Situation Of Survivors Research Articles

Energy-efficient data routing in cooperative UAV swarms for medical assistance after a disaster.

Medical assistance is crucial to disaster management. In particular, the situation of survivors as well as the environmental information after disasters should be collected and sent back to cloud/data centers immediately for further interpretation and analysis. Recently, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-aided disaster management has been considered a promising approach to enhance the efficiency of searching and rescuing survivors after a disaster, in which a group of UAVs collaborates to accomplish the search and rescue task. However, the battery capacity of UAVs is a critical shortcoming that limits their usage. Worse still, the unstable network connectivity of disaster sites could lead to high latency of data transmission from UAV to remote data centers, which could make significant challenges on real-time data collecting and processing. To solve the above problems, in this paper, we investigate an energy-efficient multihop data routing algorithm with the guarantee of quality-of-service for UAV-aided medical assistance. Specifically, we first study the data routing problem to minimize the energy consumption considering transmission rate, time delay, and life cycle of the UAV swarms. Then, we formulate the issue as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model. Because of the Non-deterministic Polynomial-hardness of this problem, we propose a polynomial time algorithm based on a genetic algorithm to solve the problem. To achieve high efficiency, we further enhance our algorithm based on DBSCAN and adaptive techniques. Extensive experiments show that our approach can outperform the state-of-the-art methods.

Impacts of Tsunami Disaster in Thai Elderly Survivors

The psychological impact 4 years after 2004 tsunami affected the individual health status and living situation of survivors. Although Thailand rapidly received assistance and success in the relief response, mental trauma is still embedded within individuals. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe individual experiences regarding to Tsunami impact in Thai elderly survivors after 4 years. Participants were 22 older adults, aged between 60 and 81 years, who had direct experience with various loss from the 2004 tsunami. Semi-structure in-depth interviews, audio-tape recordings, and field notes were used to collect data at participants’ homes. Thematic analysis was use to discover regularities and patterns among descriptions. Three major themes were found: 1) feelings of suffering and missing loved ones were still deep in the minds of participants, 2) coping with stress included reframing thoughts as “plong,” living with life understanding, doing activities for healing, support from family members, and building self-esteem, and 3) engaging in self-care behaviors to heal the mind and body included undergoing continuous care as necessary, seeking care both physical and mental health, and holding mind with Buddhist principle. The findings delineated Tsunami as a stressful life event that has had prolonged affected on individual’s lives. Older adult survivors still suffer from their lost and concern about their children’s lives. Although they found coping to live wisely, these survivors needed professionals helped for continuous care. Findings suggested that health care professionals would continue follow-up care with older adult survivor concern, managed self-care, and coping strategies with religious practice.

How Own Income Affects Net Income Loss after the Death of a Spouse?

The economic impact following the death of a spouse is mainly felt by survivors with no income of their own. After the death of a spouse an income loss also occurs in a double-earner household. Although the importance of changes in family structure and the labor force participation of women are widely recognized, very little research has been done on how financial risk following the death of a spouse relates to survivor’s own income. The present research investigates the extent to which own income reduces financial vulnerability resulting from the spouse’s death. In addition, the effect of income taxation on the financial situation of survivors is analyzed. In contrast to existing studies, the present analysis is based on hypothetical retiree households with the same net income. This guarantees that the household’s welfare before the death of a spouse is the same for different types of survivors. The present research investigates those surviving the death of a spouse in Austria, Germany and the U.S.A. The results presented here may help individuals plan lifetime earnings since they reveal the strong link between survivor benefit formula and survivor labor force participation. Furthermore, the results aid the drafting of new legislation that guarantees equity among survivors.

The Phenomenology of Posttraumatic Distress in Older Adult Holocaust Survivors

This paper focuses on the effects of the Holocaust on its survivors more than 55 years after the end of World War II. The emphasis is on survivors who were either adults during the Holocaust and who are now over the age of 70, or survivors who were children during the Holocaust and whose age is now between 56 and 70. The central question was: What kinds of posttraumatic phenomena are seen in older adult survivors? After an overview of the field, the situation of survivors in Israel is presented in 2 ways. Results of a survey of survivors who were referred to Amcha, the National Israeli Center for Psychosocial Support of Survivors of the Holocaust, is provided to give some insight in a clinical population. In addition, 2 case histories of survivors are presented to give a more in-depth perspective. The gap between the data from the questionnaires and the clinical material has relevance for the way in which we conceptualize the late consequences of massive trauma.

The Aftermath of Suicide: A Review of Empirical Evidence

The empirical studies on mourning after suicide were evaluated systematically with the aid of a descriptive model of grief. The starting point in the formulation of this model is the assumption that the bereaved are active in their processing of the loss. The current stages and component theories are rejected on the grounds of empirical contra-evidence and theoretical considerations. Instead, a framework of tasks of bereavement is presented in which the essential tasks confronting survivors in their adaption to the loss are formulated: detachment of the deceased, preserving a satisfactory self-image, and keeping in contact with people who can be of support during the grief process. An examination is made of what is known about the situation of survivors of suicide in this respect. Grief after suicide appears to differ on a number of qualitative aspects from grief after other causes of death. These differences probably do not, however, lead to an atypical mourning process. Generally speaking, the grief process seems to show the same course and main features as those occurring after other types of death, especially after sudden unnatural death. It can be concluded from the literature reviewed that there is no empirical evidence to support the popular notion that survivors of suicide show more pathological reactions, a more complicated and prolonged grief process, than other survivor groups.