ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01250.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01251.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01252.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01253.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The use of random elements in accident analyses is practical in that it avoids the need to enumerate all possible failure paths and allows the application of probability analyses to some elements of a complex system. Sometimes, however, the concept of randomness is used only as a residual category to label unexplained features of accident analysis. When common cause failures or system interactions are involved, such an approach can be misleading. Analyses focusing upon nonrandom elements can thus be important in understanding failures of both technical and organizational systems, and some of the problems of such an approach are explored. A detailed analysis of a fatal fire in a railway sleeping car at Taunton, England, in 1978, demonstrates how initial errors can interact with an existing sociotechnical structure to produce new orderly patterns as an accident develops. A simple model to understand this nonrandom error propagation requires a description of the initial system structure in social and technical terms, specifying features such as the task and the sentient boundaries of subsystems. When an error or a set of errors is introduced into this system, the consequent system interventions are structured by the constraints of the preexisting system which they do not destroy. Rather than offering randomness as an account of such phenomena, the analysis encourages a search for regularities in the apparently unstructured events surrounding large‐scale accidents or system failure

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01254.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

A probabilistic risk assessment study has been undertaken in the French city of Lyons. The issue was to know whether it was justified to forbid hazardous material lorries in the city center and to divert them through the suburbs. Therefore, two routes, the City Center route and the Suburban route were compared. This paper describes the analysis and shows how the results were used in the decision‐making process. It also lists the difficulties that are encountered when trying to incorporate formal risk analysis into actual decision‐making processes. The risk analysis showed that rerouting is an effective option with respect to all criteria. The mathematical expectation of the number of deaths is divided by three, the reduction on the annual frequency of catastrophic accidents is even more important (about one order of magnitude for accidents involving more than 50 deaths). The spatial analysis proved that the risk was more evenly distributed along the Suburban route. However, the annual expected number of death is low: 0.5 in the worst case. So traditional decision‐making approaches do not indicate the necessity of rerouting. Such a situation is believed to be typical for risk management of major hazards. In Lyons, the use of a very small risk aversion factor is sufficient to justify the rerouting option on a formal decision‐aiding basis. This is rather unusual, but it is thought that the recognition of the importance of risk aversion by the decision‐makers themselves is a very positive outcome from t

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01255.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Nuclear power production in France, as the domain of one national utility and one reactor builder, has a standardized profile of technical installations, safety procedures, and personnel qualifications. Despite this relative homogeneity, discrepancies are observed from one production unit to another, notably in the area of worker‐safety performance. There is a strong implication for risk analysis: varying performance cannot be attributed solely to the technical dimensions of equipment, procedures, and human skills. The authors retain as a working hypothesis that safety performance is an outcome of interactions between technical and organizational factors. Traditional risk analysis appears to be underequipped to represent such interactions. The notion of decentralized risk analysis (DRA) is introduced as a means of achieving this goal. A program of applied research carried out in a NPP facility is presented. It aims at increasing, across plant work structure, knowledge and control of these interactions specific to the given context. Systematic measurements and feedback of social representations are performed, using a three‐dimensional factor space of individual and organizational values. Direct involvement of the total plant population, transfer of analytic tools, methodological continuity, interactive elaboration of data, coordination of different levels of findings with operations, follow‐up and feedback of measured change, are the main features of this DRA process. In the case cited, improvement observed in safety performance parallels changes in measured social representations. The value of DRA for articulating technical and organizational dimensions of risk, and for integrating information into decision‐making, is

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01256.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

In recent years a large number of conflicts associated with environmental risks have arisen in Hungary. The case study described here is related to the siting of a hazardous waste incinerator in Dorog. First, the history of the siting procedure is outlined in terms of the multiparty, multiattribute decision framework. Subsequently, the case reveals how stakeholder groups can be identified in the structure of decision‐making, how they think about the object causing the conflict, about the conflict itself, and the possibilities of resolving it. In investigating the conflict, a combination of analytical tools were applied. The multiple‐perspective model of Linstone and the argumentation analysis of Toulmin provided the frame for analyzing the information collected by interviews in the affected town, Dorog, and two other towns affected to different degrees in environmental probl

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01257.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Many problems arise in connection with the communication of risk information. In this article the content of the information communicated is taken as a starting‐point for analyzing the risk communication process. We studied the way in which authorities communicated health risks to local residents in Dutch soil pollution situations and found that communication problems were characterized more by misunderstanding and conflict between parties with different views and interests than by a lack of understanding. Therefore, it is important to look more closely at the way the communicators of information (in our cases, officials) select risk information from risk assessments, and to study the effects that the information selected has on the receivers (in our cases, residents). Both the process of selection by the officials and the process of interpretation by the residents will be shown to be influenced by the different institutional backgrounds. The article presents a new approach to risk communication. Both the risk information presented by the authorities and the public reactions to this risk information are considered to reflect the institutional background of authorities and residents, and can be analyzed in these terms. Such an approach has consequences for the study of risk communication and the manner in which it is practice

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01258.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is now regarded as an essential component in the analysis of risks arising from installations classified as major hazards. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the value of the results in decision‐making in practical situations. The use made of QRA in three contrasting cases which came to extensive public attention in the U.K. is examined. The first concerned an extension of domestic development near a chemical factory; the second an extension to a large petrochemical complex; and the third to a proposal to build a pressurized water reactor. The two public inquiries concerned with the chemical industry accepted standards of individual risk which were comparable to the risks from everyday accidents; the evidence of societal risk that could arise from major accidents at the petrochemical complex was compared with that of a local natural hazard — flooding. Higher standards of individual safety were set in the inquiry into the PWR proposal, and the definition of societal risk was debated at length. The QRA results were analyzed to show that risks arising from accidents were lower than those from normal operations, but they were used explicitly as a check on the overall safety of the design and of the operational and licensing organization. Such qualitative examination will always be required in addition to QRA. All these inquiries were faced with considerable technical argument. There is a need for the full details of risk calculations to be clear. The usefulness of QRA as an input to decision‐making would be much enhanced if the technical points at issue could be clarified outside a formal public inquiry. In addition, there are some technical questions which apply to many installations. There should be better mechanisms of technical debate to achieve a measure of agreement on the optimum methods of calculation in these cases, and some possibilities are exp

ISSN:0272-4332    

DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1989.tb01259.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1989

数据来源: WILEY