Assessing the impacts of chemical mixtures in the environment is challenging largely because of high variation: diverse sources and constituents; routes of environmental exposure; taxa-specific sensitivities. This complexity and uncertainty leads to concerns that current prospective risk assessment (RA) methods are insufficient for appropriate environmental protection. Likewise, there is scope ...

There is a cascade of risks associated with a hazard evolving into a disaster that consists of the risk that: (1) a hazard will produce an event; (2) an event will cause structural damage; (3) structural damage will create functional damages and needs; (4) needs will create an emergency (require use of the local response capacity); and (5) the needs will overwhelm the local response capacity an...

An overview is given of recent problems with food-borne enteric human pathogens originating from contaminated agricultural animals. The need for risk analysis is indicated, and the generally accepted procedure for risk assessment is outlined. Two main approaches to probability and risk calculations, namely the “frequentist” and Bayesian approaches, are described. Examples are given of microbial...

An outline is given of the behavioral properties (axioms) that have been proposed, and to some extent empirically evaluated, concerning uncertain (often risky) alternatives, the joint receipt of alternatives, and possible linking properties. Recent theoretical work has established the existence of three inherently distinct risk types of people—risk seeking, risk neutral, and risk averse—and so ...

The theory states the Balanced Scorecard has several advantages as a performance evaluation method, when compared with exclusively financial measures. The objective of the present study is to analyze the usage rates and the knowledge spreading about the Balanced Scorecard in Portuguese industrial small and medium size enterprises, while researching the existence of factors that explain why the ...

A framework for integrated design of process and operation is proposed for metal-degreasing process in metal processing. In metal degreasing, a significant amount of cleansing agents is released to the environment, and local risks and global impacts originated in the cleansing agents have been crucial issues. The framework enables the engineers on site to perform rigorous risk assessments by us...