Search results for: backcasting and flood risk management.

Authors: Alireza Azimi Sani , Shahram Chaharmahalie

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Internal controls of accounting are an essential business function for a growth-oriented organization, and include the elements of risk assessment, information communications and even employees' roles and responsibilities. Internal controls of accounting systems are designed to protect a company from fraud, abuse and inaccurate data recording and help organizations keep track of essential financial activities. Internal controls of accounting provide a streamlined solution for organizing all accounting procedures and ensuring that the accounting cycle is completed consistently and successfully. Implementing a formal Accounting Procedures Manual for the organization allows the financial department to facilitate several processes and maintain rigorous standards. Internal controls also allow organizations to keep detailed records, manage and organize important financial transactions and set a high standard for the organization's financial management structure and protocols. A well-implemented system also reduces the risk of accounting errors and abuse. A well-implemented controls system allows a company's financial managers to regulate and streamline all functions of the accounting department. Internal controls of accounting can be set up for every area to track deposits, monitor check handling, keep track of creditor accounts, and even assess budgets and financial statements on an ongoing basis. Setting up an effective accounting system to monitor accounting reports, analyze records and protect sensitive financial information also can help a company set clear goals and make accurate projections. Creating efficient accounting processes allows an organization to set specific policies and protocols on accounting procedures, and reach its financial objectives on a regular basis. Internal accounting controls can help keep track of such areas as cash-receipt recording, payroll management, appropriate recording of grants and gifts, cash disbursements by authorized personnel, and the recording of assets. These systems also can take into account any government regulations and requirements for financial reporting.

Keywords: Internal controls, risk assessment, financial management.

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Authors: Ghanima Al-Sharrah, Haitham M. Lababidi, Yusuf I. Ali

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The main objective of the current work is to introduce sustainability factors in optimizing the supply chain model for process industries. The supply chain models are normally based on purely economic considerations related to costs and profits. To account for sustainability, two additional factors have been introduced; environment and risk. A supply chain for an entire petroleum organization has been considered for implementing and testing the proposed optimization models. The environmental and risk factors were introduced as indicators reflecting the anticipated impact of the optimal production scenarios on sustainability. The aggregation method used in extending the single objective function to multi-objective function is proven to be quite effective in balancing the contribution of each objective term. The results indicate that introducing sustainability factor would slightly reduce the economic benefit while improving the environmental and risk reduction performances of the process industries.

Keywords: Supply chain, optimization, LP models, risk, environmental indicators, multi-objective.

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Authors: A. Bumbová, M. Čáslavský, F. Božek, J. Dvořák

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The paper deals with the analysis of hazards and sensitivity of potential resource of emergency water supply of population in a selected region of the Czech Republic. The procedure of identification and analysis of hazards and sensitivity is carried out on the basis of a unique methodology of classifying the drinking water resources earmarked for emergency supply of population. The hazard identification is based on a general register of hazards for individual parts of hydrological structure and the elements of technological equipment. It is followed by a semi-quantitative point indexation for the activation of each identified hazard, i.e. fires of anthropogenic origin, flood and the increased radioactive background accompanied by the leak of radon. Point indexation of sensitivity has been carried out at the same time. The analysis is the basis for a risk assessment of potential resource of emergency supply of population and the subsequent classification of such resource within the system of crisis planning.

Keywords: Hazard identification, sensitivity, semi-quantitative assessment, emergency water supply, crisis situation, ground water.

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Authors: Thammarak Srimarut, Witthaya Mekhum

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This study analyzed and developed a model for monk’s food bowl production on occupational health safety and environment at work for the encouragement of Rattanakosin local wisdom at Banbart Community. The process of blowpipe welding was necessary to produce the bowl which was very dangerous or 93.59% risk. After the employment of new sitting posture, the work risk was lower 48.41% or moderate risk. When considering in details, it was found that: 1) the traditional sitting posture could create work risk at 88.89% while the new sitting posture could create the work risk at 58.86%. 2) About the environmental pollution, with the traditional sitting posture, workers exposed to the polluted fume from welding at 61.11% while with the new sitting posture workers exposed to the polluted fume from welding at 40.47%. 3) On accidental risk, with the traditional sitting posture, workers exposed to the accident from welding at 94.44% while with the new sitting posture workers exposed to the accident from welding at 62.54%.

Keywords: Occupational health safety, environment at work, Monk’s food bowl.

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Authors: Aliaksei Patsekha, Michael Hohenberger, Harald Raupenstrauch

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An effective emergency response to accidents with chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive materials (CBRNE) that represent highly dynamic situations needs immediate actions within limited time, information and resources. The aim of the study is to provide the foundation for division of unsafe area into risk zones according to the impact of hazardous parameters (heat radiation, thermal dose, overpressure, chemical concentrations). A decision on the boundary values for three risk zones is based on the vulnerability analysis that covered a variety of accident scenarios containing the release of a toxic or flammable substance which either evaporates, ignites and/or explodes. Critical values are selected for the boundary definition of the Red, Orange and Yellow risk zones upon the examination of harmful effects that are likely to cause injuries of varying severity to people and different levels of damage to structures. The obtained results provide the basis for creating a comprehensive real-time risk map for a decision support at CBRNE operations.

Keywords: Boundary values, CBRNE threats, decision making process, hazardous effects, vulnerability analysis, risk zones.

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Authors: A. Fathianpour, M. B. Jelodar, S. Wilkinson

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This paper outlines the approaches taken to assess multi-hazard assessments. There is currently confusion in assessing multi-hazard impacts, and so this study aims to determine which of the available options are the most useful. The paper uses an international literature search, and analysis of current multi-hazard assessments and a case study to illustrate the effectiveness of the chosen method. Findings from this study will help those wanting to assess multi-hazards to undertake a straightforward approach. The paper is significant as it helps to interpret the various approaches and concludes with the preferred method. Many people in the world live in hazardous environments and are susceptible to disasters. Unfortunately, when a disaster strikes it is often compounded by additional cascading hazards, thus people would confront more than one hazard simultaneously. Hazards include natural hazards (earthquakes, floods, etc.) or cascading human-made hazards (for example, Natural Hazard Triggering Technological disasters (Natech) such as fire, explosion, toxic release). Multi-hazards have a more destructive impact on urban areas than one hazard alone. In addition, climate change is creating links between different disasters such as causing landslide dams and debris flows leading to more destructive incidents. Much of the prevailing literature deals with only one hazard at a time. However, recently sophisticated multi-hazard assessments have started to appear. Given that multi-hazards occur, it is essential to take multi-hazard risk assessment under consideration. This paper aims to review the multi-hazard assessment methods through articles published to date and categorize the strengths and disadvantages of using these methods in risk assessment. Napier City is selected as a case study to demonstrate the necessity of using multi-hazard risk assessments. In order to assess multi-hazard risk assessments, first, the current multi-hazard risk assessment methods were described. Next, the drawbacks of these multi-hazard risk assessments were outlined. Finally, the improvements to current multi-hazard risk assessments to date were summarised. Generally, the main problem of multi-hazard risk assessment is to make a valid assumption of risk from the interactions of different hazards. Currently, risk assessment studies have started to assess multi-hazard situations, but drawbacks such as uncertainty and lack of data show the necessity for more precise risk assessment. It should be noted that ignoring or partial considering multi-hazards in risk assessment will lead to an overestimate or overlook in resilient and recovery action managements.

Keywords: Cascading hazards, multi-hazard, risk assessment, risk reduction.

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Authors: Bill D. Geis, Frederick Newman

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Suicide and wrongful death forensic cases are the fastest rising tort in mental health law. Most suicide-related personal injury claims fall into the legal category of “wrongful death.” Though mental health experts may be called on to address a range of forensic questions in wrongful death cases, the central consultation that most experts provide is about the negligence element—specifically, the issue of whether the clinician met the clinical standard of care in assessing, treating, and managing the deceased person’s mental health care. Standards of care, varying from US state to state, are broad and address what a reasonable clinician might do in a similar circumstance. This fact leaves the issue of the suicide standard of care, in each case, up to forensic experts to put forth a reasoned estimate of what the standard of care should have been in the specific case under litigation. Because the general state guidelines for standard of care are broad, forensic experts are readily retained to provide scientific and clinical opinions about whether or not a clinician met the standard of care in their suicide assessment, treatment, and management of the case. In the past and in much of current practice, the assessment of suicide has centered on the elicitation of verbalized suicide ideation. But suicide ideation, in the matter of suicide risk determination, may be a necessary but insufficient target of lethal suicide risk assessment. Assessment of near-term suicide risk—assessment that goes beyond verbalized suicide ideation and relates to acute crisis variables—is likely needed. Specifically, such other or additional suicide risk variable assessment may be required in the context of lethal suicide risk situations, as opposed to the discernment of general, nonlethal suicide behavior as a standard of practice (whether a patient is having suicidal thoughts or exhibiting an ambivalent suicide attempt potential). In the current study, verbalized suicide ideation information was unhelpful in the assessment of lethal risk. The Lethal Suicide Risk Assessment, Acute Model, and other dynamic, near-term risk models (such as the Acute Suicide Affective Disorder Model and the Suicide Crisis Syndrome Model)—going beyond elicited suicide ideation—need to be incorporated into current clinical suicide assessment training and become the legal standard of care for expected clinical behavior. Without this expanded clinical assessment perspective, the standard of care for suicide assessment is out of sync with current knowledge—an emerging dilemma for the forensic evaluation of suicide wrongful death cases.

Keywords: Forensic evaluation, standard of care, suicide, suicide assessment, wrongful death.

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Authors: Yong-Hui Li, Jing-Wen Huang

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As the advancement of technology, online shopping channel develops rapidly in recent years. According to the report of Taiwan Network Information Center, there are almost eighty percents of internet population shopping in online channel. Synthesizing insights from the previous research, this study develops the conceptual model to integrate Theory of Perceived Risk (TPR) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to apply in online shopping. Using data collected from 637 respondents from online survey website, we use structural equation modeling to test measurement and structural models. The results suggest the need for consideration of perceived risk as an antecedent in the Technology Acceptance Model. The limitations and implications are discussed.

Keywords: perceived risk, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, behavioral intention, actual purchase behavior

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Authors: Cristina G. Dascalu, Elena Mihaela Carausu, Daniela Manuc

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The medical studies often require different methods for parameters selection, as a second step of processing, after the database-s designing and filling with information. One common task is the selection of fields that act as risk factors using wellknown methods, in order to find the most relevant risk factors and to establish a possible hierarchy between them. Different methods are available in this purpose, one of the most known being the binary logistic regression. We will present the mathematical principles of this method and a practical example of using it in the analysis of the influence of 10 different psychiatric diagnostics over 4 different types of offences (in a database made from 289 psychiatric patients involved in different types of offences). Finally, we will make some observations about the relation between the risk factors hierarchy established through binary logistic regression and the individual risks, as well as the results of Chi-squared test. We will show that the hierarchy built using the binary logistic regression doesn-t agree with the direct order of risk factors, even if it was naturally to assume this hypothesis as being always true.

Keywords: Databases, risk factors, binary logisticregression, hierarchy.

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Authors: M. Marsadek, A. Mohamed

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Power system security analysis is the most time demanding process due to large number of possible contingencies that need to be analyzed.  In a power system, any contingency resulting in security violation such as line overload or low voltage may occur for a number of reasons at any time.  To efficiently rank a contingency, both probability and the extent of security violation must be considered so as not to underestimate the risk associated with the contingency. This paper proposed a contingency ranking method that take into account the probabilistic nature of power system and the severity of contingency by using a newly developed method based on risk factor.  The proposed technique is implemented on IEEE 24-bus system.

Keywords: Line overload, low voltage, probability, risk factor, severity.

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Authors: Z. Nurzaireena, K. Azalea, T. Azirawaty, S. Jameela, G. Muralitharan

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The aim of this study is the review of the management practices of sickle cell disease patients during pregnancy, as well as the maternal and neonatal outcome at Ampang Hospital, Selangor. The study consisted of a review of pregnant patients with sickle cell disease under follow up at the Hematology Clinic, Ampang Hospital over the last seven years to assess their management and maternal-fetal outcome. The results of the review show that Ampang Hospital is considered the public hematology centre for sickle cell disease and had successfully managed three pregnancies throughout the last seven years. Patients’ presentations, managements and maternal-fetal outcome were compared and reviewed for academic improvements. All three patients were seen very early in their pregnancy and had been given a regime of folic acid, antibiotics and thrombo-prophylactic drugs. Close monitoring of maternal and fetal well being was done by the hematologists and obstetricians. Among the patients, there were multiple admissions during the pregnancy for either a painful sickle cell bone crisis, haemolysis following an infection and anemia requiring phenotype- matched blood and exchange transfusions. Broad spectrum antibiotics coverage during and infection, hydration, pain management and venous-thrombolism prophylaxis were mandatory. The pregnancies managed to reach near term in the third trimester but all required emergency caesarean section for obstetric indications. All pregnancies resulted in live births with good fetal outcome. During post partum all were nursed closely in the high dependency units for further complications and were discharged well. Post partum follow up and contraception counseling was comprehensively given for future pregnancies. Sickle cell disease is uncommonly seen in the East, especially in the South East Asian region, yet more cases are seen in the current decade due to improved medical expertise and advance medical laboratory technologies. Pregnancy itself is a risk factor for sickle cell patients as increased thrombosis event and risk of infections can lead to multiple crisis, haemolysis, anemia and vaso-occlusive complications including eclampsia, cerebrovasular accidents and acute bone pain. Patients mostly require multiple blood product transfusions thus phenotype-matched blood is required to reduce the risk of alloimmunozation. Emphasizing the risks and complications in preconception counseling and establishing an ultimate pregnancy plan would probably reduce the risk of morbidity and mortality to the mother and unborn child. Early management for risk of infection, thromboembolic events and adequate hydration is mandatory. A holistic approach involving multidisciplinary team care between the hematologist, obstetricians, anesthetist, neonatologist and close nursing care for both mother and baby would ensure the best outcome. In conclusion, sickle cell disease by itself is a high risk medical condition and pregnancy would further amplify the risk. Thus, close monitoring with combine multidisciplinary care, counseling and educating the patients are crucial in achieving the safe outcome.

Keywords: Anemia, haemoglobinopathies, pregnancy, sickle cell disease.

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Authors: S. A. Nta

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The study assessed the levels of some heavy metals in the contaminated soil from a point source using pollution indices to measure the extent of pollution. The soil used was sandy-loam in texture. The contaminant used was landfill leachate, introduced as a point source through an entry point positioned at the center of top layer of the soil tank. Samples were collected after 50 days and analyzed for heavy metal (Zn, Ni, Cu and Cd) using standard methods. The mean concentration of Ni ranged from 5.55-2.65 mg/kg, Zn 3.67-0.85 mg/kg, Cu 1.60-0.93 mg/kg and Cd 1.60-0.15 mg/kg. The richness of metals was in decreasing order: Ni > Zn > Cu > Cd. The metals concentration was found to be maximum at 0.25 m radial distance from the point of leachate application. The geo-accumulation index (Igeo) studied revealed that all the metals recovered at 0.25 and 0.50 m radial distance and at 0.15, 0.30, 0.45 and 0.60 m depth from the point of application of leachate fall under unpolluted to moderately polluted range. Ecological risk assessment showed high ecological risk index with values higher than RI > 300. The RI shows that the ecological risk in this study was mostly contributed by Cd ranging from 9-96.

Keywords: Ecological risk, assessment, heavy metals, test soils, landfill leachate.

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Authors: Xiaodong Li, Peng Gao, Chao-Jung Huang, Shiying Hao, Xuefeng B. Ling, Yongxia Han, Yaqi Zhang, Le Zheng, Chengyin Ye, Modi Liu, Minjie Xia, Changlin Fu, Bo Jin, Karl G. Sylvester, Eric Widen

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Predicting the risk of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma (PA) in advance can benefit the quality of care and potentially reduce population mortality and morbidity. The aim of this study was to develop and prospectively validate a risk prediction model to identify patients at risk of new incident PA as early as 3 months before the onset of PA in a statewide, general population in Maine. The PA prediction model was developed using Deep Neural Networks, a deep learning algorithm, with a 2-year electronic-health-record (EHR) cohort. Prospective results showed that our model identified 54.35% of all inpatient episodes of PA, and 91.20% of all PA that required subsequent chemoradiotherapy, with a lead-time of up to 3 months and a true alert of 67.62%. The risk assessment tool has attained an improved discriminative ability. It can be immediately deployed to the health system to provide automatic early warnings to adults at risk of PA. It has potential to identify personalized risk factors to facilitate customized PA interventions.

Keywords: Cancer prediction, deep learning, electronic health records, pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

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Authors: Swathi Sampath, V. Kalaichelvi

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The assessment of the risk posed by a borrower to a lender is one of the common problems that financial institutions have to deal with. Consumers vying for a mortgage are generally compared to each other by the use of a number called the Credit Score, which is generated by applying a mathematical algorithm to information in the applicant’s credit report. The higher the credit score, the lower the risk posed by the candidate, and the better he is to be taken on by the lender. The objective of the present work is to use fuzzy logic and linguistic rules to create a model that generates Credit Scores.

Keywords: Credit scoring, fuzzy logic, mortgage, risk assessment.

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Authors: Celso A. G. Santos, Paula K. M. M. Freire

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The urban centers within northeastern Brazil are mainly influenced by the intense rainfalls, which can occur after long periods of drought, when flood events can be observed during such events. Thus, this paper aims to study the rainfall frequencies in such region through the wavelet transform. An application of wavelet analysis is done with long time series of the total monthly rainfall amount at the capital cities of northeastern Brazil. The main frequency components in the time series are studied by the global wavelet spectrum and the modulation in separated periodicity bands were done in order to extract additional information, e.g., the 8 and 16 months band was examined by an average of all scales, giving a measure of the average annual variance versus time, where the periods with low or high variance could be identified. The important increases were identified in the average variance for some periods, e.g. 1947 to 1952 at Teresina city, which can be considered as high wet periods. Although, the precipitation in those sites showed similar global wavelet spectra, the wavelet spectra revealed particular features. This study can be considered an important tool for time series analysis, which can help the studies concerning flood control, mainly when they are applied together with rainfall-runoff simulations.

Keywords: rainfall data, urban center, wavelet transform.

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Authors: Emmy Pratiwi, Ketut B. Artana, A. A. B. Dinariyana

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Madura Strait is considered as one of the busiest shipping channels in Indonesia. High vessel traffic density in Madura Strait gives serious threat due to navigational safety in this area, i.e. ship collision. This study is necessary as an attempt to enhance the safety of marine traffic. Fuzzy inference system (FIS) is proposed to calculate risk collision of ships. Collision risk is evaluated based on ship domain, Distance to Closest Point of Approach (DCPA), and Time to Closest Point of Approach (TCPA). Data were collected by utilizing Automatic Identification System (AIS). This study considers several ships’ domain models to give the characteristic of marine traffic in the waterways. Each encounter in the ship domain is analyzed to obtain the level of collision risk. Risk level of ships, as the result in this study, can be used as guidance to avoid the accident, providing brief description about safety traffic in Madura Strait and improving the navigational safety in the area.

Keywords: Automatic identification system, collision risk, DCPA, fuzzy inference system, TCPA.

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Authors: Lily Ingsrisawang, Tasanee Nacharoen

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The problems arising from unbalanced data sets generally appear in real world applications. Due to unequal class distribution, many researchers have found that the performance of existing classifiers tends to be biased towards the majority class. The k-nearest neighbors’ nonparametric discriminant analysis is a method that was proposed for classifying unbalanced classes with good performance. In this study, the methods of discriminant analysis are of interest in investigating misclassification error rates for classimbalanced data of three diabetes risk groups. The purpose of this study was to compare the classification performance between parametric discriminant analysis and nonparametric discriminant analysis in a three-class classification of class-imbalanced data of diabetes risk groups. Data from a project maintaining healthy conditions for 599 employees of a government hospital in Bangkok were obtained for the classification problem. The employees were divided into three diabetes risk groups: non-risk (90%), risk (5%), and diabetic (5%). The original data including the variables of diabetes risk group, age, gender, blood glucose, and BMI were analyzed and bootstrapped for 50 and 100 samples, 599 observations per sample, for additional estimation of the misclassification error rate. Each data set was explored for the departure of multivariate normality and the equality of covariance matrices of the three risk groups. Both the original data and the bootstrap samples showed nonnormality and unequal covariance matrices. The parametric linear discriminant function, quadratic discriminant function, and the nonparametric k-nearest neighbors’ discriminant function were performed over 50 and 100 bootstrap samples and applied to the original data. Searching the optimal classification rule, the choices of prior probabilities were set up for both equal proportions (0.33: 0.33: 0.33) and unequal proportions of (0.90:0.05:0.05), (0.80: 0.10: 0.10) and (0.70, 0.15, 0.15). The results from 50 and 100 bootstrap samples indicated that the k-nearest neighbors approach when k=3 or k=4 and the defined prior probabilities of non-risk: risk: diabetic as 0.90: 0.05:0.05 or 0.80:0.10:0.10 gave the smallest error rate of misclassification. The k-nearest neighbors approach would be suggested for classifying a three-class-imbalanced data of diabetes risk groups.

Keywords: Bootstrap, diabetes risk groups, error rate, k-nearest neighbors.

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Authors: Pavel Pešout, Miroslav Andrle

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Frauds in insurance industry are one of the major sources of operational risk of insurance companies and constitute a significant portion of their losses. Every reasonable company on the market aims for improving their processes of uncovering frauds and invests their resources to reduce them. This article is addressing fraud management area from the view of extension of existing Business Intelligence solution. We describe the frame of such solution and would like to share with readers all benefits brought to insurance companies by adopting this approach in their fight against insurance frauds.

Keywords: business intelligence, insurance fraud, fraudmanagement

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Authors: Anita D. Adamu, Winston M. W. Shakantu

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Maintenance management is no longer a stand-alone activity. It has now assumed a strategic position in many organisations that have recognised its importance in achieving primary goals and a key aspect of effective management of facilities. This paper aims at providing an understanding of the role and function of strategic management in creating and sustaining an effective maintenance management system in an organisation. The background provides an articulated concept and principles of strategic management. The theoretical concepts paved way for a conceptual framework for which strategic management can be integrated into the maintenance management system of an organisation to improve effectiveness in the maintenance of facilities.

Keywords: Facilities, maintenance management, organisations, strategic management.

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Authors: N. Borjalilu, P. Rabiei, A. Enjoo

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Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) program assists an operator in aviation industries to identify, quantify, assess and address operational safety risks, in order to improve safety of flight operations. FDM is a powerful tool for an aircraft operator integrated into the operator’s Safety Management System (SMS), allowing to detect, confirm, and assess safety issues and to check the effectiveness of corrective actions, associated with human errors. This article proposes a model for safety risk assessment level of flight data in a different aspect of event focus based on fuzzy set values. It permits to evaluate the operational safety level from the point of view of flight activities. The main advantages of this method are proposed qualitative safety analysis of flight data. This research applies the opinions of the aviation experts through a number of questionnaires Related to flight data in four categories of occurrence that can take place during an accident or an incident such as: Runway Excursions (RE), Controlled Flight Into Terrain (CFIT), Mid-Air Collision (MAC), Loss of Control in Flight (LOC-I). By weighting each one (by F-TOPSIS) and applying it to the number of risks of the event, the safety risk of each related events can be obtained.

Keywords: F-TOPSIS, fuzzy set, FDM, flight safety.

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Authors: Carolyn J. Ortega, Stephen E. Berger

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The role of the custody evaluator is perhaps one of the most controversial and risky endeavors in clinical practice. Complaints filed with licensing boards regarding a child-custody evaluation constitute the second most common reason for such an event. Although the evaluator is expected to answer for the family-law court what is in the “best interest of the child,” there is a lack of clarity on how to establish this in any empirically validated manner. Hence, practitioners must contend with a nebulous framework in formulating their methodological procedures that inherently places them at risk in an already litigious context. This study sought to qualitatively investigate patterns of practice among doctoral practitioners conducting child custody evaluations in the area of Southern California. Ten psychologists were interviewed who devoted between 25 and 100% of their California private practice to custody work. All held Ph.D. degrees with a range of eight to 36 years of experience in custody work. Semi-structured interviews were used to investigate assessment practices, ensure adherence to guidelines, risk management, and qualities of evaluators. Forty-three Specific Themes were identified using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven Higher Order Themes clustered on salient factors such as use of Ethics, Law, Guidelines; Parent Variables; Child Variables; Psychologist Variables; Testing; Literature; and Trends. Evaluators were aware of the ever-present reality of a licensure complaint and thus presented idiosyncratic descriptions of risk management considerations. Ambiguity about quantifying and validly tapping parenting abilities was also reviewed. Findings from this study suggested a high reliance on unstructured and observational methods in child custody practices.

Keywords: Forensic psychology, psychological testing, assessment methodology, child custody.

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Authors: Kevin Fong-Rey Liu, Ken Yeh, Cheng-Wu Chen, Han-Hsi Liang

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The sanitary sewerage connection rate becomes an important indicator of advanced cities. Following the construction of sanitary sewerages, the maintenance and management systems are required for keeping pipelines and facilities functioning well. These maintenance tasks often require sewer workers to enter the manholes and the pipelines, which are confined spaces short of natural ventilation and full of hazardous substances. Working in sewers could be easily exposed to a risk of adverse health effects. This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief networks (BBN) as a higher level of noncarcinogenic health risk assessment of sewer workers. On the basis of the epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic relationships between the hazardous substances in sewers and their adverse health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity and mortality of the adverse health effects. The provision of the morbidity and mortality rates of the related diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of conventional methods.

Keywords: Bayesian belief networks, sanitary sewerage, healthrisk assessment, hazard quotient, target organ-specific hazard index.

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Authors: Arundhati Devi Maibam, K. Ingocha Singh

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Cervical cancer is preventable if detected early. Determination of risk factors is essential to plan screening programmes to prevent the disease. To study the demographic risk factors of cervical cancer among Manipuri women, information on age, marital status, educational level, monthly family income and socioeconomic status were collected through a pre-tested interview schedule. In this study, 64 incident cases registered at the RT Dept, RIMS (Regional Institute of Medical Sciences), Imphal, Manipur, India during 2008-09 participated. Data were entered in Microsoft Excel and the results were expressed in percentages. Among the 64 patients with cervical cancer, 56 (88.9%) were in the age group of 40+ years. The majority of the patients were from rural areas (68.75%) and 31.25% were from urban areas. The majority of the patients were Hindus (73%), 55(85.9%) were of low educational level, 43(67.2%) were married, and 36 (56.25%) belonged to Class IV socioeconomic status. In conclusion, if detected early, cervical cancer is preventable and curable. The potential risk factors need to be identified and women in the risk group need to be motivated for screening. Affordable screening programmes and health care resources will help in lessening the burden of the disease.

Keywords: Cervical cancer, Manipuri women, RIIMS, Socio-demographic risk factors.

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Authors: Ahmed A. D. Sarhan, Hong Wan Ping, M. Sayuti

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In this current era of competitive machinery productions, the industries are designed to place more emphasis on the product quality and reduction of cost whilst abiding by the pollution-preventing policy. In attempting to delve into the concerns, the industries are aware that the effectiveness of existing lubrication systems must be improved to achieve power-efficient and pollution-preventing machining processes. As such, this research is targeted to study on a plausible solution to the issue in grinding titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) by using nanolubrication, as an alternative to flood grinding. The aim of this research is to evaluate the optimum condition of grinding force and surface roughness using MQL lubricating system to deliver nano-oil at different level of weight concentration of Silicon Dioxide (SiO₂) mixed normal mineral oil. Taguchi Design of Experiment (DoE) method is carried out using a standard Taguchi orthogonal array of L16(43) to find the optimized combination of weight concentration mixture of SiO₂, nozzle orientation and pressure of MQL. Surface roughness and grinding force are also analyzed using signal-to-noise(S/N) ratio to determine the best level of each factor that are tested. Consequently, the best combination of parameters is tested for a period of time and the results are compared with conventional grinding method of dry and flood condition. The results show a positive performance of MQL nanolubrication.  

Keywords: Grinding, MQL, precision grinding, Taguchi optimization, titanium alloy.

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Authors: Saeed Sedighizadeh, Abbas Mansoori, Mohammad Reza Pirestani, Davoud Sedighizadeh

Abstract:

The usual method of river flow diversion involves construction of tunnels and cofferdams. Given the fact that the cost of diversion works could be as high as 10-20% of the total dam construction cost, due attention should be paid to optimum design of the diversion works. The cost of diversion works depends, on factors, such as: the tunnel dimensions and the intended tunneling support measures during and after excavation; quality and characterizes of the rock through which the tunnel should be excavated; the dimensions of the upstream (and downstream) cofferdams; and the magnitude of river flood the system is designed to divert. In this paper by use of the cost of unit prices for tunnel excavation, tunnel lining, tunnel support (rock bolt + shotcrete) and cofferdam fill the cost function was determined. The function is then minimized by the aid of PSO Algorithm (particle swarm optimization). It is found that the optimum diameter and the total diversion cost are directly related to the river flood discharge (Q). It has also shown that in addition to optimum diameter design discharge (Q), river length, tunnel length, is mainly a function of the ratios (not the absolute values) of the unit prices and does not depend on the overall price levels in the respective country. The results of optimization use in some of the case study lead us to significant changes in the cost.

Keywords: Diversion Tunnel, Optimization, PSO Algorithm

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Authors: Beatrice Abila, Jussi Kantola

Abstract:

The paper attempts a synthesis of problems relating to municipal waste management in Nigeria and proposes a conceptual knowledge management approach for tackling municipal waste problems in cities across Nigeria. The application of knowledge management approach and strategy is crucial for inculcating a change of attitude towards improving the management of waste. The paper is a review of existing literatures, information, policies and data on municipal waste management in Nigeria. The inefficient management of waste by individuals, households, consumers and waste management companies can be attributed to inadequate information on waste management benefits, lack of producers- involvement in waste management as well as poor implementation of government policies. The paper presents an alternative approach providing solutions promoting efficient municipal waste management.

Keywords: Environment, Knowledge management, Municipal waste management, Nigeria.

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Authors: Mohammad Ghavami, Reza S. Dilmaghani

Abstract:

This paper presents an adaptive framework for modelling financial markets using equity risk premiums, risk free rates and volatilities. The recorded economic factors are initially used to train four adaptive filters for a certain limited period of time in the past. Once the systems are trained, the adjusted coefficients are used for modelling and prediction of an important financial market index. Two different approaches based on least mean squares (LMS) and recursive least squares (RLS) algorithms are investigated. Performance analysis of each method in terms of the mean squared error (MSE) is presented and the results are discussed. Computer simulations carried out using recorded data show MSEs of 4% and 3.4% for the next month prediction using LMS and RLS adaptive algorithms, respectively. In terms of twelve months prediction, RLS method shows a better tendency estimation compared to the LMS algorithm.

Keywords: Prediction of financial markets, Adaptive methods, MSE, LSE.

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Authors: Udeme O. Ini, Edikan E. Akpanibah

Abstract:

This paper studies the optimal investment strategies for a plan member (PM) in a defined contribution (DC) pension scheme with transaction cost, taxes on invested funds and couple risky assets (stocks) under the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck (O-U) process. The PM’s portfolio is assumed to consist of a risk-free asset and two risky assets where the two risky assets are driven by the O-U process. The Legendre transformation and dual theory is use to transform the resultant optimal control problem which is a nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) into linear PDE and the resultant linear PDE is then solved for the explicit solutions of the optimal investment strategies for PM exhibiting constant absolute risk aversion (CARA) using change of variable technique. Furthermore, theoretical analysis is used to study the influences of some sensitive parameters on the optimal investment strategies with observations that the optimal investment strategies for the two risky assets increase with increase in the dividend and decreases with increase in tax on the invested funds, risk averse coefficient, initial fund size and the transaction cost.

Keywords: Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, portfolio management, Legendre transforms, CARA utility.

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Authors: F. Esfandyari Darabad, Z. Samadi

Abstract:

Natural environments have always been affected by one of the most important natural hazards, which is called, the mass movements that cause instability. Identifying the unstable regions and separating them so as to detect and determine the risk of environmental factors is one of the important issues in mountainous areas development. In this study, the northwest of Sabalan hillsides overlooking the Meshkin city and the surrounding area of that have been delimitated, in order to analyze the range processes such as landslides and debris flows based on structural and geomorphological conditions, by means of using GIS. This area due to the high slope of the hillsides and height of the region and the poor localization of roads and so because of them destabilizing the ranges own an inappropriate situation. This study is done with the purpose of identifying the effective factors in the range motion and determining the areas with high potential for zoning these movements by using GIS. The results showed that the most common range movements in the area, are debris flows, rocks falling and landslides. The effective factors in each one of the mass movements, considering a small amount of weight for each factor, the weight map of each factor and finally, the map of risk zoning for the range movements were provided. Based on the zoning map resulted in the study area, the risking level of damaging has specified into the four zones of very high risk, high risk, medium risk, low risk, in which areas with very high and high risk are settled near the road and along the Khyav river and in the  mountainous district.

Keywords: Debris flow, environmental hazards, GIS, landslide.

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Authors: Md Y. Reja, Samuel D. Brody, Wesley E. Highfield, Galen D. Newman

Abstract:

Historically, wetlands in the United States have been lost due to agriculture, anthropogenic activities, and rapid urbanization along the coast. Such losses of wetlands have resulted in high flooding risk for coastal communities over the period of time. In addition, alteration of wetlands via the Section 404 Clean Water Act permits can increase the flooding risk to future hurricane events, as the cumulative impact of this program is poorly understood and under-accounted. Further, recovery after hurricane events is acting as an encouragement for new development and reconstruction activities by converting wetlands under the wetland alteration permitting program. This study investigates the degree to which hurricane recovery activities in coastal communities are undermining the ability of these places to absorb the impacts of future storm events. Specifically, this work explores how and to what extent wetlands are being affected by the federal permitting program post-Hurricane Ike in 2008. Wetland alteration patterns are examined across three counties (Harris, Galveston, and Chambers County) along the Texas Gulf Coast over a 10-year time period, from 2004-2013 (five years before and after Hurricane Ike) by conducting descriptive spatial analyses. Results indicate that after Hurricane Ike, the number of permits substantially increased in Harris and Chambers County. The vast majority of individual and nationwide type permits were issued within the 100-year floodplain, storm surge zones, and areas damaged by Ike flooding, suggesting that recovery after the hurricane is compromising the ecological resiliency on which coastal communities depend. The authors expect that the findings of this study can increase awareness to policy makers and hazard mitigation planners regarding how to manage wetlands during a long-term recovery process to maintain their natural functions for future flood mitigation.

Keywords: Ecological resiliency, Hurricane Ike, recovery, Section 404 permitting, wetland alteration.

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