Digital Commons Network^™

Optimizing The Project Team's Contribution To Business Objectives, Chad Rowland

All Theses

The traditional expectations of the project team are for the processes of engineering, procurement, construction, and start-up to be expertly administered. However, these performance criteria can be satisfied yet still not meet the ultimate business needs of the owner. The purpose of this thesis was to determine ways to improve the likelihood of achieving owner's business objectives. Fifty-one questionnaire survey forms were analyzed to obtain data for thirty-three pre-project planning activities. A data analysis concluded with a degree of statistical significance that for thirteen of the thirty-three activities, the more successful projects, as defined by the satisfaction of the business …

The Information Security Ownership Question In Iso/Iec 27001 – An Implementation, Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Richard E. Overill

Australian Information Security Management Conference

The information security management standard ISO/IEC 27001 is built on the notion that information security is driven by risk assessment and risk treatment. Fundamental to the success of risk assessment and treatment is the decision making process that takes risk assessment output and assigns decisions to this output in terms of risk treatment actions. It is argued that the effectiveness of the management system lies in its ability to make effective, easytoimplement and measurable decisions. One of the key issues in decision making is ownership. In this paper two aspects of information security ownership are considered: ownership of the asset …

Mapping The Consensual Knowledge Of Security Risk Management Experts, David J. Brooks

Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference

The security industry comprises of diverse and multidisciplined practitioners, originating from many disciplines. It has been suggested that the industry has an undefined knowledge structure, although security experts contain a rich knowledge structure. There has also been limited research mapping security expert knowledge structure, reducing the ability of tertiary educators to provide industry focused teaching and learning. The study utilized multidimensional scaling (MDS) and expert interviews to map the consensual knowledge structure of security experts in their understanding of security risk. Security risk concepts were extracted and critiqued from West Australian university courses. Linguistic analysis categorised the more utilized security …

Assessing The Profitability And Riskiness Of Small Business Lenders In The Banking Industry, James W. Kolari, Charles C. Ou, G. Hwan Shin

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

Two alternatives research hypotheses concerning how small business lending affects bank profitability are tested. The specialization hypothesis argues for higher profitability than other banks due to increased focus on small business lending, whereas the diversification hypothesis asserts that small business lenders' profitability will be lower than other more diversified banks. Using the rate of return on assets as the profit measure, we find that small business exposure tends to have neutral or positive effects on bank profitability after taking into account bank risk. Using efficient frontier analyses that focus on the rate of return on equity, we find that business …

National Security: The Social Implications Of The Politics Of Transparency, M G. Michael, Katina Michael

Faculty of Informatics - Papers (Archive)

This special issue of Prometheus is dedicated to the theme of the Social Implications of National Security Measures on Citizens and Business. National security measures can be defined as those technical and non-technical measures that have been initiated as a means to curb breaches in national security, irrespective of whether these might occur by nationals or aliens in or from outside the sovereign state. National security includes such government priorities as maintaining border control, safeguarding against pandemic outbreaks, preventing acts of terror, and even discovering and eliminating identification fraud. Governments worldwide are beginning to implement information and communication security techniques …

Sublicensing From A Distressed Company: Are You Placing Your Future In The Debtor's Hands?, Michelle M. Harner, David A. Beck

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Junk Food, Health And Productivity: Taste, Price, Risk And Rationality, Amnon Levy

Faculty of Business - Economics Working Papers

Junk-food consumption, health and productivity are analyzed within an expectedlifetime- utility-maximizing framework in which the probability of living and productivity rise with health and health deteriorate with the consumption of junkfood. So long that the junk food’s relative taste-price differential is positive, the rational diet deviates from the physiologically optimal and renders the levels of health and productivity lower than the maximal. Taxing junk-food can eliminate this discrepancy but the outcome is not Pareto-superior. The value of health and the stationary junk-food consumption and health depend on the relative taste-price differential, survival and satisfaction elasticities and time preference-rate.

Landscape Use And Movements Of Wolves In Relation To Livestock In A Wildland–Agriculture Matrix, Andreas S. Chavez, Eric M. Gese

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Wolves (Canis lupus) have expanded their distribution into areas of the midwest United States that have not had wolves for several decades. With recolonization of wolves into agricultural areas, there is increasing concern of wolf–livestock conflicts. To assess the risk wolves may pose to livestock, we initiated a 3-year study investigating the activity patterns, movements, habitat use, visitation to livestock pastures by wolves, and the occurrence of depredation events in an agricultural–wildland matrix in northwestern Minnesota, USA. From June 1997 to November 1999, we captured 23 wolves, including pups, from 3 packs; we radio-collared 16 of these wolves. …

Risk Aversion And Rights Accretion In Intellectual Property Law, James Gibson

ExpressO

Intellectual property’s road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because liability is difficult to predict, intellectual property users often seek licenses even when proceeding without one might be permissible. Yet because the existence (vel non) of licensing markets plays a key role in determining the breadth of rights, these seemingly sensible licensing decisions eventually feed back into doctrine; the licensing itself becomes proof that the entitlement covers the use. Over time, then, public privilege recedes and rights expand, moving intellectual property’s ubiquitous gray areas into what used to be virgin territory--where risk aversion again creates licensing markets, which cause …

Learning The Wrong Lessons From "An American Tragedy": A Critique Of The Berger-Twerski Informed Choice Proposal, David E. Bernstein

Michigan Law Review

Margaret Berger and Aaron Twerski are among the leading scholars in their respective fields of Evidence and Products Liability. I have benefited from their work on many occasions. Precisely because of the deserved respect and esteem in which Berger and Twerski are held-not to mention the prominence of their forum, the Michigan Law Review-their proposal to create a new "informed choice" cause of action in pharmaceutical litigation is likely to receive sympathetic attention. Because I believe that their proposal is ill-conceived and dangerous, I feel compelled (with some trepidation) to write this response. Berger and Twerski propose that courts recognize …

From The Wrong End Of The Telescope: A Response To Professor David Bernstein, Margaret A. Berger, Aaron D. Twerski

Michigan Law Review

On the pages of this law review, in an article entitled Uncertainty and Informed Choice: Unmasking Daubert, the authors argued for the recognition of a new product liability cause of action when drug companies fail to warn about uncertain risks attendant to the use of non-therapeutic drugs whose purpose is to enhance lifestyle. We noted that in the post-Daubert era, plaintiffs have faced increasing difficulty in proving that a given toxic agent was causally responsible for the injuries suffered after ingesting a drug. That plaintiffs cannot overcome the barriers to proving injury causation does not mean that defendants have met …

The Sociality Of Cultural Industries: Hong Kong's Cultural Policy And Film Industry, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, I explore the sociality of cultural industries by analyzing the film industry in Hong Kong. In particular, the social networks and relationships at multiple scales – across national boundaries, within local settings and on production sets – are examined, revealing their critical role in contributing to the health of the film industry. The risks faced at various steps of the production, marketing and distribution process are ameliorated by trust relations, built up through time between social actors in spontaneous ways. While Hong Kong cultural policy in part seeks to create the social and spatial contexts within which …

Tools To Support A Model-Based Methodology For Benefit/Cost/Risk Analysis Of Wastewater Treatment Systems, Lorenzo Benedetti, Davide Bixio, Filip Claeys, Peter A. Vanrolleghem

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper presents a set of tools developed to support an innovative four-step methodology to design and upgrade wastewater treatment systems. For the first step of data collection and data reconstruction, two different tools have been developed, one for situations where data are available (using data reconstruction methods) and another for situations where no data are (yet) available (based on a simple draining catchment model driven by actual local rain series). The second step, i.e. model building, implied the development of a new simulation platform and of grid software to deal with the considerable simulation load generated by the third …

Tools To Support A Model-Based Methodology For Benefit/Cost/Risk Analysis Of Wastewater Treatment Systems, Lorenzo Benedetti, Davide Bixio, Filip Claeys, Peter A. Vanrolleghem

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper presents a set of tools developed to support an innovative four-step methodology to design and upgrade wastewater treatment systems. For the first step of data collection and data reconstruction, two different tools have been developed, one for situations where data are available (using data reconstruction methods) and another for situations where no data are (yet) available (based on a simple draining catchment model driven by actual local rain series). The second step, i.e. model building, implied the development of a new simulation platform and of grid software to deal with the considerable simulation load generated by the third …

Soap Box: If Katina Michael Could Send A Message To Government, It Would Be This..., K. Michael

Professor Katina Michael

No abstract provided.

On Tsunami Risk Assessment For The West Coast Of Thailand, Farrokh Nadim, Thomas Glade

Geohazards

The catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004 raised a number of questions for scientists and politicians on how to deal with the tsunami risk in coastal regions. This paper discusses the challenges in tsunami risk evaluation and presents the results of a tsunami risk mitigation study for the west coast of Thailand. It is argued that a scenario-based approach is particularly well suited for evaluation of the risk posed by tsunamis. The approach consists of considering scenarios of plausible extreme, tsunami-generating events, computing the tsunami inundation levels caused by these events, estimating the possible range of casualties for …

A Capacity Spectrum Method For Seismic Risk Assessment, Sergio Molina, Conrad D. Lindholm

Geohazards

Although earthquakes and the associated damage occur in a fundamentally deterministic way, the processes are so complex that our prediction scenarios are basically uncertain approximations. In the first attempts to model hazard and risk, point estimates based on empirical data were used, however, for quite some time the more advanced seismic hazard modelling has been based on models in which the variability/uncertainty of the input parameters are consistently carried through the computations so that the results are probabilistically combined to give a median value and confidence levels that reflect on the input parameter uncertainty. For seismic damage scenarios the first …

Cost Evaluation For Traffic And Transport Infrastructure Projects Taking Account Of Project Risks, Rudolf Poettler, H. F. Schweiger

Geohazards

The realisation of large transport infrastructure projects is influenced by a wide range of different factors. The general expectation that a project should be carried out under defined boundary conditions within the planned period and on budget requires a high level of design, planning and controlling. This paper discusses standardised comprehensible fundamental rules and guidelines for defining project costs and project budgets of infrastructure projects taking into account risk assessment and risk management. Adhering to these guidelines and rules contributes to ensure that the structure can be built in the required quality, on schedule and on budget, as well as …

Dealing With Uncertainty In Engineering Design For Large-Scale Gravel Soil Slopes In The Three Gorges Reservoir Zone, Wilson H. Tang, L. M. Zhang, Y. R. Zheng

Geohazards

The objective of this paper is to first present a general formulation for analysis of uncertainties and evaluation of risks associated with large-scale slopes. The risks may be expressed in terms of the reliability of the system and the consequence. Preliminary studies regarding the mitigation of landslides in the Three-Gorge reservoir zone (TGRZ) of the Yangtze River is presented next. At the normal water level of 175 m, the Three-Gorge reservoir stretches for 665 km along the Yangtze River and extends into many tributaries. Some 684 colluvial deposits, ancient slides and hanging rock blocks, which are larger than 100,000 m3 …

Urban Earthquake Risk, Mustafa Erdik

Geohazards

The impact of earthquakes in urban areas is a complex problem compounded by multi-hazard and consequential risk issues, enormous inventory of vulnerable physical elements and the attendant socio-economic problems. A review of our state-of-knowledge and applications on the assessment of urban earthquake risk is provided. Rational urban risk predictions and expected losses from major earthquakes in the future serve the basis and also provide strong reasons for the proactive risk mitigation activities.

Dam Risk Analysis Using Bayesian Networks, Marc Smith

Geohazards

The risks related to existing hydraulic structures have been analyzed using bayesian networks. The proposed multidisciplinary approach allowed the comparison, according to the probability of failure being used as a common denominator, of the geotechnical, hydrological and structural risks. The factors contributing the most to the overall risk have been identified as well as the interventions to be realized in priority. The presented concepts consider dam risk in a more global and holistic way.

Risk Assessment Due To Debris Flows In Paz De Río-Colombia, Carlos Eduardo Rodriguez, O. I. Chaparro, G. Flechas

Geohazards

Paz de Río is an important economic area of Colombia where iron mines produce most of the mineral for the steel production in the country. Along the La Chapa creek some debris flows have occurred since 1963 producing economic losses and human deaths at Santa Teresa village. Economical losses are related to disruption of the main access to La Chapa iron mine facilities, and flooding of Paz de Río due to damming of Chicamocha River, the main drainage system of the region, which is blocked by debris flows.

The local authority for Natural Disaster Management (CREPAD) jointly with the Universidad …

3d Visualization For Urban Earthquake Risk, S. Kemec, S. Duzgun

Geohazards

Visualization is the graphical presentation of information, with the goal of improving the viewer’s understanding of the information contents. As today’s world is getting richer in information, visualization of the information is important for effective communication and decision making. In this study, generation of a 3D city model in CAD environment and its use in a spatial decision support system for earthquake risk in an urban area is presented. As CAD products’ quality is more enhanced than the other tools the 3D city model is generated in CAD environment. In CAD environment, a 2D building foot print vector layer is …

Risk Analyses And Risk Management - Slope Instabilities In Alpine Environments, S. Eder, G. Poscher, C. Prager

Geohazards

Two prominent deep-seated gravitational slope deformations in the Eastern Alps (Tyrol, Austria) have been activated in the last seven years and pose serious threats to the densely populated valleys. Based on multidisciplinary field investigations, different hazard scenarios of slope failures have been evaluated for risk management processes. These event scenarios, which are characterised by strongly varying volumes of the failing slide masses as well as by different probabilities of occurrence, and varying disintegration factors control different accumulation and damage scenarios. Finally, these evaluations and risk analyses aimed to define “design events”, i.e. which scenarios are relevant for the dimensioning of …

Quantitative Risk Assessment As Applied To Natural Terrain Landslide Hazard Management In A Mid-Levels Catchment, Hong Kong, Ian Muir, K. K. S. Ho, H. W. Sun, T. H. H. Hui, Y. C. Koo

Geohazards

This paper presents a case study of the application of quantitative risk assessment techniques to a site-specific natural terrain hazard study in Hong Kong. The development of the landslide hazard and susceptibility models is described and salient details of the consequence model are given, including the assessment of debris flowpaths and runout using state-of-the-art Geographic Information System (GIS) tools and debris runout computer models. A synthesis of the risk quantification process and schematic design of risk mitigation works is presented.

The 1999 Colorado Springs, Colorado Landslides – Federal, State And Local Government Response; Public Involvement; And Future Long-Term Risks And Challenges, Mark W. Squire

Geohazards

In the spring of 1999, heavy rain precipitated landslides in over 12 developed areas in Colorado Springs. The landslide damage and destruction exceeded $80 million dollars. A combined federal, state and local response included active participation by property owners in an open and transparent public process. The resulting federally funded mitigation project was a success, but this can only be considered an interim objective for an inherent serious local problem. Colorado Springs is normally an arid environment but high moisture years, like 1999, can result in activation of new landslides and reactivation of existing landslides. Residential neighborhoods continue to expand …

Turning Points And Protective Processes: A Qualitative Study On Resilient Youth Through Their Perspective As Resilient Adults, Michael E. Monson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study investigates the processes of resiliency and the turning points of decision-making in youth from at-risk environments. The study utilizes a constructivist, qualitative approach, to examine indicators of resiliency from both an individual and contextual perspective. The narrative descriptions of eleven adults from at-risk childhoods are analyzed through biographical interviews.

Analyses were completed to determine common factors that contribute to the process of resiliency in successful adults. Results indicate that the influences of risk on healthy functioning are modified by shifting environmental protective factors, resources, and developed attributes of self-efficacy. Risk and adversity had a strengthening effect that contributed …

To Err Is Human, Keith A. Rowley

Michigan Law Review

There are many kinds of mistakes. One kind-a rational, well-intended act or decision resulting in unanticipated, negative consequences-was the focus of Allan Farnsworth's previous foray into the realm of legal angst. Another kind-an act or decision prompted by an inaccurate, incomplete, or uninformed mental state and resulting in unanticipated, negative consequences- is the subject of the present book. Like its predecessor, Alleviating Mistakes does not confine itself to contract law, Farnsworth's home turf; it explores criminal, tort, restitution, and other areas of substantive law as well. As such, it paints on too large a canvas to capture its entirety in …

Type 2 Diabetes And The Risk Of Osteoporotic Hip Fracture In Utah Men And Women, Megan Bunch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Prior studies have unequivocally established a consistent association between osteoporotic hip fracture risk and type 2 diabetes mellitus. One reason this association still remains unclear is primarily due to the limited amount of research conducted in this area. The Utah Study of Nutrition and Bone Health (USNBH) is a case-control study conducted in Utah during the period of 1997-2001 to determine risk factors for osteoporotic hip fracture. All study participants (n = 2590) were determined from Utah residents 50-90 years of age. Cases were determined from 18 Utah hospitals during 1997-2001. Age and gender-matched controls were randomly selected from the …

Milk Intake In Early And Late Adulthood And Risk Of Osteoporotic Hip Fractures In Utah, Melanie Jean Slavens

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The relationship between milk intake and risk of osteoporotic fractures is uncertain. Associations between milk intake and milk avoidance in relation to osteoporotic hip fracture were examined in the Utah Study of Nutrition and Bone Health (USNBH), a statewide case-control study. Cases were ascertained at Utah hospitals treating 98 percent of hip fractures during 1997-2001 and included 1188 men and women aged 50-89 years. Age- and gender-matched controls were randomly selected from Utah driver's license and Medicare databases (N= 1324). In-person interviews were conducted and participants reported frequency of milk intake per week at age 18 and during pregnancy among …