A Verification Test for an Assessment System: Rapid Assessment System of Evacuation Center Condition- Gonryo and Miyagi (RASECC-GM) that Utilizes Mobile Devices

Introduction:On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck the northeastern coast of Japan with the magnitude nine. Ishinomaki medical zone was affected most severely with 328 evacuation shelters and approximately 50,000 evacuees. The Ishinomaki Zone Joint Relief Team gathered information directly from all evacuation shelters using assessment sheets. Based on this assessment data, various measures were carried out for environmental improvement of the shelters. To prepare for the next major disaster, a software program called Rapid Assessment System of Evacuation Center Condition - Gonryo and Miyagi (RASECC-GM) was developed, which computerizes the whole process, including entering, tabulating, and managing of shelter assessment data.Aim:To verify the feasibility, usability, and accuracy of RASECC-GM, a verification test was performed using mock shelter data on October 23-26, 2018, to coincide with Logistics Training Course of Medical Logistics for Disasters held by Iwate Medical University.Methods:On October 22, 2018 at four simulated disaster relief and health care branches, participants at each branch were asked to enter two mock shelter data items, submit a closed shelter request, and register a new shelter using RASECC-GM, respectively. The next day participants were asked to enter two mock shelter data items per branch while offline and upload the data to the server when next online. The uploaded data was checked for accuracy and whether it could be viewed on the management screen. After the test, a questionnaire survey was given to participants to verify the feasibility and usability of RASECC-GM.Results:It was confirmed that RASECC-GM functioned almost correctly. All participants answered that input operation was easy to understand, and 90.9% of participants could input without a mistake and did not feel stress when inputting data.Discussion:RASECC-GM appeared to be useful to shelter assessment, but further improvements are needed for practical use.

Influence of the Center Condition on the Two-Step Secant Method

The aim of this paper is to present a new improved semilocal and local convergence analysis for two-step secant method to approximate a locally unique solution of a nonlinear equation in Banach spaces. This study is important because starting points play an important role in the convergence of an iterative method. We have used a combination of Lipschitz and center-Lipschitz conditions on the Fréchet derivative instead of only Lipschitz condition. A comparison is established on different types of center conditions and the influence of our approach is shown through the numerical examples. In comparison to some earlier study, it gives an improved domain of convergence along with the precise error bounds. Finally, some numerical examples including nonlinear elliptic differential equations and integral equations validate the efficacy of our approach.

Development and Verification of a Mobile Shelter Assessment System “Rapid Assessment System of Evacuation Center Condition Featuring Gonryo and Miyagi (RASECC-GM)” for Major Disasters

IntroductionThere were 5,385 deceased and 710 missing in the Ishinomaki medical zone following the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in Japan on March 11, 2011. The Ishinomaki Zone Joint Relief Team (IZJRT) was formed to unify the relief teams of all organizations joining in support of the Ishinomaki area. The IZJRT expanded relief activity as they continued to manually collect and analyze assessments of essential information for maintaining health in all 328 shelters using a paper-type survey. However, the IZJRT spent an enormous amount of time and effort entering and analyzing these data because the work was vastly complex. Therefore, an assessment system must be developed that can tabulate shelter assessment data correctly and efficiently. The objective of this report was to describe the development and verification of a system to rapidly assess evacuation centers in preparation for the next major disaster.ReportBased on experiences with the complex work during the disaster, software called the “Rapid Assessment System of Evacuation Center Condition featuring Gonryo and Miyagi” (RASECC-GM) was developed to enter, tabulate, and manage the shelter assessment data. Further, a verification test was conducted during a large-scale Self-Defense Force (SDF) training exercise to confirm its feasibility, usability, and accuracy. The RASECC-GM comprises three screens: (1) the “Data Entry screen,” allowing for quick entry on tablet devices of 19 assessment items, including shelter administrator, living and sanitary conditions, and a tally of the injured and sick; (2) the “Relief Team/Shelter Management screen,” for registering information on relief teams and shelters; and (3) the “Data Tabulation screen,” which allows tabulation of the data entered for each shelter, as well as viewing and sorting from a disaster headquarters’ computer. During the verification test, data of mock shelters entered online were tabulated quickly and accurately on a mock disaster headquarters’ computer. Likewise, data entered offline also were tabulated quickly on the mock disaster headquarters’ computer when the tablet device was moved into an online environment.ConclusionsThe RASECC-GM, a system for rapidly assessing the condition of evacuation centers, was developed. Tests verify that users of the system would be able to easily, quickly, and accurately assess vast quantities of data from multiple shelters in a major disaster and immediately manage the inputted data at the disaster headquarters.IshiiT, NakayamaM, AbeM, TakayamaS, KameiT, AbeY, YamaderaJ, AmitoK, MorinoK. Development and verification of a mobile shelter assessment system “Rapid Assessment System of Evacuation Center Condition featuring Gonryo and Miyagi (RASECC-GM)” for major disasters. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2016;31(5):539–546.

Homogeneous-Like Generalized Cubic Systems

We consider properties and center conditions for plane polynomial systems of the formsx˙=-y-p1(x,y)-p2(x,y),y˙=x+q1(x,y)+q2(x,y)wherep1,q1andp2,q2are polynomials of degreesnand2n-1, respectively, for integersn≥2. We restrict our attention to those systems for whichyp2(x,y)+xq2(x,y)=0. In this case the system can be transformed to a trigonometric Abel equation which is similar in form to the one obtained for homogeneous systems(p2=q2=0). From this we show that any center condition of a homogeneous system for a givenncan be transformed to a center condition of the corresponding generalized cubic system and we use a similar idea to obtain center conditions for several other related systems. As in the case of the homogeneous system, these systems can also be transformed to Abel equations having rational coefficients and we briefly discuss an application of this to a particular Abel equation.

Center conditions, compositions of polynomials and moments on algebraic curves

We consider an Abel equation $(*)$ $y^{\prime}=p(x)y^2+q(x)y^3$ with $p(x)$, $q(x)$ polynomials in $x$. A center condition for ($*$) (closely related to the classical center condition for polynomial vector fields on the plane) is that $y_0=y(0)\equiv y(1)$ for any solution $y(x)$ of ($*$). This condition is given by the vanishing of all the Taylor coefficients $v_k(1)$ in the development $y(x)=y_0+\sum^{\infty}_{k=2}v_k(x)y^k_0$. A new basis for the ideals $I_k=\{v_2,\dots,v_k\}$ has recently been produced, defined by a linear recurrence relation. Studying this recurrence relation, we connect center conditions with a representability of $P=\int p$ and $Q=\int q$ in a certain composition form (developing further some results of Alwash and Lloyd), and with a behavior of the moments $\int P^kq$. On this base, explicit center equations are obtained for small degrees of $p$ and $q$.

Age-Related Differences in Processing Dynamic Information to Identify Vowel Quality

This study examined age-related differences in the use of dynamic acoustic information (in the form of formant transitions) to identify vowel quality in CVCs. Two versions of 61 naturally produced, commonly occurring, monosyllabic English words were created: a control version (the unmodified whole word) and a silent-center version (in which approximately 62% of the medial vowel was replaced by silence). A group of normal-hearing young adults (19–25 years old) and older adults (61–75 years old) identified these tokens. The older subjects were found to be significantly worse than the younger subjects at identifying the medial vowel and the initial and final consonants in the silent-center condition. These results support the hypothesis of an age-related decrement in the ability to process dynamic perceptual cues in the perception of vowel quality.