**1. Introduction**

120 Novel Approaches and Their Applications in Risk Assessment

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According to the "China State Plan for Rapid Response to Public Emergencies" (hereinafter referred to as "Plan"), which was published by the Central Government of the People's Republic of China, "public emergencies" refer to those emergencies that happened suddenly, and would (or might) cause heavy casualties and property loss, damage ecological environment, bring severe harms to our society and threat public safety. In the "Plan", public emergencies were divided into four categories: natural disasters, accidental disasters, public emergencies and social security events.

Since long time ago, the progress of human society has been achieved at the cost of deteriorating our living environment. Consequently, the number of natural or manmade disasters has been increasing. Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, nuclear leakages, sudden outbreak of infectious diseases, fires and explosions attacked the human-beings one after another. For example, the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Japan in 1995, the "September 21" Earthquake in Taiwan in 1998, the "September 11" Terrorist Attack in US in 2001, the "August 14" Power Failure in US and Canada in 2003, and the disastrous Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2005, have brought severe losses to local economy, peoples' life and property.

As we all know, public emergencies, particularly natural disasters, are unavoidable. But we could reduce the loss of disasters to a minimum, or even eliminate the negative impact of disasters, by designing an appropriate emergency rescue system. For example, in 2005, the southern United States was attacked by Hurricane Katrina. The local government failed to allocate emergency resources in a timely manner. Consequently, the local people didn't have enough emergency supplies, such as food, drinking water, the necessities of life and medicine. Due to the severe shortage of emergency supplies, many disaster-stricken people resorted to violence. Riots occurred in many places, making the situation even worse.

Another example is the 7.6-magnitude earthquake happened on South Asian Subcontinent in October 2005. The disaster-stricken areas were faced with several problems: 1) Water supply was interrupted. The local residents didn't have food to eat. 2) Hospitals were shut down. The residents were in urgent need of medical care. 3) The traffic conditions were poor

Theories and Methods for the Emergency Rescue System 123

Reasoning. By applying this method, we have solved the problems of information insufficiency and inaccuracy when we predict the resource demand after unconventional

If the resource demand has been determined, sufficient emergency resources need to be transported to the emergency base stations (Emergency rescue station). To achieve this goal, how many base stations for emergency resources should be established, and where should we establish these stations, these issues will be worth considering. In other words, we should optimally select the sites of base stations and find appropriate locations within a certain region as the base stations of emergency resources. The number of location should also be suitable. When disasters break out, we could allocate resources from these base stations to deal with the emergencies. By optimally selecting the sites of base stations, we could not only reduce costs, but could also ensure the timeliness of emergency resources,

Here, a summarization has been made on relevant site selection knowledge, and the Operations Research theories have been applied based on the existing site selection methods. A multistage model of site selection has been designed to make an optimal planning on the number and location of base stations. Example analysis has also been made to verify the results of calculation. It has been proved that this model is simple, convenient for use, and could get results quickly. This model would be suitable for the site selection and

The emergency resources deployment is a hardcore of emergency management. After the happening of the public emergency, it is important to study how to deliver the emergency resources to base stations quickly. When we've determined the location of base stations, we should optimally allocate emergency resources. More to this point, it should predetermine the number, type and quality of resources for each base station. Otherwise, there's an

This chapter proposed the dynamic optimal process of emergency resources deployment planning, making use of Markov decision processes, and discovered the optimal

Aiming at solving the resource allocation problems in case of emergency events, this chapter presented an optimum mathematical simulation model based on the dynamic

In accordance with the number of emergency base stations, the given model tries to divide the resource allocation procedure into the some stages. The stated variable stands for the amount of the emergency resource available for allocation can be used at the beginning of each stage. As is depicted in the dynamic programming theory, the remaining resource of the previous stage may have a strong influence on the succeeding stage. During each stage, three factors may restrict the object function, that is, the remaining resource, the decision, and the demand. The total function is the sum of the object function of each stage. In

making these resources arrive at the emergency scenes quickly, safely and timely.

planning of base stations of emergency resources. 3. Appropriate Allocation of Emergency Resources

deployment planning to guarantee the timelines. 4. Optimal Dispatching of Emergency Resources

programming.

important constraint condition for us to consider: the costs.

emergencies, and could correctly predict people's demand on resources. 2. Optimal Site Selection for the Base Station of Emergency Resources

in disaster-stricken areas. The disaster-stricken people didn't have enough emergency resources to make their living. Consequently, they ransacked shops for food and medicine and severely undermined the local social order.

These two examples have fully revealed the importance of designing a sophisticated emergency rescue system. The loss of public emergencies would be greatly reduced by understanding the distribution of disaster-stricken people and providing appropriate emergency resources to them. Otherwise, the public emergencies would be uncontrollable. To make things worse, the situation of disasters might be more serious, and even lead to the breakout of secondary disasters.
