Risk Analysis Commons^™

An Analysis Of Safety Culture & Safety Training: Comparing The Impact Of Union, Non-Union, And Right To Work Construction Venues, Harry Miller Csp, Tara Hill, Kris Mason, John S. Gaal Edd

Online Journal for Workforce Education and Development

The construction industry is one of the most dangerous sectors of the US economy. As such, the safety attitudes and climate within small (residential) contracting firms may play a role in providing a safe culture and working environment. The intent of this practitioner-based research study is to compare and determine if there is a difference in safety practices—based on documented field inspections and their related original number of violations observed by OSHA—between union residential carpentry contractors in the St. Louis area and:

1) non-union residential carpentry contractors in the St. Louis area;

2) non-union residential carpentry contractors across ...

Stochastic Simulation Of Multiple-Station Ground Motions And Its Applications, Taojun Liu

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Approaches to simulate single- and multiple-component multiple-station ground motion records with target spatial coherency and spatial correlation structures are developed for scenario events in this study. To develop the approaches, spatial correlation of the Fourier amplitude spectrum for a random orientation and for two orthogonal directions is assessed, and empirical equations are suggested. Moreover, spatial coherency of ground motions for two orthogonal horizontal directions is estimated using actual records from seven seismic events. Empirical coherency function is suggested for the components of records in two orthogonal horizontal directions at single and multiple recording stations. It was also found that the ...

Entropy Applications In Industrial Engineering, Saeed Zamiri Marvizadeh

Industrial and Management Systems Engineering -- Dissertations and Student Research

Entropy is a fundamental measure of information content which has been applied in a wide variety of fields. We present three applications of entropy in the industrial engineering field: dispatching of Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV), ranking and selection of simulated systems based on the mean performance measure, and comparison between random variables based on cumulative probability distributions.

The first application proposes three entropy-based AGV dispatching algorithms. We contribute to the body of knowledge by considering the consequence of potential AGV moves on the load balance of the factory before AGVs are dispatched. Kullback-Leibler directed divergence is applied to measure the ...

Special Section Editorial: Risk, Complexity And Sustainability, Lindsay Robertson, Katina Michael

Associate Professor Katina Michael

This special section is dedicated to risk as understood within our society, in which we depend upon increasingly complex and interconnected technologies for even our most basic needs - water, food, shelter, electricity, gas, sewage, communications, and banking.

Natural disasters and their impact on vital services has been a research area that has flourished, especially since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in South Asia. Out of this research has come forth a plethora of strategies for addressing short term and geographically defined disasters. While such disaster preparedness systems are vital to minimise the loss ...

Fuzzy Expert-Cocomo Risk Assessment And Effort Contingency Model In Software Project Management, Ekananta Manalif

University of Western Ontario - Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Software development can be considered to be the most uncertain project when compared to other types of projects due to the uncertainty in the customer requirements, the complexity of the process, and the intangible nature of the product. In order to increase the likelihood of success in managing a software project, the project manager(s) must invest more time and effort in the project planning phase. The two main activities in project planning phase are effort estimation and risk management which has to be executed together because the accuracy of the effort estimation is highly dependent on the size and ...

Scenario Analysis: A Review Of Methods And Applications For Engineering And Environmental Systems, Yousra Tourki, Jeffrey Keisler, Igor Linkov

Jeffrey Keisler

Changing environment, uncertain economic conditions, and socio-political unrest have renewed interest in scenario analysis, both from theoretical and applied points of view. Nevertheless, neither the processes for scenario analysis (SA) nor evaluation criteria and metrics have been regularized. In this paper, SA-reported applications and implementation methodology are discussed in the context of an extensive literature review covering papers published between 2000 and 2010. Over 340 papers were identified through a series of queries in the web of science database. The papers were classified based on the North American Industrial Classification System and SA application goals (environmental, business, and social). SA ...

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? An Experimental Study Of Health And Economic Government Policies Following A Severe Biological Agent Release, Heather Rosoff, Robert Siko, Richard John, William J. Burns

Published Articles & Papers

Extensive research has explored policy chal- lenges associated with preparing and responding to a large- scale biological release. A key component in recovery strategy development that has received less attention is the understanding of government policy influence on the impacted populations’ migratory decisions. This study experimentally manipulates health and economic govern- ment policies during response and recovery to assess the extent to which public migration is contingent on the level of government intervention. Set immediately following a large- scale anthrax release in San Francisco, we use a five episode video scenario to describe details about the environmental impacts of the ...

Experimental Comparison Study Of The Response Of Polycarbonate And Laminated Glass Blast Resistant Glazing Systems To Blast Loading, Joshua Calnan

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

This thesis recounts the experimental study of the dynamic response of polycarbonate blast resistant glazing systems to explosive loading through the use of triaxial load cells, pressure sensors, and a laser displacement gauge. This instrumentation captured the response of the glazing systems to blast loading over three phases of testing. The first phase of testing characterizes the load distribution around the perimeter and the second phase examines the repeatability of the results. The final phase of testing pushes the samples to failure. The results are then compared to HazL, a commonly used blast resistant glazing system analysis software tool. The ...

Adequate Ventilation: How Is It Defined And Does It Adequately Warn Consumers?, Christopher Blankenship

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this research was to clarify and define the term “adequate ventilation.” Upon looking at regulations, court cases, and other elements, it is clear that the term is inadequate to inform consumers and does not instruct consumers on how to achieve proper ventilation. To find out if consumers understand this, random persons were asked to define it. The answers were given a numerical value to show the knowledge trend. The outcome showed that most people do not understand how to achieve proper ventilation. Conclusion: Diagrams showing how to set up a room with ventilation and new instructions are ...

Modeling The Dynamics Of Risk Perception And Fear: Examining Amplifying Mechanisms And Their Consequences, William J. Burns, Paul Slovic

Current Research Project Synopses

This year the focus has been on putting together a series of articles addressing risk perception, risk communication and risk management to publish as a special issue in Risk Analysis. We also collected data that sheds light on the dynamics underlying perceived risk and emotional response to an anthrax attack on a major U.S. city. The end goal is to inform our modeling efforts. We conducted a risk communication experiment to test the efficacy of a pre-crisis inoculation risk message. Additionally, we have made progress incorporating what we learned from analyzing these responses in the form of an agent-based ...

Valuing Risks Of Death From Terrorist Attacks, W. Kip Viscusi

Current Research Project Synopses

The project is a longer term effort that is not yet completed. The first year of this project was a pilot phase of a longer term project to value the reduction of risks associated with homeland security policies. The first year of the project reviewed the literature on the perception and valuation of the risks of death from terrorist attacks. The second year of the project has focused on developing a pilot survey to analyze the valuation of terrorism risks. The pilot survey has been drafted and will be administered to a pilot sample after the no cost extension has ...

Dynamic Risk Taking, Craig R. Fox

Current Research Project Synopses

Willingness to take protective action against terrorist activity and willingness to pursue opportunities in the face of terrorist threats depend on a citizen’s risk tolerance. Traditional approaches to modeling risk preferences that are derived from choices between monetary gambles have a poor record predicting risk preferences in nonfinancial domains such as responses to terrorism or natural disasters. A rare exception is a family of dynamic risk taking tasks developed by clinical psychologists. Notably, Lejuez et al. (2002) developed a measure called the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) in which a participant inserts pumps of air into simulated balloons and ...

Enhancing Post-Disaster Economic Recovery: The Case Of Flood Insurance, Howard Kunreuther, Erwann Michel-Kerjan

Current Research Project Synopses

This ongoing project develops measures of individual and corporate demand for catastrophe insurance in order to propose innovative strategies for enhancing economic recovery in the aftermath of a major natural disaster or terrorist attack.

Encouraging individuals and organizations to invest in protective measures (i.e., investing in loss reduction measures, purchasing insurance) and developing strategies for rapid economic recovery after a disaster are national priorities with respect to alleviating the impacts of natural and man-made hazards. The purpose of this research is to provide sound analytic guidance to decision makers regarding the ways risk perception and financial protection of American ...

The Effects Of Time On Anticipated Consequences Of Risks, L. Robin Keller

Current Research Project Synopses

This project investigated the role of time delays in the anticipation of risk consequences involving potentially large impacts with relatively low probabilities. Comparison between perception of terrorism risks and natural disasters or monetary risks can be made in terms of the time effects. The December 31, 2011 report covered the first 6 months of funding, through September 30, 2011. A separate subcontract was written for the completion of the project, ending Sept. 30, 2012.

We investigated the role of time in anticipating consequences of risks, which can be monetary, terrorism, or natural disaster risks. Reactions to such risks can vary ...

Portsec: Port Security Risk And Resource Management System, Michael D. Orosz, Liz Lennon

Current Research Project Synopses

The primary focus of this research is to develop a risk assessment and security resource allocation system targeting seaport operations. Although initially focused on the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (POLA/LB), this project addresses a major challenge faced by operators of all seaports; determining the proper balance between increasing seaport safety, maintaining or maximizing business throughput and minimizing the impact on the environment. Often these three objectives are at odds with one another (e.g., increasing safety by implementing additional scanning technologies can lead to container/truck traffic slow-down with a corresponding increase in pollutants spewed into ...

Comparing Risks In The Homeland Security Mission Space, Henry H. Willis

Current Research Project Synopses

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for protecting communities from the consequences of countless types of accidents, disasters and malicious attacks motivated by terrorism and crime. Managing risks from these hazards involves making choices among alternatives to protect facilities, strengthen infrastructure resilience, and enhance communities’ emergency preparedness. However, doing this requires comparing risks that are different in kind and consequence, and these differences influence risk management priorities.

Reliably capturing these priorities for addressing different accidents, disasters, and terrorism events is a challenging example of comparative risk assessment. The recent National Academy of Sciences review of DHS risk analysis ...

Improving Homeland Security With Decision Analysis, Detlof Von Winterfeldt

Current Research Project Synopses

During Year 8 of CREATE, this project involved two tasks:

1. Attacker-Defender Decision Tree Analysis
2. Development of a DHS Utility Function In addition, this report covers unfunded work conducted between 2009 and the beginning of Year 8.

Defender-attacker decision trees are closely related to leader-follower (von Stackelberg) games, which were adapted for the terrorism context by Milind Tambe and his colleagues at CREATE. Instead of optimizing the defender-attacker decisions at each stage of the extended game, attacker behavior is modeled probabilistically, conditional on defender decisions. This approach was previously applied in a two-stage and multi-stage decision tree for the ...

A Web-Based Application For Estimation Of Personal Vulnerability In Disasters, Haydar Kurban, Mika Kato

Current Research Project Synopses

The goals of the research project at Howard University has been to (a) develop a web-based tool that provides more accurate estimates of uncovered losses during a disaster; (b) inform and educate the public and policy makers about the disaster risks by efficiently combining personal finance, insurance and wealth information with information on disaster strength, availability of insurance, coverage limits, structure types and local economic and government conditions; (c) help and guide the households and local governments in disaster prone areas to minimize private and social costs of disasters; (d) integrate local economic, physical and social factors into overall vulnerability ...

The Perception Of Terrorist Events To Improve Risk Communication: The Influence Of The Near-Miss And Terrorist Risk Factors, Robin Dillon-Merrill, Gary M. Shiffman, Catherine H. Tinsley

Current Research Project Synopses

In the past year, at Georgetown, we have focused on continuing to further our research contributions and to integrate past projects to contribute to the understanding and communication of risks associated with Terrorist Events. We are focusing dually on Near-Miss terrorist events and Terrorist Risk Factors. This project is partly collaborative with CREATE-colleague William Burns and partly collaborative with CREATE-colleague Eli Berman. This project is contributing to terrorism risk perception and communication by developing an understanding of how, why, and to what degree near-miss events are incorporated into a person’s decision calculus at key points before a subsequent hazard ...

Risk Perception, Heather Rosoff, Richard John

Current Research Project Synopses

The objective of this research is to formulate a better understanding of how the public perceives the risk associated with disaster events (both terror and non-terror) and the influence this has on beliefs, risk perceptions, affect and behavioral decision making, both in the immediate and in the long-term.

During Year 8 we made progress by further developing scenario simulations designed to (1) identify the psychological factors that influence individual decision making, (2) study the actual decisions faced by U.S. residents following an attack directed at the U.S., (3) assess both short- and long-term behavioral decision making in response ...