1,188 research outputs found
Crosswalk of Human Reliability Methods for Offshore Oil Incidents
PresentationHuman reliability analysis (HRA) has long been employed in nuclear power applications to account for the human contribution to safety. HRA is used qualitatively to identify and model sources of human error and quantitatively to calculate the human error probabilities of particular tasks. The nuclear power emphasis of HRA has helped ensure safe practices and risk-informed decision making in the international nuclear industry. This emphasis has also tended to result in a methodological focus on control room operations that are very specific to nuclear power, thereby potentially limiting the applicability of the methods for other safety critical domains. In recent years, there has been interest to explore HRA in other domains, including aerospace, defense, transportation, mining, and oil and gas. Following several high profile events in the oil and gas industry, notably the Macondo well kick event in the U.S., there has been a move to use HRA to model and reduce risk in future oil drilling and production activities. Organizations like the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement are adapting the risk framework of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for offshore purposes. In this paper, we present recent work to apply HRA methods to the analysis of offshore activities. We present the results of retrospective analyses using three popular HRA methods: SPAR-H, Petro-HRA, and CREAM. With the exception of Petro- HRA, these HRA methods were developed primarily for nuclear power event analysis. We present a comparison of the findings of these methods and a discussion of lessons learned in applying the methods to offshore events. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the suitability of HRA methods for oil and gas risk analysis but also to identify topics where future research would be warranted to tailor these HRA methods
Reducing Discrimination in the Field: Evidence from an Awareness Raising Intervention Targeting Gender Biases in Student Evaluations of Teaching
This paper presents the results of a field experiment designed to reduce gender discrimination in student
evaluations of teaching (SET). In the first intervention, students receive a normative statement reminding
them that they should not discriminate in SETs. In the second intervention, the normative statement
includes precise information about how other students (especially male students) have discriminated
against female teachers in previous years. The purely normative statement has no significant impact
on SET overall satisfaction scores, suggesting that a blanket awareness-raising campaign may be inefficient to reduce discrimination. However, the informational statement appears to significantly reduce
gender discrimination. The effect we find mainly comes from a change in male studentsâ evaluation of
female teachers
Retrospective Application of Human Reliability Analysis for Oil and Gas Incidents: A Case Study Using the Petro-HRA Method
Human reliability analysis (HRA) may be performed prospectively for a newly designed system or retrospectively for an as-built system, typically in response to a safety incident. The SPAR-H HRA method was originally developed for retrospective analysis in the U.S. nuclear industry. As HRA has found homes in new safety critical areas, HRA methods developed predominantly for nuclear power applications are being used in novel ways. The Petro-HRA method represents a significant adaptation of the SPAR-H method for petroleum applications. Current guidance on Petro-HRA considers only prospective applications of the method, such as for review of new systems to be installed at offshore installations. In this paper, we review retrospective applications of Petro-HRA and analyze the Macando Oil Well-Deepwater Horizon accident as a case study
Seeing motion and apparent motion
In apparent motion experiments, participants are presented with what is in fact a succession of two brief stationary stimuli at two different locations, but they report an impression of movement. Philosophers have recently debated whether apparent motion provides evidence in favour of a particular account of the nature of temporal experience. I argue that the existing discussion in this area is premised on a mistaken view of the phenomenology of apparent motion and, as a result, the space of possible philosophical positions has not yet been fully explored. In particular, I argue that the existence of apparent motion is compatible with an account of the nature of temporal experience that involves a version of direct realism. In doing so, I also argue against two other claims often made about apparent motion, viz. that apparent motion is the psychological phenomenon that underlies motion experience in the cinema, and that apparent motion is subjectively indistinguishable from real motion
âNot one of the familyâ: Gender and precarious work in the neoliberal university
Gender inequality within the university is well documented but proposals to tackle it tend to focus on the higher ranks, ignoring how it manifests within precarious work. Based on data collected as part of a broader participatory action research project on casual academic labour in Irish higher education, the article focuses on the intersection of precarious work and gender in academia. We argue that precarious female academics are non-citizens of the academy, a status that is reproduced through exploitative gendered practices and evident in formal/legal recognition (staff status, rights and entitlements, pay and valuing of work) as well as in informal dimensions (social and decision-making power). We, therefore, conclude that any attempts to challenge gender inequality in academia must look downward, not upward, to the ranks of the precarious academics.</p
A Full-Potential-Linearized-Augmented-Plane-Wave Electronic Structure Study of delta-Plutonium and the (001) Surface
The electronic and geometric properties of bulk fcc delta-plutonium and the
quantum size effects in the surface energies and the work functions of the
(001) ultra thin films (UTF) up to 7 layers have been investigated with
periodic density functional theory calculations within the full-potential
linearized augmented-plane wave (FP-LAPW) approach as implemented in the WIEN2k
package. Our calculated equilibrium atomic volume of 178.3 a.u.^3 and bulk
modulus of 24.9 GPa at the fully relativistic level of theory, i.e.
spin-polarization and spin-orbit coupling included, are in good agreement with
the experimental values of 168.2 a.u.^3 and 25 GPa (593 K), respectively. The
calculated equilibrium lattice constants at different levels of approximation
are used in the surface properties calculations for the thin films. The surface
energy is found to be rapidly converged with the semi-infinite surface energy
predicted to be 0.692eV at the fully-relativistic level.Comment: 27 pages,8 figure
Experimental electronic heat capacities of and Plutonium; heavy-fermion physics in an element
We have measured the heat capacities of PuAl and
Pu over the temperature range 2-303 K. The availability of data below
10 K plus an estimate of the phonon contribution to the heat capacity based on
recent neutron-scattering experiments on the same sample enable us to make a
reliable deduction of the electronic contribution to the heat capacity of
PuAl; we find
mJKmol as . This is a factor larger than that
of any element, and large enough for PuAl to be
classed as a heavy-fermion system. By contrast,
mJKmol in Pu. Two distinct anomalies are seen in the
electronic contribution to the heat capacity of
PuAl, one or both of which may be associated with
the formation of the martensitic phase. We suggest that the large
-value of PuAl may be caused by proximity to
a quantum-critical point.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Differential roles of CCL2 and CCR2 in host defense to coronavirus infection.
The CC chemokine ligand 2 (CCL2, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1) is important in coordinating the immune response following microbial infection by regulating T cell polarization as well as leukocyte migration and accumulation within infected tissues. The present study examines the consequences of mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) infection in mice lacking CCL2 (CCL2(-/-)) in order to determine if signaling by this chemokine is relevant in host defense. Intracerebral infection of CCL2(-/-) mice with MHV did not result in increased morbidity or mortality as compared to either wild type or CCR2(-/-) mice and CCL2(-/-) mice cleared replicating virus from the brain. In contrast, CCR2(-/-) mice displayed an impaired ability to clear virus from the brain that was accompanied by a reduction in the numbers of antigen-specific T cells as compared to both CCL2(-/-) and wild-type mice. The paucity in T cell accumulation within the central nervous system (CNS) of MHV-infected CCR2(-/-) mice was not the result of either a deficiency in antigen-presenting cell (APC) accumulation within draining cervical lymph nodes (CLN) or the generation of virus-specific T cells within this compartment. A similar reduction in macrophage infiltration into the CNS was observed in both CCL2(-/-) and CCR2(-/-) mice when compared to wild-type mice, indicating that both CCL2 and CC chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2) contribute to macrophage migration and accumulation within the CNS following MHV infection. Together, these data demonstrate that CCR2, but not CCL2, is important in host defense following viral infection of the CNS, and CCR2 ligand(s), other than CCL2, participates in generating a protective response
Fermi Surface of The One-dimensional Kondo Lattice Model
We show a strong indication of the existence of a large Fermi surface in the
one-dimensional Kondo lattice model. The characteristic wave vector of the
model is found to be , being the density of the
conduction electrons. This result is at first obtained for a variant of the
model that includes an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg interaction between
the local moments. It is then directly observed in the conventional Kondo
lattice , in the narrow range of Kondo couplings where the long
distance properties of the model are numerically accessible.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure
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