabilities of first responders in a real disaster. However, developing a reasonable drill script is a time-consuming, error-prone, and costly task. Drill scripts designed may need to accommodate time-dependent, region-specific requirements so that first responders can see varied disaster scenarios for improvement. Therefore, an ontology model with Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) constructs is proposed to help the drill script generation process for earthquakes in Taiwan. Drill script designers need to prepare an input data set describing a simulated earthquake using the Taiwan Earthquake Loss Estimation System, a simplified version of the Hazards U.S. – Multi Hazard (HAZUS-MH) program. Then, a drill script following pre-defined rules can be generated and combined with Unity, a serious game platform, in order to display all earthquake-related events in a virtual environment. Additional rules to accommodate varied requirements of an earthquake can be represented by customized SWRL constructs, which can be seamlessly added into the proposed drill script generation process. The developed system is demonstrated using data sets for buildings in Taiwan. During a disaster exercise, first responders can gain better situational awareness regarding an earthquake’s spatiotemporal progress. Finally, it is suggested that first responders review the scene using the proposed approach immediately after a real earthquake, so that improved search and rescue plans can be defined and implemented.

Stability of Individuals during Urban Inundations: What Should We Learn from Field Observations?

The flooding of urbanized areas constitutes a major hazard to populations and infrastructure. Flood flows during urban inundations have been studied only recently and the real-life impact of fluid flows on individuals is not well understood. The stability of individuals in floodwaters is re-assessed based upon the re-analysis of detailed field measurements during a major flood event. The results emphasized that hydrodynamic instabilities, linked to local topographic effects and debris, constitute major real-world hazards. A comparison between a number of flow conditions deemed unsafe for individuals, along with guidelines, suggests that many recommendations are over-optimistic and unsafe in real floodwaters and natural disasters. A series of more conservative guidelines is proposed, particularity relevant to flood events.

Performance of Post-Fire Composite Prestressed Concrete Beam Topped with Reinforced Concrete Flange

The performance of composite prestressed concrete beam topped with reinforced concrete flange structures in fire depends upon several factors, including the change in properties of the two different materials due to fire exposure and temperature distribution within the composition of the composite members of the structure. The present experimental work included casting of 12 identical simply supported prestressed concrete beams grouped into 3 categories, depending on the strength of the top reinforced concrete deck slab (20, 30, and 40 MPa). They were connected together by using shear connector reinforcements. To simulate the real practical fire disasters, 3 composite prestressed concrete beams from each group were exposed to high temperature flame of 300, 500, and 700°C, and the remaining beams were left without burning as reference specimens. Then, the burned beams were cooled gradually by leaving them at an ambient lab condition, after which the specimens were loaded until failure to study the effect of temperature on the residual beams serviceability, to determine the ultimate load-carrying capacity of each specimen in comparison with unburned reference beam, and to find the limit of the temperature for a full composite section to remain composite. It was found that the exposure to fire temperature increased the camber of composite beam at all periods of the burning and cooling cycle as well as the residual camber, along with reduction in beam stiffness and the modulus of elasticity of concrete in addition to decrease in the load-carrying capacity.

A fuzzy logic methodology for assessing the resilience of past communities to tephra fall: a Laacher See eruption 13,000 year BP case

While volcanologists are experienced in assessing present and past volcanism, and while archaeologists are experts in understanding past societies, the study of how ancient volcanic activity has impacted contemporaneous communities remains little systematised. We here present a fuzzy logic-based methodology for bringing together expert assessments in evaluating the vulnerability and, by extension, the resilience of a group of late Pleistocene foragers to the Laacher See eruption, a large explosive eruption that affected continental Europe 13,000 years ago. Based on attributes assessing human health, shelter, food supply, and water supply our analyses suggest community resilience falls from 1.0 to 0.75 – 0.8 under a 5 cm tephra fall, to 0.45 – 0.50 with a 10 cm fall, and to 0.17 – 0.2 with an 18 – 20 cm tephra fall. Our explicit assessment of different experts’ evaluation of the different attribute’s relative importance facilitates a rigour in formulating such impact scenarios. The assessment methodology is rapid and can then be matched against existing evidence or, importantly, be used to also assess contemporary communities’ potential for loss under different tephra fall conditions. The methodology can be readily transferred between case studies and, in principle, between hazards, and could contribute significantly to the design of realistic disaster scenarios, which in turn serve to build resilience in at-risk communities.

The relationship between security services and public order in the port area - legal issues

Social relations regarding economic transport activity in maritime ports require a clear, concise and coherent body of legislation to support the transport community and the representatives of related industries, so that they can pursue their proposed business objectives, a fair, competitive and safe public order environment. We believe that piloting and sea towing must be circumscribed by this desideratum, a poor legal regulation making it difficult for ships to enter and exit from and to the Port of Constanta and, moreover, be able to cause a real economic or environmental disaster. In this respect, we have proposed in the present paper to analyze from the perspective of legal regulations, as a case study, the most important piloting accident that occurred in the Romanian ports on November 1st 2015 between two commercial ships flag Malta and Turkey, showing the consequences, as well as the potential dangers that could have occurred.

A hands-on approach to estimate debris flow velocity for rational mitigation of debris hazard

Rational estimation of debris flow velocity is one of the key issues in debris hazard mitigation. Among the various procedures, back-calculation of debris flow velocity is one of the most frequently used approaches. Back-calculation includes determination of super-elevations and channel properties, and velocities are calculated using the forced vortex equation. Super-elevation and bend radius are biasing parameters in the back-calculation scheme. Therefore, an iterative approach based on simplified assumptions is developed to avoid the direct and subjective determination of bend radius. Besides, as only the highest mud prints are visible after the disaster, this misreads the actual super-elevation. To seek better ways to fix this anomaly, a series of three-dimensional numerical curved flume tests using smoothed particle hydrodynamics are carried out. Estimated velocities from highest flow marks underestimate the actual velocities near the source, while they converge on the actual velocities as the distance to source increases. A best-fit line is then proposed to adjust the mud-marks-derived velocities to the real velocities. The assumption taken during development of the iterative approach for determining bend radii is also justified from the numerical simulations. The law of similarity allows application of these findings to real debris flow disasters. Thus, two real debris flow disasters in Japan are examined for validation of the developed procedure and adjusted velocities are proven to be consistent with verbal evidences and previous analyses.

The study of SALT classification method for health service support in disaster assistance

Objective To study the value of SALT method in disaster assistance. Methods A total of 84 internship nurses from 2015 to 2017 were randomly divided into group SLAT and group START and accepted different classification methods training, then checked under the scene of simulated mass casualty events (car accident and earthquake) and the results of the examination were compared. Results The triage time of the SALT group was (8.00±1.36) min, (23.14±1.95) min, less than (10.05±1.34) min, (25.07±2.22) min in the START group in the car accident scene and the earthquake scene and the differences were statistically significant (t=-6.94, -4.23, P 0.05). The accuracy of the triage in the car accident scene were better than earthquake scenes of the both SALT and START classifications and differences were statistically significant (χ2=10.49, 10.54, P<0.05). The consistency of the SALT classification and the START classification was better (Kappa=0.526, P<0.01). Conclusions The SALT method has the advantages of simple, easy to master, accurate and reliable. It is consistent with the traditional START method, but the time of classification is shorter and recommended to be used in the teaching of disaster medicine and the rescue of real disasters. Key words: Classification; SALT; Disaster assistance; Triage

Orientation effect on upward flame propagation over rigid polyurethane foam

Inclined upward (concurrent) flame spread over rigid polyurethane (RPU) foam which can exhibit great fire hazard in real high-rise building fire disasters has attracted more and more attentions in the previous studies. In this work, a series of bench-scale experiments and theoretical analyses were conducted to explore the orientation effect on upward flame spread of RPU foam with sample inclination ranging from 10° to 85°. Results show that the fitted correlations between flame length and pyrolysis length are different due to the increasing inclinations, and can be categorized by a modified Rayleigh number. Meanwhile, the power exponents of the fitted expressions between flame length and heat release rate per unit width can also be classified: the power exponent n = 1, n<1 and n>1, when 10° ≤ θ ≤ 40°, 50° ≤ θ ≤ 70°, and θ ≥ 80°, respectively. Furthermore, the dimensionless mass loss rate is approximately proportional to the quarter power of the modified Rayleigh number. The relationship between upward flame spread rate and sine of inclined angle is approximately exponential, and a critical modified Rayleigh number at which no flame spread can be sustained is proposed. The results of this study can provide a reference to high-rise building fire risk assessment and energy conservation system design.

MULTI-SATELLITE OBSERVATION SCHEDULING FOR LARGE AREA DISASTER EMERGENCY RESPONSE

Abstract. an optimal imaging plan, plays a key role in coordinating multiple satellites to monitor the disaster area. In the paper, to generate imaging plan dynamically according to the disaster relief, we propose a dynamic satellite task scheduling method for large area disaster response. First, an initial robust scheduling scheme is generated by a robust satellite scheduling model in which both the profit and the robustness of the schedule are simultaneously maximized. Then, we use a multi-objective optimization model to obtain a series of decomposing schemes. Based on the initial imaging plan, we propose a mixed optimizing algorithm named HA_NSGA-II to allocate the decomposing results thus to obtain an adjusted imaging schedule. A real disaster scenario, i.e., 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, is revisited in terms of rapid response using satellite resources and used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method with state-of-the-art approaches. We conclude that our satellite scheduling model can optimize the usage of satellite resources so as to obtain images in disaster response in a more timely and efficient manner.

Simulation study of a low-tech and reliable identification coding method for mass casualties.

AimTo evaluate the ease of use, reliability, and duplication risks of a new identification (ID) coding method, which works for mass casualty events such as disaster scenes.MethodsThe new ID code consisted of 16 alphanumeric characters: seven characters for the responder's information and nine for the casualty, which can be created in a very low‐tech manner without using any electronic devices. A simulated triage was carried out for virtual causalities by students of the same grade at our university's medical school. Each participant was instructed to triage and create IDs for the same 10 virtual casualties. Eighty‐nine participants created a total of 890 IDs, which were examined for correct coding and ID duplication rates.ResultsDespite situations in which the risk of duplication might be considered high, complete duplication of IDs occurred in only one case (0.2%), and the other 888 IDs (99.8%) were unique. The simulation was done in a reasonable amount of time without any confusion.ConclusionsIn the mass casualty incident triage simulation, our new coding method proved easy and useful in creating IDs with an extremely low duplication rate. To develop this method for broader use, further evaluation is needed in more simulations and real disaster situations.

Designing UAV-aided emergency networks for large-scale disaster scenarios

■■■Today’s wireless communication networks are very reliable. However, in case of a disaster, these networks can be overwhelmed by a tremendous amount of requests which they can not cope with. We propose a deployment tool for UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle)-aided emergency networks for such disaster scenarios. By using UAVs, femtocell base stations will be brought to and hovered at their assigned location. We applied this deployment tool on a realistic disaster scenario in the city center of Ghent, Belgium. The results are very promising although a large amount of drones (> 1000 type 1 or > 370 type 2 drones) is required to provide full coverage for 1 h. Halving the user coverage results in 1.8 to 2 times less drones. More effectively is to increase the drone’s fly height. A 10-m higher fly height can result in a reduction up to 13%. However, above 100 m, the influence is not significant any more. Decreasing the user’s service level has no significant influence on the number of required drones for the considered scenario. Furthermore, a prediction model for the number of required drones based on the intervention duration and the user coverage is proposed.

Sarnath Banerjee’s All Quiet in Vikaspuri as Text/Image Activism and Cli-Fi

Using an ecocritical approach and discussing the theory of the graphic novel as it relates to Indian writing in English, this paper argues that In All Quiet in Vikaspuri Sarnath Banerjee blends the cli-fi genre with the medium of the graphic novel to illustrate “slow violence” that is perpetrated on nature in the name of vikas or progress. Through his text/image activism, Banerjee depicts India’s water wars at the community level, a corrupt political system, the shortsighted policies in politics and business, the detrimental effects of privatizing basic resources, the media’s lack of coverage of environmental issues, the paradoxical nature of the relationship that Hindus have with nature, and the inaction or silence that the average Indian maintains towards environmental concerns. These factors are forms of “slow violence.” Since there is no actual “violence” involved in any of these factors, the threat is difficult to translate. However, Banerjee responds to the challenge by intervening representationally to indicate “amorphous calamities” by (a) “devising iconic symbols” to illustrate the calamity and (b) by yoking popular objects to “amorphous calamities.” Personalizing the Anthropocene through an Indian cultural prism, Banerjee refers to popular sports, television dramas, Hindu mythology, and real environmental disasters. Ultimately, through his work, he holds up a mirror to his Indian readers to warn them of the dangers of keeping quiet in the land of progress.

Satellite scheduling of large areal tasks for rapid response to natural disaster using a multi-objective genetic algorithm

Earth satellite observations are very useful during the response phase of disaster management, since satellites could provide accurate, frequent and almost instantaneous data for large areas anywhere in the world. To rapidly respond to natural disasters, a key problem is how to efficiently schedule multiple earth observation satellites to acquire image data of a large stricken area by coordinating multiple different even conflicting needs of disaster relief, such as the extent of coverage over the stricken area, timeliness, and the spatial resolution. In this paper, considering two typical application scenarios during the response phase, we propose a multi-objective optimization method to solve the problem of satellite scheduling of a large area target. First, we design a decomposition method to partition a areal task into a series of observation strips. Next, the multiple satellite tasking problem is expressed as a multi-objective integer-programming model including optimizing objectives of the coverage rate, the imaging completion time, the average spatial resolution and the average slewing angle. Finally, the multi-objective genetic algorithm NSGA-II is designed to obtain optimal solutions of satellite scheduling. A real disaster scenario, i.e., 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, is revisited in terms of satellite image acquisition in the context of emergency response. To prove the advantage of NSGA-II, a comparison with state-of-the-art approaches is performed. Furthermore, we discuss the applicability of the proposed method under two kinds of situations: (1) roughly grasping the damage of affected area as soon as possible and (2) accurately assessing the damage of buildings in the worst-hit area.

THE PROBLEM OF SOCIALIZATION OF YOUTH IN CRISES TRANSITION

The article deals with the problem of self-realization of young people in a permanent crisis. We are talking about youth subcultures, which consist of those who "dropped out" from society or are in an uncertain (liminal) state of transition from one social group (youth) to another (adults), which creates a serious problem for the socialization of young people. In these circumstances, young people are faced with the urgent need to build their own "counterculture", while playing specific roles that do not coincide with the interests of the majority. And although the liminal state of youth self-determination has become a real disaster for the West itself, it continues to be presented to the world community as an achievement of modern Western culture, the main postulate of which is the free choice of the individual.

The Development of VR based Application for Realistic Disaster Prevention Training

The Development of VR based Application for Realistic Disaster Prevention Training