Disaster management is a process or strategy that is implemented when any type of catastrophic event takes place. The process may be initiated when anything threatens to disrupt normal operations or puts the lives of human beings at risk. Governments on all levels as well as many businesses create some sort of disaster plan that make it possible to overcome the catastrophe and return to normal function as quickly as possible. Response to natural disasters (e.g., floods, earthquakes) or technological disaster (e.g., nuclear, chemical) is an extreme complex process that involves severe time pressure, various uncertainties, high non-linearity and many stakeholders. Disaster management often requires several autonomous agencies to collaboratively mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from heterogeneous and dynamic sets of hazards to society. Almost all disasters involve high degrees of novelty to deal with most unexpected various uncertainties and dynamic time pressures. Existing studies and approaches within disaster management have mainly been focused on some specific type of disasters with certain agency oriented. There is a lack of a general framework to deal with similarities and synergies among different disasters by taking their specific features into account. This book provides with various decisions analysis theories and support tools in complex systems in general and in disaster management in particular. The book is also generated during a long-term preparation of a European project proposal among most leading experts in the areas related to the book title. Chapters are evaluated based on quality and originality in theory and methodology, application oriented, relevance to the title of the book.
Tabella dei contenuti
On the Use of Information in Humanitarian Operations.- Decision Aid Models and Systems for Humanitarian Logistics. A Survey.- Uncertainty in Humanitarian Logistics for Disaster Management.- Fuzzy inference systems for disaster response.- Security Based Operation in Container Line Supply Chain.- A Linguistic-Valued Information Processing Method for Fuzzy Risk Analysis.- A Belief Rule-Based Generic Risk Assessment Framework.- Fuzzy semantics in closed domain question answering.- Decision Making with Extensions of Fuzzy Sets.- Classification of Disasters and Emergencies under Bipolar Knowledge Representation.- A Network Transshipment Model for Planning Humanitarian Relief Operations after a Natural Disaster.- A Travel Behaviour Study through Learning and Clustering of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps.- Fire and explosion safety assessment in container line supply chain.- A Human Situation Awareness Support System to Avoid Technological Disasters.
