1,720,958 research outputs found
Upgrade the ALARP model as a holistic approach to project risk and decision management
No full textThe ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable) model was developed by the UK Health and Safety Executive to establish and justify risk acceptability limits. The rationale for an expanded approach to the direction fo the lifecycle project risk management and decision-making process is outlined here
Energy, environment and sustainable development of the belt and road initiative: The Chinese scenario and Western contributions
No full textThe Belt and Road Initiative has tremendously increased the interaction of China with the countries involved, pushing forward the integration and comparative phase, based on the main factors affecting the energy, envi- ronmental and development scenarios. The indicators of this process are strictly related to the environmental sustainability of projects and infrastructural initiatives which entail aspects regarding climate change, environ- mental impact, transport management, urbanization and effective utilization of energy. Through this osmotic program, which the Chinese government said in 2013 would be executed from east to west, the contributions Western countries may make to maximize the common efforts are foreseeably very important for the success of the whole BRI and, indirectly, for the harmonization of the very rapid Chinese growth. China held the first posi- tion in 2014 for electricity generation (5388 billion kwh/h) and coal production (4.27 billion short tons/year), as well as the second position for petroleum consumption. On the other hand, carbon dioxide emissions were 1.8 times those of the USA in 2015, and transport, urbanization and energy intensity still struggle to attain optimal levels. The quality of productive sectors, research and universities is still low in the world ranking, despite the huge efforts of the Chinese, due to a still slow and cumbersome internationalization process. This article aims to integrate the numerous excellent studies published in the last few years on sustainable development and energy effectiveness within the BRI (Table 1 provides some specific references), by carrying out a systematic analysis of the Chinese energy, environmental and sustainable landscape from a Western perspective, breaking the main areas of the Chinese scenario down into its components and identifying those where the contributions of Western countries can support the gaps coverage. In this respect, the change of viewpoint provided by this study may be beneficial to properly balance the BRI perspective along the east-west axis
ALARP approach for risk assessment of civil engineering projects
No full textRisk assessment is essential to express judgments of economic convenience on investment initiatives. This certainly applies to civil engineering projects, where the risk components are not only economic, but also environmental, social and cultural. Thus, the aim of the paper is to delineate a risk analysis model in the economic evaluation of investments through the development of algorithms where the Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) logic is integrated with the ALARP principle. The latter provides operative tools ensuring that risk is tolerable if it is “As Low As Reasonably Practicable”. The study shows that the ALARP logic, widely applied in sectors such as nuclear, energy and oil & gas, but less implemented in civil engineering, can instead become an important investigative tool if used jointly with the CBA precisely in the evaluation economic of civil projects, contributing to the characterization of efficient forecast protocols. In the first paragraph of the paper, the steps necessary to manage the risk connected to a project initiative are described and the ALARP logic is analysed. The second paragraph presents the risk analysis approaches traditionally used in the economic evaluation of projects. In the third section the logical scheme of an innovative protocol for the management of project risk is defined, by integrating the ALARP principles in the procedural scheme of the CBA. In conclusion, prospects for future research are outlined
The ALARP principle in the Cost-Benefit analysis for the acceptability of investment risk
No full textThe process of allocating financial resources is extremely complex-both because the selection of investments depends on multiple, and interrelated, variables, and constraints that limit the eligibility domain of the solutions, and because the feasibility of projects is influenced by risk factors. In this sense, it is essential to develop economic evaluations on a probabilistic basis. Nevertheless, for the civil engineering sector, the literature emphasizes the centrality of risk management, in order to establish interventions for risk mitigation. On the other hand, few methodologies are available to systematically compare ante and post mitigation design risk, along with the verification of the economic convenience of these actions. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how these limits can be at least partially overcome by integrating, in the traditional Cost-Benefit Analysis schemes, the As Low as Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) logic. According to it, the risk is tolerable only if it is impossible to reduce it further or if the costs to mitigate it are disproportionate to the benefits obtainable. The research outlines the phases of an innovative protocol for managing investment risks. On the basis of a case study dealing with a project for the recovery and transformation of an ancient medieval village into a widespread-hotel, the novelty of the model consists of the characterization of acceptability and tolerability thresholds of the investment risk, as well as its ability to guarantee the triangular balance between risks, costs and benefits deriving from mitigation options
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Process Safety Calculations
No full textProcess Safety Calculations, Second Edition remains to be an essential guide for students and practitioners in process safety engineering who are working on calculating and predicting risks and consequences. The book focuses on calculation procedures based on basic chemistry, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, conservation equations, kinetics and practical models. It provides helpful calculations to demonstrate compliance with regulations and standards, such as Seveso directive(s)/COMAH, CLP regulation, ATEX directives, PED directives, REACH regulation, OSHA/NIOSH and UK ALARP, along with risk and consequence assessment, stoichiometry, thermodynamics, stress analysis and fluid-dynamics. This fully revised, updated and expanded second edition follows the same organization as the first, including the original three main parts, Fundamentals, Consequence Assessment and Quantitative Risk Assessment. However, the latter part is significantly expanded, including an appendix consisting of five fundamental thematic areas belonging to the risk assessment framework, including in-depth calculations methodologies for some fundamental monothematic macro-areas of process safety.SCOPUS: bk.binfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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