Emergency egress for the elderly in care home fire situations

Practitioners are continuing to develop egress modelling software for the design of the built environment. These models require data about human behaviour and factors for calibration, validation and verification. This study aims to address the specific data and knowledge gap: emergency egress of the elderly. Such data are difficult to collect given privacy and consent concerns, with strong relationships generally being required between residences and researchers. Through the observation of nine fire drills at six Canadian long-term care (LTC) and retirement homes, specific evacuation actions and behaviour were observed for 37 staff members and information about the evacuation of 56 residents was collected. These drills demonstrated that emergency egress in LTC and retirement homes is highly staff dependent with 72% of residents recorded requiring full assistance at all stages of movement in evacuation, and that the type of announced/unannounced drill and level of resident care will affect the type of data collected. The development of travel speed and pre-movement is discussed subject to limitation with qualitative behavioural insights of residents that were observed. This study provides valuable methodological discussion on how to conduct behavioural studies in similar highly restricted research environments. Specific attention is given to understanding the considerations that must be made when using fire drills as data sources, and the impact that these can have on using such data for modelling. This study may inform the initial setup and programming of evacuation models from an actions and behavioural perspectives of staff members and residents.     

Engineering egress data considering pedestrians with reduced mobility

To quantify the evacuation process, evacuation practitioners use engineering egress data describing the occupant movement characteristics. These data are typically based to young and fit populations. However, the movement abilities of occupants who might be involved in evacuations are becoming more variable—with the building populations of today typically including increasing numbers of individuals: with impairments or who are otherwise elderly or generally less mobile. Thus, there will be an increasing proportion of building occupants with reduced ability to egress. For safe evacuation, there is therefore a need to provide valid engineering egress data considering pedestrians with disabilities. Gwynne and Boyce recently compiled a series of data sets related to the evacuation process to support practitioner activities in the chapter Engineering Data in the SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering. This paper supplements these data sets by providing information on and presenting data obtained from additional research related to the premovement and horizontal movement of participants with physical‐, cognitive‐, or age‐related disabilities. The aim is to provide an overview of currently available data sets related to, and key factors affecting the egress performance of, mixed ability populations which could be used to guide fire safety engineering decisions in the context of building design.     

Apparent power-law distributions in animal movements can arise from intraspecific interactions

Lévy flights have gained prominence for analysis of animal movement. In a Lévy flight, step-lengths are drawn from a heavy-tailed distribution such as a power law (PL), and a large number of empirical demonstrations have been published. Others, however, have suggested that animal movement is ill fit by PL distributions or contend a state-switching process better explains apparent Lévy flight movement patterns. We used a mix of direct behavioural observations and GPS tracking to understand step-length patterns in females of two related butterflies. We initially found movement in one species (Euphydryas editha taylori) was best fit by a bounded PL, evidence of a Lévy flight, while the other (Euphydryas phaeton) was best fit by an exponential distribution. Subsequent analyses introduced additional candidate models and used behavioural observations to sort steps based on intraspecific interactions (interactions were rare in E. phaeton but common in E. e. taylori). These analyses showed a mixed-exponential is favoured over the bounded PL for E. e. taylori and that when step-lengths were sorted into states based on the influence of harassing conspecific males, both states were best fit by simple exponential distributions. The direct behavioural observations allowed us to infer the underlying behavioural mechanism is a state-switching process driven by intraspecific interactions rather than a Lévy flight.     

Application of Code Approach for Emergency Evacuation in a Rail Station

This paper presents an emergency evacuation analysis during a mid-platform train fire in an underground rail station. A time-based evacuation scenario is developed taking into account the stairway inaccessibility due to smoke blockage. The calculation approach in NFPA 130 is then applied to a parametric study of this time-based scenario and its reliability is examined using a micro-simulation model. Both methods give consistent predictions of the exiting times. The results demonstrate that with the division of the station into two zones, the exiting time could not meet the code requirements, whereas it does meet the required exiting time without the division. Such division is due to smoke blockage and creates an uneven ratio of the occupant load to the available exiting capacity. This shows that appropriate consideration of the fire and smoke effects is important for station egress evaluation. Other issues such as the fire growth rate and the pre-evacuation time are also discussed.     

基于RD算法的星载SAR斜视成像

本文研究了用距离一多普勒（ＲＤ）算法来实现星载 ＳＡＲ的斜视成像处理。给出了星载 ＳＡＲ斜视时的空间几何模型和回波信号模型，详细分析了地球自转和斜视产生的多普勒质心所引起的距离走动差异，及时域和频域校正对成像的影响，并研究了一种改进的ＲＤ算法进行距离走动的校正，此算法能适应大的斜视距离走动和地球自转距离走动。针对不同的距离走动校正进行了计算机仿真，理论分析和仿真结果表明：这种改进的ＲＤ算法是有效的。     

某商品大集人员疏散的仿真模拟研究

目前,在各地均有商贸活动开展,且参与人员众多,如果公安机关事先未做好预案,一旦发生突发性事件,人员疏散不到位,极易造成群死群伤事件。文章以商品大集为例,构建参与人员的流动模型,利用计算机技术实现流量和流动状况的模拟仿真,获得接近实际的流动的时间和动态过程．利于事先对类似活动拥堵情况进行准确评估。     

基于多速度元胞自动机的海洋平台人员疏散

为了研究海洋平台人员疏散过程,定量评估疏散方案的合理性,基于元胞自动机模型开发适用于海洋平台人员逃生疏散的仿真系统,提出在离散模型中精确考虑多种人员速度的方法. 使用真实海洋平台疏散实验数据校核模型参数,并对比商业软件maritimeEXODUS的计算结果,验证仿真系统的可行性. 从疏散时间和出口使用效率对无烟和有烟场景下的人员疏散结果进行对比和量化分析,并提出优化方案. 结果表明：有烟环境不仅折减人员移动速度,延长疏散时间,更会影响人员的路径选择,导致疏散不平衡.     

前向树状紧急疏散网络的自适应性控制策略分析

针对前向树状的紧急疏散网络,提出了一种不需要进行需求预测且具有适应性和强鲁棒性的分散式控制疏散策略.通过分析如何确定典型匝道与快速路交汇点处的最优疏散路线,明确了构建可控疏散网络的基本原则.定义了前向树状紧急疏散网络,并对所构建网络的适用范围和具体风险水平标定处理作了明确说明.针对前向树状网络的典型子结构,给出了可以始终充分利用下游通行能力,且充分考虑上游来流具有较高风险水平特点的具体疏散路线选择及放流策略.在上述典型子结构分析基础上,给出了包括如何逆流向确定路段限制性通行能力、顺流向确定路段最大可行流量以及实时动态调整疏散策略等基本步骤的网络疏散策略.最后,通过一个数值算例,比较了新策略与纯粹上游优先策略、纯粹下游优先策略的运行效率,证明了新的适应控制策略的可行性与有效性.     

绝氧条件下β-Bi2Mo2O9晶相上丙烯氨氧化反应的Monte Carlo模拟研究

A random walk Monte Carlo （RWMC） simulation model of catalytic particle was established on the basis of the structures of bismuth molybdate catalysts and mechanisms of catalytic reactions with propylene selective oxidation and ammoxidation. The simulation results show that rationality of the RWMC model is proved on the basis of pulse experimental data. One of the most remarkable factors affecting catalytic behavior is the transfer of bulk lattice oxygen, which decides the rate of ammonia-consuming and propylene-consuming. The selectivity of main products reaches the maximum after the reduction of catalysts to a certain degree. It is inferred that catalytic performance improves greatly if the ratio of capacity for dehydrogenation from adsorbed propylene molecule on catalytically active site of molybdenum metal-imido group （Mo=NH） to that on catalytically active site of molybdenum metal-oxo group （Mo=O） becomes much higher.