This dissertation investigates the value of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) within an agent-based model (ABM) of a large open-air venue. The intent is to reduce civilian casualties in an active shooting incident (ASI). There has been a steady increase of ASIs in the United States of America for over 20 years, and some of the most casualty-producing events have been in open spaces and open-air venues. More research should be conducted within the field to help discover policies that can mitigate the threat of a shooter in extremis. This study uses the concept of dynamic signage, controlled by a DRL policy, to guide civilians away from the threat and toward a safe exit in the modeled environment. It was found that a well-trained DRL policy can significantly reduce civilian casualties as compared to baseline scenarios. Further, the DRL policy can assist decision makers in determining how many signs to use in an environment and where to place them. Finally, research using DRL in the ASI space can yield systems and policies that will help reduce the impact of active shooters during an incident.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The objective of this thesis is to provide an aircraft with an optimal route to its destination that avoids encroaching into surface-to-air weapons killing envelopes in real time. The optimal route computed will be updated dynamically, depending on the location of the vehicle and the location of the Surface to Air Missile (SAM) sites. The problem was solved using heuristic algorithms instead of the conventional Dijkstra's & Bellman Ford algorithms, which are computationally expensive. Data fusion techniques such as spatial correlation and triangulation algorithms are presented in detail. Such techniques are important for situational awareness in a real time combat environment. Important information provided by onboard sensors are merged with the preplanned data to provide the operator with a better integrated picture of the combat environment. / Civilian, Singapore Ministry of Defense

L'opération de crédit bail est un ensemble contractuel dans lequel plusieurs contrats participent à la réalisation d'un but commun. Il s'agit du financement en vue de l'acquisition ou de la construction d'un bien mobilier ou immobilier. L'opération met en scène un contrat principal autour duquel s'agglomèrent d'autres contrats accessoires. La recherche de la sécurité étant « l'obsession » de l'établissement financier, l'opération se traduit par l'exigence par celui ci de diverses assurances dont chacune couvre un risque bien déterminé. L'assurance apparaît ainsi pour l'établissement financier comme le principal pilier sur lequel repose la sécurité du financement. « L'assurance dans l'opération de crédit bail » vise donc à étudier les différentes assurances exigées par l'établissement financier pour se protéger et protéger les intervenants à l'opération et le bien crédit baillé. Le nombre des protagonistes à l'opération, leurs intérêts souvent communs, parfois opposés, les modes de construction retenus, les techniques d'assurance utilisées complexifient l'opération. Cette thèse juge de l'efficacité de l'assurance dans le crédit-bail en appréhendant les droits et obligations des parties au crédit bail et de l'assureur. Sous le prisme de la couverture des risques de l'opération et de la survenance du sinistre, elle identifie les obstacles auxquels peuvent être confrontées les parties au crédit bail et les remèdes pour les surmonter. L'étude de l'assurance dans l'opération de crédit bail, vise ainsi à servir les intérêts pratiques des opérateurs économiques dans un double souci de sécurité et d'efficacité juridique. / The leasing transaction is a contractual package in which several contracts are involved in achieving a common goal. It is a source of funding for the acquisition or construction of a movable or immovable property. This operation features a main contract around which are established other ancillary contracts. In view of financial institutions "obsession" over security, the operation involves the requirement by the latter of various insurances each covering a specific risk. In fact, the institution considers insurance the main pillar for securing the funding."Insurance in Leasing Transactions" therefore aims to explore the various insurances required by the financial institution to protect itself as well as the other parties involved in the transaction and leased property. The number of stakeholders in the transaction; their often common, and sometimes conflicting, interests; the construction methods adopted and the insurance underwriting techniques used are likely to complicate the operation. This thesis assesses the effectiveness of the insurance in leasing by appraising the rights and obligations of the stakeholders of the leasing transaction and the insurer. In terms of hedging, the risks of the transaction and of the occurrence of the insured event, it identifies the obstacles which may be encountered by the parties to the leasing and provides solutions to overcome them. Thus, the study of insurance in leasing operations aims to serve the practical interests of the economic operators, for the sake of both security and legal efficiency.

Background: The relevance of conducting this thesis is evident by the fact that bus and coach casualties have been “stubbornly stable” in Europe recent years and a need for investigating if a similar trend could be found in Sweden is therefore obvious. It was also important to add new knowledge to the bus and coach research in Sweden, since many areas were scarcely addressed. Aims: To describe bus and coach occupants’ injuries, crash and injury mechanisms generated in a traffic environment based on data from the medical sector. Additional aims were to investigate the injury reducing effect of a 3-point belt, the effect of cross-winds, and crucial factors in the emergency- and rescue response. Material and methods: Injury data analyses were based on a complete ten-year medical data set from a catchment-area with about 130,000 inhabitants. A number of crash studies with the scope in different crash phases were conducted by applying and elaborating the Haddon matrix as a framework. An additional framework, Protocol for Major Incidents was used in order to investi-gate the emergency- and rescue response to a severe coach crash. Results: Between the first and second five-year period, the incidence of injured in non-crash in-cidents was increased by 24%. In non-crash incidents, 54% were injured; 2/3 while alighting from a bus or coach. The pre-crash factor cross-wind, in addition to vehicle design, vehicle speed and road friction, was investigated in ten crashes. It was confirmed that cross-wind, in relation to vehicle speed and slippery road conditions, needs more attention. The importance of goods load-ing and passengers’ position in the bus, was indicated by the fact that a displacement of the cen-tre of mass rearwards with 10% increased the necessary coefficient of friction with, on average 45%, which in many cases corresponded to dry road conditions. Three Swedish rollover crashes were analysed with regard to the injury outcome, mechanisms and the possible injury reduction for occupants using a safety belt. A considerable increase in safety for occupants belted with 3-point belts was shown through limiting interior contacts, occupant interaction and the possibility of ejection. Crucial post-crash factors in the emergency- and rescue response showed that ordi-nary ways of working and equipment are not always useful and proper equipment for lifting a coach body is essential in the case of a rollover. Finally, the communication between the hospitals is important, and the telephone systems may be overloaded by calls from worried relatives and media. Conclusions: In non-crash events: Non-crash events constitute a majority of all bus and coach casualties with a high proportion of elderly female occupants among the MAIS 2+ injury cases. Boarding and, especially alighting causes many injuries to the lower extremities. In the pre-crash phase: Cross-winds do affect the safety of buses and coaches and requires more at-tention. Seat belt usage among bus and coach occupants has to be increased. In the crash phase: Rollover and ejection are the major causes behind serious and fatal injuries to bus and coach occupants, consequently, retentive glazing, pillars or rails need more attention. An upgrade from 2-point seat belts to 3-point seat belts yields an increase in the estimated injury re-duction from approximately 50% up to 80% for the MAIS 2+ casualties in a rollover crash. In the post-crash phase: In order to be able to lift a coach body proper equipment originated from experience and development is essential in a rescue operation of a crashed bus or coach. Fur-thermore, to improve the emergency response inside crashed coaches proper methods originated from experience need to be developed. Euro NBAP: Based on the results and conclusions generated in this thesis, a European New Bus and Coach Assessment Programme is suggested, which would provide bus and coach occupants with a assessment programme similar to the Euro NCAP.

War news and public relations (PR) was a critical consideration for the Canadian Army during the Second World War. The Canadian Army developed its PR apparatus from nothing to an efficient publicity machine by war’s end, despite a series of growing pains. Canadian Military Headquarters in London appointed the first PR Officer, William Abel, in January 1940. PR services overseas grew along with the size of the army. The early days were marked by lack of coordination and often jurisdictional and personality conflicts between Abel and the other PR Officers and organizations. The 19 August 1942 Dieppe raid was the low point for both the accuracy of war news and Canadian PR involvement because Lord Mountbatten’s Combined Operations Headquarters minimized Canadian PR’s involvement in planning. This resulted in early portrayals of the raid as successful and the British censored a more honest explanation by the Canadian Army. The Sicilian and Italian campaigns provided a learning experience for the PR units. In Sicily, the news coverage of the Canadians was a public success, but PR had trouble with their allies in gaining national recognition and representation. Additionally, the question of correspondents’ priorities and delays getting to the front and transportation difficulties angered the press. Many of these problems continued in Italy until the appointment of Richard Malone, who enjoyed support from the politicians, press, and military. Applying the Mediterranean experience and participating in Allied publicity planning contributed to the excellence of Canadian PR during the Northwest Europe Campaign. PR maintained the confidence of the press while still controlling the correspondents. The army also largely overcame the temptation to censor bad news although this sometimes embarrassed Ottawa. Allied regulations sanitized war news preventing the reporting of the more disturbing aspects of war. Through censorship, the army exercised a great deal of control over the news media, yet this hegemony was incomplete because of need to keep the press friendly. Although a large sceptical minority remained, most Canadians considered their war news to be accurate. In sum, Canadian Army PR was generally successful, portraying the army positively and attracting media coverage.

Au XXIe siècle, la prévision de l'aléa hydrométéorologique et des impacts associés aux crues rapides demeurent un défi pour les prévisionnistes et les services de secours. Les mesures structurelles et / ou les avancées des systèmes de prévision hydrologique ne garantissent pas, à elles seules, la réduction des décès lors de ces phénomènes d'inondation rapide. La littérature souligne la nécessité d'intégrer d'autres facteurs, liés aux processus de vulnérabilité sociaux et comportementaux, afin de mieux prendre en compte les risques encourus par les populations lors de ces épisodes extrêmes. Cette dissertation conduit une analyse théorique couplés à ceux de une analyse des accidents historiques mortels afin d'expliquer les interactions qui existent entre les processus hydrométéorologiques et sociaux responsables de l'apparition de vulnérabilités humaines lors de crues rapides aux États-Unis. Des données d'enquêtes liées aux crues rapides sont examinées afin d'élaborer un système de classification des circonstances du décès (en voiture, à l'extérieur, à proximité d'un cours d'eau, dans un camping, dans un bâtiment ou en mobile-home). L'objectif est d'établir un lien entre la conception des vulnérabilités et l'estimation des pertes humaines liées à ces catastrophes naturelles. "Random forest" est utilisé et est basé sur un arbre de décision, qui permet d'évaluer la probabilité d'occurrence de décès pour une circonstance donnée en fonction d'indicateurs spatio-temporels. Un système de prévision des décès liés à l'usage de la voiture lors des crues rapides, circonstance la plus répandue, est donc proposé en s'appuyant sur les indicateurs initialement identifiés lors de l'étude théorique. Les résultats confirment que la vulnérabilité humaine et le risque associé varient de façon dynamique et infra journalière, et en fonction de la résonance spatio-temporelle entre la dynamique sociale et la dynamique d'exposition aux dangers. Par exemple, on constate que les jeunes et les personnes d'âge moyen sont plus susceptibles de se retrouver pris au piège des crues rapides particulièrement soudaines(par exemple, une durée de près de 5 heures) pendant les horaires de travail ou de loisirs en extérieur. Les personnes âgées sont quant à elles plus susceptibles de périr à l'intérieur des bâtiments, lors d'inondations plus longues, et surtout pendant la nuit lorsque les opérations de sauvetage et / ou d'évacuation sont rendues difficiles. Ces résultats mettent en évidence l'importance d'examiner la situation d'exposition aux risques en tenant compte de la vulnérabilité dynamique, plutôt que de se concentrer sur les conceptualisations génériques et statiques. Ce concept de vulnérabilité dynamique est l'objectif de modélisation développée dans cette thèse pour des vulnérabilités liés aux véhicules. À partir de l'étude de cas sur les crues rapides survenues en mai 2015, et en analysant principalement les états du Texas et de l'Oklahoma, principaux états infectés par ces évènements,le modèle montre des résultats prometteurs en termes d'identification spatio-temporelle des circonstances dangereuses. Cependant, des seuils critiques pour la prédiction des incidents liés aux véhicules doivent être étudiés plus en profondeur en intégrant des sensibilités locales non encore résolues par le modèle. Le modèle établi peut être appliqué, à une résolution journalière ou horaire, pour chaque comté du continent américain. Nous envisageons cette approche comme une première étape afin de fournir un système de prévision des crues rapides et des risques associés sur le continent américain. Il est important que la communauté scientifique spécialisée dans l'étude des crues éclairs récoltent des données à plus haute résolution lorsque ces épisodes entrainement des risques mortels, et ce afin d'appuyer la modélisation des complexités temporelles et spatiales associées aux pertes humaines causées par les futures inondations soudaines. / In the 21st century the prediction of and subsequent response to impacts due to sudden onset and localized flash flooding events remain a challenge for forecasters and emergency managers. Structural measures and/or advances in hydrological forecasting systems alone do not guarantee reduction of fatalities during short-fuse flood events. The literature highlights the need for the integration of additional factors related to social and behavioral vulnerability processes to better capture risk of people during flash floods. This dissertation conducts a theoretical analysis as well as an analysis of flash flood-specific historic fatalities to explain complex and dynamic interactions between hydrometeorological, spatial and social processes responsible for the occurrence of human life-threatening situations during the "event" phase of flash floods in the United States (U.S.). Individual-by-individual fatality records are examined in order to develop a classification system of circumstances (i.e., vehicle-related, outside/close to streams, campsite, permanent buildings, and mobile homes). The ultimate goal is to link human vulnerability conceptualizations with realistic forecasts of prominent human losses from flash flood hazards. Random forest, a well-known decision-tree based ensemble machine learning algorithm for classification is adopted to assess the likelihood of fatality occurrence for a given circumstance as a function of representative indicators at the county-level and daily or hourly time steps. Starting from the most prevalent circumstance of fatalities raised from both the literature review and the impact-based analysis, flash flood events with lethal vehicle-related accidents are the subject to predict. The findings confirm that human vulnerability and the subsequent risk to flash flooding, vary dynamically depending on the space-time resonance between that social and hazard dynamics. For example, it is found that younger and middle-aged people are more probable to get trapped from very fast flash floods (e.g., duration close to 5 hours) while participating in daytime outdoor activities (e.g., vehicle-related, recreational). In contrary, older people are more likely to perish from longer flooding inside buildings, and especially in twilight and darkness hours when rescue and/or evacuation operations are hindered. This reasoning places the importance of situational examination of dynamic vulnerability over generic and static conceptualizations, and guides the development of flash flood-specific modeling of vehicle-related human risk in this thesis. Based on the case study of May 2015 flash floods with a focus in Texas and Oklahoma, the model shows promising results in terms of identifying dangerous circumstances in space and time. Though, critical thresholds for the prediction of vehicle-related incidents need to be further investigated integrating local sensitivities, not yet captured by the model. The developed model can be applied on a daily or hourly basis for every U.S. county. We vision this approach as a first effort to provide a prediction system to support emergency preparedness and response to flash flood disasters over the conterminous U.S. It is recommended that the flash flood disaster science community and practitioners conduct data collection with more details for the life-threatening scene, and at finer resolutions to support modeling of local temporal and spatial complexities associated with human losses from flash flooding in the future.

This diploma thesis deals with insurance protection of permanent health consequences caused by illness or in case of injury. The aim of this work was to make an analysis of the offer of accidental injury insurance in the insurance market from the potential insurance applicants? point of view and also to identify the right combination of this kind of insurance with disability pension. In this work, four best insurance products offered in the Czech market are in detail described ? Pesrpektiva 7BN insurance by Kooperativa, Flexi insurance by Česká spořitelna, Benefit and Genio insurance by Generali Pojišťovna. A simulation applied to each of the products was made and analyzed. If a client follows the simulated model, he or she should be well insured. Using the methods of multi-criteria classification (method of rank, method of points, method WSA and method TOPSIS), the best product for potential applicants has been identified. The best option seems to be the insurance product Perspektiva 7BN offered by insurance company Kooperativa.

The thesis refers to the issue of road accidents and their prevention in the Czech Republic, seen as a negative phenomenon in modern society. It is divided into two relatively independent parts, theoretical and practical. The theoretical part focuses on a general description of traffic accident and states their main causes. Moreover, it deals with a road accident as a traumatic event having negative effects on life of involved people, especially on the human psyche. At the end of this part you can find basic principles of emergency intervention on casualties of road accidents and organizations which offer free help to road accident casualties. In the practical part of this work there is a study of road accidents that happened in the region of the Czech Republic from the point of view of their causes and the age of the driver.

The capability of the Swedish Armed Forces has been reduced to such an extent that the Armed Forces most likely cannot cope with health care within its own organization in the event of an armed attack on the country. The project Totalförsvarets sjukvårdssystem (The healthcare system of the total defence), initiated in 2015 by the Swedish Armed Forces and the National Board of Health and welfare, did a review of Sweden´s medical capacity, its limitations and needs at peace, crisis and armed conflict. However, the project did not profoundly review the conditions of military medicine for armed conflicts, the capacity of military medical planning and how the military medical capacity affects the planning and implementation of operations. This knowledge gap is not filled by available research or other source of information. The purpose of this work is to fill this gap through a qualitative method via interviews and text analysis. The work is supported by Moshe Kress's logistics theory of valuation of plans; macro- and micro-level subdivision in the planning process and need for information for medical planning. To adapt Moshe Kress's theory to the military medicine a theory development has been made. The result of the work shows that the capacity of military medicine is insufficient and that medical planners are not obvious partners in national military planning. This will probably effect both planning and execution through lack of credibility and fighting morale. This can also have a negative impact on the will to defend Sweden. Research in military medicine for the purpose of this work is limited. A probable cause may be that there is lack of basic research in the field of military medicine and that information about capacity, capabilities and limitations is mainly confidential.

Most non-life insurers and many creditors use regressions, more specifically Generalized Linear Models (GLM), to price their liabilities. One limitation with GLMs is that interactions between predictors are handled manually, which makes finding interactions a tedious and time-consuming task. This increases the cost of rate making and, more importantly, actuaries can miss important interactions resulting in sub-optimal customer prices. Several papers have shown that Gradient Tree Boosting can outperform GLMs in insurance pricing since it handles interactions automatically. Insurers and creditors are however reluctant to use so-called ”Black-Box” solutions for both regulatory and technical reasons. Tree-based methods have been used to identify pricing errors in regressions, albeit only as ad-hoc solutions. The authors instead propose a systematic approach to automatically identify and evaluate interactions between predictors before adding them to a traditional GLM. The model can be used in three different ways: Firstly, it can create a table of statistically significant candidate interactions to add to a GLM. Secondly, it can automatically and iteratively add new interactions to an old GLM until no more statistically significant interactions can be found. Lastly, it can automatically create a new GLM without an existing pricing model. All approaches are tested on two motor insurance data sets from a Nordic P&C insurer and the results show that all methods outperform the original GLMs. Although the two iterative modes perform better than the first, insurers are recommended to mainly use the first mode since this results in a reasonable trade-off between automating processes and leveraging actuaries’ professional judgment. / De flesta skadeförsäkringsbolag och många långivare använder regressioner, mer specifikt generaliserade linjära modeller (GLM), för att prissätta sina skulder. En begräsning med GLM:er är att interaktioner mellan exogena variabler hanteras manuellt, vilket innebär att hanteringen av dessa är tidskrävande. Detta påverkar försäkringsbolags lönsamhet på flera sätt. För det första ökar kostnaderna för att skapa tariffer och för det andra kan aktuarier missa viktiga interaktioner, vilket resulterar i suboptimala kundpriser. Tidigare forskning visar att Gradient Boosting kan överträffa GLM:er inom försäkringsprissättning eftersom denna metod hanterar interaktioner automatiskt. Försäkringsbolag och kreditgivare är dock motvilliga till att använda så kallade ”Black-box-lösningar” på grund av både regulatoriska och tekniska skäl. Trädbaserade metoder har tidigare använts för att hitta felprissättningar i regressioner, dock endast genom situationsanpassade lösningar. Författarna föreslår i stället en systematisk metod för att automatiskt identifiera och evaluera interaktioner innan de inkluderas i en traditionell GLM. Modellen kan användas på tre olika sätt: Först och främst kan den användas för att skapa en tabell med statistiskt signifikanta interaktioner att addera till en existerande GLM. Utöver detta kan den iterativt och automatiskt lägga till sådana interaktioner tills inga fler återstår. Slutligen kan modellen också användas för att skapa en helt ny GLM från grunden, utan en existerande prissättningsmodell. Metoderna testas på två motorförsäkringsdataset från ett nordiskt skadeförsäkringsbolag och resultaten visar att alla överträffar originalregressionen. Även om de två iterativa metoderna överträffar den första metoden rekommenderas försäkringsbolag att använda den första metoden. Detta eftersom den resulterar i en rimlig avvägning mellan att automatisera processer och att nyttja aktuariers omdömesförmåga.