Disastrous Decisions

Second, the proponents of mandatory recycling are the same people who supported the city s disastrous decision to require an increase in the number of public bus routes. After the mayor spent hundreds of thousands of dollars for the new buses and for street signs, bus shelters, and schedules, we all quickly learned that there was little to no interest in using public transportation among the people for whom the new routes were intended. Mandatory recycling would add yet another chapter to the book of wasteful government programs. 

A disastrous decision, I would say, said Vasco. So that is how it is done Bombast and stultiloquence ... 

See A. Hopkins, Disastrous Decisions the Human and Organizational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout Regulation (2012) CCH Sydney, 137-154. 

Disastrous Decisions The Human and Organisational Causes of the the Gulf of Mexico Blowout. CCH Sydney. 

An advantage of non-hierarchical methods compared to hierarchical methods is that one is not bound by earlier decisions. A simple example of how disastrous this can be is given in Fig. 30.13 where an agglomerative hierarchical method would start by linking A and B. On the other hand, the agglomerative methods allow better visualization, although some visualization methods (e.g. Ref. [28]) have been proposed for non-hierarchical methods. 

We chose the number of PCs in the PCR calibration model rather casually. It is, however, one of the most consequential decisions to be made during modelling. One should take great care not to overfit, i.e. using too many PCs. When all PCs are used one can fit exactly all measured X-contents in the calibration set. Perfect as it may look, it is disastrous for future prediction. All random errors in the calibration set and all interfering phenomena have been described exactly for the calibration set and have become part of the predictive model. However, all one needs is a description of the systematic variation in the calibration data, not the... 

In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), the Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision, invalidated a school requirement that compelled a flag salute on the ground that it was an unconstitutional invasion of the sphere of intellect and spirit which it is the purpose of the First Amendment to our Constitution to reserve from official control. The First Amendment, declared the Court, gives a constitutional preference for individual freedom of mind over officially disciplined uniformity for which history indicates a disappointing and disastrous end. At the center of our American freedom, is the freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds, the Court explained, only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. ... 

Harmful use of alcohol is common and unform-nately often condoned. Such use includes frequent drunkenness, and the use of alcohol when its effects may be dangerous, for example when driving and operating other machinery. Less obvious, but sometimes disastrous, harmful effects may result from errors of judgement in inter-personal relationships and in decision making in general. 

Reliable evidence that nitromethane possesses properties characteristic of an explosive has been provided relatively recently. In particular two disastrous railway accidents which occurred in 1958 in the U.S.A. (one at Niagara Junction said the other at Mount Pulaski, HI.) gave decisive proof that nitromethane should be considered as an explosive and classified as such when subjected to transportation. Both accidents occurred with nitromethane in tank cars. Since then nitromethane has been the only nitroparaffin which is not allowed to be shipped in tank cars but only in smaller containers, such as drums. 

The costs of erroneous detection decisions can be quite significant. Disastrous results may follow if irreversible actions are taken. Even the seemingly harmless false positive which can later be shown to be spurious can damage reputations and/or lead to expensive court suits. It is inq>ortant therefore that scientific detection decisions and detection limits be approached in a quantitative manner, with due attention to the probability of errors of both kinds. 

We describe some models of the disastrous events spreading. This is a very important part of risk analysis. Despite the strong dependency of successive events, after some arrangements we can use Markov models for the description. It allows us to compute several characteristics of such system. When we consider a system of objects among them a disastrous event could spread, we can compute a probabdity distribution of absorbing states, first passage times for any of the objects and many others. This modeling can help us to make some preventive decision or to prepare disaster recovery plans. In the paper, the model is described and some computations are outlined. Keywords risk, safety, successive event, disastrous event, markov chain. 

---