Influence of personal protective equipment on the performance of life-saving interventions by emergency medical service personnelKim, Tae Han; Kim, Chu Hyun; Shin, Sang Do; Haam, Sunnie
doi: 10.1177/0037549716662322pmid: N/A
Prompt live-saving interventions, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), intravenous cannulation (IVC), and endotracheal intubation (ETI), are important for severely injured victims of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) disasters. Interventions sometime have to be performed by emergency medical service (EMS) personnel with personal protective equipment (PPE) worn in warm zones. We designed a randomized crossover simulation aimed to compare the performance of life-saving interventions in repetitive simulation of single-rescuer resuscitation wearing level-C PPE in the warm zone of a CBRN disaster. The success rate and completion time of IVC and ETI according to the presence of PPE were compared. The quality of 4-minute single-rescuer CPR was measured and compared as well. We found that the performance level of life-saving interventions performed in a simulated setting of disaster decreased when performed by EMS personnel wearing level-C PPE. Further efforts of optimizing current PPE for EMS personnel based on this study are needed.
Speed guidance model during the green phase based on a connected vehicleWang, JF; Li, CC; Lv, JR; Yan, XD
doi: 10.1177/0037549716660869pmid: N/A
Considering existing speed guidance models and their test method without reflecting upon the connected vehicle (CV) characteristics, a speed guidance model during the green phase is proposed using the real-time information of signal phase and timing, the vehicle travelling state, and environmental characteristics surrounding intersection. Considering the weakness of data non-synchronization and trajectory heterogeneity of the existing simulators, one-engine simulation architecture is introduced to validate the speed guidance model in the CV environment. The results indicate that the distribution of time headway shows a significant difference between with speed guidance and without speed guidance in the CV environment, and speed guidance can improve the harmonization of the time headway without degrading the travel efficiency. Speed guidance is affected by the space environment surrounding the intersection and V2I communication properties. Compared with a complicated space environment, for example an urban environment, speed guidance in a free space environment, for example a rural environment, has a better improvement of mobility and exhaust emission. In addition, the improvement of mobility and exhaust emission appears to have an increase tendency with the increase of transmission power and penetration rate.
An investigation into modeling and simulation approaches for sustainable operations managementFakhimi, Masoud; Mustafee, Navonil; Stergioulas, Lampros K
doi: 10.1177/0037549716662533pmid: N/A
Modeling and simulation (M&S) studies have been widely used in industry to gain insights into existing or proposed systems of interest. The majority of these studies focus on productivity-related measures to evaluate systems’ performance. This paradigm, however, needs to be shifted to cope with the advent of sustainability, as it is increasingly becoming an important issue in the managerial and the organizational agendas. The application of M&S to evaluate the often-competing metrics associated with sustainable operations management (SOM) is likely to be a challenge. The aim of this review is to investigate the underlying characteristics of SOM that lend towards modeling of production and service systems, and further to present an informed discussion on the suitability of specific modeling techniques in meeting the competing metrics for SOM. The triple bottom line, which is a widely used concept in sustainability and includes environmental, social, and economic aspects, is used as a benchmark for assessing this. Findings from our research suggest that a hybrid (combined) M&S approach could be an appropriate method for SOM analysis; however, it has its challenges.
Multi-threaded distributed system simulations using the transmission line element methodBraun, R; Krus, P
doi: 10.1177/0037549716667243pmid: N/A
By introducing physically motivated time delays, simulation models can be partitioned into decoupled independent sub-models. This enables parallel simulations on multi-core processors. An automatic algorithm is used for partitioning and running distributed system simulations. Methods for sorting and distributing components for good load balancing have been developed. Mathematical correctness during simulation is maintained by a busy-waiting thread synchronization algorithm. Independence between sub-models is achieved by using the transmission line element method. In contrast to the more commonly used centralized solvers, this method uses distributed solvers with physically motivated time delays, making simulations inherently parallel. Results show that simulation speed increases almost proportionally to the number of processor cores in the case of large models. However, overhead time costs mean that models need to be over a certain size to benefit from parallelization.
ROSUnitySim: Development and experimentation of a real-time simulator for multi-unmanned aerial vehicle local planningHu, Yuchao; Meng, Wei
doi: 10.1177/0037549716666683pmid: N/A
In this paper, we present a novel real-time three-dimensional simulation system, ROSUnitySim, for local planning by miniature unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in cluttered environments. Unlike commonly used simulation systems in robotic research—e.g., USARSim, Gazebo, etc.—in this work our development is based on a robot operation system (ROS) and with a different game engine, Unity3D. Compared with Unreal Engine, which is used in USARSim, Unity3D is much easier for entry level developers and has more users in the industry. On the other hand, as we know, ROS can provide a clear software structure and simultaneous operation between hardware devices for actual UAVs. By developing a data transmitting interface, a communication module and detailed environment and sensor modeling techniques, we have successfully glued ROS and Unity3D together for real-time UAV simulations. Another key point of our work is that we propose an efficient multi-UAV simulation structure and successfully simulate multiple UAVs, which is a challenging task, running 40Hz LIDAR (Light detection and ranging) sensing and communications in complex environments. The simulator structure is almost the same as real flight tests. Hence, by using the developed simulation system, we can easily verify develop flight control and navigation algorithms and save substantial effort in flight tests.