Risks trivial

Identify the risks arising or connected with their work clearly differentiating between the significant risks and the insignificant risks (trivial)... 

A company may be considering a project with a very high potential rate of return and a low risk, but it may prove impossible to raise the money to start the project. Conversely, the company may be prepared to undertake an extremely risky project if the investment is trivial. Thus, the attitude of a company to risk depends on the circumstances. 

Money does not hold the same value for each company or each individual. A dollar may keep a pauper from starvation while being a trivial amount to the person who gave it. Attempts have been made to quantify a company s attitude to money, risk, and uncertainty by asking business executives a number of questions such as the following ... 

Introduction Theprevious sections dealt with techniques for the identification of hazards and methods for calculating the effects of accidental releases of hazardous materials. This section addresses the methodologies available to analyze and estimate risk, which is a function of both the consequences of an incident and its frequency. The apphcation of these methodologies in most instances is not trivial. A significant allocation of resources is necessary. Therefore, a selection process or risk prioritization process is advised before considering a risk analysis study. 

To ensure that an operation is under control may necessitate atmospheric monitoring this is summarized in Chapter 9. General safety considerations, administration and systems of work requirements, including elementary first aid, are summarized in Chapter 11. For example, the recommended strategy is to include provision for appropriate first aid procedures within the system of work before specific chemicals are brought into use to so order work practices that the risk of exposure is minimized and in the event of an accident involving any but the most trivial injuries — with no foreseeable likelihood of complications or deterioration — to seek immediate medical assistance. 

Identifying trivial risks that do not require further evaluation... 

Notwithstanding the Iraqi lesson learned that the possibility of undeclared nuclear activities must be taken seriously and their possible existence sought out, the concern with undeclared activities as a proliferation risk is not new and their possible existence has always been recognized, indeed, presumed, in ary serious analysis of safeguards. Even purified plutonium or highly enriched uranium metals are harmless in bulk form. Further steps, specifically fabrication into weapons components, are necessary before these materials can result in proliferation and these steps, while perhaps not demanding, are not trivial. They are necessarily presumed to exist if the diversion of separated plutonium or HEU is discovered, since no reliable means for their detection are available. 

Hoffmann s review.2) The number of specific examples mentioned in the text is severely limited in order to save space they can be easily found elsewhere.2) Instead, space is devoted to detailed discussion of topics likely to be less familiar to the organic chemist, such as some of the properties of potential energy hypersurfaces in multidimensional nuclear configuration space, etc. When in doubt, the author erred on the side of sounding too explicit and trivial at the risk of offending the reader with good physical background. 

As a basis for the determination of risk it must be assumed that the colorants are properly handled and applied. It is not appropriate to estimate risk primarily on the basis of exposure values obtained under improper working conditions, or where appropriate plant and equipment are not available. Ensuring satisfactory operating conditions and training of operatives to handle products correctly is essential nowadays for technological success as well as for health and safety requirements. In this way, exposure levels can be kept below the threshold of unacceptable risk. It is reasonable to accept that for practical purposes levels of exposure exist below which the risk becomes trivial [67]. 

A risk with this approach is that if there are a large number of constant non-zero entries in the data matrix, they can act as binary variables and perhaps weight the analysis toward yielding trivial results. When cross validation is used, however, this risk is reduced. 

Note that some of the risk information is actuarial (based on statistical data, typically collected and organized by insurance companies), and some of it has been derived from the type of risk assessment discussed in this book (chloroform in chlorinated drinking water, afla-toxin in peanut products). While the uncertainties associated with the figures in Table 11.2 are much greater for some risks than for others (not a trivial problem in presentation of risk data), such a presentation, it would seem, is helpful to people who are trying to acquire some understanding of extremely low probability events, of the order of one-in-one million. 

Sleep apnea is no trivial condition. Short-term, it causes daytime drowsiness that interferes with work and increases the risk of accidents. Long-term, sleep apnea worsens blood pressure control and may even shorten life expectancy. 

In the case of biological contamination, the identification of risk became obvious by experience, the risk assessment was made unambiguous by epidemiology, and the immediate and obvious effectiveness of the risk management decisions demonstrated their wisdom in the absence of elegant quantitative risk extrapolation models and projections of costs per case averted. Costs of water treatment and distribution became trivial relative to almost all other essential commodities, and in the public expectation the biological safety of drinking water became axiomatic. 

Even when the risk of toxic side effects from a particular drug has been evaluated, it must be weighed against the expected benefits. The use of a very dangerous drug with only a narrow tolerance between the therapeutic and toxic doses may still be justified if it is the sole treatment for an otherwise fatal disease. However, a relatively safe drug may be inappropriate if safer compounds are available or if the condition being treated is trivial. 

The hazard and operability study (HAZOP) identifies a potential hazard. It provides little information on risk and consequences or its seriousness. However, by assessing the potential hazard, sometimes the designer may decide that the consequences of the hazard are either trivial or unlikely to be ignored. In certain instances, the solution is obvious and the design is modified. A fault tree analysis is useful where the consequences of the hazard are severe, or where its causes are many. The fault tree indicates how various events or combinations of events can give rise to a hazard. It is employed to identify the most... 

True risks are often different than perceived risks. Due to human curiosity, the desire to sell news, 24-hour-a-day news blitz, and current trends, some folks have a distorted sense of risks. Most often, people fear the lesser or trivial risks and fail to respect the significant dangers faced every day. 

---