Risk considerations

Army studies state that the risks posed by continued chemical weapon storage, while very small, far exceed the risk of disposal. The condition 

Public opposition to incineration has come from several citizens groups, states, and environmental organizations. They have raised concerns about incineration because of questions about adverse health effects, such as birth defects, respiratory diseases, neurological damage, and cancer. The linkage between these health problems and incineration is still being researched and debated. For example, dioxins and furans have been linked to cancer and other long-term health problems. 

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act allows states to establish regulations more stringent than federal standards. Although the act is intended to minimize potential health hazards, some states want complete assurance of no long-term health effects. According to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia to adequately document and ensure that incinerator emissions do not cause cancer, a 30-year epidemiological 

The Army has not decided how it will comply with such restrictive legislation, nor has it established a contingency plan in the event that a state denies the Army an environmental permit. 

The Army has taken steps to minimize the potential environmental risks of high-temperature incineration at Johnston Island. Army policy requires an immediate halt to the flow of chemical agents to the incinerator and the orderly shutdown of furnaces if as little as 20% of EPA s allowable agent emission is detected in the exhaust stack. The Army has also taken steps to monitor and control toxic emissions, including dioxins and furans. 

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Sugar can, the report concluded, be a cause of dental cavities rinsing the mouth with water after consuming a sugar product reduces this risk considerably. Dental cavities appear to be the only disease for which sucrose could be a cause. 

Furthermore, the instrumentation of the RoHS Directive has to be considered in this context. The Directive is targeting a clearly structured business sector with very few clear substance bans (or more precisely limits). For the regulated pollutants in turn very unique risk considerations are possible. Without an extension of the instrumentation to a more sophisticated control system, the complex (chemical) process cannot be reproduced in other sectors. 

Luminescence is often much more sensitive to molecular dynamics than other optical techniques where temperature, viscosity, pH and solvent effects can have a significant influence on the emission response. Analyte degradation for light sensitive fluors and photobleaching for static measurements also influence the emission signal. Because of the wide variety of potential matrix effects, a thorough investigation should be conducted or the sample matrix well understood in terms of its potential impact on emission response. A complete discussion on the fate of the excited states and other measurement risk considerations can be found elsewhere. ... 

But even a small-scale trial-and-error strategy has to be organised within society. As discussed in the previous section, iimovations are rather improbable and disadvantaged by stractural frameworks. Iimovations depend upon freedom for them to be developed. At the same time safety barriers have to be formulated within which the search process can move freely. For example, possible environmental effects must be anticipated, necessitating controlled release in small increments and retrievability must be ensured. (Quantitative and qualitative restrictions must be imposed so that retrieval and repair options can still be effective if a trial is aborted. This approach is more successful if the persistence and spatial range of a chemical is low than for persistent chemicals like CFCs and PCBs. This requires that limited Teaming spaces or experimentation spaces have to be created intentionally under technical and economic risk considerations. Small increments and a steady increase are to be preferred, accompanied by intensive monitoring of detectable consequences. 

The remainder of this Chapter is organized as follows. In Section 8.2 we will discuss model formulation for petrochemical network planning under uncertainty and with uncertainty and risk consideration, referred to as robust optimization. Then we will briefly explain the concept of value of information and stochastic solution, in Section 8.3. In Section 8.4, we will illustrate the performance of the model through an industrial case study. The chapter ends with concluding remarks in Section 8.5. 

In this study, operational risk was accounted for in terms of variance in both projected benefits, represented by first stage variables, and forecasted demand, represented by the recourse variables. The variability in the projected benefit represents the solution robustness where the model solution will remain close to optimal for all scenarios. On the other hand, variability of the recourse term represents the model robustness where the model solution will almost be feasible for all scenarios. This approach gives rise to a multiobjective analysis in which scaling factors are used to evaluate the sensitivity due to variations in each term. The projected benefits variation was scaled by 0i, and deviation from forecasted demand was scaled by 02, where different values of 0i and 02 were used in order to observe the sensitivity of each term on the final petrochemical complex. The objective function with risk consideration can be written as follows ... 

The results of the model considered in this Chapter under uncertainty and with risk consideration, as one can intuitively anticipate, yielded different petrochemical network configurations and plant capacities when compared to the deterministic model results. The concepts of EVPI and VSS were introduced and numerically illustrated. The stochastic model provided good results as the objective function value was not too far from the results obtained using the wait-and-see approach. Furthermore, the results in this Chapter showed that the final petrochemical network was more sensitive to variations in product prices than to variation in market demand and process yields when the values of 0i and 02 were selected to maintain the final petrochemical structure. 

In so far as the input parameters in a risk analysis try to describe reality, they are not known with certainty, and in so far they are known with certainty, that is, they can be expressed by a single-point value, they do not refer to reality. This reminds ns that risk considerations on uncertainty evaluation becomes a key variable that cannot be neglected. The nse of fuzzy logic to evaluate solvents is innovative. This section will only develop these concepts briefly, allowing more rigorous texts to explain it in detail (Ronvray, 1997). 

Mankind is already exposed to many carcinogens whose presence in the environment cannot be easily controlled. In view of the nature of cancer, the long latent period of its development, and the irreversibility of chemical carcinogenesis, it would be highly improper to expose the general population to an increased risk if the benefits were small, questionable, or restricted to limited segments of the population. Such benefit-risk considerations not only must be based on scientific facts but also must be ethical, with as broad a population base as possible used in the decision-making process. 

The risk assessment may be perceived as the source of a risk management decision, when in fact, social concerns, international issues, trade, public perception, or other non-risk considerations may be taken into consideration. Finally there is one activity known as risk communication that involves making the risk assessment and risk... 

Based on these considerations and the purpose of this study, disposal is the only disposition discussed in developing recommendations on exemption of waste that contains small amounts of hazardous substances based on risk. Consideration of dispositions of exempt materials other than disposal as nonhazardous waste is beyond the scope of this study. However, the principles used in this Report to define exempt waste based on risk also could be used to define exempt material for any other purpose. 

E. H. Larsen, M. Hansen, W. Gossler, Speciation and health risk considerations of arsenic in the edible mushroom Laccaria amethystina collected from contaminated and uncontaminated locations, Appl. Organomet. Chem., 12 (1998), 285-291. 

TABLE 12.2. Health risk considerations for the common RCAs... 

Safety and risk considerations are often at the center of mistake proofing. Imagine the risk associated with unveiling new investment software, or with implementing a new surgical procedure. Both the financial and health care industries have a host of mistake-proofing measures in place to avoid costly errors and litigation. 

Aberrant thrombus formation and deposition on blood vessel walls imderlies the pathogenesis of acute cardiovascular disease states which remain the principal cause of morbidity and mortality in the industrialized world [1,2,3]. Plasma proteins, proteases and specific cellular receptors that participate in hemostasis have emerged as important risk considerations in thrombosis and thromboembolic disorders. The clinical manifestations of the above disease states include acute coronary artery and cerebrovascular syndromes, peripheral arterial occlusion, deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary/renal embolism [3]. The most dilabilitating acute events precipitated by these disorders are myocardial infarction and stroke. In addition, the interplay between hemostatic factors and hypertension (4) or atherosclerosis (5) dramatically enhances the manifestation of these pathologic states. 

Information that has been assembled on potential sources is analysed to identify the types and locations of possible contamination on the site. These are then mapped on to the physical description of the site and an initial identification is made of receptors that might be at risk. Consideration of the possible pathways between potential sources and receptors leads to a preliminary conceptual model for the site, in terms of candidate source-pathway-receptor linkages. The preliminary conceptual model is then tested and refined by observation, during a site reconnaissance. 

Development of non-risk remedial action objectives based on resource protection and other non-risk considerations. Resource protection objectives typically include numeric remedial action levels while other non-risk criteria are typically non-numeric and may include remediation timeframe, implementability, cost effectiveness, regulatory compliance, property use requirements, liability control, and community concern. 

Non-risk Remedial Action Objectives - A set of objectives based on non-risk considerations for current and future site management. These objectives may include resource protection standards or nuisance and odour control standards with numeric remedial action levels. In addition, non-risk objectives may include performance standards not based on contaminant concentrations such as remediation timeframe,... 

In risk-based remedial action screening, potential remedial actions are screened to first identify protective remedial actions which can achieve all of the risk-based remedial action objectives and then to identify acceptable remedial actions that can also achieve all non-risk objectives. The separate evaluation of potential remedial actions using risk-based objectives and then non-risk objectives allows for a clear understanding of the full range of options available to protect human health and ecological resources, and how those options are constrained by non-risk considerations such as property use, liability control, or non-risk regulatory requirements. In addition, the non-risk objectives for a site may be balanced against cost or other considerations in a way that is unacceptable for risk objectives based on health protection. 

When examining societal risk, consideration has to be given both to the frequency of the event and the number of people (organisms) likely to be affected by the event. Therefore, this ties the assessment geographically as it depends on the size (and, possibly, environmental importance) of the population in the area being examined. 

Estes, E., and Smith, V.K., 1996, Price, Quality, and Pesticide-Related Health Risk Considerations in Fruit and Vegetable Purchases An Hedonic Analysis of Tucson, Arizona Supermarkets, Journal of Food Distribution Research, 27(3) 8-17. 

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