Potential Loss Of Life Research Articles

Mortality and years of potential life loss in systemic lupus erythematosus: a population-based cohort study.

Multiple sources were used to identify 325 systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients within the city of Oslo during 1999-2009 who met ≥ 4 of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) criteria. The survival, standard mortality rate (SMR), years of potential life loss before 60 years of age (YPLL60) and causes of death of these patients were examined and compared to a matched control population. Only inception cases (127) were studied in the calculation of survival. The analysis includes underlying, immediate and contributing causes of death. The five- and 10-year survival was 95% and 90%, respectively, which was significantly reduced when compared to the general population. A total of 50 SLE patients died during the study period. Overall SMR was 3.0 (95% confidence interval (CI) 2.2-3.8) with the highest SMR found for female patients aged 16-39 years old. SLE patients had a 10 times higher rate of YPLL60 compared to the control group. YPLL emphasizes active disease and reduces the importance of cancer as a cause of death in SLE. This study demonstrates that YPLL gives additional and useful information for the prognosis of SLE, supplementing traditional methods of measuring mortality.

Peak discharge prediction due to embankment dam break by using sensitivity analysis based ANN

Accurate prediction of peak discharges due to embankment dam failure is essential to identifying and reducing potential for loss of life and damage in the downstream floodplain. Because, when a dam fails the damage is certain, but the extent of this damage cannot be evaluated in advance. The loss of life and property damage can vary depending on flood area and population. In order to cope with embankment dam breaching and to take necessary steps beforehand many researchers worked on parametric breach models based on Regression Analysis (RA) to estimate the peak outflow from a breached embankment dam since 1970s. RA is a widely-used approach that could provide acceptable results. Since, this approach bears restrictive assumptions, direct application of RA ignoring these assumptions might cause pitfalls and biased calculations. In this study, it is shown that previous works generated by RA gives biased calculations and a new alternative approach, based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), is suggested in replacement of classical RA, which gives more accurate results according to both numerical error criteria and scientific background.

Comparing population exposure to multiple Washington earthquake scenarios for prioritizing loss estimation studies

Scenario-based, loss-estimation studies are useful for gaging potential societal impacts from earthquakes but can be challenging to undertake in areas with multiple scenarios and jurisdictions. We present a geospatial approach using various population data for comparing earthquake scenarios and jurisdictions to help emergency managers prioritize where to focus limited resources on data development and loss-estimation studies. Using 20 earthquake scenarios developed for the State of Washington (USA), we demonstrate how a population-exposure analysis across multiple jurisdictions based on Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) classes helps emergency managers understand and communicate where potential loss of life may be concentrated and where impacts may be more related to quality of life. Results indicate that certain well-known scenarios may directly impact the greatest number of people, whereas other, potentially lesser-known, scenarios impact fewer people but consequences could be more severe. The use of economic data to profile each jurisdiction's workforce in earthquake hazard zones also provides additional insight on at-risk populations. This approach can serve as a first step in understanding societal impacts of earthquakes and helping practitioners to efficiently use their limited risk-reduction resources.

Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Lessons Learned and Future Directions

The Analysis of Tsunami Vertical Shelter in Padang City

Padang is a coastal city, which is located opposite to the Indian Ocean. Just across Padang city there are areas of subduction, which can trigger a powerful earthquake and generate tsunami. Geologists have to say that the city of Padang is the area that is highly vulnerable to tsunamis in the near future.Several studies have been conducted to prepare Padang city for tsunamis. Through the research, maps of tsunami inundation area has been successfully designed. So that the tsunami-prone areas, and tsunami safe area can be clearly identified.According to Singh (2008), the time interval between the first powerful earthquake and tsunami to hit the coast of Padang is about 20-30 minutes. While residents have to walk 3-5 km to the safe area. It can be said that the time for tsunami evacuation in Padang city is very short. Therefore the choice of conducting vertical evacuation is urgent for the majority of the population rather than walking along the horizontal evacuation.Padang city government with the aid of the international donors has built buildings for the shelter. Some of them are schools that have a strong structure, three storeys in which the roof are served as a tsunami evacuation. Data from the BPBDs office (Disaster Management Agency), stated that there are 13 tsunami evacuation buildings at this time with a total capacity of 30.550 people and the capacity for each building is varied between 1,000 - 3,000 people (BPBDs, 2013). This amount is very far from enough when compared to the potential loss of life as many as 400,000 people or more, or as only 7.64% of the total amount. And the location of the shelter buildings are not evenly distributed in tsunamis prone areas.Places for vertical tsunami evacuation in Padang are called TES (Temporary Evacuation Shelter). There have been 13 shelters established by the Government of Padang and BPBDs, and there is only one TES found in the study area. It really is not enough as it is seen in the range of services. Therefore the existing buildings and multi-storey structure is another alternate places to rescue in which they are expected to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis. This alternative building called Potential TES (P-TES)and there are 14 shelters for the study area.By using GIS analysis as well as buffer analysis method, a measurement against a range of services from 1 TES and 14 P-TES is conducted. Buffer radius service area in this analysis, are 450m, 900m, and 1350m. It means that the community who are in the circle will be able to reach shelter in time. As it is seen, the 15 shelters can accommodate refugees within a radius of 450m and 900m, and only few refuges can be accommodated within a radius of 1350m.

Will Future Climate Favor More Erratic Wildfires in the Western United States?

AbstractWildfires that occurred over the western United States during August 2012 were fewer in number but larger in size when compared with all other Augusts in the twenty-first century. This unique characteristic, along with the tremendous property damage and potential loss of life that occur with large wildfires with erratic behavior, raised the question of whether future climate will favor rapid wildfire growth so that similar wildfire activity may become more frequent as climate changes. This study addresses this question by examining differences in the climatological distribution of the Haines index (HI) between the current and projected future climate over the western United States. The HI, ranging from 2 to 6, was designed to characterize dry, unstable air in the lower atmosphere that may contribute to erratic or extreme fire behavior. A shift in HI distribution from low values (2 and 3) to higher values (5 and 6) would indicate an increased risk for rapid wildfire growth and spread. Distributions of Haines index are calculated from simulations of current (1971–2000) and future (2041–70) climate using multiple regional climate models in the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program. Despite some differences among the projections, the simulations indicate that there may be not only more days but also more consecutive days with HI ≥ 5 during August in the future. This result suggests that future atmospheric environments will be more conducive to erratic wildfires in the mountainous regions of the western United States.

Capturing Damage Assessment with a Spatial Video: An Example of a Building and Street-Scale Analysis of Tornado-Related Mortality in Joplin, Missouri, 2011

To reduce the potential loss of life during future significant tornadoes, it is important to understand building and street-scale patterns of damage and mortality from past events. To achieve this, methods of posttornado data collection and damage classification should be rethought. This article addresses these needs through the use of a spatial video and a new Tornado Injury Scale, which has evolved from the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Building damage for Joplin, Missouri, collected three weeks after the May 2011 tornado, is analyzed using a filtering approach more commonly employed in epidemiological studies. Tornado-related fatalities are linked to damage rate maps constructed at two relatively fine scales. Mortality patterns are also investigated with regard to social vulnerability, especially the disproportionate burden faced by the elderly. Results reveal fine-scale damage patterns even within the main tornado path, often with variations occurring along the same street segment. In Joplin the number of elderly fatalities was significantly higher than for other cohorts. This finding is consistent within neighborhoods and not just as a result of single-site losses, as has been found in other disasters. Spatial video footage is also reinvestigated after the analysis for damage trends by building type and physical setting, with a summary of these observations provided in the discussion. This article is a contribution to understanding the fine spatial scale variation of built environment fragility within a tornado path.

Condition Monitoring and Operational Decision Making in Semiconductor Manufacturing

Today, the majority of semiconductor fabrication plants (fabs) conduct equipment preventive maintenance based on statistically-derived time-or wafer-count-based intervals. While these practices have had relative success in managing equipment availability and product yield, the cost, both in time and materials, remains high. Condition-based maintenance has been successfully adopted in several industries, where costs associated with equipment downtime range from potential loss of life to unacceptable affects to companies' bottom lines. In this paper, we present a method for the monitoring of complex systems in the presence of multiple operating regimes. In addition, the new representation of degradation processes will be used to define an optimization procedure that facilitates concurrent maintenance and operational decision-making in a manufacturing system. This decision-making procedure metaheuristically maximizes a customizable cost function that reflects the benefits of production uptime, and the losses incurred due to deficient quality and downtime. The new degradation monitoring method is illustrated through the monitoring of a deposition tool operating over a prolonged period of time in a major fab, while the operational decision-making is demonstrated using simulated operation of a generic cluster tool.

A Simplified Methodology for Quantitative Risk Analysis of the Domino Effects in Hazardous Area

A seven-step method for risk analysis that is directed towards domino accidents has been put forward in the light of the characteristics of domino effects in the present essay. it is a systematic procedure for the quantitative assessment of the risk caused by domino effects. By adopting the method, the propagation function of failure equipment in domino accidents chain is analyzed, so the resulting risk of potential domino accidents can be obtained through quantitative risk analysis, subsequently, the contribution of domino effects to potential life loss, individual and social risk is calculated.

Simulation of Breach Outflow for Earthfill Dam

Dams have been built for many reasons such as irrigation, hydropower, flood mitigation, and water supply to support development for the benefit of human. However, the huge amount of water stored behind the dam can seriously pose adverse impacts to the downstream community should it be released due to unwanted dam break event. To minimise the potential loss of lives and property damages, a workable Emergency Response Plan is required to be developed. As part of a responsible dam owner and operator, TNB initiated a study on dam breach modelling for Cameron Highlands Hydroelectric Scheme to simulate the potential dam breach for Jor Dam. Prediction of dam breach parameters using the empirical equations of Froehlich and Macdonal-Langridge-Monopolis formed the basis of the modelling, coupled with MIKE 11 software to obtain the breach outflow due to Probable Maximum Flood (PMF). This paper will therefore discuss the model setup, simulation procedure and comparison of the prediction with existing equations.

A Future at Risk

This article focuses on the need of formulating and applying a risk model that integrates not just potential loss of life but social, economic, and political costs as well. The risk from nuclear energy use poses special questions, as its potential radiation threat is unseen and not very well understood by the public. The uncertainty of the risk of any event, whether a giant global tsunami or a local gas leak, is given by its probability or chance. It has been pointed out that with both Fukushima and the Deepwater Horizon, the loss of life was insignificant compared to everyday accidents. There is need to adopt integrated relative risk as a measure for all technologies with extreme events to quantify social-consequence costs and impacts. Equally important is the creation of a learning environment at all the operational, regulatory, managerial, political, and social levels to help promote assurance of societal acceptance. The goal is restoration of perceived public and political acceptance and trust.

Carbon footprint and risk assessments

All projects should include risk assessments for impacts of carbon emissions, as recommended by the Engineering Council. This paper uses data from a survey of engineering opinions to consider input to the assessment matrix covering hazards, probabilities, global impact and timescales. Output from the risk assessment in the form of mitigation and action are discussed in a similar manner. The engineering opinions indicate probabilities and potential loss of life that are orders-of-magnitude worse than normal civilian hazards. However, emissions from construction are usually ignored, and most ‘sustainability’ criteria concentrate on long timescales and other environmental issues that miss the critical dangers. Case studies illustrate the innovation and challenges that need to be addressed. They also outline difficulties when using the new readily available carbon-count figures, which often have unexpected assumptions that can obscure the key properties being assessed. It is concluded that carbon emissions in the simple risk assessment matrix should influence all types of project. For example, assessing the dangers from nuclear, fossil or other power sources in this manner would yield interesting results. The moral, legal and professional impact of the risk assessments should affect most decisions, particularly where there is no adequate mitigation for dangerous emissions.

Societal risk assessment of major hazard installations using QuickRisk

QuickRisk is a quantitative risk assessment tool developed at the Health and Safety Laboratory for use in assessing societal risk around onshore major hazard installations to inform land-use planning decisions. It uses release scenario information, parameterised consequence models, weather data, and population data from the National Population Database (NPD). This paper describes enhancements to the NPD methodology to include workplace populations. It describes the novel numerical, graphical and geographical representations of societal risk produced by QuickRisk. F– N data are analysed in terms of scenario FN curves and Delta PLL vs. N curves, where PLL is potential loss of life. The Delta PLL curves could be useful for comparison of FN curves against FN criterion lines or other FN data on a PLL basis. Geographical representations generated from PLL density maps show: the distribution of PLL dominating release scenarios or the percentage of risk contributed by the PLL-dominant release scenario, the maximum number of fatalities associated with the worst-case event, and the associated release scenario. Geographical representations are also generated of the maximum population that would meet a PLL density criterion, and the relative population change that would match a given PLL density criterion. These novel representations of societal risk could be useful for more effective communication between stakeholders on the risk levels in the vicinity of major hazard installations.

Managing risks in a relief supply chain in the wake of an adverse event

Catastrophes cause significant physical damage and destruction, potential loss of life and disruption to the structure of society. However, many times, the relief efforts, although well-intentioned, fail to efficiently and effectively reach the intended victims. The evidence of supply chain effectiveness is examined and highlighted instances when the supply chain has failed. Key stages identified within the relief supply chain, and these stages must be connected through communication and collaboration. The failure mode effects and critical analysis method was used to assess the reliability of a relief supply chain system and its critical components. This research suggests the structure that seems to achieve the most effective results is one that involves authority derived from a network or industry expertise. This structure makes use of expertise in each area of the supply chain, as well as, taking advantage of the relationships and trust that local NGO's have built in areas throughout the world.

Assessment of Safety Performance Indicators: A Case Study for the Bouri Field

An assessment of the safety performance indicators on board two fixed offshore structures handling petroleum is presented in this paper. Results are based on an analysis of a database of safety activities covering a period of 3 years from 2006 to 2008. The database is compiled by the operating company of the platforms, which are located about 120 km offshore from Libya in the Bouri field. The key safety performance indicators assessed are the potential loss of life, fatal accident rate, average individual risk, lost-time injury frequency, and accident severity index (gravity index). The assessment provides important information on personnel safety performance and rates of injury occurrences on board fixed offshore platforms. The computed values for the safety indicators are then compared with acceptable standard values and with other platforms and regions to assess the current safety performance level on board the platforms. The results could be a valuable tool for improving personnel safety on board the platforms, for identifying changes over time, and for focusing efforts where improvements are needed.

Generating tsunami risk knowledge at community level as a base for planning and implementation of risk reduction strategies

Abstract. More than 4 million Indonesians live in tsunami-prone areas along the southern and western coasts of Sumatra, Java and Bali. Although a Tsunami Early Warning Center in Jakarta now exists, installed after the devastating 2004 tsunami, it is essential to develop tsunami risk knowledge within the exposed communities as a basis for tsunami disaster management. These communities need to implement risk reduction strategies to mitigate potential consequences. The major aims of this paper are to present a risk assessment methodology which (1) identifies areas of high tsunami risk in terms of potential loss of life, (2) bridges the gaps between research and practical application, and (3) can be implemented at community level. High risk areas have a great need for action to improve people's response capabilities towards a disaster, thus reducing the risk. The methodology developed here is based on a GIS approach and combines hazard probability, hazard intensity, population density and people's response capability to assess the risk. Within the framework of the GITEWS (German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System) project, the methodology was applied to three pilot areas, one of which is southern Bali. Bali's tourism is concentrated for a great part in the communities of Kuta, Legian and Seminyak. Here alone, about 20 000 people live in high and very high tsunami risk areas. The development of risk reduction strategies is therefore of significant interest. A risk map produced for the study area in Bali can be used for local planning activities and the development of risk reduction strategies.

Estimating the consequences of wildfire for wildfire risk assessment, a case study in the southern Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada

Wildfire risk assessment research has made considerable progress towards estimating the probability of wildfires but comparatively little progress towards estimating the expected consequences of potential fires. One challenge with estimating wildfire consequences has been to identify a common metric that can be applied to consequences measured in different units. In this paper, we use the preferences of representatives of local fire management agencies as the common consequences metric and apply it to a case study in the southern Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada. The method uses an expert survey and a maximum-difference conjoint analysis to establish the relative importance of specific fire consequences. A fire with a major potential for loss of life was considered to be about three times worse than major damage to houses and 4.5 times worse than loss of a rare species. Risk ratings were very sensitive to changes in fire consequences ratings. As the complexity of values at risk and number of stakeholders increase, the most efficient allocation of wildfire prevention, protection, and suppression resources becomes increasingly challenging to determine. Thus, as the complexity of stakeholder representation and values at risk increases, we need to pay increasing attention to quantitative methods for measuring wildfire consequences.

Deep Vein Thrombosis: Endovascular Management

Deep vein thrombosis is a condition that affects hundreds of thousands of patients each year. The major complications include pulmonary embolus with the potential for loss of life and post-thrombotic syndrome with the potential for loss of function of the limb. Extensive clinical research over the last 40 years has improved the techniques to remove the thrombus from the affected limb and reduce the likelihood of developing post-thrombotic syndrome. These treatments have included intravenous systemic thrombolysis, catheter-directed thrombolysis, surgical thrombectomy, and most recently pharmacomechanical thrombectomy to rapidly fragment, lyse, and remove the thrombus from the affected limb. This last technique may finally transform the treatment of acute deep vein thrombus from strictly conservative medical therapy to a minimally invasive procedure that can remove the thrombus to improve the quality of life of millions of individuals suffering from the symptoms of deep vein thrombosis. Mt Sinai J Med 77:286-295, 2010. (c) 2010 Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Self-Monitoring and Self-Assessing Atomic Clocks

From digital communications to satellite navigation, remotely synchronized clocks play a role of primary importance. The failure of these clocks will lead to not only service interruptions, but also, in some cases involving satellite navigation, more dire consequences with potential loss of life. Consequently, ensuring the integrity of remote clocks is now an issue of considerable import. In this paper, we demonstrate that an atomic clock can autonomously assess its own frequency stability and integrity by comparing the phase of its output signal to a delayed version of itself in what is essentially an interferometric technique. Using a high-quality crystal oscillator, we demonstrate that fractional frequency jumps of 10-11 are easily observed and that a cesium atomic clock's short-term Allan deviation can be measured without reference to another standard in a fully autonomous manner.

Operational and safety aspects of drill stem testing—getting it right

Drill stem testing (DST) is recognised by many operating oil and gas companies to be one of the most hazardous operations routinely undertaken. Well testing has a higher potential for loss of life, loss of assets, environmental catastrophe and budget overrun than any other time in the exploration operations. Therefore, it is of great importance to the industry that such operations are extremely well planned and executed. Planning a DST is an extremely complex task and requires a great deal of experience. This paper provides an insight into the techniques and procedures that are used in all the major operational and safety aspects of oil and gas DST. It uses a structured approach to guide the reader through the various best practices that are required to effectively plan and implement a DST operation under just about any circumstances worldwide, onshore or offshore. The project also includes design parameters for contingency conditions that were not normally present during equipment operations but could exist in emergency situations. Problems and solutions associated with perforation, adverse hole conditions, and high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) conditions are also presented. Additionally, this paper includes an overview on environmental requirements, which provides information associated with risk management and legislation.