Suchergebnisse

Abstract. Achieving sustainable development in countries prone to earthquakes is possible with taking effective measures to reduce vulnerability to earthquakes. In this context, damage assessment of hypothetical earthquakes and planning for disaster management are important issues. Having a computer tool capable of estimating structural and human losses from earthquakes in a specific region may facilitate the decision-making process before and during disasters. Interoperability of this tool with wide-spread spatial analysis frameworks will expedite the data transferring process. In this study, the earthquake damage assessment (EDA) software tool is developed as an embedded extension within a GIS (geographic information system) environment for the city of Tehran, Iran. This GIS-based extension provides users with a familiar environment to estimate and observe the probable damages and fatalities of a deterministic earthquake scenario. The productivity of this tool is later demonstrated for southern Karoon parish, Region 10, Tehran. Three case studies for three active faults in the area and a comparison of the results with other research substantiated the reliability of this tool for additional earthquake scenarios.

Abstract. Task allocation under uncertain conditions is a key
problem for agents attempting to achieve harmony in disaster environments.
This paper presents an agent-based simulation to investigate task allocation
considering appropriate spatial strategies to manage uncertainty in urban
search and rescue (USAR) operations. The proposed method is based on the
contract net protocol (CNP) and implemented over five phases: ordering
existing tasks considering intrinsic interval uncertainty, finding a
coordinating agent, holding an auction, applying allocation strategies (four
strategies), and implementing and observing the real environment. Applying
allocation strategies is the main innovation of the method. The methodology
was evaluated in Tehran's District 1 for 6.6, 6.9, and 7.2 magnitude
earthquakes. The simulation began by calculating the numbers of injured
individuals, which were 28 856, 73 195, and 111 463 people for each
earthquake, respectively. Simulations were performed for each scenario for a
variety of rescuers (1000, 1500, and 2000 rescuers). In comparison with the
CNP, the standard duration of rescue operations with the proposed approach
exhibited at least 13 % improvement, with a maximal improvement of 21 %.
Interval uncertainty analysis and comparison of the proposed strategies
showed that increased uncertainty led to increased rescue time for the CNP
and strategies 1 to 4. The time increase was less with the uniform
distribution strategy (strategy 4) than with the other strategies. The
consideration of strategies in the task allocation process, especially
spatial strategies, facilitated both optimization and increased flexibility
of the allocation. It also improved conditions for fault tolerance and
agent-based cooperation stability in the USAR simulation system.