Search results for "search and rescue"
showing 10 items of 21 documents
Experience from Indoor Fire Search and Rescue Game Design for Technology Testing
2018
No matter how good the fire evacuation plan for a building is, there is a risk of immovable victims being left behind due to smoke obscuration, inhalation of poisonous gasses, or other reasons. Firefighters usually perform the search and rescue for casualties in responding to fire hazards, besides the firefighting. Among of the challenges in the search and rescue operation is how to locate victims, and to keep monitoring the fire development so that it will not accidentally harm the fire personnel. This paper presents a game designed to test a smartphone app’s feature that supports concurrent tracking of indoor victims and fire spread. 22 volunteers were assigned roles either as rescuers or…
Visualization of Exchanged Information with Dynamic Networks: A Case Study of Fire Emergency Search and Rescue Operation
2017
To perform emergency response activities, complex networks of emergency responders from different emergency organizations work together to rescue affected people and to mitigate the property losses. However, to work efficiently, the emergency responders have to rely completely on the data which gets generated from heterogeneous data sources during search and rescue operation (SAR). From this abundant data, rescue teams share needed information which is hidden in the abundant data with one another to make decisions, obtain situational awareness and also to assign tasks. Moreover, understanding and analyzing the shared information is a complex and very challenging task. Therefore, in this pap…
Search without rescue? Evaluating the international search and rescue response to earthquake disasters
2020
Earthquakes around the world are unnecessarily lethal and destructive, adversely affecting the health and well-being of affected populations. Most immediate deaths and injuries are caused by building collapse, making search and rescue (SAR) an early priority. In this review, we assess the SAR response to earthquake disasters. First, we review the evidence for the majority of individuals being rescued locally, often by relatives and neighbours. We then summarise evidence for successful live rescues by international SAR (ISAR) teams, along with the costs, ethics and other considerations of deployment. Finally, we propose an alternative approach to postdisaster ISAR, with the goal of reducing …
L'assistenza umanitaria delle ONG sotto inchiesta
2022
Lo scorso giugno, l’Agenzia dell’Unione europea per i diritti fondamentali (FRA) ha pubblicato il consueto aggiornamento semestrale sulle operazioni di Search and Rescue (SAR) nel Mediterraneo. Il documento evidenza le difficoltà di condurre le operazioni di salvataggio da parte delle imbarcazioni delle ONG, molte delle quali sono state (e continuano ad essere) sottoposte a procedimenti giudiziari e fermi amministrativi nelle giurisdizioni degli Stati membri dell’UE. Nel quadro del contrasto al traffico di migranti, infatti, è ormai impellente una riforma del Facilitator Package quantomeno nel senso di vietare agli Stati membri di criminalizzare l’attività di assistenza umanitaria delle ONG…
Dynamic Modeling, Energy Analysis, and Path Planning of Spherical Robots on Uneven Terrains
2020
Spherical robots are generally comprised of a spherical shell and an internal actuation unit. These robots have a variety of applications ranging from search and rescue to agriculture. Although one of the main advantages of spherical robots is their capability to operate on uneven surfaces, energy analysis and path planning of such systems have been studied only for flat terrains. This work introduces a novel approach to evaluate the dynamic equations, energy consumption, and separation analysis of these robots rolling on uneven terrains. The presented dynamics modeling, separation analysis, and energy analysis allow us to implement path planning algorithms to find an optimal path. One of t…
DISTRIBUTING RESPONSIBILITY BETWEEN SHIPMASTERS AND THE DIFFERENT STATES INVOLVED IN SAR DISASTERS
2019
The duty to save life at sea can today be considered a rule of general inter- national law. However, the concept of “duty to save life at sea” hides a complex web of international regulations, scattered across several treaties providing obli- gations both for shipmasters and a plurality of States (namely flag States, coastal States, States receiving distress signals, etc.). This paper addresses the question of the respective responsibility of the different subjects involved in search and res- cue activities. After a short introduction to the evolution of international law in this field, the paper investigates the relationship between shipmasters and States. This first part of the study show…
The Impacts of ICT Support on Information Distribution, Task Assignment for Gaining Teams’ Situational Awareness in Search and Rescue Operations
2015
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed the way we communicate and work. To study the effects of ICT for Information Distribution (ID) and Task Assignment (TA) for gaining Teams’ Situational Awareness (TSA) across and within rescue teams, an indoor fire game was played with students. We used two settings (smartphone-enabled support vs. traditional walkietalkies) to analyze the impact of technology on ID and TA for gaining TSA in a simulated Search and Rescue operation. The results presented in this paper combine observations and quantitative data from a survey conducted after the game. The results indicate that the use of the ICT was good in second scenario than first sce…
LifeRescue: A web based application for emergency responders during fire emergency response
2016
In order to respond to any kind of building fire emergencies, first-responders have to use lot of time to get access to the emergency data such as location of the victims who are still inside the building, location of the hazardous material, location of the resources and location of the exits in order to perform search and rescue. However, search is possibly one of the most dangerous activities on the fire ground. Sometimes the visibility is zero and the environment is really hot. Because of the limited operating time in the building, the key to successful search is how quickly emergency responders can get access to the emergency related information in order to save victims and the property…
Optimization of Data Harvesters Deployment in an Urban Areas for an Emergency Scenario
2013
International audience; Since its appearance in the VANETs research community, data collection where vehicles have to explore an area and collect various local data, brings various issues and challenges. Some architectures were proposed to meet data collection requirements. They can be classified into two categories: Decentralized and Centralized self-organizing where different components and techniques are used depending on the application type. In this paper, we treat time-constrained applications in the context of search and rescue missions. For this reason, we propose a centralized architecture where a central unit plans and manages a set of vehicles namely harvesters to get a clear ove…
Identifying First Responders Information Needs
2016
At the onset of an indoor fire emergency, the availability of the information becomes critical due to the chaotic situation at the emergency site. Moreover, if information is lacking, not shared, or responders are too overloaded to acknowledge it, lives can be lost and property can be harmed. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to identify information items that are needed for first responders during search and rescue operations. The authors use an educational building fire emergency as a case and show how first responders can be supported by getting access to information that are stored in different information systems. The research methodology used was a combination of literature review,…