Enhanced Dynamic Spectrum Access in UAV Wireless Networks for Post-Disaster Area Surveillance System: A Multi-Player Multi-Armed Bandit Approach

Modern wireless networks are notorious for being very dense, uncoordinated, and selfish, especially with greedy user needs. This leads to a critical scarcity problem in spectrum resources. The Dynamic Spectrum Access system (DSA) is considered a promising solution for this scarcity problem. With the aid of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), a post-disaster surveillance system is implemented using Cognitive Radio Network (CRN). UAVs are distributed in the disaster area to capture live images of the damaged area and send them to the disaster management center. CRN enables UAVs to utilize a portion of the spectrum of the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) gates operating in the same area. In this paper, a joint transmission power selection, data-rate maximization, and interference mitigation problem is addressed. Considering all these conflicting parameters, this problem is investigated as a budget-constrained multi-player multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem. The whole process is done in a decentralized manner, where no information is exchanged between UAVs. To achieve this, two power-budget-aware PBA-MAB) algorithms, namely upper confidence bound (PBA-UCB (MAB) algorithm and Thompson sampling (PBA-TS) algorithm, were proposed to realize the selection of the transmission power value efficiently. The proposed PBA-MAB algorithms show outstanding performance over random power value selection in terms of achievable data rate.

Vulnerability of Evacuees Having No One to Consult after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster: The Fukushima Health Management Survey

After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011, caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, some evacuees had no one to consult despite many local care providers offering assistance. This study identified the characteristics of individuals who did not receive consultations and the relevant determinants, and proposed the available measures to address this issue. Altogether, 32,699 participants aged 16 years or older and residing in the disaster area at Fukushima were surveyed. Those with no one to consult showed a significantly higher prevalence of psychological distress (16.2%, p < 0.001) and drinking problems (21.5%, p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed that these behaviors were associated with the middle age group (i.e., 40–64 years old) (odds ratio [OR]: 1.30; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.16–1.46), men (OR = 2.46; 95% CI, 2.27–2.66), bad financial circumstances (OR = 2.11; 95% CI, 1.96–2.27), and living alone (OR = 1.53; 95% CI, 1.39–1.68). This research verifies that people with such characteristics were more likely to be isolated and vulnerable to psychiatric problems, such as depression. We suggest that it is integral for local care providers to recognize those who have no one to consult and provide targeted support.

Mental Health Status and Influencing Factors of the Elderly in Ya’an Area After 5 years’ Lushan Earthquake

Objective: To understand the mental health status and its influencing factors of the elderly in the disaster area 5 years after the Lushan earthquake. Methods: A total of 2,579 cases of Ya’an residents aged 60 years or above were selected by using cluster sampling method. From January to May 2019, self-compiled questionnaire for basic information of affected residents and 12 General Health Questionnaire were used to assess the mental health status of the elderly. Results: 2,561 (99.3%) valid samples were collected. The positive rate of mental health was 220 (8.6%) cases. The binary logistic regression analysis showed that in the city, no chronic diseases, no body pain, and self-rated health status good in last one month was the protective factor for mental health of the elderly. Age group 60 years and above was the risk factor. Conclusions: Five years after the Lushan earthquake, there is a certain degree of mental health problems in the elderly in the disaster area, and corresponding intervention measures should be formulated. In particular, the researchers should pay more attention to the mental health of the rural elderly who were with low income, young age, and chronic diseases (or pain).

Time heals all wounds: analysis of changes in temporal focus and implicit space–time mappings among survivors of the 2019 China earthquake over time

abstract Accumulating evidence suggests that people’s sense of the spatial location of events in time is flexible across cultures, contexts, and individuals. Yet few studies have established whether time spatialization is correlated with traumatic experiences. Based on findings that people tend to demonstrate a past time orientation when suffering from disasters, the present research investigated how earthquake experience is associated with temporal focus and time spatialization. Study 1 compared responses of residents in an earthquake-hit area with those of residents in a non-disaster area about two weeks after the disaster had occurred. The results showed that participants in the disaster area were more past-focused and produced more past-in-front responses than participants in the non-disaster area. In Study 2, a follow-up survey was conducted in the same areas ten months after the earthquake to examine whether the impact of disasters on spatial conceptions of time would decay as time elapsed. The findings indicated that participants in these two areas showed no differences in temporal focus and implicit space–time mappings. Taken together, these findings provide support for the Temporal Focus Hypothesis. They also have implications for understanding fluctuation in temporal focus and the high malleability of temporal mappings across individuals.

Konstruksi Makna Jurnalis Foto Kebencanaan dalam Karya Foto Jurnalistik

Journalists are one of the professions that demands a honesty and fairness for the culprit, because the journalist is as one the real form of information through media for a wide audience in the process of delivering messages through the mass media. Competent journalists must master the science of Communication in both the mass Communication, communication psychology, sociology of communication, philosophy, politics, social and cultural communication. The responsibility of a journalist should always be based on the truth and to be fought. A journalist under any circumstances is required to high the instinct and its sensitivity to the situation in the field as a photojournalist assigned to the disaster area. Photos is a medium with a strong image or visual message content to provide information for a wide audience so that every human being in the community can feel and know the reality that occurs in the field that Portrayed by a photo journalist. The purpose of this research is how the authors will examine how the construction of the meaning of a photojournalist in a solution in the disaster area with a qualitative method with a phenomenological approach using the theory of Alfred Schutz. The results of this study concluded that the construction of photojournalist in the Media Indonesia news papper is on the basis of social awareness of individual photo journalism by analyzing the situation and conditions in the field with Armed with experience and flying hours from each photo journalist in the program and become one of the living witnesses of the historical part of a natural disaster event that occurred by capture it through the camera lens as a medium of delivering the message to a wider audience. Abstrak. Wartawan adalah salah satu profesi yang menuntut sebuah kejujuran dan keadilan bagi para pelakunya, sebab wartawan adalah sebagai salah-satu bentuk nyata sebuah informasi melalui media bagi khalayak luas dalam proses penyampaian pesan melalui media massa. Wartawan yang berkompeten harus menguasai ilmu komunikasi. Tanggung jawab seorang wartawan harus selalu berpijak pada kebenaran dan harus diperjuangkan. Seorang wartawan dalam kondisi apapun dituntut untuk menjungjung tinggi insting dan kepekaannya terhadap situasi di lapangan salah satunya menjadi wartawan foto yang ditugaskan di daerah kebencanaan. Foto merupakan sebuah media dengan kandungan pesan gambar atau visual guna yang kuat untuk memberikan informasi bagi khalayak luas agar setiap insan manusia di lingkungan masyarakat dapat merasakan serta mengetahui realitas yang terjadi di lapangan yang digambarkan oleh seorang pewarta foto. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah bagaimana penulis akan meneliti bagaimana konstruksi makna seorang jurnalis foto dalam peliputannya di daerah kebencanaan dengan metode kualitatif dengan pendekatan fenomenologi menggunakan teori Alfred Schutz. Hasil penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa konstruksi jurnalis foto dalam peliputan foto kebencanaan di Harian Media Indonesia atas dasar kesadaran sosial dari masing-masing individu pewarta foto dengan menganalisis situasi dan kondisi di lapangan dengan berbekal pengalaman dan jam terbang dari setiap pewarta foto dalam peliputannya dan menjadi salah satu saksi hidup dari bagian sejarah sebuah peristiwa bencana alam yang terjadi dengan mengabadikannya melalui lensa kamera sebagai medium penyampaian pesan kepada khalayak luas.