Integrating geographic information systems with the Level 3 Probabilistic Risk Assessment of nuclear power plants to advance modeling of socio-technical infrastructure in emergency response applications

Explicit incorporation of social and organizational factors into Level 1 Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) has been theoretically and methodologically improved and now is in the process of development for Nuclear Power Plant (NPPs) applications. The goal of this study is to initiate the same paradigm of research for Level 3 PRA. Explicit incorporation of social factors, most specifically location-specific social factors into Level 3 PRA, can drastically affect decisions related to emergency planning, preparedness, and response (EPPR). With concerns about population response from a radiological accident such as the one that occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, understanding the implications of the social makeup of the population in the vicinity of an NPP has the potential to give decision makers information about the effects of their decisions. This research proposes theoretical and methodological approaches to explicitly consider the social factors of the local population in NPP accident consequence modeling. In a Level 3 PRA, the MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System (MACCS2) developed by Sandia National Laboratory, is used by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and nuclear industry in order to estimate the damages to public health and environment in the case of an NPP severe accident leading to a large radiological release into the atmosphere. The goal for this research is to derive and incorporate location-specific human and organizational factors, socio-political/ socio-economic climate, and community-specific characteristics into a Level 3 PRA. This has been done “externally” by the integration of MACCS2 with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Esri’s ArcGIS Version 10.2 software is utilized to operationalize this study. A Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) methodology is also proposed as an approach to “internally” incorporate social risk-contributing factors into a Level 3 PRA code. In this research, social vulnerability construct is used, as a surrogate for a causal model, to integrate social factors with a Level 3 PRA. There have been over five decades of research dedicated to the development of quantifiable social vulnerability factors and models that point toward a prediction of consequences to a population, given a specific hazard. Most of these studies have been concentrated on natural hazards; yet, none have been applied to the man-made hazard (i.e., radiation) related to NPPs. This research study combines social and technical contextual factors with radiation and contamination hazard characteristics based on a specific NPP in order to advance risk assessment and management for NPP severe accidents. Specific demographic information is integrated into social vulnerability and includes house value, age, minority status, and gender. This social vulnerability is associated with the population’s ability to evacuate the area, namely to define evacuation delay time and evacuation speed within the population evacuation model. This research spans two very diverse areas of study; (1) Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) as originated in nuclear engineering, and (2) social vulnerability analysis which is primarily conducted in geography and the social sciences. The contributions of this research include: 1. Theoretical contributions to support applying social vulnerability frameworks to NPP accident consequence analysis, covered in chapter 2. This research is the first of its kind to bridge the gap between social vulnerability theories and nuclear power risk analysis, and consists of a thorough literature review spanning many diverse areas of research 2. Methodological contributions toward combining an accident consequence code such as MACCS2 with the quantification of social vulnerability in the form of a social vulnerability index, covered in chapter 3. This methodology has been established in natural hazards research, and never in the context of probabilistic nuclear accident consequence codes. 3. Methodological contributions toward the integration of an accident consequence code such as MACCS2 with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to visualize risk information and to explicitly and externally integrate social factors with MACCS2. This has been demonstrated in chapters 3 and 4. 4. Methodological contributions to explicitly and internally merge social vulnerability indices with the evacuation module in MACCS2, using Bayesian Belief Network (BBN). This has been explained in chapter 5. 5. Practical contributions including explicit consideration of location-specific social factors in Level 3 PRA that will help develop: (i) more realistic modeling of population response and, therefore, a more accurate estimation of NPP severe accident risk; and (ii) more advanced management of NPPs severe accident risk by facilitating the analysis of the effects of change in risk due to changes in the underlying socio-technical risk contributing factors. This will certainly help advance models and applications of risk-informed EPPR, particularly in focusing on location-specific populations who rank highest with respect to risk. A further contribution is to visualize location-specific radiological risk around a NPP in order to improve risk communication with the public and policy makers

Dangerous Gifts: Towards a New Wave of Mad Resistance

This dissertation examines significant shifts in the politics of psychiatric resistance and mental health activism that have appeared in the past decade. This new wave of resistance has emerged against the backdrop of an increasingly expansive diagnostic/treatment paradigm, and within the context of activist ideologies that can be traced through the veins of broader trends in social movements. In contrast to earlier generations of consumer/survivor/ex-patient activists, many of whom dogmatically challenged the existence of mental illness, the emerging wave of mad activists are demanding a voice in the production of psychiatric knowledge and greater control over the narration of their own identities. After years as a participant-observer at a leading radical mental health advocacy organization, The Icarus Project, I present an ethnography of conflicts at sites including Occupy Wall Street and the DSM-5 protests at the 2012 American Psychiatric Association conference. These studies bring this shift into focus, demonstrate how non-credentialed stakeholders continue to be silenced and marginalized, and help us understand the complex ideas these activists are expressing. This new wave of resistance emerged amidst a revolution in communication technologies, and throughout the dissertation I consider how activists are utilizing communications tools, and the ways in which their politics of resistance resonate deeply with the communicative modalities and cultural practices across the web. Finally, this project concludes with an analysis of psychiatry’s current state and probable trajectories, and provides recommendations for applying the lessons from the movement towards greater emancipation and empowerment

Safety and Reliability - Safe Societies in a Changing World

The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk managemen

Risk in the aviation context : investigating risk perception and risk communication from a behaviour based approach

Safety is an essential part of aviation. Risk assessment is considered subjective, while the operational context necessitates conformity and a unilateral approach. Eventually, the results assess individual risk perception and risk communication and are not being planned proactively. Additionally, due to the diversity of organisations and cultures, there is further fragmentation of what is recognised as risk behaviour, what should be communicated, and what is hazardous. Considering risk perception and communication within the daily practice is seen as essential to explain the behaviours during an adverse event. Safety analysis and investigation methods (SAIMs) have the goal to suggest ways to achieve acceptable system outcomes and avoid unfavourable consequences on humans, equipment, facilities, and the environment. However, there is no widely common and accepted framework engulfing safety recommendations and proactive safety management such as a behavioural intervention to enhance risk perception and risk communication and minimise danger. Risk perception and communication have been underrepresented in studies regarding their complexity in aviation practice. They have not been explicitly addressed for their role in incidents/accidents, resulting in ambiguous proactive safety suggestions and planning. Based on the premise that risk behaviour results from inappropriate risk perception and risk communication, this thesis supports that a behaviour-based intervention can enhance risk perception and communication. This thesis aimed to generate a holistic intervention plan to modify risk behaviour on the assumption that risk perception and communication are the basic factors. The hypotheses included that specific factors can be associated with risk perception and communication leading to risk behaviour, which may be influenced to enhance the latter. Also, a complete integrated intervention model can be generated and fused with a Strategic Communications approach, which makes it usable by most aviation air-carrier organisations. The objectives are to determine two sets of risk perception and communication factors, which lead to risk behaviour and then generate an integrated model applicable in the aviation context. This thesis followed the pragmatism paradigm and adopted a fixed multiphase mixed methods approach, investigating SAIMs, safety events reports, two groups of Subject-Matter-Experts, and the wider aviation workforce. The resulting behaviour based model consolidates the role of risk perception and communication factors as moderators of antecedent behaviour while holistically envisaging the aviation work environment. Contribution to theory and practice within the aviation safety context is provided, as well as future research for additional applications of the mode

Genealogies of Resistance to Incarceration: Abolition Politics within Deinstitutionalization and Anti-Prison Activism in the U.S.

Genealogies of resistance to incarceration: Abolition politics within de-institutionalization and anti- prison activism in the U.S. looks at two main sites in which abolition of total institutions is enacted. The first site is activism around penal and prison abolition. The second site is deinstitutionalization- the move to close down institutions for people labeled mentally retarded (or intellectual/developmental disabilities) and mental illness (or psychiatric disabilities). My goals in this study are twofold and interrelated. First, I investigate abolition or closure of institutions as a radical form of activism and sketch the costs and benefits of engaging in abolition as an activist tactic. I highlight the limits of reform efforts, but also the way they are used strategically to improve the lives of those who are incarcerated. My second aim is to demonstrate the interwoven relations between multiple sites of incarceration and the resistance to them. I begin by sketching an alternative historiography of prisons and institutions in an attempt to paint some of the perils of these systems that were present from their inception. These landscapes of incarceration are also mapped out in both historical and ideological ways. The phenomenon of psychiatric and developmental disabilities centers closing and then turning into prisons will be highlighted as a parable of the cyclical nature of social control. I also connect prisons and mental institutions by demonstrating the ways in which such institutions shifted from being rehabilitating to custodial; were (and are) embedded in notions of danger; were created for economic gain; and were influenced by increased medicalization, as well as racist and eugenic impetuses that mark them to this day. One of the contributions of my research is in the utilization of Michel Foucault\u27s work not only theoretically, but also methodologically. Genealogies interrogate truth claiming, notions of (scientific) progress, and the discovery of one universal truth, and provide means to extrapolate buried histories of ideas and actions that have been discarded and discredited. As part of this genealogical excavation, I critically investigate instances of possibility, both in deinstitutionalization as a tactic, a dream and its unfulfilled promises and in relation to current prison abolition work and the vision of non-punitive society. During and in the aftermath of the move out of institutions, many critiques were laid out by policy makers, academics, and organizations that cater to people with disabilities. In the popular imagination these staunch criticisms have led to a backlash toward what can be characterized as the failure of deinstitutionalization. Part of this genealogy is devoted to investigating the chasm between activists\u27 perception of the process of institutional closure and that of their critics. As part of such excavation, I also offer an analysis of the ways in which disability, mental illness and prisoners have been constructed in the social sciences (what Foucault characterizes as erudite knowledge), as well as the ways in which these characterizations are resisted, enacted or performed by prison abolition and de-institutionalization activists. I particularly highlight the critiques of the social world offered by those engaging in deinstitutionalization and prison abolition (about disability/mental illness/mental retardation, concepts of home and community, dependence, crime and punishment, social control, social justice etc.). Genealogy also encompasses the excavation of subjugated knowledges, in the Foucauldian sense as both buried histories -the story of the enactment of prisons and institutions told by the activists who wish to abolish them; and disqualified knowledge- disability studies, anti psychiatry scholarship and critical prison studies as forms of knowledge that are deemed non-scientific and illegitimate. Lastly, this work maps the various ways one fights against total institutions and target the instances in which abolition is seen as a useful strategy. In sum, I trace the costs and benefits of utilizing abolition as a strategy of resistance to incarceration, for the activists, for perceptions of them and their work in the public discourse and for their prospective goals. This research also attends to the various ways in which abolitionary practices are combined with others (such as reform efforts) and the social or political constraints that moved movements and activists from one strategy to the other in the winding road towards a non-carceral society

Crises (Staseis) and Changes (Metabolai)

This book aims to build a solid and proper contribution to the contemporary global debate on the experience of democracy and its possibilities as the most effective mediator of a series of challenges, a debate that is necessarily rooted in the critical reassessment of its Greek cultural heritage. The book is articulated around the identification of a concrete problem: the need for studies that critically discuss Athenian democracy, seen as a daily problem and practice, based on its staseis (crises) and metabolai (changes), and whose solutions and strategies may still contribute to the reflection on the social, intellectual and ethical-political challenges of contemporary democracy

Crises (Staseis) and Changes (Metabolai)

This book aims to build a solid and proper contribution to the contemporary global debate on the experience of democracy and its possibilities as the most effective mediator of a series of challenges, a debate that is necessarily rooted in the critical reassessment of its Greek cultural heritage. The book is articulated around the identification of a concrete problem: the need for studies that critically discuss Athenian democracy, seen as a daily problem and practice, based on its staseis (crises) and metabolai (changes), and whose solutions and strategies may still contribute to the reflection on the social, intellectual and ethical-political challenges of contemporary democracy

A Comprehensive Security Framework for Securing Sensors in Smart Devices and Applications

This doctoral dissertation introduces novel security frameworks to detect sensor-based threats on smart devices and applications in smart settings such as smart home, smart office, etc. First, we present a formal taxonomy and in-depth impact analysis of existing sensor-based threats to smart devices and applications based on attack characteristics, targeted components, and capabilities. Then, we design a novel context-aware intrusion detection system, 6thSense, to detect sensor-based threats in standalone smart devices (e.g., smartphone, smart watch, etc.). 6thSense considers user activity-sensor co-dependence in standalone smart devices to learn the ongoing user activity contexts and builds a context-aware model to distinguish malicious sensor activities from benign user behavior. Further, we develop a platform-independent context-aware security framework, Aegis, to detect the behavior of malicious sensors and devices in a connected smart environment (e.g., smart home, offices, etc.). Aegis observes the changing patterns of the states of smart sensors and devices for user activities in a smart environment and builds a contextual model to detect malicious activities considering sensor-device-user interactions and multi-platform correlation. Then, to limit unauthorized and malicious sensor and device access, we present, kratos, a multi-user multi-device-aware access control system for smart environment and devices. kratos introduces a formal policy language to understand diverse user demands in smart environment and implements a novel policy negotiation algorithm to automatically detect and resolve conflicting user demands and limit unauthorized access. For each contribution, this dissertation presents novel security mechanisms and techniques that can be implemented independently or collectively to secure sensors in real-life smart devices, systems, and applications. Moreover, each contribution is supported by several user and usability studies we performed to understand the needs of the users in terms of sensor security and access control in smart devices and improve the user experience in these real-time systems