1. Jonathan Frez, Nelson Baloian, Jose A. Pino, Gustavo Zurita
Cooperative Work for Spatial Decision Making: An Emergencies Management Case
Jonathan Frez, Nelson Baloian, Jose A. Pino, Gustavo Zurita

2. Context Find a suitable area to “do” something
ill-structured problems :
goals are not clear
the various decision makers -> different goals according to their own knowledge
Limited data -> incomplete.
Emergency Management response processes

3. Problem
Evacuation from coastal areas decisions after a strong earthquake.
Iquique
Source: Earth science: Warning signs of the Iquique earthquake

4. Data is missing
Exactly how many people are now in each portion of the territory?
Do they have now operating means of transportation?
Previous work : a graphical display of possible values at each location. -> one expert.

5. We use the word “probability” just to simplify the explanation
Scenario Building
Dempster-Shafer theory proposes to use sets of hypotheses associated to a mass. The mass can be interpreted as support.
Belief is the probability that an hypotheses is supported by the existing evidence.
Plausibility is the probability an hypotheses is compatible with the evidence.
We use the word “probability” just to simplify the explanation

6. Scenario Building Previously Work Software: Spatial Fussiness
Repetitions
Generation Language
Generation Engine

7. Evacuation areas

8. Evacuation alternatives

9. how many people are now in in each portion of the territory?
during daytime:
Universities
Restaurants
shopping centers
popular beach …
during nighttime
Home
Pubs
Disco!
Not a number of people!, a Belief of where people can be.

10. Integration of scenarios proposed by various experts

11. Combination Methods

12. Combination Methods: Operators
Sum useful when three independent but related scenarios must be merged.
Subtract be useful to evaluate the differences between one scenario and other ones.
Average This operator can be used in order to find places where to deploy scarce resources.

13. Combination Methods: Operators
OWA (Ordered Weighted Average)
ordered ascendingly or descendingly
OWA-DESC emphasize the largest belief values of each scenario, avoiding that a certain important fact known by one of the experts could be ignored because of simple averaging.
OWA-ASC combination emphasizes the belief when the values are constantly high in all scenarios.

14. Some simulations: People at Beach Commercial Areas
Near to high buildings

15. People in unsafe areas.

16. Discussion
The approach may be used to collaboratively analyze spatial information using decision making tools. Could be used in several disaster scenarios.
Main drawbacks : Strongly related to Dempster-Shafer Theory.
Representation of belief values, not magnitude values.
After applying an operator between two or more suitability maps, the relation between the belief values and the original hypotheses set is not clear
Useful as a visualization and decision making tool