Development of an intelligent system for railway risk analysis

Railway safety is a very complicated subject, which is determined by numerous aspects including human error. Many of the railway risk assessment techniques currently used are comparatively mature tools. However, in many circumstances, the application of these tools may not give satisfactory results because the risk data are incomplete or there is a high level of uncertainty involved in the risk data. This article presents a risk assessment methodology for conducting systematic risk assessment using fuzzy reasoning approach and fuzzy analytical hierarchy decision-making process. In this method, qualitative descriptors are employed to describe frequency of occurrence, consequence severity, weight factor, and risk level. The proposed risk assessment method can evaluate both qualitative and quantitative risk data, and information associated with railway operation efficiently and effectively. The outcomes of risk assessment are represented as the risk degrees and the defined risk categories of risk levels (RLs) with a belief of percentage, which provide very useful risk information to decision makers. This will provide railway risk analysts, managers, and engineers with a method and tool to improve their safety management and set safety standards. A case study of risk assessment of shunting at Waterloo depot is used to illustrate the application of the proposed methodology.

In Flanders and by extension in the whole world, accidents involving the transport of dangerous goods occur. Therefore, Flanders is developing a risk analysis and assessment system for the external human risks of transporting dangerous goods. The general outline of the system has now been established, based on a number of external research projects. The system allows to obtain a profile of the risks of serious accidents with the transportation of dangerous goods on roads, railways, waterways, pipelines and in ports. In brief, the risk analysis system consists of the following major elements: dividing of the transport routes into segments, determining the probability of a major accident per segment, determining the damage per segment, determining the risks for each segment and determining the risks per route. The next step was the developing of a risk assessment system to be able to decide whether or not the risk of the transport of dangerous goods is acceptable, whether or not extra safety measures have to be taken and which of the alternative routes is the most favourable one for external safety. The system consists of two major steps. First, the risk per segment is studied and if necessary, the ALARP principle is applied. Second, the risk of the total route is calculated for all alternative routes and is compared.

The seismic vulnerability and risk assessment of infrastructure and utility systems are essential to prevent or mitigate sufficiently the negative consequences, implement resilience management strategies, and recover efficiently after a major earthquake. In a complex urban environment, having multiple interacting and interdependent infrastructures becomes even more important. Earthquake hazards not only affect a single asset, but also their impact is much greater because of the inter- and intra-dependences among various infrastructure, utility systems, and lifelines. Therefore, we urgently need efficient tools to quantify and assess the systemic vulnerability and risk of urban infrastructure and utility systems. This is a challenging topic that is nowadays receiving more attention from the research community, the industry domain, and the policymakers. This paper aims to review the available modelling approaches and tools for the seismic risk analysis of interconnected systems, including advantages and limitations. It focuses in particular on the European funded SYNER-G project that encompasses interdependencies, delivers a holistic methodology, and implements a comprehensive framework based on the Object-Oriented Modelling paradigm. The capacities of the SYNER-G framework are illustrated through a selected application regarding the seismic risk analysis of interconnected infrastructure and utility systems in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece. Among other aspects, the paper discusses hazard modelling issues of the two common approaches, the probabilistic and the scenario-based procedure and illustrates in a specific example the impact of mitigation strategies, based on their effect on the performance of the interconnected systems and the overall loss reduction. The integration of interdependencies into the risk analysis and resilience strategies facilitates a better understanding of critical infrastructure operation and enables well-informed proactive and reactive decision-making and efficient disaster risk management, by infrastructure owners and operators, insurance companies, consulting agencies, and local authorities.

Development of project cost contingency estimation model using risk analysis and fuzzy expert system

Abstract: The paper describes a model‐driven decision support system for risk analysis in product development, based on an European Commission‐funded project. The model can be used to simulate the life cycle of a large batch of products and track products in operation and service phases with consideration of design and manufacturing phases. This provides some useful benefits – in particular, being able to generate composite results when the product life is subject to unpredictable events, which makes the system's behaviour non‐linear. A case study is conducted through a domestic appliance in the field trial from a manufacturing company, and the results indicate that the model can enable developers or manufacturers to understand the behaviour and characteristics of products or systems in the future use and to predict the cost of any changes in the pattern of their life.

The relevance of the chosen research topic is due to the fact that in modern conditions of economic instability and increasing competition, there is a high degree of uncertainty, both in the external and internal environment. All this forces business entities to constantly monitor the environment, look for alternative management solutions aimed at ensuring the risk resistance of the enterprise while maintaining the optimal level of profitability. Many obstacles exist in the conduct of business activities: information uncertainty, unstable economic environment, unpredictability of market conditions, prices, supply and demand, consumers’ ability to pay, low efficiency of the tax system. In this regard, an increasing number of enterprises are introducing risk assessment and analysis systems in their practice. However, due to the fact that each functioning enterprise differs in a number of specific features and, first of all, in economic activity, size, business processes, today there is no single methodological approach to risk management. In the scientific literature, there are many alternative methods for identifying risk factors and their assessment, but they are all considered through the prism of the specific characteristics of an economic entity. The purpose of the study is to develop theoretical foundations and methodological approaches to substantiate the relationship between risk resistance and economic security in order to ensure the strengthening of the competitiveness of the functioning of a small enterprise. Especially the authors of the article highlighted the review of scientific opinions of such concepts as “risk resistance”, “economic security of the enterprise”. The article is devoted to the consideration of such an important aspect of the life of an enterprise as ensuring its competitiveness. In this regard, the authors focus their attention on the relationship and impact on the economic security of the enterprise of its risk resistance. On a specific example, a model of the relationship between financial stability and economic security of a small enterprise is presented. The article examines the scientific positions and points of view of various researchers on this issue, formulates the authors’ opinion based on these observations, describes the main conclusions and recommendations.

This paper aims to validate the feasibility of establishing a risk assessment system. Delphi and Entropy Weighting for Indicator Weighting was conducted by experts in the field of economics on the assessment data of Haier's supply chain indicators to analyze and derive a risk assessment system based on Haier's supply chain indicators. With a comprehensive analysis of risk assessment indicators using the Delphi and entropy weighting methods, the feasibility of the evaluation system for supply chain risk analysis in the context of big data gets demonstrated. The establishment of this assessment system will help Haier to analyze and respond to supply chain risks in the future, and will solve the related problems in avoiding supply chain market risk. These problems encompass difficulties related to managing substantial volumes of data and handling uncertainties in demand and supply. The template makes relevant conclusions and suggestions based on analysis, which could have effect on supply chain risk circumvention in a certain extent.

The authors report the adaptation of a dietary and risk factor questionnaire and analysis system for use with IBM (or compatible) personal computers. This system includes a flexible computer-assisted interview program which may be modified to suit investigator needs while preserving a standard output format. It also includes a nutrient analysis program for calculation of usual dietary intake. Each of these two major components has its own set of utilities and options, so that investigators may tailor the system to particular research areas. The nature and capabilities of the two main programs are described, as well as the development of the underlying system and the general flow of data in the system.

This article outlines the methodology of the IT system risk analysis and management, including various categories of risk factors significant from the point of view of the sensitive data processing and completeness of the procedure for determining the IT system risk level. The presented methodology is divided into the IT system risk analysis and the risk management method. The IT system risk level assessed by the risk analysis method described in this article constitutes an input value for the risk management method outlined in the further part hereof, referring to the IT systems used for the processing of documents at different levels of sensitivity.

Models, modelling and modellers: an application to risk analysis

The SAFE FOODS Risk Analysis Framework suitable for GMOs? A case study

In this paper, the social stability risk analysis of nuclear power projects is carried out, and the working process of social stability risk analysis and risk evaluation index system of social stability is established. The social stability risk analysis of nuclear power plant in Guangdong province was taken as an example to introduce the application in this paper, at the same time for the current nuclear power project should focus on risk points to put forward risk mitigation measures and recommendations. This study can provide theoretical support and technical support for the social stability risk analysis of nuclear power projects, and provide decision support for the construction of nuclear power projects.

Modified failure mode and effects analysis using approximate reasoning

Uncertainty propagation in risk and resilience analysis of hierarchical systems

To benefit from cloud computing and the advantages it offers, obstacles regarding the usage and acceptance of clouds have to be cleared. For cloud providers, one way to obtain customers' confidence is to establish security mechanisms when using clouds. The ISO 27001 standard provides general concepts for establishing information security in an organization. Risk analysis is an essential part in the ISO 27001 standard for achieving information security. This standard, however, contains ambiguous descriptions. In addition, it does not stipulate any method to identify assets, threats, and vulnerabilities. In this paper, the authors present a method for cloud computing systems to perform risk analysis according to the ISO 27001. The authors' structured method is tailored to SMEs. It relies upon patterns to describe context and structure of a cloud computing system, elicit security requirements, identify threats, and select controls, which ease the effort for these activities. The authors' method guides companies through the process of risk analysis in a structured manner. Furthermore, the authors provide a model-based tool for supporting the ISO 27001 standard certification. The authors' tool consists of various plug-ins for conducting different steps of their method.