Risk Analysis Commons^™

Guidance Index For Shallow Landslide Hazard Analysis, Cheila Cullen

All Graduate Works by Year: Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Rainfall-induced landslides are one of the most frequent hazards on slanted terrains. They lead to considerable economic losses and fatalities worldwide. Intense storms with high-intensity and long-duration rainfall have high potential to trigger rapidly moving soil masses due to changes in pore water pressure and seepage forces. Nevertheless, regardless of the intensity-duration of the rainfall, shallow landslides are influenced by antecedent soil moisture conditions. To the present day, no system exists that dynamically interrelates these two factors.

This work establishes a relationship between antecedent soil moisture and rainfall expressed in the form of a Shallow Landslide Index (SLI) at 1km ...

Perceived Risks Versus Actual Risks: Managing Hazards Through Negotiation, Kristin S. Shrader-Frechette

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment

The author describes what she calls the "Expert-Judgment Strategy", finding that, because it discounts lay perceptions of risk, it interferes with the acceptance of important but risky technologies.

The Role Of Scientists In Risk Assessment, Halina Szejwald Brown, Robert L. Goble

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment

The authors argue that risk assessors belong to a profession and offer an alternative to the 1983 National Research Council model defining risk assessment. They support and illustrate their model by reexamining three familiar risk assessments: ethylene dibromide, WASH 1400, and Ice Minus Bacteria.

Scientific Method, Anti-Foundationalism, And Public Decision-Making, Kristin Shrader-Frechette

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment

An examination of the legitimacy of attacks on lay assessments of environmental or other technological risk. The case is made that rational policy requires an epistemology in which what we believe about risk is bootstrapped onto how we should act concerning risk.

Risk Objectivism And Risk Subjectivism: When Are Risks Real, Paul B. Thompson

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment

Typically, those who discuss risk management envision a two-step process wherein, first, risk is more or less objectively appraised and, second, the acceptability of those risks is subjectively evaluated. This paper questions the philosophical foundations of that approach.

A Model Of Human Harm From A Falling Unmanned Aircraft: Implications For Uas Regulation, Andrew V. Shelley

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

This paper quantifies the human harm, in the form of fatalities and skull fractures, which could occur as a result of an unmanned aircraft falling from a height. The analysis is used to establish the maximum height at which an unmanned aircraft can be flown over people to achieve a level of safety consistent with the rate of ground fatalities from General Aviation. The maximum height is dependent on the aircraft mass and the population density of people on the ground below.

The results are used to inform a critical evaluation of recent recommendations from the FAA-chartered “Unmanned Aircraft Systems ...

A Risk Based Framework For Evaluating Gated Spillway Operations, Greg Paxson, Marty Mccann Jr, Mark Landis

6ᵗʰ International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures

Gated spillways are often necessary to provide both operational flexibility and discharge capacity to pass large flood events. However, gated spillways present operational challenges to dam owners and operators, often necessitating development of a flood operations plan (FOP) that is used in tandem with the dam’s emergency action plan (EAP). Even a well-intentioned and robust FOP/EAP can require personnel to predict flooding, use judgment particular to the requirements of the plan, and react quickly. In addition, all of the equipment required to operate the gates need to function as designed and be operated in accordance with the FOP ...

Operational Vulnerability Of The High Speed Rail Infrastructure In Malaysia From Climate Change Risks, Sazrul Leena Binti Sa’Adin, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, David Jaroszweski

Sakdirat Kaewunruen

Safety-Based Maintenance For Geometry Restoration Of Railway Turnout Systems In Various Operational Environments, Muhammad Fitri Ishak, Serdar Dindar, Sakdirat Kaewunruen

Sakdirat Kaewunruen

Well I'Ll Be Damned - Insights Into Predictive Value Of Pedigree Information In Horse Racing, Timothy Baker Mr, Ming-Chien Sung, Johnnie Johnson Professor, Tiejun Ma

International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking

Fundamental form characteristics like how fast a horse ran at its last start, are widely used to help predict the outcome of horse racing events. The exception being in races where horses haven’t previously competed, such as Maiden races, where there is little or no publicly available past performance information. In these types of events bettors need only consider a simplified suite of factors however this is offset by a higher level of uncertainty. This paper examines the inherent information content embedded within a horse’s ancestry and the extent to which this information is discounted in the United ...

Quantitative Risk Evaluation Of Obstacle Limitation Surfaces For Final Approaches At Airports, Amila Silva, Alexandre G. De Barros

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Obstacle limitation surfaces (OLS) are the main safeguard against objects that can pose a hazard to aircraft operations at and around airports. The standard dimensions of the most of those surfaces were estimated using the pilot’s experience at the time when they were included in the standard documents. As a result, some of these standards may have been overestimated, while others may not provide an adequate level of safety. With airports moving to the Safety Management System (SMS) approach to design and operations safety, proper evaluation of the level of safety provided by OLS at specific sites becomes important ...

Prosense, Johnny Favazza Ii, Casey Glasgow, Matt Epperson

Computer Engineering

This project aims to gather advanced data sets from MEMS sensors and GPS and deliver it to the user, who can capitalize on the data. The once negligible half-degree difference of your board barreling down a wave can be recorded from a gyro and exploited for the perfect turn. The exact speed dreaded by longboarders where speed wobbles turn into a road rash can be analysed and consequently avoided. Ascertaining the summit of your flight using combined GPS sensors from the ski ramp allows for the correct timing of tricks. When it comes to pursuing excellence in professional sports, amateur ...

Influence Of Personality On Emotional Contagion Through Social Media, Theodore T. Jensen

Honors Scholar Theses

The rapid growth of computers and computing technologies in the recent past has led to dramatic changes in modern social interactions. Connectivity through the internet and social networking sites is a massive part of people's lives, with younger generations learning to interact more and more through these means. It is necessary to recognize the emotional influence of these forms of communication- their influence on mental health will grow as they become a larger part of the social fabric. Facebook and other social media have been shown to be a form of emotional contagion; emotional states can be transferred from ...

Modeling Supply Chain Resiliency, Jeff A. Hazel

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program focusing on the effective and efficient design and development of complex engineered systems throughout their life cycle. There is a growing literature with qualitative definitions of resilience and quantitative models for systems with one performance measure. This paper uses a quantitative resilience framework (the Framework for ERS) that includes system design options, reliability, threats, vulnerabilities, responses, and consequences assessed in multiple system performance measures. The framework assists in establishing a model for any system to evaluate resiliency. This paper applies this framework using Multiple Objective Decision Analysis (MODA) to ...

Developing A Risk Analysis Model To Improve Study Abroad Awareness, Tyler Spain

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

As international education opportunities increase in popularity among U.S. college students (McMurtrie, 2007), it is becoming more and more necessary for study abroad organizations to be aware of the risks students face as they travel abroad. While some international cities are riskier than others, it can be difficult to distinguish between cities which truly carry a high degree of risk for visiting students, and which cities are only perceived to be risky based on various personal misconceptions. The University of Arkansas Office of Study Abroad & International Exchange currently lacks a way to quantifiably analyze the risk of study abroad ...

Financial Performance In Upstream, Downstream, And Integrated Oil Companies In Response To Oil Price Volatility, Jonathan P. Garcia

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper investigates the relation between crude oil price volatility and stock returns among oil companies using a three-part methodology, by using the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) as oil price benchmark. I asses the various indicators that set signals for oil price volatility and the interpretation of each (PMI, S&P500, DJIA, and World Crude Oil Output). This research also focuses on the relation between different types of companies in the oil industry (integrated, upstream, and downstream) and how each type of company will be assessed in a particular way to predict abnormal returns, based on market data and statistical ...

Safety Management Analysis For Construction Industry: Statistical Process Control (Spc) Approach, Zhenpeng Liu

Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the College of Business and Technology Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Zhenpeng Liu on April 26, 2016.

Co-Operation In Health And Safety: A Game Theory Analysis, Sylvie Nadeau

University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] “Health and safety managers face complex challenges in today’s production environments. They are confronted with increasingly flexible, autonomous and polyvalent contexts. Asymmetry of information on the workplace is widespread because various intervening parties rely on information lacking conformity. Social partners generate and use information which supports or benefits their pursuit of differing goals. Ascertaining and controlling this information can prove both difficult and costly. When addressing health and safety issues, one intervening partner alters or changes behavior in response to changes introduced by the other side.1 Strategic behaviors result, based on post-contract opportunism (moral hazard) and alliances ...

Risk Perception Regarding Energy Production: Factor Structure In A French Sample, Etienne Mullet, Anne Bertrand, Cécilia Lazreg, Sheila Rivière Shafighi

University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] "Considering that energy production is a key factor in the development of nations, it is important to have detailed information on the risks attributed by lay people to the different types of energy as well as the different stages of energy production. This study reports on the structure of risk perception with regard to energy production found among French participants. There have already been many investigations of risk perception related to energy production. . . . The present study is a direct extension of the Mullet study. A similar, although more complete, set of items was used. These items related to specific ...

Reply To Dr. Tengs’ Response, Lisa Heinzerling

University of New Hampshire Law Review

[Excerpt] "The primary aim of my article “Five-Hundred Life-Saving Interventions and Their Misuse in the Debate Over Regulatory Reform”1 was to dispel the myth that had grown up around the studies Dr. Tammy Tengs published with Dr. John Graham: that is, the idea that government regulation is responsible for, in Dr. Graham’s words, the “statistical murder”2 of 60,000 people in the United States every year. As I demonstrated in my article, nothing in the work of Drs. Tengs and Graham supports Dr. Graham’s recurring charge of statistical murder through regulation. And nothing in Dr. Tengs ...