• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.281-296
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• 2015

This paper describes a novel disaster evacuation system using embedded systems such as smart devices for crisis and emergency management. In indoor environments deployed with the Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) beacons, smart devices detect their indoor positions from beacon messages and interact with Map Server(MS) and Route Server(RS) in the Internet over the LTE and/or Wi-Fi functions. The MS and RS generate an optimal path to the nearest emergency exit based on a novel graph generation method for less route computation, called the Disaster Evacuation Graph(DEG), for each smart device. The DEG also enables efficient processing of some constraints in the computation of route, such as load balancing in situation of different capacities of paths or exits. All data interfaces among three system components, the MS, RS, smart devices, have been defined for modular implementation of our disaster evacuation system. Our experimental system has been deployed and tested in our building thoroughly and gives a good evidence that the modular design of the system and a novel approach to compute emergency route based on the DEG is competitive and viable.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.2195-2206
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• 2021

In order to mitigate the damage caused by accidents in nuclear power plants (NPPs), evacuation strategies are usually managed on the basis of off-site effects such as the diffusion of radioactive materials and evacuee traffic simulations. However, the interactive behavior between evacuees and the accident environment has a significant effect on the consequential gap. Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a method that can control and observe such interactions by establishing agents (i.e., the evacuees) and patches (i.e., the accident environments). In this paper, a radiological emergency evacuation model is constructed to realistically check the effectiveness of an evacuation strategy using NetLogo, an ABM toolbox. Geographic layers such as radiation sources, roads, buildings, and shelters were downloaded from an official geographic information system (GIS) of Korea, and were modified into respective patches. The dispersion model adopted from the puff equation was also modified to fit the patches on the geographic layer. The evacuees were defined as vehicle agents and a traffic model was implemented by combining the shortest path search (determined by an A ^* algorithm) and a traffic flow model incorporated in the Nagel-Schreckenberg cellular automata model. To evaluate the radiological harm to the evacuees due to the spread of radioactive materials, a simple exposure model was established to calculate the overlap fraction between the agents and the dispersion patches. This paper aims to demonstrate that the potential of ABM can handle disaster evacuation strategies more realistically than previous approaches.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Educational Facilities
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.37-44
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• 2012

This study developed an algorithm to predict the most efficient evacuation protocol in an elementary school that has an irregular type of architectural planning. The assumption of this study takes a stand point that today's elementary schools are designed in unusual and irregular floor type and, therefore, past architect's knowledge regarding efficient evacuation will no longer effective to save lives. In this regard, this study applied an algorithm that is especially designed to find appropriate locations in general in the field of industrial engineering, which has been proven for many decades. Furthermore, this study not only adapted an engineering model but also conversed to examine spatial relationship and added the concept of group evacuation, which will delay the whole evacuation process, in the tested algorithm to make it more architectural. Consequently, this study compared its outcome with an existing elementary school and questioned its effectiveness in evacuation process based on the algorithm.

• Journal of Digital Policy
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.11-15
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• 2023

Recently, a fire suddenly broke out in a crowded theater, and many people were unable to find an escape route, becoming entangled, injured, and suffocating from smoke inhalation, resulting in a large-scale fire accident. Even though most of the people were young, they were unable to evacuate. If they had been elderly, it could have resulted in greater casualties. In particular, since it is difficult to receive accurate location information from GPS indoor, there is an urgent need for location-based services using beacons and an emergency evacuation system that intuitively shows evacuation routes in augmented reality using smart-phones. In this paper, an augmented reality-based emergency evacuation smartphone app was developed based on identifying fire locations and evacuation routes using beacons and fire sensors (IoT). In the future, if the proposed system is applied to indoor spaces where people are crowded, rapid evacuation will be possible even in a sudden fire accident, minimizing human damage.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.142-152
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• 2011

In general, existing emergency evacuation guiding systems depend on visual techniques like emergency lights or LEDs. Actually people in the case of fire emergency condition may not obtain a range of view because of smoke from the fire. This paper introduces a technique to design an emergency guiding system using directivity sound to cope with this problem. In this case all speakers are serially connected for audio signal transmission in a serial fashion to achieve convenient speaker installation. Floyd algorithm is used to find shortest evacuation paths. Because serially connected multi-channel speakers are weak in case of disconnection, this paper uses a technique to solve the diagnostic problem. In the proposed system, a PC based on the USB protocol is used for control and observation. The system has achievements, such as increasing evacuation rate under emergency conditions, and serial transmission of audio signal for easy maintenance and low installation cost.

• Spatial Information Research
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.33-41
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• 2013

Recently, the number of disasters has been seriously increasing. The total damages by the natural or man-made disasters during the past years resulted in tremendous fatalities and recovery costs. It is necessary to have efficient emergency evacuation management which is concerned with identifying evacuation route, and the estimation of evacuation and clearance times. An emergency evacuation model is important in identifying critical locations, and developing various evacuation strategies. In that existing evacuation models have focused on route analysis for indoor evacuation, there are only a few models for areawide emergency evacuation analysis. Therefore, we developed a mesoscopic model by using Cube Avenue and performed evacuation simulation, targeting road network in City of Fargo, North Dakota. Consequently, a mesoscopic model developed in this study is used to carry out dynamic analysis using network and input variable of existing travel demand model. The results of this study show that the model is an appropriate tool for areawide emergency evacuation analysis to save time and cost. Henceforth, the results of this study can be applied to develop a disaster evacuation model which can be used for a variety of disaster simulation and evaluation based on scenarios in the local metropolitan area.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.13-18
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• 2011

In the disaster prevention design, it is important point to secure escape way at event of fire which makes people away from the fire more quickly and safely. Development of construction techniques leads to build many skyscrapers, and skyscrapers contains various dangers and increase levels of disaster. At basic design stage for skyscrapers, evacuation scenario is considered that occupants are escape using escape stairs and emergency elevators simultaneously at fire, but there is no evacuation program to simulate using escape stairs and emergency elevators at the same time. In this study, evacuation simulation is performed using method of VR which is based on Virtools of 3DVIA Co., and Simulex of IES Co. for safety and effectiveness where occupants are escape using escape stairs and emergency elevators simultaneously at the fire.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.825-832
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• 2021

A simulation-based approach is proposed to study the protective actions taken by residents during nuclear emergencies using cognitive findings. Human perception-based behaviors are not heavily incorporated in the evacuation study for nuclear emergencies despite their known importance. This study proposes a generic framework of perception-based behavior simulation, in accordance with the ecological concept of affordance theory and a formal representation of affordance-based finite state automata. Based on the generic framework, a simulation model is developed to allow an evacuee to perceive available actions and execute one of them according to Newton's laws of motion. The case of a shadow evacuation under nuclear emergency is utilized to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework. The illustrated planning algorithm enables residents to compute not only prior knowledge of the environmental map, but also the perception of dynamic surroundings, using widely observed heuristics. The simulation results show that the temporal and spatial dynamics of the evacuation behaviors can be analyzed based on individual perception of circumstances, while utilizing the findings in cognitive science under unavoidable data restriction of nuclear emergencies. The perception-based analysis of the proposed framework is expected to enhance nuclear safety technology by complementing macroscopic analyses for advanced protective measures.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.52-57
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• 2023

Background: Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) operates several nuclear research facilities licensed by Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC). The emergency preparedness requirements, GSR Part 7, by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) request protection strategy based on the hazard assessment that is not applied in Korea. Materials and Methods: In developing the protection strategy, it is important to consider an accident scenario and its consequence. KAERI has tried the hazard assessment based on a hypothesis accident scenario for the major nuclear facilities. During the assessment, the safety analysis report of the related facilities was reviewed, the simulation using MELCOR, MACCS2 code was implemented based on a considered accident scenario of each facility, and the international guidance was considered. Results and Discussion: The results of the optimized protective actions were 300 m evacuation and 800 m sheltering for the High-Flux Advanced Neutron Application Reactor (HANARO), the evacuation to radius 50 m, the sheltering 400 m for post-irradiation examination facility (PIEF), 100 m evacuation or sheltering for HANARO fuel fabrication plant (HFFP) facility. Conclusion: The results of the optimized protective actions and its distances for the KAERI facilities for the maximum postulated accidents were considered in establishing the emergency plan and procedures and implementing an emergency exercise for the KAERI facilities.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.1248-1253
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• 2019

Using current evacuation methods, a crew describes the physical location of an accident and guides evacuation using alarms and emergency guide lights. However, in case of an accident on a large and complex building, an intelligent and effective emergency evacuation system is required to ensure the safety of evacuees. Therefore, several studies have been performed on intelligent path finding and emergency evacuation algorithms which are centralized guidance methods using gathered data from distributed sensor nodes. However, another important aspect is effective rescue guidance in an emergency situation. So far, there has been no consideration on the efficient rescue guidance scheme. Therefore, this paper proposes the genetic algorithm based emergency rescue guidance method using distributed wireless sensor networks. Performance evaluation using a computer simulation shows that the proposed scheme guarantees efficient path finding. The fitness converges to the minimum value in reasonable time. The density of each exit node is remarkably decreased as well.