Displaying publications 81 - 100 of 152 in total

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  1. Khan A, Ali I, Ghani A, Khan N, Alsaqer M, Rahman AU, et al.
    Sensors (Basel), 2018 May 18;18(5).
    PMID: 29783686 DOI: 10.3390/s18051619
    Recent research in underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) has gained the attention of researchers in academia and industry for a number of applications. They include disaster and earthquake prediction, water quality and environment monitoring, leakage and mine detection, military surveillance and underwater navigation. However, the aquatic medium is associated with a number of limitations and challenges: long multipath delay, high interference and noise, harsh environment, low bandwidth and limited battery life of the sensor nodes. These challenges demand research techniques and strategies to be overcome in an efficient and effective fashion. The design of routing protocols for UWSNs is one of the promising solutions to cope with these challenges. This paper presents a survey of the routing protocols for UWSNs. For the ease of description, the addressed routing protocols are classified into two groups: localization-based and localization-free protocols. These groups are further subdivided according to the problems they address or the major parameters they consider during routing. Unlike the existing surveys, this survey considers only the latest and state-of-the-art routing protocols. In addition, every protocol is described in terms of its routing strategy and the problem it addresses and solves. The merit(s) of each protocol is (are) highlighted along with the cost. A description of the protocols in this fashion has a number of advantages for researchers, as compared to the existing surveys. Firstly, the description of the routing strategy of each protocol makes its routing operation easily understandable. Secondly, the demerit(s) of a protocol provides (provide) insight into overcoming its flaw(s) in future investigation. This, in turn, leads to the foundation of new protocols that are more intelligent, robust and efficient with respect to the desired parameters. Thirdly, a protocol can be selected for the appropriate application based on its described merit(s). Finally, open challenges and research directions are presented for future investigation.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  2. Niemand A, Jordaan AJ, Minnaar H
    Jamba, 2016;8(2):170.
    PMID: 29955305 DOI: 10.4102/jamba.v8i2.170
    Legislation that governs the health and safety of communities near major-hazard installations in South Africa is largely based on existing legislation that had been developed in the United Kingdom and other European Union countries. The latter was developed as a consequence of several major human-induced technological disasters in Europe. The history of the evolution of health-and-safety legislation for the protection of vulnerable communities in European Union (EU) countries, France, Malaysia and the USA is explored through a literature survey. A concise comparison is drawn between EU countries, the USA and South Africa to obtain an exploratory view of whether current South-African legislation represents an optimum model for the protection of the health-and-safety of workers and communities near major-hazard installations. The authors come to the conclusion that South-African legislation needs revision as was done in the UK in 2011. Specific areas in the legislation that need revision are an overlap between occupational health and safety and environmental legislation, appropriate land-use planning for the protection of communities near major-hazard installations, the inclusion of vulnerability studies and the refinement of appropriate decision-making instruments such as risk assessment. This article is the first in a series that forms part of a broader study aimed at the development of an optimised model for the regulatory management of human-induced health and safety risks associated with hazardous installations in South Africa.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  3. Chen W, Li Y, Xue W, Shahabi H, Li S, Hong H, et al.
    Sci Total Environ, 2020 Jan 20;701:134979.
    PMID: 31733400 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.134979
    Floods are one of the most devastating types of disasters that cause loss of lives and property worldwide each year. This study aimed to evaluate and compare the prediction capability of the naïve Bayes tree (NBTree), alternating decision tree (ADTree), and random forest (RF) methods for the spatial prediction of flood occurrence in the Quannan area, China. A flood inventory map with 363 flood locations was produced and partitioned into training and validation datasets through random selection with a ratio of 70/30. The spatial flood database was constructed using thirteen flood explanatory factors. The probability certainty factor (PCF) method was used to analyze the correlation between the factors and flood occurrences. Consequently, three flood susceptibility maps were produced using the NBTree, ADTree, and RF methods. Finally, the area under the curve (AUC) and statistical measures were used to validate the flood susceptibility models. The results indicated that the RF method is an efficient and reliable model in flood susceptibility assessment, with the highest AUC values, positive predictive rate, negative predictive rate, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy for the training (0.951, 0.892, 0.941, 0.945, 0.886, and 0.915, respectively) and validation (0.925, 0.851, 0.938, 0.945, 0.835, and 0.890, respectively) datasets.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  4. Nguyen KA, Liou YA, Terry JP
    Sci Total Environ, 2019 Sep 10;682:31-46.
    PMID: 31121354 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.069
    Typhoons have devastating impacts across many Asian countries. Vietnam is presently one of the most disaster-prone nations. Typhoons regularly disrupt human lives and livelihoods in various ways and cause significant damage. Making efficient policy decisions to minimize the vulnerability of affected communities is crucial. This requires a deep understanding of the factors that make a society vulnerable to extreme events and natural disasters. An appropriate approach is integrating the three dimensions of hazard, exposure and sensitivity, and community adaptive capacity. However, the vulnerability and adaptive capacity response to typhoons within Vietnam is poorly investigated. Here, we develop a conceptual framework that incorporates 21 indicators to identify vulnerability and adaptive capacity (VAC) using geospatial techniques at regional scales, applied over Vietnam. We find large spatial differences in VAC and are able to identify the top-priority regions that need to enhance their adaptation to typhoons. The Southern Coastal area, South East and Red River Delta demonstrate high and very high vulnerability because of their physical features and the intensity of typhoons that frequently cross these parts of Vietnam. The lower Mekong Delta and Northern Coastal areas are vulnerable to typhoon-driven flood threats, in particular where compounded by sea-level rise. Our framework successfully identified the spatial distribution and different levels of VAC within acceptable limits of uncertainty. It can therefore serve as a template to tackle national issues in disaster risk reduction in Vietnam and assist in the development of suitable mitigation strategies to achieve sustainable outcomes.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  5. Muhammad SH, Roy M
    Jurnal Psikologi Malaysia, 2014;olume 28:79-87.
    Accident in an organization is one of the most undesirable phenomenons all over the world. The consequences of accidents in workplace are numerous which include damages of resources and cost of lives of many workers. For example, in 1991 a major disaster occurred in U.S. at triangle Shirtwaist factory, which cost the life of 100 garments workers (Greenwald & Richard, 2005). In Bangladesh accidents in workplace are more frequent and devastating, for which Bangladesh has been criticized severely worldwide. Recently one of those unfortunate phenomenons in Bangladesh was fire at Nimtoli of old Dhaka which cost 117 people burnt alive in June 2010. Another accident took place in Tazreen Fashion, Dhaka in 2012 which caused at least 112 workers either burnt to death or died while trying to escape the blaze. These are the short picture of loss of lives. Yet the losses of resources are not few. Sometimes accidents create threats for human and animal kingdom also by large rate of environmental pollution. For Example, in 2005 devastating Texas City Refinery explosion cost lives of many workers as well as light hydrocarbons concentrated at ground level throughout a large surrounding area which caused long lasting environmental pollution (Baldwin & Lisa, 2008). Furthermore, economic loss cannot also be over looked. A little mistake costs huge loss in assembly line of work. Thus accidents reduce production rate, lessen the quality of product and the reputation of industry also.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  6. Yang SR, Yeh YL
    Sains Malaysiana, 2015;44:1677-1683.
    Countering the dangers associated the present extreme climate not only requires continuous improvement of local disaster
    prevention engineering infrastructure but also needs an enhanced understanding of the causes of the disasters. This study
    investigates the geologic hazard risk of 53 slopeland villages in Pingtung county of southern Taiwan. First, remote sensing
    (RS) techniques were utilized to interpret environmental geology and geologic hazard zonation, including dip slope, fault,
    landslide and debris flow. GIS map overlay analysis was used to further identify the extent of the geologic hazard zonation.
    As a final step, field investigation is used to comprehend geologic, topographic conditions and the geologic hazard risk
    specific to each locality. Based on data analysis and field investigation results, this study successfully integrates RS, GIS
    and GPS techniques to construct a geologic hazard risk assessment method of slopeland village. The results of this study
    can be used to promote support for future disaster prevention and disaster mitigation efforts.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  7. Ansari M, Othman F, El-Shafie A
    Sci Total Environ, 2020 Jun 20;722:137878.
    PMID: 32199382 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137878
    Sewage treatment plants (STPs) keep sewage contamination within safe levels and minimize the risk of environmental disasters. To achieve optimum operation of an STP, it is necessary for influent parameters to be measured or estimated precisely. In this research, six well-known influent chemical and biological characteristics, i.e., biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), Ammoniacal Nitrogen (NH3-N), pH, oil and grease (OG) and suspended solids (SS), were modeled and predicted using the Sugeno fuzzy logic model. The membership function range of the fuzzy model was optimized by ANFIS, the integrated Genetic algorithms (GA), and the integrated particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms. The results were evaluated by different indices to find the accuracy of each algorithm. To ensure prediction accuracy, outliers in the predicted data were found and replaced with reasonable values. The results showed that both integrated GA-FIS and PSO-FIS algorithms performed at almost the same level and both had fewer errors than ANFIS. As the GA-FIS algorithm predicts BOD with fewer errors than PSO-FIS and the aim of this study is to provide an accurate prediction of missing data, GA-FIS was only used to predict the BOD parameter; the other parameters were predicted by PSO-FIS algorithm. As a result, the model successfully could provide outstanding performance for predicting the BOD, COD, NH3-N, OG, pH and SS with MAE equal to 3.79, 5.14, 0.4, 0.27, 0.02, and 3.16, respectively.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  8. NurKhairlida Muhamad Khai, Khai EL, Mazlin Mokhta, Choo TG, Marlia Mohd Hanafiah, Chan PW, et al.
    Chemical industry is one of the important industries in the world. However, incidents happened due to the release of hazardous materials, toxic and poisonous chemicals in the chemical industries can cause fatal to human and destruction of the environment. Learning from the Bhopal disaster's experience, chemical industries have developed a program - Responsible Care, aiming to regain public trust through improving the environment, health and safety performances. Malaysia has adopted Responsible Care program since 1994 under the stewardship of the Chemical Industries Council of Malaysia (CICM). Six codes of management practices have been developed by the CICM, covering distribution, community awareness and emergency response, pollution prevention, process safety, employee health & safety and product stewardship. It has been more than 20 years since its inception. However, to date, there are only 125 companies have signed the pledge to adopt Responsible Care program. The CICM has also conducted several initiatives to encourage participation of chemical companies to adopt Responsible Care program in Malaysia. Therefore, it is the aim of this paper to review the current status of Responsible Care program in Malaysia and also deliberate the way forward of this program.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  9. Khoo LS, Mahmood MS
    PMID: 32412001 DOI: 10.1016/j.fsisyn.2020.01.003
    This study explores the practicability and usability of the cling film plastic wrap on the dead body with decomposition changes, whereby the feasibility of wrapping the remains to ensure the containment of the decomposition fluid within the cling film plastic wrap. Unknown and unclaimed dead bodies were used. Wrapping and preservation of human remains using the cling film plastic wrap could be the best operational practices for first responders rather than leaving bodies exposed on the disaster site, when the supplies of the cadaver body bags are inadequate. Thinking out of the box, the conventional way of using cadaver body bags to the cling film plastic wrap forms a new perspective in managing the dead and facilitating the human identification needs. New inventive idea of adopting the cling film plastic wrap as means of protecting the dignity of the dead person, could be the way forward in humanitarian forensic action.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  10. Yaakob Z, Bshish A, Ebshish A, Tasirin SM, Alhasan FH
    Materials (Basel), 2013 May 30;6(6):2229-2239.
    PMID: 28809270 DOI: 10.3390/ma6062229
    Selecting a proper support in the catalyst system plays an important role in hydrogen production via ethanol steam reforming. In this study, sol gel made alumina supports prepared for nickel (Ni) catalysts were calcined at different temperatures. A series of (Ni/AlS.G.) catalysts were synthesized by an impregnation procedure. The influence of varying the calcination temperature of the sol gel made supports on catalyst activity was tested in ethanol reforming reaction. The characteristics of the sol gel alumina supports and Ni catalysts were affected by the calcination temperature of the supports. The structure of the sol gel made alumina supports was transformed in the order of γ → (γ + θ) → θ-alumina as the calcination temperature of the supports increased from 600 °C to 1000 °C. Both hydrogen yield and ethanol conversion presented a volcano-shaped behavior with maximum values of 4.3 mol/mol ethanol fed and 99.5%, respectively. The optimum values were exhibited over Ni/AlS.G800 (Ni catalyst supported on sol gel made alumina calcined at 800 °C). The high performance of the Ni/AlS.G800 catalyst may be attributed to the strong interaction of Ni species and sol gel made alumina which lead to high nickel dispersion and small particle size.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  11. Ahmad R, Mohamad Z, Noh AY, Mohamad N, Hamzah MS, Mohammed NA, et al.
    Malays J Med Sci, 2008 Apr;15(2):47-51.
    PMID: 22589626 MyJurnal
    Disaster is a sudden event that associated with ecological changes, disruption of normal daily activities, destruction of infrastructures, loss of properties, and medical disabilities. In disaster, there is a mismatch between available resources and patients need for healthcare service. During flood disaster, the victims were predisposed to different type of illnesses for various reasons such as inadequate supply of clean water, poor sanitation or drainage system, unhealthy foods, and over-crowded relief centers. Mobile clinic is an option for delivering medical care for the disaster victims who often have a difficulty to access to the medical facilities. In this article we would like to share our experiences during the provision of humanitarian services for flood victims at District of Muar Johor. Common illnesses among the flood victims at visited relief centers and advantages of Mobile Medical Relief Team were also highlighted and discussed.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters
  12. Azimi M, Bin Adnan A, Sam AR, Tahir MM, Faridmehr I, Hodjati R
    ScientificWorldJournal, 2014;2014:802605.
    PMID: 25309957 DOI: 10.1155/2014/802605
    The seismic performance of RC columns could be significantly improved by continuous spiral reinforcement as a result of its adequate ductility and energy dissipation capacity. Due to post-earthquake brittle failure observations in beam-column connections, the seismic behaviour of such connections could greatly be improved by simultaneous application of this method in both beams and columns. In this study, a new proposed detail for beam to column connection introduced as "twisted opposing rectangular spiral" was experimentally and numerically investigated and its seismic performance was compared against normal rectangular spiral and conventional shear reinforcement systems. In this study, three full scale beam to column connections were first designed in conformance with Eurocode (EC2-04) for low ductility class connections and then tested by quasistatic cyclic loading recommended by ACI Building Code (ACI 318-02). Next, the experimental results were validated by numerical methods. Finally, the results revealed that the new proposed connection could improve the ultimate lateral resistance, ductility, and energy dissipation capacity.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters*
  13. Kouadio IK, Aljunid S, Kamigaki T, Hammad K, Oshitani H
    Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther, 2012 Jan;10(1):95-104.
    PMID: 22149618 DOI: 10.1586/eri.11.155
    Natural disasters may lead to infectious disease outbreaks when they result in substantial population displacement and exacerbate synergic risk factors (change in the environment, in human conditions and in the vulnerability to existing pathogens) for disease transmission. We reviewed risk factors and potential infectious diseases resulting from prolonged secondary effects of major natural disasters that occurred from 2000 to 2011. Natural disasters including floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, tropical cyclones (e.g., hurricanes and typhoons) and tornadoes have been secondarily described with the following infectious diseases including diarrheal diseases, acute respiratory infections, malaria, leptospirosis, measles, dengue fever, viral hepatitis, typhoid fever, meningitis, as well as tetanus and cutaneous mucormycosis. Risk assessment is essential in post-disaster situations and the rapid implementation of control measures through re-establishment and improvement of primary healthcare delivery should be given high priority, especially in the absence of pre-disaster surveillance data.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disaster Planning; Disasters*
  14. Su TT, Saimy BI, Bulgiba AM
    Prev Med, 2013;57 Suppl:S74-6.
    PMID: 23313790 DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2012.12.024
    The objective of the study is to assess the socioeconomic status of the households affected by the tsunami of 2004 & to determine the factors associated with the recovery of household economic status.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters/economics*
  15. Truijens SE, Boerekamp CA, Spek V, van Son MJ, Oei SG, Pop VJ
    Am J Epidemiol, 2015 Sep 1;182(5):426-30.
    PMID: 26173773 DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwv161
    On July 17, 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down, a tragedy that shocked the Dutch population. As part of a large longitudinal survey on mental health in pregnant women that had a study inclusion period of 19 months, we were able to evaluate the possible association of that incident with mood changes using pre- and postdisaster data. We compared mean Edinburgh Depression Scale (EDS) scores from a group of women (n = 126 cases) at 32 weeks' gestation during the first month after the crash with mean scores from a control group (n = 102) with similar characteristics who completed the EDS at 32 weeks' gestation during the same summer period in 2013. The mean EDS scores of the 126 case women in the first month after the crash were significantly higher than the scores of 102 control women. There were no differences in mean EDS scores between the 2 groups at the first and second trimesters. The present study is among the first in which perinatal mental health before and after the occurrence of a disaster has been investigated, and the results suggest that national disasters might lead to emotional responses.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters*
  16. Nambiar P, Jalil N, Singh B
    Int Dent J, 1997 Feb;47(1):9-15.
    PMID: 9448783
    On 15 September 1995 a Malaysian Airlines (MAS) Fokker 50 plane plunged while descending and crashed, killing thirty-four passengers aboard. The dental disaster victim identification team comprising dental surgeons from the Dental faculty, University of Malaya; Ministry of Health, Sabah; and the Malaysian Defence Forces played an active role in the identification process. Most of the bodies were badly mutilated, disfigured and severely incinerated. Problems were encountered due to inadequate facilities and space at the mortuary. Difficulties were also encountered during the procurement and deciphering of information from dental records. This disaster has however created greater awareness amongst Malaysians of the important role of forensic odontology in mass disasters.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters*
  17. Othman N, Ismail IH, Yip R, Zainuddin Z, Kasim SM, Isa R, et al.
    Pediatr Infect Dis J, 2007 Oct;26(10):960-1.
    PMID: 17901807 DOI: 10.1097/INF.0b013e3181257234
    Two tsunami survivors from Banda Acheh, Sumatra, presented with pyrexia of unknown origin and a nonresolving left-sided empyema, respectively. Both children had mixed infections of tuberculosis and melioidosis; Salmonella typhi was also present in the second patient. Mixed infections are common late sequela complications in post-tsunami victims.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters*
  18. Ludin SM, Rohaizat M, Arbon P
    Health Soc Care Community, 2019 05;27(3):621-631.
    PMID: 30345603 DOI: 10.1111/hsc.12674
    A cross-sectional study design was created, using the Index of Perceived Community Resilience (IPCR) and Buckner's Index of Cohesion (BIC) to survey 386 flood evacuees from six communities in Kelantan, Malaysia, in 2015. The respondents were mostly female (54.7%); lived in basic housing (95.6%); average income (55.9%); secondary level schooling (81.1%); not involved with community organisations (95.1%), volunteering activities (91.2%), or emergency teams (96.9%); inexperience with injury during flooding (94%); experienced the emergency disaster (61.6%); and their mean age was 49 years old. Overall, respondents scored a high level of community disaster resilience (CDR) (mean 3.9) and social cohesion (mean 3.79). Also, respondents' housing type, event of injury during disaster, volunteering in post-disaster activities, and emergency team participation were significantly associated with CDR (p = 0.001-0.002), organisational involvement (p = 0.016), and emergency disaster experience (p = 0.028) were significantly associated with social cohesion. The Pearson correlation coefficient results mostly showing a moderate, weak, and one with a strong relationship. There is a strong relationship between community participation (CDR) in events and BIC variables (r = 0.529, p = 0.001). Other analysis shows a moderate but significant relationship with BIC; is open to ideas (r = 0.332, p = 0.001); community has similar values/ideas (r = 0.421, p = 0.001); sense of pride (r = 0.389, p = 0.001); strong leadership (r = 0.339, p = 0.001); positive change (r = 0.484, p = 0.001); and able to handle problems (r = 0.454, p = 0.001). Overall, the results show that respondents had high levels of CDR and social cohesion, while the demographic characteristics show the impact of CDR and social cohesion. In conclusion, the data gives original insight into the level of association between social cohesion and disaster resilience, which could be used as a building block in sustainable disaster recovery. There is a need to explore this further on programmes designed to improve social cohesion across communities.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters*
  19. Al-Hunaishi W, Hoe VC, Chinna K
    BMJ Open, 2019 10 17;9(10):e030547.
    PMID: 31628126 DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-030547
    OBJECTIVES: Willingness to participate in disasters is usually overlooked and not addressed in disaster preparedness training courses to ensure health service coverage. This will lead to issues during the disaster's response. This study, therefore, aims to assess healthcare workers willingness to participate in biological and natural disasters, and to identify its associated factors.

    DESIGN: This is a cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to 1093 healthcare workers. The data were analysed using multiple logistic regression with significance level p<0.05. Ethical clearance and consent of the participants were duly obtained.

    SETTING: In three public hospitals that provide tertiary-level healthcare in Sana'a City, Yemen.

    PARTICIPANTS: There were 692 nurses and doctors (response rate 63.3%) completed the questionnaires.

    RESULTS: Almost half of the participants 55.1% were nurses and 44.9% were doctors. The study found that self-efficacy was associated with willingness to participate in disaster response for any type of disasters (OR 1.319, 95% CI 1.197 to 1.453), natural disasters (OR 1.143, 95% CI 1.069 to 1.221) and influenza pandemic (OR 1.114, 95% CI 1.050 to 1.182). The results further show that willingness is associated with healthcare workers being young, male and having higher educational qualifications.

    CONCLUSION: Self-efficacy has been found to be an important factor associated with willingness. Improving self-efficacy through training in disaster preparedness may increase willingness of healthcare workers to participate in a disaster.

    Matched MeSH terms: Disaster Planning; Disasters*
  20. Chung NE, Castilani A, Tierra WE, Beh P, Mahmood MS
    Forensic Sci Int, 2017 Sep;278:367-373.
    PMID: 28806635 DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2017.07.030
    On December 1st, 2014, the sinking of Oryong 501 occurred in the Bering Sea off the east coast of Russia. A total of 60 crew members, including 35 Indonesians, 13 Filipinos, 11 South Koreans and 1 Russian inspector were on board out of which only seven survived. Through an international rescue operation, the dead bodies of 27 were found and the remaining 26 crew are still missing. After transferring the dead bodies to the Busan Harbor in South Korea, the operation to identify the deceased began involving DVI teams from three countries: Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines. When a deep sea fishing boat sinks, it is very difficult to obtain antemortem data of the crew who had been on board for a long time. This is especially so if the crews are multinational. Further, the accuracy of the antemortem data provided by the families may be questionable, and the provided data is often not standardized. Despite the fact that the antemortem data were received in different formats, the identification process for the bodies of the 27 crew from the Oryong sinking was quickly completed through the cooperation among the three DVI teams. This case is an excellent example of how efficiently a DVI operation can be conducted in the Asia Pacific region. Issues raised during this operation should enable even better preparation for similar events in the future.
    Matched MeSH terms: Disasters*
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