Construction of an Index System for Earthquake Emergency Loss Assessment and Decision-making

Loss assessment and decision-making are essential for earthquake emergency rescues,and for scientific prediction of seismic damage and determination of rescue objectives.In practice,however,there exist some problems,such as basic data not being precise and rich enough and decision making not having systematic and complete criteria.This paper tries to solve these problems using the method of data indexation by constructing an index system for earthquake emergency loss assessment and decision-making.

Recent Advances and Challenges of Visual Signal Quality Assessment

While quality assessment is essential for testing, optimizing, benchmarking, monitoring, and inspecting related systems and services, it also plays an essential role in the design of virtually all visual signal processing and communication algorithms, as well as various related decision-making processes. In this paper, we first provide an overview of recently derived quality assessment approaches for traditional visual signals (i.e., 2D images/videos), with highlights for new trends (such as machine learning approaches). On the other hand, with the ongoing development of devices and multimedia services, newly emerged visual signals (e.g., mobile/3D videos) are becoming more and more popular. This work focuses on recent progresses of quality metrics, which have been reviewed for the newly emerged forms of visual signals, which include scalable and mobile videos, High Dynamic Range (HDR) images, image segmentation results, 3D images/videos, and retargeted images.

Assessing the accessibility to fire hazards in preserving historical towns: Case studies in suburban Shanghai, China

Protecting large-scale heritage settlements from being damaged by fires has become increasingly crucial in developing areas that lack adequate legislation, emergency planning, and particularly efficient techniques. This study provides a systematic emergency assessment methodology for evaluating the accessibility of specific fire-fighting techniques to mitigate fire hazards in historical towns and examines how the integration of municipal and local fire services works. Specifically, this paper examines the accessibility of fire trucks, local fire services and the overall protection capacity. There are quantitative calculations of the obstruction degrees on main streets, the feasible moving distances of fire-fighting vehicles and firefighters at a given time, and the fire protection coverage and intensity in each town. Using these methods, this paper systematically assesses the fire resistance of three historical towns, Chuansha, Gaoqiao and Fengjing, as case studies. In contrast to previous studies focusing on the vulnerability of buildings in large historical settlements, this assessment method combines an examination of street networks and various emergency response techniques and is particularly applicable to developing areas.