177,033 research outputs found
The Risk Related to the Interaction Between Natural Hazards and Technologies
No full textA large European integrating project on early recognition, monitoring and integrated management of risks related to emerging and new technologies (iNTeg-Risk) has recently started. Among several research activities, a specific task has been devoted to the interaction of natural hazards and technology (Na-Tech risks). The main goal of this task is to improve the resilience of industrial facilities to technological accidents caused or aggravated by natural hazards. In this context, the authors have analysed Na-Tech accidents due to impact of earthquakes, floods and lightning on chemical and process plants, aiming at giving a general framework for the assessment of industrial risks
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe 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
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
Analysis of HLA-DRB1*-A and –B* alleles in prenatal duagnosis for determination of maternal contamination in fetyal DNA
No full textGoing Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Valutazioni densitometriche in soggetti affetti da Talassemia Major in trattamento con alndronato
No full textAcceptability parameters for industrial risk with respect to natural-technological interactions
No full textWhen industrial risks are of concern, local operators, safety management and public authorities are generally focused on technological risk sources, management deficiencies or human errors, but are often unaware of possible accidental scenarios which may derive from the impact of disastrous natural events as earthquakes, flooding or lightning on industrial establishments (Na-Tech hazard).
This issue has been recently recognized by the European Community, which has financed a large-scale integrated project within the Seventh Framework Program, concerning the early recognition, monitoring and integrated management of risks related to emerging and new technologies (iNTeg-Risk). In the project, a specific task has been devoted to assess the contributions of Na-Tech risks to the overall industrial risk at community level, aiming at the improvement of the resilience of industrial facilities to technological accidents triggered by natural hazards.
In the following, a general procedure for the evaluation of Na-Tech risks having considered floods, lightning and earthquakes, with specific reference to large scale equipment containing hazardous substances, is presented. Preliminary results of specific methods developed for the Quantitative Risk Assessment of industrial facilities and areas exposed to Na-Tech events are discussed. These results have clarified that the contribution of natural events to the industrial risks may be important and comparable to the purely technological risks. Furthermore, they allow the definition of priorities for the prevention and mitigation of accidental scenarios in terms of safety management, early warning systems and/or technological resources.
The study also focused on the acceptability criteria for industrial installations with respect to the accidental events triggered by natural events. Important differences may arise if a classical reference for the acceptability matrix (e.g. the ALARP matrix) is used. The natural event recurrence period and the probability of its intensity and the hazard of top events require very different procedures for their estimation. Historical data are essential for natural events whereas they are less significant for industrial equipment, due to the continuous development of safety system and technology. Moreover, the figure for “frequent event” in the industrial risk matrix has a correspondent “very rare” figure for natural event in the geophysical or meteorological meaning, and the external environment is generally struggling for the natural event and overloading of public emergency systems does not allow a contribution for the industrial accidental scenario mitigation. Also, combined scenario occur when natural events strike any industrial installation, and mitigation systems are often affected at the same time, whereas single, partially mitigable scenarios are generally predicted in the normal process life and industrial safety assessment. Finally, the natural event effects may contribute to the overall risks as workers may be injured directly for the same event of for the structural damage of buildings, offices and steel structures inside the installation. In this framework, the possible definition of acceptability parameters based on threshold values for the natural events, either in terms of Na-Tech accidental scenario probability of occurrence or for the relative intensity was investigated. The proposed threshold values were obtained from the threshold values of the specific equipment categories, for each natural event, that were obtained in previous studies and from the analysis of the societal risk variation as obtained from QRA analysis
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