Sudden Disasters Research Articles

Resilience, Fragility, and Robustness: Cities and COVID-19

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on cities around the world. In this paper, we analyse city fragility and resilience through the lens of the social compact framework. This framework enables an understanding of the interplay of agreements between citizens and city, state and national governments that exist within city systems. We examine three different case studies during the COVID-19 pandemic to understand instances of fragility in developed cities and how this fragility can affect a city's capability to respond to sudden disasters or emergencies. We identify the challenges and nuances that come with attempting to address urban fragility and improve city resilience, before finally presenting robustness as a way to conceptualise complex city systems and a means to thinking about more pro-active and adaptive policy.

Strength & Conduct of Reinforced Concrete Corner Joint under Negative Moment Effect

The aim of our study is to reveal the effect of steel reinforcement details,tensile steel reinforcement ratio, compressed reinforcing steel ratio,reinforcing steel size, corner joint shape on the strength of reinforcedconcrete Fc' and delve into it for the most accurate details and concreteconnections about the behavior and resistance of the corner joint ofreinforced concrete, Depending on the available studies and sources inaddition to our study, we concluded that each of these effects had a clearrole in the behavior and resistance of the corner joint of reinforced concreteunder the influence of the negative moment and yield stress. A studyof the types of faults that can be reinforced angle joints obtains detailsand conditions of crushing that are almost identical for all types of steelreinforcement details and the basic requirements for the acceptable behaviorof reinforced concrete joints in the installations and the efficiency of thejoint and this may help us to prepare for disasters, whether natural or other,as happens with tremors The floor and failure that may occur due to wrongdesigns or old buildings and the possibility of using those connections totreat those joints and sections in reinforced or unarmed concrete facilitiesto preserve the safety of humans and buildings from sudden disasters andreduce and reduce risks, as well as qualitative control over the productionof concrete connections and sections free from defects to the extreme.

Application of Slope Radar (S-SAR) in Emergency Monitoring of the “11.03” Baige Landslide

On October 11 and November 3, 2018, the disaster chain of landslide-barrier lake occurred twice in Baige Village, Xizang Province. After the second sliding of the landslide, the danger of the landslide dam was eliminated by the manual excavation of the drain grooves. During this period, a ground-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar (GB-InSAR) called “S-SAR” was utilized for real-time monitoring and analyzing 48 selected target pixels on the residual deformation bodies of landslides (divided into K1, K2, and K3 deformation zones) for 8 days. Through the real-time deformation map of pixels in the monitoring area obtained by S-SAR, the ranges of five strong deformation regions were identified and delineated. Based on the apparent cumulative deformation-time curve of each target pixel, the overall deformation law of K1, K2, and K3 deformation zones could be monitored and analyzed in real time. Based on a curve graph of the deformation rate, acceleration, and time of each target pixel, the K1, K2, and K3 deformation zones were within a uniform deformation stage. Taking the target pixel point and the corresponding time in which the deformation rate and deformation acceleration had a large, abrupt jump at the same time as the position and time of the near-slip failure, the 11 positions and moments of the near-slip failure were counted. The results presented here may represent a workable reference for emergency monitoring and early warning of similar sudden geological disasters.

Putting out fires: The varying temporalities of disasters

How does a community with a history punctuated by responding to disasters understand the slow risk posed by industrial toxic exposure? Drawing on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a contaminated informal settlement in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, I explore the neighbors’ understanding of toxicity as mediated by previous experience with disaster and displacement. Esmeraldas is home to the largest refinery in Ecuador. Located only meters away from smoke stacks and other industrial structures, 50 Casas is one of the neighborhoods in closest proximity to the petrochemical complex. Since their arrival in the area, residents of the neighborhood have faced a variety of disasters ranging from earthquakes and intermittent floods to industrial accidents. I present a case in which the conjunction of temporally distinct risks has shaped the community's protective strategies to focus on the urgency of impending disasters, while deprioritizing the mitigation of slower contaminants. Drawing on the concept of slow violence, I show, first, that a conjunction of threats with varying temporalities may have the unintended consequence of minimizing the danger of slower threats, second, that risk perceptions are intimately tied to personal experience and history, and third, that residents mobilize their identity as “contaminated citizens” to demand infrastructural works aimed at minimizing the danger of sudden disasters.

An Efficient Emergency Patient Monitoring Based on Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Medical sensors are implanted within the vital organs of human body to record and monitor the vital signs of pulse rate, heartbeat, electrocardiogram, body mass index, temperature, blood pressure, etc. to ensure their effective functioning. These are monitored to detect patient’s health from anywhere and at any time. The Wireless Sensor Networks are embedded in the form of Body Area Nets and are capable of sensing and storing the information on a digital device. Later this information could be inspected or even sent to a remotely located storage device specifically (server or any public or private cloud for analysis) so that a medical doctor can diagnose the present medical condition of a person or a patient. Such a facility would be of immense help in the event of an emergency such as a sudden disaster or natural calamity where communication is damaged, and the potential sources become inaccessible. The aim of this paper is to create a mobile platform using Mobile Ad hoc Network to support healthcare connectivity and treatment in emergency situations.

Analysis of rockburst driving mechanism based on unbalanced force

Rockburst is a sudden disaster that occurs during the underground excavation. It is still challenging to predict the rockburst quantitatively. In the underground excavation, the complex geological structures, the mechanical properties of rock mass, the shape of the excavation and the construction process have an important influence on the occurrence and extent of the rockburst. Nonlinear finite element analysis can model these influencing factors comprehensively and efficiently. However, it is very difficult to analyze the overall stability of the system based on the nonlinear finite element method, and the quantitative indicators for rockburst prediction based on the nonlinear finite element analysis are rare. According to the deformation reinforcement theory, the distribution of unbalanced force during the structural deformation indicates the potential damage zone and its distance from the unbalanced state to the equilibrium. It can also be considered as the driving force of the non-equilibrium evolution of rock mass. In this paper, the physical mechanism and prediction of rockburst are both explored based on the nonlinear finite element analysis using the concept of the unbalanced force. The distribution of unbalanced force during tunnel excavation is modeled considering the geological structures and in-situ stress field. The sensitivity analysis of case studies with changing ratio between horizontal and vertical in-situ stress, inner and outer layer stiffness, and fault dip angle is conducted. Unbalanced force distribution accords with the conclusion of strength theory and stiffness theory and can be used to explore strain rockburst and strain-structure slip rockburst. The unbalanced force can reflect the driving mechanism of rockburst and can be employed as the driving force of rockburst.

Application of multi-hazard knowledge base for underground infrastructure based on iS3 platform

The underground infrastructure is faced with progressive diseases such as deformation, leakage, crack and sudden disasters such as fire, explosion and earthquake during its service period, and the interaction of multiple disasters leads to multi-field coupling and disaster chain. The multiple disasters knowledge base of underground infrastructure is based on iS3 platform, including static case database, static knowledge base, model method base and scenario base. The multi-disaster knowledge base combs the real disaster cases in the last hundred years according to the unified disaster data standard, which can realize the inquiry and statistical analysis of multi-disaster cases. By summarizing the key parameters of multiple disasters, the quantitative models between the characteristics of underground infrastructure operation safety state and the measurable state parameters are established. Some of the input parameters for the multiple disasters models are from the static database, and these models are automatically updated according to the characteristics of the underground infrastructure service life. The independent concurrent and interlocking multi-disaster chain scenarios and patterns are established by numerical simulations, real-scale tests and model-scale experiments. A case study of the Shanghai Century Avenue subway station is performed. A variety of disaster numerical simulations are carried out based on the unified BIM model, and knowledge base is used to carry out inversion, prediction and analysis of key parameters.

Power Dispatching of Transportable Energy Storage System for Post-disaster Restoration Scheme of Port: The AES-Based Joint Restoration Scheme

In recent years, the rapid development of artificial intelligence, Big Data, Cloud Computing, etc., rapidly develops, synergy development of the transportation-energy-information based triple play has been accelerated. The all-electric ship (AES) is satisfied with the demand for both the unreasonable resource configuration of port energy system and low energy efficiency caused by sudden disasters. As a power carrier unit, AES has great potential in improving the resistance of port power distribution network for large-area blackout. Therefore, in this paper, a joint post-disaster restoration scheme for AESs and distribution generation scheduling in ports’ microgrid (MG) is proposed to minimize the cost of post-disaster restoration including customer interruption cost and AES operation cost. The time-space network (TSN) model which describes the scheduling of AESs is applied to compare the grid resilience and flexibility of AES-based joint dispatching and only relying on distributed generation equipment in post-disaster restoration. The joint scheduling problem is formulated as a mixed-integer linear programming. The proposed model and scheme are tested in a system with 3 ports and 4 AESs verified the resilience of the port power distribution network with AESs.

Sinkhole Scanner: A New Method to Detect Sinkhole-Related Spatio-Temporal Patterns in InSAR Deformation Time Series

Sinkholes are sudden disasters that are usually small in size and occur at unexpected locations. They may cause serious damage to life and property. Sinkhole-prone areas can be monitored using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) time series. Defining a pattern using InSAR-derived spatio-temporal deformations, this study presents a sinkhole pattern detector, called the Sinkhole Scanner. The Sinkhole Scanner includes a spatio-temporal mathematical model such as a 2-dimensional time evolving Gaussian function as a kernel, which moves over the study area using a sliding window approach. The scanner attempts to fit the model over deformation time series of Constantly Coherent Scatterers (CCS) intersected by the window and returns the posterior variance as a measure of goodness of fit. In this way, the scanner searches for subsiding regions resembling sinkhole shapes over a sinkhole prone area. It is designed to detect large sinkholes with a high efficiency, and small sinkholes with a lower efficiency. It is tested at four different spatial scales, and on a simulated and real set of deformation data. Real data were obtained from Sentinel-1A SLC data in IW mode, over Ireland where a large sinkhole occurred on 24 September 2018. The Sinkhole Scanner was able to identify a pattern of low posterior variance zones consistent with the simulated set. In case of the real data, it is able to identify significantly low posterior variance zones near the sinkhole area with the lowest value being 51.1% of the maximum value. The results from Sinkhole Scanner over the real sinkhole site were compared with Multiple Hypothesis Testing (MHT), which identifies Breakpoint and Heaviside temporal anomalies in the deformation time series of CCS. MHT was able to identify high likelihood for Heaviside anomalies in deformation time series of CCS near the sinkhole site about 10 epochs before the sinkhole occurrence. We show that the Sinkhole Scanner is efficient in monitoring a large area and search for sinkholes and that MHT can be used successively to identify temporal anomalies in the vicinity of areas detected by the Sinkhole Scanner. Future research may address other Sinkhole shapes whereas the underlying stochastic model may be adjusted. We conclude that the Sinkhole Scanner is important to be applied at different levels of scale to converge on potential sinkhole centers.

Research on E-commerce Logistics Information System Based on Big Data Technology

With the in-depth research and rapid development and application of “Internet +” big data technology, it has a positive and far-reaching impact on e-commerce logistics, but how to use the advantages of big data technology to serve e-commerce logistics innovation and satisfy the society and customers for its application demand is the focus of current e-commerce logistics service companies. With the support of the Internet of Things technology, it can realize the unified command of the emergency logistics management system, coordinate the deployment of emergency materials, vehicles, and personnel, ensure the efficient development of emergency rescue work, and minimize the impact of sudden disasters on the society and the people.

Aspects of plant biotechnology in combating COVID-19 infection

The novel COVID-19 disease pandemic is still at its height caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing thousand of death every week. It has extremely high infectivity, a short doubling time and a high risk of nosocomial infection. COVID-19 is a sudden disaster which has not been previously identified in humans and resulted in a public crisis. However, prevention and management are the best options. Several efforts are made by the researchers to develop vaccines, therapeutic and antiviral drugs to curb the spread of COVID-19 disease. Plant biotechnology is used for the development of test kit reagents, vaccines, immunomodulatory proteins, monoclonal antibodies and antiviral drugs. The rapid production of biologicals on an industrial scale could be facilitated by plant molecular farming (PMF). In the present scenario of the COVID-19 pandemic, PMF has the potential to fulfill emergency demands. Therefore, this is the most attractive approach in terms of cost, scalability, safety, easy delivery and mucosal immunity induction.

Investigation of Disasters with Different InSAR Methods

Disasters can cause many loss of life and property every year. Although sudden disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis cannot be detected in advance, knowing where and when disasters may occur or quickly determining the impact area of a disaster is the main factor in preventing these losses. For this reason, many different measurement methods have been developed by various professional disciplines in order to examine disasters. One of these methods is the Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) method, which is a remote sensing method. In this study, the 2015 Chile Illapel earthquake with the Differential SAR Interferometry (DInSAR) method based on the InSAR method, the vertical deformations and change analysis in the Konya Karapınar district, and the California Carr fire with the Permanent Scatterer SAR Interferometry (PS-InSAR) method were investigated. As a result of the investigations, the deformation in the LOS direction in the 2015 Chile Illapel earthquake region was found to be ∼151 cm and the vertical deformations in the Konya Karapınar district were found in the range of 6.4 to -63.7 cm. Additionally, the initial and full spread area of the California Carr fire were determined.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Agricultural climate change based on remote sensing image and emergency material supply management of agriculture, rural areas and farmers

In the process of agricultural development, climate change in different regions will have different degrees of impact on the allocation and use of agricultural resources. In most cases, climate change will affect the use of agricultural production technology. The energy and material needed in the process of crop growth are also provided by climate change. People must pay attention to climate change if they want to carry out agricultural production. Through people’s long-term practice, it can be seen that the development of agriculture is greatly affected by climate. Once the climate change is unfavorable to the development of agriculture, the total grain reserve in China will be affected, and there will be some problems in the food supply of the whole country. In order to effectively reduce the negative impact of climate change, this paper analyzes the climate problems in the process of agricultural production by using geographic information technology, discusses the ability of agricultural resources to cope with sudden disasters, and puts forward reasonable resource allocation suggestions to improve the utilization efficiency of resources.

Graph Evaluation and Review Technique for Emergency Logistics Distribution in Complex Environment

Emergency logistics is one of the important measures to solve the unconventional sudden disaster. The research on the distribution design of emergency logistics project has an important supporting role for the whole emergency rescue system. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and plan the emergency logistics project scientifically in order to better serve the emergency rescue system. In view of the defect that the current emergency logistics model cannot completely describe the whole emergency logistics process, this paper proposes a new emergency logistics distribution model by using GERT random network. From the perspective of system, this model fully considers the possible situation in the process of emergency material transportation and puts forward the corresponding countermeasures, so as to improve the transportation efficiency of rescue materials in the actual disaster relief activities to speed up disaster relief. Based on the properties of moment generating function and the calculation method of Mason formula, this paper fully considers the success probability, risk probability, delivery time, and other factors of the distribution route and puts forward the transshipment scheme of each logistics site to the disaster sites. After that, the effectiveness of GERT stochastic network in the process of emergency distribution is verified by an example of a logistics distribution route, which provides decision-making basis for relevant departments. Compared with the literature, this paper uses GERT network model to intuitively and clearly express the overall process of emergency material distribution, breaks through the thinking mode of simply choosing the distribution path in the distribution process, combines with the dynamic changes of the distribution environment, and comprehensively considers the timeliness and traffic capacity of emergency material distribution in sudden disasters, so as to provide reference for emergency management in complex and random situations for decision-making reference.

Experience of Treating Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients in Daegu, South Korea.

At the beginning of February 2020, Daegu faced a serious situation due to the rapid outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2. The healthcare system in Daegu Metropolitan City was ill-prepared for this sudden disaster situation. The COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing in South Korea. Daegu has limited medical resources compared to the Seoul Metropolitan Area, and it is hypothesized that a review of the outbreak therein could provide information that will be valuable for dealing with future outbreaks. The likelihood of death due to COVID-19 depends on the capacity of the area for the treatment of critically ill patients. This report reviews the overall treatment process followed for critically ill patients in Daegu.

There and Back Again: A Commentary on Social Welfare Policy in the Wake of 2020

There and Back Again: A Commentary on Social Welfare Policy in the Wake of 2020

Optimization-driven distribution of relief materials in emergency disasters

The distribution of relief materials is an important part of post-disaster emergency rescue. To meet the needs of the relief materials in the affected areas after a sudden disaster and ensure its smooth progress, an optimized dispatch model for multiple periods and multiple modes of transportation supported by the Internet of Things is established according to the characteristics of relief materials. Through the urgent production of relief materials, market procurement, and the use of inventory collection, the needs of the disaster area are met and the goal of minimizing system response time and total cost is achieved. The model is solved using CPLX software, and numerical simulation and results are analyzed using the example of the COVID-19 in Wuhan City, and the dispatching strategies are given under different disruption scenarios. The results show that the scheduling optimization method can meet the material demand of the disaster area with shorter time and lower cost compared with other methods, and can better cope with the supply interruptions that occur in post-disaster rescue.

Pandemic as an ideological dead end of modern medicine

For most people on our planet, the beginning of the current COVID-19 pandemic was a complete surprise and looks like a sudden disaster. However, experts do not have the right to argue in this way, since the cause of this disaster has long been known to medicine.

Location problems for shelter-in-place deployment: A case study of vertical evacuation upon dam-break floods

Unpredictable and no-notice disasters such as flash floods and wildfires, have been increasing. Under such circumstances, large-scale evacuation is required and the population may not be able to be effectively relocated in time from the disaster-threatened zone. The evacuees may be risking their lives during evacuation traveling toward the designated shelters/safety zones. A Shelter-In-Place (SIP) strategy is proposed to provide immediate avoidance of hazards for communities. This study develops the optimization models to determine SIP deployment and evacuee assignment for the case of vertical evacuation (VE) in response to dam-break floods. Compared with general shelters located outside evacuation areas, SIPs are designed to be reachable on foot upon the occurrence of sudden disasters. Accessibility of SIPs is one of the primary concerns in the problem context of determining their locations. Multi-class evacuees are addressed in the SIP strategy, particularly for the elderly in consideration of their vulnerability in disasters and heterogeneous walking speed across different classes. Additionally, the spatially-varying risk over the disaster-threatened areas is also considered in the model. A dam failure scenario causing flooding is studied for Tucheng District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. The case study illustrates the effects of spatial risk consideration, elderly priority, and coverage distance on the optimal solution of shelter locations. The extent of improvement in emergency planning is also fundamentally related to the population distribution in the study area.

Simulation analysis on the public opinion factors and public panic degree under the background of spreading sudden disaster information by new media

Based on the analysis of the transmission and evolution mechanism of the sudden disaster risk, this paper fully considers the influence of public opinion after a disaster and uses the improved individual interaction model to transform public opinion information into public risk panic. In addition, according to the characteristics of panic, this paper puts forward the corresponding emergency rescue measures to reduce the risk of social unrest. The Matlab-ABM simulation results show that at the early stage of a disaster, the degree of public panic risk evolves with the number of interactions between individuals and the deepening of risk awareness. Further, different disaster levels also lead to varying influences on the panic risk. Positive information and negative information will produce more significant distinctions in the degree of public risk panic. The simulation results can provide decision support for relevant government departments to restrain the fermentation of sudden public disasters.