Risk Assessment Phase Research Articles

Integrating Risk Management and Communication Strategies in Technical Research Programs to Secure High-Value Investments

Securing high-value investments, such as large-scale research grants, requires a strategic approach that integrates effective risk management and communication strategies. In the context of technical research programs, where complexity, uncertainty, and innovation are central, these elements play a crucial role in ensuring success and sustainability. This paper proposes a framework that combines risk assessment with targeted stakeholder engagement to enhance the likelihood of securing substantial funding. The framework emphasizes the identification, analysis, and mitigation of risks, particularly those related to technological feasibility, project timelines, and financial sustainability. It also underscores the importance of proactive communication with stakeholders, including funding agencies, researchers, and external collaborators, to foster trust and align expectations. The proposed framework begins with a comprehensive risk assessment phase, where potential risks are identified and categorized based on their impact on the program's objectives. These risks include technological challenges, regulatory issues, market uncertainties, and internal resource constraints. Once identified, the framework suggests the implementation of mitigation strategies, such as adopting flexible project timelines, securing backup funding sources, and leveraging partnerships with industry leaders. The integration of real-time monitoring tools and adaptive risk management protocols ensures that potential issues are addressed promptly throughout the program lifecycle. Equally important is the communication strategy, which aims to build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders through transparent, timely, and targeted communication. By aligning the research program's objectives with the priorities and concerns of funding bodies, the framework increases the likelihood of receiving large-scale grants. The communication plan also addresses how to demonstrate the program’s potential impact, progress, and risk mitigation efforts effectively to secure continuous funding. Ultimately, this integrated approach strengthens the competitiveness of technical research programs and enhances their ability to attract high-value investments. The paper concludes by discussing the framework’s potential applications across various technical research sectors, including healthcare, energy, and engineering. Keywords: Risk Management, Communication Strategy, Technical Research Programs, Stakeholder Engagement, High-Value Investments, Grant Securing, Risk Mitigation, Funding Strategy.

AQbD TLC-densitometric method approach along with green fingerprint and whiteness assessment for quantifying two combined antihypertensive agents and their impurities.

Preserving the environment, reducing the amount of waste resulting from chemical trials, and reducing the amount of energy consumed have currently become a pivotal global trend. An analytical quality by design (AQbD) based eco-friendly TLC-densitometric method was implemented for quantifying two antihypertensive agents, captopril (CPL) and hydrochlorothiazide (HCZ), along with their impurities; captopril disulphide (CDS), chlorothiazide (CTZ) and salamide (SMD). The analytical target profile (ATP) was first identified, followed by selecting the critical analytical attributes (CAAs), such as retardation factors and resolution between the separated peaks. Critical method parameters (CMPs) that may have a crucial influence on CAAs were identified and emanated through the quality risk assessment phase. A literature survey-based preliminary studies were performed, followed by optimization of the selected CMPs through a custom experimental design to attain the highest resolution with optimum retardation factors. Moreover, method robustness was also tested by testing the design space. Complete separation of the drugs and their impurities was achieved using ethyl acetate: glacial acetic acid (6: 0.6, v/v) as a developing system applied to a 12cm length TLC plate at room temperature with UV scanning at 215nm. Calibration graphs were found to be linear in the ranges of (0.70-6.00), (0.10-2.00), (0.20-1.00), (0.07-1.50) and (0.05-1.00) µg/band corresponding to CPL, HCZ, CDS, CTZ, and SMD, respectively. Four different green metric tools were used to evaluate the greenness profile of the proposed method, and results showed that it is greener than the reported HPLC method. Method whiteness assessment was also conducted. Moreover, the method performance was evaluated following the ICH guidelines, and the outcomes fell within the acceptable limits. The developed method could be approved for routine assay of the cited components in their pharmaceutical formulations and bulk powder without interference from the reported impurities. The issue of concern is saving money, especially in developing countries.

Predictors of Quitting Dual Use of Electronic Cigarettes and Cigarettes During Pregnancy.

Background and Aims: There is limited research surrounding dual maternal use of cigarettes and electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes). We aimed to assess predictors of maternal quitting of cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and both during late pregnancy. Materials and Methods: We analyzed dual use (n = 4,006) and exclusive e-cigarette use (n = 1,685) among mothers using data from the 2016 to 2019 phase of the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring Systems (PRAMS), a nationally representative sample of the United States. Dual use and exclusive e-cigarette use were defined based on use reported during the 3 months before pregnancy and quitting was assessed during the last 3 months of pregnancy. Multinomial and binomial logistic regression models estimated the odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for predictors of quitting status among mothers who reported dual use and exclusive e-cigarette use, respectively. Separate predictor analyses were conducted in the dual and exclusive e-cigarette use groups to see predictors of quitting e-cigarettes, cigarettes, or both. Results: The highest proportion of mothers who used cigarettes and e-cigarettes before pregnancy quit both during late pregnancy (46.2%), followed by those who quit e-cigarette use only (26.5%) and those who quit cigarette use only (6.6%). Among mothers who reported dual use, those who were African American or Asian, of Hispanic ethnicity, consumed alcohol before pregnancy, had higher education, were married, had diabetes, had higher annual household income, had nongovernmental health insurance, had more prenatal care visits, had a higher frequency of e-cigarette use before pregnancy, had a lower frequency of cigarette use before pregnancy, and smoked hookah around pregnancy had a higher likelihood of quitting both cigarette and e-cigarette use during late pregnancy. Conclusions: Quitting use of cigarettes and/or e-cigarettes was fairly common among mothers who reported dual use or e-cigarette use only. Sociodemographics, pregnancy characteristics, and use of other tobacco products predicted quitting use of both cigarettes and e-cigarettes during late pregnancy.

Medical Device Software: From Requirements to Certification.

The role of software in healthcare is getting more and more pervasive. Nevertheless, manufacturers sometimes forget that these software are medical devices and must be certified according to the EU Medical Device Regulation 2017/745. In this work we propose a pipeline for developing a Medical Device Software (MDS) compliant with the regulations and certifiable. The pipeline includes the phase of requirements elicitation, risk assessment and analysis of effectiveness as key elements. The preparation of the technical file should be carried out in parallel with the MDS development. In the overall, it can be stated that the certification process starts with the conceptualization of the MDS and proceeds all along its design and implementation.

A risk assessment framework using neutrosophic theory for the halal supply chain under an uncertain environment

PurposeThe complex network structure causes several disruptions in the supply chain that make risk management essential for supply chain management including halal supply chain (HSM). During risk management, several challenges are associated with the risk assessment phase, such as incomplete and uncertain information about the system. To cater this, the authors propose a risk assessment framework that addresses the issues of uncertainty using neutrosophic theory and demonstrated the applicability of the proposed framework through the case of halal supply chain management (HSCM).Design/methodology/approachThe proposed framework is using the capabilities of the neutrosophic number which can handle uncertain, vague and incomplete information. Initially, the risk related to the HSC is identified through a literature review and expert’s input. Further, the probability and impact of each HSM-related risk are assessed using experts’ input through linguistic terms. These linguistic values are transformed into single-value trapezoidal neutrosophic numbers (SVTNNs). Finally, the severity of each HSM-related risk is determined through the multiplication of the probability and impact of each risk and prioritised the risks based on their severity.FindingsA comprehensive risk assessment framework is developed that could be used under uncertainty. Initially, 16 risks are identified related to the HSM. Further, the identified risks are prioritised using the severity of the risks. The high-priority risk is “raw material status”, “raw material wholesomeness” and “origin of raw material” while “information integrity” and “people integrity” are low-priority risks.Practical implicationsHSM risk can be effectively assessed through the proposed framework. The proposed framework applied neutrosophic numbers to represent real-life situations, and it could be used for other supply chains as well.Originality/valueThe proposed method is effectively addressing the issue of linguistic subjectivity, inconsistent information and uncertainty in the expert’s opinion. A case study of the HSC is adopted to illustrate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed risk framework.

Ergonomic Interventions in the Implementation of Risk-Based Audit to Overcome Dysfunctional Auditor Behavior

It is undeniable that auditors are expected to develop a strong audit plan to produce value-added audit reports. Given the preceding, current practice in auditing shows that many auditors use Risk-Based Audit (RBA) to determine an appropriate audit scope. RBA could effectively guide auditors to define audit scope based on the assessed risk. However, RBA does not consider human factors in performing audits. Consequently, most auditors encounter time budget pressure in meeting tight audit deadlines. Such an issue could adversely affect auditors' productivity and health. On the other hand, ergonomics is a discipline that focuses on human capabilities in completing tasks. The study also guides employees to adapt to the job while improving their well-being and increasing the quality of work results. Therefore, this study aims to intervene the principles of RBA with ergonomics. RBA consists of three stages: risk assessment, response, and reporting. The authors have concluded that ergonomics could intervene in RBA in the risk response step once the risk level is determined in the risk assessment phase by conducting a literature review study. Therefore, the auditors should balance the time budget allocation based on the assessed audit risk (low, moderate, or high). As the entity's risk is high, the audit team should be given an extended time allocation and vice versa. The findings suggest that auditors should develop an appropriate time budget scheme for specific audit procedures based on the assessed risks resulting from RBA implementation.

Extension of safety and critical effect analysis to neutrosophic sets for the evaluation of occupational risks

Occupational health and safety applications require a comprehensive risk analysis to protect employees from accidents caused by various hazard sources in the workplace. Therefore, in the literature, there are various risk assessment methods utilizing various parameters. One of them is safety and critical effect analysis (SCEA) which is the method that calculates risk magnitude based on the highest number of parameters that are probability, severity, frequency, and detectability. However, the risk assessment phase includes uncertainties and inconsistencies caused by both evaluations of experts and the complex structure of the handled process. Therefore, we proposed a new risk assessment approach to cope with these uncertainties and inconsistencies by extending SCEA with the Neutrosophic sets. In this study, each parameter, probability, severity, frequency, and detectability, is defined by using truth membership function, falsity membership function, and indeterminacy membership function in Neutrosophic sets (NSs) to deal with incomplete, indeterminate, and inconsistent information existing in the expert preferences and complex structure of the handled process. It is the first time, the indeterminacy of NSs is defined based on truth and falsity definitions by using a rule-based system based on probability, severity, frequency, and detectability parameters. Furthermore, Mamdani fuzzy inference system used in the SCEA method is adapted to NSs. The proposed approach is applied to the metalworking and woodworking workshop of a university. The obtained results are compared with the results of the SCEA method. It is concluded that the proposed approach is better than SCEA method to consider inconsistencies in the risk evaluation.

Challenges of Integration Risk Management of Sustainability of Business Processes to Corporate Governance of the Company

The sustainability of risk management process discussed in this article is a business process that supports the company’s sustainability goals and aims to align sustainability with risk management based on corporate risk management principles. The associated risks are determined by the ESG practice of the company’s business, its strategy and the sector of the economy in which it operates. The Committee on Sustainable Development of FERMA in ESG considers environmental risks (climate, resources, pollution), social risks (people and communications, products and services, external and internal shareholders) and management risks (corporate governance, business ethics and behavior). Companies in the “sustainable development” phase take a corporate approach to ESG risks and link them to common strategic objectives. In the process of identifying ESG risks, it is possible to follow different approaches, in particular, maintaining a risk register, including ESG risks, or discussing the company’s various sustainability prospects with top management and shareholders and, associated risks, or sorting risks related to strategic, operational and external, taking into account the impact on the state of sustainability of the company and, finally, in-depth analysis of all sustainability risks can be performed, and identified risks can be tracked in a common registry along with other business risks. The risk assessment phase aims at potential risk by quantifying its probability of occurrence and impact. At the same time, the assessment of sustainability should be broader and multidimensional, the potential consequences for the company, its reputation and durability should be taken into account.

Using an expert judgment response matrix to assess the risk of groundwater discharges from remediated fuel spill sites to the marine environment at sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, Australia.

ABSTRACTThis study assesses toxicity of groundwater from remediated fuel spill sites, as the final phase of an environmental risk assessment of contaminated sites at sub‐Antarctic Macquarie Island, Tasmania, Australia. To complement previous terrestrial ecotoxicological research, we determine risk to marine environments from residual biodegraded hydrocarbon contaminants in groundwater discharges. Direct toxicity assessments were conducted on 7 composite groundwater test solutions, adjusted to ambient seawater salinity. Eleven native marine invertebrates (from varied taxa: gastropods, bivalves, flatworms, amphipods, copepods, isopods) were exposed and observed for up to 21 d. Lethal time estimates (LT10, LT50) showed sensitivity was time dependent (LT10s = 4–15 d) and variable between species. Three species showed no response to any test solution, and most species did not respond for up to 5 d. Data were interpreted using an expert judgment response matrix with multiple lines of evidence to predict risk. No consistent patterns in the relative toxicity of test solutions, based on polar or nonpolar hydrocarbon concentrations, were identified. Although toxicity was observed in some species, this was only under worst‐case conditions of undiluted, continuous, extended exposure. Natural dynamics of the site, including low groundwater discharge rates, high rainfall, and a highly energetic receiving environment, ensure groundwater is rapidly diluted and dispersed. In this context, and based on site conditions at the time of testing, these toxicity assessments provide robust evidence that residual contamination in groundwater at remediated sites at Macquarie Island is unlikely to represent a risk to the adjacent marine communities tested. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;17:785–801. © 2020 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC)

Dental software classification and dento-facial interdisciplinary planning platform.

Despite all advantages provided by the digital workflow, its application in clinical practice is still more focused on device manufacturing and clinical execution than on treatment planning and communication. The most challenging phases of treatment, comprehensive planning, diagnosis, risk assessment, and decision-making, are still performed without significant assistance from digital technologies. This article proposes a new dental software classification based on the digital workflow timeline, considering the moment of patient's case acceptance as key in this classification, and presents the ideal software tools for each phase. The proposed classification will help clinicians and dental laboratories to choose the most appropriate software during the treatment planning phase and integrate virtual plans with other software platforms for digitally guided execution. A dento-facial interdisciplinary planning platform virtually simulates interdisciplinary clinical procedures and assists in the decision-making process. The suggested classification assists professionals in different phases of the digital workflow and provides guidelines for improvement and development of digital technologies before treatment plan acceptance by the patient. Three-dimensional interdisciplinary simulations allow clinicians to visualize how each dental procedure influences further treatments. With this treatment planning approach, predictability of different procedures in restorative dentistry, orthodontics, implant dentistry, periodontal, and oral maxillofacial surgery is improved.

EFSA under Revision: Transparency and Sustainability in the Food Chain

Abstract In a time of structural challenges to the integrity, validity, and reliability of science, the new Regulation 2019/1381 aims to rethink the risk assessment phase for greater transparency and sustainability in the food chain. The novel set of provisions calls, inter alia, for Member States’ and civil society’s involvement in the management structure and scientific panels of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Using the European process of ‘agencification’ as a theoretical background, this analysis addresses which problems the reformed legal framework aims to solve as regards EFSA’s governance and which new questions it simultaneously brings to the forefront.

Quantitative assessment of ground deformations for the risk management of petroleum and gas pipelines using radar interferometry

The primary objective of these studies was to quantitatively assess the ground deformation velocities and rates and their natural and man-made controlling factors as the potential risks along the seismically active 70 km section of buried Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Oil, South Caucasus Gas, Western Route Oil and South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion Gas pipelines in Azerbaijan using Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) technique. PS-InSAR analysis showed that the continuous subsidence was prevailing in the kilometer range of 13-70 of pipelines crossing two active seismic faults. The ground uplift deformations were observed in the pipeline kilometer range of 0-13. The minimum and maximum vertical ground movement velocities were observed to be −21.3 mm/y and 14.1 mm/y along 70 km section of pipelines with 250 m buffer zone. Both of these sites were observed at the range of seismic faults. The spatial distribution of sites with ground deformation velocity less than −15 mm/y and more than 15 mm/y was diverse and random all along 70 km of pipelines without any cumulative spatial patterns. Based on the lower mean, variation and standard deviation of pixel values, the seismic fault in the kilometer range of 21-31 revealed its higher vulnerability to subsidence processes rather than the Seismic Fault in the kilometer range of 46-54. The ground deformation velocities within the range of Seismic Fault KP21-31 revealed the minimum and maximum values of −19.74 mm/y and 14.1 mm/y, respectively whereas at the Seismic Fault KP46-54, the minimum and maximum values were −17.07 mm/y and 9.29 mm/y, respectively. Encouraging level of agreement with the regression coefficients of 0.92 and 0.96 for known subsiding sites at KP28 + 500 and KP52 + 750 and 0.97 and 0.96 for known uplifting sites at KP04 + 900 and KP35 + 050 respectively was observed between the high-precision GPS and PS-InSAR measurements. The diverse spatial distribution and variation of ground movement processes along pipelines demonstrated that general geological and geotechnical understanding of the study area is not sufficient to find and mitigate all the critical sites of subsidence and uplifts for the pipeline operators. The prediction of the potential subsidence or uplift locations based on the field visual verifications holds a lot of uncertainties without broad and detailed scale airborne and satellite space observation technologies. The justification of the budget for the geotechnical maintenance activities along long-range oil and gas pipelines requires sophisticated prioritization and planning of the remediation sites and clear quantitative and qualitative risk assessment proving the activeness of these sites and effectiveness of the remediation measures. This means that the PS-InSAR – based approach outlined in this paper is a significant improvement over current ground-based monitoring practices or can significantly contribute them in the initial phase of risk assessment and prioritization.

Copernicus Sentinel imagery for more risk-resilient historic cities in coastal zones: contribution to the monitoring of Albenga archaeological site and delta of river Centa

Earth observation (EO) technologies and products are traditionally providing an extremely important contribution to a more efficient management of built areas and people during emergencies. Their employment could be extremely useful in monitoring and risk assessment of protected monument and sites situated in potentially vulnerable areas such as costal zones. Change detection has a crucial role in such activities, especially in case of hazardous events—on one side, this method can provide inputs in the phases of risk assessment and rapid mapping for immediate response; on the other side, over prolonged periods of time after the event, change detection can be used for purposes of option analysis of technical solutions and for overall recovery planning of the site. Workflow proposed is based on the use of Copernicus Sentinel-2 data to provide the comparison of changes occurring during extreme flooding events of river Centa, Liguria. Firstly, an investigation of NDVI and NDWI of the extreme flooding event occurring in November 2019 was conducted. The event was then put in correlation with another previously studied flooding hazard occurring in 2016 in the same area that has caused severe damages to the archaeological remains of the medieval church of San Clemente, situated within the Centa riverbed. In conclusion, the results from both years have been compared with ground truth data of topographic database in order to observe the extension of the flooded area and to provide contribution to the monitoring activities. The aim of the research was to offer some novel insight for a more informed decision-making during the risk assessment, risk management and resilience phases regarding the vulnerable built heritage sites found in coastal areas.

Tornado warning awareness, information needs and the barriers to protective action of individuals who are blind

Individuals with disabilities are often vulnerable to the impacts of weather hazards, such as tornadoes. This is especially true in the Southeast where vulnerability to tornadoes is already heightened due to both physical and socioeconomic factors. To better understand and possibly reduce this vulnerability, we conducted interviews with 25 residents of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi who are legally blind. The goal of the interviews was to understand how people who are blind receive and respond to tornado warnings. Participants were asked to discuss the sources they use for severe weather information, their likes and dislikes about the current warning system, warning elements that allow them to personalize the risk, and barriers in their ability to obtain warning information, assess risk, or respond to it. Results suggest that good verbal description or the lack of detailed verbal description were of the greatest importance in our participants’ ability to effectively use warning information and act on it. This included audio for television warning crawls, and the level of description provided during severe weather coverage. Ample geographic description was important in their ability to personalize the threat. The greatest number of barriers were associated with the risk assessment phase; however, the single most common barrier mentioned by participants was that they would have no safe place to go during a tornado.

Parity and the Association Between Maternal Sociodemographic Characteristics and Breastfeeding.

Objective: Although clinicians recognize the importance of breastfeeding for child health, breastfeeding initiation can be limited by maternal characteristics such as race/ethnicity, age at first birth, and educational attainment. We hypothesized that the strong influence of prior infant feeding experiences on multiparous women's decision to initiate and continue breastfeeding may mean that these maternal characteristics influence breastfeeding more strongly for primiparas than multiparas. Materials and Methods: Using Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS) (Phase 8) survey data from 2016 to 2017, we analyzed mothers' responses to the supplemental question about parity, "Before you got pregnant with your new baby, did you ever have any other babies who were born alive?" Study variables were summarized by using weighted means and proportions and compared according to parity by using Wald tests. In the overall cohort, we evaluated the interaction between parity and each covariate by using logistic regression. Results: In our sample (N = 20,694), 40% of respondents were first-time mothers, and 88% had initiated breastfeeding. Primiparas were more likely to breastfeed than multiparas (92% versus 86%; p < 0.001), but they had shorter mean breastfeeding duration. On unadjusted analysis, four covariates were more strongly associated with breastfeeding initiation among primiparas than multiparas (maternal age, educational attainment, receiving breastfeeding information from a nurse or other medical professional, and receiving breastfeeding information from family or friends). Conclusions: Breastfeeding initiation is impacted more strongly by maternal characteristics for primiparas than multiparas.

Evaluation and Management of Patients with Methomyl Poisoning – A Case Report

The Apulian Poison Centre (PC) of Foggia, Italy, annually manages numerous consultations concerning certain or suspected poisonings from pesticides, starting at the same time a careful activity related to the risk assessment phase. The management of the exposure to pesticides and to other chemicals, and the alerting of the “National center for chemicals, cosmetics and consumer protection” at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS), actively contributes to the improvement of products quality and safety. Thus, leading to a reduction in the number of intoxications - and therefore of the accesses to the emergency services - allows greater protection for workers, bystanders, residents and consumers. The reported case of methomyl poisoning has been of fundamental importance both from the medical point of view and for the management of the intoxicated patient, both for the risk assessment actions, and for cooperation with the competent authorities, generating discussion points on the regulations in force between PCs and National Competent Authority. It follows that the feedback of intoxication in an emergency can lead to improvements in the management and risk mitigation measures in order to reach a greater protection of human, animal, and environmental health. In addition, the regulatory feedback deriving from these reports is an input to the increase product quality improvement (mixtures, labels, packaging, and risk communication) leading to a greater protection of potential exposed subjects. The importance of creating an information and management network that allows the optimization of the flow of information deriving from PCs arises. The actions taken are therefore described, both relating to the management of the emergency, and relating to the subsequent information flow and to the measures for containing the consequent risks.

HAZOP Methodology Based on the Health, Safety, and Environment Engineering.

In existing risk analysis techniques like the hazard and operability study (HAZOP) and the safety integrity level (SIL), design for operator safety is not considered. The health, safety, and environment (HSE) engineering depicts a detailed design directly related to the operator safety. However, the human risk had not been comprehensively analyzed. This paper proposes HSE-HAZOP as a technique for examining the systematic and efficient application of HSE engineering by exploiting the HAZOP systematic risk analysis technique and a quantitative risk derivation method, which is an advantage of the SIL. The analysis consists of four steps: the HSE-HAZOP preparation phase, risk analysis phase, risk assessment phase, and risk reduction phase. One part of a solution styrene butadiene rubber (SSBR) plant was used for a case study. In this case study, the items that handle with heptanoic acid were the study scope. After the risk assessment, we introduced the HSE engineering technique that should be applied for the risk reduction. Since there is no existing risk analysis method for HSE engineering, this proposed HSE-HAZOP is meaningful because it suggests systematic analysis method of the operator safety.

Glyphosate Effect: Has the Glyphosate Controversy Affected the EU’s Regulatory Epistemology?

Glyphosate’s authorisation will expire in 2022 and its re-approval will take place in a changed legal and political landscape: the national phase of risk assessment is entrusted to a taskforce of four Member States, and, from 2021, the reform of the general food law will apply, imposing,inter alia, more ambitious transparency standards. Taking stock of these developments, this contribution analyses, from a legal perspective, whether and how the glyphosate dispute has contributed to the development of the EU’s regulatory epistemology, with specific regard to food governance. It identifies the “manifesto” of the EU’s regulatory epistemology in the 2002 guidelines on the collection and use of expertise and reads them in the light of the glyphosate dispute. In particular, it focuses on the legal arrangements reflecting the principles established in the 2002 guidelines (quality, openness, effectiveness) and analyses them against the tensions that emerged throughout the dispute with regard to the sources, levels and purposes of EU regulatory knowledge-making. It then considers whether and how such tensions have been addressed by legislative reform and whether this has resulted in a further refinement of the EU’s regulatory epistemology.

A Deep Learning-Based Hybrid Framework for Object Detection and Recognition in Autonomous Driving

As a key technology of intelligent transportation system, the intelligent vehicle is the carrier of comprehensive integration of many technologies. Although vision-based autonomous driving has shown excellent prospects, there is still a problem of how to analyze the complicated traffic situation by the collected data. Recently, autonomous driving has been formulated as many tasks separately by using different models, such as object detection task and intention recognition task. In this study, a vision-based system was developed to detect and identity various objects and predict the intention of pedestrians in the traffic scene. The main contributions of this research are (1) an optimized model was presented to detect 10 kinds of objects based on the structure of YOLOv4; (2) a fine-tuned Part Affinity Fields approach was proposed to estimate the pose of pedestrians; (3) Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) technology is added to explain and assist the estimation results in the risk assessment phase; (4) an elaborate self-driving dataset that includes several different subsets for each corresponding task was introduced; and (5) an end-to-end system containing multiple models with high accuracy was developed. Experimental results proved that the total parameters of optimized YOLOv4 are reduced by 74%, which satisfies the real-time capability. In addition, the detection precision of the optimized YOLOv4 achieved an improvement of 2.6% compared to the state-of-the-art.

A system engineering approach to subsea spill risk management

In recent years, environmental protection has received more attention in society. In addition to the ecological effect of a hydrocarbon release into the sea, its environmental impact is assessed by considering the amount of pollutant discharged. Therefore, limiting the impact of a spill consists in lowering the volume of oil released and effective early detection is necessary for implementation of mitigating measures. Standards and guidelines have been established for developing effective sensor networks in the subsea templates for both monitoring purposes and data collection. Sensors provide various and heterogeneous amount of information about the subsea template they are monitoring. According to recent definitions of risk, the level of knowledge should be considered during the risk assessment and evaluation phases for better managing potential impacts. The information provided by sensor networks indeed may be used in this perspective. For example, sensor functionality may be included in dynamic fault tree analysis in updating the information about system deviations’ frequency.The work in this paper is focused on risk management using information provided from subsea sensor networks. The study adopts a top-down approach inspired by systems engineering to analyse the communication patterns among the different stakeholders. A real reference case from the oil and gas industry located in an environmentally sensitive area on the Norwegian Continental Shelf is used for testing the suggested approach. The case study refers to subsea monitoring of oil leakages from the wellhead templates. Different sensor configurations are considered in order to identify the one able to provide the most reliable information. Insights from the case study highlight how sensor data analysis may improve risk management and support operational decision making.