We describe an emergency evacuation support system (ESS) that employs short-range wireless communications among mobile devices carried by civilians. Emergency information is disseminated via opportunistic contacts between communication nodes (CNs), and each CN provides adaptive step-by-step navigation directions for its user during evacuation. Using mobile devices and opportunistic communicatio...

Most existing emergency evacuation studies assume evacuees to evacuate from their residence locations. However, depending on the time of day, people’s movements are constrained not only by their workplaces, but also the necessity of picking up family members. Family member interactions, a typical activity during an evacuation, can greatly affect the evacuation process. Activity-based modeling h...

By taking the super-long railway tunnel as the object of research, based on setting problems of emergency stations adopted by super-long railway tunnels, from the viewpoint of people's safe evacuation, several aspects were studied, such as the mode of evacuation and rescue by adopting emergency station, the number and interval of the cross passage, and the people's safe evacuation time under di...

BACKGROUND Mandatory reporting of HIV infection to public health authorities, although now common, may deter people from undergoing testing. We examined HIV testing frequency in Alberta before and after mandatory reporting was implemented. We also examined the effect on testing rates among pregnant women when Alberta adopted an opt-out approach to prenatal HIV screening. METHODS Using data fr...

Health care-associated infections (HAIs) are common and costly patient safety problems that are largely preventable. As a result, numerous policy changes have recently taken place including mandatory reporting and lack of reimbursement for HAIs. A qualitative approach was used to obtain dense description and gain insights about the current practice of infection prevention in California. Twenty-...

Natural crises form a big threat on environment; these crises mean the loss of enterprises and individuals, and therefore losses in the sum total of community development. Management to these crises is required through a crisis management plan to control the crises before, during, and after the event. One of the most needed things to consider during preparing the crisis management plan is prepa...

OBJECTIVE To describe epidemiologic features of pet evacuation failure after a hazardous chemical spill in which residents had no warning and only a few hours notice to evacuate. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SAMPLE POPULATION Pet-owning households that evacuated from a hazardous chemical spill with (n = 119) or without (122) their pets. Procedures-Evacuees were surveyed by mail. RESULTS ...

This paper presents the development of a novel framework that optimizes the evacuation of large cities using multiple modes including vehicular traffic, rapid transit, and mass transit shuttle buses. A large-scale evacuation model is developed for the evacuation of the City of Toronto in cases of emergency. A demand estimation model is first designed to accurately quantify the evacuation demand...