Evacuation System Research Articles

Resilient evacuation infrastructure; an assessment of resilience toward natural hazards

PurposeAs evacuation is one of the most used response actions to such disasters, it is essential to understand correctly what a resilient evacuation would mean. One critical factor in evacuation resilience is the resilience level of evacuation infrastructures. Also, UN sustainable development has a goal to build resilient infrastructures. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of resilient evacuation infrastructures.Design/methodology/approachA systematic methodology for reviewing articles has been implemented to understand how vulnerable cities can be more prepared, especially for pedestrian evacuation.FindingsThis study has developed an evacuation scoring system framework for pedestrians to investigate evacuation infrastructure in terms of different resilience features, such as redundancy, safe-to-fail, readiness and capacity. The most practical evacuation system will be estimated. The output of this study can provide insight into a final output to provide the features of a successful pedestrian evacuation system for future policy drafting for infrastructure strategy decision-makers.Practical implicationsClimate change has made the risks of natural hazards such as tsunamis more intense for humans. Many people in the world live in hazardous environments and are susceptible to disasters. A community must be prepared to mitigate the destructive event and quickly respond to be called resilient.Originality/valueThis is an original work. The researcher has gone through a deep literature review and developed a cluster showing the features a resilient evacuation infrastructure should have.

A Metaverse-Based Teaching Building Evacuation Training System With Deep Reinforcement Learning

With the development of IoT, virtual reality, cloud computing, and digital twin technologies, the advent of metaverse has attracted increasing world attention. Metaverse integrates and applies multiple emerging technologies to cloud education, smart health, digital government, and emergency evacuation. Evacuation systems are of great importance to ensure life safety. Due to panic, people in a building may not be able to make the right judgment to choose an optimal path to leave the building in case of an emergency event such as a fire. As a branch of machine learning, deep reinforcement learning (DRL) can model an evacuation scene, collect real-time information, such as crowd distribution and disaster location, find the optimal escape path with a path-planning algorithm, induce the movement state of the crowd through dynamic guidance signs, and improve the evacuation efficiency. In this article, we apply DRL technology to solve the efficient emergency evacuation problem with the help of metaverse and show a training system built upon metaverse that would enable evacuees to choose the most efficient route and leave the building in the least amount of time. The information collected by various sensors, such as video cameras and smoke detectors, can give a whole picture of the status of the building in a real-time manner. The collected data are processed by cloud servers in which a DRL model is trained to dynamically guide evacuees. Experiments in different simulation scenes demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to the traditional static guidance method in saving evacuation time. It can effectively avoid major crowding along the evacuation route and improve evacuation efficiency.

Применение саморасширяющейся полиуретановой пены для остановки продолжающегося внутрибрюшного кровотечения в условиях военных конфликтов и чрезвычайных ситуаций: из опыта проведения тактико-специальных учений

Summary. Investigation purpose – to evaluate the opportunity, efficiency and safety of usage of national polyurethane foam composition (PFC) during acute experiment taken in the frameworks of conducting of tactical-special exercises (TSE). Materials and methods of the investigation. Tactical-special military-medical exercises “Ochag” are conducted annually and directed to testing of advanced health care technologies which are perspective for saving solders life and health. For modeling of tactical conditions a time coordinate system of troop system of evacuation of injured was created – from the time of provision medical treatment on artificial battlefield on the frameworks of tactical medicine till the time of provision of primary medical-sanitary treatment in medical platoon and providing of surgery in the frameworks of tactical control of injures in surgical room deployed in a tent of medical company. Investigation results and their analysis. All animals survived till the end of the experiment, internal hemorrhaging was resolved. Till the 90th minute of experiment an appearance of small values of substances included in the developed foam was noticed in a series of blood analyzes. This way the first experience of this technology usage during medical treatment provision in tactical time range was got. For assess of this PFC a conducting of pre-clinical and clinical researches was planned.

ORGANIZATION OF MEDICAL SUPPORT OF MILITARY UNITS DURING COMBAT OPERATIONS ON THE BASIS OF THE PRINCIPLE OF "GOLDEN HOUR"

Against the background of the military invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, various aspects of the problem of improving the provision of medical assistance to the military personnel during combat operations in the near future after receiving injury. The characteristic feature of the death rates in armed conflicts of the past decades is the increase in the number of deaths in the first hour after receiving a combat injury. Current trends in optimization of the provision of assistance to the wounded in all types of combat impressions are based on timely diagnosis and elimination of life-threatening consequences of penetrating and fire injuries, starting from the place of their receipt. The level and effectiveness of medical support for military units in emergency situations of military time depend on the progress and results of the fighting injury in the wounded. The possibility of preventing potentially fatal consequences of the injuries is realized by elimination of life threatening conditions as soon as possible after their receipt on the battlefield. At the same time, the implementation of measures aimed at the interruption of the mechanism of tanatogenesis should start from the pre-stage and continue during the whole process of evacuation of the wounded. The key importance in these conditions is the knowledge of the main modern tendencies of construction of medical and evacuation schemes, the main goal of which is to reduce the terms of providing qualified surgical and resuscitation assistance. The purpose of the work is to form on the basis of analysis of modern literature sources of information mass data on the role of the principle of "golden hour" in the organization of medical support of military units during combat actions. The article provides theoretical substantiation of the importance of the factor of time in elimination of consequences of combat wounds and revealed the basis of the principle of "golden hour" in providing medical care to the wounded, and also an estimation of the current state of their application in practice of modern combat medicine of the world. On the basis of data monitoring, current trends in the construction of medical and evacuation systems for the care of wounded and injured in the war initiated by the Russians against Ukraine are determined.

Kinetic modeling of a leader–follower system in crowd evacuation with collective learning

A kinetic modeling of crowd evacuation with leaders and followers is considered in this paper, in which the followers may not know the full information about the walking environment and the evacuation strategy, but they follow the leaders and learn the walking strategy to get out of the walking venue. Based on the kinetic theory of active particles, the learning dynamics are considered by introducing an activity variable [Formula: see text], which represents the learning level of the followers and measures how much knowledge a follower has learned about the walking strategy, the walking environment, or the geometry of the walking venue. Several fundamental factors are considered in this leader–follower learning system of crowd evacuation, including: (1) the rational motion of all pedestrians, i.e. the trend to the exit or to a preferred direction, the ability to avoid collisions with walls or obstacles, and the tendency to search for less crowded direction with minimal density gradient, (2) the irrational motion of followers to follow other pedestrians induced by panic, (3) the learning dynamics of the followers who learn the walking strategy during interaction with others, and, (4) the transition from a follower to a leader when one’s activity reaches the highest level of learning. A numerical comparison of a metro platform evacuation with and without learning shows a reasonably good predictive ability of the model that the learning effect plays a significant role in the evacuation dynamics.

Trends in Traumatic Brain Injury Among U.S. Service Members Deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2002–2016

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major health issue for service members deployed and is more common in recent conflicts; however, a thorough understanding of risk factors and trends is not well described. This study aims to characterize the epidemiology of TBI in U.S. service members and the potential impacts of changes in policy, care, equipment, and tactics over the 15 years studied. Retrospective analysis of U.S. Department of Defense Trauma Registry data (2002-2016) was performed on service members treated for TBI at Role 3 medical treatment facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Risk factors and trends in TBI were examined in 2021 using Joinpoint regression and logistic regression. Nearly one third of 29,735 injured service members (32.4%) reaching Role 3 medical treatment facilities had TBI. The majority sustained mild (75.8%), followed by moderate (11.6%) and severe (10.6%) TBI. TBI proportion was higher in males than in females (32.6% vs 25.3%; p<0.001), in Afghanistan than in Iraq (43.8% vs 25.5%; p<0.001), and in battle than in nonbattle (38.6% vs 21.9%; p<0.001). Patients with moderate or severe TBI were more likely to have polytrauma (p<0.001). TBI proportion increased over time, primarily in mild TBI (p=0.02), slightly in moderate TBI (p=0.04), and most rapidly between 2005 and 2011, with a 2.48% annual increase. One third of injured service members at Role 3 medical treatment facilities experienced TBI. Findings suggest that additional preventive measures may decrease TBI frequency and severity. Clinical guidelines for field management of mild TBI may reduce the burden on evacuation and hospital systems. Additional capabilities may be needed for military field hospitals.

Predictive Agent-Based Crowd Model Design Using Decentralized Control Systems

As a complex system, crowd dynamics emerge bottom-up from the local interactions between pedestrians as component subsystems. This article proposes a predictive agent-based crowd simulation model to analyze the outcomes of emergency evacuation scenarios taking into account collisions between pedestrians, smoke, fire sprinklers, and exit indicators. The crowd model is based on a decentralized control system structure, where each pedestrian agent is governed through a deliberative-reactive control architecture. The simulation model for evacuation includes a routing-based control system for dynamic-guided evacuation. A design case illustrates the modeling process. Results show that the crowd simulation model based on agent autonomy and local interactions is able to generate higher level crowd dynamics through emergence.

The Implementation of a Smart Lifejacket for Assisting Passengers in the Evacuation of Large Passenger Ships

The evacuation and abandonment of large passenger ships, involving thousands of passengers, is a safety-critical task where techniques and systems that can improve the complex decision-making process and the timely response to emergencies on board are of vital importance. Current evacuation systems and processes are based on predefined and static exit signs, information provided to the passengers in the form of evacuation drills, emergency information leaflets and public announcements systems. It is mandatory for passengers to wear lifejackets during an evacuation, which are made of buoyant or inflatable material to keep them afloat in the water. Time is the most critical attribute in ship evacuation and can significantly affect the overall evacuation process in case passengers do not reach their embarkation stations in a timely manner. Moreover, extreme conditions and hazards, such as fire or flooding, can prevent and hinder the timely evacuation process. To improve the current evacuation systems onboard large passenger ships, a smart lifejacket has been designed and implemented within the context of the project SafePASS. The proposed smart lifejacket integrates indoor localization and navigation functionality to assist passengers during the evacuation process. Once the passenger location is calculated within the ship, the navigation feature guides the passengers along an escape route using vibration motors attached to the lifejacket. This is done in the form of haptic cues to help passengers reach their destination, especially in low-visibility conditions and in case they are left behind or lost. This can increase passenger safety and reduce the total evacuation time, as well as support dynamic evacuation scenarios where the predefined routes and static exit routes may not be available due to fire or flooding incidents.

Key influence factors on the evacuation route selection for fire emergencies in urban underground complexes

PurposeThe development of urban underground complexes (UUCs) has great positive significance for improving urban safety. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the key factors of the people's behavior of evacuation route selection (BERS) for fire emergencies and UUCs’ development. This study aims to find out the factors affecting people's BERS in the evacuation process of UUCs.Design/methodology/approachThis study aims to find out the factors affecting people's BERS in the evacuation process of UUCs. To achieve this goal, the authors conducted a field experiment in F City. Furthermore, the people's BERS are obtained by using a structural equation model and compared with the field test results.FindingsThe authors found that the key factors for people's BERS are lighting conditions, route distance, flow direction guidance and indication. The results of this study contribute to the safety field by providing key factors for fire emergencies. It can also be used to improve fire safety management, evacuation strategies and assist in the development of intelligent evacuation systems.Originality/valueThe results of this study contribute to the safety field by providing key factors for fire emergencies. It can also be used to improve fire safety management, evacuation strategies and assist in the development of intelligent evacuation systems.

A real-time fire evacuation system based on the integration of Building Information Modeling and Augmented Reality

In the past decade, the drawings in construction projects' standard fire evacuation routes are usually guided in two-dimensional (2-D) views to explain hazardous areas and evacuation routes. Common users cannot interpret the drawings quickly, understand their exact position within the building, and select appropriate evacuation routes. Thus, when fires occur, the construction project's fire can cause damages, and the number of dead or injured workers involved can be high. Nowadays, Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Augmented Reality (AR) are used in construction projects to create construction in a three-dimensional (3-D) visualization. This study aims to create a prototype application that combines Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Augmented Reality (AR) to improve the fire evacuation system and provide real-time access to information for evacuating from hazardous locations. A marker-based location system was implemented, using a marker as a spatial index to link the physical location and virtual information. The system was tested for accuracy using the proposed system and the MATALL Laser Distance Meter on the 4th floor of the Department of Civil Engineering Building at Chulalongkorn University. The results showed that the average percentage difference from the current location to the exit measured by the proposed system was lower than that measured by the MATALL Laser Distance meter, with an average percentage difference of less than 2.2%. Therefore, the proposed system effectively provides real-time access to information such as the current location, exit, distance of the shortest route from the current location to the destination, and virtual green line, voice, and arrow direction for evacuation guidance. It is convenient for decision-making and helps users find destinations quickly and efficiently.

Revisiting Tonsillectomy Practices in the Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic

With the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, a limited healthcare force catered to an ever-increasing number of COVID-19 patients on top of non-COVID-19 patients. Over two years after the pandemic, it is evident that medical practice must adapt to COVID-19 to ensure the provision of undeterred, quality medical care. This review intends to re-evaluate the Tonsillectomy protocols that we employed during COVID-19 and explore ways in which we might improve the safety of this frequently performed surgery even after the pandemic. A decrease in the frequency of tonsillitis was observed as lockdown and strict social distancing protocols were followed. Thus, it is concluded that tonsillectomies may be deferred unless urgent and in the best interest of the patient and medical workforce. However, when surgery is necessary, new mitigation strategies, like preoperative COVID-19 screening, minimizing intra-operative staff, widespread use of personal protective equipment (PPE), negative pressure operating rooms, and reducing postoperative hospital stay need to be incorporated into the safety protocols of airway surgeries and minimize aerosolization such as using SES (smoke evacuation system) during surgery and TORS (trans-oral robotic surgery). This narrative review covers an extensive literature review of papers on PubMed, Google Scholar and Medline that highlight the impact of the Pandemic on the surgical practice in patients of recurrent tonsillitis since December 2019. Keywords: Tonsillitis; Tonsillectomy; COVID-19; SARS-COV-2; Health Policy; Surgical Policy.

Evacuation-path-selection model of real-time fire diffusion in urban underground complexes

Evacuation in the event of a fire in an urban underground complexes (UUC) is a big challenge. How to conduct limited evacuation in case of a fire in UUC is a problem worthy of attention. A hexagonal grid was used to balance the timing of each move to the adjacent grid to synchronize fire diffusion and crowd evacuation. This paper proposes an improved ant colony (IACO) algorithm to determine the shortest evacuation path in the case of a fire under an UUC considering real-time fire diffusion. The proposed model was verified under various scenarios. The results show that compared with the traditional quadrilateral raster map, the hexagon raster map can ensure that the moving distance in any direction is equal. The proposed IACO contributes to the body of knowledge resulted in shorter evacuation paths and avoided detours into dangerous areas and “through the wall” errors. These findings could be used to improve fire safety management plans and select evacuation technology, while assisting in the development of intelligent emergency evacuation systems.

Integrated Evacuation and Rescue Management System in Response to Fire Incidents

Indoor evacuation and rescue systems are necessary for responding to unexpected events. In the event of fire incidents, finding a proper evacuation route planning for impacted people as an immediate response and a real-time rescue planning for the trapped people is challenging. Several approaches are developed to provide an evacuation or rescue system by integrating building data and BIM models. However, none of them took the issues of both evacuation and rescue into account, and the provided solutions are not properly aware of dynamic environmental change variables derived from remotely sensed data. In this research, an evacuation and rescue management system is designed based on the integration of dynamic data of fire progress, people status, and routing data. This system consists of two stages: dynamic evacuation and dynamic rescue with priority assessment. First, the environmental data is gathered and integrated with the static building data. Then, leveraging a risk assessment method, the level of rout safety is evaluated and a dynamic risk-aware rout planning is generated for each person to evacuate safely and fast. Finally, in the rescue stage, rescuers are assigned to the trapped people using a priority assessment method so that the success rate of rescue operation increases. The same rout risk assessment is used to develop route planning for rescue team to ensure their safety. A system framework and architecture is proposed as a reference for emergency response systems and the system is evaluated over two state of art baselines under several scenarios in AnyLogic. The results demonstrates that dynamic evacuation and rescue with priority assessment approach helps to save more people, reduce total time, lower the risk of human injury and efficiently assigns relief resources to the trapped users.

Optimization of escape routes during mine fire using GIS

ABSTRACT One of the essential factors in underground mining operations is safety during potential mine accidents, like fires, for example. We used Geographical Information System (GIS) for network analysis to identify the best escape routes from different locations inside an underground mine during a fire to a safe place inside or outside the mine. We created an effective evacuation system with a more accurate 2D model based on fire dynamics, the actual dimensions of the mine, and its related elements. We applied our system to the Maghara coal mine to predict the possible fire outbreak scenarios. Our results could be used as a guide to evacuation and rescue plans during harmful events in underground mines, especially fires. Our system is an integrated system that analyses potential fire scenarios and elects the best evacuation plan using GIS technology.

Investigation on the Folding Mode and Deployment Process of an Inflatable Boarding Platform for the Marine Emergency Evacuation System

The different folding and storage forms of an inflatable boarding platform will have a direct impact on the deployment effect of the marine emergency evacuation system. This paper proposes different folding and storage methods for an inflatable boarding platform in a marine emergency evacuation system. According to the difference between the fold line and the fold direction, the numerical models of a boarding platform with partial fold, “Z” type fold and inner spiral fold are established. The platform models with three folding modes are simulated by numerical simulation. According to the numerical results of the inflation process, the displacement changes of the inflatable membrane and the surface characteristics of the model are compared and analyzed, and the synchronization of the deployment process of the upper and lower airbags in three folding forms is studied. The deployment characteristics of different folding inflatable boarding platforms in different stages are analyzed. The numerical results are of great reference value to the folding and releasing process of an inflatable boarding platform and its practical design as well as its application in the evacuation system.

System of transport security of evacuation in the conditions of the Slovak Republic

The authors' primary motivation for choosing the chosen topic was that there are many ambiguities and problematic areas in this area that have yet to be addressed in the past. Streamlining the decision-making processes in the evacuation system during a crisis event requires a clear definition of the roles and competencies of the authorities. The main goal of the contribution is to analyze and assess the organization and provision of evacuation at the level of crisis management in the conditions of the Slovak Republic.

SBEO: Smart Building Evacuation Ontology

Semantically rich depiction of the concepts for context-aware indoor routing brings appealing benefits for the safety of occupants of smart spaces in emergency evacuation. In this paper, we propose Smart Building Evacuation Ontology (SBEO3), a reusable ontology for indoor spaces, based on three different data models: user, building, and context. We provide a common representation of indoor routing and navigation, describe users? characteristics and preferences, grouping of individuals and their role in a specific context, hazards, and emergency evacuation. Among other characteristics, we consider abilities of individuals, safety and accessibility of spaces related to each person, intensity, impact, and severity of an emergency event or activity. SBEO is flexible and compatible with other ontologies of its domain, including SEAS, SSN/SOSA, SEMA4A, and empathi. We evaluate SBEO based on several metrics demonstrating that it addresses the information needs for the context-aware route recommendation system for emergency evacuation in indoor spaces. In the end, a simulation-based application example exploits SBEO using Context-Aware Emergency Evacuation Software (CAREE)4.

Intelligent Emergency Evacuation System for Industrial Environments Using IoT-Enabled WSNs

Intelligent Emergency Evacuation System for Industrial Environments Using IoT-Enabled WSNs

Help Me Evacuate! A Smart Adaptable Evacuation System With Congestion Prediction Capabilities

Help Me Evacuate! A Smart Adaptable Evacuation System With Congestion Prediction Capabilities

A Study on Robot Engineering based Fire Evacuation System

In this paper, we will read research papers on relevant issues to obtain information to help us create a system to rescue individuals who are caught in dangerous situations due to fire. This paper comprises the review of publications linked to fire evacuation and rescue robots. This robot is intended to rescue people trapped in a burning building and transport them to a safer area. Here, we'll path-plan the quickest route from the escapee's location to the exit and dispatch the robot to rescue and take them there. Human interruption has decreased as a result of mechanical technology advancements, and robots are now used for a variety of tasks as well as for the welfare of humans. The firefighters may utilise this firefighting robot in addition to them in emergency scenarios. A robot firefighter should be able to look about a given region, find the flame, and extinguish it. To complete these duties, the robot needs the proper controller. The work given here is a mini-project that is taken up as a part of the curriculum completed by electronics and communication engineering students in the second year of the electronics &amp; communication engineering department at Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering in Bangalore.