Please Summarize the following passage in at least 225words.
This paper describes an integrated location-distribution modelfor coordinating logistics support and evacuation operations indisaster response activities. Logistics planning in emergenciesinvolves dispatching commodities (e.g., medical materials andpersonnel, specialised rescue equipment and rescue teams, food,etc.) to distribution centres in affected areas and evacuation andtransfer of wounded people to emergency units. During the initialresponse time it is also necessary to set up temporary emergencycenters and shelters in affected areas to speed up medical care forless heavily wounded survivors. In risk mitigation studies fornatural disasters, possible sites where these units can be situatedare specified according to risk based urban structural analysis.Logistics coordination in disasters involves the selection of sitesthat result in maximum coverage of medical need in affected areas.Another important issue that arises in such emergencies is thatmedical personnel who are on duty in nearby hospitals have to bere-shuffled to serve both temporary and permanent emergency units.Thus, an optimal medical personnel allocation must be determinedamong these units. The proposed model also considers thisissue.
The proposed model is a mixed integer multi-commodity networkflow model that treats vehicles as integer commodity flows ratherthan binary variables. This results in a more compact formulationwhose output is processed to extract a detailed vehicle route andload instruction sheet. Post processing is achieved by a simplerouting algorithm that is pseudo-polynomial in the number ofvehicles utilized, followed by the solution of a linear system ofequations defined in a very restricted domain. The behavior andsolvability of the model is illustrated on an earthquake scenariobased on Istanbul’s risk grid as well as larger size hypotheticaldisaster scenarios.
