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. 2020 Jun 25;15(6):e0235236. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235236

Application of improved ELM algorithm in the prediction of earthquake casualties

Xing Huang 1, Mengjie Luo 1,*, Huidong Jin 2
Editor: Itamar Ashkenazi3
PMCID: PMC7316334  PMID: 32584903

Abstract

Background

Earthquake casualties prediction is a basic work of the emergency response. Traditional forecasting methods have strict requirements on sample data and lots of parameters are required to be set manually, which can result in poor results with low prediction accuracy and slow learning speed.

Method

In this paper, the Extreme Leaning Machine (ELM) is introduced into the earthquake disaster casualty predictions with the purpose of improving the prediction accuracy. However, traditional ELM model still has the problems of poor network structure stability and low prediction accuracy. So an Adaptive Chaos Particle Swarm Optimization (ACPSO) is proposed to the optimize traditional ELM’s network parameters to enhance network stability and prediction accuracy, and the improved ELM model is applied to earthquake disaster casualty prediction.

Results

The experimental results show that the earthquake disaster casualty prediction model based on ACPSO-ELM algorithm has better stability and prediction accuracy.

Conclusion

ACPSO-ELM algorithm has better practicality and generalization in earthquake disaster casualty prediction.

Introduction

Earthquake casualties prediction is a basic work for emergency rescue. The prediction of earthquake casualties can provide a basis for the emergency materials raising decisions of the emergency management department. At present, China's earthquake emergency response capability has been obviously improved, but the collection work of emergency materials needs continuous improvement. The main performance is that the quantity and type of emergency materials cannot be effectively determined, which leads to insufficient or excessive emergency materials collection and increases obstacles to emergency rescue work. One of the most important reasons attributes to the failure of the effective prediction with casualties. So, after the earthquake, how to predict the casualties in disaster areas scientifically and effectively is a hot issue that many scholars have been studying.

Now the related research mainly focuses on two aspects: The construction of the index system of earthquake casualties prediction and the research of prediction methods. The research on the construction of earthquake casualties prediction index system, most of the results are based on disaster risk theory, and the index system constructed around the material attribute and social attribute of the index. For example, Murakami H O regarded earthquake intensity, staff occupancy rate and building collapse rate as the influencing factors of earthquake casualties [1]; Okada S divided buildings into different levels and predicts the number of casualties according to the damage degree of each level of the buildings [2]; Wen B C et al took the earthquake occurrence time, building earthquake-resistant level, magnitude and population density as the prediction indexes of casualties [3]; Samardjieva E et al studied the relationship between earthquake casualties and magnitude and population density [4]; Huang X et al proposed 11 earthquake casualty prediction indexes, including earthquake intensity, population density and the supply capacity of emergency materials [5]; Coburn A W took the staff occupancy rate, secondary disasters, building collapse rate and non-structural damage level as prediction indexes [6]; Zhang Jie and others built a prediction model for earthquake casualties based on the damaged area of houses [7]; Ma Yuhong and others put forward a prediction index system around environmental factors, prevention level, probability of secondary disasters and earthquake factors [8]. Now researchers at home and abroad have proposed a variety of methods for earthquake casualties prediction, including regression prediction model, uncertainty prediction model and machine learning method. For example, Ma Hongyan and others have established a grey prediction model for earthquake casualties in densely populated areas [9]; Muhammet G et al have constructed an artificial neural network prediction model and verified it with earthquakes of level 5 or above in Turkey [10]; Huang X et al proposed an earthquake death prediction model based on modified partial gaussian curve [11]; Gao Huiying et al established a rapid evaluation method for earthquake casualties by linear regression analysis [12]; Qian Fenglin et al. established an artificial neural network model for earthquake casualties prediction [13]; Ren Ningning et al. used rough set theory to reduce the prediction index structure and established a least square SVM prediction model to predict earthquake casualties [14].

According to the literature, existing research has come up with a relatively completed earthquake casualties prediction index system from different angles, but the representativeness and comprehensiveness of the index are still insufficient. Most of the literatures only consider the impact of single consistent disaster factor on casualties, and seldom extract casualty evaluation index from the perspective of disaster chain, resulting in a large difference between the evaluation results and the actual situation. In the research of prediction methods, regression prediction model focuses on the linear relationship between few indicators and casualties. Due to limited sample data, it is difficult to obtain a curve with high prediction accuracy, and regression prediction model is difficult to solve the prediction problem of high-dimensional indicators and non-linear indicators; the uncertain prediction model considers the small sample characteristics of seismic data and the uncertainty of indicators, but the data acquisition of some uncertain indicators is subjective. In order to solve the deficiencies of the regression prediction model and the uncertain prediction model, some researchers have introduced the machine learning method into the earthquake casualty prediction, which solves the high-dimensional and non-linear problems of the prediction indicators well in certain extent, and improves the prediction accuracy. However, traditional machine learning methods lack certain fault tolerance and dynamics when dealing with complex factors, and lack certain timeliness and accuracy when dealing with massive data. Moreover, the parameters in traditional machine learning methods need manual adjustment, which leads to poor generalization ability and prone to over-fitting; therefore, it is necessary to seek a new machine learning method to improve the accuracy of earthquake casualties prediction. In recent years, some scholars have introduced the extreme learning machine (ELM) method into the prediction method. For example, Liu Caixia and others have used ELM method to predict the passenger volume of Chinese railways [15]. The results show that the prediction effect is remarkable, which provides an idea for this paper to study the prediction method of earthquake casualties. The core idea of ELM is to randomly select the input weights and hidden layer offsets of the network and keep the same in the training process. Compared with other traditional machine learning methods, ELM has obvious advantages such as simple implementation, fast learning speed and less human intervention. However, the traditional ELM method has disadvantages of low classification accuracy and poor stability of the network structure. Therefore, the prediction results are affected by network connection parameters and the number of hidden layer nodes.

For that reason, based on the theory of regional disaster system, and centering on the formation mechanism of disasters, starting from the interrelation among disaster-causing factors, disaster-pregnant environment and disaster-bearing bodies, this paper puts forward a highly representative and popularized earthquake casualty prediction index system; in the research of prediction method, ELM is introduced into the construction of earthquake casualty prediction method, an adaptive chaotic particle swarm optimization (ACPSO) algorithm is used to improve the traditional ELM, and the connection parameters of ELM network are optimized, so as to enhance the stability of ELM network and further improve the prediction accuracy of ELM.

Earthquake disaster casualty prediction indexes

The Regional Disaster System Theory states that disasters are the result of interaction of disaster-causing factors, disaster-preparing environment, and disaster-bearing bodies. Disaster-causing factors refer to various natural and human factors that adversely affect human life, property or resources, such as drought, storm surge, frost, low temperature, hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides, debris flow and so on, which are sufficient conditions for disaster formation; The disaster-bearing bodies refer to the main body of human society directly affected and damaged by the disaster, mainly including all aspects of human itself and social development, such as industry, people, agriculture, energy, construction, communication, various disaster reduction engineering facilities and production, life service facilities, and all kinds of wealth accumulated by people and so on, which is a necessary condition for disaster formation; The disaster-preparing environment is a comprehensive earth surface environment composed of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and human social circle. The sensitivity of the disaster environment provides a background for the interaction between disaster-causing factors and disaster-bearing bodies. According to the regional disaster system theory, the direct factor that causes the degree of casualties of earthquake casualties depends on the vulnerability of the disaster-bearing body. The greater the vulnerability of the disaster-bearing body is, the greater the casualty is. The vulnerability of the disaster-bearing body depends on the pregnancy environment, disaster-causing factors, and human resilience. When studying the prediction indexes of earthquake casualties, the four dimensions of disaster formation can be based on the theory of regional disaster system, disaster-causing factors, disaster-preventing environment, disaster-bearing body and disaster-resisting ability. In the study of indexes, this paper firstly divides the influencing factors of earthquake disaster casualty prediction into four dimensions based on the regional disaster system theory, namely, the disaster-causing factor dimension, the disaster environment dimension, the disaster-bearing body dimension and the disaster resistance dimension; Secondly, around these four dimensions, three indexes of magnitude, epicentral intensity, and epicentral distance are used as secondary indexes of disaster-causing factors, and three indexes of earthquake occurrence time, earthquake geographical environment, and whether there are significant precursors are used as secondary indexes of disaster-causing environment, and the three indexes of population density, building fortification level, and damaged area of houses are used as secondary indicators of the disaster-bearing bodies; finally, using the primary component analysis method (PCA) to screen the primary selection indexes to determine the earthquake disaster prediction index system, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Earthquake casualties prediction indexes.

First-grade indexes Second-grade indexes Approach to data acquisition
Disaster-causing factors Epicenter intensity Subject to official Chinese reports
Disaster-pregnancy environment Earthquake occurrence time Subject to official Chinese reports
Disaster-bearing bodies Damaged Area of Houses Based on actual collapsed area
Population density Calculated according to the actual number of people per square kilometer, subject to Chinese official statistics

Population density refers to the number of people per square kilometer. Building damage area refers to the total area of building collapse. Epicenter intensity refers to the intensity of the epicenter area, which is the highest intensity in an earthquake.

Casualty prediction model of earthquake disaster

Traditional ELM prediction method

In view of the shortcomings of BP neural network, Professor Huang Guangbin proposed the concept of ELM, the ELM network lacks the output layer bias than the BP neural network. The input weight and hidden layer bias of the ELM network are generated randomly, and only need to determine the output weight, which can make up for the limitation of manual adjustment of the parameters of each layer in the BP neural network and improve the prediction accuracy. The ELM structure is shown in Fig 1.

Fig 1. ELM network topology.

Fig 1

In Fig 1, x1,x2,…,xn are training sample data, bj is the threshold of the j-th neuron in the hidden layer, wij is the connection weight of the node of the i-th input layer to the node of the j-th in the hidden layer, OL is the hidden layer node, βjk is the connection weight from the j-th hidden layer node to the k-th output layer node. Let the training sample set be {(xi,yi)|xiRn,yiRm,i = 1,2,…,N},where xi=(xi1,xi2,….,xin), yi=(yi1,yi2,,yim); The hidden layer L is the number of neurons; Let the excitation function of the LEM network be g(x). In this paper, Sigmoid is selected as the excitation function, g(x) infinitely differentiable, then the ELM model can be expressed as,

j=1Lβjg(wjx+bj)=yl,l=1,2,,N (1)

The matrix form is,

Hβ=Y (2)

In formula (2), β=[β1,β2,,βL]l×mT, Y=[y1,y2,,yL]N×MT, H=[g(w1x1+b1)g(wLx1+bL)......g(w1xN+b1)g(wLxN+bL)]N×L;

Formula (2) is equivalent to solving the least squares solution of formula (3),

β^=argminβHβYF (3)

Formula (3) is solved as,

β^=H+T (4)

In formula (4), H+ is the generalized inverse of the hidden layer output matrix H.

Using ACPSO algorithm to improve the traditional ELM

The biggest advantage of the ELM algorithm is that the connection weight between the input layer and the hidden layer, the threshold of the hidden layer can be set randomly, and no longer adjusted after setting, moreover, the connection weights between the hidden layer and the output layer do not need to be adjusted iteratively, but can be determined at once by solving the equations, through such rules, the generalization ability of ELM and training speed are greatly improved, but some parameters in the ELM model still need to be manually determined, and the ELM model randomly generates input weights and hidden layer thresholds. To a certain extent, this leads to unstable network structure and affects the prediction accuracy of the ELM model. In view of this, this paper will use the ACPSO algorithm to optimize the hidden layer parameters of ELM, optimize the input weights and hidden layer offsets randomly generated by ELM, and use the optimal weights and offsets as the input weights and hidden Layer bias to enhance the stability of the ELM and the accuracy of the algorithm. In view of the instability of the ELM network structure, this paper will use ACPSO to improve the ELM algorithm, use the ACPSO algorithm to optimize the randomly generated M sets of input weights ω and hidden layer bias b, and use the optimal ω and b as the ELM. input weight ω and hidden layer bias b, thereby enhancing the stability of the network and the accuracy of the algorithm.

Randomly generate M sets of input weights ω and hidden layer bias b, and use each set of ω, b as the position vector of a particle in the particle swarm, namely xtd = [ω,b] (t = 1,2,⋯,M, d = 1,2,⋯,D, D is the sum of the dimensions of ω and b).Using an iterative approach, each particle is brought closer to the best position it finds and the best particle in the group, so that the optimal solution of ω, b is searched. At each iteration, the particle updates the speed and position according to the following formulas.

υtdk+1=ϖυtdk+c1r1(ptdkxtdk)+c2r2(gtdkxtdk) (5)
xtdk+1=xtdk+υtdk+1 (6)
ϖ=ϖmaxϖmaxϖminKmax×k (7)

Among them: υtd = [υt1,υt2,⋯,υtD] is the flying speed of the particle t, that is the distance of the particle moves, the value range is [υmin,d,υmax,d]],this paper sets the particle velocity and range to [–1,1]; c1 and c2 represent learning factors, generally 2; r1 and r2 are random numbers between the interval [0,1]; The range of position xtd is [xmin,d, xmax,d]; Ptd is the optimal position searched by the particle so far; gtd is the optimal position searched by the entire particle swarm so far; ϖ is the inertial weight, ϖmax and ϖmin are the maximum and minimum weight. The values in this paper are 0.9 and 0.4 respectively; k is the current number of iterations, and Kmax is the maximum number of iterations.

In the PSO algorithm, each particle represents a point with a certain speed, and each particle uses its corresponding individual fitness to judge the quality of the solution. In this paper, the simulation result error rate ft is used as the fitness value of network training. The smaller the ft, the better the particle search performance.

ft=errQ (8)

In the formula, err is the number of errors in the simulation results; Q is the total number of test samples. Since the initial particles are randomly generated, during the iteration process, when the particle position, individual extremum and group extremum are close, the speed update is determined by ϖυtd. Since ϖ < 1, the particle speed becomes slower and slower, approaching zero, and the global search ability is lost, which eventually leads to a local minima. The chaotic search theory is introduced, and the randomness, regularity, and traversal performance of chaotic variables are used to effectively avoid particles from falling into local convergence during the optimization process. Add the chaotic variable Pc to the optimal particle position variable, then:

xtdk+1=(1γ)xtdk+γpc (9)
pc=xmin,d+Zdk(xmax,dxmin,d) (10)
γk+1=λk+1[1(kk+1)α] (11)
λk+1={0.9λk,m=01,0<m0.8M10λk,m>0.8M (12)

Among them: Pc is the chaotic variable after the chaotic variable zdk is normalized; γ is the adaptive weight; α is the given constant; m is the number of particles whose position is updated in the current iteration operation through the chaos search algorithm; M is the total number of particles in the particle swarm; zdk is the chaotic variable, generally generated by Logistic mapping:

zdk+1=μzdk(1zdk) (13)

Among them: μ is the control parameter, μ ∈ (2,4], the initial value zd in each dimension ranges from [0,1]. When μ = 4, the Logistic mapping is in a chaotic state, which can generate aperiodic and non-convergent chaotic variables.

The machine learning program based on the ACPSO-ELM algorithm is shown in Fig 2.

Fig 2. Machine learning program based on the ACPSO-ELM algorithm.

Fig 2

The application of the model

Data acquisition

The data of this paper came from literature [16], Evaluation Report of China Seismological Network, Earthquake Cases in China, China Statistical Yearbook, China Seismograph Network, and National Earthquake Data Center. The data includes 84 groups of sample data, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. China's earthquake casualties from 1970 to 2017 [16].

Number Place Time of the earthquake Epicentral intensity Damaged area of house (1000m2) Population density(person/km2) Earthquake casualties
Dead Injured
1 Lijiang, Yunnan 19:14 9590 66.67 309 17057
2 Ninglang, Yunnan 19:38 4011.4 36.68 5 1593
3 Yaoan, Yunnan 6:09 7380.048 114.48 7 2528
4 Shidian, Yunnan 11:13 403.255 161.8 3 235
5 Wenchuan county of Sichuan 14:28 646252.110 13.3 87150 373643
6 Tangshan, Hebei 3:42 16150 500 242000 164000
7 Yingjiang, Yunnan 8:24 54.915 45 5 130
8 Yushu, Qinghai 7:49 9097.2 8.95 2968 12315
9 Yaan, Sichuan 8:02 13815 98 217 13484
10 Taiwan Strait 14:20 14.2 236 3 671
11 Puer, Yunnan 5:34 4476 55.8 3 562
12 Jiashi, Xinjiang 10:03 2060 47.5 268 2058
13 Nantou, Taiwan 1:47 1233.570 73.69 2378 8722
14 Shangyi, Hebei 11:52 6500 72.29 49 11439
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72 Songpan,Sicuan 22:06 7.5 17.5 41 756
73 Inner Mongolia 4:15 2171.160 34.84 28 865
74 Haicheng, Liaoning 19:36 22400 1000 1328 16980
75 Tonghai, Yunnan 1:00 5076.840 267.03 15621 32431
76 Minle, Gansu 20:41 904.090 63 10 46
77 Yili, Xinjiang 9:38 120 39 10 47
78 Heze, Shandong 5:09 5430 5.26 46 5138
79 Yajiang, Sichuan 8:09 332.12 4 3 55
80 Yingjiang, Yunnan 12:58 2041.30 69.25 25 314
81 Minxian, Gansu 7:45 3918 9.93 94 628
82 Jingxian, Yunnan 21:49 9228.6 38.64 1 324
83 Kangding, Sichuan 16:55 2576.2 9 5 54
84 Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan 21:19 1105.065 1260 29 543

Assuming input xi = {epicentral intensity, damaged area of house, earthquake occurrence time, population density}, and output y = {the number of dead or injured},the experimental steps of earthquake casualties prediction based on the method of ACPSO-ELM are as follows

Step 1: Determine the training sample set, test data set and prediction data set. In this paper, ACPSO-ELM network will be trained with the maintenance method. Samples numbered 1~50 are selected as training samples of the model, samples numbered 51~71 are as test data of the model, and samples numbered 72~84 as predicted data of the model;

Step 2: Normalize the sample set to improve the rate of convergence of ACPSO-ELM algorithm;

Step 3: Establishing the three-layer ACPSO-ELM network structure with the neural network toolbox of Matlab R2016a, then determining the number of neurons in each layer and the excitation function, and selecting Sigmoid as the excitation function;

Step 4: ACPSO is used to optimize the parameters of ELM, and obtain the network optimal parameter values, including the optimal value of input layer to the hidden layer connected with weight w and the hidden layer to the output layer connected with weight β and the bias b;

Step 5: In order to compare the training effect of ACPSO-ELM with other methods, the traditional ELM model and BP neural network are involved in data training, then make comparisons of ACPSO-ELM, ELM model and BP neural network in the training accuracy;

Step 6: Inputting the sample data numbered 72~84 into the models of the ACPSO-ELM, ELM and BP neural network for the prediction of the earthquake casualty, and comparing their accuracy.

Experimental process and results

(1) Parameter determination

The structure of ACPSO-ELM, ELM and BP neural network is: the number of input layer nodes is 4, the number of the hidden layer node is 3, the number of the output layer node is 2, the initial weight vector is uniformly distributed at (0, 1), and Sigmoid function is adapted as the excitation function of each layer; the learning rate of BP neural network is 0.05, the iteration is carried out by gradient descent method, it is finished when the learning accuracy reaches the minimum, and the initial threshold is given randomly.

(2) Modal testing and validation

1) At first, the sample numbers 1~50 were put into modal training of ACPSO-ELM, ELM and BP neural network; then, and the sample numbers 51~71were put into model testing. The results are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. The accuracy of test in comparison of ACPSO, ELM and BP neural network.
The average relative error and the average time consuming ELM BP neural network ACPSO-ELM
The average relative error of death(%) The average relative error of injured(%) The average relative error of death(%) The average relative error of injured(%) The average relative error of death(%) The average relative error of injured(%)
Average relative error(%) 3.77 4.26 7.19 4.71 2.12 3.13
Average time consuming(s) 5.243 6.345 15.887 25.002 6.007 7.318

As Table 3 shown, the test precision of ACPSO-ELM is the best, its average relative error of death is 2.12%, and the average relative error of injured is 3.13%; the training outcome of BP neural network is the worst, its average relative error of death is 7.19%, and the average relative error of injured is 4.71%; the test time for ELM is the least, its average time of death prediction is 5.243s, and the time of death injured prediction is 6.345s. The results of the earthquake death test are shown in Fig 3, and the results of the injury test are shown in Fig 4.

Fig 3. The results of test in comparison of earthquake death.

Fig 3

Fig 4. The results of test in comparison of earthquake injured.

Fig 4

The R-square coefficient of ACPSO-ELM, ELM and BP neural network in Fig 3 is 0.95, 0.92 and 0.88, respectively. The ACPSO-ELM prediction model is the best, and its R-square coefficient is 0.95, indicating that the fitting effect of ACPSO-ELM prediction model is better than that of the traditional ELM and BP neural network.

In Fig 4, the R-square coefficient of ACPSO-ELM, ELM and BP neural network is 0.93, 0.88 and 0.84, respectively. The prediction effect of ACPSO-ELM model is the best, and its R-square coefficient is 0.93, indicating that the fitting effect of ACPSO-ELM prediction model is better than that of the traditional ELM and BP neural network in the prediction of the injured in earthquake.

2) The samples numbered 72~84 were used as the prediction data, and they were respectively put into ACPSO-ELM, ELM and BP neural network for model prediction. The results are shown in Table 4.

Table 4. The results of test in comparison of ACPSO, ELM and BP neural network.
The average relative error and the average time consuming ELM BP neural network ACPSO-ELM
The average relative error of death(%) The average relative error of injured(%) The average relative error of death(%) The average relative error of injured(%) The average relative error of death(%) The average relative error of injured(%)
Average relative error(%) 3.51 4.33 7.43 4.33 2.37 3.02
Average time consuming(s) 3.123 4.109 9.432 14.308 4.112 5.098

Table 4 shows that ACPSO-ELM has the best predictive accuracy, its average relative error of death is 2.37% and the average relative error of injured is 3.02%; The predictive accuracy of BP neural network is the worst, its average relative error of death is 7.43% and the average relative error of injured is 4.33%. The prediction time of ELM is the least, its average time of death prediction is 3.123s, and its time of death injured prediction is 4.109s. The predicted result of earthquake death is shown in Fig 5, and the predicted result of the injured is shown in Fig 6.

Fig 5. The results of test in comparison of earthquake death.

Fig 5

Fig 6. The results of test in comparison of earthquake injured.

Fig 6

In Fig 5, the R-square coefficient of ACPSO-ELM is 0.96, which is better than other prediction models, indicating that ACPSO-ELM has the best prediction effect on the number of earthquake death. The BP neural network has the worst prediction effect on the number of earthquake death, and its R-square is 0.86.

In Fig 6, the R-square coefficient of ACPSO-ELM is 0.91, which is better than other prediction models, indicating that ACPSO-ELM has the best prediction effect on the number of earthquake injured. The BP neural network has the worst prediction effect on the number of earthquake injured, and its R-square is 0.82.

In general, the ACPSO-ELM prediction model proposed in this paper has the advantages of good stability and high predictive accuracy.

Conclusions

This paper uses the ACPSO algorithm has improved the traditional ELM model, to a certain extent, it improves the stability and prediction accuracy of the ELM network. The index of earthquake casualties prediction is proposed, and the four indexes of epicenter intensity, damaged area of house, earthquake occurrence time and population density are used as input indexes of ACPSO-ELM; the ELM model is improved by ACPSO algorithm, and the parameters of the ELM network are optimized to reduce the problems of network instability and low prediction accuracy caused by manually setting network parameters. The experimental results show that, compared with the traditional ELM model and BP neural network model, the extreme learning machine is used to predict the earthquake casualties. The ACPSO-ELM prediction method has the advantages of high stability and good prediction accuracy. This small sample data fitting provides a new reference, and provides a new method for earthquake casualty prediction.

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank experts and journal editors who reviewed this article. We also wish to thank all scholars who provided references.

Data Availability

The data are all contained within the manuscript.

Funding Statement

The work was supported by the key projects of Sichuan circular economy research center, China, "Research on the countermeasures to improve the technological innovation efficiency of Mianyang enterprises under the effect of environmental regulation"(Grand No. XHJJ-1809) and Sichuan information management and service center, China, "Disaster risk assessment and demand identification of coastal cities based on multi-source data mining"(Grand No.SCXX2019ZD02).

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Decision Letter 0

Itamar Ashkenazi

8 Apr 2020

PONE-D-20-05710

Casualty Prediction of Earthquake Disaster Based on Extreme Leaning Machine Algorithms

PLOS ONE

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"An earthquake casualty prediction model based on modified partial Gaussian curve" (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3452-3)

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Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

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Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

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Reviewer #1: No

**********

5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: In the introduction, from “Qian et al. selected magnitude … earthquake victims” needs revision.

There are many terms introduced in this section without giving the reader any idea of what they are such as “forecast level” or “personnel subsidence rate” “degree of secondary disasters”. An example or a very concise definition would help the readers to better understand the text.

I think the references should be followed by the year they were published. Please consult the journals website guide for authors to see if the citations have been properly formatted.

If the journal’s format allows, instead of a very long review of the factors related to the casualty prediction, the authors could tabulate them.

Extreme Learning Machine or E. Leaning Machine?

environment of pregnancy???

“Regional disaster system theory” should be capitalized if it’s a theory and cited.

disaster breeding surrounding???

In section 2.2.1., even though I believe that the terms used in this paper are not scientifically sound, but the authors didn’t mention which items are related to the elements at risk, risk, disaster etc.

“In this paper, nine indicators such as” why such as? Was there a longer list of items?

As for the PCA, there’s no need to provide the formula behind the method. As for the table, what are those ingredients (1 to 9). They need to be written in full or abbreviated if long. Plz also include the eigenvalues and explain why only 5 out of 9 indicators were selected as item 6 and 7 also seem to improve the total accuracy.

The authors didn’t mention anything such as earthquake level index before claiming to discard it. The basis on which the authors decided to delete this index is not clearly stated.

Before using the selected set of the indices, they need to be precisely defined and explained. They include epicenter intensity, building damage area, earthquake occurrence time and population density.

How did the authors reach the initial set of indicators? Just literature review, expert opinions, etc.? In the final set, plz state which item falls under which category of disaster risk factors, disaster breeding surrounding and disaster bearing substance

Is an 84 earthquake sample set is enough to trust the proposed method? Even though it has proved to be a very successful casualty prediction tool, but personally I believe that based on a limited sample we shouldn’t just rely on the numerical methods. What does the author think of this? Agreed or disagreed? Mention this in the paper.

The manuscript should be polished by a native speaker preferentially or someone with a good command of English grammar as I found multiple incomplete sentences and inconsistencies between subject and verb.

**********

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PLoS One. 2020 Jun 25;15(6):e0235236. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235236.r002

Author response to Decision Letter 0


18 May 2020

Author response

PONE-D-20-05710

Casualty Prediction of Earthquake Disaster Based on Extreme Leaning Machine Algorithms

We noticed you have a minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication, on which you are an author, and which needs to be addressed: "An earthquake casualty prediction model based on modified partial Gaussian curve" (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-018-3452-3)。In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed.

Author response: Author noticed this paper has a minor occurrence of overlapping text with the previous publication, on which I am an author. The minor amount of repetition is mainly concentrated in the section of Introduction. The author has cited and modified it.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

________________________________________

2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

________________________________________

3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

________________________________________

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

________________________________________

5. Review Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: In the introduction, from “Qian et al. selected magnitude … earthquake victims” needs revision.

Author response: author had revision, as follows: Qian Fenglin et al. established an artificial neural network model for earthquake casualties prediction [13].

There are many terms introduced in this section without giving the reader any idea of what they are such as “forecast level” or “personnel subsidence rate” “degree of secondary disasters”. An example or a very concise definition would help the readers to better understand the text.

Author response: author had given some definition to explain these terms. For example: Disaster-causing factors: refer to various natural and human factors that adversely affect human life, property or resources, such as drought, storm surge, frost, low temperature, hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides, debris flow and so on. The disaster-bearing bodies refer to the main body of human society directly affected and damaged by the disaster, mainly including all aspects of human itself and social development, such as industry, people, agriculture, energy, construction, communication, various disaster reduction engineering facilities and production, life service facilities, and all kinds of wealth accumulated by people and so on. The disaster-preparing environment is a comprehensive earth surface environment composed of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and human social circle.

I think the references should be followed by the year they were published. Please consult the journals website guide for authors to see if the citations have been properly formatted.

Author response: the author has modified the citation format, for example: Wen B C, Jiang C., 2013, Forecasting Emergency Demand Based on BP Neural Network and Principal Component Analysis. Adv Inform Serv Sci, 5(13):38-45.

Extreme Learning Machine or E. Leaning Machine?

Author response: In this paper, ELM is Extreme learning machine(ELM).

environment of pregnancy?

Author response: The author corrects this term as " disaster environment" and gives its definition, as follows: The sensitivity of the disaster environment provides a background for the interaction between disaster-causing factors and disaster-bearing bodies.

“Regional disaster system theory” should be capitalized if it’s a theory and cited.

Author response: author had modified as: The Regional Disaster System Theory.

disaster breeding surrounding?

Author response: author had revised the term as: disaster environment, and gave the define: disaster environment provides a background for the interaction between disaster-causing factors and disaster-bearing bodies.

“In this paper, nine indicators such as” why such as? Was there a longer list of items?

Author response: The author added some contents to screen these 9 indexes, as follows: Secondly, around these four dimensions, three indexes of magnitude, epicentral intensity, and epicentral distance are used as secondary indexes of disaster-causing factors, and three indexes of earthquake occurrence time, earthquake geographical environment, and whether there are significant precursors are used as secondary indexes of disaster-causing environment, and the three indexes of population density, building fortification level, and damaged area of houses are used as secondary indicators of the disaster-bearing bodies; finally, using the primary component analysis method (PCA) to screen the primary selection indexes to determine the earthquake disaster prediction index system, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Earthquake Casualties Prediction Indexes

First-grade indexes Second-grade indexes Approach to data acquisition

Disaster-causing factors Epicenter intensity Subject to official Chinese reports

Disaster-pregnancy environment Earthquake occurrence time Subject to official Chinese reports

Disaster-bearing bodies Damaged Area of Houses Based on actual collapsed area

Population density Calculated according to the actual number of people per square kilometer, subject to Chinese official statistics

As for the PCA, there’s no need to provide the formula behind the method. As for the table, what are those ingredients (1 to 9). They need to be written in full or abbreviated if long. Plz also include the eigenvalues and explain why only 5 out of 9 indicators were selected as item 6 and 7 also seem to improve the total accuracy.

Author response: The author has deleted this PCA formula and revised some contents to answer the expert's suggestions.

The Regional Disaster System Theory states that disasters are the result of interaction of disaster-causing factors, disaster-preparing environment, and disaster-bearing bodies. Disaster-causing factors refer to various natural and human factors that adversely affect human life, property or resources, such as drought, storm surge, frost, low temperature, hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, landslides, debris flow and so on, which are sufficient conditions for disaster formation; The disaster-bearing bodies refer to the main body of human society directly affected and damaged by the disaster, mainly including all aspects of human itself and social development, such as industry, people, agriculture, energy, construction, communication, various disaster reduction engineering facilities and production, life service facilities, and all kinds of wealth accumulated by people and so on, which is a necessary condition for disaster formation; The disaster-preparing environment is a comprehensive earth surface environment composed of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and human social circle. The sensitivity of the disaster environment provides a background for the interaction between disaster-causing factors and disaster-bearing bodies. According to the regional disaster system theory, the direct factor that causes the degree of casualties of earthquake casualties depends on the vulnerability of the disaster-bearing body. The greater the vulnerability of the disaster-bearing body is, the greater the casualty is. The vulnerability of the disaster-bearing body depends on the pregnancy environment, disaster-causing factors, and human resilience. When studying the prediction indexes of earthquake casualties, the four dimensions of disaster formation can be based on the theory of regional disaster system, disaster-causing factors, disaster-preventing environment, disaster-bearing body and disaster-resisting ability. In the study of indexes, this paper firstly divides the influencing factors of earthquake disaster casualty prediction into four dimensions based on the regional disaster system theory, namely, the disaster-causing factor dimension, the disaster environment dimension, the disaster-bearing body dimension and the disaster resistance dimension; Secondly, around these four dimensions, three indexes of magnitude, epicentral intensity, and epicentral distance are used as secondary indexes of disaster-causing factors, and three indexes of earthquake occurrence time, earthquake geographical environment, and whether there are significant precursors are used as secondary indexes of disaster-causing environment, and the three indexes of population density, building fortification level, and damaged area of houses are used as secondary indicators of the disaster-bearing bodies; finally, using the primary component analysis method (PCA) to screen the primary selection indexes to determine the earthquake disaster prediction index system, as shown in Table 1.

The authors didn’t mention anything such as earthquake level index before claiming to discard it. The basis on which the authors decided to delete this index is not clearly stated.

Author response: The author has modified the index selection part. Please read the above answer.

Before using the selected set of the indices, they need to be precisely defined and explained. They include epicenter intensity, building damage area, earthquake occurrence time and population density.

Author response: The author has defined these terms under table 1,as follows:

Note: Population density refers to the number of people per square kilometer. Building damage area refers to the total area of building collapse. Epicenter intensity refers to the intensity of the epicenter area, which is the highest intensity in an earthquake.

How did the authors reach the initial set of indicators?

Author response: The ways of obtaining the initial indicators include theoretical analysis of disaster system, literature research and expert interviews.

Is an 84 earthquake sample set is enough to trust the proposed method? Even though it has proved to be a very successful casualty prediction tool, but personally I believe that based on a limited sample we shouldn’t just rely on the numerical methods. What does the author think of this? Agreed or disagreed? Mention this in the paper.

Author response: authors agree with the opinions of reviewer. In order to show the advantages of the model, the author improved the traditional ELM, and compared the model with BP neural network and traditional ELM.

The manuscript should be polished by a native speaker preferentially or someone with a good command of English grammar as I found multiple incomplete sentences and inconsistencies between subject and verb.

Author response: The manuscript had be polished by a native speaker preferentially, including English grammar, incomplete sentences and inconsistencies between subject and verb, and so on.

In addition, in order to improve the prediction accuracy of the model, the author improved the traditional elm. The results show that the improved elm model is better than the traditional elm model.

The author also revised the title of the paper, as "Application of improved ELM algorithm in the prediction of earthquake casualties".

Attachment

Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

Decision Letter 1

Itamar Ashkenazi

11 Jun 2020

Application of improved ELM algorithm in the prediction of earthquake casualties

PONE-D-20-05710R1

Dear Dr. Huang,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Itamar Ashkenazi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear Editor

I have fully read the manuscript and believe the authors have carefully addressed all my concerns. Therefore I believe the paper is suitable for publication now.

Best Regards

**********

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Acceptance letter

Itamar Ashkenazi

16 Jun 2020

PONE-D-20-05710R1

Application of improved ELM algorithm in the prediction of earthquake casualties

Dear Dr. Huang:

I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org.

If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org.

Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access.

Kind regards,

PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff

on behalf of

Dr. Itamar Ashkenazi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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    Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx

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    The data are all contained within the manuscript.


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