Search

The potential for the increased risk of transmission of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) from patients to dental health care workers (DHCWs) in the workplace is examined. Based on published and hypothetical risk estimates, the authors conclude that in certain world communities with high prevalence rates of HIV infection (e.g. Central Africa), the potential yearly incidence rate and cumulative long-term incidence rate of HIV transmission in the dental workplace could place these workers in a high risk subgroup similar to that of homosexuals. Reported high levels of noncompliance with infection control procedures in the dental care workplace in the United States by these workers suggests the potential for increased risk in communities with high prevalence rates of this disease. Present and past educational efforts toward protection of the DHCW in the United States may be considered inadequate, and even more so when these educational efforts are applied in the world community. Additional efforts should be made by the public health community to alert and educate DHCWs worldwide to the potential for increased HIV transmission in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a modified four-state model that can be utilized to assess adequacy at the generation level of a power system. The model can incorporate various operating factors that influence system reliability. A new probabilistic technique that utilizes the model has been developed to evaluate static reserve capacity and margin in a generating system for a given risk criterion. The model can also be utilized in adequacy assessments with deterministic approaches. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychologists and philosophers who pose moral dilemmas to understand moral judgment typically specify outcomes as certain to occur in them. This contrasts with real-life moral decision-making, which is almost always infused with probabilities (e.g., the probability of a given outcome if an action is or is not taken). Seven studies examine sensitivity to the size and location of shifts in probabilities of outcomes that would result from action in moral dilemmas. We find that moral judgments differ between actions that result in an equal increase in probability of harm (equal size), but have different end-states (e.g., an increase in harm probability from 25% to 50% or from 50% to 75%). This deviation from expected value is robust under separate evaluation, and increases when the comparison between shifts is made explicit under simultaneous evaluation. Consistent with the centrality of perceived harm in some models of moral judgment, perceived harm partially mediates sensitivity to location of harm probability shift. Unlike for shifts in harm probabilities, participants are insensitive to the location of shifts in probability of beneficial outcomes. They are also insensitive to the location of shifts in probability of analogous monetary losses and gains, suggesting an asymmetry between harm and benefit in moral reasoning, as well as an asymmetry between moral and monetary decision-making more broadly. Implications for normative philosophical theory and moral psychological theory, as well as practical applications, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Impact speed taken from Event Data Recorders for high accuracy. • Risk curves produced for risk of serious injury vs impact speed by impact type. • Head on impacts have the lowest impact speed for a given level of risk. • Measures to reduce impact speeds are important to reduce serious injuries. • Head on crashes need to be prevented due to their high risk at low speeds. The current guiding philosophies in road safety have stated aims of zero deaths and serious injuries. Speed has previously been highlighted as a key factor in the outcome of a crash but the literature to date has yet to provide a robust relationship between impact speed and the risk of serious injury for crashes other than pedestrian crashes. This study aimed to determine the relationship between impact speed and the risk of serious injury in light vehicle crashes. Crash data from the US based National Automotive Sampling System – Crashworthiness Data System collected from 2011 to 2015 were used in the analysis when there was a known impact speed from an event data recorder (EDR) and a known injury outcome. The analysis was conducted at the vehicle level. Data from a total of 1274 vehicles were used in logistic regressions, with the presence or absence of a serious injury as the binary dependent variable, and impact speed as the continuous independent variable. Individual risk curves were produced for front, side, rear and head on impacts. Impact speed was found to have a highly significant positive relationship to risk of serious injury for all impact types examined. The risk of serious injury reaches 1% at 28 km/h for head on impacts, 51 km/h for side impacts, 64 km/h for front impacts, and 67 km/h for rear impacts. The results emphasise the importance of measures that reduce impact speeds, be they road designs, vehicle technologies or enforced speed limit reductions, and highlight the need to prevent head on impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows the interaction between probabilistic and delayed rewards. In decision- making processes, the Expected Utility (EU) model has been employed to assess risky choices whereas the Discounted Utility (DU) model has been applied to intertemporal choices. Despite both models being different, they are based on the same theoretical principle: the rewards are assessed by taking into account the sum of their utilities and some similar anomalies have been revealed in both models. The aim of this paper is to characterize and consider particular cases of the Time Trade-Off (PPT) model and show that they correspond to the EU and DU models. Additionally, we will try to build a PTT model starting from a discounted and an expected utility model able to overcome the limitations pointed out by Baucells and Heukamp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 10,000 failures have occurred in US oil and gas pipelines in the past 15 years, highlighting the significance of safety measures for such facilities. Various models have been proposed by researchers to predict different failure parameters. Despite such efforts, no comprehensive review has yet been conducted in this domain. The objective of this study is to provide a detailed review of the methodologies proposed to predict failure parameters for oil and gas pipelines. Such a review gathers, organizes, classifies, and analyzes previous contributions in this domain and highlights the gaps associated with different failure prediction models. In addition, the current code-based methodologies for predicting the failure of oil and gas pipelines and their corresponding limitations are discussed. As such, this study provides pipeline operators and researchers with a comprehensive overview of the research and practices in oil and gas pipeline failure and safety. In conclusion, several avenues for future research are discussed. In particular, a maintenance planning procedure directed by pipeline availability analysis is proposed to address the existing gaps and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The approach to risk assessment in the process of optimizing the structure of costs and terms of realization investment decisions at presence resource constraints has been proposed. It was clarified the notion of operational risk of an investment decision on the example of the construction project. Based on the scenario-probabilistic approach on a concrete example investigated the dependence of the size of the predicted operational risk of the project on the timing of its implementation and the magnitude of the fixed and variable costs of the project. Quantitatively the level of operational risk is assessed as the possibility of exceeding factual variable costs of the project over the planned project variable costs in the optimistic and pessimistic scenarios. Revealed that the decrease of the construction period and, accordingly, the intensification of the average monthly total costs expedient as long as the average monthly increase (relative and absolute) of volume of construction works is ahead of the monthly growth the level of fixed costs, that is, until you reach the famous in the economy marginal effect. The duration of the construction at which occurs this effect is less favorable to the forecast of operational risk (the risk is greatest, marginal income is minimal). The dependence found we recommend to take into account at formation of temporal and cost characteristics of investment decisions (projects) in contracting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]