Object Oriented Modeling of a Tutorial System for Major Risks Management – Requirements Analysis

The issues concerning major risks management are very important at European level and they have been described in two EU directives, Seveso I and Seveso II. Romanian Integration in EU is conditioned by the implementation of these directives, especially Seveso II, in Romanian economy. The directives are very complex, their management and implementation requiring qualified staff. The training of the employees requires adequate training systems, including computer aided training systems. Such system must offer a framework made of legislation issues (both Romanian and European) and also case studies that depict accidents in major risks field.major risks management, computer aided training systems, legislation issues.

Implementing Art.12 of the Seveso II Directive - Overview of Roadmaps for Land-Use Planning in Selected Member States

The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission is responsible for the coordination of the work of the European Working Group on Land Use Planning (hereinafter: EWGLUP), whose mandate is the development of Guidelines for the implementation of Art 12 of the Seveso II Directive as amended by Directive 2003/105/EC. These Guidelines, developed by the EWGLUP and agreed by the Member States at the 16th meeting of the Committee of Competent Authorities responsible for the implementation of the Seveso Directive (Porvoo, October 2006), were adopted by the European Commission on 7 June 2007. A preliminary research, exploring the state-of art of the implementation of Art 12 within the 25 Member States (MS) was conducted in 2004 by the Major Accident Hazard Bureau of JRC in the form of a questionnaire-based survey. Final results were collected, analysed and finally updated up to spring 2007. A group of MS � the Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom � was selected for further analysis and invited to comment and revise the result of the investigation. The European Working Group on Land-Use Planning has, in addition to the development of Guidelines for implementation of Article 12 of the Seveso II Directive, as amended by Directive 105/2003/EC, taken part at the development of this document as a supporting tool addressing the issue of LUP in the context of hazardous facilities. The document provides supplementary information material describing in detail 'good LUP practices' available within selected Member States and it has a twofold objective. Firstly, it reports the results of the survey concerning 'good practice' for LUP in the context of the Seveso II. Secondly, it proposes implementation Roadmaps fulfilling Art. 12 requirements. In that context it should be noted that its character is purely descriptive and informative and it cannot be used for guidance or normative purposes. At the same time, it is believed that the structured information provided can substantially help the Seveso competent authorities and planning authorities to deal with the land-use planning issue. The document is therefore published in the form of JRC Technical Report.JRC.G.7 - Traceability and vulnerability assessmen

The effect of realistic equations of state and general relativity on the "snowplow" model for pulsar glitches

Many pulsars are observed to "glitch", i.e. show sudden jumps in their rotational frequency $\nu$, some of which can be as large as $\Delta \nu/\nu\approx 10^{-6}-10^{-5}$ in a subset of pulsars known as giant glitchers. Recently Pizzochero (2011) has shown that an analytic model based on realistic values for the pinning forces in the crust and for the angular momentum transfer in the star can describe the average properties of giant glitches, such as the inter-glitch waiting time, the step in frequency and that in frequency derivative. In this paper we extend the model (originally developed in Newtonian gravity and for a polytropic equation of state) to realistic backgrounds obtained by integrating the relativistic equations of stellar structure and using physically motivated equations of state to describe matter in the neutron star. We find that this more detailed treatment still reproduces the main features of giant glitches in the Vela pulsar and allows us to set constraints on the equation of state. In particular we find that stiffer equations of state are favoured and that it is unlikely that the Vela pulsar has a high mass (larger than $M\approx 1.5 M_\odot$).Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, submitted to MNRA

Mesoscopic pinning forces in neutron star crusts

The crust of a neutron star is thought to be comprised of a lattice of nuclei immersed in a sea of free electrons and neutrons. As the neutrons are superfluid their angular momentum is carried by an array of quantized vortices. These vortices can pin to the nuclear lattice and prevent the neutron superfluid from spinning down, allowing it to store angular momentum which can then be released catastrophically, giving rise to a pulsar glitch. A crucial ingredient for this model is the maximum pinning force that the lattice can exert on the vortices, as this allows us to estimate the angular momentum that can be exchanged during a glitch. In this paper we perform, for the first time, a detailed and quantitative calculation of the pinning force \emph{per unit length} acting on a vortex immersed in the crust and resulting from the mesoscopic vortex-lattice interaction. We consider realistic vortex tensions, allow for displacement of the nuclei and average over all possible orientation of the crystal with respect to the vortex. We find that, as expected, the mesoscopic pinning force becomes weaker for longer vortices and is generally much smaller than previous estimates, based on vortices aligned with the crystal. Nevertheless the forces we obtain still have maximum values of order $f_{\rm{pin}}\approx 10^{15}$ dyn/cm, which would still allow for enough angular momentum to be stored in the crust to explain large Vela glitches, if part of the star is decoupled during the event.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures, 5 table

Informational Regulation of Industrial Safety - An Examination of the U.S. "Local Emergency Planning Committees"

A major trend in the regulation of industrial risks to human health and the environment is the provision of relevant information to (and the empowerment of) all stakeholders and risk bearers. This paper provides a concrete look at one of the key items in implementing this "regulation by information" in the United States: the so-called LEPCs or Local Emergency Planning Committees. We summarize the literature on the subject, report on some interviews we made at selected LEPCs in the states of Vermont and Maryland, and present preliminary figures from a recent survey we just completed of more than 200 LEPCs. The ending sections also contain some international comparisons and an appraisal of the actual LEPCs. La nouvelle tendance dans les réglementations concernant les risques industriels à la santé humaine et à l'environnement est de diffuser l'information pertinente à toutes les parties prenantes. Cet article considère l'un des outils clés de cette « régulation des risques par l'information » : les comités locaux de planification d'urgence, aux Etats-Unis (désignés en anglais par le sigle LEPC). Nous dressons un bilan de la littérature sur le sujet. Nous intégrons des éléments importants résultant d'entrevues faites auprès de LEPCs sélectionnés dans les États du Vermont et du Maryland. Et nous présentons certains résultats préliminaires d'une enquête récente que nous venons de réaliser auprès de plus de 200 LEPCs. Les sections finales contiennent également plusieurs comparaisons internationales et une appréciation du fonctionnement actuel des LEPCs.Chemical plant safety, Community participation, US Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act, Clean Air Act, Local Emergency Planning Committees (LEPCs), Risk Management Program, Stakeholders involvement, Sûreté des usines chimiques, participation du public, US Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA), Clean Air Act, Comités locaux de planification d'urgence (LEPC), Programme de gestion de risque, Implication des parties prenantes

Why changing the way to measure the risk ?

International audienceThe SEVESO II Directive gives the rules to identify high risk potential establishments with the amount of hazardous substances handled and their operators have to produce safety reports. Although rules are well established to identify potential risk, there is no method to measure the risk level which takes into account safety devices and safety management Systems implemented by operators

Serum dioxin concentrations and endometriosis: a cohort study in Seveso, Italy.

Dioxin, a ubiquitous contaminant of industrial combustion processes including medical waste incineration, has been implicated in the etiology of endometriosis in animals. We sought to determine whether dioxin exposure is associated with endometriosis in humans. We conducted a population-based historical cohort study 20 years after the 1976 factory explosion in Seveso, Italy, which resulted in the highest known population exposure to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-(italic)p(/italic)-dioxin (TCDD). Participants were 601 female residents of the Seveso area who were (3/4) 30 years old in 1976 and had adequate stored sera. Endometriosis disease status was defined by pelvic surgery, current transvaginal ultrasound, pelvic examination, and interview (for history of infertility and pelvic pain). "Cases" were women who had surgically confirmed disease or an ultrasound consistent with endometriosis. "Nondiseased" women had surgery with no evidence of endometriosis or no signs or symptoms. Other women had uncertain status. To assess TCDD exposure, individual levels of TCDD were measured in stored sera collected soon after the accident. We identified 19 women with endometriosis and 277 nondiseased women. The relative risk ratios (RRRs) for women with serum TCDD levels of 20.1-100 ppt and >100 ppt were 1.2 [90% confidence interval (CI) = 0.3-4.5] and 2.1 (90% CI = 0.5-8.0), respectively, relative to women with TCDD levels (3/4) 20 ppt. Tests for trend using the above exposure categories and continuous log TCDD were nonsignificant. In conclusion, we report a doubled, nonsignificant risk for endometriosis among women with serum TCDD levels of 100 ppt or higher, but no clear dose response. Unavoidable disease misclassification in a population-based study may have led to an underestimate of the true risk of endometriosis

Prenatal exposure to TCDD and atopic conditions in the Seveso second generation: a prospective cohort study.

Background2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is a toxic environmental contaminant that can bioaccumulate in humans, cross the placenta, and cause immunological effects in children, including altering their risk of developing allergies. On July 10, 1976, a chemical explosion in Seveso, Italy, exposed nearby residents to a high amount of TCDD. In 1996, the Seveso Women's Health Study (SWHS) was established to study the effects of TCDD on women's health. Using data from the Seveso Second Generation Health Study, we aim to examine the effect of prenatal exposure to TCDD on the risk of atopic conditions in SWHS children born after the explosion.MethodsIndividual-level TCDD was measured in maternal serum collected soon after the accident. In 2014, we initiated the Seveso Second Generation Health Study to follow-up the children of the SWHS cohort who were born after the explosion or who were exposed in utero to TCDD. We enrolled 677 children, and cases of atopic conditions, including eczema, asthma, and hay fever, were identified by self-report during personal interviews with the mothers and children. Log-binomial and Poisson regressions were used to determine the association between prenatal TCDD and atopic conditions.ResultsA 10-fold increase in 1976 maternal serum TCDD (log10TCDD) was not significantly associated with asthma (adjusted relative risk (RR) = 0.93; 95% CI: 0.61, 1.40) or hay fever (adjusted RR = 0.99; 95% CI: 0.76, 1.27), but was significantly inversely associated with eczema (adjusted RR = 0.63; 95% CI: 0.40, 0.99). Maternal TCDD estimated at pregnancy was not significantly associated with eczema, asthma, or hay fever. There was no strong evidence of effect modification by child sex.ConclusionsOur results suggest that maternal serum TCDD near the time of explosion is associated with lower risk of eczema, which supports other evidence pointing to the dysregulated immune effects of TCDD

Risk assessment in decision making related to land-use planning (LUP) as required by the Seveso II directive

The 1999 annual report from the European Environment Agency indicated that in spite of measures on major industrial accidents in force since 1984, the trend in accidents shows that many of the often seemingly trivial 'lessons learned' from accidents have not yet been sufficiently evaluated and implemented in industry's practices and standards. It was confirmed by the recent accidents (Enschede in 2000, Toulouse in 2001) that have shown that disasters continue to occur throughout the EU despite of the efforts to control major accident hazards with Seveso I and Seveso II directives. Moreover, a recent communication from the Commission (European Commission, 2002) indicates that the frequency of major accidents is estimated at about 3.10~3 per year if we consider the number of accidents reported in the accident database of the European Commission MARS (Major Accident Reporting System) versus the number of hazardous installations throughout the European Union. So, controlling major accident hazards by reducing the risk on-site is not sufficient to promote a sustainable development for both industry and urban areas in the next decades. It is necessary to organise the settlement of industrial and urban areas with land-use planning (LUP). This paper presents an approach to implement LUP in the context of the Seveso II directive1 . In the first part, the requirements of the directive regarding LUP are given, and the use of LUP in a risk management policy is analysed. Then, in the second part, the authors describe the current situation in France, where LUP is applied for more than 10 years with an approach based on the evaluation of the consequences of major accident scenarios. In the third part, the authors share their thoughts to improve the LUP procedure by distinguishing a risk assessment phase and a negotiation phase involving the stakeholders