Direct Causality

Causality models based on event chains (or dominos or layers of Swiss cheese) are simple and therefore appealing. But they are too simple and do not include what is needed to understand why accidents occur and how to prevent them. Some important limitations include requiring direct causality relationships, subjectivity in selecting the events to include, subjectivity in identifying chaining conditions, and exclusion of systemic factors. 

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With regard to evaluating these factors, it is recommended that structured checklists be used, such as those provided by the HFAM method described in Chapter 2. These checklists provide an explicit link between the direct causal factors and management policies. Figure 2.12 shows how these checklists could be used to investigate possible procedures deficiencies, and the policies that led to the deficiencies, as part of the incident investigation. Similar checklists can be used to investigate possible culture problems (e.g., inappropriate trade-offs between safety and production) that could have been implicated in an accident. 

Zafirlukast and montelukast are generally well tolerated. Rare elevations in serum aminotransferase concentrations and clinical hepatitis have been reported. An idiosyncratic syndrome similar to the Churg-Strauss syndrome, with marked circulating eosinophilia, heart failure, and associated eosinophilic vasculitis, has been reported in a small number of patients a direct causal association has not been established. 

Clinicians agree that diagnosis of OA requires demonstration of a direct causal relationship between the onset of asthma symptoms with the work environment and not to elements encountered outside the workplace. 

Because biomagnification and other transport processes take time, the harmful effect of many compoimds may not become evident for decades. This makes direct causal relationships between specific pollutants and environmental change difficult to establish. Substantiating such relationships is further complicated by the complex network of positive and negative feedbacks that occur among most parts of the crustal-ocean-atmosphere fectory. 

Today the assumption is that there is no direct causal correlation between altitude and precipitation volumes. Rather, the influence exerted by the relief on approaching air masses is of decisive importance for precipitation volumes [19]. These effects also vary depending on weather conditions, climate region and season. Moreover, the correlation between precipitation volumes and altitude becomes significantly weaker the shorter the duration of the event ([21], cf. also Fig. 10). 

However, a direct causal relation with etanercept was debatable, because there was complete resolution with propranolol and despite continuation of etanercept. 

For a number of reasons, including the difficulties inherent in proving a direct causal relationship between fatigue and adverse medical events and the lack of systems for reporting various types of adverse events and errors, few studies to date have examined the specific contribution of sleep deprivation to actual medical errors. Several recent studies, in attempting to unravel this relationship, have employed a number of different methodologies to assess prevalence, type, and risk factors for medical errors. For example, in one recent study of anesthetic... 

In summary, although results of self-report survey studies suggest that medical errors are more likely to occur in the context of sleep loss and fatigue, there is currently little empirical evidence to support or refute a direct causal link. 

Although hyperlipidemia may be partly reversed by the increase of plasma oncotic pressure with dextran infusion, decreased albumin and plasma oncotic pressure cannot fully explain nephrotic hyperlipidemia. In analbuminemic rats, lipid changes are different from those in nephrotic subjects (D4). There may be a direct causal link between proteinuria and lipid abnormalities because a 1 -acid glycoprotein isolated from urine of nephrotic patients may correct the impaired lipolysis of nephrotic rats (SI 6, K12). Thus, impaired lipoprotein metabolism may be caused by the loss of some regulatory substance into urine due to increased glomerular permeability. 

Breast carcinoma has been reported in men and women taking spironolactone, but a direct causal relationship has not been established. 

The elucidation of the dependence of various chemical and physical properties of substances on molecular structure can be considered as one of the main goals of theoretical chemistry. Although an immense knowledge has accumulated in this field, a fairly limited number of direct, causal and quantitative (or at least semiquantitative) structure-property relations have been discovered so far. The main reason for this is the enormous complexity of the quantum-chemical calculations, by means of which the contemporary theoretical chemists try to describe and predict the behaviour of molecules. During such calculations the insight into the actual connection between the input (e.g. molecular structure) and output (e.g. certain molecular properties) is usually completely lost. 

Plotted with the rate is pad surface temperature (x s in Fig. 1), as measured for similar process conditions. The stark similarity of the shape of the curves adduces a strong hint as to the nature of the removal rate. Since the process conditions are not changing during this ramp, a direct causal temperature/rate relationship can clearly be inferred. 

A very few cases of ciclosporin-induced immune hemolytic anemia have been reported (SED-13, 1125) (69,70), but a direct causal relation with ciclosporin is difficult to establish. Ciclosporin-induced hypercoagulability was suggested in patients with aplastic anemia (SEDA-20, 344). Higher whole-blood ciclosporin concentrations were found during the preceding months in patients who... 

When administered long-term, the fenamates cause watery diarrhea in more patients than other NSAIDs. Although colonic ulceration has been reported after oral ingestion of several NSAIDs (SEDA-7, 105) (SEDA-10, 77) (SEDA-15, 95), the evidence is not entirely convincing. On the other hand, there is firm reason to conclude that there is a direct causal relation between rectally administered NSAID and rectal ulceration, which seems to occur more frequently when doses are high or treatment is prolonged. 

Seizures associated with intravenous use of vinca alkaloids are very rare (60-62). Some cases may have been due to SIADH-associated hyponatremia. Other forms include tumor-related effects, nervous system infections, or cerebral hemorrhage, which often make direct causal relations between drug exposure and nervous system adverse effects very difficult. 

Here the first statement is predicated on the basis of a comparison between A and B, who need not interact in any way. The second statement, by contrast, points to a direct, causal link between A and B. We might want, therefore, to propose the following... 

Tsamardinos I, Aliferis CF, Statnikov A. Time and sample efficient discovery of markov blankets and direct causal relations. The Ninth ACM SIGKDD 2003 International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Minmg. 

Despite the rather massive literature on formaldehyde emission from UF-bonded wood products, evidence for a direct causal relationship between resin hydrolysis and formaldehyde emission from bonded products is almost nonexistent. Indeed, evidence in the literature that UF resin hydrolysis actually does occur in a board arises primarily from studies into the question of whether the limited durability of UF-bonded wood products is caused by resin hydrolysis or by a particular susceptibility of UF resin-wood bonds to rupture from swelling/shrinkage stresses. 

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