Potential Hazardous Events Research Articles

A Quantitative Method of Assessing the Hazard Perception of Drivers in Human–Machine Codriving Vehicles

Hazard perception, as a dynamic indicator, intuitively characterizes drivers’ ability to detect potential hazard events in complex driving environments. However, current quantitative research on the hazard perceptions of drivers in the human–machine codriving phase is lacking. A total of 30 drivers were recruited to carry out a driving simulator experiment, and a total of 8 risky driving scenarios were experienced. The physiological characteristics and eye movement characteristics of the drivers were collected. An expert evaluation method was selected to quantify the situational hazard degree (SHD). The questionnaire was used to collect the drivers’ subjective hazard evaluations (SHEs) of the scenarios. Paired samples t test and correlation analysis were adopted to screen the evaluation indexes of the drivers’ hazard perceptions. A gray near-optimal comprehensive evaluation model was established to quantify the human–machine codrivers’ hazard perceptions in various risky driving scenarios. The results show that the drivers’ SHEs increased with the SHD. The standard deviation of heart rate, mean pupil diameter, and mean fixation duration can be used as evaluation indexes for the human–machine codrivers’ hazard perceptions. The proposed quantitative method is expected to shift the development of human–machine codrivers’ hazard perception from qualitative analysis to quantitative calculation. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for increasing safety in the human–machine codriving phase, improving road safety and reducing the incidence of accidents.

Monitoring and Evaluation of Debris Flow Disaster in the Loess Plateau Area of China: A Case Study

The Loess Plateau area, with complex geomorphological features and geological structure, is highly prone to geologic disasters such as landslides and debris flow, which cause great losses. To investigate the initiation mechanism of landslide and debris flow disasters and their spreading patterns, historical satellite images in the Laolang gully were collected and digitized to generate three-dimensional topographic and geomorphological maps. Typical landslides were selected for landslide thickness measurement using a standard penetrometer and high-density electrical method. Numerical models were established to simulate the occurrence and development of landslides under different working conditions and to evaluate the spreading range based on the propagation algorithm and friction law. The results show that the 10 m resolution DEM data are well matched with the potential hazard events observed in the field site. The smaller the critical slope threshold, the greater the extent and distance of landslide spreading. The larger the angle of arrival, the greater the energy loss, and therefore the smaller the landslide movement distance. The results can provide scientific theoretical guidance for the prevention and control of rainfall-induced landslide and debris flow disasters in the Loess Plateau area.

Does community resilience affect household asset portfolio choices?

AbstractThis paper identifies a positive (negative) relationship between community resilience and household stock market participation (deposit flows). These relationships are less pronounced for higher‐income and married households, indicating an income channel and a marriage channel, respectively. Furthermore, compared to white and Asian households, black households are more sensitive to the effects of community resilience on household investments and deposit flows. Overall, our findings suggest that improvements in people's preparedness for, resilience against, and recovery from potential hazardous events and natural disasters shift households' asset portfolio choices from safe savings to risky stock investments.

Human-autonomy collaboration in supervisory risk control of autonomous ships

This paper presents a method for developing and testing a risk-based control system, as a first step towards including the human supervisor explicitly in the design of the system. The result is a control system with improved decision-making capabilities compared to existing control systems. The methodology presented in the paper uses the Systems Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) to analyse the risks of an autonomous ship within its concept of operations (CONOPS), and a Human-STPA (H-STPA) is used to analyse human responsibilities and involvement. The STPA results are then used to construct a Bayesian belief network (BBN)-based risk model to assess the operational risk of the ship. This is represented as a risk cost, describing the expected cost of consequences caused by potential hazardous events. This cost is combined with fuel costs, operations costs, and the potential loss of income if new missions are not undertaken using a supervisory risk controller (SRC). The SRC is capable of making decisions about how the ship should be safely operated and notifies the human supervisor in due time when it is necessary for them to take control. The last part of the methodology presented in this paper is testing the control system using a set of verification objectives based on results from the STPA and H-STPA. A case study involving an autonomous cargo ship with a human supervisor located in a remote operation center (ROC) is included; it shows that the proposed control system can operate the ship safely in different conditions and situations. By designing the SRC to notify the human supervisor before it reaches its operational limit, the ship is able to operate in a wider range of conditions compared to when just the autonomous control system is in charge. Hence, the proposed methodology shows promising results and provides useful insights related to shared control for autonomous ships.

Improvement of the occupational risk management process in the work safety system of the enterprise.

The research purpose is to improve the management of occupational risks associated with hazards as well as the organization's capabilities to identify hazardous factors (HFs) using the "BOW-TIE" method in accordance with the provisions of the ISO 45001:2019 standard. To improve occupational risk management, the "BOW-TIE" method has been introduced into occupational health and safety management systems. This approach facilitates a comprehensive description and analysis of potential risk development from identifying hazardous factors to studying the consequences. It visually integrates fault and event trees to provide a holistic view of risk dynamics. The improvement of the occupational hazard risk management process considers both internal and external factors affecting the organization, thereby increasing the probability and severity of potential hazardous events. The revised approach categorizes risk levels as acceptable, unacceptable, or verifiable. In addition, occupational risk management requires an in-depth analysis of the organization's external and internal environment to identify hazards that affect the probability and severity of potential hazardous events. This research proposes an innovative approach to occupational risk management by determining the magnitude of occupational risk as the cumulative result of assessing risks associated with all external and internal factors influencing the probability of hazardous event occurring. The introduction of the "BOW-TIE" method, combined with a comprehensive analysis of the organizational environments, facilitates a more effective and nuanced approach to occupational risk management.

Estimation of Vehicular Collision Force on Bridge Piers in the Presence of Sub-Standard Intervening Concrete Barriers

Critical infrastructures such as bridges should be resilient to extreme loading events. Among the potential hazardous events, vehicle collisions are becoming increasingly common. Modern American Association for State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) bridge design specifications consider a limit state to account for vehicular Collision Force (VCF) and require addressing it when bridge piers are within the clear zone defined by AASHTO’s Roadside Design Guide. AASHTO specifies two methods to address this limit state: either by providing an intervening structure that is capable of absorbing the VCF and/or redirecting the colliding vehicle, or designing the piers to resist a lateral load equivalent to 2,670 kN (600 kips). Many old bridges that were designed before recognizing the VCF as a limit state fail to meet the modern specifications because either the piers were designed to resist a lower lateral load than the specified limit or the installed intervening concrete barrier is not a standard one that qualifies to solely protect the piers against VCF. This paper introduces a new approach to address the requirements of the modern standards. The approach is based on blended contribution between the available sub-standard barrier and the under-designed bridge pier. The proposed approach is based on a matrix of dynamic simulations using LS-DYNA and considering different crash scenarios. The results showed that in the presence of the sub-standard barrier, the estimated VCF can be at least reduced by about 25%, leaving 75% to be resisted by the existing pier.

Quantifying injury risks of collaborative robots in a manufacturing cell using a simulation approach

Safety remains an important impediment towards fully exploiting the potential of collaborative robots for executing manufacturing tasks. The ISO 15066 proposes requirements for safety assurance of collaborative robots. This includes safeguards such as force, torque, and safe distance limiting functions. More importantly, safe force (and impact pressure) limits depend on the human body region. The latter is based on biomechanical limits derived from the body model, which specifies maximum pressure and force limiting values on different body regions. However, the limiting values proposed in the body model seldom considers practical impact scenarios that may potentially occur while executing collaborative manufacturing tasks. For instance, the impact force/pressure thresholds are influenced by aspects such as the speed of the moving manipulator, or contact point, further influenced by the mass, and contact surface area of the end effector. Consequently, this influences operator safety and design of collaborative workspaces and manufacturing tasks. So far, these practical influences are under-explored in literature, discussing human-robot collaboration, while considering manufacturing tasks.In this paper, a simulation framework is proposed exploring a use case of assembly tasks in a manufacturing setting. The framework embeds a hazard and operability analysis to identify potential hazardous events during execution of the collaborative manufacturing tasks. The tasks further modelled in the ABB RobotStudio environment, where varying path configurations of the manipulator are mimicked during task execution. Force and pressure impact values based on the path configurations are quantified on different body regions. Transient and quasi static forces/pressure are considered for varying impact scenarios on the body regions. Finally, risk mitigation is proposed based on the impact scenarios and quantified injury severity. This includes task re-design or implementing alternative path configurations for the robotic manipulator.

Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA): Great approach to risk analysis in pharmaceutical industry

Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA) is a semi-quantitative evaluation executed to recognize, early within side the layout and definition level of a system, all potential hazards and hazardous events that can cause an accident, classify identified hazardous events according to their severity and identify the required hazard controls and their respective follow-up actions. It is a great tool for beginning to recognize the hazards of a system. In some cases, a PHA is all that is needed to analyse a simple system. It is also the first step in the hazard analysis of more complicated systems. This review illustrates PHA's use for analysing a maintenance process/procedure and discusses the injuries that can occur with poor design and recommend solutions.

Exploring the Use of a Sanitation Safety Plan Framework to Identify Key Hazards in First Nations Wastewater Systems

First Nations communities in Canada have a documented history of sub-standard water quality. While efforts have been made to address drinking water quality, little has been done to address longstanding challenges in wastewater systems. This study developed a hazard identification checklist using a sanitation safety plan (SSP) framework to characterize potential hazards in 29 First Nations wastewater systems in Atlantic Canada. System types included in this study included centralized, decentralized, and municipal transfer agreements (MTAs). Using past system assessment reports, potential hazardous events were evaluated along the sanitation chain to assess risk within systems. Overall, 69% of hazardous events had an unknown level of risk while 7% were high-risk. This research found that decentralized systems and MTAs have poorly characterized risk due to a lack of documentation and communication. The presence of significant knowledge deficits and high-risk hazards in centralized systems cause risk propagation and accumulation along the sanitation chain, resulting in potential effluent quality concerns. This desktop study demonstrates that an SSP approach offers an alternative assessment process to the regulatory approach currently being used by proposing an enhanced systemic understanding of risk that can inform management practices and integrate the plurality of stakeholders involved in these systems.

Comprehensive Understanding of Urban Water Supply Management: Towards Sustainable Water-socio-economic-health-environment Nexus

The majority of the cities across the developing countries have saddled water supply and quality management issues. Unfortunately, even cities with adequate water resources and infrastructures foresee safe drinking water supply as a challenge. The present study discusses the potential hazardous events associated with a drinking water supply and management strategies in the case of Mysuru city, India to realize water security through integrated modeling approaches. Here, the water demand and supply of the city is simulated by the WEAP decision-making tool using current and reference data in the perspective of water supply trends concerning social-economic and environmental parameters. The study also projects sustainable utilization of recycled sewage as a portfolio resource having maximum potentiality. Finally, the study infers that that water supply system and portfolio water resources utilization would contribute to the sustainability of socio-economic and environmental conditions in the city. It provides various management, technological approaches and alternatives for sustainable water supply to meet anticipated demand and to understand the dynamic interactions of the water-socio-economic-health-environment nexus.Graphical AbstractIntegrated urban water resource management options and dynamic interaction of water-energy-socio-economic-health-environment nexus

Qualitative Research on Yellow Fever Outbreak Responses in Wolaita Zone of SNNPR Region, Ethiopia

Background: Outbreak response basically entails preparedness which helps to establish arrangements in advance to enable timely, effective and appropriate responses to specific potential hazardous events or emerging disaster situations that might threaten society/environment. Researches about outbreak response or interventions that focus on post-incident communication have recently been published in a range of disciplinary journals, from organizational psychology to organizational communication one reason that the interventions are successful is because it provides team with a common time and place for purposeful discussion-based learning. Objective: To review outbreak response from the October 2018 Wolayta Zone yellow fever outbreak management in SNNPR, Ethiopia. Methods: Qualitative research approach, with Thematic Analysis. Purposive sampling method was used. Data were collected through FGDs, in-depth interviews, observation and document reviews. Results: However, it is worth-noting that the Review showed that despite late detection, a rapid response team was set up and was able to save the lives of many during the outbreak. The findings further showed there was good coordination among various stakeholders at different levels and with satisfying sharing of roles and responsibilities. Conclusion: The case was detected lately after one month of since the first case were detected and all case which admitted this period were miss-diagnosed of the cases and leading to some deaths. Even though there was a confusion on identifying the first case, after the confirmation of the first case, the case management went as per the standard guideline and SOPs, helping save so many lives through availing the service free of charge.

Managing Data, Information, and Technology in Cyber Physical Systems: Public Safety as a Service and its Systems

This paper introduces a unified representation for collaborative development of complex services in public safety to explain the infusion of digital technologies into the design of the community resilience processes with respect to the potential hazardous events. It aims at helping to understand how ICT-based knowledge may help stakeholders situated in various positions inside society to participate collaboratively to service development actions. It presents a roadmap to conceive, design, and operationalize the creation of digital artefacts to compound its supporting systems, including the digital one. This representation includes a way of describing the domain of interest to conceive complex services employing human-oriented development, a way of reasoning on the resilience processes complexity, using semantic reasoning along with the time series quality assurance (TSQA) solution ontology, and a way of developing data processing components as internal (technical) services in enterprise information systems to support the design of novel environmental monitoring digital services. A unified semantic reasoning-based approach to evaluate data quality in cyber-physical systems is described to exemplify the creation of a complex public service ecosystem that promotes collaborative knowledge sharing to formalize the domain expertise through the information intensive services. The TSQA ontology integrates knowledge from other domain-specific ontologies to define and share concepts designating observations acquired from sensors, quality issues, methods for detecting quality issues and correcting data, and tags applied to data objects to assure the data traceability. A semantic component that manages the TSQA ontology and the SWRL-encoded rules are introduced in the data acquisition module of a cyber-physical system application for environmental monitoring to solve a specific problem of data cleaning associated with the water resources management. This method is applicable to any time series of measured data.

Preliminary hazard analysis applied to outsourcing sterile chemotherapy preparations.

Background Our hospital organization raised the possibilities of outsourcing their sterile pediatric chemotherapy preparations to another hospital conditional on analyzing the potential hazardous events that need to be anticipated. Methods The study was conducted by a multidisciplinary working group from September 2015 to January 2016 with the support of a risk manager. A list of hazardous situations that could occur during outsourcing process was assessed. First, a map of hazardous situations was developed by crossing outsourcing processes divided into phases classified as critical or not. Second, a map of risk was established by crossing potential consequences of these hazardous situations and elaborating corrective actions to reduce the initial risks. Results The map of hazardous situations identified 183 relevant hazardous situations, 78 of which were considered high priority and 154 scenarios were developed. Slightly more than half of these hazardous situations concerned information system (30%), human resources (14%), and management (11%). The generic hazards of information system and human generated 37 (24%) and 41 (27%) scenarios, respectively. To reduce critical risks, 33 corrective actions were proposed. Working time required was estimated at 35 days. The subcontractor personnel for this new organization included an estimated extra time of 0.7-pharmacist working day and 1.4-pharmacy dispenser working day. Conclusions The preliminary hazard analysis method appeared to apply to our system of outsourcing sterile cytotoxic preparations in another hospital. Regardless, this analysis is complex and requires time and expertise.

Identification of potential hazardous events of unloading system and CO2 storage tanks of an intermediate storage terminal for the Korea clean carbon storage project 2025

Identification of potential hazardous events of unloading system and CO₂ storage tanks of an intermediate storage terminal for the Korea clean carbon storage project 2025

A case study of an autonomous wireless sensor network system for environmental data collection

This article presents a case study of the design of an autonomous wireless sensor network for environmental monitoring to provide data for understanding the relationships among food, energy, and water systems in suburban areas in Long Island New York. The study focuses on the existing water quality data for the two counties on Long Island, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, to understand the impact of energy and food production on the coastal waters of Long Island Sound and Peconic Bay. The analysis of existing data from the US Environmental Protection Agency database reveals the challenges in using such data to understand the relationships between water quality, weather events and identified point sources of pollutants. Maintaining on-going data collection programs is expensive, time-consuming and personnel intensive which is why this project examines new ways to obtain and utilize environmental data. The researchers propose the design of an autonomous wireless sensor network environmental monitoring system with an optimal sensor placement strategy to identify targeted locations for water quality monitoring. The goal is to provide environmental data that can facilitate a better understanding of the interactions of farming activities and energy production resulting in undesirable impacts on water quality. The proposed design can be used to provide real-time data to help stakeholders improve efficiency in resource management and advance early detection of potential hazardous events. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 2017

Water Safety Plan for drinking water risk management: the case study of Mortara (Pavia, Italy)

The Water Safety Plan (WSP) approach is an iterative method focused on analyzing the risks of water contamination in a drinking water supply system, from catchment to consumer, in order to protect human health. This approach is aimed at identifying and drastically reducing water contamination in the entire drinking water system, through the identification and mitigation or, if possible, elimination of all factors that may cause a chemical, physical, microbiological and radiological risk for water. This study developed a proposal of WSP for the drinking water supply system (DWSS) of Mortara, Italy, in order to understand which are the preliminary evaluation aspects to be considered in the elaboration of a WSP. The DWSS of Mortara (a town of 15,500 inhabitants, located in northern Italy) consists of three drinking water treatment plants (DWTPs), considering the following main contaminants: arsenic, iron, manganese and ammonia. Potential hazardous events and associated hazards were identified in each part of the water supply system. The risk assessment was carried out following the semi‑quantitative approach. The WSP proposal for Mortara was very useful not only as a risk mitigation approach, but also as a cost-effective tool for water suppliers. Furthermore, this approach will reduce public health risk, ensure a better compliance of water quality parameters with regulatory requirements, increase confidence of consumers and municipal authorities, and improve resource management due to intervention planning. Further, some new control measures are proposed by the WSP team within this work.

Quantitative risk analysis of loading and offloading liquefied natural gas (LNG) on a floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU)

Natural Gas is becoming an important energy source option and the capacity of the world to produce it is surging. Large reserves of natural gas exist worldwide, particularly in areas where the resources exceed the demand. Therefore, natural gas is liquefied for shipping; and its storage and regasification process usually occurs in onshore facilities. Recently, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) offshore terminals have been proposed as an attractive alternative solution. This paper presents a complete quantitative risk analysis (QRA) of undesired events that may occur during the loading and unloading of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) considering a typical LNG carrier and an offshore terminal similar to those operating in Brazil. Initially, a historical survey of accidents at LNG facilities, along with a detailed study of LNG carriers and LNG offshore terminals, is presented to support hazard identification. Once the potential hazardous events are categorized in some possible scenarios, a probabilistic potential hazard assessment is performed; moreover, the frequencies of occurrence of the undesired events are estimated. Afterwards, traditional consequence models are briefly discussed aiming to identify the weakness of each one that supports the specification of the model used in the consequence analysis of a specified case, which is evaluated by providing the data to estimate the total risk of the installation. The risk is evaluated in terms of social and individual risk. Lastly, possible control measures able to reduce the frequency of occurrence, or mitigate the impacts associated with the analyzed scenarios, are proposed and new risks levels are estimated by considering those control measures. The paper presents a complete QRA, presenting the tools and the models chosen to perform the analysis as well as some of the advantages and limitations regarding the use of these tools and models.

Using Systematic Innovation Process to Improve the Manufacturing Technology of Platelet Agitators

Abstract This research took part in the research and development (R&D) and manufacturing processes of platelet agitator instruments at the W-ESPR Technology Company. First, two measurement indexes, the hazard probability and hazard severity, were used to evaluate all possible hazardous events drawn from ISO 14971 (the quality management of medical devices regulations) in the R&D and manufacturing processes. All possible hazardous events were then sifted to find potential hazardous events. Second, these two measurement indexes were combined into a complex risk index to identify the key hazardous events from the potential hazardous events. Third, this study then used the contradiction matrix theory of TRIZ to search for problem solutions for the key hazardous events. Finally, the Taguchi quality engineering method was used as a reference for imported platelet agitators to solve the key hazardous events. Using the systematic procedure proposed in this research, W-ESPR Technology Company developed high quality platelet agitators which were adopted by the Taiwan Blood Donation Center.

Modelling and Simulating of Risk Behaviours in Virtual Environments Based on Multi-Agent and Fuzzy Logic

Due to safety and ethical issues, traditional experimental approaches to modelling underground risk behaviours can be costly, dangerous and even impossible to realize. Based on multi-agent technology, a virtual coalmine platform for risk behaviour simulation is presented to model and simulate the human-machine-environment related risk factors in underground coalmines. To reveal mine workers' risk behaviours, a fuzzy emotional behaviour model is proposed to simulate underground miners' responding behaviours to potential hazardous events based on cognitive appraisal theories and fuzzy logic techniques. The proposed emotion model can generate more believable behaviours for virtual miners according to personalized emotion states, internal motivation needs and behaviour selection thresholds. Finally, typical accident cases of underground hazard spotting and locomotive transport were implemented. The behaviour believability of virtual miners was evaluated with a user assessment method. Experimental results show that the proposed models can create more realistic and reasonable behaviours in virtual coalmine environments, which can improve miners' risk awareness and further train miners' emergent decision-making ability when facing unexpected underground situations.

Sustainable resilience of hydrogen energy system

Resilience is the capacity of complex system to be recovered after a sudden change of the indicator. Energy resilience is the ability of energy system to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of various challenges to normal operation. Loss of resilience can cause loss of valuable energy system services, and may even lead to rapid transitions or shifts into qualitatively different situations and configurations,The resilience of a system can be achieved by reducing its probability of failure as well as reducing the consequences from such failures and the time to recovery. The resilience of a system relates to the magnitude of disturbance required to fundamentally disrupt the system causing a dramatic shift to another state of the system. Restoring a system to its previous state can be complex, expensive and sometime even impossible. Research suggests that to restore some systems to their previous state requires a return to the conditions well before the point of collapse.Hydrogen energy system is complex system, which include: production, utilization and storage of hydrogen. It is imminent to any hydrogen system to verify potential vulnerability of the system structure. In this respect, it is of paramount importance to dwell to the potential catastrophic events of the hydrogen system. It is of interest to investigate the essential characteristics of hydrogen system which may lead to the resilience change.In this paper special attention is devoted to the selection of the indicators which are reflecting potential change of resilience of the hydrogen system. Resilience index is used as the parameter for the assessment of the potential hazard events. Particular attention was focused on chemical, physical and technical parameters of the hydrogen system elements.