Cost-benefit analysis case study

This paper will summarize briefly some work my colleagues and I at Decision Focus Incorporated have carried out for EPA to show how decision analysis might be used to assist decision making under TSCA ( 5). I will first briefly review the concepts of quantitative risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis to show how decision analysis fits with these concepts and provides a natural way of extending them. Then I will illustrate the approach using a case study on a specific chemical, perchloroethylene. 

Simonson, M., Andersson, P., and van den Berg, M. Cost benefit analysis model for fire safety and deca BDE case study. Proceedings of Fire and Materials 2007 Conference, January 29-31, 2007, San Francisco, CA. Interscience Communications. 

The team members should not feel obligated to make recommendations that completely resolve the concern. An engineering or operations group will evaluate a recommendation after the review to determine the best course of action. In many cases a recommendation may be made to evaluate, study or perform a cost benefit analysis, rather than insist a particular feature be added to the process. Experience has shown that many review teams waste valuable time trying to determine the exact nature of an item to recommend. Future in-depth evaluations of the recommendation may entirely alter the suggested solution. If the review team recommended a study or evaluation of the problem, they could immediately continue to other areas of the review. 

An article by Jones and Metaxas [25] describes a case study on providing additional drying capacity in a papermaking operation. This paper compares the conventional drying system to microwave, RF, and infrared systems and provides the analysis that led to the final decision. A detailed cost-benefit analysis is provided and is a good summary of the procedures that should be followed in such circumstances. 

In most attempts at cost/benefit analysis of environmental control strategies, it is much easier to identify emission control costs than to assess the benefits that would be derived from such controls. A detailed cost/benefit analysis of control strategy options for limiting the environmental effects of acid pollutant emissions, and their derivatives, was outside the scope of the study. In any case, absence of data would render the exercise in some areas of damage fairly meaningless. 

Used technical simulations that may be applied to other projects to replicate results General conclusions in critical areas of system evaluations, data monitoring, modeling tools, system design, control systems, and cost-benefit analysis Synthesis, lessons learned, and trend analysis relate to permitting, funding, and technology performance More than a dozen relevant case studies... 

The first step is to determine the degree of behavioural adaptation. This cannot always be done very precisely. Even if there are no studies reporting behavioural adaptation, one cannot rule out that it actually takes place—it has simply not been documented. However, to determine if there is behavioural adaptation, there is no alternative to relying on available studies and evidence. In other words, if no studies have reported behavioural adaptation, the default assumption is that there is no behavioural adaptation and cost-benefit analysis proceeds on this assumption (the leftmost branch in Figure 20.3). If there is evidence of behavioural adaptation, the degree of adaptation can often be determined on the basis of the effect of a measure on crashes. If there is an effect on crashes, behavioural adaptation does not entirely eliminate safety effects (case road lighting). If the safety measure has no effect on crashes, behavioural adaptation is complete (cases bright road surfaces and antilock brakes). If the safety measure has an adverse effect on crashes, behavioural adaptation turns the safety effect around from favourable to adverse. 

Pilot projects need to be carefully selected and conducted to provide successful cases for convincing more enterprises to adopt UCD approaches. Emphasis of the pilot should be placed on the localization of the UCD methods (especially their suitability for technology-oriented staff), cost-benefit analysis, as well as development of guidelines for the methods, training materials, case studies, and tools. 

This paper contrasts usability cost-benefit analysis literature with an empirical case in industrial setting, in which usability cost-benefit considerations (along with other usability activities) resulted in usability becoming a curse word. An interpretive case study [20] has been carried out in a software (SW) development organization. Empirical analysis reveals that clearly divergent meanings and motives have been attached to usability and its cost-benefit analysis in the organization. 

The paper is organized as follows. The next section reviews literature on usability cost-benefit analysis as a theoretical basis of our empirical analysis. The third section presents the case involved in this study and the procedures of data gathering and analysis. The following section outlines the results of our empirical examination. The final section summarizes and discloses the central themes and observations of the paper, outlines the limitations of this study, and suggests paths for future work. 

There are many published models for ealculating usability benefits, and as many ways of identifying the benefits. A business benefit is a positive return that the development organization expects to obtain as a result of an investment. There has been some discussion in publications about the potential business benefits of usability, but most of them are focused on specific case studies of usability benefits, or on the overall aspects of usability cost-benefit analysis [26]. 

SMITH p (2008a), A cost-benefit analysis of the application of pharmacokinetic/ pharmacodynamic-based approaches to setting disc diffusion breakpoints in aquaculture a case study of oxolinic acid and Aeromonas salmonicida Aquaculture, 284,2-18. 

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of passive protections of tankers in the reduction of the overall risk due to LPG road and rail transportation. In the first part of the study (Section 2) the effect of the thermal protection on the time to BLEVE was analyzed. In the second part of the study (Section 3), the results obtained were used to investigate the potential effect on risk due to the reduction of the probability of the fired BLEVE, following the adoption of the road tanker coating. A case-study derived from actual LPG road transportation scenario in Europe was analyzed, and a Transport Risk Analysis (TRA) was performed. Thus, TRA results allowed to widen the economic aspect of this issue (Section 3). Costs were identified and assessed considering also the amortization and taxes, while benefits were assessed taking into account the risk reduction as a number for life loss reduction. Finally, the comparison between costs and benefits provided an evaluation of the economic impact connected with the adoption of passive fire protections of tankers. 

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