Procedural Flaws

Various problems have been found with procedures in safety-critical domains (e.g., Cox and Cox, 1996, Dekker, 2003 Marsden, 1996 Ockerman and Pritchett, 2001). They have been found to be inefficient, burdensome, overly difficult, or incorrect (Ockerman and Pritchett, 2001), and they often are inaccessible, ambiguous, overly demanding on memory, and inadequate when used to diagnose plant problans (Cox and Cox, 1996). 

---

The flaws in the U.S. system, particularly in the Freedom of Information Act, are not easy to fix. Legislation now pending in Congress will resolve the procedural flaws. It will, for the first time in eight years, protect academic research, which has not been protected by the law since government has not considered it "commercial." Changes to specific laws like the Pesticides Act, FIFRA, have been so hard to effectuate that we see that TSCA and the other statutes will... 

The examples detailed above (and that of Phoronis vancouverensis") illustrate the well known dangers inherent in PCR-based analyses and underline the need for a well-chosen, replicated taxon sample and/or genetically independent confirmation of novel hypotheses of relationship. Also, one substantial procedural flaw in our previously published work (Cohen and Gawthrop, 1996, 1997 Cohen et ai, 1998a,b) must be noted parsimony bootstrap analyses were performed after character reweighting on the most parsimonious tree obtained by successive approximation bootstrap frequencies were therefore somewhat inflated (Liden, 1999). 

The environmental impact assessments were completed in 2002 with positive record of decisions issued in 2003 for the demonstration plant and pilot fuel plant. In January 2005, the EIA was remanded back to the DEAT by the courts to address procedural flaws. The additional reviews should be completed in mid-2005. The demonstration plant site preparation is scheduled to begin at the Koeberg NPP site in the first quarter of 2007 with fuel loading anticipated for mid-2010. The commercial acceptance by ESKOM is scheduled for early 2011 [XIV-16]. 

Insurance in pressure boundary integrity of NPP unit is strongly influenced by technical capabilities and efficiency of metal examination system. Ordinary ultrasonic examination tools and procedures have limitations in flaw sizing and positioning. The problems arise for welds and repair zones of welds made by filler materials of austenitic type. 

The main purpose of AUGUR4.2 expert ISI is the application to zones where some flaws (indications) had been revealed by scheduled manual ultrasonic inspections. Information provided by AUGUR 4.2 is used for decision-making further surveillance of these zones or corrective measures. The procedure of AUGUR 4.2 examination is included into the approved general scheme of ISI [1]... 

Using flaw visuahzation system data the strength and fracture mechanics estimations are carried out in accordance with defect assessment regulatory procedure M-02-91 [5]. Recently, the additions had been included in the procedure, concerning interpretation of expert flaw visualization sysf em data, computer modelling, residual stresses, in-site properties of metal, methods of fracture analysis. 

The benefits of flaw visualization tools applications are supported by strength maintenance software, based on computer modelling and realizing assessment procedure. 

RDIPE, VNIIAES. Procedure for Allowable Flaw Sizes Evaluation in Metal of Equipment and Piping during NPP Operation, M-02-91, (in Russian). 

The verifications can be performed by the user himself, with electronic measurement equipment described in this project. The consequences of the application of future European standard are very important since is established a mandatory verification of each particular flaw detector, at least once a year. Their verification is to be performed according to a well defined procedure of measurement, including acceptance criteria for each parameter. 

The Institute has many-year experience of investigations and developments in the field of NDT. These are, mainly, developments which allowed creation of a series of eddy current flaw detectors for various applications. The Institute has traditionally studied the physico-mechanical properties of materials, their stressed-strained state, fracture mechanics and developed on this basis the procedures and instruments which measure the properties and predict the behaviour of materials. Quite important are also developments of technologies and equipment for control of thickness and adhesion of thin protective coatings on various bases, corrosion control of underground pipelines by indirect method, acoustic emission control of hydrogen and corrosion cracking in structural materials, etc. 

The ASME Codes recommend that hydrostatic tests be run at a temperature that is usually above the nil-ductility temperature of the material. This is, in effect, a pressure-temperature treatment of the vessel. When tested in the relatively ductile condition above the nil-ductihty temperature, the material will yield at the tips of cracks and flaws and at points of high residual weld stress. This procedure will... 

Only a few incidents started with the sudden failure of a major component. Most started with a flaw in a minor component, an instrument that was out of order or not believed, a poor procedure, or a failure to follow procedures or good engineering practice. For want of a nail, the battle was lost. 

The selection of the evaluation method(s) depends on various factors such as the specific type of plastic, the type of flaw to be detected, the environment of the evaluation, the effectiveness of the evaluation method, the size of the structure, and the economic consequences of structural failure. Conventional evaluation methods are often adequate for baseline and acceptance inspections. However, there are increasing demands for more accurate characterization of the size and shape of defects that may require advanced techniques and procedures and involve the use of several methods. 

There is the microtoming optical analysis test. In this procedure thin slices (under 30 tixri) of the plastics are cut from the product at any level and microscopically examined under polarized light transmitted through the sample. Rapid quality and failure analysis examination occurs by this technique. This technique has been used for many years in biological studies and by metallurgists to determine flaws, physical and mechanical properties. Examination can be related to stress patterns, mechanical properties, etc. 

These various problems may arise under several different circumstances. For example, difficulties may result from consistently poor operational control of the boiler plant or from enforced operating conditions that fall outside generally accepted procedures. Alternatively, problems may stem from malfunctioning equipment, from equipment design flaws, from inadequate water treatment programs, or even as a result of poor interpretation of monitored results and bad water treatment advice. 

The flaws in the FDA s systems have been twofold. First, the cosmetic secrets system has not given adequate consideration to private statements showing confidential status. Second, the central agency staff must know how many exceptions have been allowed, to whom and for what. If the procedure is unfair or if exceptions cannot be catalogued, then the agency cannot manage its workload and the submitter cannot be adequately listened to. But these problems can be worked out within the EEC structure, and chemists familiar with the EEC inventory process should aid in the letter exceptions process. 

The underlying assumption is further that this procedure leads to information as to the future performance of the full iV-object model but this is an equally flawed assumption. This procedure has patently no link to any new data set, new measurements , generated after the model has been established and cross-validated. In reality, all that cross-validation delivers is a measure of internal training set stability with respect to sub-setting (sequential exclusion of one object, or one segment). 

An attempt has been made to discuss the position of drug therapy of various types of mental disorders within a wider perspective, and especially to clarify the relationship between drug therapy and non-drug treatments. It was necessary to deal separately with the various classes of psychopharmaceuticals and the disorders treated with them, and for our purposes it was also sensible to refer as far as possible to controlled, i.e. comparative, studies. The drawback of this evidence-based approach is obvious comparative studies of therapeutic procedures almost necessarily favor one of the compared treatments because they can never be carried out with completely identical preconditions for all treatments (Elkin et studies comparing psychotherapy with pharmacotherapy were scrutinized and discovered to include studies that were not entirely blind, random, controlled or of high quality, leading to inaccurate conclusions. Thus, meta-analyses based on flawed studies are clearly inadequate for the establishment of treatment guidelines (Klein, 2000). On the other hand, the value of an admittedly incomplete summary such as presented here is that results obtained in different places by different authors with different preconditions can be critically compared and related one to the other. 

---