Understanding Risk


Book Description

Understanding Risk addresses a central dilemma of risk decisionmaking in a democracy: detailed scientific and technical information is essential for making decisions, but the people who make and live with those decisions are not scientists. The key task of risk characterization is to provide needed and appropriate information to decisionmakers and the public. This important new volume illustrates that making risks understandable to the public involves much more than translating scientific knowledge. The volume also draws conclusions about what society should expect from risk characterization and offers clear guidelines and principles for informing the wide variety of risk decisions that face our increasingly technological society. Frames fundamental questions about what risk characterization means. Reviews traditional definitions and explores new conceptual and practical approaches. Explores how risk characterization should inform decisionmakers and the public. Looks at risk characterization in the context of the entire decisionmaking process. Understanding Risk discusses how risk characterization has fallen short in many recent controversial decisions. Throughout the text, examples and case studiesâ€"such as planning for the long-term ecological health of the Everglades or deciding on the operation of a waste incineratorâ€"bring key concepts to life. Understanding Risk will be important to anyone involved in risk issues: federal, state, and local policymakers and regulators; risk managers; scientists; industrialists; researchers; and concerned individuals.




Best Practices for Risk-Informed Decision Making Regarding Contaminated Sites


Book Description

The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management's (EM) mission is the safe cleanup of sites associated with the government-led development of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. While many of these legacy sites have completed cleanup, the largest and most complex sites have not been fully remediated. The cleanup of these sites is proceeding under legally enforceable agreements with timelines for hundreds of milestones. EM is reviewing alternative approaches to increase effectiveness and improve cost efficiencies of its cleanup activities, especially for sites that will have residual contamination when active cleanup is complete. This report is the summary of two workshops convened in October 2013 and January 2014 on best practices for risk-informed remedy selection, closure, and post-closure control of radioactive and chemically contaminated sites that present significant difficulty for remediation to unrestricted release. The workshop series aimed to explore best practices that promote effective, risk-informed decision making and future opportunities to improve remediation approaches and practices.In the Workshop #1 section of Best Practices for Risk-Informed Decision Making Regarding Contaminated Sites, the report examines holistic approaches for remediating sites with multiple contaminant sources and post-closure uses, and approaches for incorporating a sustainability framework into decision making regarding site remediation, closure, and post-closure control. In Workshop #2, the report focuses on post-closure controls, assessment of long-term performance of site remedies, and best practices for risk-based remediation decisions.




Risk-Based Engineering


Book Description

The book comprehensively covers the various aspects of risk modeling and analysis in technological contexts. It pursues a systems approach to modeling risk and reliability concerns in engineering, and covers the key concepts of risk analysis and mathematical tools used to assess and account for risk in engineering problems. The relevance of incorporating risk-based structures in design and operations is also stressed, with special emphasis on the human factor and behavioral risks. The book uses the nuclear plant, an extremely complex and high-precision engineering environment, as an example to develop the concepts discussed. The core mechanical, electronic and physical aspects of such a complex system offer an excellent platform for analyzing and creating risk-based models. The book also provides real-time case studies in a separate section to demonstrate the use of this approach. There are many limitations when it comes to applications of risk-based approaches to engineering problems. The book is structured and written in a way that addresses these key gap areas to help optimize the overall methodology. This book serves as a textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on risk and reliability in engineering. It can also be used outside the classroom for professional development courses aimed at practicing engineers or as an introduction to risk-based engineering for professionals, researchers, and students interested in the field.




Risk-informed Methods and Applications in Nuclear and Energy Engineering


Book Description

Risk-informed Methods and Applications in Nuclear and Energy Engineering: Modelling, Experimentation, and Validation presents a comprehensive view of the latest technical approaches and experimental capabilities in nuclear energy engineering. Based on Idaho National Laboratory's popular summer school series, this book compiles a collection of entries on the cutting-edge research and knowledge presented by proponents and developers of current and future nuclear systems, focusing on the connection between modelling and experimental approaches. Included in this book are key topics such as probabilistic concepts for risk analysis, the survey of legacy reliability and risk analysis tools, and newly developed tools supporting dynamic probabilistic risk-assessment. This book is an insightful and inspiring compilation of work from top nuclear experts from INL. Industry professionals, researchers and academics working in nuclear engineering, safety, operations and training will gain a board picture of the current state-of-practice and be able to apply that to their own risk-assessment studies. - Based on Idaho National Laboratory's summer school series, this book is a collection of entries from proponents and developers of current and future nuclear systems - Provides an up-to-date view of current technical approaches and experimental capabilities in nuclear energy engineering, covering modeling and validation, and focusing on risk-informed methods and applications - Equips the reader with an understanding of various case studies and experimental validations to enable them to carry out a risk-assessment study




A Risk-Characterization Framework for Decision-Making at the Food and Drug Administration


Book Description

With the responsibility to ensure the safety of food, drugs, and other products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) faces decisions that may have public-health consequences every day. Often the decisions must be made quickly and on the basis of incomplete information. FDA recognized that collecting and evaluating information on the risks posed by the regulated products in a systematic manner would aid in its decision-making process. Consequently, FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) asked the National Research Council (NRC) to develop a conceptual model that could evaluate products or product categories that FDA regulates and provide information on the potential health consequences associated with them. A Risk-Characterization Framework for Decision-Making at the Food and Drug Administration describes the proposed risk-characterization framework that can be used to evaluate, compare, and communicate the public-health consequences of decisions concerning a wide variety of products. The framework presented in this report is intended to complement other risk-based approaches that are in use and under development at FDA, not replace them. It provides a common language for describing potential public-health consequences of decisions, is designed to have wide applicability among all FDA centers, and draws extensively on the well-vetted risk literature to define the relevant health dimensions for decision-making at the FDA. The report illustrates the use of that framework with several case studies, and provides conclusions and recommendations.







Tailings Dam Management for the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

This book presents a comprehensive approach to address the need to improve the design of tailings dams, their management and the regulation of tailings management facilities to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the risk of such facilities failing. The scope of the challenge is well documented in the report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and GRID Arendal entitled “Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident,” which was released in October 2017. The report recommends that “Regulators, industry and communities should adopt a shared, zero-failure objective to tailings storage facilities...” and identifies several areas where further improvements are required. In this context, the application of cutting-edge risk-assessment methodologies and risk-management practices can contribute to a significant reduction and eventual elimination of dam failures through Risk Informed Decision Making. As such, the book focuses on identifying and describing the risk-assessment approaches and risk-management practices that need to be implemented in order to develop a way forward to achieve socially acceptable levels of tailings dam risk.




Considerations on Performing Integrated Risk Informed Decision Making


Book Description

This publication describes the general concept of using quantitative and qualitative information to be integrated in making safety related decisions. By following this approach, the balanced decision option could be selected in a systematic and traceable manner.




Pediatrician's Guide to Discussing Research with Patients


Book Description

With the proliferation of research studies posted online, media outlets scrambling to pick up stories, and individuals posting unverified information via social media, the landscape for parents trying to understand the latest science as it pertains to their children has never been more challenging to navigate. This book is intended to assist pediatricians when discussing research findings with parents. It provides an overview of research practices and terminology, clarifies misconceptions about studies and findings, and explains the limitations of research when applied to medical decision making. Through this framework, physicians can explain their reasoning behind specific clinical recommendations. In addition to examining the broad concepts comprising research literacy, this book reviews the current findings in topics that pediatricians report discussing most often with parents, such as vaccines, diet, medications, and sleep. Pediatrician’s Guide to Discussing Research with Patients is a unique resource for pediatricians in encouraging the development of research literacy in their patients.




Interpretable Machine Learning for the Analysis, Design, Assessment, and Informed Decision Making for Civil Infrastructure


Book Description

The past few years have demonstrated how civil infrastructure continues to experience an unprecedented scale of extreme loading conditions (i.e. hurricanes, wildfires and earthquakes). Despite recent advancements in various civil engineering disciplines, specific to the analysis, design and assessment of structures, it is unfortunate that it is common nowadays to witness large scale damage in buildings, bridges and other infrastructure. The analysis, design and assessment of infrastructure comprises of a multitude of dimensions spanning a highly complex paradigm across material sciences, structural engineering, construction and planning among others. While traditional methods fall short of adequately accounting for such complexity, fortunately, computational intelligence presents novel solutions that can effectively tackle growing demands of intense extreme events and modern designs of infrastructure – especially in this era where infrastructure is reaching new heights and serving larger populations with high social awareness and expectations. Computational Intelligence for Analysis, Design and Assessment of Civil Infrastructure highlights the growing trend of fostering the use of CI to realize contemporary, smart and safe infrastructure. This is an emerging area that has not fully matured yet and hence the book will draw considerable interest and attention. In a sense, the book presents results of innovative efforts supplemented with case studies from leading researchers that can be used as benchmarks to carryout future experiments and/or facilitate development of future experiments and advanced numerical models. The book is written with the intention to serve as a guide for a wide audience including senior postgraduate students, academic and industrial researchers, materials scientists and practicing engineers working in civil, structural and mechanical engineering. - Presents the fundamentals of AI/ML and how they can be applied in civil and environmental engineering - Shares the latest advances in explainable and interpretable methods for AI/ML in the context of civil and environmental engineering - Focuses on civil and environmental engineering applications (day-to-day and extreme events) and features case studies and examples covering various aspects of applications