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This study assesses how well government and nongovernmental organizations and others performed during emergency relief operations in Nepal after the country was struck by a massive 7.6 magnitude earthquake on April 25, 2015. The primary source of data for this study was face-to-face interviews of 302 respondents from 10 study sites in two earthquake-affected districts. Information collected through four focus group meetings was also used to supplement the survey data. The performance or effectiveness of relief operations was measured by developing an additive composite index score. Both disaggregated and aggregated scores reveal that the emergency materials provided to the earthquake survivors in Nepal were appropriate and adequate for their needs and the aid distribution was relatively fair and timely. Analyses of survey data further suggest that the emergency aid was uniformly distributed among respondents of the two selected districts. Based on the study findings, we provide several recommendations to improve relief operations in future disasters.

Food insecurity continues to be prevalent in parts of Africa. In December 2015, there were approximately 21.6 million food insecure people in the Horn and East Africa. Climate change is likely to exacerbate current volatility of agricultural production and lead to further food insecurity. Whilst the academic literature has acknowledged the complexity of food insecurity and systems, it is not clear to what extent this has been translated into practice. We argue that there is a tendency to explain complex failures of food systems as ‘droughts’, with insufficient attention paid to other drivers. We analyse humanitarian documents and climate outlook statements in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia and assess how these are reflected in the humanitarian responses to food insecurity in the region by analysing the financing of humanitarian operations. Our findings indicate that the continued evolution in understanding the complex causes of food insecurity and attempts to move away from emergency relief to a more...

Relieving rates in ethanol/water and ethylene glycol/water mixtures were investigated using dynamic models of an emergency relief scenario due to an external heat source. A commonly used shortcut method was compared to two rigorous calculation methods—one using ideal conditions and another using non-ideal conditions. In several cases, the shortcut method provides a reasonable estimate compared to the rate predicted by the more rigorous methods. However, in many cases the shortcut method over or under-predicts the required relieving rate—sometimes by a significant amount. Several discrepancies are also noted between non-ideal and ideal conditions. This study demonstrates that each multi-component mixture must be carefully considered before sizing emergency relief systems and devices.

During the disaster response phase of the emergency relief, the aim is to reduce loss of human life by reaching disaster affected areas with relief items as soon as possible. Debris caused by the disaster blocks the roads and prevents emergency aid teams to access the disaster affected regions. Deciding which roads to clean to transport relief items is crucial to diminish the negative impact of a disaster on human health. Despite the significance of the problem during response phase, in the literature debris removal is mostly studied in the recovery or the reconstruction phases of a disaster. The aim of this study is providing solution methodologies for debris removal problem in the response phase in which effective and fast relief routing is of utmost importance. In particular, debris removal activities on certain blocked arcs have to be scheduled to reach a set of critical nodes such as schools and hospitals. To this end, two mathematical models are developed with different objectives. The first model aims to minimize the total time spent to reach all the critical nodes whereas the second minimizes the weighted sum of visiting times where weights indicate the priorities of critical nodes. Since obtaining solutions quickly is important in the early post-disaster, heuristic algorithms are also proposed. Two data sets belonging to Kartal and Bakirkoy districts of. Istanbul are used to test the mathematical models and heuristics.

This paper looks at the difficult gap between emergency response and ‘building back better’ infrastructure. Emergency responders often face having to make quick life-saving planning decisions in which developing resilient infrastructure may not be their primary concern. However, the issues they face are often as a result of the consequences of poorly planned and constructed infrastructure. The issue has been described as a ‘development gap’ between emergency relief and longer-term recovery. Various case studies support the analysis of the various approaches to planning and what can be done to overcome this gap in both developing and developed countries.

One of the roles of engineering institutions is the registration and regulation of engineering professionals, assessing their competence in both technical and management areas. A similar approach is being promoted for professional humanitarian engineers, identifying core competencies relevant to emergency relief work. This would improve standards in the workforce, allow training and experience to be independently evaluated, and facilitate the careers of people working in a very mobile sector. Using the experiences of RedR UK in recruiting and training humanitarian engineers, this paper explores the skills, knowledge and other attributes that distinguish an enthusiastic but ill-informed and inexperienced person from somebody with the expertise to work efficiently, effectively and ethically in a challenging humanitarian context.

With billions of dollars in emergency relief and long-term reconstruction aid on the table, post-earthquake Haiti was supposed to provide an opportunity to “build back better,” as the focusgroup-fr...

This paper considers the damage to household toilets in the aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquake through the lens of good performance in progress towards national sanitation targets. In doing so it highlights the very different drivers of development and emergency relief, an issue that is rarely documented. It draws upon expert opinion and first-hand observation to put a spotlight on conflicting approaches in the transition phase and seeks to understand how these were navigated at the national policy level and in practice at the district level. In doing so the paper contributes to discussions about what better preparedness measures could be undertaken and how sanitation gains can be maintained in the face of natural hazards/climate change and supported better after disaster strikes.

In early April, 1934, a report reached the desk of Harry Hopkins, the Director of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and a close advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt. A covering ...

Ever since the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 and a series of disasters that followed in the last decade, triggered the nations around the world to focus on emergency relief operations. A well prepared and coordinated relief operation is required to reduce the vulnerability of the affected and bring back normalcy in the minimum possible time. The present article discusses the relief and recovery operation during the Hudhud cyclone that hit the coast of Bay of Bengal in October, 2014. The paper brings together the information collected through focus groups, personal interviews with personnel involved in the relief operations when the disaster hit the city. The article describes the different activities carried out at the different phases of disaster management process and concluding the different actions taken by the state to reduce the impact of such disasters in the future. Also, key learnings and focus areas are listed for reference in future disasters.

The Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1935 promised federal funds for medical relief, and Michigan physicians seized the opportunity to shape the local programs created under FERA. Michigan’s physicians sought to preserve the private medical marketplace through the allocation of public funds to provide medical relief, just as funds were appropriated for food, fuel, and housing. Michigan physicians’ efforts to influence these programs crossed into the professional terrain of relief workers and social work. Physicians were not able to navigate the system unchecked; local officials and relief workers sought limits to medical authority in the interest of protecting public funds, and physicians resisted such efforts. While many of the programs of the New Deal years were hailed as innovative models, most preserved the existing tenets of the medical system while expanding physicians’ market for patients to include relief recipients.

LNG jetting release in emergency pressure relief or storage tank leakage accident is common. Computational fluid dynamics model of LNG vapor dispersion from LNG jetting is established, and we performed numerical simulations in a more general situation of three jet directions, then we got the result of CH4 concentration distribution in jet diffusion area. Depending on the results of the comparison, we found that LNG vapor diffusion distance is the farthest when jetting along the direction of the wind. The results provide technical support for LNG storage unit emergency relief pipe installation choices and jet leakage accident emergency management.

Workplace deviance in organizations has becoming a serious issue discussed amongst researchers and managers. It seems that the cost of workplace deviance is detrimental as it affects organizational effectiveness and performance. The aim of this paper is to extend the workplace deviance construct into voluntary sector and to examine the correlation between perceived organizational supports with workplace deviance. Data were gathered from a sample of 346 volunteers that involved in emergency relief services in Malaysia. Results from the factor analysis indicated three forms of workplace deviance and the hierarchical multiple regression analyses have revealed that perceived organizational support has a significant negative effect on workplace deviance. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings were discussed.

O objetivo do trabalho foi caracterizar os agravos clínicos atendidos por um Serviço de Atendimento Móvel de Urgência e os fatores associados com os destinos dos atendimentos realizados. Foi realizado levantamento documental retrospectivo nos boletins de atendimento prestados pelo Serviço de Atendimento Móvel de Urgência, de um município do sul do Brasil, no período de novembro de 2015 a maio de 2016. Para a coleta de dados utilizou-se roteiro estruturado, que contemplavam as informações dos boletins. A análise de regressão de Poisson foi utilizada para avaliar o risco dos agravos clínicos nos destinos dos atendimentos. Foram realizados 1.748 atendimentos para agravos clínicos. Os agravos neurológicos foram os mais atendidos. Pacientes com agravos clínicos tem 731% maior risco de permanecer no local após atendimento. O maior risco de permanecer no local após atendimento de agravos clínicos, indica que apesar de ser um serviço destinado a atenção das urgências e emergências, por muitas vezes, é acionado pelo fato de disponibilizar médicos e medicamentos, demonstrando que a população desconhece a real função desse serviço.

Drought-driven humanitarian emergencies are becoming more frequent in the Horn of Africa where millions of people in this arid region face chronic water and food insecurity. Evidence from the region shows increasing reliance on groundwater supplies, infrastructure and institutional systems in response to decreasing rainfall. Drought emergencies can be mitigated by investing in resilience efforts that make safe water reliably available at strategic groundwater abstraction locations during cycles of water stress. A combination of early warning data, policy reform, asset management and improved rural water supplies and maintenance may enable rapid, responsive, and accountable water governance that is more cost effective than emergency relief and better positioned to absorb and adapt to shocks.

Natural disasters have had great impact on human beings. Emergency relief is becoming more important with the increase of the frequency and scale of humanitarian emergencies resulting from more natural disasters because of climate change. In this paper, an interesting hybrid knowledge representation method during the development of a KBS for design of emergency relief structures is presented. It encapsulates ill-structured, semi-structured and structured knowledge that is gathered from literature, human expert and even knowledge gleaned during the system development. All routine as well as cumbrous activities in the emergency relief cycle are covered. The system can provide the user with advice on preliminary plan evaluation, plan optimization, plan evaluation, plan summary and miscellaneous. It would be beneficial to the field of disaster emergency relief decision by focusing on the acquisition and organization of expert knowledge through the development of knowledge-based system.

The quality and efficiency of traditional rescue work are seriously affected by the destruction of roads and road traffic. In view of these existing problems, the current work investigates the delivery of relief materials using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). At present, studies investigating the delivery of emergency relief materials are few, the technology is not mature, the disadvantage is bigger. In this paper, the UAV material delivery system can realize the function of automatic navigation and automatic delivery of materials. The experimental results show that, in a large number of delivery tests, 97% of deliveries contained a delivery error within 4 m, 64% of deliveries contained a delivery error within 2 m. The average delivery error was 1.86 m. The results of the experiment show that the accuracy of the UAV material delivery system is high, and the test results can provide reference for the further study of the robot.

The Accelerating Rate Calorimeter (ARC) - the first representative of the family of pseudo-adiabatic calorimeters - was designed for assessing reactive hazards of chemical processes. Over time the ARC and similar instruments have found much wider applications such as testing of reactive substances, study of reaction kinetics, design of the emergency relief systems. In all these cases precise knowledge about the current state of the sample is required. There are numerous publications regarding the methodical aspects of pseudo-adiabatic calorimetry but many problems are still waiting for the solution. The aim of this paper is to consider in detail the following serious problems: non-uniformity of the system "sample + bomb"; absence of equilibrium between sample and bomb; variability of thermal inertia; uncertainty of the state of reacting system at the onset. The results presented here demonstrate that in many cases the basic assumptions used for interpretation of adiabatic data can be violated and due attention should be paid to the conditions of an experiment that allow it to remain within the applicability limits of the method.

Florida's emergency relief operations were significantly affected by recent hurricanes such as Hermine and Irma that caused massive roadway and power system distributions. During these recent devastating hurricanes, the problems associated with providing accessibility and safety became even more challenging, especially for those vulnerable communities and disadvantaged segments of the society, such as aging populations were considered - that is, those who need and benefit from the emergency services the most. This complexity is magnified in states like Florida, considering the diverse physical, cognitive, economic and demographic variation of its population. As such, with a major focus on real-life data on roadway closures and power outages for the Hurricane Hermine, combined resilience (co-resilience) of emergency response facilities in the City of Tallahassee, the capital of Florida, was extensively studied based on the (a) temporal reconstruction of the reported power outages and roadway closures, and (b) development of co-resilience metrics to identify and visually map the most affected power system feeders and transportation network locations. Results show those regions with reduced emergency response facility accessibility, and those power lines and roadways under a disruption risk after Hermine hit Tallahassee.

O presente artigo buscou refletir sobre a intervenção em crise realizada com 15 pessoas afetadas por emergências, as quais foram atendidas pelo Auto Socorro de Urgência de uma Companhia de Bombeiros de Santa Catarina. A intervenção foi realizada em um único momento com cada afetado de modo a contemplar cinco etapas: 1) estabelecimento do contato; 2) análise do problema; 3) busca das possíveis soluções; 4) orientação para execução de ações concretas; e 5) verificação do progresso. Tais intervenções foram realizadas desde a chegada ao local da ocorrência até o hospital, sendo estas após os primeiros socorros dos bombeiros militares. Observou-se que os afetados expressaram comportamentos de ansiedade e estresse, os quais foram minimizados após a intervenção de crise. Verificou-se que esta prática contribuiu para a mobilização de recursos pessoais dos afetados para o enfrentamento da emergência. Sugere-se sua utilização em instituições de urgência e emergência.

Natural disasters are increasingly common and emergency relief is often provided to help the affected countries recover. The United Nations started the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) in 2005 that allows for fast allocation of money to providers of humanitarian aid. This thesis evaluates this fund with respect to natural disasters, since its effectiveness can have implications for future emergency relief allocations. The following question is answered: To what extent can the grants provided by the Central Emergency Response Fund decrease the output growth volatility caused by natural disasters? A panel database is constructed and dynamic panel models are estimated by applying the Generalised Method of Moments. Results show that when CERF funding is provided after a natural disaster, the expected effect on output growth volatility of the natural disaster is neutralised and close to zero. This implies that CERF funding is effective, however, reports on the functioning of CERF report possible improvements concerning the allocation. Furthermore, alternative estimation methods might provide consistent results.

Since the beginning of this century, more than 100 major natural and man-made disasters occurred in different parts of the world. Each one of these disasters was followed by a massive emergency relief operation that lasted months. Five of these operations have been selected to evaluate the effectiveness of each one of them by exploring weaknesses and strengths of each selected operation. In doing so, basic statistics associated with each selected disasters, and domestic and international response, along with economic, health, and other impacts, are discussed. The selected disasters are: the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, 2005 Hurricane Katrina, 2005 Kashmir Earthquake, 2010 Haiti Earthquake, and 2017 Famine in South Sudan. Although each relief effort was confronted with unique challenges and problems, and achieved varying degree of success, there are many commonalities among their operations. The information presented in this chapter is essential for improving both public and private response to future disaster relief operations. Additionally, each of the operation considered in this chapter is fundamental for understanding the dynamics of the relief process.

Aim Inadequately treated trauma pain can lead to prolonged and unnecessary patient suffering, as well as lengthen hospital stay. 1,2 LDM (Penthrox®) is an inhaled analgesic indicated for emergency relief of moderate-to-severe pain in conscious adult patients with trauma and associated pain. 3 The aim of this study was to assess the impact of introducing LDM in the pre-hospital setting for a European healthcare system. Method A health economic model was developed from the Swedish healthcare system perspective to evaluate outcomes and resource use associated with LDM vs standard of care (morphine injection, fentanyl nasal spray and ketamine injection) over a 5 year time horizon. Model inputs included time to first pain medication treatment, drug acquisition, administration and equipment costs, practitioner rates and adverse event costs. Inputs were derived from published data supplemented by the results of a retrospective chart review and physician survey. Results Based on a national Swedish population of ~10 M individuals, the model estimated that ~6 00 000 patients would be eligible for LDM treatment in Year 1. Introducing LDM at a 1% uptake rate in Year 1, increasing 1% annually, was estimated to result in the avoidance of ~15,600 hours of moderate-to-severe pain over 5 years, allowing for the treatment of an additional ~43 000 patients for moderate-to-severe pain. A modest cumulative 5 year budget impact increase is estimated at SEK~1 M. Conclusion Introducing LDM as a treatment for moderate-to-severe trauma pain in the pre-hospital setting may result in fewer hours of patient pain and more patients treated at a modest budget increase. References . Sinatra R. Pain Med2010;11(12):1859–71. . Sokolof C, et al. BMJ Open2014;4:e004288. . PENTHROX 3mL inhalation vapour, liquid. PENTHROX 3mL inhalation vapour, liquid 2017. Available from: https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/31391 (accessed 19 April 2017) Conflict of interest None Funding Mundipharma International Ltd

This chapter focuses on Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) Rule 30. Interim or emergency relief is aimed at preserving the status quo between parties pending the resolution of a dispute. A party to a SIAC arbitration has three options for obtaining interim relief during the course of an arbitration. Depending on the circumstances in which the relief is sought, a party can seek interim relief from: (a) the tribunal (Rule 30.1); (b) an emergency arbitrator (Rule 30.2 and Schedule 1); or (c) a court of competent jurisdiction (Rule 30.3). Each of these three options is discussed in turn.

In order to make a scientific emergency strategic decision after an earthquake, casualties need to be estimated rapidly. Asia is the most earthquake-prone continent in the world. In this paper, by spatial statistic and regressive analysis of historical Asian earthquake data from 1990 to 2012, vulnerability curves portraying the empirical relationship between the magnitude of an earthquake event and the casualty rate caused by it were created for countries of six-groups and the Quick Assessment Model of Earthquake Casualties for Asia (QAMECA) was developed. The casualty rate was defined as the ratio of the sum of injuries and deaths in an earthquake to the number of people living in the earthquake-affected region. Thirty-one earthquake events from 2013 to 2016 were used to validate this model, and the validation results were good with actual casualties of twenty-one were within the range estimated by the model and the biases of eight out of ten were less than one hundred percent. The two input parameters of QAMECA were magnitude and location of epicenter of an earthquake and earthquake casualties can be estimated immediately after earthquake has occurred. As a consequence, QAMECA can be used to estimate earthquake casualties for Asian countries and aid decision making in international emergency relief in the future.

User-generated content on online social media (OSM) platforms has become an important source of real-time information during emergency events. The SMERP workshop series aims to provide a forum for researchers working on utilizing OSM for emergency preparedness and aiding post-emergency relief operations. The workshop aims to bring together researchers from diverse fields - Information Retrieval, Data Mining and Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Social Network Analysis, Computational Social Science, Human Computer Interaction - who can potentially contribute to utilizing social media for emergency relief and preparedness. The first SMERP workshop was held in April 2017 in conjunction with the ECIR 2017 conference. This 2nd SMERP Workshop with The Web Conference 2018 includes two keynote talks, a peer-reviewed research paper track, and a panel discussion.

Increasingly, we hear that the humanitarian system has exhausted its potential and is over the abyss. The volume of funds, the number of humanitarian organizations and the number of rescued people are growing year after year. Nevertheless, the gap between needs and real humanitarian assistance is steadily increasing. Traditional humanitarian actors have been unsuccessfully looking for ways to repair the system that once worked well. Attempts at financial and institutional reform fail, and the debate on humanitarian principles annoys the main actors. This work shows that the traditional humanitarian system is only a part of the larger ecosystem of humanitarian assistance, and analyzes the external influences it fails to cope with in the last decade, and why minor repairs and corrections are not enough and a new system architecture is needed. The author identifies new humanitarian actors with whom the traditional system does not count and points to spontaneous volunteers as a group with dynamic potential and ability to create a parallel system to professional disaster and emergency managers. Since it is an undervalued and overlooked actor, the author refines the definition of spontaneous volunteering. Using the case studies of the Cajun Navy in Louisiana (U.S.) and the confessions of medical rescuers...

Efficiency and fairness are two important goals of disaster rescue. However, the existing models usually unilaterally consider the efficiency or fairness of resource allocation. Based on this, a multiobjective emergency resource allocation model that can balance efficiency and fairness is proposed. The object of the proposed model is to minimize the total allocating costs of resources and the total losses caused by insufficient resources. Then the particle swarm optimization is applied to solve the model. Finally, a computational example is conducted based on the emergency relief resource allocation after Ya’an earthquake in China to verify the applicability of the proposed model.

The global architecture of humanitarian aid is barely adequate to deal with mounting emergency situations arising out of natural and technological hazards, as well as civil and military conflicts. The Boxing Day Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 was a notable exception; not only did the aid flow, it overflowed in many places and sectors. This was largely due to the exceptional nature of the catastrophe—in intensity, in magnitude and scale, in impact, in damage and loss, and in consequences—that spread across countries and continents. The decade-long experiences with tsunami aid—from pledges to releases, from releases to expenses, from expenses to recoveries and from recoveries to resilience—are well documented in the growing volume of literature on the subject. This chapter outlines the key lessons learnt in tsunami aid and its effectiveness. The lessons are presented in a framework for the management of humanitarian aid, from inception to execution, covering different phases of disaster risk management: from emergency relief and rehabilitation to long-term recovery and reconstruction; from reconstructing infrastructure and livelihoods to building resilience of communities and countries.

In the academic literature on humanitarian logistics and supply chain management, studies that examine companies’ potential to learn agility from the humanitarian sector are limited. Indeed, whether companies take advantage of such opportunities and what they concretely learn from the humanitarian sector has not yet been provided in an empirical analysis. This chapter is designed to fill this gap using a preliminary empirical analysis of a case study, which represents a best practice in the context of cross-sector partnerships in humanitarian logistics, aiming to investigate whether companies can concretely learn agility from the humanitarian sector in emergency relief operations as well as what they can concretely learn in terms of agility. This case study examines the Logistics Emergency Teams’ initiative in collaboration with the World Food Programme as the Global Logistics Cluster for the United Nations.

Today’s domestic US food production is the result of an industry optimized for competitive, high yielding, and high-growth production for a globalized market. Yet, industry growth may weaken food system resilience to abrupt disruptions by reducing the diversity of food supply sources. In this paper, we first explore shifts in food consumption toward reliance upon complex and long-distance food distribution, food imports, and out-of-home eating. Second, we discuss how large-scale, rapid-onset hazards may affect food access for both food secure and insecure households. We then consider whether and how regional food production might support regional food resilience. To illustrate these issues, we examine the case of western Washington, a region not only rich in agricultural production but also threatened by a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami. Such an event is expected to disrupt transportation and energy systems on which the dominant food distribution system relies. Whether a regional food supply—for the purposes of this paper, defined as food production in one or adjacent watersheds—can support a broader goal of community food resilience during large-scale disruption is a key theme of our paper. The discussion that ensues is not meant to offer simplistic, localist solutions as the one answer to disaster food provision, but neither should regional food sources be dismissed in food planning processes. Our exploration of regional farm production, small in scale and flexible, suggests regional production can help support food security prior to the arrival of emergency relief and retail restocking. Yet in order to do so, we need to have in place a robust and regionally appropriate food resilience strategy. This strategy should address caloric need, storage, and distribution, and, in so doing, rebalance our dependence on food supplied through imports and complex, domestic supply chains. Clearly, diversity of food sourcing can add redundancy and flexibility, allowing more nimble food system adaptation in the face of disruption.

The study is to understand the needs of flood victims of Korea through the analysis of relief goods, and to assess extent of support-service efficiencies. According to the analysis, both emergency relief kit and cooking relief kit are possibly labelled `the primary` and `the secondary necessaries` respectively. Here the former includes those items directly related with basic living condition for the victims while the latter does some of items for more convenience lifestyle. The results of the study would be substantial in the sense that they could provide some useful clues upon which improvement policies or programs associated with relief goods for flood victims are derived.

Purpose – Emergency relief supply chain (ERSC) design is an important strategic decision that significantly affects the overall performance of emergency management activities. The performance of an ERSC can be measured by several performance measures some of which may conflict with each other. The purpose of this paper is to propose an ERSC design framework by simultaneously taking total logistics cost (TLC), risk level, and amount of demands covered in an ERSC into consideration. Design/methodology/approach – The study considers TLC of an ERSC as the sum of logistics cost from distribution warehouses (DWHs) to Break of Bulbs (BOBs) and from BOBs to affected neighborhoods. The risk level of an ERSC is measured by estimating the expected number of disrupted relief items (EDI) distributed from DWHs through BOBs to neighborhoods. The covered demand (CDM) is defined as total populations that are supported in case of an emergency, the populations within the maximal coverage distance (MCD) from relief facilities. Based on these performance measures, the authors formulate a Goal Programming (GP) model to distribute emergency relief items to affected locations. Ideal values of these performance measures are decided, and the GP model seeks to minimize the weighted sum of the percentage deviations of those performance measures from the ideal values. The relationships among performance measures have been thoroughly analyzed through detailed trade-off studies under two realistic case studies by changing weights of each performance measure. Findings – Three performance measures are interdependent over specific values of weights. TLC and EDI have a trade-off relationship when the weight on each measure increases. TLC and CDM also have a trade-off relationship when the weight on EDI increases. However, this relationship becomes less apparent when the MCD increases. EDI and CDM also have the same trade-off relationship when the weight on TLC changes. Therefore, decision makers should thoroughly analyze these trade-off relationships when they design ERSCs. Overall, the study identified that an ERSC with higher MCD outperforms one with lower MCD in terms of TLC, EDI, and CDM. Originality/value – The study presents a design framework to generate more balanced ERSCs by simultaneously taking three conflicting performance measures into consideration, and demonstrated the feasibility of the framework through realistic case studies. The trade-off analysis provides useful insights and theoretical knowledge to researchers and practitioners in the discipline of emergency logistics management. The results from this study are expected to contribute to the development of more balanced ERSCs.

Emergency rescue after an earthquake is complex work which requires the participation of relief and social organizations. Studying earthquake emergency coordination efficiency can not only help rescue organizations to define their own rescue missions, but also strengthens inter-organizational communication and collaboration tasks, improves the efficiency of emergency rescue, and reduces loss. In this paper, collaborative entropy is introduced to study earthquake emergency rescue operations. To study the emergency rescue coordination relationship, collaborative matrices and collaborative entropy functions are established between emergency relief work and relief organizations, and the collaborative efficiency of the emergency rescue elements is determined based on this entropy function. Finally, the Lushan earthquake is used as an example to evaluate earthquake emergency rescue coordination efficiency. O resgate de emergência após terremoto é um trabalho complexo que exige a participação das organizações sociais e de ajuda. O estudo da eficiência da coordenação do resgate emergencial não apenas ajuda as organizações a definirem suas próprias missões de resgate, como também fortalece a comunicação entre as organizações e as tarefas de colaboração, além de melhorar a eficiência do trabalho de resgate e reduzir as perdas. O artigo usa a entropia colaborativa como base para estudar o trabalho de resgate emergencial após terremoto. Para estudar a relação de coordenação do resgate emergencial, são estabelecidas matrizes colaborativas e funções entrópicas colaborativas entre a ajuda de emergência e as organizações de ajuda; a eficiência colaborativa dos elementos de resgate emergencial é determinada com base nessa função de entropia. Finalmente, o terremoto de Lushan no sudoeste da China é usado como exemplo para avaliar a eficiência da coordenação do resgate emergencial após terremoto. El rescate de emergencia tras un terremoto es un trabajo complejo que requiere la participación de organizaciones sociales y especializadas en socorro. Estudiar la eficiencia en la coordinación de emergencia tras un terremoto, no sólo ayuda a las organizaciones destinadas al rescate en la definición de sus propias misiones de rescate, sino que también fortalece la comunicación interorganizacional y las tareas de colaboración, mejorando la eficiencia en el rescate de emergencia y reduciendo pérdidas. En este trabajo, se introduce la entropía colaborativa para estudiar las operaciones de rescate tras un terremoto; con el fin analizar la relación de coordinación en los rescates de emergencia, estudiar la relación de coordinación en los mismos, donde se establecen matrices colaborativas y funciones de entropía colaborativas entre el trabajo de las organizaciones de socorro y sociales, y donde la eficiencia colaborativa de los elementos de rescate está determinante basada en esta función de entropía. Finalmente, el terremoto de Lushan se usa como ejemplo para evaluar la eficiencia en la coordinación de un rescate de emergencia tras un terremoto.

The Emergency Supplies Dispatching Problem, as an extension of Vehicle Routing Problem, is an important subject in emergency relief. In this paper, we focus on a specific kind of Emergency Supplies Dispatching Problem which considers the accessibility of vehicles and different vehicle types. In consideration of the actual conditions, the vehicle types may be various, and some emergency locations cannot be reached by certain types of vehicles due to the destruction of roads. Therefore, the problem addressed in this paper is more practical. We build a mathematical model of the Emergency Supplies Dispatching Problem which includes multiple depots and emergency locations, multiple kinds of emergency supplies and multiple types of vehicles. Then we adopt genetic algorithm to solve an example based on the model. The effectiveness of the model has been proved by analyzing the computational results.

Disaster and emergency management poses a tremendous challenge on the human planners coordinating the emergency services. With an ever changing operating environment during a crisis, coupled with differing capabilities and availabilities of resources, creates a significant problem. With the addition of accounting for a level of uncertainty, this quickly becomes a complex problem for humans to solve. The problem grows exponentially demanding when the coordination and synchronization of response efforts must determine the optimal resource allocation options across multiple domains such as air, water and space. To provide a means of solving these types of problems we have developed the Dynamic Agent-based Reallocation and Tasking (DART) system. This system offers a framework that allows for maintaining focus on mission objectives by optimizing resource allocation decisions across multiple diverse domains.

Sound disaster preparedness and a well-organized, local and material response will considerably reduce the necessity for calling on international assistance in the event of disaster. However, despite an excellent level of preparedness, some dramatic situations in the wake of a large-scale disaster always will make the mobilization of international resources absolutely essential.The international network for disaster relief is quite complex. Many governments have set up emergency relief teams to cope with disasters in their own countries and are able to assign these teams to international relief operations. This type of governmental assistance is provided under agreement with the other governments involved. The United Nations (UN), through the Office of the UN Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRO), can play a role in coordinating emergency operations.