This book explores the challenges, opportunities, applications, and implications of applying qualitative research to critical questions of research and practice in the field of organizational risk and safety. The book brings together a diverse perspective to explore the practice of conducting qualitative research as well as to debate the quality of research and knowledge, drawing on a range of different perspectives and traditions. It offers novel and innovative developments in data collection and data analysis methods and tools that can be applied to safety, risk, and accident analysis in complex systems. It also will present practical issues associated with data access and empirical research in challenging and high-stakes environments. This book will provide academics, researchers, students, and professionals in the fields of safety, accident analysis, and risk with a broad-range and expert guide to the key issues and debates in the field, as well as a set of exemplary cases and reflective narratives from leading researchers in the field.

This book explores the challenges, opportunities, applications, and implications of applying qualitative research to critical questions of research and practice in the field of organizational risk and safety. The book brings together a diverse perspective to explore the practice of conducting qualitative research as well as to debate the quality of research and knowledge, drawing on a range of different perspectives and traditions. It offers novel and innovative developments in data collection and data analysis methods and tools that can be applied to safety, risk, and accident analysis in complex systems. It also will present practical issues associated with data access and empirical research in challenging and high-stakes environments. This book will provide academics, researchers, students, and professionals in the fields of safety, accident analysis, and risk with a broad-range and expert guide to the key issues and debates in the field, as well as a set of exemplary cases and reflective narratives from leading researchers in the field.

For many years technical and medical diagnostics has been the area of intensive scientific research. It covers well-established topics as well as emerging developments in control engineering, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, pattern recognition and statistics. At the same time, a growing number of applications of different fault diagnosis methods, especially in electrical, mechanical, chemical and medical engineering, is being observed. This monograph contains a collection of 44 carefully selected papers contributed by experts in technical and medical diagnostics, and constitutes a comprehensive study of the field. The aim of the book is to show the bridge between technical and medical diagnostics based on artificial intelligence methods and techniques. It is divided into four parts: I. Soft Computing in Technical Diagnostics, II. Medical Diagnostics and Biometrics, III. Robotics and Computer Vision, IV. Various Problems of Technical Diagnostics. The monograph will be of interest to scientists as well as academics dealing with the problems of designing technical and medical diagnosis systems. Its target readers are also junior researchers and students of computer science, artificial intelligence, control or robotics.

This volume contains a selection of original contributions from internationally reputed scholars in the field of risk management in socio?technical systems with high hazard potential. Its first major section addresses fundamental psychological and socio?technical concepts in the field of risk perception, risk management and learning systems for safety improvement. The second section deals with the variety of procedures for system safety analysis. It covers strategies of analyzing automation problems and of safety culture as well as the analysis of social dynamics in field settings and of field experiments. Its third part then illustrates the utilization of basic concepts and analytic approaches by way of case studies of designing man?machine systems and in various industrial sectors such as intensive care wards, aviation, offfshore oil drilling and chemical industry. In linking basic theoretical conceptual notions and analytic strategies to detailed case studies in the area of hazardous work organizations the volume differs from and complements more theoretical works such as Human Error (J. Reason, 1990) and more general approaches such as New Technologies and Human Error (J. Rasmussen, K. Duncan, J. Leplat, Eds.)

If you are not already in a management position, chances are you soon will be. According to the Bureau of Statistics, the fastest growing areas of employment for engineers are in engineering/science management. With over 200 contributing authors, The Technology Management Handbook informs and assists the more than 1.5 million engineering managers in the practice of technical management. Written from the technical manager's perspective and written for technologists who are managers, The Technology Management Handbook presents in-depth information on the science and practice of management. Its comprehensive coverage encompasses the field of technology management, offering information on: Entrepreneurship Innovations Economics Marketing Product Development Manufacturing Finance Accounting Project Management Human Resources International Business

Insider knowledge about a complex technical system, coupled with access to its elements, has the potential to be used for triggering the most disastrous of terrorist attacks. Technological terrorism is the unauthorized impact on a complex technical system with the intention of breaking down its protection and initiating secondary catastrophic processes to cause damage and loss outside the facility. Intelligent terrorism, on the other hand, is the unauthorized purposeful interference in the processes of design, construction or maintenance of a complex technical system, and is either aimed at increasing existing vulnerabilities or creating new ones. This book is based on the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on ‘Comparative Analysis of Technological and Intelligence Terrorism Impacts on Complex Technical Systems’. It lays the foundation for a risk-informed approach to modeling, analyzing, managing and controlling complex technical systems in the face of terrorist attacks. To formulate such an approach, it is necessary to combine the insights of a spectrum of disciplines across engineering, human and social sciences, and economics. The book explains how an understanding of the vulnerabilities of complex technical systems to terrorist attack can reduce these vulnerabilities and contain or limit the impact of terrorism, and also the way in which such an understanding is crucial to the development of a set of design criteria and codes which will take such vulnerabilities into account. The book also identifies areas of further research and opportunities for future exchange and collaboration.

This book assesses critically the British approach to hazard management and emergency planning. It identifies the principal legal, organizational and cultural impediments to more effective hazard management and emergency planning, postulates explanations for the shortcomings in the British approach and examines a number of promising avenues for improving current practice. It comprises 18 chapters written by experts with a wide range of practical experience in the many different aspects of the field. Many of the authors introduce international perspectives and comparisons. From it all, the editors conclude, sadly: 'The overall hazard and emergency management approach currently adopted in Britain appears to be inadequate and current standards of protection appear to be inefficient for the 1990s and beyond'

A selection of papers from scholars in the field of risk management in socio- technical systems with high hazard potential.

In the last 15 years, the field of fire and gas mapping has grown extensively, yet very little is published on the subject. The text includes deeper discussions on important engineering factors associated with fire and gas detection, along with anecdotes and examples. It will guide the readers on what to consider when you do not have access to proprietary guides, and how to interpret the design process even when one does not have access to a guidance document. The text covers important topics including visual flame detection, flame detection mapping, infrared point gas detector (IRPGD), infrared open path gas detector (OPGD), ultrasonic/acoustic design, and gas detection mapping. The book plays the following roles: Explores practical aspects of designing a detection layout Enables users in interpreting a detector data sheet and coverage analysis Teaches readers working on a project to cut through the marketing of detection and design an effective system Inclusion of real-life experiences on projects will provide engineers with clear examples of where things can, and often do, go wrong It is an ideal text for professionals and graduate students working in the fields of occupational health and safety, fire protection engineering, and environmental safety. The text discusses fundamental aspects of fire and gas mapping, which has been applied with great success in many parts of the world and is commonly adopted by the major operators in the process industries.

Based on the most comprehensive, multi-site, and multi-dimensional study completed to date on waste-facility siting and management in rural areas in the U.S., Hazardous Wastes in Rural America establishes the impacts of waste facilities for a range of rural communities that have experienced alternative stages of waste-facility siting and operation process.