Impact Of Potential Uncertainties Research Articles

How much 'lived experience' is enough? Understanding mental health lived experience work from a management perspective.

Objective The aim of this study was to explore management understanding of the lived experience required for designated lived experience or peer roles within mental health. Method This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews and one focus group with 29 participants employed in diverse management roles from the public and not-for-profit health and community sector in Queensland, Australia. Results The findings indicate a lack of consensus in defining 'lived experience', including what lived experience is required to be eligible for designated roles. Although some participants were clear on what designated roles added to the workforce, uncertainty and attempts to avoid stigma led to some participants questioning the need for designated roles. Conclusion This study suggests the ongoing expansion of the lived experience workforce is affected by challenges in defining 'lived experience' as a requirement for designated roles and fears regarding stigmatised identities. What is known about the topic? In the mental health sector, opportunities and challenges exist in attempting to effectively incorporate the emerging lived experience or peer workforce. Research has highlighted the need for support from senior management, the need for role clarity and the risk of 'othering' for the lived experience workforce. What does this paper add? This paper responds to the gap in existing research on the experiences of management in defining and articulating their understanding of lived experience and potential impact of uncertainty and inconsistency in understanding for the lived experience workforce. What are the implications for practitioners? This study identifies the need to strengthen management understanding of lived experience to facilitate ongoing development of lived experience roles.

The impact of considering uncertainty in measured calibration/validation data during auto-calibration of hydrologic and water quality models

The importance of uncertainty inherent in measured calibration/validation data is frequently stated in literature, but it is not often considered in calibrating and evaluating hydrologic and water quality models. This is due to the limited amount of data available to support relevant research and the limited scientific guidance on the impact of measurement uncertainty. In this study, the impact of considering measurement uncertainty during model auto-calibration was investigated in a case study example using previously published uncertainty estimates for streamflow, sediment, and NH4-N. The results indicated that inclusion of measurement uncertainty during the auto-calibration process does impact model calibration results and predictive uncertainty. The level of impact on model predictions followed the same pattern as measurement uncertainty: streamflow < sediment < NH4-N; however, the direction of that impact (increasing or decreasing) was not consistent. In addition, inclusion rate and spread results did not indicate a clear relationship between predictive uncertainty and the magnitude of measurement uncertainty. The purpose of this study was not to show that inclusion of measurement uncertainty produces better calibration results or parameter estimation. Rather, this study demonstrated that uncertainty in measured calibration/validation data can play a crucial role in parameter estimation during auto-calibration and that this important source of predictive uncertainty should be not be ignored as it is in typical model applications. Future modeling applications related to watershed management or scenario analysis should consider the potential impact of uncertainty in measured calibration/validation data, as model predictions influence decision-making, policy formulation, and regulatory action.

Deterministic and Stochastic Evaluation of Criticality Excursion Power Bursts

The utility of stochastic point kinetics theory has been demonstrated through the examination of a criticality excursion in a supercritical system. It has been found that a deterministic point kinetics model underpredicts the excursion maximum energy release by up to two orders of magnitude with respect to a counterpart stochastic model. This potentially large underprediction shows that neutron population fluctuations play an important role in the evolution of that system. This work provides a review of the formalism and approximations used to arrive at this conclusion. To broaden the result’s applicability, we relax several approximations, leading to the construction of new, nonanalytical expressions. We compare the two sets of results using local sensitivity analysis, which also allows us to assess the impact of potential uncertainties in included model parameters or data. This comparison (presented also for a 235U system) also proves useful in assessing the validity of the approximations under consideration.

Technical Note: Feasibility of CO&amp;lt;sub&amp;gt;2&amp;lt;/sub&amp;gt; profile retrieval from limb viewing solar occultation made by the ACE-FTS instrument

Abstract. Major limitations of our present knowledge of the global distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere are the uncertainty in atmospheric transport mixing and the sparseness of in situ concentration measurements. Limb viewing space-borne sounders, observing the atmosphere along tangential optical paths, offer a vertical resolution of a few kilometers for profiles, which is much better than currently flying or planned nadir sounding instruments can achieve. In this paper, we analyse the feasibility of obtaining CO2 vertical profiles in the 5–25 km altitude range from the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS, launched in August 2003), high spectral resolution solar occultation measurements. Two main difficulties must be overcome: (i) the accurate determination of the instrument pointing parameters (tangent heights) and pressure/temperature profiles independently from an a priori CO2 profile, and (ii) the potential impact of uncertainties in the temperature knowledge on the retrieved CO2 profile. The first difficulty has been solved using the N2 collision-induced continuum absorption near 4 μm to determine tangent heights, pressure and temperature from the ACE-FTS spectra. The second difficulty has been solved by a careful selection of CO2 spectral micro-windows. Retrievals using synthetic spectra made under realistic simulation conditions show a vertical resolution close to 2.5 km and accuracy of the order of 2 ppm after averaging over 25 profiles. These results open the way to promising studies of transport mechanisms and carbon fluxes from the ACE-FTS measurements. First CO2 vertical profiles retrieved from real ACE-FTS occultations shown in this paper confirm the robustness of the method and applicability to real measurements.