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Recently, frequent flood disasters in China have seriously threatened economic development and public safety. This paper addresses the need for a dynamic urban flood emergency knowledge management system in emergency management departments and the lack of systematic knowledge among emergency managers regarding urban flood control. A multimodal knowledge graph-based urban flood emergency knowledge management model was constructed to enhance the decision-making capabilities of emergency management departments, improve the efficiency of public emergency evacuation, and reduce losses from urban flood disasters by analyzing the shortcomings of the existing emergency management system. An intelligent and dynamic flood emergency knowledge management model was built. This paper integrates multimodal knowledge graph technology to establish a multimodal emergency knowledge management framework for urban flood control. It develops and simulates the proposed model's application scenarios for urban flood emergency evacuation using the Flocking algorithm on the NetLogo platform. Through simulation experiments, the practicality and effectiveness of the model in real flood disaster situations were examined, particularly in simulating crowd evacuation behavior. The study found that the model significantly improves the accuracy of information and decision-making speed during emergency responses and supports emergency management departments in conducting targeted and personalized emergency decisions. This research provides a scientific basis for emergency management departments to optimize their emergency response strategies to flood disasters and serves as a reference and example for the application of multimodal knowledge graph technology in emergency management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During emergencies like fire and smoke or active shooter events, there is a need to address the vulnerability and assess plans for evacuation. With the recent improvements in technology for smartphones, there is an opportunity for geo-visual environments that offer experiential learning by providing spatial analysis and visual communication of emergency-related information to the user. This paper presents the development and evaluation of the mobile augmented reality application (MARA) designed specifically for acquiring spatial analysis, situational awareness, and visual communication. The MARA incorporates existing permanent features such as room numbers and signages in the building as markers to display the floor plan of the building and show navigational directions to the exit. Through visualization of integrated geographic information systems and real-time data analysis, MARA provides the current location of the person, the number of exits, and user-specific personalized evacuation routes. The paper also describes a limited user study that was conducted to assess the usability and effectiveness of the MARA application using the widely recognized System Usability Scale (SUS) framework. The results show the effectiveness of our situational awareness-based MARA in multilevel buildings for evacuations, educational, and navigational purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

White et al. ([39]) suggested the use of social media for emergency management and Hiltz et al ([15]) conducted interview with emergency managers on the use of social media. 2001; Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 9 Fromm J, Eyilmez K, Baßfeld M, Majchrzak TA, Stieglitz S. Social media data in an augmented reality system for situation awareness support in emergency control rooms. We are also facing another era of Industrial Revolution: information technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) and social media are popular and used in daily life. Use of Social Media for Disaster Management Four papers presented the work using social media. [Extracted from the article]

Evacuation models represent one of the main tools used to assess building fire safety. Existing evacuation models are based on data from evacuation drills in western and developed countries, while there is a need for data from South Asian and developing countries (in general). This paper presents the results of an evacuation drill carried out in a library of a developing country in South Asia (Pakistan). The data of 85 student evacuees were recorded and analysed. Pre‐evacuation and walking speed data have been reported in this paper which are compared with the available data for library evacuations in other countries. The average pre‐evacuation time of 24.3 s (± standard deviation [SD] = 19.83 s) obtained in this study was shorter than previously published data for similar building types in other parts of the world. Furthermore, unimpeded horizontal speeds (mean = 0.74 m/s, SD = 0.28 m/s) were also smaller than the values reported in the available literature. Stair descending speeds (mean = 0.97 m/s, SD = 0.36 m/s) were within the ranges of stair movement data listed in previous studies. These findings represent a pioneering dataset for future building designs and evacuation simulations in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial layout and arrangement of obstacles in the built environment significantly affect its evacuation performance. However, few researchers focus on pedestrian simulation-based design optimization of built environment under emergency evacuation conditions. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the evacuation performance of optimized design solutions for traffic space in the teaching building of a primary school based on a pedestrian simulation approach and to quantify the effect of design parameters on evacuation time. Firstly, the level of traffic space design parameters was determined and optimized design solutions for the traffic space of the school building were generated. Secondly, based on the Anylogic simulation platform, the environment module and pedestrian evacuation behaviour rules of the teaching building were built to realize the evacuation behaviour simulation. Thirdly, the effect of the traffic space design parameters on the evacuation time of the teaching building was evaluated and the most significant design parameters were identified. Finally, the optimal combination of traffic space design parameters was proposed under evacuation performance orientation. The results show that the sensitivity of the traffic space design parameters to evacuation time is 31.85%. The effect of corridor width on evacuation time is 49.06 times greater than the staircase width. The optimal design combination for the traffic space in the teaching building of the primary school is a 3.0 m wide trapezoidal corridor combined with a 3.6 m wide staircase, and a 3.0 m wide fish maw corridor combined with 3.6 m wide staircase, guided by evacuation performance. The framework developed in this paper provides technical support for the development of evacuation performance-oriented design optimization of the built environment, and the results are intended to supplement the building design specifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Military Technical Courier / Vojnotehnicki Glasnik is the property of Military Technical Courier / Vojnotehnicki Glasnik and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper presents a methodology to evaluate life safety risk of coastal communities vulnerable to seismic and tsunami hazards. The work explicitly incorporates two important aspects in tsunami evacuation modeling: (1) the effect of earthquake-induced damage to buildings on building egress time, (2) the effect of earthquake-induced debris on horizontal evacuation time. The city of Seaside, Oregon, is selected as a testbed community. The hazard is based on a megathrust earthquake and tsunami from the Cascadia Subduction Zone that was defined in a previous study. The built environment consists of buildings and the transportation network for the city. Fragility analysis is used to estimate the seismic damage to buildings and resulting debris that covers portions of the road network. The horizontal evacuation time is determined based on the shortest path to shelters, including the increased travel time due to the earthquake-generated debris. The effects of different mitigation strategies are quantified. Results indicate the fatality and life safety risk of a near-field tsunami increases by 4.2–8.3 times when the effects of building egress and earthquake-induced debris are considered. The choice of population layer affects the life safety risk and thus the maximum risk is obtained when daytime populations are considered. Use of mitigation strategies result in a significant decrease in the number of fatalities. For hazards with recurrence intervals larger than 500- to 1000-years, the seismic retrofit is comparable to vertical evacuation and an effective strategy in reducing fatalities and associated risks. Implementing all mitigation strategies reduces the life safety risk by 90%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual model paper uses systems theory to explain how key elements in the Australian policy and regulatory context lead to three issues of concern in childcare centre physical environments: siting of centres on busy roads; lack of outdoor space; and, emergency evacuation in highrise buildings. Drawing on evidence from prior studies and policy documents through desktop research, as well as childcare centre visits and communications with stakeholders and experts, we confirmed these issues as threats to children's health, safety, development and well-being. Adapting Goekler's 'iceberg model' of systems theory, we identified a dominance of commercial childcare property interests and complex and conflicting policy and regulatory structures, as explanatory elements leading to outcomes that conflict with children's best interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to present a systematic review of the published literature on building information model (BIM)-based simulation tools used for occupant evacuation over the past 23 years. Design/methodology/approach: A literature review was conducted on BIM-based simulation tools used for occupant evacuation over the past 23 years. The search identified a total of 37 relevant papers, which were reviewed. The paper describes the use of BIM-based simulation tools over the years and identifies the research gaps. Findings: BIM-based simulation tools have undergone progressive development, with constant improvements through the integration of advanced tools and collection of more data. These tools can assist in identifying faults in the building design. The outcomes of the simulation were not entirely accurate, as real-life scenarios vary depending on the various building types and the behavior of their occupants. Research limitations/implications: This study contributes to the literature through reviewing the capabilities of BIM-based simulation tools and the different simulation methods along with their limitations. Practical implications: Fire safety engineers and architects can comprehend the utilization of BIM-based simulation tools to enhance the fire evacuation in light of their shortcomings and flaws. Originality/value: BIM-based simulation tools are becoming more advanced and widely used. There has not been a comprehensive evaluation of the capabilities of the integration of BIM tools and simulation modeling for occupant evacuation. This study guides researchers on the capabilities and efficiencies of integrated solutions for occupant evacuations and their inherent shortcomings. The study identifies future research areas in BIM-based tools for occupant evacuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the acceleration of urbanization, the frequency of building fire incidents has been increasing year by year. Therefore, rapid, efficient, and safe evacuation from buildings has become an urgent and important task. A construction fire escape path planning method based on an improved NavMesh algorithm is proposed in this paper. Firstly, by using the method of local updates in the navigation grid, redundant computation is reduced, and the update time of the improved algorithm is about 6.8% of that of the original algorithm, immediate generation of navigation is achieved. Secondly, the heuristic function of the pathfinding algorithm is improved, and a multi-exit path planning mechanism is proposed to achieve more efficient, which can quickly plan a safe evacuation path away from the spreading fire and smoke in the event of a fire. Finally, a new evaluation index called Navigation Grid Complexity (NGC) is proposed and demonstrated to measure the quality of navigation grids. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are validated through simulation experiments on actual building models, which can provide real-time, efficient, intelligent, and safe path planning for rapid evacuation of evacuees in the fire scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This systematic review provides a comprehensive overview of tsunami evacuation models. The review covers scientific studies from the last decade (2012–2021) and is explicitly focused on models using an agent-based approach. The PRISMA methodology was used to analyze 171 selected papers, resulting in over 53 studies included in the detailed full-text analysis. This review is divided into two main parts: (1) a descriptive analysis of the presented models (focused on the modeling tools, validation, and software platform used, etc.), and (2) model analysis (e.g., model purpose, types of agents, input and output data, and modeled area). Special attention was given to the features of these models specifically associated with an agent-based approach. The results lead to the conclusion that the research domain of agent-based tsunami evacuation models is quite narrow and specialized, with a high degree of variability in the model attributes and properties. At the same time, the application of agent-specific methodologies, protocols, organizational paradigms, or standards is sparse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The natural wind velocities in tunnels under different natural conditions are distinct, and the longitudinal ventilation velocity significantly impacts the evacuation environment. This paper examines the evacuation conditions and strategies under varying wind velocities in bifurcated tunnels. Using Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) and Pathfinder software, the fire development and evacuation of three distinct longitudinal positions in a bifurcated tunnel are simulated. The simulation results demonstrate that the evacuation conditions for disparate fire sources at varying wind velocities are markedly disparate. In consideration of the construction cost and the maximization of evacuation capacity, the width of the evacuation doors at the three locations should be set to 2 m, 1.5 m, and 1.5 m, respectively. Furthermore, an analysis of the safety of individual personnel through Fractional Effective Dose (FED) revealed that directing evacuees towards the upstream of the fire after the fire is detected can significantly reduce individual personnel injuries while ensuring the overall success of the evacuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the evacuation of people from multipurpose halls and introduces an innovative approach that uses a probabilistic model, specifically the Monte Carlo method, to analyse iterative evacuation processes. The aim is to explore how this modern technology can contribute to the development of effective and safe evacuation plans for mass events. The Monte Carlo method was applied to a specific example of a multipurpose hall that offers different configurations for events such as sports matches, concerts, or performances. The evacuation of people was analysed for two configurations: a hockey match with a capacity of 9500 people and a concert with a capacity of 11,000 people. In both cases, the total evacuation of people from the hall was analysed, and the evacuation time was evaluated when two parameters were changed: speed of movement and preference for door selection. The results of the simulations can provide valuable information for the design of effective safety measures in multipurpose halls and other similar multipurpose venues. This innovative approach to evacuation analysis allows for a comprehensive assessment of the evacuation process, identification of critical areas, and verification of the layout of the space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial design greatly influences fire evacuation in buildings. Although existing works have comprehensively assessed building spatial design in terms of building circulation, they overlooked how the building layout and emergency signage system affect occupants' attention allocation during fire emergencies. Therefore, this paper proposes a framework to investigate the effectiveness of building evacuation impacted by building spatial design by integrating building information model (BIM), fire simulation, and virtual reality (VR) technology. A case study was carried out to evaluate building spatial design in terms of building circulation and emergency signage. The results demonstrated that when the signage sizes were relatively small but the spacing and placement heights were reasonable, participants were able to recognize and follow the guide. However, insufficient continuity caused the participants to waste much effort searching for helpful information on evacuation-irrelevant objects, reducing fire evacuation efficiency. Moreover, the signage placed at a higher position has a positive effect on route choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional storage method of fire accident cases is mainly in the form of text, and it is difficult to effectively conduct comprehensive analysis due to the limited ability to display key information and fire knowledge. In this paper, a structured storage form of building fire cases was proposed based on knowledge graph, which can comprehensively describe and visualize the fire causes, the dynamic fire development process and evacuation process. It enables readers to get information and knowledge from building fire cases intuitively, and supports the comprehensive analysis for building fire prevention strategies. The knowledge graphs are constructed for two common building types (residential and public buildings), and have the capacity to reflect the dynamic development law of fires from ignition to spread in different buildings. Meanwhile, as the occupants' evacuation is the first concern when a fire occurs, the knowledge graphs also visualize the relationship among various conditions in the evacuation process. Different application scenarios are displayed in the paper, including case query, root-cause analysis and consequence forecasting, which shows the advantages and applicability of building fire knowledge graph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comment on the findings of the papers, related to the creation of a mathematical model for deciding the maximum legal occupancy of public facilities, submitted for the 1999 Mathematical Contest in Modeling. The author said that according to Denver Fire Chief Richard Gonzales, studies have shown that in the case of fire, people exit via the door they entered, regardless of the nearest exit. This invalidates the assumption in one of the papers that when exiting a room or building, during an emergency, people wilt exit via the nearest exit.

The purpose of this paper was to assess the possibility of using modern technologies, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), to study the evacuation of passengers from ships. The evacuation of passengers from ships is usually studied from post-accident reports, laboratory or field experiments, and/or numerical modelling. Nowadays, with the rapid development of computer resources and wearable technology, evacuation can also be studied using VR or AR. The methods used in this paper for such assessments included a literature review (tools like Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar indexing platforms) and comparative strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis. The results demonstrated the great potential for the implementation of VR and AR technologies within the shipping industry, similar to how they have already found applications in the research of pedestrian evacuation from buildings or open spaces. Finally, recommendations for their use in ship passenger evacuation are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a strong earthquake, criteria are needed to determine whether buildings are safe to reoccupy based on observable damage. This paper presents a simulation‐based methodology to identify relevant damage indicators and safety thresholds for building structures. Prior knowledge of the most relevant damage indicators and their thresholds can increase the accuracy and confidence of post‐earthquake evaluations. Current practice to translate observable damage into a tagging decision relies on qualitative guidelines based on past earthquake experience and judgment, which may be susceptible to speculation and interpretation. In addition, past experience may not be relevant to newer structural systems and to large or complex (e.g., high‐rise) buildings. To augment past observations and data from structural component tests, nonlinear dynamic analyses can be used to estimate the collapse safety of structures with simulated damage. Technologies to execute these simulations have matured over the years, although to date they have not been systematically applied to evaluate the destabilizing effects of simulated damage on collapse safety. In this paper, a methodology is presented to use numerical simulations of damage to identify and evaluate relevant damage indicators that can be quantitatively related to safety thresholds. Damage indicators are selected based on their reliability in estimating the structural safety and their sensitivity to modeling uncertainty, that is, where the preferred indicators are insensitive to variability in the structural materials and model parameters. The safety threshold for each damage indicator is selected to maximize accuracy in post‐earthquake building assessments. The methodology is demonstrated through an application study of ductile reinforced concrete frame buildings. Results show that aggregated indices of structural component damage (e.g., aggregated over the floor of a building) outperform other damage indicators based on peak or residual drifts or simpler percentages of damaged components. Subject to agreement of a number underlying assumptions, this methodology can be applied to a wider variety of structures to improve post‐earthquake evaluation guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an emotion-based BDI (Belief, desire, intention) methodology to model decision-making during fire evacuation simulations while considering human emotions. The methodology is designed to represent human decision-making processes in graphical representations, which can be simply translated for the implementation phase to simulate various case studies. The methodology utilizes the Belief, Desire, and Intention architecture and the OCEAN Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) personality behavior to represent decision-making processes graphically, making it easy to translate into a simulation. The methodology aims to create a more realistic simulation closer to real human behavior by incorporating emotions that affect decision-making. In this paper, we validate the emotion-based BDI methodology by replicating the bushfire Australia case study and benchmarking with the previous work on BDI fire evacuation. From the comparison, we found that both results share almost similar patterns. The results show "dead while still unaware" (0% vs. 0%), "dead while deciding what to do" (69% vs. 48%), "dead while defending" (6% vs. 8%), and "dead while preparing to defend" (6% vs 28%), "dead while preparing to escape" (4% vs 0%) and "dead while escaping" (15% vs 20%). The results show that in our Simulation, there is a death related to preparing to escape (4% vs 0%). However, the other causes of death have an almost similar percentage of death causes. Hence, based on the comparison, supporting and validating our emotion-oriented simulation model is considered adequate. Therefore, this emotion-based BDI methodology can systematically reproduce human cognition and emotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid perception of the location of the fire point is crucial to building fire emergency response in the process of building fire emergency response, which can help firefighters direct fire-fighting operations, effectively control fire sources, and provide strong evidence for the analysis and investigation of fire causes. This paper uses acoustic CT temperature measurement technology to determine the fire source location of a building fire and verifies its validity and applicability as follows: we construct various fire point numerical models based on the fire dynamics simulator (FDS) and obtain temperature data at different times; neural network means were used to obtain the time-of-flight (TOF) of an acoustic wave traveling; the large ill-conditioned matrix equation of acoustic flight under different meshing schemes was constructed and solved based on the simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART) and least squares QR-decomposition (LSQR), and then reconstruction temperature data under each scheme were obtained. Through the error analysis, the reconstruction effect of each reconstruction scheme is evaluated, and then the applicability of the location coordinate determination of the fire point is analyzed. The results show that the determination of the fire location under the conditions of various fire points in the building space can be realized by acoustic CT temperature measurement technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, performance-based fire-protection design is used for the fire-safety design of public amenities with restrained personnel activities. In these places, tourists' activities are constrained in a limited space such as cockpit moving along the track. Since it is another typical scenario of fire-protection problem that cannot fully comply with the current mandatory codes and regulations, simulation analysis is used in order to ensure that such fire scenario could achieve performance objectives as expected. Firstly, corresponding fire-protection performance objectives, strategies and simplified evaluation criteria are brought forward in this paper. Then, through simulating the smoke flow in the fire using the computational fluid dynamics software FDS, the effectiveness of the smoke control strategy is verified. Meanwhile, the escaping environments of these fire scenes are analyzed. Further, the personnel evacuation simulation software (Pathfinder) is resorted to simulate the personnel emergency evacuation. The efficiency and the total time that consumed are obtained. Finally, by analyzing the similarities and differences of evacuation under different fire scenes, the fire and smoke spread in the riding area can be effectively controlled, and a safe evacuation environment can be provided for the evacuation of tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the analysis of electrodermal activity (EDA) in the context of students' scholastic activity. Taking a multidisciplinary, citizen science and maker-centric approach, low-cost, bespoken wearables, such as a mini weather station and biometric wristband, were built. To investigate both physical health as well as stress, the instruments were first validated against research grade devices. Following this, a research experiment was created and conducted in the context of students' scholastic activity. Data from this experiment were used to train machine learning models, which were then applied to interpret the relationships between the environment, health, and stress. It is hoped that analyses of EDA data will further strengthen the emerging model describing the intersections between local microclimate and physiological and neurological stress. The results suggest that temperature and air quality play an important role in students' physiological well-being, thus demonstrating the feasibility of understanding the extent of the effects of various microclimatic factors. This highlights the importance of thermal comfort and air ventilation in real-life applications to improve students' well-being. We envision our work making a significant impact by showcasing the effectiveness and feasibility of inexpensive, self-designed wearable devices for tracking microclimate and electrodermal activity (EDA). The affordability of these wearables holds promising implications for scalability and encourages crowd-sourced citizen science in the relatively unexplored domain of microclimate's influence on well-being. Embracing citizen science can then democratize learning and expedite rapid research advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cellular automata (CA) model has been a meaningful way to study pedestrian evacuation during emergencies, such as fires, for many years. Although the time step used in the CA model is one of the most essential elements, there is a lack of research on its impact on evacuation time. In this paper, we set different time step sizes in an extended cellular automaton model and discuss the effect of time step size on the overall evacuation time under different emergency types and levels. For a fixed step time mode, the larger the time step, the longer the evacuation time. In each time step size, the evacuation time gradually increases with the increase of emergency level, and there is a sharp increase when the time for pedestrians to move one step is exactly an integer multiple of the time step. When there is no friction between pedestrians, the evacuation time at each time step first decreases slightly with the increase of emergency level and then remains unchanged; the larger the time step, when the evacuation time remains unchanged, the lower the emergency level and the greater the evacuation time. For the variable time step model, when the friction between pedestrians approaches infinity, the total evacuation time does not change with the emergency level; when the friction between pedestrians is reduced, the total evacuation time slightly decreases with the increase of the emergency level. The less friction there is, the more significant the reduction. The results of previous actual experiments are also reflected in the simulation at a lower emergency level. The result shows that the time step size significantly impacts the evacuation simulation results of the CA model, and researchers should choose carefully to obtain more realistic simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the critical egress parameters that influence emergency evacuation in a typical hospital building. A parametric study of a 20-story hospital building is conducted using a computer model "Pathfinder" to simulate the evacuation efficiency and assess the influencing parameters. The main egress parameters that influence the evacuation efficiency, including the location of stairways, number of stairways, location of the fire, exit width, and number of low-speed occupants are varied. Two scenarios are simulated: one being the regular (practice) evacuation drill and the other is the actual fire drill. The result shows that the location of stairways significantly affects the total evacuation time with the optimal stairway arrangement consisting of one stairway outside the core of the building. Similarly, the story level at which the fire occurs is another key parameter with fires at lower levels being critical to dictating the evacuation time in a hospital building. The total evacuation time when the fire occurs between the third and sixth floor is found to be 170 min which is 36% and 15% higher than fires at the top story levels (15–18th floor) and the intermediate story levels (9–12th floor), respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In fire emergency management, a delayed execution will cause a significant number of casualties. Conventional fire drills typically only identify a certain percentage of evacuation bottlenecks after the building has been constructed, which is hard to improve. This paper proposes an innovative framework to validate fire emergency evacuation at the early design stage. According to the experience and knowledge of fire emergency evacuation design, the proposed framework also introduces a seamless two-way information channel to embed fire emergency evacuation simulations into a BIM-based design environment. Several critical factors for fire evacuation have been reviewed in relevant domain knowledge, which is used to build virtual characters to test in experimental scenarios. The results are analyzed to validate fire emergency evacuation factors, and the feedback knowledge is stored as a knowledge model for further applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian evacuation is an important measure to ensure disaster safety in central retail districts, the efficiency of which is affected by the synergy of road network planning indices. This paper established the typical forms of central retail district (CRD) road networks in terms of block form, network structure and road grade, taking China as an example. The experiment was designed using the orthogonal design of experiment (ODOE) method and quantified the evacuation time under different road network planning indices levels through the Anylogic simulation platform. Using range and variance analysis methods, the synergy of network density, network connectivity, road type and road width on pedestrian evacuation efficiency were studied from the perspectives of significance, importance and optimal level. The results showed that the type of CRD will affect the importance of network planning indices, and that the network connectivity is insignificant (P 0.477/0.581) in synergy; networks with wide pedestrian primary roads (30.1~40.0 m), medium secondary roads (3.1~5.0 m/side) and high density (11.0~13.0 km/km2) have the highest evacuation efficiency. From the perspective of evacuees, this paper put forward urban design implications on CRD road networks to improve their capacity for disaster prevention and reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased use of advanced technologies by consumers and hospitals is moving care closer to patients, and the challenge is one of how patient data can be shared with external care providers and patients. To support care continuity, patient data include both clinical data used by external care providers and non-clinical data used by social care providers. Care coordination of a patient outside a hospital requires peer-to-peer connectivity among a number of these clinical and social care providers, using a digital platform that aligns their goals and assigns their resource sharing responsibilities. With no single entity supporting such care coordination, most hospitals currently distribute this responsibility to several of its provider partners and patients. Such a division of responsibility with no real time feedback leads to discontinuous resource sharing, localized data analysis, and challenges in tailoring care to improve health outcomes. The goal of this paper is to propose a blockchain architecture model that uses a number of constructs for creating and assigning ownership to patient data so it can support peer-to-peer resource sharing and uses smart contracts to support goal alignment. Using two blockchain applications implemented in Hyperledger and illustrating their potential representation using the constructs in multi-chain, we develop a conceptual model for developing blockchain applications in general to support continuity of care. The generalizability of this model is illustrated by applying these constructs to four additional healthcare applications. Finally, we conclude the paper with a discussion of the limitations and directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the significant hazards in the event of a fire in high-rise residential buildings in cities is the length of time taken to completely evacuate a large number of occupants. On a city scale, it is important that a city's fire and rescue services are in place to minimize the consequences which can be incurred in any potential fire incident. The paper presents the methodology and results of a study that evaluates the city-wide vulnerability in high-rise residential building fires in the City of Istanbul, Turkey. In the context of fire and rescue service arrival to burning buildings, a high-rise building can be considered vulnerable if the fire and rescue service arrives at the building site only after the expected completion of evacuation of the building, thus unable to fulfill its intended purpose of saving the occupants. The study is based on comparison of an agent-based evacuation model of safe escape times for 1167 high-rise residential buildings against their fire and rescue service arrival times estimated using GPS data. This methodology can be used to inform the decision about optimal locations of a city's fire and rescue services. As an example, this study indicates that adding a single new fire station in the City of Istanbul can improve its preparedness for fire accidents by reducing the risk of its most vulnerable district by more than 26%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comment on the findings of the papers, related to the creation of a mathematical model for deciding the maximum legal occupancy of public facilities, submitted for the 1999 Mathematical Contest in Modeling. The papers submitted displayed a wide range of modeling approaches. Among the models derived, one uses a graphical/network flow model, one employs a series of queues to handle the bottlenecks, another model tiles the room with one-person-sized hexagons and calculates the expected waiting limes for each, and one uses a sophisticated motion simulation model.

The complexity in nonlinear behavior of torsional-irregular buildings in combination with uncertainty due to the natural randomness of earthquake records has been always a main challenge for buildings' seismic design. To find a solution to this challenge, three reinforced concrete (RC) building archetypes were designed and next developed into their nonlinear models. Nonlinear static (pushover) analyses were performed to calculate the capacity of the archetype models in all principal and non-principal directions while incremental dynamic analyses (IDAs) were conducted by applying 30 accelerograms from both near-field and far-field earthquakes. The IDA capacity curves, collapse fragility curves and log-normal cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) were established by including both the aleatory randomness and epistemic uncertainty. Despite previous studies wherein fragility curves were given by evaluating structures' collapse along structural reference axes or simply on x , y -axes, in this paper, possible building collapse on a critical non-principal direction (where maximum seismic response was observed) was simulated and its probability was accounted for developing IDA curves and log-normal CDFs. Accordingly, this issue was mirrored in computing available/acceptable collapse margin ratios (CMRs). In addition to the well-known outline used for calculating CMRs in the literature (that is based on estimation of collapse capacity in terms of earthquake intensity measure (IM)), the framework proposed here includes a new method for calculating the CMRs in terms of displacement-based drift, ductility, and damage. The superiority of the proposed method over the former is consistent with the buildings' design procedure that is governed by storey drift control rather than base-shear strength. Refined statistics of CMRs given by taking into account displacement-based responses illustrate the available CMRs exceed the acceptable CMRs, meaning that a satisfactory safety margin against collapse will be anticipated in the targeted building class if a suitable yielding mechanism with sufficient ductility is provided for seismic force-resisting system by applying seismic design provisions of the current codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fires in large buildings can have tragic consequences, including the loss of human lives. Despite the advancements in building construction and fire safety technologies, the unpredictable nature of fires, particularly in large buildings, remains an enormous challenge. Acknowledging the paramount importance of prioritising human safety, the academic community has been focusing consistently on enhancing the efficiency of building evacuation. While previous studies have integrated evacuation simulation models, aiding in aspects such as the design of evacuation routes and emergency signalling, modelling human behaviour during a fire emergency remains challenging due to cognitive complexities. Moreover, behavioural differences from country to country add another layer of complexity, hindering the creation of a universal behaviour model. Instead of centring on modelling the occupant behaviour, this paper proposes an innovative approach aimed at enhancing the occupants' behaviour predictability by providing real-time information to the occupants regarding the most suitable evacuation routes. The proposed models use a building's environmental conditions to generate contextual information, aiding in developing solutions to make the occupants' behaviour more predictable by providing them with real-time information on the most appropriate and efficient evacuation routes at each moment, guiding the occupants to safety during a fire emergency. The models were incorporated into a context-aware recommender system for testing purposes. The simulation results indicate that such a system, coupled with hazard and congestion models, positively influences the occupants' behaviour, fostering faster adaptation to the environmental conditions and ultimately enhancing the efficiency of building evacuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems for determining the position of objects inside buildings have a wide range of applications, such as the surveillance of people's movements in hospitals, and of goods or mobile robots in warehouse spaces or production halls. Hence, there is a need for the development of methods that could be applied for those purposes. This paper presents the results of research on an experimental system for localizing people being evacuated from a building. The proposed solution was designed as a part of the building evacuation management system. The method used for finding location belongs to the class of proximity-type methods and is based on Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) information of Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) devices. The devices used to build the system (BLE receivers) and the evacuee's wristband (BLE transmitters) are low-budget electronic modules. The paper presents preliminary research and the process of selecting data processing methods, as well as the results of tests of the experimental network created for the evacuation system. The results of measurements and statistical analyses of the properties of the RSSI parameter of the BLE signal transmission between the modules used in the designed system are presented. In addition, the results of RSSI measurements and the analyses of RSSI recorded under varying environmental conditions in the building are presented. The choice of the data processing method and its parameters was made with the use of the determined probabilities of the nearest locator node detection. Finally, the performance of the experimental installation of the evacuee tracking system was tested and the effectiveness of the proximity method was evaluated. The experimental tests aimed to analyze the detection range and the impact of shading. They also allowed for determining the mean error and for estimating the maximum position determination error. It should be emphasized that the proposed position estimation method has a very low computational load, allowing the implementation of an extensive real-time system on a typical personal computer. Although the proposed system should be classified as a coarse positioning system, its features such as low cost, simplicity, flexibility, the use of commonly available components and low requirements for computational load make it attractive. Such a system is directly transferable to other applications in, for example, Industry 4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of the city, more and more people are choosing the subway as their travel mode. However, the hidden dangers of the subway are becoming increasingly prominent, and emergency evacuation of the subway has become a key factor for its safe operation. Therefore, the research objectives of this paper were to focus on the subway emergency evacuation hybrid model to fill the gap in the field of emergency evacuation simulation methods and countermeasure optimization. The analysis network process (ANP) was used to analyze the influence factors and weights of subway pedestrian evacuation. On this basis, a multiagent model of subway pedestrian evacuation (SD + multiagent) was developed and simulated. The results show that the comprehensive evacuation strategy could improve the evacuation efficiency, shorten the evacuation time, and avoid the waste of resources. This study not only improved the accuracy of the simulation, but also clarified the evacuation process. This approach can effectively prevent the occurrence of subway accidents, reduce casualties, and prevent large-scale casualties such as secondary accidents (induced secondary disasters). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earthquake disasters can have a serious impact on people's lives and property, with damage to buildings being one of the main causes of death and injury. A rapid assessment of the extent of building damage is essential for emergency response management, rescue operations, and reconstruction. Terrestrial laser scanning technology can obtain high precision light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point cloud data of the target. The technology is widely used in various fields; however, the quantitative analysis of building seismic information is the focus and difficulty of ground-based LiDAR data analysis processing. This paper takes full advantage of the high-precision characteristics of ground-based LiDAR data. A triangular network vector model (TIN-shaped model) was created in conjunction with the alpha shapes algorithm, solving the problem of small, nonvisually identifiable postearthquake building damage feature extraction bias. The model measures the length, width, and depth of building cracks, extracts the amount of wall tilt deformation, and labels the deformation zone. The creation of this model can provide scientific basis and technical support for postearthquake emergency relief, assessment of damage to buildings, extraction of deformation characteristics of other structures (bridges, tunnels, dams, etc.), and seismic reinforcement of buildings. The research data in this paper were collected by the author's research team in the first time after the 2013 Lushan earthquake and is one of the few sets of foundation of LiDAR data covering the full range of postearthquake building types in the region, with the data information mainly including different damage levels of different structural types of buildings. The modeling analysis of this data provides a scientific basis for establishing the earthquake damage matrix of buildings in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A companion paper introduces models and algorithms for large‐scale zone‐based evacuation planning in which each evacuation zone is assigned a path to safety and a departure time. It also shows how to combine zone‐based evacuations with contraflows and impose additional path‐convergence and nonpreemptive constraints. This paper evaluates these algorithms on a real, large‐scale case study, both from a macroscopic standpoint and through microscopic simulations under a variety of assumptions. The results quantify, for the first time, the benefits and limitations of contraflows, convergent plans, and nonpreemption, providing unique perspectives on how to deploy these algorithms in practice. They also highlight the approaches best suited to capture each of these design features and the computational burden they impose. The paper also suggests new directions for future research in zone‐based evacuation planning and beyond in order to address the fundamental challenges by emergency services around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In zone‐based evacuation planning, the region to evacuate is divided into zones, and each zone must be assigned a path to safety and departure times along the path. Zone‐based evacuations are highly desirable in practice because they allow emergency services to communicate evacuation orders and to control the evacuation more precisely. Zone‐based evacuations may also be combined with contraflows (to maximize the network capacities) and may impose additional constraints on the evacuation path (e.g., path convergence) and the departure times (e.g., non‐preemption). This paper synthesizes existing models and algorithms for large‐scale zone‐based evacuation planning and complements them with some new ones to fill some of the gaps in the design space. Each model and algorithm is also extended to accommodate contraflows. A companion paper evaluates them on a real, large‐scale case study, both from a macroscopic standpoint and through microscopic simulations under a variety of assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mission Critical Buildings (MCB) are buildings that must remain operational in the event of a crisis to minimize risks due to asset damage, business interruption, and personnel impact. MCBs in processing facilities face operational hazards including explosions, fragments, fires, and toxic events. In the CSB's investigation report of the Philadelphia Energy Solutions Refinery incident, a recommendation was included for the API to update its standard to "require protection of critical safeguards and associated control system components from fire and explosion hazards, including radiant heat and flying projectiles." This recommendation, if implemented, would require facilities to ensure MCBs are Multi‐hazard Resistant Buildings (MRBs) able to withstand a range of potential impacts. This paper details the key design characteristics of MRBs to protect critical assets in industrial processing facilities such as critical safeguards and control systems; emergency response equipment; people critical to operations and emergency response; or people located in buildings near processing units. Key concepts of protective building design are introduced, including the response of different building materials to hazards common in processing facilities. These concepts are then examined to illustrate how building response translates to human and equipment vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building evacuation safety has been one of the focal points of researchers, and there is a wealth of research findings for certain places (e.g., buildings with a high population density) or for particular research subjects (e.g., the physically challenged ethnic group). However, current publications are relatively rare in analyzing the features of physically impaired individuals in crowded places and their impact on the effectiveness of the whole evacuation process, including non-disabled people. Additionally, only such studies tend to concentrate on the behavioral characteristics of disabled people, which lack exploring and comparing evacuation optimization strategies and evaluation of comprehensive evacuation performance. This paper proposed a computer simulation-based method that combined horizontally phased evacuation and vertically phased evacuation, supplemented with the use of handicapped ramps and a reasonable arrangement of class locations, to achieve the optimal evacuation performance of a teaching building with special consideration of the heterogeneous population. And then, a simulated building model was constructed to test and compare the effectiveness and applicability of these approaches through 33 evacuation scenario studies. The results found that (1) component design can improve evacuation effectiveness, with the arrangement of ramps and the location of stair doors successfully reducing evacuation time by 12% and 6.6%, respectively; (2) a combination of two ramps and separate handicap access can decrease evacuation time by 18%; (3) the horizontal-phased evacuation approach drops evacuation time by 7.1%, but the vertical-phased evacuation strategy is not very efficient. When the two are successfully combined, evacuation time is further reduced to 9.2%; and (4) based on the above measures, the evacuation time can be finally shortened by 19% if the veteran teachers are concentrated in the classrooms on the lower floors. These obtained conclusions will provide significant reference and methodological support for the safe evacuation of other similar buildings with heterogeneous populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire is an ignition of heat and smoke materials, which can pose a significant life and property threat. Residential fire in Malaysia has a high percentage of fire cases due to electrical sources, cooking appliances, defective of equipment, careless and negligence. Evacuation during fire is the most critical features in building safety. This includes the utilization of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in developing a good and efficient fire evacuation. This research paper aims to propose and established a conceptual framework of Dwelling Fire Safety Evacuation (DFSE). This paper utilizes the technique of systematic overview from previous research which includes journals, conferences proceedings, reports, framework and guidelines. The outcome of this paper consists the elements of dwelling fire safety evacuation including the element of Fire Scenarios (i.e., Fire characteristic, Building characteristic and Occupant characteristic), Influences Perceived Risk (i.e., Individual-Based, Physical and Social), Survival Strategy (i.e., extinguish, shelter and evacuation) and Safety (i.e., shortest time and awareness) which contributed to the development of the conceptual framework. These findings will assist the extended investigation of DFSE for accidental fire situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date there is no International standard on the verification and validation (V&V) of building fire evacuation models, i.e., model testers adopt inconsistent procedures or tests designed for other model uses. For instance, the tests presented within the MSC/Circ.1238 Guidelines for evacuation analysis for new and existing passenger ships provided by the International Maritime Organization are often employed for the V&V of models outside their original context of use (building fires instead of maritime applications). This paper presents a list of verification tests for component testing and the analysis of emergent behaviours together with examples of experimental data-sets suitable for the analysis of different core components. The capabilities of building fire evacuation models are evaluated by studying their five main core components, namely (1) pre-evacuation time, (2) movement and navigation, (3) exit usage, (4) route availability and (5) flow constraints. This paper discusses the tests which are included in a freely available Technical Note developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This work is intended to open a discussion on the main issues associated with the definition of a standard procedure for the V&V of building fire evacuation models, including the definition of the acceptance criteria of a standard V&V protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are in a period of rapid urban development and high-rise buildings are constantly emerging. The characteristics of a fire in a high-rise building are the rapid spread of the fire, the difficulty of fighting the fire, and the difficulty of evacuation. Intelligent fire evacuation requires dynamic planning of paths in fire field, it is necessary to automatically adjust the evacuation route in the building according to the real-time information of the fire. In this paper, an improved bidirectional ant colony algorithm is proposed to optimize fire evacuation routes. In order to improve the global search capability of the algorithm, a bidirectional search strategy with the A* algorithm is designed for the ant colony algorithm, the blindness of the algorithm is reduced in the initial search, the pheromone update strategy is improved, and the convergence speed of the algorithm is increased. The fire scene information is combined with the steering penalty coefficient to improve the algorithm's evaporation coefficient, heuristic function and transition probability, avoid the risk of falling into the local optimum, improve the search efficiency of the algorithm and the smoothness of the path, and effectively avoid areas affected by the fire. The effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]