Identifying Causes

All of the team must be encouraged to put forward their ideas on the possible canses of the problem. No idea should be discarded at this stage. The result may be a list of 30 to 50 possible causes. Joint discussion and examination of the list should discover common themes. Commonality of causes should then resolve the problem into perhaps six or seven possible variables. Resolution of the fault can then commence through factorial experiments. Very few problems exist that cannot be solved in this way. The method of changing one variable at a time often fails because it cannot show possible interaction between variables. Interactive variables can, and do exist. 

Common component faults and their possible causes are listed in Table 6.3. 

Under-cured Cure timer setting Check 

Blisters (continued) High moisture content of rubber Check less than 0.5% 

Splits Scorch Check for banana shaped injection sprues 

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In principal, data on the epidemiology of anaphylaxis will help to identify causes, risk factors and circumstances of the reaction. It will support the medical commimity to develop measures for the protection of affected patients. A true incidence of anaphylaxis has not been established, reasons are diverse study designs and the fact that there has been no universal consensus as to the definition of anaphylaxis [ 1 ]. 

In the majority of patients, up to 95%, the cause of hypertension is unknown and it is referred to as essential, or more appropriately, asprimary hypertension.8 However, in some patients there is an identifiable cause of which the most common are 2... 

Is more extensive testing for identifiable causes of hypertension indicated at this time ... 

Symptomatic epilepsies There is an identifiable cause for the seizures, such as trauma or hypoxia. 

Complete a review of systems and physical examination to identify causes or complications of headache. 

Obtain a thorough history and physical examination that may indicate the possible presence of GH deficiency. Exclude other identifiable causes of growth failure, such as hypothyroidism, chronic illness, malnutrition, genetic syndromes, and skeletal disorders. 

In the absence of an identified cause and comorbidities, monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis is present which can be amenable to nonpharmacologic and pharmacologic therapies. Nonpharmacologic therapy should be utilized initially, provided that the patient and family are sufficiently motivated. Use of one nonpharmacologic method at a time is reasonable, provided that each is given an adequate trial period. If response is suboptimal after 6 months, a different method should be substituted or added. There is some evidence to... 

In Sect. 3.1, we will address plastics, and in Sect. 3.2 printed matter/paper. Based on the literature and on our own work we will try to identify causes of the absence of additives. 

To obtain the mass emissions of pollutants from e-waste recycling processes, it is essential that the inputs of pollutants are truly e-waste related. To fulfill this requirement, a causal analysis is desirable. However, the concept of causation is rather problematic because causal mechanisms are complex [26]. Nonetheless, we are compelled to identify causes, in an attempt to minimize the uncertainties associated with our estimates. In this chapter, the strict empiricist, David Hume s empirical criterion, was adopted. This approach requires only a combination of (1) e-waste processing and environmental pollution are associated in space and time (contiguity) (2) e-waste processing precede to environmental pollution (temporal succession) and (3) e-waste processing is always conjoined with environmental pollution (consistent conjunction). These are always the cases judged from a number of previous studies [6, 27-35]. 

Finally, it should be kept in mind that quantification is often problematic in surface analysis and characterization. Firstly because some techniques are not really suited for quantification, but also in cases such as infrared spectroscopy where one does not really know precisely how deep into the material one is probing. Although, there are many good examples of semi-quantitative applications that involve measuring relative band intensities that relate to changes in a surface property. However, for problem solving revealing qualitative differences is often sufficient information to be able to identify cause and move on to look for a potential solution. 

In clinical psychiatric terms, the affective disorders can be subdivided into unipolar and bipolar disorders. Unipolar depression is also known as psychotic depression, endogenous depression, idiopathic depression and major depressive disorder. Bipolar disorder is now recognised as being heterogeneous bipolar disorder I is equivalent to classical manic depressive psychosis, or manic depression, while bipolar disorder II is depression with hypomania (Dean, 2002). Unipolar mania is where periods of mania alternate with periods of more normal moods. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) refers to depression with its onset most commonly in winter, followed by a gradual remission in spring. Some milder forms of severe depression, often those with an identifiable cause, may be referred to as reactive or neurotic depression. Secondary depression is associated with other illnesses, such as neuro-degenerative or cardiovascular diseases, and is relatively common. 

Chronic pain can be nociceptive, neuropathic/functional, or both (e.g., pain that persists after the healing of the acute injury, pain related to a chronic disease, pain without an identifiable cause, and pain associated with cancer). 

Identifying causes is one of the primary objectives of the entire investigation process. Initial selection of the root cause determination process will most likely require some special attention to the concepts of multiple causes (especially when dealing with reactive chemistry) and to underlying system-related causes. 

It is difficult to identify causes and lessons learned in existing sources of process safety incident data because industry associations, government agencies, and academia generally do not collect this information. 

Depressed mood is the hallmark symptom of MDD, but it is neither required nor sufficient for the diagnosis of major depression. In addition to depressed mood, the key symptoms of a major depressive episode include anhedonia, changes in sleep or appetite, psychomotor retardation or agitation, poor concentration or indecisiveness, and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. The DSM-IV definition of major depression requires that five or more of these symptoms be present for at least 2 weeks in the absence of an identifiable cause such as medication, medical illness, or the death of a loved one. Refer to Table 3.2 for the DSM-IV criteria for MDD. 

Intuitive techniques rely on the experience and knowledge of the people involved to identify causes. Brainstorming utilizes intuitive techniques, while structured brainstorming utilizes a combination of intuitive and deductive techniques. 

Who identify causes of the incident before the investigation starts... 

The next activity in the sequence is to check for completeness, such as, Have all the identified causes been addressed The incident investigation team should remember that the multiple causes are not all necessarily located at the bottom of the logic tree structure. Sometimes causes may be... 

Each recommendation should he brief (two or three lines only), sufficient to identify a particular topic, and individually numbered to facilitate management of follow-up and resolution. If appropriate, each recommendation should have appended a cross-reference number to enable a fuller explanation, description, or argument to be extracted from other sections of the report in support of the recommendations. Some investigators recommend adding a column to the table entitled Evidence which allows the team to tie in important pieces of evidence to the findings and identified causes. In effect, this column answers the questions, How do we know this Why do we believe this is a cause ... 

In model-1 (Fig. 1), which provides the mechanism of AR-JP, cumulative increases of a putative parkin substrate(s), provisionally termed X(s), which has yet to be identified, cause selective neuronal death. In this model, the target X protein is simply considered as a factor whose accumulation directly mediates death of dopaminergic neurons i.e., abnormal accumulation of X forcibly evokes cell death. To explain that genetic defect of the parkin gene causes specifically dopaminergic neuronal... 

Figure 1 shows a cause-and-effect diagram which is used to identify causes to yield a problem in a biopharmaceutical manufacturing process. Possible main causes and subcauses are identified. Once the causes are identified, other tools are employed to determine the contribution of various causes to the effect. Actions are taken to eliminate or minimize the impact of these causes. 

In the course of this work two phenomena were noted for which no explanation was sought. When ammonium bicarbonate was added to sea water to prepare a regenerant solution, a white precipitate was formed which was settled out and discarded with no attempt made at chemical analysis. Toward the end of some of the regeneration cycles and at the start of some of the feed cycles, gas was evolved in the ion exchange columns, which eventually disappeared. This gas, which was not identified, caused serious flow impedance. 

Any actions taken as a result of the preliminary assessment phase can result in a reduction or elimination of toxicity, negating the need for further investigation. In addition, at this early stage of the TRE, management attention will often lead to subtle operational changes, which in turn, may result in a reduction or elimination of acute lethality without a clearly identified cause (Ausley et al., 1998). 

Borgmann, U., Norwood W. P., Reynoldson, T.B. and Rosa, F. (2001) Identifying cause in sediment assessments Bioavailability and the Sediment Quality Triad, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 58, 950-960. 

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