Browsing by Author "Lovreglio R"
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- ItemAugmented reality for pedestrian evacuation research: Promises and limitations(Elsevier Ltd, 2020-08) Lovreglio R; Kinateder MEvacuation effectively mitigates potential harm for building occupants in case of emergencies. Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR and AR) have emerged as research tools and means to enhance evacuation preparedness and effectiveness. Unlike VR, where users are immersed in computer-generated environments, the more novel AR technology allows users to experience digital content merged into the real world. Here, we review current (2020) relevant literature on AR as a tool to study and improve building evacuation triggered by a variety of disasters such as fires, earthquakes or tsunami. Further, we provide an overview of application goals, existing hardware and what evacuation stages can be influenced by AR applications. Finally, we discuss strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities (SWOT) of AR to study evacuation behaviour and for research purposes.
- ItemBarriers and strategies for building information modelling implementation: a comparative study between New Zealand and China(2023-01-01) Ma L; Lovreglio R; Yi W; Yiu TW; Shan MBuilding Information Modelling (BIM) is a sharing platform that can present a parametric 3 D model with various project information in the form of a digital display. In recent years, BIM adoption has become increasing globally as the Architectural, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry has recognised its benefits. Meanwhile, many challenges of BIM adoption in different countries have been well documented. To address the gap in literature, this study examines the differences and similarities of BIM adoption between New Zealand and China. A questionnaire was conducted across the two countries to investigate the barriers and strategies for the implementation of BIM. Data from 146 respondents was collected in New Zealand and China. The result shows that there is a difference in the perception of Knowledge Barrier, Technology Barrier, Internal Strategy and External Strategy (Legal/Technology viewpoint) between New Zealand professionals and Chinese professionals. The differences identified offer important implications for government agencies to promote BIM implementation and for BIM service providers to better target the end-users.
- ItemCalibrating the Wildfire Decision Model using hybrid choice modelling(Elsevier Ltd, 2020-11) Lovreglio R; Kuligowski E; Walpole E; Link E; Gwynne SWildfire occurrences is creating serious challenges for fire and emergency response services and a diverse range of communities around the world due to the increment of the occurrence of these disasters. As such, understanding the physical and social dynamics characterizing wildfires events is paramount to reduce the risk of these natural disasters. As such, one of the main challenges is to understand how households perceive wildfires and respond to them as part of the evacuation process. In this work, the Wildfire Decision Model originally proposed in Lovreglio et al. [1] is calibrated using a hybrid choice model formulation. The Wildfire Decision Model is a newly developed behavioural choice model for large-scale wildfire evacuations based on the estimation of the risk perceived by households and the impact that this has on the decision-making process. This model is calibrated using a hybrid choice modelling solution and survey data collected after the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 wildfire in Tennessee, USA. The proposed model shows good agreement with the preliminary findings available in the wildfire evacuation literature; namely, the perceived risk is affected by both external factors (i.e., warnings and fire cues) and internal factors (i.e., education, previous wildfire evacuation experience and time of residency in a property).
- ItemEnhancing egress drills: Preparation and assessment of evacuee performance(2019-10-01) Gwynne SMV; Kuligowski ED; Boyce KE; Nilsson D; Robbins AP; Lovreglio R; Thomas JR; Roy-Poirier AThis article explores how egress drills—specifically those related to fire incidents—are currently used, their impact on safety levels, and the insights gained from them. It is suggested that neither the merits of egress drills are well understood, nor the impact on egress performance well characterized. In addition, the manner in which they are conducted varies both between and within regulatory jurisdictions. By investigating their strengths and limitations, this article suggests opportunities for their enhancement possibly through the use of other egress models to support and expand upon the benefits provided. It is by no means suggested that drills are not important to evacuation safety—only that their inconsistent use and the interpretation of the results produced may mean we (as researchers, practitioners, regulators, and stakeholders) are not getting the maximum benefit out of this important tool. © 2017 Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada. Fire and Materials StartCopText© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
- ItemExploring home-to-school trip mode choices in Kandy, Sri Lanka(2022-02-01) Dias C; Abdullah M; Lovreglio R; Sachchithanantham S; Rekatheeban M; Sathyaprasad IMSSchools are major trip generators in urban areas and school trips may largely contribute to the congestion, particularly during morning peak hours. This study investigates the home-to-school trip mode choices in Kandy city, which is a major city in Sri Lanka. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey distributed among junior, lower senior, and upper senior students of ten major schools located in Kandy city in 2015. School trip mode choices, that comprise several common travel modes in Sri Lanka, i.e., walking, public bus, school bus, school van, private vehicles (car or van), motorcycle, and three-wheeler, were modeled using multinomial logit and mixed logit frameworks. The results indicated that gender, age, household income, school type and distance play a significant role in determining the school transport mode. That is, male students were more likely to choose public buses, walking, and private vehicles relative to other transport (three-wheeler and motorcycle combined) as compared to female students. Further, older students were more likely to walk, take a school bus and public bus relative to other transport when compared to the younger students. Distance to school was found to significantly affect all the school transport modes. National or Provincial school students were more likely to use a school bus and less likely to use a private vehicle. Transport planners and policymakers could use the outcomes of this study, especially to implement congestion mitigation measures in city centers during morning peaks. Besides, some aspects of this study could be used to regulate and legalize some private transport modes, e.g., privately operated school vans, to provide a safer, reliable, and economical service to school-going children.
- ItemHow to measure light pollution - a systematic review of methods and applications(Elsevier, 2023-02-17) Mander S; Alam F; Lovreglio R; Ooi MArtificial light at night (ALAN) is ever-present in modern society and has revolutionised our lives. Along with its many benefits, ALAN can have adverse effects that are studied across many fields, including astronomy, epidemiology, and ecology. This paper collates multi-disciplinary knowledge on measuring light pollution through a systematic review of 140 articles. The measurement tools used in each context are comprehensively discussed, gaps are identified in current techniques, and benchmarking information is provided to aid future research. It is found that no single device meets all measurement objectives, and opportunities exist for further development, such as refining low-cost imaging tools. The paper highlights that each tool's limitations must be acknowledged to avoid incorrect conclusions. Thorough experimental reporting, including details on instrument location and aiming, is also essential for the replication of research. Collaboration is needed to develop unified measurement techniques, units and terminologies rather than maintaining disciplinary silos. This will enable light measurement to keep pace with lighting technologies and the growing effects of light pollution.
- ItemInvestigating Evacuation Behaviour in Retirement Facilities: Case Studies from New Zealand(2021-05-01) Rahouti A; Lovreglio R; Nilsson D; Kuligowski E; Jackson P; Rothas FAgeing populations are generating new challenges for the safe design of buildings and infrastructure systems in communities around the world. Elderly building occupants are more likely to have mobility impairments, and in turn, require longer times and increased assistance to evacuate buildings compared with able-bodied adults. To date, only a few studies have been carried out to assess the evacuation performance of elderly evacuees in retirement homes. Therefore, it is necessary to collect critical evacuation data, such as pre-evacuation times and evacuation speeds, for these occupancy types. This work investigates the evacuation behaviour of elderly evacuees and caretaking staff using video recordings of evacuation in retirement facilities. The paper presents three case studies. The first case study includes unannounced drills, which took place in communal areas of retirement homes during a live music exhibition and in a kitchen. The second case study is a series of unannounced drills, which took place in independent living apartment buildings of a retirement facility. The last case study is of a single announced evacuation drill, which took place in a communal area of a retirement building. Qualitative results indicate that the occupants’ behaviours depended on their role (i.e. resident or staff) and on the type of monitored area (i.e. apartment building or communal area). Pre-evacuation times measured in this study are in accordance with values stated in the literature, and walking speeds fall in the range of values reported in past studies of these types of building. Finally, results revealed that there is a significant gap between the data provided in this work and the SFPE design curves used for buildings, since the SFPE design curves do not explicitly account for adults with mobility impairments.
- ItemInvestigating office buildings evacuations using unannounced fire drills: The case study of CERN, Switzerland(2021-10-01) Rahouti A; Lovreglio R; Dias C; Kuligowski E; Gai G; La Mendola SThe main objective of this paper is to explore evacuees’ behaviour during an unannounced fire drill using data collected in two office buildings located at CERN, in Switzerland. Overall, a total of 142 pre-evacuation time measurements, 121 evacuee walking speed measurements in staircase configurations, and 336 evacuee walking speed measurements on floor configurations are included in the dataset. These data were compared with the existing evacuation data for office buildings. This comparison revealed that the pre-evacuation times measured in the present study are significantly lower compared to existing data from the literature for the same type of occupancy. Walking speed data collected in corridors in the present study is within the range of the values reported in previous studies. Further, walking speeds on descending stairways measured in the present study were significantly higher than those available in the literature. However, the novel dataset presented in this study is in accordance with the values recommended in well-known guidelines (such as the SFPE Handbook) and could be used in the future to simulate evacuations of office buildings.
- ItemModelling and interpreting pre-evacuation decision-making using machine learning(Elsevier BV, 2020-05) Zhao X; Lovreglio R; Nilsson DThe behaviour of building occupants in the first stage of an evacuation can dramatically impact the time required to evacuate buildings. This behaviour has been widely investigated by scholars with a macroscopic approach fitting random distributions to represent the pre-evacuation time, i.e. time from noticing the first cue until deliberate movement. However, microscopic investigations on how building occupants respond to several social and environmental factors are still rare in the literature. This paper aims to leverage machine learning as a possible solution to investigate factors affecting building occupants' decision-making during pre-evacuation stage. In particular, we focus on applying interpretable machine learning to reveal the interactions among the input variables and to capture nonlinear relationships between the input variables and the outcome. As such, we use a well-established machine-learning algorithm—random forest—to model and predict people's emergency behaviour pre-evacuation. We then apply tools to interpret the black-box random forest model to extract useful knowledge and gain insights for emergency planning. Specifically, this algorithm is applied here to investigate the behaviour of 569 building occupants split between five unannounced evacuation drills in a cinema theatre. The results indicate that both social and environmental factors affect the probability of responding. Several independent variables, such as the time elapsed after the alarm has started and the decision-maker's group size, are presenting strong nonlinear relationships with the probability of switching to the response stage. Furthermore, we find interactions exist between the row number where the decision-maker sits and the number of responding occupants visible to her; the complex relationship between the outcome and these two variables can be visualized by using a two-dimensional partial dependence plot. An interesting finding is that a decision-maker is more sensitive to the proportion of responding occupants than the number of them; hence, the people sitting in the back are often responding more slowly than the people in the front.
- ItemPrototyping and Validating a Non-immersive Virtual Reality Serious Game for Healthcare Fire Safety Training(2021-11-01) Rahouti A; Lovreglio R; Datoussaïd S; Descamps TIn a healthcare context, the success of a fire safety procedure in a real-life emergency mainly depends on staff decisions and actions. One of the factors influencing staff decision-making is their training. In most healthcare facilities, safety educators use slide-based lectures as a training tool. Virtual Reality (VR) is gaining fire safety community attention for being an interesting training tool. However, few studies have assessed the effectiveness of VR-based fire safety training simulators compared with a slide-based lecture. The present research proposes a novel non-immersive VR-based training for healthcare fire safety education. This paper describes the prototyping steps required to develop a non-immersive VR serious game (SG) to train the staff of Vincent Van Gogh (VVG) hospital in Belgium. The paper finally validates the VR SG comparing its effectiveness against slide-based lecture training. 78 staff from VVG hospital in Belgium participated in this study. They were divided into two groups: Group A was trained using a slide-based lecture, and Group B was trained using the VR SG. The results indicated that the VR SG was more effective than the slide-based lecture in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention and in terms of self-efficacy increment in short and long terms than the slide-based lecture.
- ItemQuantitative measurements of enlarged perivascular spaces in the brain are associated with retinal microvascular parameters in older community-dwelling subjects(Elsevier BV, 2020-08-21) Ballerini L; McGrory S; Hernández M; Lovreglio R; Pellegrini E; Muñoz Maniega S; Henderson R; Taylor A; Bastin ME; Doubal F; Trucco E; Deary IJ; Wardlaw J; MacGillivray TBackground Perivascular Spaces (PVS) become increasingly visible with advancing age on brain MRI, yet their relationship to morphological changes in the underlying microvessels remains poorly understood. Retinal and cerebral microvessels share morphological and physiological properties. We compared computationally-derived PVS morphologies with retinal vessel morphologies in older people. Methods We analysed data from community-dwelling individuals who underwent multimodal brain MRI and retinal fundus camera imaging at mean age 72.55 years (SD=0.71). We assessed centrum semiovale PVS computationally to determine PVS total volume and count, and mean per-subject individual PVS length, width and size. We analysed retinal images using the VAMPIRE software suite, obtaining the Central Retinal Artery and Vein Equivalents (CRVE and CRAE), Arteriole-to-Venule ratio (AVR), and fractal dimension (FD) of both eyes. We investigated associations using general linear models, adjusted for age, gender, and major vascular risk factors. Results In 381 subjects with all measures, increasing total PVS volume and count were associated with decreased CRAE in the left eye (volume β=−0.170, count β=−0.184, p<0.001). No associations of PVS with CRVE were found. The PVS total volume, individual width and size increased with decreasing FD of the arterioles (a) and venules (v) of the left eye (total volume: FDa β=−0.137, FDv β=−0.139, p<0.01; width: FDa β=−0.144, FDv β=−0.158, p<0.01; size: FDa β=−0.157, FDv β=−0.162, p<0.01). Conclusions Increase in PVS number and size visible on MRI reflect arteriolar narrowing and lower retinal arteriole and venule branching complexity, both markers of impaired microvascular health. Computationally-derived PVS metrics may be an early indicator of failing vascular health and should be tested in longitudinal studies.